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bosspigeon · 3 years

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Carabosse et la Fee des Lilas

Prompt: 💋Drag

Pairing: Adam/Male Detective, Bonus Found Family Vibes~

Words: 5,346

Summary: Tina spends some quality time with Arlo and Unit Bravo as they prepare for Wayhaven's first real Pride festival, Tina torments her best friend and his maybe-boyfriend (as is her god-given right), and Arlo has a big think about his favorite role and what that role allowed him to explore~

CW for references to transmisogyny and implications of past trans/homophobia

Sometimes, Tina wonders if Arlo missed his true calling. His hands are surgeon-steady as he pencils delicate patterns onto Felix’s cheeks, outlining with white eyeliner in preparation to fill them in with bold colors and glitter. Tina almost can’t wait for her turn, even though Felix looks like he’s in real, physical pain with the effort of holding as still as possible. She’s no stranger to that struggle herself.

Neither is she a stranger to Arlo’s forceful, if toothless, threats, overcome as she is by fondness when he growls that he's going to draw a mustache on Felix’s face with permanent marker if he doesn’t stop bloody bouncing.

It’s pretty fun to watch from the outside. Sure, when you first sit down when he’s like this—all sharp and snappish and “stop moving or I’ll chuck you out the window”—it’s hard to keep still, but Arlo’s got this sort of quiet intensity to him when he’s focusing on something that’s oddly meditative. He’s just a soothing presence, really. Like a capybara or something. He’s friend-shaped.

Whatever weird magic it is, it’s definitely catching, because Felix looks less like he’s about to burst, like he did when Arlo was putting down the foundation, and more like he’s enjoying the attention. Tina’s not sure how long it’s going to last, seeing as Felix has given her a run for her money in the “manic energy” department, and he’s nowhere near as caffeinated as she is at any given time, but for the time being, he’s (mostly) still and quiet.

There’s music playing, quiet enough that the broody one (she knows his name, but it seems to bug him when she calls him "the broody one," which is funny, so—) only grumbled about it for a few minutes when Arlo turned it on, and even seems to enjoy sitting close enough to Arlo’s stupidly fancy stereo system to, she guesses, feel the rumble of the bass through the floor. Vampires are weird.

Anyway, it’s Arlo’s usual sad goth boy nonsense, but as quiet as it is, and with its intense instrumentals and rumbling vocals, it’s pleasant background noise more than anything.

Nate (the handsome and charming one, because of course all Arlo’s vampire friends are handsome, so she has to differentiate between them somehow) is rifling through Arlo’s bookshelf like it’s his job, and visibly struggling to pick something to read, because Arlo’s sitting room bookshelf (the one she found at a yard sale three hours away and lashed to the top of her sedan with every single bungee cord she could find at the local hardware store because it was coffin-shaped, for god's sake) is where he keeps all his weirdo occult stuff to, quote, “make people who pop by unannounced leave faster.”

And then there’s the big, handsome, stupidly fit blonde Arlo still won’t call his boyfriend, even though they’re so obvious it’s sickening, and she means that with all the love in her heart. He’s sitting in the armchair by the bookshelf, positioned so he can look like he’s reading one of Arlo’s old music magazines and totally isn’t taking advantage of the perfect line of sight of Arlo perched on the end of his coffee table so he’s not too tall to work on Felix, sitting in a chair from the kitchen. Tina sure hopes he doesn’t think he’s subtle, being a super special vampire secret agent and all.

He seems to notice her eyeing him, at least, and keeps his attention pinned firmly on the magazine, though he is definitely not reading a single word. Nate keeps browsing, the Broody One keeps brooding, Arlo keeps working, and Felix starts to hum. Arlo gives him a sharp look, but it doesn’t seem to be moving his face in any major way, so he just rolls his eyes and keeps tracing pretty patterns onto that unfairly smooth, dark skin. Do vampires do skin care? They probably don’t even need to, and that’s probably one of the reasons people like to villainize them. It always comes down to jealousy, doesn’t it?

She sighs, loudly enough that every eye in the room turns to her, and while she did not expect the sudden attention, she knows she can at least use it to entertain herself. She homes in on Adam, and smiles when she finally looks at the magazine he’s still valiantly pretending to read. There’s a familiar man on the cover, and while she can’t be bothered to remember his name, she grins. “Oh, hey! Arlo, he’s reading the one with the guy who looks like you!”

Arlo doesn’t even look up, but he huffs out a laugh and rolls his eyes again. He’s going to give himself a headache if he keeps that up.

The comment does exactly what she wants it to, which is draw the attention of all the other vampires. Arlo even begrudgingly pulls the pencil away from Felix’s cheek so he can take a look, and he immediately bursts out laughing.

“Arlo!” he exclaims, slapping at Arlo’s knee. “You didn’t tell us you had a twin!”

Nate chuckles (warm and rich and handsome, if a sound can be called handsome) and turns from the shelf to study the magazine curiously himself. Even the Broody One peers over to see, a little smirk curling his permanently-scowling mouth.

“Considering he was born in the sixties, I definitely don’t,” Arlo drawls. “Tina’s been making that joke since we were kids. She’s just happy she’s got an audience who hasn’t heard it twelve times a week since she first saw my old Type O Negative poster.”

“Some jokes just get better with time,” Tina says archly. “Like a fine wine.”

“And some jokes age like milk,” Arlo fires back.

Adam tilts the magazine so he can look for himself, and his dour expression clouds over even more, brows furrowing and mouth twisting. He peers up at Arlo, studying him, then down again.

Got you. “Yeah, you’re right,” Tina says, nodding sagely at him. “Arlo’s much prettier.”

It has exactly the reaction she was hoping for. Arlo drops his eyeliner pencil and makes a strangled noise, glowering at her with his cute freckly cheeks going all red, and Adam, who is a good bit paler than Arlo, goes pink from the crewneck of his just-this-side-of-too-tight tee shirt to his hairline. Tina wants to punch the air as the other vampires snicker at them. Well, except for Nate. Nate’s not a snickerer. He chortles. It’s adorable.

“Speaking of pretty!” Felix crows once they’ve all had a laugh at their fearless leader’s expense. He points to his own face with both hands, dancing in his chair, and Arlo sighs and rolls his eyes again, bending to pick up the dropped pencil. Luckily, the tip isn’t broken, so he can get right back to work, once he’s given the young vampire a moment to get his wiggles out. He settles, sitting on his hands and pursing his lips when Arlo gives him a dry look. He hovers back in with the pencil, and then Felix blurts out, “How’d you get so good at this anyway? Well, I assume you’re good at it. I haven’t seen it yet.”

Arlo doesn’t say anything. He just looks at him, pencil poised, until Felix pinches his mouth shut with a quick little apology. Once Arlo’s satisfied his canvas is actually going to hold still and keep quiet, he gets back to it. “My school was pretty small, especially compared to the bigger-name performing arts schools out there,” he says after a moment of quiet focus, tracing the outline of a heart around one of Felix’s eyes. “Our department didn’t really have a huge budget, and workspace was at a premium too. We didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for performances before someone else had to use the theatre, so we all did our own makeup at once, for the most part. Sometimes we’d help each other out, because we all had our strengths and weaknesses.”

He pulls back the pencil, squinting critically at the heart like it’s not completely perfect. “Demi was the best at laying the groundwork, and at matching colors to our costumes and complexions. Viv was the best at coming up with concepts and making sure we looked like a matching set. Wendi could do insane prosthetics, and was the best at bullying our department head into giving us the money for them. I had the steadiest hands, so I always did the eyes and the details.”

“Was Wendi the one who did your Dracula look?” Tina gasps. “That one was so cool!”

“Dracula?” Felix blurts. Tina doesn’t miss how the others perk up with interest too.

Arlo glares at him, and he shrinks back with a sheepish little grin. “Yeah, we did Dracula, uh… second year, I think? That was when Tilly transferred in and started doing our choreography. She’s the one who got Professor Dacey to let us do less classical stuff and start branching out a bit.” He glances briefly at Tina, staunchly ignoring the way Felix pouts at him for dividing his attention. “And, yeah, Wendi did the prosthetics for that one.”

“She’s got to be magic,” Tina asserts. “She managed to make your sweet, mopey face look so scary.”

Felix and Mason both snicker at that, and Arlo’s mouth goes all lemon-sour pinchy, like it always does when she calls him a sad puppy man, or any variation thereof.

“Take a lap,” Arlo says to Felix. “Don’t touch your face.” He jerks his head at Tina when Felix bolts to his feet and starts zooming around the flat to get out some of his energy. “Your turn, if you’re done being a comedian.”

“I’m never done,” she says with a sunny smile, but she bounces over to take Felix’s place in the chair and closes her eyes serenely so he can start on her makeup.

“And, God, do I know it,” he grumbles under his breath, knowing full well she can hear him, and so can everyone else in the room, too.

“Do you have pictures?” Felix hollers. He’s dipped into Arlo’s studio, and he’s making no secret of rifling through the desk in there, drawers slamming and paper rustling.

Arlo tips his head back so when he sighs, loud and dramatically long-suffering, he’s not blowing his breath right in Tina’s face. She appreciates the gesture. “Bottom right drawer,” he calls back, resignation thick in his voice. Given how long he’s been putting up with Tina—and Felix might just be Tina’s second platonic soulmate (Arlo, of course, being the first)—he already knows that keeping quiet is just prolonging the inevitable. Tina opens her eyes briefly to see Felix come sailing out of the studio with a thick leather-bound album held triumphantly over his head.

“Oh, I haven’t seen that in years!” she coos happily.

Arlo bops her on the forehead pointedly with a sponge covered in foundation, and she closes her eyes obediently.

She hears Arlo’s antique sofa creak as Felix plops down onto it, rifling through the plastic pages. “Aw,” he whines, “no baby pictures?”

“I can’t imagine him ever being a baby,” Mason snorts, and he sounds closer than he was before. Tina knows better than to open her eyes while Arlo’s in the zone, though. He’ll bop her with something less soft than a sponge next time. “I figured he’s just always been a giant.”

Felix laughs, high and chiming. “No wonder Agent Priestley’s always so sour, then,” he says. Tina giggles, and it becomes an inelegant snort when Arlo bops her again on the nose.

“Ask Rebecca if you want to see my baby pictures,” Arlo mutters blandly, and Tina can feel the weight of his attention. “I doubt she has many after age two, and the ones before I’ve barely seen.”

Tina’s not a super-special supernatural secret agent, but she tries with all her might to will someone to change the subject before things get weird. Now’s as good a time as any to learn telepathy.

Felix, heart of her heart, interrupts what’s shaping up to be a real prize winner of an awkward silence with a loud gasp. “Woah!” he exclaims, and pages crinkle as he presumably holds up the book for Arlo to see. “Who’s this? Did you do her makeup too?”

Arlo’s hair rustles as he turns his head away from her, and then the hand on her cheek freezes. Tension radiates through every inch of his body, practically leaching into hers. She cautiously opens one eye, and sees Arlo sitting up impeccably straight, stiff as a board and staring at Felix like a deer in the headlights. He swallows so hard she can see his throat move. “Um,” he says, stilted and strange. “Yeah. I did.”

Tina opens both eyes and squints at the photo album. Oh.

Felix looks at the sudden strain in the way Arlo is sitting, the tightness of his posture, and looks quizzically down at the picture again.

Tina remembers that performance. She remembers Arlo dancing (ha) around the subject when she asked him teasingly if he was going to be playing the prince, who was the lead, was he excited to kiss a pretty girl?

She can’t remember the character’s name, not so many years after the fact, especially since they were all weird classical nonsense, either Latin or French or some mishmash of the two. But she remembers the costume. She remembers waiting with bated breath to see Arlo onstage, to stand and scream and cheer obnoxiously loud in support of her best friend. She shot to her feet the second she saw his obvious silhouette rise from a feather-bedecked black chariot, head and shoulders taller than anyone else onstage. The music swelled, lightning flashed, and then when the spotlight hit him, she was so stunned she plopped right back into her seat with her jaw on the floor.

Arlo’s always been one of those guys that straddled the line between pretty and handsome. Long, lustrous hair and eyelashes she would kill for, cheekbones that could kill, a defined jaw, a proud nose, and intense eyes she could only call sultry—if she hadn’t known him since they were both weird, gawky brats, she’d probably be half in love with him before figuring out she wasn’t his cup of tea. But seeing him onstage was always an adventure. He threw himself into whatever character he played, put his everything into them, from the costume to the makeup to the performance. He just became the character, and in a way that was so very Arlo, all that intensity and focus channeled into an act that completely stole the show, in Tina’s humble and completely unbiased opinion.

Carabosse! That was her name!

Carabosse was no different.

Arlo’s makeup was flawless, ghost-white foundation giving him intense Morticia Addams vibes, contouring that made his cheekbones look absolutely unreal, bold black (or maybe really dark purple?) lipstick and shiny, smoky eyeshadow that made him look ethereal and wicked, with a daggerpoint cat-eye that she spent an hour begging him to teach her after the show. When he turned his head in a sharp, birdlike motion to look down his nose at the dancers playing the King and Queen, she gasped at the way his hair rippled down his back, shiny-black and woven with actual feathers that trailed back from the ornate metal circlet resting on his brow like a bird’s crest. The costume was breathtaking, too, a tightly corseted bodice and a high collar, a dramatically billowing skirt and trailing, feathered sleeves that flared like wings whenever he moved.

And the way he moved! Arlo’s dancing changed with every role, whatever he felt would suit the character. One of her favorites was always his Hans-Peter (she had a soft spot for that one, and had ever since she was little—one of the first Christmas gifts her stepmom had ever given her was little storybook version of The Nutcracker that came with a CD) because his dancing was so stiff and stridently mechanical, he looked like a real toy soldier come to life. But his villains moved with a slinking, predatory prowl she’d only ever seen in monster movies, and never in something like a ballet. His Carabosse was as beautiful as she was terrifying, and it was incredible to watch. She wanted to fling herself at him after the show and babble at him endlessly like she always did, but she spent a solid minute staring at him slack-jawed, until he shifted awkwardly and looked down, and the confident intimidation of the Wicked Fairy sloughed away to reveal Arlo underneath.

He almost melted into the floor with relief when she finally startled to babble.

She puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes, and he takes a slow, deep breath, offering Felix a strained smile. “Take a closer look, mate,” he says quietly.

Felix does. He looks up and squints at Arlo, and then back down at the photo. Tina has to bite her lip so she doesn’t laugh when he looks over at Adam, still holding the magazine with that metal singer that kind of looks like Arlo on it, and then back at Arlo. His mouth drops open into a little o, and he shoots to his feet and shouts, “No way!”

Mason was allowed his name back briefly, but he goes right back to Broody One when he grimaces at Felix and slinks pettishly back to his corner.

Arlo’s shoulders are practically around his ears, but he tries to keep smiling. “Yeah. Sleeping Beauty. Fourth year. I was the Wicked Fairy.”

“He was amazing,” Tina declares, shoulders back and chin tipped up challengingly. “The costume was insane, but the way he played her was absolutely, ridiculously badass.”

“You look awesome!” Felix blurts, still gawking down at the photo. He flips to the next page, and squeaks happily when he finds more pictures, from different angles, showing off the costume, the way Arlo loomed over the other dancers, the way he commanded the stage. Tina should really find out who took the pictures and send them her thanks, because they really put in the work. “Your makeup, your dress, your hair! How’d you even do that?”

Arlo laughs, and it sounds so utterly relieved, Tina’s heart breaks a little. Arlo’s always been sensitive, and for someone who dresses and holds himself the way he does, he worries more than he lets on what people think of him. Especially people he cares about. She squeezes his shoulder again, and he bites his lip when he glances back at her and smiles hesitantly.

“A lot of wire, and enough hairspray to choke a bloody cow,” he says, twisting around and slinging his long legs over the coffee table so he can face the sofa. “I think we bought every bag of black feathers the craft store had, and then spent an entire weekend painting them with this stupidly expensive embossing powder. We had to get, like, ten pots of the stuff, because the craft store only had pots the size of a quarter.”

“I admire your dedication,” Nate says pleasantly, strolling over to peer over Arlo’s shoulder. They tighten just a bit before relaxing slowly. “That costuming is superb. I’ve seen professional productions that weren’t half so detailed.”

“That would be Viv’s work,” Arlo laughs, looking down at the pictures fondly. “She took whatever cheap garbage the department had for us, raided the nearest clearance fabric rack, and worked her magic. The employees at that little craft store loved and hated us in equal measure.”

Arlo is still tense, but he’s loosening up little by little, and with him Tina does too. The easy camaraderie is soothing, and she knows how much Arlo cares about his vampire friends, so it’s got to be a huge weight off his shoulders to be able to let his guard down around them. He deserves that. He deserves to be able to be himself.

Adam standing up draws Arlo’s attention like nothing else could, and he freezes like a startled rabbit again looking up at the burly blonde vampire as he approaches the sofa. He looks a split second from bolting. Tina sits up straighter and gives Adam her most daring look, squaring her shoulders to make it perfectly clear she's ready to fight the second he opens his mouth. She’ll definitely lose, sure, but she’ll make as much trouble as she can before she goes down.

He reaches out, his hand hesitating before it touches the album’s glossy page, and he looks up at Arlo with a questioning tilt to his brows. Arlo looks like he’s barely breathing, but he nods, and Adam slips one of the pictures from its sleeve. He straightens his spine, shoulders back, holding the photo and studying it carefully. His face is impossible to read, about as expressive as a bloody brick wall. Tina’s vibrating with nervous energy. She’ll fight a vampire, though. She will.

When Adam does finally speak, his voice comes out so softly Tina almost doesn’t hear it over the adrenaline rushing through her. “You look… striking.”

Striking. Oh my god.

She wants to laugh. They’re ridiculous.

“Thanks,” Arlo chokes out, his cheeks and ears going red this time.

Oh my god. Tina covers her mouth with both hands. Arlo glowers at her. It’s a lot less threatening when he’s blushing like that. “I didn’t say anything,” she mumbles against her palms.

“Your face,” he hisses, and she yelps.

“Oh! Shit!” She pulls her hands away, and he grabs her by the chin to check the damage with a click of his tongue.

Tina thought things would get better once Arlo actually kissed the man (and maybe got a leg over, but that’s only her business when she can finally get Arlo to actually talk about if the big, beefy Adonis is as missionary-with-the-lights-off as he looks) but at least they’re not just staring longingly at each other from across the room and then getting all sad about it anymore . Thankfully, Felix seems to be an old hand at clearing up the weird tension between the two of them, chiming in a delighted, “I’ve never seen you look so scary!” as he rifles through all the pictures from the Sleeping Beauty show. “I mean, you’re pretty scary when you go all furry, but also, you sort of just look like a big lanky puppy, because it’s just you, you know? This is someone else! Who is she! She's so cool!”

Arlo sighs and turns around to fix whatever Tina’s ruined with her foundation, and throws himself back into dolling her up. Thankfully, the actual festival’s not for a while yet. She complained about the unnecessarily early start when Arlo suggested the time, but now she’s glad he’s such a persnickety prick about scheduling. “I had a lot of fun with it,” he admits, shrugging his shoulders. “The original script notes said to get, y’know, sort of silly with it, but I wasn’t a big fan of that angle for a character like her. Yeah, I wanted to be campy, but not in the way…” He purses his lips. “Okay, well, Nate probably knows this, but a lot of classical ballets that have a female villains do this thing with them that I hate.” He frowns deeply, patting at Tina’s chin with gentle ferocity. “ An evil female character is supposed to be sort of… sort of a cautionary tale, I guess? Like your typical bitter spinster crone, the old hag, or the wicked stepsisters, things like that. So they’ll specifically cast a male dancer and put them in bright, gaudy facepaint and garish costumes that are supposed to be cartoonish and ugly, that you're supposed to find funny, to show you that this character is bad because she’s indelicate and mannish, and that’s why she’s evil.”

His mouth twists around the words, and he looks up, back at the vampires, leaving Tina a moment to really appreciate that Arlo’s comfortable enough with them to do what he’s only ever really done with her—which is ramble about something he’s passionate about. It’s always fun to watch. He turns back to her, and she just wishes his hands weren’t occupied, because he’s a big hand-talker otherwise. “I got the role because the professor thought it would be funny to stick me in a role like that, being so tall and, y’know,” he gestures vaguely to his faded old band tee and dark jeans, the thick leather cuff around his wrist. Tina doesn’t see what he really means, seeing as he looks cozy and content right now, but she gets what he’s going for. “He was expecting me to be awkward about it. The big, tough guy doing drag as the creepy crone caricature.” He huffs. “I talked with Demi about it, and we decided to say fuck that.” He sits up straighter, tilts up his chin, and looks down his nose at Tina.

She peers up at him, wide-eyed, and suddenly wonders if this is how Demi felt, playing Aurora when Carabosse looked down her nose at her like an insect under her heel.

“I thought Carabosse deserved better,” Arlo says fiercely. “If I was going to be a villain, I was going to be a damned good villain. I was going to tower over all the delicate, dainty little princesses and fairies, and I was going to be fierce. Professor Dacey wanted Aurora, and Candide, and Florine to be the epitome of sweet, delicate femininity, the ideal damsel in any classical show. Carabosse is supposed to be the complete opposite. You’re supposed to root against her, not want to be her. She’s a threat to the idea of womanhood, of the ideal feminine. She’s bold and selfish and she takes what she wants. I leaned into that. I even danced en pointe for parts of it, even though Carabosse isn't supposed to, and between the rehearsals and the actual performance, I thought my feet were gonna fall off, but it was worth it.”

Arlo smiles, and Tina is thrilled by the wickedness of it. She thinks she even sees just a hint of fang. Arlo’s been so careful about showing his teeth, ever since he told her what happened to him, why he disappeared for so long, so it's somehow special for him to feel like he can show her even a hint of what he’s become.

“Professor Dacey was pissed, afterwards, of course,” Arlo laughs, but there’s an edge to it. He seems to shrink. From Arlo to Carabosse to Arlo again. He looks down at his hands as they work on Tina more than at her face. “He didn’t, y’know, say anything he could have gotten fired over, but he did rail about being left out of planning and the budget and all that rot. Got even madder when Demi pointed out we’d spent our own money on the costumes. I think if he was tall enough to look down on me, he would have.” He snorts, a bitter curl to his mouth. Tina thinks of it painted bold, dark purple, thinks of how it would look with those teeth behind it. She wonders if he’d let her do his makeup for the festival. She’s not nearly as good at details as he is, but she’s no slouch either.

“You should have let me put raw fish in his hubcaps,” Tina mutters, just to make Arlo laugh. It works, and she beams at him.

“Would have been a waste of fish,” he mumbles, sucking his teeth. He finally picks up a bright eyeshadow palette and starts waffling over colors. He’s quiet while he deliberates, but after a while, he sighs. “I liked being Carabosse,” he says, like it’s a secret. Like he’s trying very hard not to be ashamed.

“I wish I could have seen it,” Adam says, almost dreamily. Tina could scream. “I— We could have, I mean. All of us. In solidarity.”

“Smooth,” Felix whispers.

“I’m sure it was a phenomenal performance,” Nate adds helpfully. He’s taken the album from Felix to flip through to some of Arlo’s other shows. “The passion you have for your characters shines through in just photos. It’s quite impressive.”

“You should have gone pro,” Tina mutters. “You’d be a household name by now.”

Arlo snorts and bops her with the brush. How many bops is that now? She’s certainly on a roll today. “And who’d keep you in line back here?” he teases.

Tina squints up at him and sticks out her tongue. “Like you’ve ever even tried to keep me in line, you big softie. You love the chaos, just admit it.”

“I’ll admit you to the hospital when you do something stupid and get yourself hurt again, how about that?”

They bicker like children back and forth while Arlo finishes her makeup, a wash of pink, purple, and blue eyeshadow and matching lipstick, overlaid with a lustrous sparkle to her cheekbones and a cute little black heart-shaped beauty mark under one eye. Felix gets a bi flag heart to match her eyeshadow around one eye, and then the rest is a sort of confetti splash of sparkly stars and hearts in every color. Even Nate goes for the bi eyeshadow (Bi-shadow? She should have been saying that this whole time!), making him, Tina, and Felix a matching set, and Mason consents to a very simple pan flag on his cheek. Tina suspects Adam only allows the eyeshadow treatment so he can have Arlo cup his face all tenderly, but she keeps the thought (mostly) to herself. He looks good in pastels, she thinks when she sees the finished blue, pink, and white.

Arlo draws a little heart under his eye too. The heart in Tina's chest almost explodes with warmth.

And then Arlo disappears into the bathroom, leaving the rest of them to entertain themselves while he gets ready on his own. They go through the album some more, and Tina tells them all about her favorite shows, because she went to every single one she could manage, and got Arlo’s school friends to send her videos of the ones she couldn’t. Tina Poname is Arlo Priestley’s number one fan, and that will never change. Not even now that she's got some competition.

When Arlo comes out of the bathroom, they all look up in sync, and he stands there, shifting anxiously from foot to foot under the attention, and lifts his hands in a stilted shrug. “So?” he asks, smiling nervously. He’s changed clothes, too. Tight pants, big boots, a mesh-sleeved black shirt underneath his patch-and-pin-covered denim vest. His wrists jingle with chunky bracelets, and his hair is braided neatly over one shoulder. But his makeup is what really steals the show. That insanely sharp cat-eye, of course, but one eye is done up in blue, pink, and white, and the other in yellow, white, purple, and black. He smiles timidly. “I, uh, I couldn’t really decide on just one,” he says, sticking his gloved hands into the pockets of his vest. “I’m, um, I’m not sure which one’s really right for me yet, I guess?” He shrugs again, and Tina watches delightedly as Adam stands up slowly, his eyes on Arlo with such an awed intensity she wonders if he even remembers there’s other people in the room. Arlo keeps babbling as he approaches, the words tumbling nervously from his black-painted lips. “I sort of like matching with you, Adam, and I know they’re both fine, but I—”

Adam grabs him by the lapels of his jacket, yanks him down to his level, and silences him with a kiss. Tina throws her arms up in the air with an impulsive shriek of “WOO!” that Felix echoes even louder. They high-five over Mason’s head, and he looks like he wants to throw them both out the window. Nate sits by with a pleasant little smile, which only fades when he takes note of the clock.

Adam and Arlo are still kissing, Arlo’s hands cupped around the vampire’s cheeks and Adam clinging to his vest like he'll drown if he lets go. Tina thinks she might see a hint of tongue when Nate loudly clears his throat.

They break apart with an indecent smacking noise, and Tina yelps out a sharp laugh when she sees Arlo’s black lipstick smeared all around Adam’s mouth.

Nate crosses his arms and smiles dryly at them. “Why don’t you two go fix your faces,” he suggests. “The rest of us will make sure the car is packed for the festival.”

“Um, yes. You— We—” Arlo fumbles for a bit, touching his smeared lips, his eyes just a bit dazed. He and Adam look at each other, and then flee for the bathroom together.

Tina’s never been more excited for a festival in her life.

#the wayhaven chronicles #wayhavensummer #pride in wayhaven #tina poname #adam du mortain #a du mortain #felix hauville #f hauville #specialist agent mason #specialist agent m #nate sewell #n sewell #oc: arlo priestley #pidge writes #HELLO I AM FINISHING THIS AT 3:30 AM #I HAVE MY FIRST DAY OF MY NEW JOB TOMORROW #WISH ME LUCK #this turned out WAY longer than i meant it to but god was it fun #i hope you guys like it as much as i liked writing it #arlo playin w gender expression via ballet is my everything #the costume designs for carabosse can be SO GOOD #but some of them are SO BAD #ballet is like that #its very uuuuh traditional wrt its aesthetics and gender roles #and arlo and his friends were all like 'but what if not'#anyway title is v last minute bc *shrug*#tina gets to be the lilac fairy #i did so much reserach into this ballet y'all #the only thing i didnt do was watch the whole thing #tho i DID find it on yt so i could later....

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quazartranslates · 4 years

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Welcome to the Nightmare Game - CH121

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

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Chapter 121: The Dream of the Holy Nun (XI)

{cw: brief transmisogyny}

On this night, Qi Leren still dreamed, but it was a rare dream that wasn’t a nightmare. No, in a sense, it was a nightmare. The dream was like a movie that was played automatically. It began where he and Dr. Lu had entered the Novice Village, and then Su He appeared. They finished their mission and came to the Village of Dusk, then there was the Witchcraft Sacrifice, and then it jumped to the Castle. In his dream, he experienced the battle where he had defeated the crazy lady in the basement. When he tried to open the drawer with the laptop computer again, his dream came to an abrupt end.

Qi Leren, who had woken up in the middle of the night, was still in a daze. He turned over and went back to sleep. Then he dreamed of Ning Zhou in the Witchcraft Sacrifice. At that time, he still had a woman's appearance. They had intimate contact in the deserted underground cave and explored each other's bodies unscrupulously until…

In his dream, he felt something that shouldn't appear on a woman.

Qi Leren rolled up and sat on the bed in cold sweat. It was already bright out, and his biological clock rarely went on strike. Just as he groped for the watch on the pillow, he saw Ning Zhou sitting on the sofa by the window polishing his double knives.

Qi Leren got a kick and immediately woke up: "Morning... Morning."

Ning Zhou's line of sight paused for a second on his open T-shirt collar, then paused for a second on his sleepy face, nodded lightly, and moved away.

Qi Leren had encountered a little trouble. A normal male would encounter morning trouble beginning in puberty. Now he had two choices: just sit on the bed and wait until it goes away, or go to the bathroom to solve it by himself.

Considering that less than five meters away, there was his (incorrectly gendered) sex dream object, and the other party was wiping the blade with a cold face while his talking eagle stood on the back of the sofa watching him, his brain felt like it was overheating. Qi Leren felt that no matter which one he chose, he was a little ashamed. Now he could only pray that he hadn't made any wrong sounds when he’d been dreaming just now.

Because he was too nervous, he even thought about it. How would Ning Zhou solve this kind of trouble? He vaguely remembered that some religious doctrines not only prohibited premarital sex but even prohibited self-comfort, which was inhumane in multiple ways.

Just as his thoughts were spinning out of control, Ning Zhou suddenly put away his double knives and inserted them back into the sheaths on the outside of his thighs: "I'll get breakfast."

"Oh, good, good." Qi Leren breathed a sigh of relief and watched Ning Zhou leave the room with his black bird.

The trouble was solved. After breakfast, the four people got together again, studied the map of the Holy City Qi Leren had bought from Chen Baiqi, and discussed their actions for the next few days. Finally, they decided to take a general walk around the city now, and then go to investigate the old site of the Holy See.

The Holy City was still the Holy City. It still looked lively after being closed for more than 20 years. However, in some corners signs of the city’s decline could already be seen. Many houses had been abandoned except for those along main roads. It was said that after the demon invasion and the disaster of the new moon, the existing population of the Holy City was less than 10,000.

The streets were full of middle-aged men and women and some white-haired old people, but young men and women were rarely seen, especially children. The four people wandered around to inquire about the Holy City, and then set off to the former site of the Vatican.

"What did the Lord say yesterday? The vicinity of the Vatican was closed by a mysterious force and cannot be entered?" Dr. Lu asked, recalling the information he’d found in the castle yesterday.

Qi Leren responded, "That's what the passer-by said just now. They wanted to seek asylum from the Holy See, but they couldn't get in at all. The Lord's wife is a very devout believer and often prays near the Vatican, but she can't walk into it."

"Let’s go there and see," Su He said.

The former site of Holy City's Vatican was located on a hill on the north side of the city. The white stone buildings built around the mountain were still holy, but felt as if they were in a pool of stagnant water.

"This is a bit like a saint’s sanctuary," Dr. Lu sighed when he stood at the foot of the mountain and looked up.

By what he said, Qi Leren also felt a little similar.

Looking up, the verdant mountain forest was covered with a long ladder composed of white stone steps, extending upwards along the winding mountain road. There were many religious buildings along the way. Green and white constituted the most basic colours of this sanctuary, which shone under the blue sky and white clouds. The church at the top of the mountain seemed to have experienced a war. Half of the buildings had collapsed, but even if only the broken wall remained, it still looked holy and magnificent and fascinating.

In the past, was this the holy land in the eyes of believers?

"Sure enough, it’s closed." Su He stood on the steps and held out his hand, and his palm seemed to touch some strange barrier, ripples spreading from the position of his palm, filled with ominous black.

"The power of the Devil," Ning Zhou said with certainty as he also stepped forward.

"It is the power of the Devil. It seems that they closed the Vatican..." Su He thought for a moment and continued, "The Devil who led the demons to invade the human world for the first time in historical legends should be sealed here."

Dr. Lu's expression was distorted and he asked painfully, "We won't let it out by accident, will we?"

Su He smiled: "It shouldn’t be, because it’s said that the Devils’ inheritance is different from that of human beings. If the old Devil does not die, the new Devil will not be crowned and recognized by the Devils. By now the new Devil has been born. I’m afraid that the old Devil is really dead."

"You mean the three Devils of Power, Slaughter, and Fraud?" Qi Leren remembered that Su He once gave them a basic rundown. "But can three Devil Kings be produced at the same time?"

"This... I don't know." Su He smiled helplessly.

Unable to enter the Vatican, the four people searched near the foot of the mountain and found a cemetery surrounded by flowers and green trees beside a stone stairway.

"The Garden of the Holy Tomb," Qi Leren stood at the entrance of the cemetery and read the inscription.

It was said to be a cemetery, but the Garden of the Holy Tomb was full of flowers, and these beautiful flowers bloomed luxuriantly even now when no one cared for them. If it wasn’t for the few scattered tombstones interspersed among the flowers, people who come here would hardly feel that it was a cemetery.

"I'm starving. Let’s take a rest and investigate the clues in the afternoon." Dr. Lu's stomach had been growling.

"Yes, I'm hungry, too." Qi Leren hadn’t eaten much for breakfast and now he was hungry after running around all morning. Although this was a cemetery, the scenery was good, and four people decided to have a rest here.

Lunch had been prepared by the maid in the Lord's castle. The maid in her forties carefully packed bread and wine in a big basket with jam and bacon, which tasted much better than their own dry food. Spreading out the tablecloth like a basket, the four people sat on the lawn and enjoyed lunch in the sunshine.

After coming to the Nightmare World, Qi Leren hadn't been so relaxed in a long time. He’d left the depressing mechanical city of the Village of Dusk with its sun that never fell. The sunshine and air here and now made him relaxed and happy. Ning Zhou's eagle also liked this environment very much. It got out of its pet bag, grabbed a large piece of bacon, and flew off on its wings. Even its shadow had left.

After being satiated with food and drink, Qi Leren circled the Garden of the Holy Tomb. In the corner of the garden there was a huge tree stump, which should be the remains of a huge tree that had been struck down in a thunderstorm after its interior had decayed. The trunk laying more than a meter away on the ground had fallen down and become a piece of lifeless deadwood on the grass. Even so, the broken trunk with a diameter of two meters was higher than Qi Leren standing in front of it.

The stump left by it had been hollowed out, but it was interesting that green grass had grown out of the hollowed-out wooden stump, making the space in the stump look like a natural open bed.

In this season, the flowers were in full bloom and the surrounding treetops were full of flowers, mostly blue and white. When a gust of wind blew the petals fell down in a swirl, and fell into the hollow stump, covering the grass inside the stump, which looked soft and comfortable.

Qi Leren, who was a little sleepy after eating and drinking, simply stepped on the roots above the ground and climbed into the stump. He was covered with fresh grass and fallen flowers that distributed their fragrance, and sighed contentedly.

The stump of this huge wooden tree that had been broken off became a small bed for his nap, with just enough room for a person to sleep. Lying in it, Qi Leren closed his eyes and let the sun fall on him, making him blush, and his whole body was filled with sunshine and warmth.

In the quiet Garden of the Holy Tomb, Qi Leren could still vaguely hear the voices of Dr. Lu and Su He, but their voices were pushed farther and farther by sleepiness, and he fell asleep.

"Why are there roses carved on this tombstone?" Dr. Lu asked, pointing to a tombstone.

After carefully studying the tombstone, Su He said: "The key should not be roses, but the number. There are just seven roses, which means 'I love you' here. This should be a tombstone for someone’s lover."

Dr. Lu hit his right hand with his left hand: "Yes, I remember you told me and Leren in the Castle task."

The conversation between the two attracted Ning Zhou's attention. He also saw the tombstone with the name and life of a Holy See believer. Her name was Susan, a devout believer who had disappeared on the night of the new moon. Her husband held a funeral for her, praying that her soul could be saved by God. The lifelike rose relief on the tombstone was painted white.

"White roses are pure love," Ning Zhou said. Maria had loved white roses, so he remembered.

He still remembered that Maria told him about the Garden of the Holy Tomb outside the Holy City’s Vatican. When she was a girl, she had planted many roses here which were colorful, but she loved white best. There was a towering tree in the corner of the Garden of the Holy Tomb where she had hung a swing and played alone in the evening wind. It was an innocent and carefree time.

More than 20 years had passed and the roses planted by Maria had survived tenaciously, growing in the corners of the Garden of the Holy Tomb, and the tree that she had hung from the swing on…

"Hey, where’s Qi Leren?" Dr. Lu asked curiously.

"He seems to have wandered over there." Su He pointed to the corner of the garden.

Ning Zhou strode past and he found Qi Leren in the corner of the garden. He was lying in the hollow stump, sleeping amongst grass and petals, and taking a nap in the warm afternoon sun. A naughty petal rolled down his hair along the wind and ran to his face, getting stuck in his eyelashes. He seemed to feel itchy, and his wrinkled nose scrunched. The breeze saved the petal from his eyelashes. It bounced and landed between his lips. The blue and white petal looked more bright outlined by his red lips. Ning Zhou stared at it for a long time…

"Qi Leren - where did you go?"

Dr. Lu's cry came from a distance and Qi Leren, who was sleeping soundly, woke up with a start, suddenly opened his eyes, and it seemed that something was blocking the sunshine... He lied in the petals and looked up and his eyes fell on a piece of blue, which was bluer than the sky. It was clear and pure, hitting his heart. For a moment he didn't realize it wasn’t the sky, but Ning Zhou standing by the tree. He looked at him quietly, still so cold, as if the gentle blue he saw just now was the illusion that he had not yet woken up from.

"I fell asleep?" Qi Leren opened his mouth, and the petal falling between his lips was eaten by him. He quickly sat up and looked in all directions to find the source of the sound just now.

Dr. Lu trotted to him and exclaimed in amazement: "This bed looks so comfortable, it’s still all natural and pure, you really know where to find a place."

Qi Leren jumped out of the stump and patted the petals and grass clippings on his clothes. "Do you want to lie down for a while?"

Dr. Lu looked at the stump for a while and gave up: "Forget it, let's eat small cakes. I brought them from the Village of Dusk. They’re delicious."

Qi Leren took a reluctant look at the comfortable tree bed and finally followed Dr. Lu to the picnic place. Su He sat on the grass casually, smiled, and raised the goblet filled with wine to greet them. As they walked along, Qi Leren looked back. Ning Zhou stood by the stump and looked at him silently.

He hadn’t thought he'd look back. A little surprise appeared in his blue eyes, and there was some hidden emotion that was too late to be restrained. He restrained it implicitly, almost to self-abuse, quiet and always too easy to miss. There were too many details in a single moment, so people who couldn’t understand ignore them completely. In the warm sunshine in the afternoon, Qi Leren smiled,raised his hand, and waved to Ning Zhou: "Come with us!"

So he hesitated for just a moment, then walked straight and firmly towards him.

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#Welcome to the Nightmare Game #欢迎来到噩梦游戏 #danmei

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izanyas · 8 years

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Made A Fool Out Of Us

The trans woman Izaya romcom fic, aka my thinly veiled reverse harem fic in which Izaya is the distraught heroine. Rated: T, warnings: mostly implied transmisogyny.

Made A Fool Out Of Us

"I think we should stop seeing each other," Shizuo grumbles. He's halfway into a cigarette and speaking through his teeth, something he knows grinds through Izaya's head like nails on a blackboard. It doesn't stop the words from being heard by her. "For now."

"Is that all?" Izaya replies.

She's leaning against the wall, one foot pressed flat against it and pushing herself away and back rhythmically. Shizuo's leaning against the wall too, but his is a heavy, tired lean, and he's bathed in sunlight right out on the street. Izaya is inside the alley, on a different wall. In the building's shadow.

It's a little fitting.

Shizuo drags himself upright. He drops the cigarette and chokes the ember out with the sole of his shoe. When he turns toward Izaya again the stub left behind is almost reduced to dust.

"I'll see you around," he says without looking at her.

Izaya pushes herself off the wall and steps into the light, close enough to him that their chests are almost touching. She pats his breast pocket in a show of affection and fishes the lighter out while he's busy looking anywhere but her mouth. "See you around, Shizu-chan," she murmurs.

The lighter is still skin-warm, hidden inside her sleeve.

The parade of confused questions starts with Celty only a few hours later. Izaya was expecting to be left to stew for the rest of the day at least, but Celty's not nearly as kind as she pretends to be, and Izaya has her doubts that behind the Dullahan's well-meaning texts is a wall of suspicion.

He has his reasons, she sends off while her last client of the day is talking. And whatever I feel on the topic is none of your business.

I just don't understand why he would break up with you unless something happened, Celty replies only a few seconds later.

Izaya snorts softly. What she means is that she doesn't understand why Shizuo would leave Izaya unless Izaya did something to him.

Well, she isn't getting an answer.

Izaya starts feeling Namie's eyes burn through the skin of her nape a few minutes later, so the rumors must already have spread online. The young entrepreneur Izaya is seeing is sweating heavily on his side of the leather couch—when the sun is this high up her living-room is like an oven unless she turns on the AC. She doesn't. People are more eager to please her with the promise of escaping the heat.

She shifts her legs and feels a drop of sweat run down her calf from the crease of her knee. Behind her, Namie sighs in displeasure. She's given up on decency and is only wearing one of Izaya's T-shirts, and judging by the awkward way she moves—how close she keeps her arms to her sides—Izaya guesses that her deodorant isn't working too well anymore.

It's not any worse that Izaya's own state at the moment. It's always soothing to think of Namie crawling around feeling nothing but discomfort and irritation, though.

The man accepts the tea Namie brings but doesn't touch it. It would help with the thirst and the sweating, Izaya thinks while sipping hers, but it's not like the man has proved to be especially smart since he got here. His father's moderately wealthy business is falling apart under his less-than-stellar jurisdiction. He's got just enough money left to buy information on his rivals from Izaya. The suit he's wearing is old and his shoes don't shine so much anymore.

Izaya has already given away all she has on him to his rivals for half the price she's making this man pay, but she is in a bad mood.

"So?" Namie says before the door has even closed behind Fujimoto. Izaya pushes the lock in, straining her wrists slightly. The sound it makes is ominous.

"So what?" she replies, making a line for the kitchen instead of the living-room.

The vent on the ceiling starts turning while she's fishing iced tea out of the refrigerator. She hears Namie's heels hit the floor on her way to the hallway and crouches to open the cupboard under the sink so she doesn't have to see her.

"Heiwajima," Namie spits out. "Is it true?"

"Shizu-chan and I aren't together anymore," Izaya says.

Namie sputters a little indignantly. She probably snapped to whoever fed her the information that it couldn't be true, with flowering expletives to boot. It makes Izaya smile fleetingly.

"You broke up with him?" Namie walks forward and stops short of actually pulling Izaya up by the arm—probably out of disgust for human contact in general and human contact with Izaya especially.

Izaya stands up slowly. Her knees crack at the movement. "He broke up with me."

"That's impossible," Namie scoffs.

"And yet,"—Izaya slams the cupboard's door shut with her bare foot—"he did."

Namie's face is every shade of indignation when Izaya turns toward her. It makes her laughter get stuck in her throat and the muscles in her back spasm a little uncontrollably; the back of her dress is sticky against her skin and with the AC on she can tell that her nape is wet with the heat, her hair damp despite the high bun she's tied it as in the morning. Namie looks halfway between incredulity and rage, and though Izaya knows there's not a hint of anger in it that is on Izaya's behalf or in her defense, she still thinks Namie is somehow angrier that Shizuo broke up with her than she would've been the other way around.

Izaya pats her shoulder briefly when she exits the room. Mirth is still shining inside her like a beacon, which is better than the alternative.

As she expected, her inbox is full when she sits down at her desk. Only Celty has texted her so far but she doesn't doubt that her sisters will chime in soon enough, as well as a few other people she has a feeling were waiting for this opportunity. For better or worse.

As if to prove her right, Kida Masaomi calls her. Izaya watches her phone buzz frantically with her lips stretched into a tight smile. Once Masaomi is done talking to her voicemail, she deletes his message.

"You can't avoid the entire world," Namie says warningly from her desk.

"You can stop talking now," Izaya replies, "or I can just not pay you for today's work."

Namie stops talking.

It's not long before Izaya has to cut off her phone entirely. Half of the notifications she's glimpsed are death threats and the other are gossip bait, and though the latter sound even more annoying than the first she doesn't intend to have anything to do with either.

She's grateful enough as it is that no one has knocked on her door who wasn't scheduled to. If possible she would've preferred Shizuo did what he did late in the night than right before his morning shift, or that he had waited the whole day before texting Celty that he was done with Izaya—and that Celty had waited before talking about it online and igniting the spark that would turn to wildfire.

"I'm going out," Izaya announces.

"You'll get killed," Namie replies.

Izaya chuckles. "Don't worry. I can defend myself."

"I'm not worried—" But Izaya is on her way upstairs now, taking the steps two by two until she reaches the bathroom. "I'm not worried!" Namie yells in the distance. "I wish you would die—"

Izaya shuts the door behind herself.

Outside is warm but not suffocating. The second half of April has been clement to them all, days upon days of sun and dry, warm wind, the kind of weather that has entire families in parks sitting on the grass for no other reason than to feel the light on their skin. Children laughing and dogs barking and the mill of the city's life slowed down to a more languid pace. Izaya's stroll ends up taking her to Ikebukuro rather than her immediate neighborhood like she had vaguely planned to. She's not too surprised about it, though. No better way to find out how everyone is taking the news, exactly.

She's dressed as inconspicuously as she can stand to be, dark jeans and a dark shirt and only the faintest hint of platinum on her fingers and around her neck. Her engagement ring is in her pocket. Simon still waves at her before she's in his direct line of sight, and she sighs with some relief before gesturing back.

She doesn't jump when someone slaps her shoulder firmly, but it's a close thing. "Hey," Kadota says, stepping up to her level and staring at the side of her face.

"Hey," Izaya replies without turning to look at him.

"Great weather, huh?"

She doesn't answer. Someone growls at them from behind, telling them to move, so Izaya steps aside and lets the woman walk between herself and Kadota with the vague hope that she'll be able to lose him for the second she needs to escape. Kadota follows her step for step, though, because he hasn't lost all the reflexes he grew around her and Shizuo in high school. In the end, they both end up stuck to the devanture of a crappy jewelry shop with no one around for Izaya to use as a distraction.

"You okay?" Kadota asks with his darkest, deepest voice. She knows he means concern, but he's always been a bit of a awkward boy, so all it sounds like is gravelly boredom.

"I'm just fine, Dotachin."

"Don't call me that." And, God, he's turning to face her outright now, and extending his hands to grab her shoulders gently in reassurance. "Listen, I know we're not exactly the closest friends, but—"

"Kadota," Izaya says coldly.

He releases her.

She makes herself smile, and she knows the result isn't sweet so much as concerning. "Shizu-chan is a big boy. I'm a big girl. I'll be okay."

"But you've always—"

"What do you want me to do?" she cuts in. "Force him to take me back?"

He's silent for a moment before answering. When he does, it's a little miserable. "No. Of course not."

She doesn't see his group anywhere nearby. It could be that he asked them to stand back, but Izaya doesn't think Karisawa or her friend have it in them not to pick at every scab that involves Izaya or Shizuo in any fashion. It's almost obsessive, sometimes, and not anywhere near the flattering way.

Izaya's long given up on thinking any kind of excess attention given to her can be flattering. It makes life easier to navigate when she expects people's obsession before it happens.

Shizuo has always been the exception to that rule.

Kadota is still looking at the side of her face like he's hoping enough of his surface caring is going to fix the situation. Izaya knows herself enough to admit that she would've grasped at the show of it with abandon had she been truly hurting; she's not hurting, though.

She's in the process of turning away from her former classmate when she notices the knife that the man behind Kadota is holding, and her own falls into her hand with a flick of her wrist. "Dotachin," she barks, but it's useless, because he's not attuned to her like Shizuo is, no one is, so all he does is look at her in surprise and not dodge.

She swears under her breath and slams her own body into his until he topples sideways. They both start falling, and her assailant's knife grazes her elbow in the process, cutting through cloth but thankfully not skin. She has enough of a clear mind to trip him on his way, and though she crashes across Kadota uncomfortably at least she has the comfort of hearing him crash, much more painfully, into the glass window of the jewelry shop.

Kadota takes a second longer to understand what happened. "Hey," he shouts at the man currently holding his head with both hands where he bashed it against the window. It's bleeding between his fingers, and his knife is on the ground.

He seems to come to his senses before Kadota can untangle himself from Izaya and rise up to his feet. He takes in the knife still held firm in Izaya's hand and the fist Kadota is making of is—the hat Kadota is wearing which paints him as the appearance of the Dollars, dangerous too, if not as dangerous as if he had come while Izaya was under Shizuo's protection. He lets out a strangled cry of frustration and flees into the crowd.

"Damn it," Kadota hisses. He's patting the back of his head with careful fingers. They're free of blood when he brings them up to his face, which makes him sigh.

Izaya slides the knife back into its holster at her forearm. "Thanks for breaking my fall," she says with a smile.

"Yeah, yeah, don't mention it."

They look at each other in silence. Kadota still looks like he's got some worry to share, but he must see for himself how little Izaya wants to hear it.

"I was gonna tell you to be careful, but…" he admits.

"I'm used to it," Izaya replies. "I don't need protection."

His face says he doesn't believe her, but that's okay. It's a little touching, in a way, to be on the receiving end of Kadota's chivalry. She's never witnessed it from this end before.

Kadota tugs his beanie over his forehead and says, "Take care."

"You too, Dotachin."

She watches him go until she can't anymore, until he's been swallowed by the veins of the city. Simon has relocated from this square to another, but she can still hear his booming voice if she focuses, and she doesn't want to be on the receiving end of this concern. No matter how nice the free sushi would be.

Izaya makes her way forward to the heart of the district, hoping she won't be noticed and hoping she will be, and if she smiles at the sight of a fist imprint into the hood of a car only one street away from where she and Kadota got attacked, it's nothing but the usual.

The following day, someone does knock at Izaya's door who wasn't scheduled to. She knows who it is before opening it because she can see the swarm of reporters and the flashes of cameras from her windows, and because Hanejima Yuuhei's agent was kind enough to warn her five minutes before the man himself got here.

"This is a bit much," she declares after two seconds of looking into Kasuka's empty eyes. He's got his cat over his shoulder like it's just another expensive accessory.

The cat meows at her.

"It would mean a lot to me if you would hear me out." There is not a trace of emotion in the man's voice when he speaks.

Izaya looks at the ceiling, because it's better than rolling her eyes outright. "Come in."

Namie doesn't care enough about fame to be fazed. She's strolling around Izaya's apartment wearing the same jeans and tank top she was the day before, despite Izaya's not-very-subtle offers to let her inside her closet once more. Izaya is wearing a green sundress for the work appointment she has scheduled.

"You look lovely," Kasuka says, monotone.

"Thank you," Izaya replies in kind.

Namie brings their tea with a snarl on her lips. It's iced this time, and the AC is on. Kasuka's cat jumps down from its master's lap and takes to sniffing around the coffee table like the thing is about to hurt him.

"What can I do for you?" Izaya asks. She folds her legs under herself on the couch and drinks her tea out of a straw. It's not like Kasuka is going to care how she presents herself.

"I am sorry for what my brother did," Kasuka answers.

In all twenty-five years of her existence, Izaya has yet to discover anything that unnerves her more than the way Shizuo's little brother speaks. Kururi may be monotonous but she has the advantage of speaking soft and heartfelt; Kasuka's voice sounds like all ability to feel has been physically ripped out of him. He could be telling her about the weather in this tone, or he could be holding a knife to her throat and threatening to cut her limbs off one by one.

She doesn't think he's the kind to do it. But then again, he's dating a monster who has done it before.

Izaya puts her glass down on the table between them. "Your brother hasn't done anything wrong."

"Then you must have," Kasuka says simply.

It gets a chuckle out of her. "Yes," she repeats easily. "Surely, I must have."

"Either way," Kasuka continues, even. "I came here to ask you to take him back."

"No."

"Please." His tone doesn't change when he slides down from the couch and falls into a kneeing position on her carpet.

Namie gasps softly, and Izaya feels a rush of something electric up her spine and into her head, until her face feels warm and the room around her is blurry. "Stop," she says before he can achieve a full dogeza. "Stop right this second, you freak—"

"I'm ready to beg," Kasuka offers, as if it's as simple as that. "I don't mind."

Izaya bites the inside of her lips until she can taste heat and iron. "Get up," she growls.

Kasuka obeys.

She breathes in shakily while he sits on her couch once more. When she reaches for her drink her hand is trembling, and she knows her face is still warm. "I'm not taking Shizuo back," she says when she's about sure that her voice won't crack.

"Please consider it," Kasuka insists, bowing his head.

"Why do you care?" Izaya asks. She takes a sip of cold tea before the speaks again—her throat feels sore. "You never thought me dating him was a good idea. Even after your mom and dad came around and started inviting me for dinner."

Kasuka is looking at her, and she thinks what he means to convey is disbelief. "You're engaged to him."

"Was engaged to him," she corrects him.

He doesn't quite make a face. "I don't believe that my brother would just suddenly break up with the love of his life."

It's always something to be referred to as such. Now is not as powerful as when Shizuo says it, but Kasuka makes a pretty strong second. Izaya feels her heart climb up her throat and her eyes water too easily, like they have every time.

"You've been his only long-lasting girlfriend," Kasuka says dispassionately.

"I've been his only girlfriend," Izaya retorts in a low voice. "Don't you think he deserves the right to experience more than just me before settling down?"

Kasuka stares at her. "Is that what he told you?" he asks.

Shizuo didn't tell her anything. It's only fitting that she let the suspicion of his being a complete jerk bloom inside his brother's head. "That's none of your business," she answers.

Kasuka's cat rubs its face against her bare leg. She ignores it until it start licking her, by which point she decides that she really doesn't want to risk it planting its tiny claws into the fine leather of her furniture, and she pushes it away with her foot gently. It meows but walks off.

"He's not going to bite you," Kasuka comments offhandedly.

"Rather my leg than my couch," she retorts.

Kasuka finishes his tea slowly and silently. From the corner of her eyes Izaya can see Namie staying clear of the windows, which means that the crowd he brought with him is still standing firm at the foot of the building, cameras probably raised to the air in hope of catching a glance of Hanejima Yuuhei's mysterious host. Izaya can't think that Namie would enjoy seeing a blurred picture of herself printed onto every local tabloid with the headline, Yuuhei's Mistress?

"I think it's time you left," Izana says with finality. She turns her head to look at Kasuka again; the cat is rubbing against his leg now, claws digging into the soft of her carpet, purring. "Your monster girlfriend is probably wondering why you jumped at the occasion to come see me upon learning I was single."

"Ruri trusts me," Kasuka replies. "If I were having an affair I wouldn't lie to her about it."

"Or she'd kill you?" Izaya mocks.

All Kasuka does is bow his head in acquiescence. Izaya walks him to the door and runs her fingers between the roots of her hair and the elastic band holding it together. She tugs at it harshly despite the pain, until all of it falls free down her back. Her scalp tingles from being released of tension. Her hair is going to get annoying again in a few minutes when she's hunched over her desk and trying to work, but for now, it feels better that way.

Kasuka opens the door to the hallway. He bows down to pluck his cat from the ground before the thing can run off toward the stairs or the elevator, and it gives another pitiful cry, struggling weakly for a few seconds before letting its master hold it close.

It's a familiar sight and a familiar feeling, she thinks, bitter.

"Have a good day," Kasuka tells her.

She smiles. "Get lost," she replies.

Izaya went to her graduation ceremony with two uniforms on. Her skirt was tucked into her black pants and her blouse hidden under the red sweater and black jacket she had worn for three years. She sat amidst all the other kids getting their diplomas and flowers and having their pictures taken by eager parents or friends. Her parents weren't there, and she didn't have friends.

"Finish your studies before anything," her mother had said, brisk and cold like crisp spring wind.

It was in the same wind that Izaya stopped walking after the sitting-down-and-smiling was over. She hid behind the trees surrounding the tennis courts and dropped her pants and took off her shirt and jacket. She left the shirt and pants behind but she kept the jacket around her shoulders, above the red blouse she had bought for the occasion.

And then she ran to the entrance and waited, perched over one of the bench farthest away from the main gates, for Shizuo to walk by.

As she had hoped, he was one of the last to exist the gym. She hesitated when she saw Shinra and Kadota by his sides—and even more at the sight of the boy shadowing Kadota's steps, not completely alien to her but not someone she had actually talked to before.

By then it was too late. Shizuo turned his head as if led by scent alone, like an animal; he saw her sitting there, and she saw his face tense up in rage and disgust.

"Izaya," she heard him say, despite the distance, despite the cold, crisp spring breeze.

He hadn't called her by any other name in months, as if he had never known any other name to call her by. And as always, it made something trill inside her like a bird's song—or like the need to kick an anthill. Irresistible, dizzying, wonderful.

She jumped to her feet and wiped down the length of the skirt with damp hands. Shizuo was walking toward her in strides that Shinra, Kadota, and the Togusa boy were struggling to keep up with. A lot of it had to do with how much time they were losing staring at her outfit.

"Congratulations on graduating," she said when he was close enough for danger.

"Get away from my face," he snarled in answer.

"You're the one who came all the way here to—" she stopped talking to dodge the fist he threw her way. It was half-hearted at best, which made her chest feel warm. "I don't have anything nefarious planned," she tried again.

"You always have something planned," he retorted.

"Well. Yes. But not something detrimental to you, this time."

Everything was a matter of perspective, of course.

She knew Shizuo wouldn't hit her. He hadn't hit her in months. Not since she had told him what she had never told anyone except Shinra and her own parents.

Izaya grabbed the lapel of her jacket and popped the second button free with deft fingers; she spent a second longer tugging on the black threads hanging from the holes in it, and then she blew on it to eliminate dust she knew wasn't there—her eyes level with Shizuo's now-blushing face.

"Are you serious?" Kadota let out by Shizuo's side. Togusa elbowed him, not very subtly.

Izaya walked up to Shizuo's level. He watched her approach the way he would a feral animal, staring fixedly at the hand she kept in front of herself, as if he was waiting for her to pull a knife out of thin air and stab him.

"You know," Shinra said conversationally once she was standing right in front of Shizuo, "usually the boy is the one who—"

"Shut up, Shinra," Izaya said, at the same time as Shizuo said, "Shut it."

Shinra closed his mouth.

"No one's forcing you all to be here," Izaya continued. She raised both her hands to Shizuo's jacket and opened it slowly, and his face became redder, a bright, burned color. She wasn't sure hers was much better.

She slid the button into the breast pocket of his white uniform shirt; before she could take her hand back, Shizuo breathed in like a drowning man, and the full of his chest made contact with her palm warmly.

Shiki takes to gossip like a fish takes to water. He doesn't make time for it on the days he sees Izaya at the back of his car, because those days are when he just doesn't have the time, or the energy. But on the rarer days he likes to feed her while he negotiates with her, she knows she's in for more idle conversation than working one.

The idle conversation has never before strayed into personal territory. This time, it's what he opens the meeting with.

"There are rumors," he tells her before she's done sitting down, "that you and Heiwajima Shizuo are over."

"There always are," she replies.

He slides a magazine across the table so she can see the picture on the front of it—herself, and Kasuka, standing at the opening of her door. Half of her face is hidden by Kasuka's silhouette. The photograph tried to edit the picture to make it look not as if they're kissing, but as if the possibility of there having been a kiss is hovering close and heavy.

"I'm famous," Izaya smiles, opening the rag to the article in question. She scans it briefly for her name, but it's thankfully nowhere to be found. She'll have to find some blackmailing material on both the writer and the paparazzi for future reference, though.

"My more reliable sources saw you fall into that former gang boy's arms in the middle of the street," Shiki says against the rim of his glass of beer. "Reportedly."

"Must not be very reliable sources if they missed the guy who tried to stab me when that happened." Izaya folds the magazine and places it in her handbag, giving Shiki a curt nod as a thank you.

She can't tell whether the place he's taken her to is fancier than his usual addresses. On the one hand, the waiters are wearing shirts. On the other hand, Shiki looks like he hasn't shaved in two days and has something suspiciously like a blood stain on the sleeve of his jacket. She doesn't think he's noticed it.

"He broke up with me," she says, stirring the syrup and soda in her glass slowly. The glass was there before she arrived; Shiki knows what her order is.

When she looks at his face again, his expression is unreadable. "I'm sorry to hear it," he says, with all the appearance of polite sympathy.

Her pasta arrives before she can decide if he's lying or not. It's cooked and seasoned how she likes it best.

They discuss work over lunch. Shiki pushes a few more newspaper clippings and folders across the table for her to skim while they eat. It's a pleasant moment for the both of them, she thinks, and by the time dessert arrives and Shiki offers not to split the bill for once she doesn't think she is imagining the hopeful glint in his eyes.

Still, she doesn't say anything. Not when he pays for everything they ate out of his own pocket and not when he offers to give her a ride home. She takes a seat at the back of his car and doesn't look at the driver—who is looking at her—and Shiki stays silent the entire drive, until they exist Toshima and reach the heart of Shinjuku.

He turns toward her bodily, then, despite the cramped space of the car, and he asks: "I don't suppose I can hope for dinner as well?"

Izaya clenches the car's door until her knuckles turn white. "No," she replies.

He stares at her for a moment longer before bowing his head in acceptance. She releases the breath she was holding and opens the door—she is immediately hit by hot wind and the smell of flowers. From behind her, Shiki says: "Thank you."

"What for?" she mutters without looking at him.

"For not toying with me."

She clenches her teeth; tugs the collar of her jacket close around her throat as if she can prevent the cold there from taking over.

The walk up the stairs of her building is a longer one than usual. Her feet ache inside her flats the way they do on the rare occasion she wears heels. The last time she wore heels was for Christmas with Shizuo, when he proposed to her.

She opens the door to her apartment with panting breaths and shaking hands. It closes loudly behind, and she hears Namie tell her to watch it from the living room before she's even done throwing her keys into the clay pot Kururi made for her when she was six. It rests next to the scented plant her father gave her two years ago.

"You're dismissed," Izaya calls when she enters the open living space. For once she wishes the windows weren't quite so bright.

Namie has the gall to raise an eyebrow at her. "Did something—"

"I am," Izaya cuts in with a growl, "this close to firing you and leaving you for Nebula to collect. You really don't want to push me right now."

And maybe Namie is right to look this offended, she thinks blearily. Maybe she's right to open her mouth next and say, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're PMS-ing."

Izaya kicks a chair over in her direction. It lands on the floor with a loud crack despite the soft carpet covering polished wood, and it attempts a pathetic roll forward for lack of a surface to actually slide on. In the end it doesn't even approach Namie enough to frighten her.

"Sorry," Namie says evenly.

Izaya rubs a hand over her face, make-up be damned. "Me too."

She spends a very long time in the shower after that. She feels like she can't get warm no matter how high up she turns the water's temperature or how red her skin becomes under the spray. She washes her hair twice in the hope that time will do what the steam can't. It's useless—when she steps out she's shivering, and all that she's gained is weakness all through her body.

She falls on top of her bed wearing nothing but a towel. She gets rid of it when she gathers enough energy to crawl under the sheets proper, and they're unmade, still, because she hasn't actually slept in her bed much lately. Her couch is comfortable enough for one.

Face half-buried into her pillow, she reaches out to touch her bedside table blindly. She manages to open the first drawer without having to rise up from her horizontal position, and then it's easy enough to drag her fingers against the bottom of the drawer until her skin catches against cold metal.

She pulls the engagement ring out and brings it level to her face.

It's a very simple thing. Shizuo always joked that he would make her pay for the button thing one day, and he has—by buying her a platinum band with their names engraved inside, probably equivalent to more than Shizuo can afford with his farce of a salary. Even though they can't get married.

"Whenever we can," he had said.

As if it was that easy.

Izaya puts the ring on her finger, and then runs her hand over the empty space by her side where Shizuo hasn't slept in two weeks. The sheets are cold. She tugs her blanket tighter around herself and tries to find sleep through sheer strength of will.

May fourth falls on a Sunday. Izaya spends the morning watching TV with hot tea and crackers, dressed in one of Shizuo's shirts that he hasn't come by to fetch and a pair of shorts she fished out of the pile of clothes Mairu has someone deliver to her house every first Saturday of the month.

She doesn't usually get birthday calls until noon, and the people who only care enough to text often don't remember to do so until evening has come. She woke up to a happy twenty-sixth from Celty and proceeded to send back a somewhat sardonic confetti emoji. That was the extent of her celebration so far.

It's not very hard to guess who the person ringing at her door at eleven in the morning is, even before she looks through the peephole and sees Shizuo's face half-hidden behind the bouquet he's holding up.

She opens the door.

The light bulbs in the hallway were changed recently. Whoever did it put in white ones instead of yellow ones, so now everyone who stands under them for too long starts looking like they just stood up from an operating table. Izaya knows her neighbors have started complaining to the building's owner. Shizuo's skin and hair are washed of all blood and color, but she doesn't stop looking at him, and he doesn't move away from her scrutiny.

Finally, he says, "You didn't fall for it for a second, did you."

She laughs.

It takes her by the throat like someone trying to strangle her and it shakes her body from belly to chest to the tip of her toes. She has to lean sideways against the frame of the door before she can loose her balance altogether, and then she keeps laughing, until her chest aches, until her eyes water.

Shizuo puts the flowers down at their feet; her hand finds its way to his hair almost immediately and doesn't stop gripping it even when he's standing again and towering over her. She pushes his head downward until their mouths meet and their teeth knock together.

He grabs her hips like his hands will burn if he doesn't, sucks at her bottom lip like it's the source of all life, licks into her mouth as if he's spent the last two weeks in absolute cold and can only find warmth again through her. Izaya stands on her toes to deepen the kiss, considers shoving him against the wall of the hallway for more balance, regardless of the old lady next door who already hates her and would probably call the police on them if she saw them. But Shizuo is stepping forward into the apartment, pushing her along with him, until he can fumble the door shut between them.

Then she can shove him against it.

Absence may make the heart grow fonder but what Izaya feels is more heat than heart, more groin than chest. Shizuo's hands come up from her hips to her ribs and drag the hem of her shirt up with them, so that he can slide his fingers underneath and pressed full-palmed against her skin, hot and vibrant, thumbs stroking the underside of her breasts.

He turns his head away to break the kiss before they can take it further. "You must be tired," he declares.

Izaya bites his cheek lightly. "I'm getting very tired of people deciding things for me," she replies.

It makes him look at her again, but in concern rather than want. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing."

"Izaya," he says lowly. He takes hold of the wrists she's left resting on his shoulders while they kissed. "Did you fall for it?"

"No," she replies between her teeth. "Do you think I'm stupid enough to believe you'd suddenly leave me like this?"

He stares at her for a moment. She turns her head to the side, to the jasmine her dead gave her. She can't smell it at all from here because all she can smell is Shizuo and sweat.

"You're still wearing the ring," he says. His fingers run from the back of her hand to her ring finger and spin the ring around it appreciatively.

"I had to take it off during your little game," she murmurs. Her next words come out muffled against his neck, right on his skin so she can feel him shiver. "No one would've believed it otherwise."

"I was supposed to prank you. Not have you prank other people."

"You'll need to work on that," she drawls. He chuckles, and the sound vibrates through his skin and through hers.

He digs the fingers of his other hand into her hair and tugs gently, until she has to lean her head back and look up.

"You were lonely," he says.

Izaya's never really mastered the art of lying to him. "It's nothing."

"Shit." He straightens up from his slouch against the door; Izaya's weight falls back to the heels of her feet. She hadn't realized she was still straining upward like this. "I shouldn't have done it."

"I liked it," she says truthfully. "Very manipulative of you."

He snorts. "This is all because you told me you wanted me to keep you on your toes."

She had done that. It hadn't sprung to her mind when Shizuo ran his show of a break-up, although she knew instantly that none of it was real, but she remembers it now, she remembers saying this while laying on top of him with sweat cooling off her back and his arms crossed around hers. She had meant it as a joke.

She frees her hand from his and takes hold of his nape, tugging his face down gently so she can kiss him again. This time it's nothing but soft and satiated, the way they kiss after sex. "I liked it," she repeats.

He doesn't look so skeptical anymore.

She fetches his flowers from where he left them in the hallway. There is no sign of her annoying neighbor anywhere, not even that she left the privacy of her loft to check on Izaya like she sometimes does. Izaya picks up the roses and takes them to the kitchen, where Shizuo is upending the other thing he brought and which turns out to be a bagful of groceries.

"I'm cooking," he declares.

"I have no intention of stealing your spotlight in this," she answers with a smile.

He rolls his eyes at her.

Izaya places the flowers in the only empty vase she owns, another gift from her father; it's a thick glass thing with a layer of dust on it that she needs to rinse off first. It looks good with fresh water and fresh flowers in it, though. Sunlight shines though it as it would a prism, and instead of a shadow, all it leaves is fractured light all over the coffee table, streaks of pink and blue and green that make her eyes water when she looks at them for too long.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket. She takes it out and answers the call without checking the ID first. "Happy birthday," says Namie's voice, "and fuck you."

"That's the plan," Izaya replies, smirking.

Namie hangs up on her. It isn't long before Shizuo is done cooking, and Izaya spends that time going through every email she gets, every eyewitness account of Shizuo going to her place with flowers in his hands on the day she was born. The death threats she received—the ones that haven't been made into attempts—now come back as begs for mercy and understanding, as desperate pleas for confusion or mistakes or hacking.

It's hilarious, how much power they all think she holds.

"What're you laughing at?" Shizuo calls while he brings her soup and bread.

"Nothing," she says. She makes room for him to sit down next to her and accepts the napkin he gives her that he must've fished out of the cupboards she never opens. He knows the kitchen better than she does. "People just really thought you'd left me."

"They wouldn't have if you didn't play it like I did."

"Where's the fun in that?" She kicks his calf lightly with the ball of her foot, and he grunts, but doesn't stop eating. "Animal."

"What does that make you, I wonder."

She doesn't answer. She's been with him long enough that she knows what he means with those snide remarks and what he doesn't mean, and at the moment all the feels is warmth from the sun and from his body next to hers and from the bowl in her hands.

This warmth is meant to last.

#durarara!!#shizaya #orihara izaya #heiwajima shizuo #fic: made a fool out of us

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