#mine*tumblroneshots

[transboykirito]

some short rambling kirisuna with trans girl kirito my beloved

Asuna tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. They’d been laying in bed for hours now, and she was pretty sure that neither she nor Kazuto had slept for so much as five minutes. She couldn’t be sure what was keeping him up, but she knew what was keeping her awake, and it made her want to cry conflicted tears.

She was a lesbian.

It was a recent realisation, but it was one that hit her like a bolt of lightning. 

She’d considered it for months now, going back and forth with her friends and with her own reflection in the mirror. She’d done her research, she’d read every article she could find. Everything brought her to the same conclusion.

She loved Kazuto, she really did. If there was such a thing as soulmates, he was hers. It was like their minds and bodies were designed just to fit together, to be each other’s perfect matching halves.

But she couldn’t deny that the idea of calling somebody her husband felt… wrong. It felt like something she was supposed to do, something that was the simple, natural progression of things. She’d married a nice man, settled down and now she was his wife. That was what was expected of her.

They’d been married for six months now, and she’d be lying if she didn’t say that, on one or two occasions, she’d re-imagined their wedding day, where she might find a bride waiting for her at the alter instead of a groom.

The guilt ate her alive. She loved her husband, her soul loved his soul, but she knew deep down there would always be something deeply unsatisfactory about her life unless she was honest with him, like there was a piece of herself that she'd never have a chance to truly discover or grow. She would spend years wondering what could have been, who she could have been if she'd given herself the chance.

Kazuto had been open about his own feelings towards Eugeo and a handful of boys and men he’d known throughout his life. Hell, it was one of those conversations that had prompted Asuna to follow up on the silent, conflicting feelings she’d felt for years. She knew he would forgive her if she asked to break things off. He would understand.

…Right?

She’d been trying to have the conversation for days now. She’d found her conclusion within herself, all she had to do was voice it. She knew she couldn’t keep trying to hide this away.

She’d reached her breaking point the night before, when she’d fallen asleep to a blissful dream of their wedding day. Except… the one dancing with her wasn’t Kazuto, but a strangely familiar, faceless woman. She’d held Asuna so securely as they danced that Asuna felt like she’d known her for her entire life, and she’d woken up in tears.

She wanted to find that woman, find that moment.

Kazuto deserved that moment of his own, too.

“Asuna…” Kazuto’s voice whispered in the dark, “Are you still awake?”

“Yes,” she rolled over to look at him, her eyes widening when she saw his face. Was he… crying?

“I’m fine,” he said quickly, already sensing her concerns growing, “I… I need to talk to you about something. I think you might already know.”

She panicked. She had noticed something was off about him for a few weeks, but she’d been so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she told herself she was imagining things. God, how much had she missed? 

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Asuna reached out her hand to hold his own under the blanket, tracing her thumb in circles over the back of his hand. She wasn’t sure if she was trying to soothe him or herself.

Kazuto took a deep breath, “Listen. I’ve been thinking about a lot.”

So have I, Asuna thought to herself, a little sarcastically.

“I didn’t realise how hard this would be to say,” Kazuto said, a laugh almost dancing on the edge of his voice, “You… you know how I’ve been playing GGO a lot more, lately?”

Asuna could recall the hours he’d lost to that game in just the past month - really, it had to be unhealthy. But Kazuto had seemed happy each time he woke from his dive, and Asuna couldn’t complain about that. If anything, she was just happy he was finally enjoying games other than ALO.

“Of course I noticed, did something happen in the game? Is Shino-non okay?”

Then Asuna’s thoughts turned sour. She didn’t play GGO nearly as often as Kazuto or Shino did, guns just weren’t really her style, so she didn’t truthfully pay much attention to what happened in the game. Kazuto knew that, Shino knew that. Had they been using GGO as a place to secretly meet up and…

She must have been easy to read - honestly, between herself and Kazuto, they could read each other as easily as a book, it came with the territory of being so familiar to one another - because Kazuto immediately screwed his face up.

“It’s not what you’re thinking, I promise, it has nothing to do with Shino,” he assured her, noticeably avoiding looking her in the eye.

Whatever it was, it was serious. She’d never seen him this frustrated just trying to talk to her. Yes, there were moments when they’d had petty arguments or been frustrated with one another, but he looked completely angry with himself as he seemingly battled with his tongue to form the words.

“There’s something I need to say, too…” Asuna’s voice was small, nervous. If Kazuto had something serious to say, they might as well both get things off their chests at once.

Kazuto gave her a look, somewhere between terrified and sympathetic, and smiled a forced smile.

“We’ll say it on three, okay?”

Asuna swallowed. Kazuto took a shaking breath.

“One…”

“Two…”

“Three…”

“I’m a lesbian.”

“I think I’m a woman.”

Then there was silence. 

They both tried to process what they’d just heard, and for a moment Asuna wondered if she’d simply made up what Kazuto had just said. This had to be a dream, right?

Then there was laughter.

“Really?” Kazuto asked, because Kazuto was truly the one person in the world who would be able to make Asuna laugh when she felt like sobbing.

She nodded a little, “I’ve been trying to tell you for a few weeks, I just didn’t want to lose you.”

“Oh, same here,” Kazuto breathed a sigh of relief, “Do you still want to be together? I mean, I know this probably takes some time to get used to, and I don’t really know where I want to go from here or what I want to do now, and I haven’t picked out a new name really, but-”

“I want to be with you forever.” Asuna interrupted, “That’s why I was so afraid to tell you. I knew I had to tell you eventually, but I couldn’t bare the thought of having to lose the person I love so much. I guess I should have known that wouldn’t happen.”

“Guess you’re still stuck with me after all,” Kazuto joked, then she smiled and pulled Asuna into a tight hug, kissing the top of her head. Asuna gently kissed her shoulder over the fabric of the t-shirt she’d worn to bed, humming to herself contentedly.

So, Kazuto really was her soulmate after all. They’d be each other’s happily ever after, their dream for the rest of their lives, it would just take a little work to get there - and how exciting it was that she got to be by her side for all of it, right from the very beginning.

“What should I call you now?” Asuna asked.

Kazuto rolled over to lay on her back, and Asuna rolled on top of her. They’d slept like this so many times, it really was a wonder they still insisted on having a king-sized bed. Asuna’s half was usually wasted space.

“Kazuto, I think. For now, anyway. I wanted to find something else, but…”

“But?”

“I’m so used to the way you say my name, it feels weird when I try to find anything else. I liked Kazuko, or maybe Kazuha, but I think I’m overthinking it.”

“Kazuko,” Asuna repeated the name a few times, smiling, “I like it, it’s pretty! I think you should be allowed to overthink this, it’s a big decision.”

She blushed, “It sounds pretty when you say it.” 

“Kazuko?” Asuna looked up at her, blushing just as much as she was, “I like saying it too, Kazuko. I’ll keep saying it while you get used to it, if you want me to?”

“Of course,” Kazuko grinned, “Just… not in front of the others just yet. I haven’t had the guts to tell anybody else yet.”

“Of course, I won’t say anything until you want me to, Kazuko,” Asuna felt a pair of arms wrapped securely around her middle and she relaxed, breathing in deeply. She felt so, so safe with her.

“Can I ask… when did you realise? That you were a lesbian, I mean,” Kazuko asked, deftly tracing patterns on Asuna’s side with her fingertip.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” Asuna admitted shyly, “I think I finally made my mind up about it around three weeks ago now. How about you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Kazuko laughed again, “Around three weeks ago, when I had this dream about us getting married, but… we were both brides. I can’t believe I was so stupid, I should have just told you right away, we could have both avoided feeling so crappy the last few weeks.”

“I’ve been dreaming about the same thing,” Asuna said, then she yawned, “I love you, Kazuko. I’m glad we can tell each other anything.”

She swore she actually felt her heart skip a beat, and she giggled to herself. She had the cutest wife in the world.

A wife.

She had a wife.

Sure, things were going to take time to get used to, but she had the most incredible woman in the world by her side. They’d make it through anything together.

“We can talk about this more in the morning,” Kazuko mumbled, kissing Asuna again as she started to fall asleep, “Thank you for trusting me to tell me anything.”

So, just like they had so many nights before, and just like they were going to continue to do for the rest of their lives, Asuna and Kazuko fell asleep in each other’s arms, and Asuna remembered for the millionth time that the woman she was lying with truly was her soulmate, in every sense of the word.

And when she finally fell asleep that night, she found herself reliving the same dream she’d had a precious few times now - a dream she was certain would one day come true. An eternally familiar woman, her beloved Kazuko, holding her so securely as they danced, like she’d known her their entire lives.

Someday, she knew they would.

[kinglazrus]

No Such Thing as a Fresh Start

Phic phight 2020

Submitted by @q-gorgeous: dash finds out danny is phantom. what does he do to help danny? does danny know dash knows?

Summary: Of all the people that could have found out. Out of everyone, in all of Amity Park, it has to be Dash Baxter. It has to be the one human Danny is truly afraid of.

Warnings: swearing

Word count: 8123

Danny's halfway into the locker when Dash freezes. He doesn't actually mean to stop. He got another bad grade in English class this morning and Lancer's disappointed face pissed him off so much that he needs to hit something. Stuffing Fenton into a locker is close enough. But as Dash shoves Danny's head down, as Danny flails pathetically and tries to push him off, Danny's shirt hikes up a little bit, exposing his hip.

Stretching from the waistband of Danny's jeans to up under his shirt is a patch of rough, ugly skin. It's wrinkled and bumpy, tinged red and pink. Dash doesn't know much about scars, but he knows enough to see whatever injury this was from, it couldn't have happened more than a year ago.

Dash grabs Danny's shirt and pulls it up, revealing more damaged skin.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?" Danny grabs Dash's hand and shoves it off with surprising force, enough that it makes Dash stumble back. Danny teeters on the edge of the locker. Arms shooting out, he manages to catch the door and brace himself against the inside wall. It doesn't look comfortable, one arm squished against his side, one leg tucked under him while the other sticks out, head ducked to avoid smacking it against the top of the locker.

Dash barely pays it any mind, though. His eyes are glued to Danny's hip. He was able to get Danny's shirt almost halfway up before he was stopped, but he didn’t even see the edge of the scar. It must be huge.

A hundred questions run through Dash's head. When did Danny get it? How did it happen? Is it serious? It looks serious. That bothers Dash, for some reason. It nags at him.

"Okay, you're actually starting to freak me out," Danny says.

Dash raises his gaze, meeting Danny's eyes. Other people in the hall are staring at them, Dash can feel it, but he can't look away. He can't stop picturing the marred skin stretching across Danny's torso.

Danny leans back, drawing his other leg into the locker with him. "So, I'm just gonna... yeah..." he trails off. Sticking his finger in the locker door grates, he pulls it closed. The hinges squeak all the way, a grating whine that echoes down the hall.

As soon as the door shuts, Dash snaps out of his daze. He shakes his head, blinking, and glares at the students that stopped to watch. "What the hell are you looking at?" he says.

The students scurry away, heads low.

Dash lingers a moment, staring at the locker, then shakes his head again. Turning on his heels, he marches down the hall, heading to the gym rather than the cafeteria. He needs to think for a while.

—

Danny doesn't know who's locker this is, but it reeks. He's sitting on a pair of old shoes and a canvas bag, probably someone's gym clothes. It takes all he has not to gag. Climbing all the way into the locker rather than out of it wasn't his greatest idea. But he couldn't stand Dash's staring, and he figured the only way to get Dash to leave was to finish the job.

Wiggling, he shimmies around until he's turned sideways—thank god Casper High has such big lockers—and peers through the grate in the door. He knows Dash can't seem him, but the sight of him staring makes Danny shiver. He waits, holding his breath until Dash finally leaves. And then he wants a minute more, just in case.

Once he's sure the coast is clear, Danny turns intangible and tumbles out of the locker. He rolls forward, almost smacking his face on the floor, and comes up dizzy. He grabs his head until the world stops swaying.

"I can't deal with this," he says out loud. There's no one else in the hall with him, so he's talking to himself, but that's not the craziest thing he's ever done. Besides, Jazz has assured him multiple times that voicing your thoughts out loud is a common practice for lots of people. It helps them sort through their thoughts better than they could if everything just swirled around their head for hours, thoughts tripping over one another left and right, struggling to take their place at the front of your mind.

Like the mall on Black Friday morning, except the doors never open and the thoughts just keep shoving, and shoving, and shoving, trying to get to the front even though there's nowhere to go.

"Maybe I should talk to Jazz again," Danny says. He stands up and brushes his jeans off, hoping he doesn't smell too much like someone else's dirty laundry. He's just lucky it wasn't one of the rusty lockers. Those ones always make his eyes and nose itch and leave red flakes all over his clothes and hair.

Danny's about to head to the cafeteria for lunch when his chest goes cold. The feeling travels up his throat, chilling his tongue, and a puff of blue air seeps out of his mouth.

"Oh, come on." Danny groans. At least it's during lunch and not class time. If he's lucky, it'll be someone easy. Maybe then he can wrap up the fight quickly and actually have time to eat, rather than sneaking bites of his sandwich during art class.

Looking up and down the hall, he double-checks to make sure he's alone and transforms. Turning intangible, he shoots into the air. It's cloudy outside, the sky dull and grey, and drizzling steadily. If Danny remembers right, it's supposed to thunder later, which makes him sigh in disappointment. He doesn't mind thunderstorms. They can actually be kind of cool. But thunderstorms usually mean it's going to be cloudy all night, which means he won't be able to stargaze while he's out for his midnight flight.

But he shouldn't be worrying about that right now. He has to find whatever ghost set off his ghost sense. Danny swoops over the school, scanning the grounds. No one's outside today, because of the rain, and the football field is soaked. He sees nothing but growing puddles.

Looping around, he heads toward the city instead. He's gotten better at sensing ghosts, especially in a wider area, which sounds like a good thing, at first. Except that his ghost sense has never been good at actually pinpointing where the ghost is. So for Danny, a wider range means more places he has to look before he actually finds the damn thing, and he doesn't have all day.

He spends half an hour flying around, looking for the culprit, and comes up with nothing. Not even a speck of ectoplasm. It could be a friendly ghost just hanging around, but Danny doesn't feel right taking that chance. Not after what happened the last time he brushed off something strange and ghostly.

Technus turned Danny into one giant bruise that day. Let it be known that while bruises are usually a small thing, they are still a sign of internal bleeding, and a massive one that takes up half your back shouldn't be brushed off so easily. Danny found that out the hard way.

Frustrated and hungry, he circles back to Casper High and touches down on the roof, right next to the hatch that leads down into the gym.

For the longest time, Danny didn't even know there was a way onto the roof. He never actually uses it, choosing to fly up, but ever since he's found it, it's been one of his favourite spots at school. The hatch only exists for maintenance purposes and students aren't even allowed to touch the ladder that leads up to it.

Danny gives the grounds around the school another furtive glance. It doesn't feel right to give up on the ghost so soon. He knows they're close by. He can feel it. If he heads inside now, he'll just draw them into the school and endanger some of his classmates.

At least that's the excuse Danny tells himself as he lowers himself to the ground, crossing his legs. Better to wait a bit, rather than tempt fate.

Laying back, Danny folds his arms behind his head and stares up at the clouds. They aren't much to look at, but he's sure they're darker than before. A squat antenna tower cuts through the top of his view. It's a relic from a bygone era, back when Casper High had an AV club that tinkered with radios all day. It's ugly to look at, but the school never took it down.

Danny rolls onto his side so the tower is out of view, closing his eyes and letting the rain soak him. He's always more comfortable when it's cold. He might regret it later, when he changes back and finds his clothes damp, but for right now, it's nice. The warning bell hasn't gone off yet, so he has a few minutes to spare out here before he really has to go back inside.

Just as Danny's getting comfortable, his chest goes cold again, and a shadow falls over him. He opens his eyes to the smooth, gleaming skull of Walker. With a startled shout, Danny scrambles upright, scurrying toward the radio tower, and faces Walker. He raises his fists, lighting them up with ectoplasm.

"What are you doing here?" he asks. "I did all your stupid community service stuff, remember? My sentence is paid."

"Ten thousand years is a long time to shave off for a little bit of community cleanup," Walker drawls.

"Oh? That's what you call it?" Danny asks. Funny way to describe Walker siccing him on every ghostly with an overdue warrant. Danny can't remember the last time he got in so many fights in one week.

"You just can't seem to stay out of trouble, punk. Damaging another ghost's lair? That's a thousand years." Walker pulls an envelope out of his pocket and throws it at Danny. It only flutters a few feet, but Danny snatches it out of the air with his telekinesis and pulls it toward him.

Side-eyeing Walker, he tears the envelope open and pulls out the folded piece of paper inside. It's a formal police report, filed by Skulker three days ago, citing charges against Danny for property damage and endangering his afterlife.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Danny says. He floats forward and waves the report in Walker's face. "You mean all this time you've actually had a formal police system? And I could have filed criminal charges? That's so unfair."

Walker loses some of his composure, staring at Danny in bafflement. "That's what you care about?"

Danny tosses the report in the air. It stays floating by his shoulder, surrounded by a soft green glow. "Is there some kind of lair registry thing? Could I register Amity Park as my lair? You guys always tell me it is, but you keep attacking it! Doesn't that endanger my afterlife? Attack my lair too many times and I might just snap, right?"

Danny paces through the air, fretting. There are so many fights he could have avoided. Skulker is so going to get it the next time Danny sees him. This is such a cheap shot. He won't stand for it. It probably breaks so many unspoken ghost codes. They're all brothers in ghost crime, aren't they?

"Skulker's a fucking snitch," Danny says.

"Bad luck for you, punk. You've got another sentence to fill out." Walker grows bigger, looming over Danny, reaching out for him with a massive gloved hand.

"Wait!" Danny shouts, shooting out of Walker's reach. He really doesn't want to get in a fight right now. "This is all official, right? That means I can give my side, and it actually matters. It was purely self-defence!"

Walker doesn't have any lips to speak of, but his teeth clack together and his aura flares, expressing his interest. "Go on."

"It happened last week. I was heading to the medieval kingdom when Skulker came out of nowhere and attacked me. Gave me this." Danny zips down his jumpsuit and pulls it open, showing Walker his newest scar, the same one Dash saw. Skulker managed to hit Danny with a new flamethrower of his, scorching him from his chest down to his hip.

Thank the Infinite Realms for ghostly healing. Danny was only out of it for a few days rather than the months he could have been. A few sniffles to his mom, plus a concerned pout from Jazz, and he was home "sick" until he healed.

"I shot him back to defend myself. We were pretty close to his lair. A few stray shots must have hit it," Danny explains.

Walker gives Danny's scar a considering look, shrinking back down to his normal size. Taking the police report out of the air, Walker scans its contents again. After a moment, he tucks it back into the envelope, which he returns to his suit pocket.

"Don't think you're off the hook yet, punk. I'll be back," Walker says. Just like that, he's gone.

Danny sags in relief, dropping back to the ground. "I can't believe that actually worked," he says. Tipping his head back, he laughs, grinning up at the cloudy sky.

Something scuffs the ground behind him. Danny groans. "Come on, Walker, I told you it was self-defence. Don't you have to investigate that or something?"

He turns around, ready to give Walker a piece of his mind. Except it's not Walker. Across the roof stands Dash Baxter. And he's looking down at Danny's exposed chest, at the scar he saw on Fenton not even an hour earlier.

"Would you believe me if I said it's a birthmark?" Danny asks. Judging by the stricken expression on Dash's face, that's a no.

—

As soon as Dash enters the gym, he heads up the bleachers, toward the back wall. There's a ladder in the far corner of the gym that leads up onto the roof. Kwan once dared him to sneak up there during their free period. It's been Dash's favourite place at school ever since. Besides the football field, that is, but that's currently flooded. He doesn't want to get soaked up to his ankles in muddy water.

Dash climbs the ladder with ease, stopping once his head brushes the hatch. He bends over, going up one more rung, and jerks upward, slamming his shoulder against the hatch. The day Kwan gave him the dare, Dash discovered there wasn't actually a proper lock keeping the hatch shut. All it has is a simple latch on the other side. To get it open, you need a special tool to stick into the seam between the hatch and the frame, and you have to jimmy it around a little bit to get it open.

Or, you can do what Dash does, and bash into the hatch over and over again until the latch jiggles open on its own. It makes his shoulder sore, but it's easier than sneaking down into the boiler room and finding the stupid stick.

Dash squeezes through the hatch, closing it gently behind him so it doesn't make too much noise, and starts across the roof. His destination is a vent sticking out of the room, held up by metal supports. It curls out of the ground like a worm, bent in an S shape. The end extends out, pointing toward the edge of the roof. It's just high enough for Dash to sit comfortably beneath it and wide enough that it provides some cover from the drizzle.

Dash settles there, stretching his legs out, and leans back against the vent. He might have to check his jacket for grime later, probably give his hair a quick wash in the bathroom, but this is alright for now. It's a great place to think. Nobody ever comes here, so there's no one to interrupt him.

His hand falls to his chest. He presses against his ribs, trailing his fingers down, tracing the path of Danny's scar. He tries to imagine what it feels like. It would be rough, he thinks. And maybe a little dry. It would feel foreign against his fingertips.

It must be from Danny's accident. No one but his friends and family knows the full story, at least as far as Dash is aware. They know Danny was there the first week of school freshman year. He didn't make much of a lasting impression, and almost nobody knew his name except those he'd gone to middle school with. Then, over the weekend, something happened. One kid who was passing on the street said he saw flashing lights and heard Danny scream.

He was gone for two weeks, the peculiarity of his absence and the mystery of his accident spreading his name to the furthest corners of Casper High. The rumours cycled through the school five times over, getting a little more bizarre each time. He spilled some dangerous chemicals, he messed with his parent's weapons, his parents shot him on accident, his friends shot him on purpose.

By the time Danny returned to school, everyone was waiting with bated breath to find out the truth. Danny refused to tell. Neither Sam nor Tucker gave even a hint of what had happened that weekend. Jazz said she didn't even know the full story herself.

Everybody lost interest after that. Danny was back, he was fine, and he wasn't telling the story. Collectively, the school decided to move on. No one thought about who the accident might have affected Danny, physically or mentally. Dash is thinking about it now.

His older sister, a nurse, has told him a few things about what big scars like that do to a person, even years after they've healed. They can be painful and stiff, impeding movement. Sensitive to touch. Easy to hurt. He thinks about how many times he's given Danny a good punch to the stomach over the last few months.

Guilt swirls in his gut, for a moment. It's quickly replaced by anger. Dash scowled, punching his fist against the rooftop. It's so stupid. So what if Fenton got hurt over a year ago? He's obviously fine now. Dash has nothing to feel sorry for. Everything Danny gets is his own fault, anyway. He's the only one who ever fights back.

Danny doesn't seem to get it that Dash would let him go if he just stayed down for once. One good wailing to set him straight, to make sure he knows not to mess with Dash, and then they can dust their hands of each other and be done with it. But Danny's one of those people that keep getting back up no matter how many times he gets beaten down.

Can't he see he's only making things worse for himself? Can't he see that if he just stops and does what Dash wants, he won't get hurt anymore? Everyone sees it.

It pisses Dash off. If Danny's going to keep doing infuriating things like defending himself, then he deserves it. He can't just go around pissing people off and expect them not to do something about it, that's ridiculous. It's not Dash's fault. It's not.

Dash curls his hand into a fist, clenching it tightly. Bringing it up to his face, he rubs his eyes and lets out a tired sigh. He doesn't want to think about stuff like this. All he does is go round and round without making any progress.

Resting an arm on his knee, he lowers his forehead to his elbow and stares at his hand. When he curls his fingers, his skin pulls taut across his knuckles. They're still red from when he socked Danny in the jaw a couple days ago. Sticking his hand out, he holds it under the rain. The minuscule drops barely dampen his skin, but it's cold and refreshing. He rubs his thumb across his knuckles, as if that can wipe away the bruises.

When it doesn't work, he lets his hand drop and resigns himself to sombre silence. It's a good day for silence. Fewer people are out because of the rain, even though it's the middle of the day. The drops, more like a fine mist than actual rain, make no sound.

Something whooshes overhead, drawing Dash's gaze toward the sky. Noise from above typically means an impending ghost attack, but he only sees Phantom. The resident ghost hero is a bright spot against the dull sky. He hovers for a moment, a white sun, then flies in Dash's direction.

Dash opens his mouth, about to call out, but stops at the last second. Phantom looks tense, mouth set in a grim line. Dash doesn't want to interrupt whatever he's doing. He tips his head back, watching Phantom fly over the school, fully expecting the ghost to pass them by.

To Dash's surprise, Phantom touches down on the other side of the roof. Dash scrambles to his feet, searching for the threat he should be running from, but it's just him and Phantom out here. When Phantom lays down, Dash hesitates, dumbfounded.

Creeping forward, staying flush against the vent, Dash grips the supports holding it up. The metal bites into his fingers and sucks the heat from his palms, but he holds it like a lifeline. Phantom's whole deal is beating people until they stay down. Maybe Dash can talk to him about it. Sliding his feet forward, Dash takes a step out from his cover, ready to talk to his hero.

The ground behind Phantom ripples, a tall white figure rising up out of the room. Dash scrambles back out of view, peeking around the vent to see.

He's never seen this ghost before. They're dressed completely in white, barring a black fedora, and have a skull for a head. Dash's first thought is that this is one of Phantom's allies. Those hopes are dashed away when Phantom sees the ghost and leaps away, immediately poising to attack.

It looks like Dash is getting a front-row seat to a ghost fight. Which is all kinds of cool, but also dangerous.

The only way off the roof is the hatch, which sits between Phantom and his opponent. There used to be a ladder crawling up the back wall, but it got damaged during a ghost attack a couple months ago and hasn't been fixed. With no escape route, Dash is forced to hunker down and watch.

It doesn't go how he thought it would. Phantom and the other ghost's—Walker's—voices carry easily across the roof. Dash hears everything they say, although none of it makes sense to him. Who knew dead people had a formal police network and criminal system? Who knew Phantom was a criminal?

Actually, that idea isn't so far-fetched. The more Dash thinks about it, the more sense it makes. Phantom doesn't act like other ghosts. He probably breaks a whole bunch of laws. The ghosts that attack the city are probably bounty hunters! That weird metal ghost is always shouting about capturing and hunting Phantom. Dash is willing to bet his football career on there being a bounty on Phantom's head.

He can't wait to tell Kwan all about this new, fascinating revelation.

Dash watches, rapt, absorbing every word. Paulina's going to be so jealous when she hears Dash got so close to Phantom. Especially with the few harmless embellishments he's going to add. She will be livid to know Dash spent the whole lunch hour hanging out with Phantom on the roof.

"It was purely self-defence!" Phantom shouts.

Dash frowns. There goes his criminal theory. This Walker guy reminds him a little of Tetslaff. Strict, no-nonsense, all about authority. Which means if you do something wrong, you don't get to defend yourself, you take your punishment and do better next time.

Walker also has that stern, "I want to execute you," look. Although that might just be the skull for a head.

Walker doesn't hang around for much longer after that. Phantom shows him an injury as evidence of his innocence, Walker threatens Phantom one last time, and pretty soon Dash and Phantom are alone again.

Seeing his chance, Dash moves out of hiding. As he steps forward, his belt loop catches on an exposed screw on the vent supports. Dash's feet nearly slip out from under him. He throws out his arms, quickly regaining his balance, and looks back to Phantom, hoping he hasn't scared the hero off.

Phantom turns, an exasperated expression on his face, and glares in Dash's direction. The glare slips away almost instantly. Phantom pales, his eyes going wide. Dash doesn't pay attention to any of that. All his focus is on Phantom's chest and the familiar scar that cuts across it.

—

Danny and Dash stare at each other for a long, long moment. Distantly, they can hear the warning bell ring, marking the end of the lunch hour, but neither of them reacts. Danny watches Dash warily, afraid of how he's going to react. Dash looks back with increasing dread, afraid of what he believes is true.

"Fenton?" Dash asks.

Danny stiffens. "Fenton?" He laughs weakly. "You mean that loser kid in your year? Is he here? I don't see him."

Danny makes a show of looking around the roof, pulling his jumpsuit zipper back up as he does. His gaze flicks down to the front of the school, the warning bell finally registering in his ears. Lifting into the air, Danny backs away.

"Sounds like you need to get back to class, citizen," he declares in a deep voice.

"Fenton, wait!" Dash says. He lurches forward a few steps, reaching out, then pulls back. Danny doesn't move. They're at a standstill. Neither of them really wants to be there, but neither of them wants to leave, either. They can't leave.

Danny needs to know Dash won't spread his secret. And if he will, then Danny needs to be prepared. As much as he wants to flee and pretend this never happened, he can't let Dash out of his sight until he knows what's going to happen next. Danny's mind is in overdrive trying to come up with every possible scenario.

Before Danny can stop him, Dash lunges for the rooftop hatch. Defying all logic, he makes it back to the cafeteria first. Dash clambers up on a table, drawing everyone's attention and shouts for all to hear, "Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom!" It doesn't take long for word to get back to the G.I.W. Wasting no time, they rush over to Casper High and detain Danny for being a class five ecto-entity in breach of the American Ecto Act and take him away. They experiment on him for the rest of his life.

Or, Dash recognizes Danny for the freak he is. His fear quickly turns to anger, and he lunges. Dash may be human, but Danny can only do so much to stop him without actively hurting him. Dash beats him to a pulp, calls the G.I.W., and leaves Danny on the steps of Casper High for them to find. They take Danny away for being an inhuman abomination and experiment on him for the rest of his life.

Or, Dash laughs it off. He claps Danny on the shoulder and agrees that Fenton is such a loser. They part ways amicably, an unspoken agreement to never speak of this again. Until Dash spills the secret to Kwan, who tells Star, who tells Paulina, who tells everyone. Eventually, word gets back to the G.I.W. They lock Danny up in evil ghost jail. And experiment on him for the rest of his life.

Logically, not every possible outcome ends with Danny being taken prisoner by the G.I.W., becoming an unwilling participant in their sick experiments. But human brains really suck at being logical when you're two seconds from panicking.

Dash's mind, on the other hand, is completely blank. Rather than running a mile a minute, his thoughts have come to a screeching halt. They laugh at him from afar, dangling just out of reach, and leave him to flounder in silently. He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know how to move. Danny Fenton is Danny Phantom and he isn't prepared to handle that information. Fenton can't be Phantom. Fenton is infuriating. Fenton is a flea, a temporary nuisance in the grand scene of Dash's life. Fenton is a weak nobody who's only good at getting under Dash's skin.

Phantom, on the other hand, is Dash's idol. He's everything Fenton isn't and then some. Dash stares at Phantom right now and feels lost

Their staring contest drags on with no clear winner in sight. Thunder rumbles in the distance. The sky is a little darker now, and it won't be long before the clouds open up and drown Amity in a torrent of rainfall. It won't matter much for the two boys on the roof, though. They've been out here too long, standing silence, and are already soaked. It makes no difference to them as the rain grows from a drizzle, to a light shower, to a downpour in a matter of minutes.

Lightning flashes, followed a few seconds later by a great crash of thunder. Dash flinches, startled by the sound, and breaks eye contact first.

"Fenton," Dash says, advancing.

"Don't."

"Come on, I just–"

"I said leave it."

"Why are you being so–"

"Dash!" Danny bellows. His voice cracks like thunder, a trace of his ghostly wail rattling the rooftop, and is lost in the storm. Eyes flaring, he flies forward. Halfway to Dash, he jerks to a stop. He doesn't know what he will do once Dash is right in front of him. There's a burning feeling building in his chest that tells him it whatever it is, it won't be good.

Crying out in frustration, Danny turns away. He drops to the roof, curling over, and presses his hands against his ears so he can't hear Dash calling out to him. Of all the people that could have found out. Out of everyone, in all of Amity Park, it has to be Dash Baxter. It has to be the one human Danny is truly afraid of.

Dash Baxter is nothing like the G.I.W. They're a faceless mass of interchangeable bodies hiding behind the same suits and sunglasses. The G.I.W., as a whole, are threatening. Dash, to Danny, is downright terrifying on his own.

Danny aches just thinking about him. As a halfa, his body heals fast, but his mind was never granted such luxuries. If you keep hitting someone in the same place over and over, one day the bruise will sink so much deeper than skin. Danny is more bruise than boy, at this point. Pressing his head against his knees, he drags his hands through his hair, trying to stay calm.

Lightning flashes in the corner of his eyes. Rolling thunder booms through the air a second later. In the silence that follows, filled only by the staccato beat of the rain, he hears Dash's approaching footsteps.

"Go away, Dash," Danny croaks. He doesn't even care anymore. Let Dash do whatever he wants, tell the whole world who he is.

Dash stops a couple feet behind Danny. He looks down at his hero, huddled on the roof, and a strange feeling fills him. He refuses to regret anything he's ever done to Fenton, but... he wants to help. Because that's what Phantom does.

"No," Dash says.

Danny raises his head, hands dropping, and sneers over his shoulder. "No?"

Dash lifts his chin and nods, refusing to budge. "No."

Danny rakes his gaze over Dash, looking him up and down, and scoffs.

"I won't tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about," Dash continues.

Danny laughs, cold and derisive. "That's what you think this is about? I can't believe this."

Dash crosses his arms, hiding his confusion behind his scowl. "You're not worried about that?"

"I was," Danny amends. "For about two seconds. Look, Dash, I don't want to... I don't know. I just don't want to."

"That's kind of stupid, Fenton. I could always just beat it out of you."

"You don't even know what it is!" Danny stands up and spins to face Dash. He reaches out, hands curled together, and throttles the open air. "Just leave me alone!"

"No." Dash takes a step forward, pushing Danny's hands down.

"Stop saying that!"

Dash steps forward again, peering down at Danny. They're practically nose to nose. "No," he hisses.

"I swear to god, the Infinite Realms, and the fucking Box Ghost, if you don't back. Off–"

Danny's hair stands on end, static shocks jump through it. Faster than Dash can react, Danny lunges forward, tackling him onto the roof hatch. An eardrum-shattering bang bursts through the air as lightning strikes the old radio tower. The excess electricity, searching for the nearest conductor, shoots toward the metal hatch currently acting as Dash's backrest.

Dash has a second to panic before the world goes cold around him. He drops through the roof into the gym, back slamming against the top row of bleachers, and rolls off the step.

Danny falls through the ceiling a second later, and the electricity comes with him. It stretches between Danny's back and the metal hatch, crackling and sizzling. Danny screams, curling in, aura turning blue. A burst of cold air pushes outward and suddenly everything around Danny is coated in ice. The electricity surges across the ice, springing into a fuse box on the wall behind Danny.

Every light in the gym bursts, sparks raining down, plunging the vast, empty room into darkness. Dash pulls himself up, rising onto trembling legs, and looks around. A few final sparks fall from the ceiling, fizzling out before they reach the floor. He can't see a single shred of light, not even under the doors on the other side of the gym.

The whole school is blacked out.

"Fenton," Dash whispers. He turns, too fast, and trips on the bench behind him. Careening forward,  his arms windmill as he tries to catch himself. He hits something cold, smacking his chin against it, and narrowly misses biting his tongue in half.

Dash groans, rubbing his jaw, and carefully pulls himself up. His hands and knees slip on the ice. Now that his eyes are adjusting, he can see it gives off a slight light. Not enough to truly see by, but enough that he can find Danny's silhouette, slumped and human, at the ice's epicentre. He crawls forward and reaches out. A small static jump jumps from Danny's hair to Dash, making him flinch back.

Rubbing his finger, Dash shifts so that he's sitting. Carefully, he reaches out and taps Danny's head with his foot.

"Yo, Fenton," Dash whispers. It feels criminal to break the silence. "You dead? More dead?"

Danny mumbles something. His shoulders shift. His arm wiggles out from under him and grabs Dash's foot, shoving it away. He raises his head and glares at Dash, not that Dash can actually see it in this light.

"'M fine," Danny mutters.

Dash scoots back, giving Danny space, and strains his eyes, trying to see what Danny is doing. But it's too dark, so he gives up and settles against the wall.

Danny, coming to the same realization as Dash, pushes himself up with slow, painstaking movements. He huffs, thumps his back against the wall, and gets comfortable.

"You just got struck by lightning," Dash says.

"I got struck by indirect lightning," Danny corrects. His voice rough and his throat burns when he swallows. There's no blood on his tongue, though, so that's a bonus.

"And you're fine?"

"It shorts out my powers for a little bit, but it doesn't hurt much."

"You're lying."

"You don't know that!"

"Your voice does this wobbly thing when you lie. You're such a bad liar, Fenton."

Danny grumbles under his breath. "Why were you even on the roof in the first place?"

"It doesn't matter," Dash snaps defensively.

"Whatever."

They fall silent again. The school is supposed to have emergency lights for this kind of situation, but they don't appear to be working. Dash hopes the come on soon. He doesn't want to be stuck in here with Fenton. If he were really determined, he could try and feel his way down the bleachers, but he doesn't want to risk a fall.

Danny, caught on a similar vein of thinking, doesn't move either.

The silence is suffocating. It stretches between them, a vast chasm filled to the brim with repressed aggression. Dash can only take it for so long.

"How do you do it?" he blurts the question out after only a minute of silence.

"What?"

"The ghosts. They keep coming back, no matter how much you beat them down. How do you do it?"

Danny considers the question. Despite how stupid Dash is, he's not totally an idiot, and Danny can tell there's some hidden meaning in what he's asking. Danny's answer should be obvious. He does it because he needs to. Somebody has to keep Amity Park safe. Considering this whole mess is technically Danny's fault in the first place, he feels a little responsible for it and takes it into his own hands.

The wording throws Danny off. He doesn't beat his enemies down, he stops them. Dash makes it sound brutal, like a schoolyard fistfight.

"Dash." Danny's voice is strained. "Do you think you're like me? Phantom me, I mean."

He gets no answer.

"I swear, if you just nodded or something, I'm gonna punch you in the face."

"Why do you care?" Dash sounds defensive again.

Danny breathes in through his nose, a calming action, and exhales. "Do you think you're some kind of hero or something for beating people up?"

"You're the one who's always begging for it."

"I don't–" Danny shakes his head. He takes another deep breath. "You're serious? One hundred percent?"

Dash's silence is all the answer Danny needs.

"Oh my– wow. Dash. Just, wow. You're a real piece of work, you know that?"

"Hey, you don't get to say that. You don't know a damn thing about me!"

"I know you get your kicks out of beating the hell out of me. Because that's so damn heroic of you, isn't it? You are not a hero, okay? You're the worst."

"Screw you, Fenton! You don't get to talk shit about me like that. You're the one who's always getting in my way. Maybe if you just shut your mouth next time, I wouldn't have to shut it for you!"

"You know what, Dash? No. Fuck you!" Danny reaches into the darkness, searching, and latches on to the first piece of Dash he finds. He yanks Dash forward. "You know what the worst part about going to this school is? It's you. I'm afraid to come to school because I know you'll be here, waiting for me, ready to knock another took out. And I fight ghosts. Every day. I beat the ghost king. I've bent freaking reality. I've been electrocuted, shot, turned to goo, and you are still the worst thing that's ever happened to me! You're the villain, Dash!"

Dash grabs Danny's wrists. Rising to his feet, he drags them both upright. "You've got a big mouth for someone who's such a wuss."

The emergency lights finally snap on. They both wince, the sudden light blinding them, but Danny recovers faster. He swings his fist and punches Dash square in the face, breaking his nose. Dash's head snaps back with a spurt of blood. He stumbles back, feet sleeping on the ice, and clutches his face.

"What the hell!" he shouts, staring at the blood on his hand.

"Can't take a punch, Dash?" Danny sneers. He only has a second to prepare himself before Dash lunges. Confidence abandoning him, a primal fear rising up instead, Danny turns and sprints.

"I'm gonna kill you, Fenton!"

Danny believes him. On instinct, he leaps into the air, the fastest route of escape, and remembers too late that he can't fly right now. "Shit!" he shouts, flailing as he falls over the bleachers, the ground rapidly approaching. Panic shoots through him. He's going to land wrong and break his leg and then he won't be able to run, and catch will catch him, and he's definitely going to kill Danny this time.

The thought swells up in his head, suffocating any logical notions.

"Fenton!" Dash's voice, squeaky and panicked, rings out through the gym. It snaps Danny out of his spiralling thoughts long enough to remember he's a superhero, damn it, he knows how to talk a fall.

Just before he hits the bleachers, Danny kicks out, pushing himself off one of the benches. It jolts his leg and sends painful shivers radiating up the limb, but does the job well. He starts falling forward instead, rather than right down, barely missing the rest of the stairs. Leaning into the fall, he hits the ground shoulder first and rolls, letting the momentum bleed out. It's not his best recovery, and his shoulder and leg throb painfully, but nothing's broken.

Danny lays splayed out in the middle of the gym floor, panting. Distantly, he hears Dash's thundering steps as he books it down the stairs. He should get up and run while he can. But Danny's shaking all over and he thinks, if he were to stand up right now, he would just fall over. His body still aches from the brief electrocution.

"Fenton!" Dash says, his head popping into view above Danny. He looks conflicted, face red and angry, but honest worry in his eyes, like he can't decide if he should be glad Danny didn't become a pile of broken limbs on the bleacher, or if he should go ahead and break Danny himself.

And he can't decide. Dash is livid. Danny broke his damn nose! Dash wants to throttle him for that. But when he saw Danny falling over the stairs, one thought screamed in his head: he didn't want to watch Fenton die. For a moment, it overrode his anger with genuine concern. Now that he knows Danny is okay, though, that anger is quickly taking over again.

Danny, seeing Dash's shaking fists, thinks he knows an inkling of what's going through Dash's head right now. He pushes himself back, just in case Dash decides to stop on him. He's still too shaky to stand up right now.

Dash clenches his fists, then releases them, eyes closing. "What the hell is your problem, Fenton?" His voice is hollow.

Danny doesn't even dare to breathe.

Dash grits his teeth. "Fine, whatever, I don't care. I'm going to the nurse." He turns and heads for the doors.

Danny holds his breath until Dash leaves.

—

Tetslaff finds Danny in the gym. "Fenton?" she says, frowning in confusion. "What are you doing here? The students were all sent home."

Danny blinks at her slowly. "What?"

"You gonna learn in the dark?" Tetslaff holds the door open wider and jerks her thumb toward the hall. "Get out of here. No wonder Lancer was getting his panties in a twist, had no idea where you were."

"Oh. Sorry." Danny pushes himself up, wobbling a little, and shuffles toward Tetslaff. "No one was looking for me?"

"Your friends said you went home. Stomach bug." Tetslaff's eyes narrow. "Your sister vouched for you."

Danny freezes, hugging himself tightly. "Really? That's weird." He gives Tetslaff a shaky smile.

"You look like hell, Fenton. Go home. I won't give you detention, this time."

"Thanks," Danny mumbles. Once he's out of the gym, the urge to get out of there as fast as possible seizes him. He sprints down the hall, ignoring Tetslaff's half-hearted shout of, "No running!" and doesn't stop until he reaches the front doors, throwing them open.

Lightning flashes over the city, blinding him. He winces, ducking his head, raising an arm against the rain. He almost forgot about the thunderstorm. Glancing left, he scans the student parking lot.  All he sees is an obnoxious yellow Humvee, no sign of Jazz's little Prius. She must have gone home with everyone else, thinking Danny was already long gone taking care of a ghost. He wishes he had been.

With no other option, Danny starts the walk home. The rain drenches him immediately, plastering his hair against his forehead. His shirt clings to his chest and jeans feel heavy and uncomfortable. Halfway down the block, he realizes he left his backpack at school. There's a history paper he needs to work on. Danny shakes his head and keeps walking. He can sneak back in later tonight when his powers are working again. His sleep schedule this week is already pretty much non-existent. What does one more all-night matter?

At the corner of the block, as Danny's waiting for the crosswalk light to come on, a vehicle pulls up on his left and honks. It's the Humvee from the school parking lot. Confused, Danny stares, unmoving. The window rolls down.

Dash glares at him from the driver's seat. "Are you getting in or not?" he asks.

"I– what?"

"I swear you're deaf sometimes. Are. You. Getting. In. Or would you rather walk home in this?" Dash drums his fingers on the steering wheel. "Hurry up, the rain's getting in!"

Danny scrambles forward, throwing the door open and slipping inside. The seat's a little wet, but it's infinitely better than being outside. Almost, Danny thinks, side-eyeing Dash. Neither of them says anything as he pulls up to the lights, which are red now.

Danny pushes his hair out of his face, slicking it back. The style's not half-bad. At least, he likes how it looks in Dash's side mirror. The light ahead of them turns green.

"Seatbelt," Dash says.

"Oh, yeah." Danny hurries to pull it on, clicking it in place. It rests a bit too high against his neck, rubbing uncomfortably below his jaw. "Dash–" he starts.

"Look–" Dash says at the same time. They both cut themselves off, sharing a glance. Danny motions for Dash to continues. "Look. I don't like you, Fenton. I guess I got issues and stuff, whatever, that's none of your business. But you're also a hero, and it'd be pretty stupid of me to beat up a hero."

"It's stupid of you to beat up anyone."

"Can you just, ugh." Dash groans. "I'm trying to apologize to you, moron."

"Well, you suck at it."

Dash seethes, banging his head against the steering wheel.

"Hey, watch the road!" Danny yelps, reaching out to grab the wheel.

Dash slaps his hand away. "Shut up, I know how to drive. Just, I'm sorry, okay?"

Danny frowns. A half-hearted apology doesn't make anything okay. But, at the moment, it's more than anything he's ever expected from Dash, so he'll take it. For now. "Fine."

"Good."

They don't say anything for the rest of the ride, suffering each other's presence until Dash pulls up in front of Fenton Works. Danny has the door open before the car reaches a complete stop, practically throwing himself to the sidewalk. He runs up the front path and slips inside without looking back.

"Danny!" Jazz calls from the living room. She stands up, approaching. "You're soaking wet. Where were you? What happened?"

Danny throws himself into Jazz's arms and cries.

—

Dash sits on the Fenton's curb for a minute before driving off. His house is in the completely opposite direction and now he has to head back toward the school. After going to the nurse, who had thankfully still been in the building, and getting his nose fixed up, Dash's only desire was to head home and immerse himself in video games.

Picking Danny up was a total fluke. He just looked so pathetic, trudging through the rain, and Dash couldn't leave him like that. The apology had been unexpected. Dash didn't realize he meant it until the words left his lips. He's still pissed at Danny for breaking his nose, but he didn't hit back, so that was a step up.

Dash sinks into his seat, staring at how the city lights glitter in the rain. Fenton still sucks. In fact, he sucks even worse now for actually making Dash feel bad about all the bullying. He's got a lot of thinking to do. Nothing he says or does will always what he's already said and done, but apologizing was a good way to start.

[transboykirito]

let's try this again. a rambly thing i wrote about sugu and kazuto.

It had been hours of the two of them just laying there on her bed, her head on his chest and his hand in her hair. Neither of them was talking. The only sound in her room came from the quiet humming of the air conditioning unit on the wall.

“Does it ever get better?”

Suguha asked the question without expecting a response. He of all people wouldn’t know how to give one. Hell, she shouldn’t be asking him anything like that in the first place. Who gave her the right to ask him if her issues would get better when his far outweighed her own?

“Maybe.”

Kazuto’s voice was tired. It was more than just sleep deprivation, though both of them were in need of rest. It was the kind of exhaustion that only came from trying to live and exist while everything in you screamed to end it all now. It was an exhaustion she’d once been inconvenienced by as she dealt with a depressed family member, and now it was an exhaustion that she had come to know herself.

God, she was selfish. How many times had she laid there at night and convinced herself that if they spoke the next day, it meant he would be better? How many times had she thought his life was a weight on her shoulders? How many times did she comfort herself in the fact he cared too much about her to leave her behind?

“Do you even want it to get better?”

How many times had she placed herself on a pedestal in his life, so certain of the fact she could love him enough to take away this kind of soul-interwoven sadness? How conceited had she been to think that a few hollow-but-well-meaning words of I love you, I promise you’ll get better could ever save him from something that had existed inside of him for nearly half his life?

“Maybe.”

It wasn’t like she hadn’t understood, to some degree, that he needed more help than she could offer him. She’d cried herself to sleep on multiple occasions, terrified that her beloved brother wouldn’t be there when she woke up, because deep down she knew that he needed something she couldn’t provide. He needed…

That was the issue - part of it, at least. She didn’t know what he needed exactly, but she knew it was more than her and her naive teenage words could amount to. No amount of pleading for him to stay just a little longer, no amount of empty promises that one day he’d feel happy again, no amount of daydreams of him walking her down the aisle or seeing her graduate - none of it would ever be enough.

She wasn’t enough.

She’d hated herself for it. She hated that there was something she couldn’t do for him. She hated that this boy, the one she loved more than anything, the one who made her life worth living, was so sad that she could never even see past the surface of it.

“I don’t know how I’d do any of this without you.”

She doesn’t say it to guilt-trip him. It isn’t some unintentional twist of a knife someone else had buried deep in his side. She says it because it’s the truth. She really, really doesn’t know how she’s supposed to live without him.

He doesn’t respond, so she tries another approach.

“How do I keep going when it feels so hopeless?”

He shrugs lightly, shifting her head as he does.

“You just do. You just have to believe there’s a reason for it.”

He sounds so tired. She wants to tell him to rest. She wants to tell him to roll over, so he can lay his head on her own chest and drift off to sleep. She wants to tell him she’ll protect him from all the things that haunt him in his dreams. She wants to tell him that the exhaustion won’t last forever.

“What’s your reason?”

She holds her arms around his middle tighter. She knows that she won’t be his answer. She knows exactly what - no, who - his answer is going to be. She’s jealous, just the tiniest bit, that she isn’t his world in the same way he’s hers, but he deserves his own happiness, and she’s truly happy that he’s found it.

“I just have to be here long enough to see things be good again.”

There’s another long pause where neither of them says anything. He’s thinking. She’s thinking. He’s likely thinking of all the moments that led him to this moment - all the people he met and loved, the lives lost, the lives taken, the years stolen from his life that he can never recover.

So what’s she thinking about?

Aside from him, because she really is worried about him.

She’s thinking about the bloodshed she witnessed in the Underworld. The lives she took, the pain she felt, the fear she felt, the love she felt. The hopelessness and the rebellious determination. The bonds she forged that she could never return to. The impact she left that she would never know of. The wounds and the blood she’d shed. The slimy feeling of that witch all over her. The humiliation. The rage. The moment something inside of her had simply snapped. The moment her entire body gave way and she could no longer stand.

She felt she didn’t deserve to compare her experiences to Kazuto’s. He’d fought for longer, in harder battles, with stronger enemies, facing higher stakes. He’s been doing this - this loneliness, this anger, this despair, this rot - for far longer than she had with a much heavier load on his shoulders. Really, she felt it inappropriate to even be asking for his advice now.

Then he talks again, his weary voice giving her just the slightest hint of bittersweet affection.

“You know, Sugu, I wish I was as strong as you.”

She blinks. It’s the other way around, isn’t it? She’s the one who so desperately wishes to be as strong as him. What kind of game is he playing now?

“Strong?”

“You keep loving people. No matter how many times your heart breaks, you love people anyway. The Underworlders, Nagata. Even me. That’s really strong. I wish I could do that.”

She blushes just slightly. Did he really pay attention that much when she complained about him? Or, rather, more truthfully, she blushes because loving him - loving anyone - has never been a choice for her. It’s simply how it is.

She loves him. He could break her heart a million times over, and every time she would still hand it back to him, barely beating and held together in the palm of her hand. Every time, she would give him - or anyone - her heart with the expectation of it being broken, and she would give her heart away anyway.

Maybe it was naive. No, she knows it is. She would cry and wail like a child, then put her heart back together just enough to throw it to whoever she thought might hold it for a while, just for the shortest, sweetest moment. Then, she would live in that love until it threatened to suffocate her, and she would do it all over again.

She’d dragged her broken, bloodied heart through the mud so many times, she was surprised it was still beating.

But it was. Her heart was beating, and she was alive.

He was alive.

She could breathe.

“It’s because I’m too stupid to stop caring.”

She says it in that half-hearted, self-deprecating way that implies she’s trying to joke, but neither of them find any humour in it.

“Maybe.”

“Hey!”

She laughs, he laughs.

She breathes.

She knows they’re both tired. She doesn’t know how long they’ll be tired for. Maybe forever. Maybe for the next few years. Maybe until something happens and they miraculously find themselves reinvigorated by something that makes them forget everything they’ve been through.

She knows who’ll give him that. She knows it isn’t her.

She knows that when they decide this conversation is over, she’ll roll off of him and make an awkward joke about having a cramping leg. He’ll laugh and tell her it’s her fault for clinging to him like the world’s most anxious baby koala. Then he’ll linger in her doorway for a moment, they’ll plan what they’re going to do for dinner in a few hours, and he’ll go back to his room to call her on the phone.

Because Asuna has taken the spot in Kazuto’s heart that Suguha had selfishly believed belonged to her. She doesn’t hate her for it, she’s glad that her brother’s found someone who makes him truly happy, someone who makes him want to love life again. Asuna’s great, she likes Asuna.

But just for now, listening to his heartbeat while he breathes, she convinces herself that at least part of his heart is still reserved for her. For this brief moment, she lets herself believe that her words can still reach him.

He breathes.

She breathes.

“Is it ever gonna get better for us?”

He shrugs again.

“Maybe.”

Then she forgives herself enough to let herself say one more stupid, naive thing. Just once. Then she’ll hold him to it.

“Promise me you’ll still be here when it does get good again?”

He holds her, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips for the first time in hours. There’s still wet tear tracks down his cheeks from earlier.

“Yeah, I promise I’ll be here a while.”

Then he sighs, like he’s lifting a weight off his chest for the first time in a while. She swallows down the memories threatening to beg him for reassurance. Another time, she promises herself. For now, their conversation here is over.

He breathes.

She breathes.

They’re going to be okay.

[transboykirito]

this is nooooot incest don't be weird k thanx bye

She couldn’t remember when her feelings towards her brother had started to change.

She knew that, for years, he was her everything, her best friend, her partner in crime and childhood mischief. She knew that he’d cared for her when she was sick and that he’d crawled into her bed after he had nightmares. She knew that she told him about what she learnt at school while he told her about the articles he’d read in his computer magazines.

She knew that one day, suddenly and without explanation, he’d shut her out. She knew that their long conversations had stopped and she was lucky to get a few words out of him over an entire day. She knew that her mother had stayed home with her the next time she had a fever and her brother’s bedroom door stayed shut tight even after he’d watched horror movies their mother had forbidden them from watching late at night.

Then he’d fallen victim to that death game, Sword Art Online, and things had changed indescribably.

For one, her parents sat her down and explained the real reason her brother had shut her out. He’d found out he was adopted. That had taken a while to adjust to for Suguha, too. She struggled for months, wondering if that meant the bond they’d had for so long had been a lie. If Kazuto had shut her out after he knew, was it because he saw her as a cousin rather than a sister? Did he even see her as his family at all anymore, or was she just a stranger he’d once assumed he’d known?

Her feelings were complicated and impossibly difficult to explain to her mother. She loved him, she always would, and nothing would change that. Nothing would take away the memories they’d shared or the fact that, to her, he would always be her big brother. He was her hero, her knight in shining armour, and she’d never see him any differently.

When he returned to them, the feelings she’d been adjusting to somehow got worse.

Kazuto was back. Her big brother had been safely returned to them. That should have been the end of the chapter. They could start a new story, be close again like she’d daydreamed of for so long.

But the man who came back from Sword Art Online was far, far different from the boy she’d grown up alongside. He’d changed, and figuring out how to re-learn everything was a task neither of them was particularly willing to address.

Their family didn’t talk about these kinds of things. She knew that when Kazuto came back from that death game he’d returned with several prescription medications - to help him sleep, to help him relax, to help him produce the chemicals his brain had a lack of, to help him manage the chemicals that his brain had in excess - but they never really spoke about it outside of the occasional reminder that he had pills sitting by a glass of water on the counter that he needed to take.

She knew he met new people in that other world. There was Rika, the girl who always looked at him just a little too long for Suguha not to notice. Klein, the one Kazuto teased at any opportunity, in that endearing, almost sibling-like kind of way. Agil, the bartender who gave him drinks as long as he promised to not tell his mother. Ayano, the one who blushed as she told everyone Kazuto had become like a brother to her, and Suguha had bitten the inside of her cheek to avoid yelling at her that Kazuto already had a little sister, thank you very much, and it wasn’t fair for her to walk in and steal him from her.

She knew they’d shared memories there that she’d never be part of. They had trauma and guilt and fondness and a family that she’d been cast out of, even if unintentionally. Too much had happened to him without her there, and she’d been frozen in time the moment he left. There was too much they’d never be able to catch up on, the time discrepancy between them was too difficult to truly navigate.

They sit around at the restaurant recounting memories she didn’t have, stories she’d only ever hear instead of experience, and nobody seems to notice the fact she isn’t talking. Nobody notices when she leaves to the bathroom for an hour, nobody notices when she disappears from their meet-up in Alfheim Online later so she can cry to herself without humiliating Kazuto - because really, has she ever managed to be anything other than an embarrassment to him?

Now, as she looked between Kazuto and his friends, entirely an outsider to them and their new lives, she wondered just how long this feeling would linger before she snapped.

Asuna was the worst of all. It wasn’t that she disliked her - she was quite fond of her as a person and she considered her a friend - but whenever she saw her with Kazuto, she felt like her heart had been torn from the safety of her ribcage. They were so close, he was so gentle with her, and Suguha knew that the days when she had once been her brother’s entire world were long gone.

The way he spoke about her was even worse. He seemingly never tired of gushing about her, fondly recalling their endless memories together that Suguha wasn’t there for and brushing off inside jokes Suguha would never understand. 

“What do you mean?” She’d ask as he made a comment to her.

He would blush lightly and reply, “Oh, it’s a joke between me and Asuna,” without further explanation, and Suguha would feel her heart break all over again. There didn’t seem to be any ill intent, he was young and in love, innocently thinking of his partner because he adored her, but every comment drove Suguha further away.

She could recall a time when they’d been closer than anyone. He was the first person she’d run to when she wanted to play something, and he’d come to her when he wanted to talk to someone. They’d sit and talk for hours about anything, she knew him like the back of her hand. She took interest in all of his interests, researched his hobbies and made sure she’d always be able to keep up with a conversation.

Then one day she’d come home from her after-school kendo club and found Kazuto sitting on the couch with Asuna curled into his side watching one of the films that he’d said he’d grown bored of years ago.

It shouldn’t have affected her so much. She wanted to walk over and sit between them and demand he tell her when he’d changed his mind about everything - movies, TV shows, his friends, his life goals, everything. She wanted to know when he’d changed his mind about her. She wanted to beg him to explain the exact moment that she’d lost his interest, to try and understand where she had faltered to the point he’d found someone else to fill the void in his time.

But she didn’t.

She, somehow, found the willpower to storm off to her room instead, locking the door behind her before she threw herself on the bed and cried like a spoilt child who hadn’t gotten her own way. Really, she felt like it, too.

He was happy, shouldn’t that have been enough for her?

It's a sombre feeling; the realisation that she’d wildly overestimated the importance she held in her brother's life. The girl walking next to him, just ahead of her, her hand in his, was the one he held closest to him now, the girl who'd captured his heart and soul two years before.

It's bitter. She doesn't like the way her thoughts weigh heavy on her heart as she wills herself to stop grasping at straws, making comparisons based on nothing but the minimal information she’d retained from the stories he's told her and the few times they’d held a conversation. She doesn't like the way her brother looks at her as she wonders what she’d give to be the one he looked at so fondly, just one last time.

It's not that she's in love with him, like she’d originally feared. Somehow, this is worse. Falling in love with someone could be explained, as troubling as it would have been to tell him and their parents. This… was something she didn’t even know how to explain. She couldn’t articulate the way her chest ached whenever her name was mentioned, a feeling deeper than lovestruck jealousy hollowing out her rib cage.

How was she supposed to tell him that even just the knowledge he'd spent those two years falling in love with someone made her feel like breaking something? She didn’t want him to be lonely, the only thing she wanted for him was happiness, but…

She wanted him to find happiness by her side. She wanted to be the one he went to when he was sad, the one he wanted to celebrate with when he achieved something. She wanted him to need her, she needed him to need her.

What was she supposed to be if she wasn't needed?

It was all she was trained to be from the time she was a child. She overheard too many stress-fuelled arguments, waved goodbye to her father as he left on too many long business trips, forced herself to take on her brother's burdens just so he could be happy.

How had nobody seen it before? Why had nobody noticed the way her shoulders slumped, aching from carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders? At least, she was carrying her world, because he was all she ever thought about, woven into everything she did.

It’s around four months after the end of the Alfheim Online incident when Suguha finally snaps.

Kazuto and Asuna had been lying on the couch holding each other and talking in those hushed, giggling tones that told Suguha everything while not telling her anything at all. From where she stood in the hallway, she could hear their soft voices - yet another conversation, a personal one, that she’d never be let in on - and, when the voices went silent, she heard muffled laughter and the unmistakable sound of stolen kisses breaking apart over and over and over again.

She can’t bare it. She runs up to her room, the one place she has at least a little comfort, because not everything in it is tainted with the thought of him, and she stares at herself in the mirror until her cheeks are red and puffy, and her vision has blurred from tears. Because that was the face of someone who was no longer good enough for the one person she’d die for, the face of someone who had everything she held close stolen from her by the only person in the world she couldn’t find it in herself to hold resentment for. Because Asuna was Kazuto’s entire world, his reason to live, and she couldn’t bring herself to hate the person who brought him so much peace.

What are you supposed to do when the one person in the world who could break your heart in an instant actually breaks it?

That was what Suguha was wondering, staring at her ceiling, her mind filled with nothing but the seemingly endless white of the painted ceiling and the comforting nothingness behind her eyelids when she shut her eyes tight to stop the tears rolling down her cheeks.

Kazuto was gone.

He wasn’t dead, not in any way that she was allowed to grieve for, but in every way that mattered. He wasn’t dead, but he was never coming home again - not to their home, because this had stopped being his home so many years before. He wasn’t dead, but the life in his eyes was one she’d never recognise again. He wasn’t dead, but she almost wished he was, just so she’d have an excuse to mourn him.

Because how do you grieve for the living?

How do you grieve for the lifetime of memories that had fallen away to just that - memories? How do you grieve for the future that you had found so much comfort in the idea of, the future that slipped through your fingertips like grains of sand as the other person kept living without you? How do you grieve for every childish thought of happily ever afters and dreams that come true, because the real world scarcely provides you with a real happy ending?

And yet, she couldn’t exactly say that either, because this was an ending, and he was happy. 

He was happy to be starting a life with someone else, his soulmate. He was happy to be proudly showing off the rings on their virtual fingers and planning to get married in the real world as if it was the only day he could ever think of - it was, it was the only day he ever talked about now. It felt like he was always talking about weddings and houses and babies and a million plans where Suguha wasn’t involved - an entire life where Suguha wasn’t involved.

His happiness was just beginning, and hers had just ended.

She knew she had no right to feel so sad. She should have been happy for him. Her big brother finally had his peace, he had everything he wanted. He had a beautiful partner, a beautiful daughter, a successful career lined up, a real chance at happiness and stability and normality and love.

And… where did that leave her?

What happened to all the love that filled her chest so often she feared she’d choke on it? What happened to the lifetime of cancelled plans and unfulfilled promises? What happened to him helping their father walk her down the aisle, or helping her pack her bags for university someday when she followed in his footsteps and finally settled into a path she wanted for herself? What happened to the life she’d planned, where she was far more important to him than she really was?

She comes to her mother’s room late that night and sits at the foot of her bed. Midori sits up, frowning in the way a mother does when she realises she can no longer protect her children from the inevitabilities of growing up.

“Mom,” her voice cracks just slightly, “I think I just got my heart broken… But I don’t know how to tell you about it.”

“I know, honey,” Midori shifts herself to sit closer to her daughter, pulling her into a tight hug as Suguha sobs into her shoulder.

She’s noticed. Suguha knows that she’s noticed. Neither of them say it out loud. She’s humiliated, Midori’s entirely unsure of how she’s supposed to proceed. 

She almost regrets ever saying anything, because having a name for it feels so much worse.

Suddenly the word borderline is thrown around inside her head more times in a day than she can count. Her counsellor - the best one her mother can find in their price range, one Asuna had personally recommended - tells her that she isn’t going crazy, she just needs to rewire her brain a little, to readjust her thinking. Suguha wants to tear her hair out, to beg her to please explain where the wires are so crossed, because she can’t remember a time when she’s felt like they were ever normal.

“Normal is such a terrible word,” her counsellor reminds her for the millionth time, “Nobody has the same idea of normal, so it’s really not fair to hold yourself to someone else’s standard of it.”

“I just want my normal to be the same as his normal,” she sobs, and the older woman falls silent.

Borderline is such a terrible word, she thinks. The borderline between what? Hopeful and delusional? Love and obsession? Passionate and entirely insane? Then she scolds herself, because she isn’t supposed to use that word. She isn’t supposed to get mad at herself for feeling things so strongly, she isn’t supposed to punish herself for having emotions.

But she does anyway, and she finds herself locking herself away in her room like a child being given a self-inflicted time-out over and over again. Every time Asuna visits. Every time Kazuto mentions his girlfriend. Every time he doesn’t respond to something she says. Every time she thinks too hard about him and feels herself slowly fall over the edge of some unimaginably rocky cliff.

Each time she locks herself in her room, sobbing into her pillow, she’s back in that scene in the restaurant, listening to them exist without her. Listening to them praising Kazuto for being a man she knew she’d never get to meet, because she didn’t know him like they did, and she didn’t get to know this new Kazuto like they did, and the space she’d carved for herself in his life was filled by a new little sister and a new family that she didn’t know how to belong in.

When had she become nothing more than a footnote to him? A hastily-added addition at the end of his biography, an honourable mention in the stories of the childhood they’d shared? When had she become a name he mentioned casually, with a little note of pain in his voice, then moved along to the next topic?

So she asks him.

She breaks down, sobbing on her knees in his doorway, begging him to tell her why he hates her. Begging for some kind of confirmation that whatever fondness had once been held for her was long gone. Begging for some kind of closure, if only so she could bury these feelings and move on.

He, in confusion, tells her that he doesn’t hate her. He tells her he’s sorry he’s been so distant, tells her he thought of her constantly during those long days when he was so far away from her. He tells her that things have changed, they’ve both grown up, and she feels her heart sink to the floor because she hasn’t.

She’d been waiting for him to return to her so they could pick up exactly where they’d left off, and she’d never really grown up from that moment, and he’d left her behind.

She didn’t know when her feelings towards her brother started to change.

She didn’t know when he’d grown into a new man, and she’d drive herself insane trying to find the exact moment he’d become someone else. She didn’t know when the suffocating jealousy towards Asuna turned into determination to forge a new bond with the woman who was going to be part of her family forever. She didn’t know when he’d finally started letting her in again, trusting her with the pieces of his heart that were still fragile.

But she did know that she waited for him for years - since they were children, since he came back from Sword Art Online, since he was reunited with Asuna, since he came back from the Underworld, since he proposed, since he left for America to intern at some new company that had insisted he needed to be there to witness the creation of, since he and Asuna welcomed their first child in the real world.

She waited for him, always, still unsure of how to stop being the little girl he’d left behind all those years ago, still frozen in the moment she’d realised they were strangers now, still waiting at the table in the corner of Dicey’s for him to return from his business trip and excitedly explain everything that had happened while he was away - because he spoke to her now, she knew him now.

She knew him, at one stage he had been as familiar as the back of her hand. 

[transboykirito]

some asugeo/yujikirisuna smut (i can’t think of a title)

rating: explicit

warning: they do the sex. sorry

this is less smut and more sappy character analysis whilst eugeo is getting a bj but sure. kazuto/yujikirisuna is mentioned and referenced a bunch but this this one is just eugeo and asuna lol

Everything was still new - for both of them, really. It was new and exciting and nerve-wracking all at once. It was a feeling Eugeo would normally immensely dislike, but with her, he found himself so willing to learn, so safe that he could trust her with every part of him.

She moves gently, slowly reaching her hand towards the waistband of his underwear while she’s kneeling before him. She has more experience with this than he has, although just barely, but her movements are still slow and cautious, like she’s just as curious as he is.

“Asuna,” Eugeo breathes as her fingers slip under the elastic. She looks up at him, blinking, and he somehow manages to tell her to be gentle.

“Of course,” she says it as if it’s the most logical thing in the world, and to her, it is.

She tentatively tugs the underwear down, and Eugeo blushes at the quiet gasp that slips from her lips when his dick springs free from the fabric.

He still wasn’t used to this. They’d done this twice already now and he’s done it with Kazuto a handful of times, but they’re both so different and Eugeo’s eager to know both of them off by heart.

Kazuto gets excited. He gives Eugeo messy kisses across his face and neck and chest and everywhere else. He fucks him like there’s nothing else in the entire world that he wants more than he wants him. He has more hands-on experience with this kind of thing, though he’s been on the receiving end until he met Eugeo, so all his actions are taken with an intimate knowledge of exactly what to do, a learned expertise from firsthand experience.

Asuna, on the other hand, is far more patient. Their solo sessions stretch on before they’re even fully undressed, and she takes her time to enjoy every second of the teasing and clothed touches, something Kazuto ends up being far too impatient to commit to.

There’s nothing wrong with the way either of them do things, of course, and Eugeo is deeply appreciative of both experiences. But some days like this one, he wants someone to take him carefully, slowly, and that’s how Asuna likes it.

Eugeo isn’t a stupid man. He knows why. He knows why Asuna prefers things gently, why she’s so cautious with him - with both of them. He knows why Kazuto is so quick to shut down the idea of using any kind of restraints and why he’s so firm in his decision. He knows why Asuna needs so much more time to be ready for this.

He’s honoured, in a weird way, that she trusts him enough for this. She trusts him to be gentle with her. The only other person she trusts like that is Kazuto, who she’s been dating for three years now and has known even longer.

And yet, she lets Eugeo in. She lets him fumble with the clasp of her bra, lets him kiss every inch of skin across her chest and pray to whatever higher power exists in this world that he can spend the rest of his days committing her body to memory. She lets him lay between her legs and delve his tongue into her, lets him grip her thighs just tight enough so the skin beneath his fingertips turns white because he’s so scared that if he lets go she’ll disappear like some kind of daydream.

They don’t go further than that on their own. Not yet, at least. It isn’t like he’s never been inside of her before, he and Kazuto have done it together before, and it isn’t like he doesn’t enjoy being inside of her, he’s in pure euphoria each time. But… for the two of them, just now, it doesn’t feel right yet. She wants to take things at his own pace, he wants to stay like this for a little while longer. Neither of them know why, it just feels right.

So, Asuna looks up at him for confirmation that he wants this, and when she’s met with a nodding head and a breathless whisper of “please, Asuna,” she takes him into her mouth.

He thinks he’ll never get over the feeling. Instincts tell him to grab her hair like Kazuto does. Past experience tells him that she hates when her hair gets messy. Past experience tells him that they aren’t ready for it yet, she might panic. Past experience tells him that he has no need to hold her there - that she wants him just as much as he wants her, that she won’t stop until he’s reached his peak or requests her to.

Because she loves him.

It’s still hard to get used to. He never thought he’d deserve this. He never thought he would one day find someone - two of them, actually - who wanted him to feel good, and feel safe, and feel loved.

Because love and sex weren’t transactional things. They weren’t something you gave and took on the expectation of receiving something else for your own personal gain. That took him a lot of time to unlearn.

When Asuna skilfully drags her tongue down the underside of his dick, making him shudder, Eugeo thinks to himself for the millionth time that she’s some kind of goddess - something both she and Kazuto laugh at with a sense of irony each time he says it.

And she’s so gentle. They both are.

And he feels so safe. They both do.

Asuna’s left hand wraps itself around his base, while her right deftly traces circles over the back of his left hand, which is clutching the sheets by his hip. He opens his hand. She gently puts her hand in his. He holds it. This is what love feels like.

When she looks up at him through her lashes, he falls for her all over again. When she swallows around him, when his head just barely touches the back of her throat, when she bobs her head so carefully, with a learned rhythm she’s still perfecting, when she pulls back for air, lips swollen and glossy, he falls for her all over again.

She uses her hand a few times while she catches her breath and Eugeo is transfixed on her. Her face is flushed, her lips are wet and tinted a darker red, and she’s possibly never looked more beautiful. Her chest rises and falls, Eugeo blushes relentlessly as he watches it.

She gently kisses the tip of his dick, closing her eyes blissfully before she takes it into her mouth again. Eugeo wants to see her look this happy forever. Moments like this, she’s so beautiful, and she doesn’t even realise it.

He’s reminded of the first time Kazuto went down on him. He wasn’t timid the way Asuna was, but he wasn’t sure of himself. He’d asked Eugeo ten times if he was doing okay and Eugeo had stammered out ten times that he was doing perfectly. He’d bashfully admitted he was nervous he’d screw up or look awkward, Eugeo assured him that he was the most gorgeous man to ever live.

He wondered now if Asuna felt the same way.

“You’re so beautiful,” he commented, voice faltering ever so slightly as he inhaled a sharp breath.

“Hm?” Asuna hummed around him, looking up at him again, eyes half-closed and cheeks dusted with pink. It takes everything in him to not come then and there. They have plenty of time, they’ll make sure of it.

He squeezes her hand gently, the one that’s still holding his, the one that’s there as much for her reassurance and grounding as it is for his own. Then, cautiously, he moves his free hand to her cheek.

She makes a confused noise, but doesn’t stop her own movements or attempt to stop his. He watches more of his length slip past her lips until - there it is. His tip hits the back of her throat again and Asuna pauses for just a brief moment, preparing herself, then takes him ever so slightly deeper.

Eugeo moves his hand from her cheek to the back of her head, hesitating. But she stops, nods her head ever so slightly, and he understands.

He doesn’t guide her head as much as he just rests his hand on it, fingers playing with her hair as he admires her. He isn’t really sure what he’s meant to be doing, Kazuto’s the one who usually does this, and he makes a mental note to ask him later, but Asuna seems to enjoy it, leaning into his touch each time she pulls her head back.

“Asuna.”

“Mm-hm,” she just knows. Maybe it’s because they’re getting used to each other. Maybe it’s because she’s dealt with too many unannounced from Kazuto that she’s just memorised the signs. Either way, she shuts her eyes, pulls her mouth away from him with a hum, and replaces it with her hand.

Again, Eugeo is in awe of the sight of her. He holds her hair a little tighter, possibly slightly too tight, but she lets out some kind of breathy moan at the feeling, and it’s enough to send him over the edge.

It’s a feeling he never expected to get used to. It had terrified him the first time. It felt like standing on the edge of a cliff in the wildest wind, knowing he was about to fall, but having no way to stop himself. The pressure built up, his anticipation at it’s peak, and two slow strokes from Asuna’s hand send him falling into the crashing waves of his high.

It’s another way Asuna and Kazuto do things differently. Asuna knows her own limits, Kazuto coughs and pretends he can handle swallowing - he can’t, he knows he can’t, Eugeo knows he can’t, but he tries anyway and it would be endearing if Eugeo wasn’t always concerned he was going to choke.

Asuna’s lips are slightly parted, tongue resting just behind her teeth, and Eugeo removes his hand. As if on cue, Asuna licks away the come that landed on her lips, then holds her hand out expectantly.

It takes Eugeo a few seconds, and Asuna has to prompt him - “Eugeo, a tissue please?” - but he takes one from the box on their bedside table and hands it to her.

She wipes away the remainder, opening her eyes to look at him again. And, again, he falls for her. How can he not? He can’t blame Kazuto for the countless pieces of half-finished poetry scrawled on scrap paper. She’s a work of art.

“Can I kiss you?” He asks.

She nods, giggling lightly at how shy he still is, and he helps her move from the floor to sitting comfortably in his lap. This is new for him too. She presses a delicate kiss to his lips and he returns it, his hands around her waist while hers rest on his shoulders.

It’s gentle, slow, reassuring. Just like all of her.

He’s the one who deepens the kiss. They won’t go any further than this, not yet, but for now, this just feels right.