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willowser · 1 month

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ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴏɴ ᴀʟʟ ғᴏᴜʀs. werewolf kiri au.

you wake up under a mountain of furs.

light comes flickering from the hearth and, warm and welcoming as it is—you've no idea where you are.

you don't recognize the inside of the cabin; it's certainly not yours, nor is its layout that of any you’ve seen in the village. it's rather plain, with a singular window and table and chair and small fireplace, empty enough that you wonder how anyone could live comfortably with so little.

outside, the winter storm rages on, and there's a howl that cuts through the air that strikes bone-deep.

all at once your memories come back to you: dragged through town with bound hands and ankles, in only a thin night dress, screaming with all your might as the physician that delivered you into this world tied you to an old pine, along with the priest and the man that sold you blueberries in the spring.

people you knew and loved. had trusted.

the memories become hazy after a while, darkening with the night that crept in. you remember your body losing its feeling, but not its fear. you remember the violence of the storm, breaking trees and branches and uprooting the forest floor. you remember the horrible and hulking shape of something rising in the moonlight.

the door shoves open then, with enough force to send you scurrying back into the corner of the room. the blizzard tries to rush inside, but a man stands in its way, leaning back against the wood to keep the wind and snow out where it belongs. he's—big, as tall as the frame and just as wide, with thick hair that he's tied back, messy and low.

he's rosy in his cheeks and on the tip of his nose, as bright as the eyes that snap to you the moment you dare to breathe.

he doesn't say anything, at first. the bag of firewood he sets at his feet settles as he turns to you in interest, eyebrows raised. the clothes he's wearing look—old and worn, certainly not suitable for the storm roaring outside, with the holes and tears in the fabric. the boots he has on, however, seem heavy, have his steps echoing when he moves further into the room.

you pull your knees up to your chest and try to shrink away; beneath your thin dress, your skin has pebbled up, reminding you of just how vulnerable you still are.

your fear translates; the man stops on the other side of the little table, breathing in deeply before raising his hands up in what reads as surrender.

"hello," he finally says, and when you don't respond, he places a thick hand to his dark-haired chest and introduces himself as, "eijirou."

he nods emphatically and then repeats himself, as if to reinforce the name. you only grant him a small nod in return—and he smiles. it's wide, stretching across his face, and friendly, authentic enough that you question whether you're as damned as you thought, or perhaps saved.

how did you even get here? the question finally thaws out from the recesses of your brain and you take another look around the room as if the answer lies between the wood or nestled into the furs. this place looks too hand-crafted, you realize, all of it—and the man before you looks like he could move mountains, if he wanted to.

the chains that had bound you were iron-strong and didn't once budge in all your thrashing, before things went dark—but now you are inside by a well-maintained fire, warm and free, and all that remains of your ill fate are the indentions worn into your wrists.

he's still staring at you, the man. eijirou. he's not moved any closer, either, and when you meet his curious gaze, his lips twist and his eyes narrow. a thoughtful noise comes out of his mouth, like he's thinking of what to say or how to say it, and you're reminded that you don't recognize where you are, nor do you recognize him in the slightest.

big as he is, you don't think he could have carried you too far in a snowstorm such as the one still raging outside; are you still somewhere deep in the forest? in a cabin at the heart of the wood? saved by a man that somehow survives with so little out in the middle of nowhere?

"eijirou," you test the name on your lips and he perks up at the sound, attention snapping back to you instantly. you don't know if it's winter seeping through the floor, or if it's in the way that he watches you, that makes you shiver.

finally, he asks, "cold?" and when you nod, he slowly makes his way over to you, carefully, as if approaching a deer ready to run.

—and then he sheds his shirt with a quick shrug and holds it out to you.

you should want to look away, for decency sake, but you're—stunned by it, by him. there's a litany of scars that paint him in odd and worrisome places, but he stands tall and strong before you, unbothered by his own state. unbothered by the eyes that run over the expanse of his bare shoulders, the dark, thick trail of hair running down from his belly button, the ripples of muscle his loose shirt did well to hide.

you take it from him carefully and it's so warm, almost hot, that you press it to your face immediately to chase away the chatter of your jaw. the material itself, however ragged, is big enough to drape over your curled form like a blanket, and so you do just that. it carries the earthy smell of the woods, deeply woven into the fabric; pine and musk and something smoky.

with your cheek still pressed to his shirt, you look up to thank him, at last, but the words still in your throat at the minute changes of his face: still smiling, though sharper now, somehow, and his eyes are still wide with that keen, rapt interest—but the crimson to them has set like the sun and they've grown just as dark as the night outside.

#i wrote this like a madman pls excuse the first draft quality hehe #PLEASEEEE he's so akfhahfkah isn't socialized LOL #doesn't talk to anyone really 🥺has no reason to 🥺#he's new to all this 🥺#doesn't mean to put you in his lil nest and cover you in the smell of him 👀#okay well he DOES but he didn't know it would AFFECT HIM THAT WAY PLEASE #ugh this has been living in my head for so long i'll write more of this when it isn't 1 am LOL #✿ thoughts: kirishima #✿ willow writes #song is wolf like me by tv on the radio !!!

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theminecraftbee · 3 months

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okay so. hear me out. but. au concept--

joel is one of many people affected by a Vanishing. its a phenomenon sweeping the country--people simply not showing up for work, school, life one day, as though they've vanished from the face of the earth. it's almost possible to mistake for normal missing persons cases, if it weren't for the way a few of the higher-profile Vanishings have happened to people who shouldn't have been able to vanish at all, let alone in a way that wouldn't be noticed until too late. look at joel's hometown. the people monitoring the dam were supposed to be redundant, and yet--

anyway. not like he cares or anything, except for the fact this stupid disaster or whatever has left him without anywhere to live or anyone to live with, and he still has a year of high school left, so he can't just do whatever he wants. luckily there's this school in a town called new hermiton that agreed to give him a scholarship to finish his education in the name of recovery and solidarity or whatever, and it's kind of a shwankier school than he'd normally go for, but it's free and, more importantly, they're willing to pay for his lodging, and he can't really turn that down. and it's not like he has a choice but to upend his entire life now. so packing what few of his belongings survived into a bag and getting on a train and moving across the country to a new school it is, he guesses.

(he's been having nightmares that inexplicably feature swarms of blue butterflies. last time he checked, lakes don't have butterflies in them. although maybe it's a metaphor or something, on account of the butterflies saying stupid stuff about how people who are remembered can't disappear, and even a false world cannot be erased if it's watched over, and how fate depends on him holding people in his heart. thanks for saying the same stupid shitty platitudes his social worker told him, just more cryptically, butterflies. real cool.)

new hermiton, it turns out, is a small city. while new hermiton academy is a newer school, much of the city is older. he's moved into a nice enough flat in an older apartment building. he has another cryptic butterfly dream. he thinks he remembers someone trying to urgently warn him of something, but it's all... shaky. that morning, he goes to the school for the first time. he's greeted by a fellow transfer student, skizzleman, although apparently he already knows some of the other folks in town, and transferred here so he could stay with them. but it's at least someone else in a similar enough situation to joel, especially since joel can just tell by the way people are looking at him that skizz didn't have much of a choice but to be here, either, and best friends with impulse or not, he's on his own too.

so. a friend. maybe this school won't be that bad, even if joel keeps having nightmares, and even if the weather here is weirdly cold for july, and even if his new homeroom professor keeps on looking at him really weirdly. (aren't professors supposed to be better about stupid rumors anyway? what's that mr. hills's deal?)

and then, two days later, he waves skizz off at the end of the school day, and gets skizz's friend, impulse, at his door, desperate to hear that skizz had just come to stay the night in joel's shitty lonely apartment, because otherwise it looks like--come on man. joel's already having a shit time. the universe deciding to go after his one existing friend too? he promises impulse to help investigate that night, in the vain hope that Skizz isn't one of the Vanished. joel gets a splitting migraine trying to follow their path back, though, and they have to stop for the night.

skizz is reported missing the next morning. joel resigns himself to cutting himself off from the people around him, as per usual. then, strangely, mr. hills corners him as he goes home.

"you'll need this," he says, and shoves what feels like a cheap butterfly knife into joel's hands. "uh, remember, trust your heart! you'll know how to use it."

"what," joel says. "hold on. you're supposed to be a teacher. why are you giving me this. i know for a fact my file says i have like, ptsd or whatever, which is stupid, but you definitely aren't supposed to be giving me a knife, you weirdo?"

"you'll know how to use it," joe hills says again. "goodbye! believe in yourself!"

mr. hills sprints behind a building before he has to explain anything else. joel is left standing on the sidewalk holding a knife, staring after him.

so. that's weird as hell. joel shivers in the cold and continues on his way home. the butterfly knife feels heavy in his pockets. he should probably report that guy to his social worker or something, but actually talking to his social worker feels like conceding defeat. joel can take care of himself. he can prove he can take care of himself. just watch him. step one: go out to get ramen because he forgot to buy any food for his apartment.

he sees impulse putting up signs as he eats. impulse looks miserable. joel thinks about how skizz, just in the short time he'd known him, had sort of unintentionally given away that he felt isolated after his mother Vanished. that impulse was a great friend, but impulse didn't understand what it was like. he never really SAID as much, but--

it's not fair to impulse, for that to be the last thing impulse remembered of what was apparently a friend since childhood. and joel doesn't care about any of these guys, but he can still pay his check and go out and help impulse go looking. he's no good at comforting people and doesn't know this guy, but joel had been alone too, sitting on the roof and crying, when the helicopters came.

except when they go back to the path by the school, joel's head starts to hurt again.

he looks up and there's a butterfly.

"hey, impulse, are butterflies common here?" he asks, a little desperately.

"i mean, not really, why?" impulse says.

"uh," joel says, and gestures. the two of them stare as the strange yellow butterfly circles in place.

"okay, so that is kind of weird," impulse admits.

"right?" joel says. "the only way it would be weirder is if it were blue." impulse gives him a look. joel does not explain.

it starts to fly away.

"we should follow it," impulse says, his voice getting a little dull. "yeah. we should follow it."

"what? no! no we should not follow the haunted butterfly, are you nuts?" joel says, but it's a bit too late. (maybe this is what the knife is for: stabbing impulse. it would be an effective method of stopping him!) he chases impulse down, down to the river, where yellow butterflies are swarming. impulse, as though possessed, simply steps into the swarm and falls through them to the water.

joel's, uh, freaking out more than a little bit? he'll admit he's freaking out. he dives forward to try to grab him, only to realize that he doesn't see impulse anywhere.

a single blue butterfly lands on joel's shoulder. "do you hold his heart next to yours?"

"i'm going insane," joel says.

"no heart is meant to be completely alone. do you hold his next to yours?"

"this isn't happening," joel says. "this is like a stupid manga or something. it's not happening."

"there is still time to save them; you must hold your heart strong, or the consequences will be dire. i believe in you."

the butterfly vanishes.

"fuck it," joel says. "if i drown then it's nothing people haven't expected of me anyway."

he steps through the swarm of butterflies.

that night, he drags both impulse and skizz out of the river. they're all freezing cold. shadows and strange, yellowy liquid still cling to all of their skin. also, joel stabbed himself, which like, glad to know that's what the knife was for, apparently, and the scar is warm and comforting. he can feel his--persona, and don't ask him how he knows that--shifting under his skin, under the mark on his hand. it said its name is pygmalion; it says it is a piece of joel's soul.

this is all patently insane. but skizz and impulse are alive and NOT eaten by shadow monsters, so even if they're both a little unconscious, joel takes that as a win.

they lie on the ground outside the river. someone stumbles across them. "well give me some teeth and call me an alligator. you got out on your own," breathes a fellow student clutching a dagger. joel thinks he's in the class across the hall. also--

"what are you talking about," joel wheezes.

"you found it on your own. you can find them?" the student says. his eyes are wide. something in joel's soul recognizes something in the student's. something in joel's BRAIN puts two and two together and realizes why mr. hills gave him a knife.

"no. no, go away, i don't want to be involved in this," joel says.

"well, don't you think it's too late for that?" the student says, and joel passes out. he's pretty sure the butterflies have to be laughing at him. in fact, as though to mock him further, after passing out, he doesn't even get to avoid it forever, because he wakes up in a glowing blue boat. there is a man with white-blonde hair, blue eyes, and a blue outfit leaning over him, poking him.

joel takes no responsibility for punching him. he'd do it again, too, as the long-nosed man sitting next to the unmanned steering wheel welcomes him to the velvet room.

(this, joel realizes later, all rather sets the tone for what the next year of his life is about to become.)

#hermitcraft #joel smallishbeans #smallishsona au #THAT'S RIGHT BABY ITS THE PERSONA AU I WAS WAFFLING ABOUT #because i'm playing p3re right now this is pretty p3 inspired but also expect elements of p4 (my fav) and p5 #i. do not know enough about p1 and p2 to be using all these butterflies but FUCK IT WE BALL.#a bee fic #KIND OF I GUESS I'LL PUT THIS THERE.#anyway the idea is that this au is half a crack au and half DEEPLY SINCERE #because the JOKE is that joel hates every minute of being a persona protagonist #but the OTHER bit is that joel is genuinely an extremely loyal guy who would do VERY WELL as a persona protagonist #you just have to drag him there kicking and screaming #(sort of in a very. p3-esque way)

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