falling asleep on you !
w/ al haitham, wanderer, diluc, tartaglia/childe
a/n: under the cut because they got really long omg
al haitham likes to rest his head on your shoulder whenever he's tired. when it's in a more private setting, he'll lay his head in your lap instead. a loud, satisfied sigh will leave his lips once he's in this position. it's almost as though all the tenseness in his body simply dissipates once you start running your fingers through his hair. he rarely drifts off for a nap, but he looks close enough to peace when he's lying down like that.
it's the closest you'll ever get to having him be needy or clingy in any way. he tends to lean his whole weight onto you without explicit warning, so it's taken some practice to make sure you don't fall over on to one side — helplessly squashed.
there are signs to look out for.
you'll notice him staring at you out of the corner of his eye, making sure you're comfortable with how you're sitting before he places his head on your shoulder. sometimes he'll even mention that it's very "quiet and peaceful" before nearly knocking you over with a heavy slump.
when he's been kept up late for too many nights, he really will drift off to sleep. he's heavy and he makes your entire body ache from trying to hold him up, but you can't really bear to move him, especially not when he smiles in his sleep after you brush your fingers over his cheek.
he won't tell you that he always wakes from your sudden touch.
and with how cute he thinks you are when you're trying not to wake him, he doubts he ever will.
"i don't need sleep." wanderer announces proudly. it takes him exactly nine minutes to pass out after you promise that you'll keep watch while he's resting. you even make sure that he's asleep by waving your hands in front of his face to see whether his eyes twitch. nothing.
he doesn't even breathe.
his arms stay crossed over his chest and his hair falls onto one side. completely at rest.
still, this is the last thing you were expecting would happen. you resist the urge to touch his face. you haven't gotten that far with him yet.
unfortunately, you end up falling asleep beside him instead of keeping watch. there's something so comforting about his weight on yours, that you lean back into him, just to close your eyes for a few minutes.
the next time you wake is with the morning sun, and with a blanket haphazardly thrown over you. you fight with it for a bit, tangling your arms even further.
"oh good, you're up," comes the familiar, haughty voice. you expect to be berated for falling asleep, but he says something different instead. "thank you."
"huh?" you murmur intelligently. it's not fair that he does this when you're still groggy from sleeping.
he turns away, pretending he said nothing else. you smile at his back. guess he's still full of surprises.
diluc's very gentle with you. he's always been the one to beckon you over once he notices you yawning or when you look a little down. the way he caresses you while wrapping you in his arms is enough to send you straight to sleep. it's cozy.
but you've never seen him asleep before you. he's always been the one to creep back into your shared bed at the crack of dawn, when you're just awake enough to know that he's there.
this time, you're the one late.
he's already sleep — legs stretched out and turned onto one side. you take a single step forward and jump as he snores, disturbing the silence.
you crawl into the bed, facing the outline of his back. you reach out for him just to hesitate before actually touching him. what if he wakes up if you try to cuddle him? what if he has a really busy day tomorrow and he'll be frustrated with not getting enough sleep?
he answers the myriad of questions for you. just your presence must be enough for him to know you're there in his sleep. he ends up turning over to face you and bundling you up in his arms, letting out a huff. on the other hand, you're tense, unsure if you've accidentally awoken him or not.
"diluc?" you mumble.
the only answer is his steady breathing.
hope you're ready to stay squished in that same position for the whole night.
tartaglia pesters you with affection. he shows up at your door in the middle of the night sometimes, claiming he has "no where else to go right now". on certain nights, he'll be covered in blood that's definitely not his with a fiery look in his eyes as though he's set alight from the inside. he's not really there on those nights.
more often, he shows up with a cheery look on his face that disappears once you start to clean him up. you don't need to look at him to know that he's already staring at you.
tartaglia is always quiet in both types of nights; an unsettled nature or a calm energy. you're never sure what you're going to get.
but you know this: he would always show up after long periods of disappearing, even if it was just the smallest scrape. just to see you.
he'll be the one tucking himself in between your legs on the couch, no matter how many times you tell him that his legs are too long and he's way too heavy to lean back on you like that. but he does it. somehow.
when you start to grow tired from listening to his shenanigans, he becomes so gentle with you. he'll carry you to bed and hold you until you sleep.
he's gone in the morning, or maybe he leaves once he's sure that you've been lulled to sleep. either way, you know he was here. even if he tries to disappear without a trace.
he's always here on the nights that you sleep the best after all.
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Ride 755: Kaburagi and Doubashi!!
Pag 1
2: He counted for three second and then accelerated!!
3: I'll go, yon
4: to the
Pag 2
1: Sprint line ahead!!
Hayaa!!
Pag 3
1: One person jumped ahead at 700m from the sprint line!!
2: Yaa!!
3: That guy's so fast!!
He's steadily accelerating on his own!!
4: He counted for three seconds and then accelerated!?
Usually, when one catches up they stop for 10-30 seconds to rest their legs
5: He did it for three seconds!?
Ah!?
Pag 4
1: That guy doesn't follow the usual road-racing common sense, Orange!!
I know!! San-na, just now I was also
Pag 5
1: Thinking the same thing!!
2: Those two are chasing too!!
3: Get behind me, we're accelerating!!
7: Fifth stage
Pag 6
1: “Orange”
Pag 7
2: Houruraaa
3: Ugh
4: Oi oi, he's so fast!! Seriously!?
He really got something like this in him!?
Pag 8
1: Houuu
2: ruaaaa
3: How hard did you work, Orange!!
4: During this past year
5: How much have you sharpened yourself?
I know it'd be wrong to tell you at a time like this, but let me tell you!!
Pag 9
1: Reckless guys are the coolest!!
Pag 10
2: You got closer
4: You did great closing the gap, Orange!!
5: 600m left until the sprint line!!
Pag 11
1: Hold on and don't fall behind!!
3: From now on I'll do it!!
4: Burst open!!
Contract!!
Don't tie it down!!
Crush it!!
Pag 12
1: Feelings at full throttle!!
Pag 13
3: This is bad
4: Buaaaaaah
Pag 14
1: Aventador!!*
(*NdT.: the kanji are read as “bullfighting” but the reading says “aventador”)
Pag 15
2: Hakogaku and Sohoku lined up in one go with the guy riding in the lead!!
3: Seriously!?
4: Don't let him get in between, get your bike close to mine, Orange!!
Got it!! San-na!!
Pag 16
1: But
2: The seat in the back is empty, yon
3: Spread out!!
4: Uh oh
5: We won't let you
Pag 17
1: count up to “three”!!
2: …. tch
3: You caught up and got here, but looks like you've run out of options now!!
So what will you do
4: Mountain bike guy!!
Pag 18
1: What incredible tension!! Each one of them has their own style!!
No but don't those two guys give you the chills?
2: I've noticed it before
3: Hakogaku's Doubashi and Sohoku's Kaburagi, even though they're from different teams and so are enemies, they're cooperating while running!!
4: This is something you won't find in other sports
5: Like in soccer or volleyball, you'll never see opponents coming together and cooperate!!
Pag 19
1: “Having multiple opponents at the same time”, that's what makes road racing unique!!
2: This is
3: the exciting thing
4: about road racing!!
5: Until the sprint line-
Pag 20
1: - there are 500m left!!
3: You don't follow the common sense of road racing....
That's why
4: we caught up to you using the “common sense of road racing”!!
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you know, there are a lot of posts about how transitioning as an adult is like going through puberty all over again. and I’m not medically transitioning (at least not yet, maybe one day), so I don’t know if I ever expected to exactly experience that. after all, my hormones are at normal adult levels for someone on birth control. but no, some of the stuff I experience does make me feel like a teenager awkwardly becoming an adult again, actually.
see, I’m attending a friend’s wedding, and I need new formalwear for it (protip: it is generally frowned upon to wear a wedding dress to someone else’s wedding, and that’s the last formalwear I purchased). and I just… really didn’t want to wear a dress, so I went to go get a suit. and I didn’t know how to get any of the required clothes for it and had to have a salesperson help me figure out how dress shirts work and nervously stood there while getting shown how to try stuff on and it really did feel like I was a lost teenager, despite being, you know, almost twenty-six.
but also: I own a three-piece suit now! it’s grey! it looks pretty good on me! I even got a blue tie with bees on it! so it was worth the temporary embarrassment of suddenly realizing I don’t know how men’s formalwear sizes work and, oh god, why are there so many variations of “white dress shirt” what does this mean.
and I figure as I very slowly work up the confidence to be out more irl there will be more and more moments like this, and I’ll lament the fact I didn’t do all this stuff as an actual teenager, but as weird and scary as it is, so far, it’s been worth it.
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The other day I was talking to @vaultureculture about Kuras' having a bit of owl in his design and that made me look for his 'biblically' accurate form because my memory was fuzzy, but my brain had been cooking for a while already and I needed answers.
After looking at his real form, I have to wonder: are angels in this world really this grotesque, or is it just Kuras?
screenshot by @sweet-milky-tea705
If so, is this disfigurement a punishment given before he, willfully, decided to ostricize himself, or is it the effect of him being away from his 'exalted origins' for so long?
His real body seems to stand between rotting corpse and an alien figure - a carcass well-past rigor mortis of an otherwordly creature, yet somehow this thing feels oddly... alive, almost if it were an empty exoskeleton clinging to life out of sheer will or even spite. Or perhaps it is meant to mirror the very essence of this world of decay in it's full, blunt, raw glory.
Maybe it's the effect of his immeasurable guilt, corroding his very essence. Just what did this angel do, or perhaps did not do, to deserve eternal purgatory? What is necessary for a divine being to decide for themselves that they deserve such fate?
Was it even his idea? What if it's somebody else's will that Kuras is carrying out as his own, ever true and loyal to his role as a messenger to the very end? How much of all of this is something he actually wants and thinks by himself he ought to do in order to purge whatever wrongdoing of his?
A MC with The Unnamed background seems to know Kuras (or at least seems to be in tune with a being like him), and a familiarity between the two is hinted at in the demo. Is Kuras always this open with everybody, or is it just with MC? Why was he so familiar with us, to the point he even laughs and MC reacts to his touch like they remember it? Does he just feel that much at ease around us or do we actually know each other, somehow?
What is going on with Kuras?
Is his body decaying due to heavy shame and guilt, or is it just like that, a horrifyingly indecipherable view to anything mundane?
Or is it standing in between worlds, in the limbo between holy and corrupt, never forgetting the past but also never looking forward to the future, that is pulling him apart?
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