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no1frogfan · 8 months

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Impending, part 3

Matsukawa Issei x afab reader

Word count: ~3.4k

Tags & warnings: SMUT-MINORS & AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT. Fingering, oral sex (f receiving), p in v. There is cum. Pubes exist in this world. A little angst, pining, guilt, and desperation (my four favorite flavors).

Note: Finally finished this mini-series. The word counts have grown too much each time, but what can I say? — I want him emotionally, spiritually, biblically.

part 1 | part 2

You can’t stay in bed forever.

Probably.

Not unless you can convince Hiro to bring you something for dinner, but that’s never going to happen.

A particularly angry gurgle from your stomach makes you roll out of bed and pick your way to the kitchen. The tackiness of your skin is proof you made the right choice to sleep the day away. Summers are always stifling, and the humidity lingers even after the sun has set, preventing the air from dropping to comfortable temperatures.

A cool gust from the fridge provides a welcome relief, though it’s unfortunate the shelves are empty. That’s the worst part of being at home — the isolation. The trees and hills are beautiful, even the warbling of the birds at 4am is nice, but grocery stores and restaurants are few and far between. You could walk to the ancient ramen place a few streets down, or the sukiyaki place a few streets up, but neither sound at all appealing in this heat.

“Did mom and dad leave us anything for dinner?” You shout toward the open basement door.

No answer.

“I know you can hear me.”

You can’t see the middle finger Makki holds up. “I’m getting pizza later.”

“Can we order now? I’m starving,” you pad downstairs with a whine.

Sprawled on the couch, Hiro is sporadically illuminated by some anime show on tv. While you don’t recognize it, you can at least pick out the white-haired guy Hiro likes landing a couple of (over)dramatic punches on a black-haired guy.

“How are you even hungry? You’ve just been sleeping all day.”

Your brother doesn’t take his eyes off the tv where the black-haired one finally managed to dodge, and now the white-haired one is strategizing (at length) about his next move.

“You’re one to talk! As if you’ve mov-”

“I’m hungry too,” a deep baritone chimes in seemingly from below you.

You leap back with a yelp, squinting into the darkness at your feet. Out of the shadows, Issei’s form slowly takes shape. Honestly, you’re shocked you didn’t step on him.

“That’s not what you said 5 minutes ago,” Makki grumbles, but picks up his phone to place the order.

Issei shrugs, reaching his arm out toward you.

You dodge beyond his fingertips and beat a hasty retreat back up the stairs, calling out over your shoulder, “order me a Hawaiian pizza.”

“No way in hell. That’s disgusting.”

Fake retching sounds follow you to the top.

The cold spray of the shower is calming, necessary even, to wash the stickiness from your skin and quiet your frazzled nerves.

That happened almost a week ago, and seeing him in your house every day has only made things more fraught. While you haven’t exactly been avoiding Issei, you haven’t tried to talk to him either. For your brother’s sake you should probably make clear that it was a mistake; one that will never happen again. You could blame it on the beer or the weed, but the truth is, Issei plagues your thoughts even while sober — his breath hot on your neck, fingertips digging into the fat of your hips, the utter fullness when he pushed into you.

Before that night, the image of him as a gawky preteen was all your mind could conjure up. But now… Your fingers aren’t enough to relieve the pressure anymore.

Your encounter unleashed some latent magnetic field, prickling your senses and hopelessly drawing you toward him at every turn. You welcome his attention more than you care to admit, so, unsurprisingly, it’s been hard not to make it weird, and harder not to second-guess every single interaction these days. Since when did he know your favorite snacks? Did he used to stare at you so much? Had he always been this touchy?

Or is he just hoping for a repeat of the other night?

The possibility stirs up both anxiety and relief. Except for the teeny, tiny detail of being your little brother’s best friend — you know, the one person outside of family that Hiro places 100% of his trust in — Issei would top your list of fuck buddies (and if you’re honest, maybe even more than that).

What’s been most confusing is that Issei doesn’t seem bothered, and you’re not sure why that irritates you so much. He’s never seemed like the kind of guy who would treat you like a notch in his bedpost, but then again, best friend’s sibling is a perennially popular porn trope for a reason. Surely he’s not immune.

None of that really matters though. Hiro’s been acting strange lately, like he knows something’s up. Half the time, he books it out of a room as soon as you walk in. God knows how he’d react if he found out what happened. Issei said he wouldn’t care, but how true is that? You try to imagine how you’d feel if one of your friends told you they’d slept with Hiro, and you can’t help but be…one, grossed out because you really don’t want to think about it. And two, well…protective, angry maybe. He might be an ass, but he’s still your brother, and you’d never do anything to actually hurt him.

A knock breaks into your anxious musings.

It’s then you notice you’re standing vacantly in the middle of your room. Somehow, you’d finished showering and walked back while lost in thought.

“Go away!”

Hiro is the last person you want to talk to right now; especially not before you can get your thoughts under control.

Footsteps shuffle away, but instead of the telltale creak of the stairs, they pause, then turn back toward the door.

The door jiggles and clicks open.

“What part of-”

Except it’s not Hiro. It’s Issei.

His audacity dumbfounds you, but only for a second.

“The hell?! Get out!”

Hesitation flickers across his face but he takes a step forward.

“Can we talk?”

“NO.” You wrap the towel tighter around yourself.

When he doesn’t move, you reiterate the point by whirling on your heels and stomping toward the dresser. The underwear drawer suddenly captures your full attention, and you rummage through it with single-minded focus.

The door shuts behind you with another click, and you let out a shaky breath.

The relief is short-lived.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” Goosebumps break out all over your skin at his words.

“That’s not true.”

The lavender scent of your shampoo tickles his nose. With you faced resolutely away, he steps closer and allows his eyes to sweep over the droplets gleaming across your shoulders.

“No?”

His lips brush against the base of your neck, and whatever retort you had fizzles on your tongue.

“Issei,” you whimper, “you said you wanted to talk.”

You lean back into his touch and feel him grin against the juncture of your neck. His hands, big and warm and firm, slide up under the towel to knead at your soft thighs, rapidly emptying your brain.

He gives you a gentle nudge toward the bed.

“I don’t think we should do this,” you protest, but your lack of conviction is apparent in how eagerly you obey, practically tripping over yourself to perch on the edge of the mattress.

He raises one thick eyebrow. “Why?”

“Hiro’s going to find out.”

Issei unbuttons his shirt with unhurried movements, unveiling the smooth musculature of his chest. Its slopes and dips are made more dramatic thanks to the yellow-orange light of the single desk lamp. You swallow thickly, eyes drawn to the sharp cut of his collarbones and the faded scar on his right hip.

“Makki knows. He doesn’t care.”

His shorts and underwear quickly land in a pile on the floor.

Even in the harsh light, his dick is nothing short of mouth-watering. A pretty flush tip sits enticingly over its thick, veiny length. Coarse hairs curl tightly at the base, trimmed short to reveal more of him.

He kneels and shuffles forward to tug the towel from your clutch, uttering an appreciative groan before he tosses it aside.

“Fuck, just look at you.”

Your objections devolve into gasping moans when he pushes you back to lay open-mouthed kisses across your collarbones and down your chest, sluggishly mouthing over your hips, down the tops of your legs and back up, licking a stripe along the tender skin of your inner thigh as he splays your legs up and out. He dives in to suck on your clit and you almost choke.

Your entire body tenses with pleasure when he starts to lap at you. But it’s the way he meets your gaze with hooded eyes — intoxicated from a single taste — that kickstarts the last ounce of resistance left in your body.

“Issei, if you- fuck that’s ahhh- you’re just looking to get your dick wet…”

That stills his tongue. Even though you’re the one protesting, you can’t help but whine now that he’s actually stopped.

“That’s not…” He frowns, a mixture of your juices and his saliva glistening on his chin. In one fluid motion, Issei slides you off the bed and onto his lap. A shudder runs through him when his erection glides against your folds, though it doesn’t distract him.

“Is that what you think this is?”

You’re not sure what answer he’s looking for, so you stay silent, head turned to avoid his eyes.

He scrutinizes you for what seems like an age. How could you not know? All the times he’s tried to impress you? All the things he’s done in the hopes you’ll notice him? All the years he’s trailed behind you — to your house, to university, and even to Sendai?

“Do you remember when your parents made you start watching us after school?”

Your face scrunches in confusion at the change in topic, but he’s insistent.

“Do you remember? Right after you started high school?”

“Ok…yeah,” you indulge, “I remember. I’d just joined photography club and had to quit like a month later. I was pissed — they’d never cared about leaving us home alone before so I didn’t understand why I had to babysit you guys.”

“They didn’t actually care. I made up some lie — I don’t even remember what it was now — to convince my parents we needed a sitter. I figured they’d make you do it, and they did.”

You look up in confusion. Is he…blushing?

“And in eighth grade, when I needed help with math… I actually bombed my tests on purpose for a month because I knew my parents would ask you.”

Wait… “Was that what your fights were about?”

Hiro and Issei were thick as thieves, the only exceptions being in your first and last years of high school. Their fights got heated too, though neither ever told you what set them off, no matter how many times you tried to pry it out of them. The second time, Issei didn’t come over for almost a month afterward (you remember because you had to go to his house to tutor him) but things always eventually went back to normal.

Issei huffs a soft chuckle. “Yeah, Makki figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“It’s not obvious?” Issei drops his head onto your shoulder with something between a groan and a laugh. “I liked you. A lot. I still do.”

He admits it so casually, like he’s commenting on the weather. Like he and Hiro haven’t kept this secret for over a decade. Like it’s hardly a confession at all.

For once, you’re the one struggling to keep up.

“Wait…you like me?”

You feel a muffled snort. “That’s literally what I’ve been saying this whole time.”

“And Hiro’s…not mad? But he’s been acting so weird lately,” you point out.

“Oh that. He keeps trying to ‘give us space’ or something. I told him to cool it.”

“Oh.” Huh. Maybe it was obvious. You were just too worried about Hiro to notice that every time he flew out of a room with some flimsy excuse, you were left alone with Issei. Issei, who you like more than you expected. Who’s had a crush on you for more than a decade. Whose lap you’re currently nestled in, naked.

“Does that mean we can…” You shift, jerking when your clit catches his spongy tip.

He laughs, grinding his hips up to meet you.

“We sure can.”

You’re still wet, really wet, you’re reminded when your pussy glides against him, and getting more aroused by the second as Issei stares, mesmerized by the slick trail you leave along the length of his cock.

His hands slide down to give your ass an excited squeeze before lifting you up onto the edge of the bed.

Dextrous fingers part your puffy lips as he rests his cheek against your thigh, giving him the perfect view of your dripping cunt. He thumbs lightly at your clit and heaves a sigh of contentment when your hips buck in response.

“Didn’t get to enjoy this last time.”

You bite back a moan when he slides one long finger into you. It reaches deep, and you squirm in encouragement when he sinks a second one in. He works them nimbly, curling and scissoring them while rolling your clit, breaking you down into a whiny mess in seconds, until you’re dripping down his wrists and onto the sheets.

You’re so distracted by his fingers that you don’t notice him dive in, just feel his lips wrap around your clit with a slurp. He licks and sucks at you eagerly, and you can only gasp and writhe, trying to steady yourself with a fist in his soft wavy hair. The walls echo with your cries mingled with Issei’s enthusiastic groans and the wet suction of your cunt around his fingers.

It catches you by surprise when you cum, cresting fast and hard, pulling your body taut and whiting out your vision. Before you realize it, you’re already quaking with aftershocks, trying to twist away from the overwhelming sensation of him licking and suckling dreamily as you come down.

When he finally pulls his fingers out, he makes a show of sucking them clean, stroking himself as he smirks up at you.

He pushes himself up off the floor and god, fuck. He’s irresistible, his cock bobbing heavily between his legs as he gets on his hands and knees above you.

Issei leans down, humming happily when he wraps his mouth around your right nipple. He massages your chest with one hand and grips his cock with the other to smear his tip along your sopping pussy.

It feels good, but you squirm and push at his shoulders. “Want you in my mouth,” you beg.

He placates you with a hungry kiss. “Next time, ok? Next time. I can barely- I don’t think I can last long,” he admits wryly, “but next time we’ll do anything you want.”

Your eyelids flutter shut in anticipation when he lines himself up.

He pushes in slowly, first the fat mushroom tip, then the whole thick length of him, rocking himself in, out, in, inch by inch until he’s pressed flush against you. Issei groans when your face contorts with pleasure. The stretch is incredible. He stuffs you so full, finally hitting that place you’ve been unable to reach.

He takes things slow. Too slow. He wasn’t able to savor you before, but he’s not about to make the same mistake again. His long, languid strokes are just enough to have you grinding against him in frustration with every thrust.

“Let me enjoy this for a minute,” he rasps.

His hands trail restlessly across your body, caressing and squeezing every inch of skin he can reach. He kisses his way down your neck to roll his tongue around your nipple, biting and sucking one before moving to the other, and back again.

After what feels like hours, your patience finally gives out.

You smack him hard on the ass. “Issei! Fuck me already.”

That jolts his hips into action. The length of his body is laid on top of you, pinning your legs up against your shoulders as he pistons into you with surprising force. Wet slaps alternate with the loud squeak of the mattress.

You begin to quiver, your whole body shaking as the heat builds in your core. He reaches deep, so so deep, making you wail every time he bumps your clit and his cock hits that perfect spot inside of you over and over again.

“Ohhh- fuck, Issei please I’m-”

He barely has time to blink before you’re falling apart at the seams again. Wave after blinding wave of ecstasy crash over you, relentless.

Your pussy clenches hard, gripping his cock so firmly he can barely move. Not a second later, he pulls out with a shout. Through hazy eyes, you see his mouth drop open. He fists his cock only once before his body stiffens, convulsing as jets of hot cum shoot out to land on your cheeks, shoulders, chest, stomach, dribbling out to coat your pubes, before finally leaving him twitching.

The room fills with hoarse pants.

You laugh weakly at the mess. “Wow, you came a lot.”

“I think I almost blacked out,” he croaks.

With great effort, he pushes himself off the bed and returns with the box of tissues from your desk. He cleans you up with care, just like last time.

“I wanted to last longer,” he mumbles, pressing a sheepish kiss to your sternum before collapsing on you, pinning you down with his weight.

It does something funny to your heart to witness him like this, so different from his usual confidence.

“Next time,” you assure him.

“Next time?” He looks up, almost reverent.

“Yeah.” You smile and brush the damp curls away from his eyes.

Next time. He breaks out in an obnoxious grin. There’s going to be a next time. And if there’s a next time, there might be a time after that.

“You won’t even need to introduce me to your parents.”

You snort. “Ok, pump the brakes.”

When you finally make your way back to the kitchen (with Issei practically holding you up as you wobbled), you find one Hawaiian pizza and two-thirds of a pepperoni pizza sitting on the counter.

Issei loads up a plate for you both before heading down to the basement. You grab some cold beers and follow suit, pausing in the doorway to take a few calming breaths.

You don’t hear any yelling or scuffling — a positive sign. Hopefully, that means Hiro isn’t too angry.

You take one wary step, then another.

When you reach the bottom, your eyes hesitantly find Hiro’s. There’s an uneasy moment when he frowns at you from where he’s seated on the floor before he gives you a curt nod. It’s stiff, but definitely not angry, not even upset.

Your shoulders untense.

Issei waves you over to the couch where he settles you securely in his lap, his arms encircling your waist. You cast another wary glance at Hiro who just rolls his eyes.

“Glad you’re finally done ‘getting some water,’” Makki snipes. “I’ve been waiting forever to start the next episode.”

“I’m definitely not thirsty anymore if you know what I mean.” Mattsun wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

Hiro’s face twists, revolted. “Ugh- I- ugh god, I don’t want to think about-” he sputters. His eyes flick to where Issei’s hands grope at your thighs and ass. “Whoa, ok rule number one: not when I’m right here. And rule number two-” there’s an uncomfortable pause before he mutters, “keep it down next time.”

Mattsun’s not at all chagrined. In fact, he puffs out his chest proudly.

You, on the other hand, shrink in absolutely mortification. Right when Issei opens his mouth to make another (probably vulgar) retort, you shove a slice of pizza in…with a little more force than you intended.

He chokes in surprise and your brother lets out a mean snicker. “Perfect timing! Serves you right.”

You expect him to continue bickering with Hiro, but Issei instead flashes you a dopey grin. “Thank you baby,” he says sweetly, muffled though it is by a mouthful of food.

The gleeful smirk drops right off Makki’s face and he whirls back toward the tv with a loud gag.

“You’re welcome,” you giggle. Your brain’s still playing catch-up with everything that’s happened today, but you think you like where this is heading.

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu #haikyuu smut #matsukawa issei #matsukawa x reader #matsukawa smut #hq x reader #froggy scribbles

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townofcadence · 13 days

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MORTAL *sips tea*

Glimpses of the Past MORTAL: a scene from my muse's past in which they had a brush with death die (I went a littttle different with it as it's more of a fic of a future moment remembering the past, but I hope you like it! ^^)

In. Out. In. Out.

In.

His lungs burned. They threaded with fire, and threatened to burst. His eyes blurred from the sensation, and the way it numbed the rest of him. He felt like ice with a hot coal trapped in his chest. His fingertips began to wobble in a way fingers didn’t. Droplets plopped against the counter he was leaned against, and the floor his body was making a slow descent to.

Out.

The exhale was violent. It wracked his frame as spasms shook his chest and rattled his boiling lungs until they seized. He coughed, over and over into his twitching, warbling fingers, until water escaped his mouth by the lungful. It coated his translucent, rippling hands and the counter. It kept coming with every heave his body gave. It soaked the counter and puddled on the linoleum, at his feet.

His shoes slipped, hydroplaning out from beneath him, but he barely felt his knees collide with the floor. He reached for the cabinet handle when he continued to sink, but his hands couldn’t grasp it, as slick as they were. He could see refractions of the overhead light through his hands, bouncing off them like sparkling lights on ocean waves. His hair pooled out around him in thick waves, losing color fast, near as fast as the translucency spread up his arms.

The breaths hurt all the more when they came faster. Water trickled in thick rivulets from his mouth even when it was closed. It sprung and leaked from his eyes as he sank lower, reaching, for something, anything, to pull himself from the floor. He was sinking– he was sinking and his head was bleeding–.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

InOutInOutInOut–

The breaths were too fast, but he couldn’t slow them. His body offered no kindness, no meager mercy to ease the mounting knot tangling every nerve in his chest. No respite from the way he felt doused in ice and gasoline. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t feel a pulse pounding, and the silence he sat in sent him further down to the floor.

There was no relief in any of his gasping, sodden breaths. His skin wasn’t skin, and there was nothing beneath his fingers or his legs or his arms. He was only aware of sinking, of feeling water beneath him. His throat was on fire like his lungs, and tension paralyzed him, twisted his limbs in unnatural ways. He felt the vague sensation of his fingers scrabbling at the edges of water and splashing, until he couldn’t feel them anymore. Cold seeped further into him, numbing his core and spreading out until he was sure needles of ice stood on what was left of him. Water streamed down his head like a steady shower, and bubbles escaped his mouth, in the sporadic, strained breaths he still tried to force.

In….

Out….

His thoughts were spread too thin to collect them. Any cohesion they might have had fragmented into a frothy, sparkling surf, where the waves of everything crashed against his brain in soaking buffets. He couldn’t focus. He couldn’t breathe.

The kitchen was smearing away into bleeding, blending watercolors. He was underwater. Pillars of solid oak stayed at the edge of his blurry vision, as he broke the surface to catch a breath and expel the water in his lungs. He coughed, and moved to swim for the shore. To get away from the pier. Someone stood at the edge, with red eyes. His head hurt. They were holding some kind of book. His thoughts stuck together like flypaper. But he needed to–.

He tried to swim, until hands grabbed his head, winding in his soaked hair. They forced his face under the water, and a stream of precious air left his mouth in large bubbles with his alarmed cry.

Jace struggled, but they had leverage, a knee planted against the plywood of the dock. Their grip in his hair made it impossible to untangle, and they shifted it as he struggled, shoving him further under the water. The moonlight illuminated the barest amount of the water around him. Bubbles climbed his face as he thrashed. His lungs screamed as he did, his hands reaching wild and blind for the one holding him down.

He grabbed on to their arm, using it to raise himself at an angle that let him bite. They made a sound and their fingers retracted enough for him to kick back against the wooden pier, breaking the surface with rasping breaths and soaking, choking coughs. They barked something behind him, but he couldn’t understand it. He just swam, doggy paddling and then freestyling away with a headache and water in his chest. A thin trail of red followed him.

He’d nearly reached the shore, on his hands and knees in the shallows, when fingers knotted through his hair again. They forced his head up, up and up until he was sat back on his knees, and his gaze was forced on their face. Red eyes looked down at him and he heard a voice that shouldn’t have come out of that mouth–

He didn’t understand. The words didn’t make sense. They were smug and displeased. 'Not this time'…?

He didn’t have time to wonder. Those fingers ripped, and Jace cried out before it turned to sputtering bubbles, when the hand in his hair yanked him backwards, tipping him over from his knees onto his back in the shallows.

They kept moving, towards the deep he'd swum out of.

Jace grabbed at the rocks and stones, at the hand in his hair again. He tried digging his heels into the dirt and mud. All it did was slow his descent down, and tear out strands of his hair. He didn’t have the angle to stop this, to do anything.

Something else was said but he couldn't hear it between the pounding of his heart, and the ringing and water in his ears. Jace thrashed, gasping breaths when his head broke over the water. On his back, he couldn’t break the grip, especially when it tightened and started to burn his scalp. Pleas escaped his lips, half of them audible, and half turned to foam underwater until he jerked his head again. He was ignored, dragged further from the water’s edge and towards its depths, by the hand that held him up.

He felt them stop, floating far from shore. He took a breath to speak, yanking on the hand in his hair. The breath and half a syllable was all he managed before he was forced down, under the water. Legs straddled over him when he was low enough, and the hands left his hair for his neck. He felt them squeeze. Knees came down on either side of him, pinning his waist. He tried to scratch at them, arms swinging wild and willful. Everything was slowed by water, and he couldn’t tell if he helped himself at all. But it didn’t matter, when a hand left his neck to pin his wrist. He could only beat uselessly on a solid chest in meager defiance, tears in his eyes. He could see something reflecting on the face above him in the light as words left them, distorted by the waves. He couldn’t tell what it was.

But it gave them the courage to take him down further, without fear of entering the deeper, darker water. The waves were too choppy, sparkling with moonlight and broken by bubbles to see much. But occasionally, he could see the glint of … teeth?... through the water, catching brighter and whiter under moonlight. His head hurt too much to focus on anything but holding his breath.

And then those hands around his neck forced his head down against the lake floor, until silt clouded the water, mimicking the sluggish thoughts of his mind.

He could hear distorted laughter, even as his lungs shredded with the first breath of water to fill them. His struggles dwindled, faded out, but still the fingers kept him under. His eyelids fluttered, a few more bubbles escaping his lips, and the scarf around his neck squeezing loose compared to that hand. The tails of it shifted as if to cover his eyes for a fleeting few seconds.

The silt in the water settled. A few more bubbles left an empty chest, as he was held there in the deep blue dark, against the floor of the lake so much further than he’d ever been. The moon hung like a perfect circle, silhouetting the person above him to a dark, featureless shadow draped in blues, with red eyes.

The fingers let go and he didn’t struggle. Didn’t move. Didn’t fight even as they tangled his arms in the lake weeds, so his body didn’t begin to drift. He didn’t thrash where he was knotted down, even as he was released, as they began to carve something beneath his body.

He was just cold. Cold and dark. And then he was alone, and so still and–.

He was dead.

The cabinets all open and spew their contents, with the bubbling wail that rent through him. His semi-solid form collapsed on the kitchen floor. His arms, what little of them weren’t completely liquid, clung to his hair. He squeezed his eyes shut, even as the studio began to flood, water level rising around him. The lights above him flickered, growing brighter, and then shattered with another pained, bubbling cry. The sound of pieces plopping against the water is far away.

Just breathe. Please. Just breathe. He could still breathe. Right? In. Out? Was he breathing? He had to— he didn’t need to but he couldn't’ but he he had to but it didn’t help but he had to–

The quiet pleas in his head went largely unheeded, a whisper compared to the overwhelming now. Another sob echoes from him, as his hair floats around him, cocooning him like a waterfall pouring from his head. He manages a seat with the vague shape of his knees on either side of him, and wet breaths as he squeezes his eyes shut.

It’s all of a scant few beats before he shifts again, and buries his face in his knees. The water in the room sloshes and chops, and he can’t escape the sound of it, as it splashes against the walls in the dark. Sparks sound intermittently above him, but he doesn’t look, even as the water reaches his chest. He could hear it pouring down the walls, feel it falling like rain from the ceiling, pattering in thick droplets on the sloshing surface.

Maybe if it kept coming, it would drown him again.

Then maybe the memories would finally end.

As if the universe wanted to rebuke that thought, he coughed, and water spilled from his lips in an unending stream. Jace’s eyes screwed shut, feeling that same energy buzzing along his skin, before it dragged him under.

#answering things #headcanon meme #ask meme answers #jace blake #jace #cw death #cw panic attack #cw drowning #cw injury #long post #drabble #my original stuff #my original writing #headcanon #Jace Headcanon

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dollarbin · 6 months

Text

Dollar Bin #20:

Dump's International Airport

My famous brother's always been a big deal.

I remember his first peewee soccer game. Both teams just ran after him in a pack while he scored goal after goal. "Dear Lord Baby Jesus," I asked, "why is my little brother already a bigger deal than me?"

Nothing's happened ever since to disabuse me of my inherent secondary status. Just check him out today. He's in a killer band and I can't sing Happy Birthday on key; he blogs about Pharaoh Sanders and Sonic Youth for the mad rushing crowd while I blog about him for you twelve people; he's interviewed 2/3 of Crazy Horse, Richard Thompson and Robyn Hitchcock (twice!) and my cat won't even listen to me; he has a glorious head of hipster hair on top of his six foot frame; my bald spot swells and shines far beneath his stately chin.

Even so, there are a few things we have in common, and at the top of that list is the firm conviction that James McNew is a very big deal. A good drinking game would be chugging every time my brother and I mention his name while together. You'd get plastered.

Odds are we'll ruminate on McNew's status as the best musician in Yo La Tengo (even though we revere Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley), next we'll wish he'd make a new solo record, then I'd insist we talk about our close encounters with James (my brother occasionally shares a byline with McNew on Aquarium Drunkard or elsewhere, usually when they're both talking about the Dead, and when he interviews McNew they sound like old friends; I like to wave and shout James's name from the pit, hoping he'll remember the time I helped him move his amps after sneaking into YLT's soundcheck in '95 at the Alligator Lounge; James always politely nods then resumes his job of shredding everyone's soul to pieces with his furious musical chops; humble guy, James).

For the uninitiated: McNew emerged from a parking lot ticket hut in the early 90's and began recording solo music sporadically under the name Dump; he put out three classic full records in the 90's, and since then has issued a collection of Prince covers and a few other sporadic releases, the most recent of which was only released on tape in Spain. That's right, I'm writing about a guy who issues his music only to Spaniards who still have tape decks; I guess we'd better add "obtusely" in front of "humble" when describing McNew.

Meanwhile, he's spent the past 30+ years as the cornerstone of the world's greatest, still-operational, rock band, Yo La Tengo.

If you need any proof that they are the gnarliest group of rock nerds this side of Sterling, Mo, Lou and what's his name, or doubt that James is their pillar of obtusely humble virtuosity, check this out (and please note I was standing next to the dude with the camcorder when this insanity went down; I'm still reeling from the experience, and I still have the setlist):

youtube

Please note, I think my expert moving of McNew's amps earlier that same day was a prime contributor to this all out sonic assault on everything Stephen Stills stands for on the band's part. Ira Kaplan appears to be wrestling a giant man-eating octopus while Georgia and James slay the beat.

On his own McNew can be fragile and tender, sounding like a shivering adolescent rather then a human behemoth (when seen from pit and James looks like he's 6'6 / 325; some of this is because Ira, and especially Geogia, are fairly miniature humans, but most of his heft comes from his God-like approach to every instrument you can imagine; he also happens to be a big dude).

Listen to him warble on Into Fall from '94; yes his guitar has a touch of wobbling hippo, but everything here is precious, and McNew shows us he's a later-day Brian Wilson. All that's missing is Wilson's budget, torment and sister-in-law lust:

youtube

But McNew can also produce music that's straight up violent, write rock anthems and lay down shambolic funk. In other words, he's a one man Yo La Tengo, masterful in every possible mood.

International Airport, a vinyl-only EP from 95, puts every one of these qualities concisely forward. We open with Words, a droning prayer that sounds like Lou Reed slipped out of a dull stint in rehab so as to sit in on the demo sessions for The Cure's Faith. A song like this should not be interesting. But it's awesome, and when the guitar shoulders in late we tremble and get excited about what lies ahead.

Side two features everything from an a cappella Kinks song sung out the window that comes complete with polite city applause, to a brutal, call the cops on your psychotic neighbor, track Laurdine.

But it's the 12 minute title track, which fills most of the A Side, that raises International Airport, which I bought upon it's release for probably $6, up to Dollar Bin hall of fame status. All hail this sprawling ode.

youtube

McNew opens the track with a Casio riff, taking his time. Bass and drums rise only gradually until, around the two minute mark, we suddenly realize we are taking off, the international terminal long gone as a second riff expands and swerves about the first, like joint eagles protecting their nest. It's lovely flying, and we have to remind ourselves that McNew is responsible for everything here. Had McNew taken this song to YLT, I don't know what more his band mate Hubley could have done on the drum track, and I have a hard time remembering that it's McNew, not Kaplan, who's wrestling the octopus this time around. Seven minutes into it we expect things to fade out majestically but McNew instead steers his increasingly interstellar song through a cosmic, psychedelic carwash, the keyboards, then guitars, sounding like angry droids with laser cannons.

Wow.

When McNew's vocals enter at the 11th hour/minute to serenade us and wave good-bye we wish he'd take us with him wherever he's going. But sadly, we're not invited. Rather, James is probably hanging out with my famous brother as we speak: two humble and deeply masterful dudes.

#Youtube #james mcnew #stephen stills still sucks #gloom and doom from the tomb #yo la tengo #aquarium drunkard #prairiewolf

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ducktr0ducin · 2 years

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Hello there!

I'm Ned, and welcome to my little side blog! I made this because anything I would post on my main would get drowned in other reblogs.

My three main tags will probably be "Ned's doodle corner" (for art), "Ned's funky new queue tag" (for queued posts (usually older art)), and "Ned's warbling hours" (for text posts) ((I'll update this sporadically if I add more tags))

With that out of the way, enjoy your stay!

#Important stuff

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bread-loaf-heart · 2 years

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Emmet Goes Batshit: The Musical Ch 2

so I'll be reposting the rest of the chapters when I have time to format them since they're so much longer aight cool

[This story has background music, all underlined text indicates audio to play in the background]

Emmet wished he could’ve come earlier, but with Ingo's sudden disappearance, taking on his workload and the many conversations with Officer Jenny had kept him away from his destination for far too long. Faint muttering echoed down the underpass, complimenting the creepiness of the purple glow that was cast along the walls of stone and metal. Chandelure floated behind Emmet as he was pacing in the near darkness of a subway tunnel, circling a large area near a familiar open panel. It had been a little clingy since The Incident, so he let it follow him whenever he wasn’t manning his and Ingo’s stations. The subway boss had a small notebook in one hand, a pencil tapping against his cheek, and a mind whirling with possibilities.

“No singe marks or scratches in the floor, so that rules out any fire-types,” Turning on a dime, he walked just out of range of the high-mounted camera just above the panel. “Most likely a ghost or psychic type.” Emmet looked back at Chandelure. “Could it be an electric type though?” The spooky purple pokemon gave a low warble and a shrug of its arms. Usually, Emmet would be mirroring his brother in pacing while Ingo sounded out ideas between the two. Ingo was always better at vocalizing his thoughts. Ingo wasn’t here though, and Emmet’s train of thought was turning at all the wrong switches as he tried to hit the emergency brakes. Ingo wasn’t here because somebody took him and he is going to make whoever did regret it -

A warm nudge to his shoulder broke Emmet out of his trainwreck of thoughts. Chandelure made a concerned low whistle and lightly bumped his pencil holding hand, which he realized was holding his hat in a vice grip. He quickly let go, patting it down a few times before returning it to his head. “Sorry, all systems are operational now.” An attempt was made at a reassuring smile, but the ghost type’s worried eyes didn’t change. Emmet kept the grin on his face, the familiar stretch helping him stay grounded.

Turning back to his list of notes, the man scribbled in his previous musings and resumed the sporadic mumbling. A good few minutes of pacing came to a sudden halt as Emmet looked up.

“Professor Juniper knows pokemon. She could help.”

__________

The train was starting to slow as it reached the Nuvema Town Station. Emmet’s leg stopped bouncing as he stood up, heading right in front of the doors. As soon as they fully opened, ‘safety is extremely important,’ he nearly sprinted out through the station.

As far as any other commuter could tell, a white blur shot through the front gates and halfway through town.

Minutes later, Aurea Juniper gave a startled shout as the front doors slammed open, snapping to attention at the loud intrusion. She'd recognize that wide smile anywhere, though it seemed a bit sharper than usual.

“I am Emmet. I need help.”

_____________

The professor’s eyes narrowed in contemplation as she reviewed The Video with Emmet. Said conductor had been switching his attention back and forth from the screen to her, gauging her reactions. After a few more beats of silence, Juniper turned her attention to him. “I have a few theories, but I can’t promise anything concrete.”

Emmet’s grin widened by a fraction as she rewound the clip, highlighting something near the beginning. “Based on his reactions, it could’ve been a ghost-type pokemon. Most are tricksters by nature and regularly terrorize people in dark places like this.”

The conductor nodded. “Chandelure does that sometimes at home.” For a brief moment, he wondered if the pokemon had spirited his brother away. The thought was quickly discarded as he recalled its despondent behavior over the past three months.

Skipping forward, Juniper played the seconds before the static showed up, and it slowed down. “What might rule that out is the way the video cuts out here. Electric types can cause effects like this, possibly even a porygon, but if that were the case the camera would’ve just been damaged instead of the video feed cut out.” The screen switched to the last part. “It’s odd that Ingo’s pokeballs were left behind, so that most likely rules out a human being the perpetrator. That paired with the fact that it cuts back in could be indicative of a very powerful presence. It sounds farfetch’d, but it’s most likely a very rare, maybe even legendary pokemon is behind this mess. Now back here we can see…”

Juniper kept talking after that, but Emmet stopped registering it. Trained on the still image of his brother's frightened face, his eyes and ever-present smile widened in a familiar sharp turn. He finally had a lead. Sure the margin was still wide, he knew how many of these powerful pokemon there were, but at least it was something. Something to blame and hunt down for taking Ingo.

‘I will find you, no matter what it takes.’

#phos fic #emmet

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xain-russell · 5 years

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Instead of raiding area 51, how bout you raid the ICE concentration camps?

Just... if you’re gonna launch an assault on a government instillation, why not save a bunch of children while you’re at it?

#area 51 #sporadic warbling

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blinkpen · 10 months

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No joke though the idea of Miles and Pavitr becoming especially good friends super fast bc of their shared “I don’t care how hopeless it looks, I can save everyone, actually, and I’m gonna” idealism still being unbroken and directly validated by one another’s actions/circumstances makes me smile super big

#sporadic warbling #across the spiderverse #pavitr prabhakar #miles morales

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twistedwonderlandsimps · 2 years

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ENA!Yuu

I'm just here to mix-and-match different kinds of Yuus with different kinds of personalities to see what monstrosity I can make. That being said,,, ENA!Yuu brainrot!

"Salutations, kind strangers! May you please point me towards the direction of my abode? I seem to be lost in your odd and lovely world!"

They wear a two-tone colored mask that changes its appearance and color depending on the situation.

How does it change its color and appearance? Magic.

The default is color, of course, the iconic blue and yellow ENA has.

Their voice also switches sporadically between male and female.

No one has ever seen what they look like behind the mask.

People have tried and all have failed.

Gives others a bit of uncanny valley vibes because of their body movements and actions.

They move as if they're a GIF on loop and it just looks a bit too unnatural.

Can't help but just think of ENA!Yuu going,,,

Yuu: "I came here to bring you a gift! :)" holds out hands

Character: "There's... nothing there?"

Yuu: cups the character's face :D

haracter: "..." loading :v

Character: realization "!!!"

ENA! Yuu considers Twisted Wonderland a peculiar world.

Mostly because they live in a surreal world that makes no sense.

Therefore, being brought to Twisted Wonderland, a world with sense, is senseless to them since their normal is not normal to Twisted Wonderland and Twisted Wonderland's normal is not normal to them, ya get me?

It's alright if you don't. I even confuse myself sometimes.

Probably likes it at Heartslabyul since it has a surreal and nonsense feel to it that would make them feel kind of at home.

They got very nervous one time that they vomited static/noise.

The static turned into an hourglass dog.

Grim now has this weird-looking dog following him all around the school.

He says he doesn't like the dog but we all know he's lying.

The dog operates on cartoon logic. It's virtually unkillable.

And by that I mean someone flattened it into a pancake by accident.

Everyone was silently horrified to see the dog flattened on the ground.

Only to see it snap back into its original shape with a pop, unharmed and good as new.

Speaking of accidents, Riddle was probably the one who made ENA!Yuu nervous.

He probably said something about breaking the rules and Sad ENA!Yuu took over and started self-deprecating themselves.

Someone made ENA!Yuu too sad one time and put them in full sadness mode.

Their mask just glitched and it suddenly turned gray and faceless which freaked the others out cause this has never happened before???

Yuu, are you okay???? Do you need anything?

ENA!Yuu quickly covered their "face" and stomped their feet, their words muffled and ineligible as they cry and warble and have a mental breakdown.

Of course this just made their friends panic more cause yuu,,, having mental breakdown??? And their "face" gone???? And they can't understand them????

What do they even do in this situation???

Thankfully Happy ENA!Yuu takes over the next moment before they can hurt themselves and calmly drawls out a simple, "Ah, my apologies."

Also, Crowley vs sad ENA!Yuu

Crowley says something along the lines of "blah blah blah, aren't I so kind?"

Sad ENA!Yuu: wailing loudly "I'M SORRY, I DON'T DESERVE IT!!!"

Everyone in the immediate vicinity: stares judgingly at Crowley as usual

Whatever shite Crowley tries to pull, sad ENA!Yuu will be there to guilt trip them back to responsibility.

Crewel vibes the hourglass dog.

Probably thought the dog was a bit weird-looking at first but it grew on him.

It plops itself onto his shoulder whenever it sees him and he lets it.

Sam most likely starts selling marketable plushies of the hourglass dog because it became popular among the student body.

Hourglass dog has become the favorite squish toy.

Does ENA!Yuu also become a marketable plushie? Hmmm...

When they have enough simps, Sam probably will with Yuu’s permission.

ENA!Yuu: pops up from behind a counter :D

Trey: in the middle of baking "Yuu?? What are you doing-" ENA!Yuu: "Turrón!” [Cue Trey having no clue what the hecc is going on as Ena!Yuu keeps repeating "Turrón" again and again until he realizes that Yuu most likely wanted to eat turrón so he makes some for them.]

Sometimes Grim becomes worried about Yuu.

He occasionally catches them 'glitching' away and being replaced by a mannequin for a split second before they return back to normal.

Sometimes it's a mannequin, sometimes a mess of a polygon.

He asks Yuu about this only to be met with a nonchalant shrug.

ENA!Yuu themselves has no idea what's happening.

Grim leaves it be for now.

Also... Azul: trying to get ENA!Yuu sign a contract ENA!Yuu: "Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no-" Azul: "..." ENA!Yuu: "-no, no, no, no, no-" Azul: "..." ENA!Yuu: "-no, no, no." Azul: "A simple ‘no’ would've sufficed..."

Yuu mostly 'glitches' when they get 'hurt'.

Floyd likes to squeeze Yuu a lot because of this since they look funny.

I like to think that ENA!Yuu doesn't have any concept of pain in this so they just let Floyd be.

At first, that is.

It’s just that they don’t realize that they’re hurt.

I mean, how do you get polygons to feel pain?

They probably don't bleed in the first place anyway.

That being said, ENA!Yuu probably had a polygon form body before they arrived in Twisted Wonderland.

They only got their 'human' body when they arrived.

It's kind of like the world is 'fixing' their entire being to be more understandable in the new world.

Like some kind of filter to make the human mind understand their form in a logical and reasonable manner.

Like getting a patch to make the game run smoothly and fix bugs.

Cause I mean, I dunno 'bout y'all but if I started seeing a hyper realistic person made out of polygon in the real world I would be scared af and my brain would not be able to handle that.

That's like some eldritch level stuff right there.

So pain is a foreign concept to them.

ENA!Yuu not understanding why they feel a stinging feeling and panicking the first time they see themselves bleed.

They glitched heavily.

Which made the others realize that ENA!Yuu glitching = ENA!Yuu hurt = glitching bad!

Floyd didn't find the glitching effect fun anymore.

Yuu having to deal with overblots and at the same time newfound sensations and feeling caused by their 'human' body.

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mingyu-shorts · 3 years

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Mingyu Short #40 - Missed You

(smut)

One of his large hands was pressed into the bedding beside your head, holding him up as his other hand cupped your wet core. You were both breathing ragged, chests heaving with want and anticipation.

Mingyu hadn’t seen you in a while, too busy with practice and school and your life was no less hectic, drowning in papers and work. Really it didn’t seem like you two were doing much of anything with one another anymore. The only conversations the two of you had were sparse and sporadic. Quick ‘goodnight’s’ and ‘I love yous’ at random times throughout the night.

He had grown tired of not being able to see you or touch you or hear you, so as soon as he knocked on your door and you opened it he was on you. Kissing you like a starved man eats, ravenous and unabashedly. You drank each other in, moving from the living room to your bedroom in a way that seemed straight out of every chick flick, closing flying off and being discarded anywhere that wasn’t in your way, kissing too hard and too fast, teeth knocking together as your hands roamed each others bodies.

Mingyu had your soft body pressed into the bed before he’d even properly said hello, but really the greetings were unnecessary, especially when his mouth was preoccupied with much more pressing matters, like sucking dark hickies onto every each of you he could manage.

“Missed you,” he says hurriedly as he makes his way down to your plush thighs, pressing wet opened mouth kisses to the insides of them before sinking his teeth into the flesh, enough to make your hips jump off the bed and a mewl to leave your mouth.

“Did you miss me too kitten?” he asks playfully as he eyes your already embarrassingly wet cunt, “You must have huh? So pretty,” he says before diving in.

It didn’t take long from there for you to end up how you were now, his fingers finally slowly sliding into you, already two orgasms in, so the lack of speed was just to tease you. He stared at your face, not wanting to miss even the slightest furrowing of your brow. Mingyu pumped his fingers in and out of you, curling them slightly, just wanting to make you needy enough to beg.

“C’mon kitten, do you want something from Daddy? Hmm?”

You’d never admit how much you loved when he teased you, not verbally at least, but the way you flutter around his fingers, he knew.

“Be a good girl and tell Daddy what you want,” he continued with a smirk, moving his fingers faster, scissoring them a bit to watch you pant a bit heavier, “I can always stop if you’re not gonna tell me what you want.”

Your eyes fly open as he slows his movements again and you look at him with big innocent eyes, “Please Daddy, please don’t stop,” you whimper. His cock twitches and his teeth sink into his bottom lip, “Please make me cum again, I want-” you cut yourself off with a moan as his fingers speed up again, pushing deeper as his thumb rubs circles on your arching clit.

“Keep going baby, tell Daddy what you want,” his resolve starts widdling away as he watches your legs start to tremble and your hips begin to cant off the bed.

“Want- want you to fuck me full,” you warble, on the edge of your third orgasm.

Mingyu pulls his fingers from you and watches you whine and whimper at the loss, begging for him to keep going, to make you feel good. His heart swells with this odd sense of pride as you unabashedly beg for him.

“Alright kitten, Daddy’s gotcha, Daddy’s gonna stuff you real full okay,” he groans into your ear as he finally begins sliding his cock into you, “Fuck- god dammit, you’re so tight.” Mingyu holds his breath and counts to ten as he bottoms out, not wanting to immediately cum, not when you’ve been begging so pretty and it’s been so long. But good lord are you making it hard on him.

You moan loudly with each slow thrust as he finally finds the ability to begin moving. He is lightheaded and so are you. Mingyu had forgotten just how good it was to be buried inside of you and you’d forgotten just how well his thick cock stretched you out.

It was quickly too much for both of you, “gonna- gonna-” you cried out, eyes screwed shut. Mingyu grabbed onto your squishy sides and fucked into you harder, “Don’t cum yet baby,” he grunted as his hips snapped forward, his momentum picking up, “It’s been too long since I got to see you like this, too long since I got to split your pretty pussy open on my cock, let me have a little bit more okay kitten?”

You moaned loudly as he plowed into you, “Daddy it’s too- s’good, can’t” you worked to rock your hips up to meet his movements, “wanna cum around Daddy’s cock, please, please-” you sputtered. Mingyu swore he was in heaven, your pretty moans and filthy words, it was all so good.

“Be good and wait a little longer kitten,” he moaned, shoving two fingers into your open mouth. His eyes boring into yours as your sucked obediently on them.

“So perfect,” he mumbled offhandedly as his thrusts went from fast to slow. Pressing deeper into you, he watched as your eyes rolled back and your jaw went slack. You gagged lightly on his fingers and clamped down around him.

Mingyu knew you were cumming and he pressed his hips to yours, painting your insides with his own release. Letting your orgasm spur his, your pussy milking his twitching cock.

He pulled his drool covered fingers from your mouth and leaned down to kiss you lovingly. He stayed inside you, using his arms to keep him propped up so he could just stare at your face. You looked up at him with a drowsy smile.

“Missed you Daddy,” you whisper and he grins widely.

“I know you did, kitten. Daddy missed you too.”

#mingyu #kim mingyu #seventeen mingyu #mingyu seventeen #seventeen kim mingyu #mingyu smut #seventeen kpop #seventeen #seventeen smut #smut #kpop smut #mingyu shorts #Plus Size #plus size reader #kpop plus size reader #plus size smut #kpop plus size smut

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maadorii · 3 years

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how do you reach the moon?— s. hinata x gn! reader

max.note’s: please i haven’t written for him in so long— hinata, light of my life forgive me. this is entirely self indulgent btw sigh

synopsis: space anomalies with hinata is a strange, yet... a surprisingly endearing scenario.

warnings/tags: fluff, somewhat canon compliant, philosophical talk about space and the universe lol (meaning lots of dialogue)

w.count– 700(?)

your first breathe of the night air was cool in your lungs.

you don’t really understand why hinata wanted to go outside, and tonight of all nights. it was beyond cold, freezing even. and though the cold doesn’t affect you all that much, you’d much rather be inside.

but he insisted, and who were you to say no? his eyes glittering underneath the pale moonlit of your beside lamp as he snuck his head through your window (because he couldn’t just knock on the door like anyone else would); his everlasting smile thats imprinted into the farthest reaches of your mind.

but in reality, you did say no, multiple times actually. but hinata, being hinata, wouldn’t stop until you gave the answer he wanted. when you finally said, “fine, we can go but—” he wasted no time dragging you outside to the already parked car in your driveway. the low hum of the engine, hushed whispers and giggles being the only thing echoing in the silence of the night. you sigh at the feeling of the wind blowing through your hair as hinata drove down the empty road. carefree and wild.

even though both you and him were far behind your teenage years, it didn’t seem to matter at that moment.

so that’s how you ended up laying on a field of grass in the middle of nowhere far from the light and noise pollution of the city, you next to him, staring up into the inky black abyss that was the night sky. it stretched on for what looked like miles upon miles beyond the horizon. there was no moon present, leaving the area draped in darkness. except, for the splotches of bright stars, creating erratic patterns along the dark canvas.

hinata felt you shift closer to where he laid, feeling your arm reach over to pull him closer to your body. wordlessly laying your head on his firm chest to continue staring up at the sky; the gentle waft of sea salt air washing over you along with the sound of the waves crashing against the shore in the distance.

“the sky is really pretty tonight isn’t?”

“yea, but not as pretty as you.” hinata warbled a chuckle when he felt you slap his chest lightly at his compliment, but he knew you were smiling, despite his corniness.

and it went silent again, the lull of the waves pushing you to close your eyes, the sound of hinata’s heart beating being the final straw.

“hey, (y/n)?”

“... yes, shouyou?” you hummed, not even bothering to move an inch from your position.

“do you ever think about how... maybe we’re not the only ones in the universe?” your eyebrows scrunched up at his question. “what do you mean?”

“like—” he proceeded to prop himself up onto his elbows, pulling you along with him. and through the dimness of night, you can see the universe shine in his eyes. “—there’s has to be something out there besides us, right?”

you pondered on his question, it’s likely, right?

“like, aliens?” you laughed, “i mean, that’s something alright.”

“well yes, but— have you ever heard of the multiverse theorem?” you shook your head no in response. hinata literally buzzed with excitement in his spot, “you’re in for a ride.”

and for hours you sat lying in the grassy field underneath the kaleidoscope of cosmos twinkling above you and you listened intently to every word the spilled out his mouth, hinata’s hands moving sporadically in the air as he spoke with much vigor. it was now dusk, the stark black sky morphed into a murky blue, indicating the rise of the horizons.

“no way, that’s crazy! shou, the thought of multiple existing universes all at the same time seems a little too far fetch don’t you think? i mean— the universe is ever expanding right? surely we can’t explore all of it in just one lifetime.”

“of course, that’s literally millions and billions of lights years of space traveling to do. think of it like this, imagine somewhere maybe thousands of miles away, someone is looking up at the same sky we are, thinking the same thing. wondering if there’s more to life then what they know. it’s... a really interesting concept to think about.” hinata hummed, his focus shifting to you.

you shrugged, “hm, i guess you’re right, it is. and, if that is the case, i’m glad i get to share this part of the universe with you, shou.” you cheekily smiled, watching as hinata flustered up. he shyly chuckled, dipping his head into the crook of your neck, placing a sweet kiss there. “looks who’s getting cheeky now?” and you mustered out a laugh then, pulling him even closer to you.

and area was filled with silence again.

“you think if we ever exist in another universe... we would be together?” it hushed, just barely above a whisper.

“i’d like to think so, yes.”

#h/inata my beloved <33 #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #hq #haikyuu x reader #hq!! x reader #hq x reader #hinata #hinata shoyo #hinata shouyou #hinata shouyo x reader #hinata shoyo x reader #hinata x reader #hinata x gn reader

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groovesnjams · 2 years

Video

youtube

“Luv Attack” by Lou Christie

DV:

At 79 years, problematic fave Lou Christie is one of the oldest artists we’ve covered in a while; lemme try to contextualize him a bit. Christie’s one of rock ‘n’ roll’s great also-rans: remembered for 1966′s “Lightnin’ Strikes” and maybe for 1962′s “Two Faces Have I” too, if he’s lucky. But the fact is that his falsetto was always much more precisely deployed, and to greater effect, than Frankie Valli’s much more famous one. That Christie’s production for girl group The Tammys is still genuinely wild 60 years later, and inhabits an alternate dimension from contemporaries like Phil Spector. And most of all, that Paint America Love, his attempt at creating a massive artistic statement about America And Its Problems like SMiLE or What’s Goin On, was an artistic triumph despite being a commercial flop. It’s a mournful, impressionistic, ecology-focused record that also makes time for an upbeat bop about chuck wagons (traveling frontier kitchens) in between impassioned calls for peace and melodramatic character studies. The record is wildly ambitious, filled with bangers, and so deeply idiosyncratic that there’s no mystery why it wasn’t a success. Christie retrenched to country music for a while, and as far as I can tell has spent the past few decades sporadically releasing lounge-style covers of oldies (his “Heart of Saturday Night” looks like fun.)

“Luv Attack” is free-floating; it might be his first new song in years, but it’s not even mentioned on Christie’s Geocities-core website (which isn’t dead - it lists 2022 tour dates!) Whatever the song’s provenance, it is inexplicable, which is what makes it feel so much like a Lou Christie production. The verses and the beat are pure 60s pastiche, but the hook? It’s like someone gave Christie the barest explanation of how pitch-shifting works, told him to listen to “Believe” for inspiration, and then left him to figure it out from there. Let me put this another way: I was absolutely sure that hyperpop had died with a stake through its heart when RuPaul released a soulless cash-in last month, but Lou Christie warbling “I’ve got a luv attack/ Shoop shoop!!” like he’s a futuristic robot contains exactly the kind of unhinged glee that could singlehandedly resurrect the genre. Because “Luv Attack” is so close to being a simple nostalgia play, a basic 60s revival song to change things up in an oldies-filled setlist, the way Christie drops this alien processing into the mix feels as sharp and strange and thrilling as anything he did in the 60s.

Who is "Luv Attack” for? Not the boomers that still mostly think of autotune as cheating, certainly. And not the youths who will never hear it, much less drop it into the nightcore sets where it clearly belongs, either. On some level the problem is - as it’s almost always been - that he’s Lou Christie: never quite in step with the trends, not nearly as appreciated as he should be. By the time this posts, “Luv Attack” may have broken 1K on YouTube, and that’s only if you count all three of the versions uploaded. Which is unfortunate, because it deserves to be remixed and played out at the highest possible volume in some tiny sweaty club I’m not cool enough to know about.

MG:

You know how cellphone cameras now have a “beauty” filter as the default setting? Listening to “Luv Attack,” I wonder if whatever software Lou Christie used to record this song came with autotune as a permanent solution to having to hear one’s own voice in panoramic stereo surround sound. Because most pictures are selfies, I kind of like the filter as a clumsy fix for lens distortion. Your nose isn’t really that big, but alas, neither is your skin so smooth! It’s a Rorschach test and your face every time you flip to front-facing. I can’t hear autotune in most songs. I can hear it here, but only at the end of the song when it becomes sort of gritty and mechanical, like a robot doused in water on the verge of a short. It’s a brilliant final note to “Luv Attack,” an obvious monster. What is the difference between our self-composed, auto-edited, compulsively reproduced portraits and Lou Christie’s debased, disguised, and untethered pop mania? Nothing, friends. Christie might be cheating his falsetto a bit, but when you’re beautiful, the computer only makes you more beautiful and 84 years did nothing to dull the immediate, thrilling beauty of “Luv Attack.”

#lou christie #luv attack #hyperpop #the tammys #music

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beauregardlionett · 3 years

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no choir (4/7)

AO3 Link

If one were to travel north of Kamordah along the fringes of the heated mountains, they would encounter numerous streams and rivers. Many of them did not bear names—at least, not names that any human would know. Should one be lucky enough, they might encounter the spirit of a waterway and learn their name.

Most were not lucky.

The spirits of the rivers were benevolent, but cautious. Too many of them fell by the sword of glory hungry adventurers, or became tamed and twisted to the will of mages. It was rare these days to encounter the water spirits known as Imugi. So rare, the mundane populations nearly forgot the name itself in the present.

There existed several breeds of dragons—some better known than others. Imugi were considered of lower stature and lesser power than their fully dragon counterparts.

Which was why Beau remained so determined to find a yeouiju of her own, to ascend into higher stature and power. However, with the dwindling knowledge of her kind, fewer chances were afforded to Imugi like her to gain a yeouiju. Lack of knowledge and faith meant the god that created Imugi was fading from power and existence. It took more out of them to create yeouiju now than it had hundreds of years before.

These facts did not daunt Beau’s determination, though.

Every day, she swam the length of her river charge, eyes on the heavens. She would consult schools of fish on their numbers, give them directions, rearrange river rocks, and tend to the flora on the banks of her river. Throughout each daily chore, Beau waited. At night, when the current babbled calmly over her stones and banks, she watched the heavens. The stars would twinkle back at her, each distant flash stoking a false flame of hope in Beau’s chest. Each time her aging heart would leap, thinking this might be her falling orb, her chance at last.

Each morning the sun greeted her dwindling patience with empty warmth.

“Haven’t you ever heard the term, a watched pot never boils?” Caleb asked her one evening. He ruffled the feathers of one wing as he groomed his beak through his primaries.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that you spend too much time eavesdropping on humans?” Beau retorted, voice sharp and bitter. Caleb did not rise to the bait, but his eagle eyes gave her a knowing look before returning to his task.

When the storms rolled in with warmer weather, Beau roiled in vicious hatred. They were awesome displays of power, and she knew dragons controlled these storms, dragons that had once been Imugi like her. If she focused hard, Beau could summon a mild cloud cover, but never more than that. She could not bring forth rain, let alone thunder and lightning. Her powers barely extended past the banks of her river.

On one such day, a storm raging with a rare ferocity above, Beau lay coiled in her hollow. Bright blue eyes trained on the clouds, she tracked each strike of lightning, shuddered with every crack of thunder. She longed to know the thrill of controlling the storm.

There was a flash among the clouds, bright white and searing purple. Beau’s head popped up, eyes wide and nose twitching as the burn of ozone filled the air. Thunder raged like a mournful cry and rattled Beau’s bones.

Something glowing fell from the clouds.

Heart racing and veins throbbing with adrenaline, Beau shot from her hollow with a speed unknown.

This was her chance. This was her yeouiju.

Beau could fly in the loosest sense of the word. She often made it to just above the treetops and no higher, lingering in the air for a few minutes before she had to return to the water. Without a yeouiju granting her stronger powers, she could not make it to the heavens. Despite this, Beau pushed herself now, straining her ability as much as possible, claws extending toward this glowing orb, this shining future.

The yeouiju hurtled closer, burning and beautiful. Beau’s heart sung in her chest with victory as her claws closed around the object just above the treetops.

But instead of the thrill of power, the surge of ascension, the weightlessness of true flight, Beau felt a static buzz singing through her veins. It felt like holding lightning, whiting out her vision for an instant.

It was then she realized that the object in her claws was not an orb at all.

Confused and frustrated, Beau wove her way back to the river, unable to stay in flight for much longer. Depositing her charge on the banks of her home, Beau coiled around herself until she stood small and human on the damp sand.

Glaring down at what she thought would be her yeouiju, Beau instead found the hulking figure of a woman. Her skin was alabaster in hue, hair the blinding white of lightning. Her right arm had sporadic, spiraling veins of scars—evidence of lightning damage. An oozing gash on her temple bled sluggishly as her breath stuttered from her lungs.

Beau could not pretend to understand, but she sighed, short and sharp, as she knelt beside the woman. They were close to Beau’s hollow, and she knew despite her frustration, she would not leave the woman here to die. She was not that heartless.

In the days following, Beau went about her usual routine, but now with an unconscious guest to tend to. She was not a healer, but Beau did her best to tend to the lightning wounds and forehead gash to the best of her ability. She got water and sometimes food into her charge, and asked the resident birds to watch over her when Beau left the hollow. The schools of fish were gossiping about the woman in Beau’s care, eager to learn more. Beau offered little information, as she had little to give.

It was one otter that finally noticed, three days after Beau had taken in the strange woman.

“You smell different,” the otter chirped. She spared Beau a glance from where she observed her husband teaching their son how to reinforce their home. The otter—Veth—swept a critical eye over Beau’s human form.

“What do you mean?” Beau rumbled, depositing a pile of sticks beside Veth.

“Usually you reek like the river and everything in it. But now you smell different—like a storm.”

Beau lifted her arm to her nose and inhaled. Veth gave her a dubious look as she sorted through the offered sticks.

“Maybe it’s because that woman is stinking up my home,” Beau grumbled, folding her arms over her chest. She knew she sounded awful and mean, but she felt cheated—no matter how the stranger held no fault.

“Maybe,” Veth agreed, cryptic and distracted as she gathered up some sticks.

Before they could say anymore, a bluebird Beau had left to guard the woman came fluttering down the riverbed at rapid speed. Beau held out her arm for the bluebird to alight on and listened to the rapid, excited chirping.

“Beau! Beau! Beau!” Jester said excitedly. “She woke up! That smelly lady woke up! She seems really out of it, but she’s awake! Her eyes are super cool. Did you know she has cool eyes?”

Offering a distracted wave to Veth and her family, Beau gave Jester a gentle shove into the air. She curled around herself and melted into her true form, weaving low and fast over the babbling water back toward her hollow. Beau lost Jester at some point, moving too quickly for the little bird to keep up, but Beau’s focus remained on getting back to the hollow.

She pulled to a stop just outside the curtain of lichen that acted as a screen. The woman stood outside, blinking around her, not noticing Beau.

Beau narrowed her eyes as the woman leaned heavily against one of the curving trees near the entrance, weary and wobbling. One of her eyes blinked a brilliant purple like the horizon before a thunderstorm. The other flashed like a summer sky, pale and bright. She reeked of ozone, glowed like a flash of lightning personified. There was power in her veins Beau could sense even from a distance.

Whoever this woman was, she possessed more than Beau ever had.

Coiling around herself after she stared for a few moments, Beau shifted into human form, feet dipping into the babble of the stream beneath her. The water parted for her descent before it wrapped eagerly around her ankles.

She scowled to realize this woman’s hulking figure was taller than her own.

“You’re awake,” Beau called, determined to get the first word. The woman looked to her, still leaning against the tree, holding her limbs like she was stiff or in pain.

“Where am I?”

Beau blinked, the woman’s voice raspy and deep, rolling like distant thunder through the syllables. She slowly realized that whomever she had grabbed from the sky was a storm personified.

She squared her shoulders against this woman’s gaze.

“This is my home—my hollow and my river. I’m the guardian, and I caught you when you fell from the sky.”

Something in this stranger’s expression seemed to shatter.

“I fell?”

“Yes,” Beau said, hesitant. She felt like she was delivering bad news, but she didn’t know why.

The woman cursed viciously under her breath, punching the tree she was leaning against with obvious frustration. Beau flinched slightly and took a hasty step forward, angry and a tad frightened all at once.

“Hey! Don’t hurt him!” Beau snapped, the nervous warble of the water around her rushing faster with her anger.

“What?” The woman looked around at Beau, confused. “Who?”

“Him,” Beau gestured empathetically toward the tree. “Haven’t you ever heard of a dryad?”

As if on cue, the bark of the oak that curved around Beau’s hollow shifted and warped. The woman made a startled noise, stumbling away from the trunk and tripping over her own feet, landing in the shallows with a mighty splash. A vaguely humanoid figure melted from the trunk, stepping free of the bark but still bearing the pattern on their green tinted skin. He rubbed at his chest, wincing as he looked around.

“That hurt,” the dryad said, gruff.

“Are you okay, Fjord?” Beau huffed, wading through the water until she stood on the banks. She looked over the oak and then over Fjord, concern easing from the set of her shoulders when he appeared unharmed.

“I’m fine,” he reassured Beau anyway, turning to look at the woman sprawled in the water.

“Oh, isn’t this the woman you rescued?”

“Yeah, and she’s the one who hit you. But I don’t think she knows about dryads.”

“I’m right here,” the woman snapped from where she soaked, eyes thunderous but confused. “And I have a name.”

Beau cocked an expectant eyebrow down at her, the bitter part of her enjoying this floundering version of her charge. But the quieter part of Beau wanted to help her up and make sure she was okay, explain everything she didn’t understand. It was a facet of herself that Beau was used to stifling.

“It’s Yasha,” she grumbled, making no move to stand.

“Where are you from?” Fjord asked, folding his arms over his chest and standing at Beau’s side. He possessed many of the same traits that Beau did, but he wore his charisma much better than Beau did.

Yasha cocked her head to the side, as if bewildered by the question.

“The sky? I’ve lived there among the storms my entire life. Where else would I be?”

Beau gestured around her widely in answer.

“How does anything live down here?”

Beau and Fjord exchanged a long, meaningful glance.

“You don��t know much, do you?” Beau asked, curious but also rude. “I’m a river spirit, Fjord’s a dryad. There are birds and otters, fish and land animals. Humans live in the villages and cities around here. I don’t know what goes on up there in the clouds, but there’s a lot of life down here.”

Yasha blinked up at Fjord and Beau with a look of disbelief. But it appeared difficult for her to maintain that, given the evidence literally surrounding her.

Beau sighed, short and sharp. Stepping up to Yasha, she extended a hand, but was sure to appear annoyed about it. On a normal day, Beau would leave Yasha in some town and wish her luck. She didn’t have time to babysit a grown woman who should know better. But there was a selfish part of Beau who wondered if this woman from the sky could get Beau what she wanted. A smaller, less selfish part of Beau that told her to stop being so closed off for once.

“Get up,” Beau said when Yasha stared at the hand extended her way. “I need to treat your wounds again. Then I have a lot to teach you, apparently.”

Yasha hesitated, her mismatched eyes flicking behind Beau to Fjord and back. Beau’s impatience was mounting, on the verge of snapping, when Yasha took her hand.

She told herself the rush of static electricity in her veins was nothing, as Beau hauled Yasha to her feet.

The days passed, Beau tending to Yasha’s lightning wound every morning and ensuring they were healing every night. In between those quiet moments, Beau showed Yasha around. She introduced her new companion to the rest of the dryads with Fjord, Caduceus, the slow talking oak near Beau’s hollow, and the miscellaneous other trees near Beau’s banks. Jester introduced herself with excited chirping before Beau could even open her mouth. Yasha seemed to take to Jester quickly, often letting Jester ride around on her shoulder.

Veth hesitated to introduce Yasha to her family, but Yasha took one look at little Luc and melted with fondness. Beau and Veth watched on as Yasha played gently with Luc and Veth welcomed Yasha warmly every time after.

It took a few days, but Caleb eventually made his way back to the river, alighting on Beau’s shoulder as she sat in the river near her hollow. Yasha was on the banks, talking with Caduceus as he showed her how to weave flowers into a chain.

“Welcome back,” Beau said, just loud enough for Caleb to hear. “You were gone for a while. I was starting to worry you got taken down or something.”

Ruffling his feathers, Caleb sent Beau a mildly indignant glare, but it was mostly fond.

“I was gathering information,” Caleb divulged. His beady eyes zeroed in on Yasha as she stood and waved to Caduceus. They watched as Yasha waded into the water toward them.

“What did you find?” Beau asked, keeping her voice down.

“Quite a lot,” Caleb said as he twisted to preen at his flight feathers. “Your new companion is quite a topic in the skies.”

“What?” Beau said, turning to stare at Caleb.

A ring of flowers dropped onto Beau’s head, making her startle. She twisted to stare at Yasha as she sat down in the water across from her. But Yasha’s eyes were on Caleb, his eagle eyes lifting from his preening to stare back at her.

“Who is that?” Yasha asked, blunt as ever. Beau had discovered that about Yasha rather quickly. It was either because Yasha had no social graces to speak of, or she simply didn’t care enough to try. Beau wasn’t sure yet.

“This is Caleb,” Beau answered, making no move to take off the flowers even as she kept staring at Yasha.

“And you are Yasha, the fallen Druk,” Caleb said as he folded his wings neatly at his sides.

Yasha went rigid, her eyes flashing like they were filled with lightning.

“Ah, so it’s true,” Caleb said. “Most in the heavens believed you dead, so I couldn’t be certain.”

“Whoa, wait.” Beau held up her hands, anger bubbling under her skin at the lack of understanding she possessed. The surrounding water swirled in time with her emotions as it lapped over her and Yasha’s legs.

“My name is Yasha,” Yasha spoke up before Beau could ask questions. Her gaze still sat firmly on Caleb, as if he held all the answers. “I am the current incarnation of the dragon Druk, the Lightning Bearer. I am the Storm Herald, right hand of Kord. I am alive, even though the Chain Maker wished otherwise.”

“Please stop speaking like you’re part of a horrid play and tell us what the fuck that entire stream of nonsense means,” Beau snapped. Everything Yasha said sounded impressive, but they were hollow words and titles to Beau. She had never been to the heavens, didn’t know a single soul that resided among the clouds. All of this was foreign to her, and she hated it.

“The Storm Lord, Kord, controls the climate of the heavens,” Yasha said, finally looking at Beau instead of Caleb. “I am his right hand, the Lightning Bearer. There are several things that I do but do not have time to explain. A few nights ago, Kord and I were around here, and the Chain Maker attacked. He is an avatar of a much larger threat. He tried to engage Kord in battle, but I got in his way. I don’t know what happened, exactly, but whatever he was going to attack Kord with seems to have struck me down.”

“And then I caught you,” Beau said.

“You did. I don’t know why,” Yasha’s intense gaze softened ever so slightly. “But I’m grateful for it. I probably would not have survived if I hit the ground. Or maybe I would have, but I would be much worse off for it.”

“I thought you were my liberation,” Beau bit out, letting the bitterness creep into her voice. “My yeouiju.”

“Your what?”

“I don’t know what a Druk is, but I am a dragon that requires outside intervention to ascend to the heavens. Until then, this river is my anchor for the world and my home. Without it, I have no purpose. But without a yeouiju from the heavens, I cannot ascend either.”

“Curious,” Caleb spoke up at last from Beau’s shoulder, startling them both. “You seem to have met in the middle. Perhaps it is fate.”

“Fate isn’t real, Caleb,” Beau scoffed.

“Some would say otherwise,” he shot back in that annoying, know-it-all tone of his.

“You said the heavens assumed I perished,” Yasha interrupted them, leaning forward, eyes imploring. “Would you be able to spread the word that I am not? Perhaps it will get back to Kord that I am trying to return to him.”

Caleb studied Yasha for a long moment in that unnerving fashion of his. But after a few moments, he inclined his head toward Yasha.

“I will see what I can do. There is a cloud spirit I am rather close with who might lay the foundations for spreading the news.”

“Is this the cloud friend?” Beau asked teasingly, unable to help herself.

She chuckled as Caleb ruffled his feathers and scooted away from her head, along her shoulder.

“My interactions with Essek are none of your concern,” Caleb said, clearly flustered. “Whatever Jester told you is to be taken with a grain of salt. You know she’s fond of stirring the pot.”

“I also know you’ve been spending a lot of time in the heavens lately,” Beau pointed out, grinning.

“I should be going,” Caleb said brusquely, hopping off Beau’s shoulder to a nearby rock so he could take off properly. “News to spread and all that.”

“Say hi to Essek for me!” Beau shouted after him.

A few moments of silence passed before Yasha spoke up.

“Your friends are very helpful.”

“They do their best. Most of the time they just like to meddle because they’re all incurable gossips.”

“Still,” Yasha said with a fond smile. “I am grateful. You said you don’t believe in fate, but this seems too good to be true most of the time. I’m glad you caught me.”

Beau stared back at her, awkward and silent for a lack of knowing how to respond. Yasha sounded so genuine, seemed so open and kind that it was hard to reconcile this version of her with the ‘Lightning Bearer’ that had glared at Caleb so intensely. She distrusted Yasha—or at least she wanted to. But she had given Beau no real reason to do so. Yasha had only been kind and helpful, if a little confused. But she seemed to enjoy learning about Beau’s everyday chores and tasks and had made fast friends with a lot of the animals in Beau’s domain.

Yasha dipped her hand into the current at her hip and smiled as the water curled around her fingers.

Beau’s heart skipped a beat in her chest, feeling more alive than it had in years.

Shit.

It was the middle of the night when everything happened. Loud rustling and distant screeches heralded the chaos. Yasha was sleeping in Beau’s hollow (and Beau didn’t even want to unpack what that meant) and startled into wakefulness seconds after Beau. Yasha had been in Beau’s domain for near two weeks now, accustomed to their routine and the peaceful nights.

So it tracked that she seemed just as concerned as Beau by the disturbance.

They shared a quick look, concern melting into fierce determination before ducking from the hollow.

Beau knew the instant she laid eyes on the rowdy group of five just down the banks from her hollow. She scowled, shifting into a lower stance, and growling low in her chest.

“Adventurers. Perfect.”

“This is bad, then?” Yasha murmured, eyeing up the strangers warily, but also with no small degree of curiosity.

“They’re probably here to kill me,” Beau grumbled. Yasha shot her a startled look that Beau waved off. “Not the first time, definitely won’t be the last. They’re an annoyance more than anything.”

“There!”

One adventurer had spotted them, pointing and whirling the rest of their party up into a frenzy. Beau huffed as she took a step forward.

“You don’t have to fight this battle if you don’t want to,” Beau said over her shoulder. “They’re petty creatures I can handle quickly.”

Without waiting for an answer, Beau shifted into her dragon form with a rapid coiling motion. Rumbling from deep within her chest, Beau snapped at the approaching party in warning before she engaged them in battle.

She hated that the mundane populations were such gossips because the legend of river Imugi was such a tempting conquest for every adventuring party. It meant that Beau couldn’t live in peace, and therefore the creatures and dryads she looked over couldn’t either. They were collateral damage and their home invaded, and it wasn’t fair.

Beau took her anger out on the adventurers, holding nothing back and showing no mercy. Her fangs ached with the force of her bites, her tongue tasted metallic with their blood, and her hide stung from their blows. But it was tolerable, if it meant they would leave.

She was facing down one of the last standing fools, ready to send them sprawling, when a sudden, searing pain flared to life in Beau’s chest. Roaring with the unexpected agony, Beau glanced down and found no wound to speak of that could have caused it. Fearing that it was some kind of magic taking hold, Beau lashed out at the adventurer in front of her and knocked them to the ground. With their collapse, she expected the pain to fade, or even vanish abruptly, but it lingered. It felt less intense, but still burned.

Turning around, searching to make sure there were no other adventurers standing, Beau found her answer.

On the banks of her river stood a mage, hand outstretched toward her hollow. Yasha slumped on the ground in front of Fjord’s tree, clutching her chest. Through the grey darkness of night and from a distance, Beau saw a faint, dark stain on Yasha’s fingers.

Before Beau’s rage could encompass her, Yasha raised a hand at the mage. Her palm glowed with crackling energy in a tight sphere before she unleashed it on the mage. He fell to the ground and didn’t get up again.

The threat eliminated, Beau coiled into her human form and sprinted through the water toward Yasha. Fjord melted from the trunk of his tree at the same moment Beau dropped to her knees on the bank beside Yasha.

“What happened?” Beau snapped, reaching for Yasha’s hands.

“I think that mage was trying to hit my tree and make it fall on you. Yasha jumped in the blast's way.”

“Let me see your wound,” Beau demanded, voice sharp with anger that masked her worry. Yasha obeyed her, despite the harsh edge to Beau’s demand.

It was a shallow wound, but horrid looking all the same. Jester came fluttering down from the leafy boughs of Fjord’s tree to alight on his shoulder, twittering nervously.

“Fjord, Fjord, Fjord, are you okay? You weren’t hurt, right?”

“No, Jester. I wasn’t. Yasha protected me. You’re okay, yeah?”

Jester nodded her head as she fluttered her wings and turned her attention to Yasha. A bluebird’s face was not built to be overly expressive, but Jester was nothing if not a miracle compiled beneath a layer of feathers. She looked distressed and worried as she chirped high in her throat.

“That looks really bad, Yasha. It probably hurts a lot.”

Yasha shrugged, despite the fact she was bleeding from her chest.

“I suppose I have to patch you up again,” Beau said, standing and carefully bringing Yasha with her. “Everyone, go back to sleep if you can. We shouldn’t have any adventurers here for another couple months.”

“The dryads and I will handle the bodies,” Fjord said, giving Jester a nudge back into the branches of his tree. “You take care of Yasha.”

Beau waved him off with gratitude as she and Yasha limped into their little hollow.

“Thank you, by the way,” Beau said as she continued wrapping cloth around the poultice-covered wound on Yasha’s chest.

“For what?” Yasha asked. She was sitting as still as possible, but Beau could tell the wound stung by the way Yasha’s brow furrowed.

“For protecting Fjord. I was so focused on the fight I forgot to make sure they wouldn’t hurt anyone else.”

“Why did they want to hurt you in the first place?”

Beau sighed, pausing her wrapping for a moment before she began the steady winding motion again.

“They’re adventurers, it’s what they do. They hear stories and legends from the elders in their towns and grow up believing the crowning achievement of an adventurer is to slay a dragon. But our stories have been diluted and muddled and forgotten. Most don’t even know anything about the animals like Veth and Jester, or the dryads like Cad and Fjord. They don’t know killing an Imugi like me means the river system becomes disrupted. They don’t know every creature I look after looses a guardian—and they don’t care to know either.”

“I never knew it was so complex down here,” Yasha murmured, more to herself than to Beau.

“Yeah, well, welcome to the world, Yasha.” Beau tucked the loose end of the bandages in place and leaned back to admire her work. “That should hold.”

“Thank you,” Yasha said, moving her arm around a bit to test the give of the bandages.

“Sure,” Beau shrugged, turning to put the poultice away. “Don’t mention it.”

“No,” Yasha said, voice soft yet firm. Beau twisted back around to look at her. “I mean it, Beau. I wouldn’t be alive without you.”

“You’re being dramatic,” Beau grumbled, but Yasha was already shaking her head.

“I told you. I don’t know what would have happened if I hit the ground that night I fell. You saved me, and I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.”

Yasha reached out and placed a hand on Beau’s arm, but they both pulled sharply back when a zing of static went spiking through their limbs. Blinking at one another in bewildered befuddlement, Beau found her voice first.

“That keeps happening. Is it something you can do?”

“I’ve never done it before, as far as I can remember. But it started with you, and it’s not every time we touch.”

Beau hesitated, chewing at her lip, before, “I think I felt your pain earlier, when you got hit.”

Yasha’s eyes blew wide.

“I guess Caleb was right about fate, then,” Yasha murmured.

It took Beau a moment to realize what Yasha was saying.

“You think we’re soulmates? Those are rare—almost myths, these days.”

“True, but you just told me everyone down here thinks the same of you. Yet here you are.”

Beau didn’t have a good comeback for that.

“So…what now? We’re supposedly soulmates. But I have a river to guard and you a god to get back to. Eventually I hope to join the heavens, but I think I’ve lost enough hope to admit that won’t happen anytime soon. Are we fated to meet and then die apart?”

“Is there another way to ascend to full dragon besides gaining a yeouiju?” Yasha twisted her fingers together as she looked at Beau, eyes wide. It was such an honest expression that Beau had to glance away, cheeks hot.

“After a thousand years I can. But most of my kind rarely lives that long with adventurers and other factors taking us out. And I’m only 224 years old. That’s…a long time to wait. I don’t even know how old you are or what your life expectancy is.”

Beau huffed, frustrated as the reality of their situation set in. Yasha was her soulmate, a woman she barely knew with emotions for her that Beau could barely describe as love. She had met the woman two weeks ago, for crying out loud. Yet they were still trying to get Yasha back where she needed to be, and Beau had a duty and a life down here, with no way to follow Yasha to the heavens. And Beau hadn’t truly believed in soulmates until two minutes ago.

“Beau?” Yasha murmured, drawing Beau’s attention back to her. “I understand it might be a lot to ask, but if you’re willing to try it, could we make this work?”

Yasha held out a hand, brow soft and eyes sweet.

Beau thought of Yasha protecting Fjord, weaving flowers with Caduceus, and letting Jester ride on her shoulder. She pictured Yasha speaking intently with Caleb, cooing over Veth and her family. Beau envisioned sitting in the river’s current with Yasha at her side, staring at the water with all the fondness she now directed at Beau. She reached for the empty neutrality born of loneliness she wore like a shield and found it missing.

Instead, she found fledging hope that Yasha might stay in those little joys of Beau’s life rather than fade from them.

Beau reached out and slipped her hand into Yasha’s, shuddering at the static thrill that buzzed in her veins.

“Let’s make it work.”

#cr #critical role #writing #my writing #beauyasha #beauyashaweek2021 #beauregard lionett #yasha

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