Tumgik
#i'll also post it to ao3 maybe
pukner · 11 months
Text
Baz | part one
a steddyhands twt thread turned oneshot
|| Rated Gen || Stede and Ed take a brief vacation to visit Stede's family, and find a surprise.
part one / part two
They decide to visit Mary. Well, Stede decides to visit Mary.
Or, Stede gets a letter by extremely confusing means (why is fucking Jackie playing messenger) and receives word that in his absence (read: death), his wife's gone and married some bloke named Doug.
Ed doesn't feel anything about it either way, really. Stede's gone and worked himself into a tizzy (heh, like Izzy. Wait no, don't think about Izzy) and he's all guilty for ignoring his kids or whatever.
Ed doesn't get it. In his experience, the best dad is one you don't have to see.
He's a bit antsy about leaving the crew behind, to be honest. Not the most functional lot, this. Not without-- Well. Not without Iz.
Stede doesn't get it. "Honestly," he says, mouth pursed in that unhappy way of his, "Izzy was hardly the only competent member of our crew."
"Besides Oluwande and Jim," Ed says, flatly, "Yeah, he was."
"Lucius can write--" Stede offers.
"So can that molly we ran into last week. So can--"
"...molly?"
"The-- he tried to sleep with you? Asked you for a drink and then I stabbed him?"
"Oh, goodness--he was a courtesan?"
"Mate, don't say--"
Alright, so the conversation gets a bit derailed. He imagines Iz standing between them and snapping at them to Fucking Stay On Track or something, but they wouldn't be having this conversation if he was here, would they? If he hadn't slipped away unnoticed the second Stede returned--
if Ed had just paid attention, if Ed hadn't gone so profoundly off the rails in those last days before Stede showed back up, if he hadn't--
Ed tastes blood when he wakes up some nights. He wonders if Izzy does. He wonders if he's dead. He talks to Stede about it, some nights.
And he understands, is the bizarre thing. Stede looks at his worst moments, the tar leaking out his mouth, the I Maimed My Dearest Friend And Also Tried To Kill Lucius of it all, and says, "Alright, that's fine. You're terrible but so am I. We can be less terrible together."
They end up going to Barbados, in the end. He talks about Iz again, as they walk. It's a nice island. Very breezy. Sunny. It's like he's hemorrhaging all his feelings.
Stede listens, and murmurs, "I don't miss him like you do, dear, but I miss him all the same."
Then, because Stede's fundamentally a bitch, he adds, "Even though he was an irritating little man."
Ed doesn't like that. Not the thing about Iz, he absolutely is irritating and little, but the fact that he's talking in the past tense. Then Ed realizes that he did the same.
They meet Mary and her Doug. They're great. She's kind of a bitch, and Ed thinks immediately that he can never let her meet Jackie, or Anne, or Mary (the other one, Read). He also meets some broad in an eye patch that he immediately clocks as a threat.
The kids aren't home.
"You just let them run around with some stranger?" Stede says, appalled.
Stede gets appalled a lot. It's his whole thing. Ed's sort of wandering around and picking at stuff they have lying around. Paintbrushes, cushions. A doll lying on some fancy sofa.
Place looks nice. Dying was a good parenting move on Stede's part.
"He isn't a stranger," Mary's saying, in that patient tone that all women have when they're thinking of murder, "He's our neighbor--"
"Well," says Doug, coughing into his hand.
"Alright, so he lives in the woods, but he's a perfectly nice--"
"He watches the children when I'm having showings--"
"What on earth are you showing?" asks Stede, sounding unreasonably baffled.
"...my art, Stede."
"Ah. Well, what about Doug?"
"I work," says Doug, brightly.
"Some people do that, Stede," says Mary, pointedly.
"I work!"
"I doubt that," says Mary, which is fair. Ed doesn't think what they do qualifies as work.
They bitch at each other about this guy. Apparently he watches the kids. He's teaching Alma how to swordfight. And teaching Louis how to sew? What the fuck.
"--sword fight!" Stede says, shrilly, "Mary, that's hardly appropriate--"
"You literally ran away to become a pirate," says Mary, flatly.
"...fair," says Stede.
They hear a lot about this guy over tea.
He helped get rid of a nasty pirate situation, apparently. He's good with a sword, despite his limp, the cane he needs. He grows excellent beets? Has a nice flower garden. Knits up a storm. Kind of a wanker, very crabby, but soft on kids. The kids love him, apparently.
"--Alma's developing quite an interest in sailing, thanks to Baz," Mary is saying, and Ed drops his fork.
Oh.
He looks at Stede, panicked, and then when Stede doesn't give him the panic eyes back he realizes Ah He Doesn't Know. Stede isn't Jack, or old Sam. He doesn't know.
He looks at Mary, just then, and spies out a sly little smile on her face. It's a schemer's smile, this one. He's seen it on Jack often enough. Oh, he can never let her meet Annie. He's already afraid of the implications of her knowing Jackie.
Stede decides, before Ed can say his thing, that he's got to meet this Baz bloke.
Ed can't speak, on account of the phantom taste of blood in his mouth. He looks down at his plate, at all the meat he's pushed to a side.
part two
48 notes · View notes
tennessoui · 1 year
Text
au where obi-wan gets prophetic dreams of anakin’s fall but they’re the kenobi show montage dreams where nothing useful can be gleaned about how to stop it; so obi-wan decides he just needs to leave the order. anakin is only 12, he can be trained by another master. obi-wan didn’t even have a master when he was 12. anakin will be fine. stars, he’ll probably be better.
of course he’s not and of course obi-wan abandoning him pushes him closer to palpatine and he falls much sooner, becoming a baby sith that palpatine mostly farms out to dooku for training because anakin at 16, 17, 18 is a lot
and when he falls, the jedi order is like hm. we’re gonna tell kenobi about this. cause now skywalker is a sith with a sith master, and a grudge the size of coruscant against the guy who left him, so. let’s just give him a heads up to maybe consider going into hiding
but of COURSE when obi-wan hears his precious padawan STILL FELL he goes right to count dooku and asks to be his apprentice, he’d make such a good apprentice, dooku always liked him when he was qui-gon’s padawan, remember? now he could be his apprentice
dooku knows that with skywalker, 19 and well-trained now in the picture, his usefulness to sidious is running out, so he doesn’t have a lot of reasons to say no to kenobi. and kenobi is right. he did always like him when he was qui-gon’s apprentice, so sure he’ll give him a sith name (solence) and a red lightsaber (sick)
but basically this leads to very awkward sith family dinners where darth vader--is trying to kill darth solence with his eyes and sometimes the nearest oyster fork, darth solence is throwing sad kicked puppy expressions across the table at darth vader and sighing into his dessert pudding all the while debating with darth tyranus about how good the dark side could really be, i mean, if one were to really think about it, especially in comparison to the life we all led at the Temple, remember anakin? you loved life at the Temple.
darth sidious stopped accepting the invites five dinners ago.
418 notes · View notes
Text
Dangerously close to plotting a real Skyrim/Lord of the Rings crossover for after Keeping Count because my secret desire for Leara/Glorfindel has reared its head again
Shhh Don't question it.
47 notes · View notes
bunnyhysteria · 25 days
Text
a few people are bringing up depression in response to my shen yuan post, and while do what you want yes, I feel this does go back to how people don't know how to write disabled characters as another person brought into light. including mental disabilities.
mayb now I'm projectin on this one, but seein the absolute cluster fuck of shen yuan, it feels strange to go "it's depression!". I see narcissistic personality disorder, other cluster b traits, I see autism, mayb even ocd. he's a paranoid, hot head mess whose constantly calculating every moment. but people don't really know how to contextualize mental illness, especially not the "scary" ones, even if they have mental illness themselves. just slap on depression and anxiety as a bandaid and don't talk about the rest! it's not that people don't want to go further (or at least I have some faith), I just think our current society has not prepared people to step out of the "nice" mental disorders.
so I don't fault anyone who reduces his nonsense into the socially acceptable depression, but I can't act like that it doesn't make me uncomfortable. but also not uncomfortable enough to directly respond to strangers on the interwebs HSKDHDH.
but I also did want to talk about the depression to slob pipeline as well because that's I suppose the part that gets me. he's unwell, so he's a slob and a disgustin mess. a statement that could be made about someone who has depression, but I have a hard time applying the "he" to shen yuan in this case. I'm personally under the "I care so much about my image that I feel like I'm gonna rot from the inside out" type, and my response has been to hyper clean. clean and clean until I can't clean anymore and so I'm stressed that I can't make my space (and by extension myself) better in a small matter of time. I was once a slob in the past as a teen, but I'm immensely embarassed by it. I'm vain, so I take photos of myself with my backdrop being my room, and I will loose my marbles if someone looks down on me because I threw my pjamas onto my bed while gettin changed. no one but me and my family enter my room. no one else even enters the house.
*picks up shen yuan by the scruff of the neck* yer telling me this rich pretty boy obsessed with tryin to get people to take him seriously wouldn't have an instagram or whatever the equivalent would be?? honestly I feel like it would be expected of him, and he might also flaunt his wealth (that he didn't earn) to try to feel better. if you couldn't tell I'm tryin to shove a superiority/inferiority complex onto him over his status. that's just cause I think it'd be funny I don't have any text evidence off the top of my head for that lmao.
ultimately with all this, I just want something different. I want people to step back and look at shen yuan for who he is and then extrapolate out from that and into how they want to play with his character. I don't know how, with all these complex thought processes and characterizations of binghe, we have landed with a very 2d, copy paste version of shen yuan every time. maybe I just need to dig more into shen yuan fan creations, but I have yet found one to step out of the invented fanon version mold or their small variations. and its quite strange to me given how divorced fanon shen yuan is from canon shen yuan. I suppose I'm not used to a fandom with a character so warped away from canon well accepted. dare I say, ooc.
20 notes · View notes
theflyingfeeling · 6 months
Text
Tumblr media
💖 it's here, it's pink, it's sparkly, and full of fluff 💖
Tumblr media
Hiiiiii and welcome to witness my attempt at an Olli/Allu Advent Calendar, in which I'll give you ~a cute little something~ about these two idiots in love almost every day until December 24! My plan is to use prompts from this list to either write a fic based on the prompt or just some good ol' delulu thoughts if all else fails. I cannot guarantee there'll be a post literally every day, but I'm really excited to try this out and I thank you for your support along the way in advance 💝
The biggest thanks and a million hugs go to one of my favourite human beings @kraeuterhexchen for making the adorable banner!! I mean helloooooo?? 😭 Go show them some love ❣️
For December 1, the prompt list is titled One True Pairing Moments, and the prompt I chose was 'calling just to hear their voice' 🥺 You can read the fic below, I hope you like it <3
.
PS. Even though this is an advent calendar of sorts, I'm not planning on making this particularly Christmassy. I hope no one minds terribly!
Tumblr media
~
Falling for Aleksi had, in a way, sneaked up on Olli, at least if he fooled himself a little. He could pretend he didn’t feel any different about the man than he did about, say, Joonas or Tommi, but that strategy only worked for so long – that is to say, approximately until Aleksi as much as smiled softly at him from across a room or bumped his shoulder into his jovially when walking down the street and Olli would feel his breath getting caught in his throat or stumble in his words, his tongue tangled like shoelaces, which was so unlike him as well and frustrated him to no end. It really took a special kind of fool to not only develop some level of feelings for a friend, a colleague, a bandmate for Christ’s sake, but also become so hopelessly enamored with him that you rolled awake in bed in the dead of night, grabbing your phone and tossing it back on the nightstand again and again because you couldn’t decide whether or not you should, on some erratic 2 o’clock impulse, call him to let him know he was the very reason for your insomnia. 
Turning on his back, Olli groaned (only a little desperately) as he remembered losing himself in the lingering hug they had shared just before the arrivals lobby at the airport, inhaling Aleksi’s scent and wishing they wouldn’t have to go home just yet, even if Olli was more than ready to finally sleep in his own bed again. Ironically, ever since they had returned home from tour, Olli had spent night after sleepless night missing Aleksi terribly: his stupid jokes and playful banter that bordered on being flirtatious if Olli allowed himself the benefit of delusion; his quick, subtle smiles that probably meant nothing; his little touches Olli hoped meant something; his smell and his touch and the softness of his hair at the back of his neck, compared to which the blanket Olli was grasping in his fist was like sandpaper. (How he had come to know of the qualities of Aleksi’s hair in such detail, he preferred not to dwell on too much to save himself from the heartache, so let’s just leave it at ‘stressful, emotional week far away from home’ and ‘a little too much to drink’).
Above all, Olli missed Aleksi’s voice. He hadn’t even thought that was possible, until the other morning when Olli had woken up to a voice message Aleksi had left just hours earlier, rambling about a song idea he had gotten in the middle of the night – something he did from time to time – and Olli had spent the next several minutes replaying it over and over again as he had lied in bed procrastinating getting up and and instead closing his eyes to better imagine Aleksi lying there beside him, turned on his side to face Olli, talking to him sleepily like they often did when they shared a room on tour and were just too lazy to join others at breakfast. Much like the hug at the airport, Olli wished those moments would have lasted way longer than they did, often ending abruptly when either of their phones would go off with Santeri’s name on the screen, a passive-aggressive interruption to the soft, low tone of Aleksi’s early-morning thoughts. (Sometimes, when Olli was lucky enough, he had been blessed with the bliss of feeling the light touch of a fingertip tracing along his collarbone, cut short just as frustratingly by their well-meaning tour manager politely enquiring whether the two of them had plans of dragging themselves downstairs for some toast and coffee, or if they’d rather starve until lunchtime, for which he wasn’t at all sure they’d even have time that day.)
The lovesick idiot that he was, his thumb hovered over the ‘play’ button of Aleksi’s voice message, probably for the millionth time that week. The chest-carving hesitation turned into a heart flip when he noticed Aleksi was online.
Then Aleksi began to type, and Olli held his breath the entire time until a new message appeared in the thread, anticipation holding him by his throat.
You awake?
Olli exhaled and typed his affirmative reply, leaving out the reason why.
He blinked at the screen, waiting for Aleksi to ask him a random question that clearly couldn’t wait until morning, or perhaps talk about something related to another late-night Twitch stream (from what Olli had gathered, Aleksi had been doing a lot of those recently, and with his last remaining braincell Olli had managed to resist the temptation to watch every single one of them, because he knew that if he did, it would only dig his grave of pining and longing deeper, seeing Aleksi smile and giggle about but not being able to do that with him or snuggle up next to him when he was wearing that flannel Olli often used as a blanket in the tour bus). But instead of another text appearing on the screen, Olli’s phone began to vibrate in his hand, and it took him an embarrassingly long while to understand it was because Aleksi was calling him. 
“Hi,” he sighed when he finally collected himself enough to speak. He prayed he’d be able to hear what Aleksi was going to say from the thumping heartbeat echoing in his ears.
“Hi,” a soft voice said. “Sorry, I know it’s late…”
“No, not at all,” Olli hurried to say, “I mean, I wasn’t sleeping. Not even close, actually.” Part of him hoped Aleksi wouldn’t ask about it, but in some foolhardy way the possibility intrigued him. 
Nothing much, he would have likely said anyway, but what would happen if he told Aleksi how it really was? That he squeezed his pillow imagining it was him instead, or wailed into it because something had reminded him of a moment-that-was-probably-not-a-Moment™ they had shared? What would Aleksi say if he knew Olli sometimes touched himself the way Aleksi had touched him That One Night they never talked about? The only obstacle between Olli and that knowledge was a bottomless ocean of cold sweat and cowardice, and Olli had never been a great swimmer.
“So, ummm…,” Olli said when Aleksi’s end stayed silent. “What’s up?”
A short breath of laughter sounded through the phone line.
“Honestly? I don’t know, I… It’s just been a… weird week, I guess.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, like… my head’s just been so full of… everything and… I’ve been so busy and kinda tense and… fuck, this is going to sound crazy,” Aleksi laughed that brief laugh again, although to Olli it didn’t sound particularly cheerful. Tired, more like. Strained, somehow. Not sad, but definitely a little troubled, and Olli intended to find out why.
“I’m all for crazy, you know.” Olli hoped his sorry attempt to lighten Aleksi’s mood would work, and so he smiled in relief when he heard Aleksi chuckle at his comment.
“I know,” Aleksi said softly, in that tone of voice that had Olli melt against his bedsheets. “So yeah, it’s been a rough week, but… in between all that stupid shit, I’ve been thinking a lot about… umm… well, the tour and– and… about you, for some reason,” (the troubled laugh made its return) “and… yeah. That’s sort of helped me a lot recently.”
Olli listened to the words carefully, not fully believing what he was hearing, yet clinging on to them until they were all but swirling around in his otherwise empty head like dry leaves in October wind.
“And tonight I just couldn’t fucking sleep for some reason and nothing I did seemed to help and so I thought I’d call you. And I’m–” If it hadn’t been dead silent otherwise, Olli wouldn’t have heard the shaky breath Aleksi paused to take, “I’m sorry I’m calling you at this hour and bothering you with this all but I guess I just… wanted to hear your voice. To see if that would help.”
“Does it?” Olli asked. Aleksi’s confession had made him clasp his blanket close to his chest, as if that would do anything about his rapidly beating heart.
“Yeah. It does. So maybe just… keep talking?”
Despite his mind living a life of its own, completely unfit to form a single coherent thought, for Aleksi’s sake Olli tried his best to think of something to say, but everything he came up with was something he was not ready to tell him quite yet. 
“Uuummmm…” he said to buy himself some time, but while he waited for his useless brain and mouth to form any actual words, Aleksi spoke again.
“Fuck, I’m– I’m sorry, this is too weird, I shouldn’t have– I’ll let you go back to–”
“I miss you,” Olli blurted before Aleksi would hang up on him. He squeezed his eyes shut when Aleksi went silent, too silent for too long for it to mean any good.
The line stayed open, however, which Olli took as a positive sign, even if the seconds during which all Olli could hear was Aleksi's quiet breathing seemed endless.
“And I you,” Aleksi finally replied. “A little too much, probably, or at least that’s what it feels like,” he chuckled. Olli almost missed the quiet sniff that followed.
He had to steel himself for his next question.
“What do you mean?”
“Just… forget it.” Aleksi said quietly. Contrary to Aleksi’s request, Olli knew he was going to all but ‘forget it’ for the next 3-5 business days; mentally he booked all his evenings as well as most of his mornings and noons for pondering what exactly had been in Aleksi’s mind in that moment or why he had sounded so sombre, almost disappointed. He’d probably never come to any satisfactory conclusion about it though, at least not without a little help from Aleksi himself. 
A ridiculous idea popped into his head, and before he could stop himself, the words flooded out of his mouth.
“Do you wanna come over some time? To hang out? When your schedule’s a little less tight, I mean.” He sucked on his lips and closed his eyes as he waited for Aleksi’s answer, ready to hang up the moment he’d decline the offer on some obvious and logical reason for why Aleksi couldn’t possibly make nor want to take a trip to the north to see him, such as ‘didn’t we just spend over two months on the road together?’ or ‘damn, buddy, I miss you alright but not quite that much, I’ve done enough sitting in public transportation for one year, thank you very much lol’ or ‘what about Rilla?’
“You could take Rilla with you, you know.” Olli hurried to say, just in case, the deranged part of his brain thinking there might be a chance Aleksi might be at least considering it.
“Oh! Well, umm… I actually might have time next week? If– if you’re actually being serious about this.”
Funny you should ask, Aleksi; I’ve actually never been more serious about anything in my entire life than I am about having you here with me so that I can hold you and be held by you and see your face when I wake up in the morning and say goodnight to your annoyingly cute face instead of via text message and maybe, if the stars are in position and the northern wind won’t discourage me too much, I might actually be brave enough to torment you with the knowledge of just how miserable I’ve been since we last saw each other.
“I think it would be cool,” he said, because he had a feeling what he wanted to say would’ve been a tad too much and sudden. “I mean, if you’re up for it, of course. I understand if you can’t make it though, I know you have all those side projects.”
“No, I think it might actually do me some good to get out of the capital area for change.” Then there was a muffled ‘ouch’, followed by a laugh that sounded much brighter than any of the other ones Olli had heard from Aleksi that night. “Sorry, correction, it might do us some good. Rilla just told me she’s most definitely coming too. Rilla, stop nibbling on my toes!”
Olli smiled tiredly at the mental image that was painted in his mind of Aleksi and Rilla cuddling in bed, both minding their own business from what it seemed while still minding each other as well, very much indeed.
“I’ll be sure to set up a bed for her in the guest room.”
“The guest room? Do you not know her at all? If she’s not getting the master bedroom, she’ll ruin all your rugs and most of your shoes. Probably also gossip about you to all the neighbourhood dogs. And she’s brutal.”
Olli held his stomach as he laughed, tears almost forming in the corners of his eyes. In his defence, it was late and he was finally becoming tired, thus too far gone to help himself, let alone feel embarrassed about being in stitches about something Aleksi had said that was only mildly amusing. (It wasn’t the first time that had happened either, and likely not the last time.)
“So yeah, ummm, I can take a look at some flight options for next week and let you know, alright? I’m gonna let you sleep now and… I should get some myself too.”
Olli wanted to tell Aleksi he’d love to stay up chatting until dawn, but the yawn he let out when he opened his mouth to speak implied Aleksi had a point.
“Yeah, let me know. And… thanks for calling, I… you have no idea how much I needed this tonight.”
That was as close to a confession as Olli was able to get as of now.
“Probably not half as much as I did.”
Olli chuckled at Aleksi’s response, mostly to hide his own agony.
If only you knew. If only I knew how to tell you.
It didn’t take long for Olli to doze off after they hung up, and when he woke up to the kids from next door having a snowball fight under his window in the morning, he noticed new messages from Aleksi, sent half an hour after their phone call had ended, complete with screen captions of airplane schedules.
Would these days work for you? I might be free all week actually 😇
Olli cuddled into his pillow while typing his reply, hoping it wouldn’t wake up Aleksi.
yeah I’m free as well. I’ll pick you two up from the airport 🖤
From then on, Olli started counting the days until he’d see Aleksi again.
#blind channel fanfiction#blind channel rpf#ollixallu#24 days of gift-giving by theflyingfeeling#<- that's the tag i'll be using for these btw#everyone stop and look at the banner!! 🥺💖#it's not QUITE like the original one ju made first but maybe one day you'll get to see that masterpiece as well 😏#but ooff the way i've gone from having 'a plan' to having 'a better plan' to having 'no plan whatsoever' with this? 😂#so yeah idk what kinda fics/posts there'll be in this series... stay tuned and see for yourself! 🤭#some of them might be in the same universe/plot. others may not. who knows? not i 😌#(...but as you can see from this fic the door for a multiple-part story is definitely open 👀)#some of the fics may not even be based on a prompt though if i'm not feeling like it. honestly i'm curious to see how this will turn out!#(and if this ends up being the only post i ever make that's alright too! i refuse to bully myself with a hobby i'm doing for free <3)#however: i'm not taking requests per say BUT feel free to snoop on the prompts for each day and send me your ideas or hopeful wishes 👀#there are certain ones i'm more drawn to but i haven't really set anything in stone#one could say i'm just going with the flow. fuck around and find out if you will ✨#also: not sure if/when i'll be bothered to post any of these on ao3#probably i'll just see how many fics i manage to actually finish and dump them all at once on ao3 on christmas day lol#anyway! enjoy & let me hear from you <3
23 notes · View notes
jmflowers · 1 month
Text
Alone - November 2026
Maya and Carina learn that their toddlers need constant supervision.
8 notes · View notes
artheresy · 1 year
Text
Just read an utterly emotionally devastating entry in the "One or both of teen!Skk gets sent to the future and adult!Skk has to deal with it" kind of ficsUGH
I've read very few, but I want to read more it's such a good trope I need more
The way people use that trope either to get teen!Skk or (imo the better choice) Adult!Skk to reflect on their dynamic LIKE A H it's genius
52 notes · View notes
ifyougoillfollow · 1 year
Text
as we sink into the open sea
M/F, Gen | QPR MicNight | 1720 words | Selkie AU CW: Depiction of Suicide Attempt (non-graphic)
-
On the eve of his nineteenth birthday, Yamada Hizashi walks into the ocean and comes back with a wife.
Please understand, that wasn't his intention. Yamada Hizashi is not the kind of man to believe in tales of sirens and sea wives, and he is especially not the kind of man with dreams of snaring one for himself. He is, in point of fact, not a man of any dreams at all. Not anymore.
So he walks into the ocean, figuring that if he can't find the will to keep dreaming, then he can at least find some peace at last. He finds a wife, instead.
Or rather, she finds him.
She finds him as his body hits the sea floor, at the very moment the first wave of doubt rolls over him in one fell, unrelenting swoop, much too late for him to do anything about it. He's so overcome with it he doesn't think much of the figure that glides out of the ocean murk and sidles right up to him. Wide, shark-bright eyes peer at him, so close they fill up his entire swimming, pin-pricking vision, and all Hizashi can think about is how soon he's going to die, and how he’s not so sure he wants to die after all, and how little what he wants matters in this final moment, as in all the rest before it, and then the figure places one cold hand on his colder cheek and kisses him. She's all Hizashi can think of, then.
She's dark-haired and beautiful. And strong. And a good swimmer, too, but that's to be expected. She drags him back to shore, lips locked tight over his the whole way, and she doesn't let go until his lungs are clear of ocean brine.
Hizashi lies there, alive and silent on the cold, wet sand for a good while after. Long enough for the first hint of morning blue to blush over the horizon. The sea maiden lies with him, just as alive, just as silent, and infinitely more at ease. Cozied right up to his side, as if she belongs there, seemingly content to remain there for however long Hizashi has left on this Earth now that she's saved him. Try as he might, he can't figure out whether he's grateful or not. He does, however, remember his manners, on occasion, so when he finally finds his voice again, he uses it to thank her.
"You're welcome," the sea maiden replies. There's laughter in her voice. Hizashi doesn't know what there is to laugh about, though he finds himself wishing she'd actually done so, just so he could hear it. He used to love laughter. Impossibly, he still does.
Yamada Hizashi had a knack for making people laugh, once. It was all he knew how to do, really. He doesn't know much of anything now, least of all how to make the sea maiden in his arms laugh, so he says nothing.
The sea maiden in his arms says nothing either, at first, for just long enough Hizashi startles when she does speak: "Is that it?"
"Pardon?"
"Is that all you're going to say?"
"... Is there more I should be saying?"
"There must be." There it is again – the laugh in her voice. "You don't strike me as the quiet type in the least."
That's what it is – she's teasing him. It's much too familiar to do anything but rankle. "Listen, Miss –”
She snorts. "Nemuri."
"Listen –” his face burns as he realizes that's her given name, and he refuses to say it "– listen, I'm grateful to you for saving me and all, but you don't know anything about me."
She peels away from his side. "Liar."
"Pardon?"
"You're not grateful at all," she grunts through an impressive stretch, current-strong arms flung upward and out towards the heavens. She's wearing a sealskin cape and nothing else, and is so unembarrassed by it Hizashi can't muster up any on her behalf. She winks at him. "But you will be," she adds. Then: "Take off your clothes."
"Pardon?"
This time she does laugh – seagull-like – loud and sharp and to the point. "Well, I don't know much about land folk, but it's my understanding you don't handle being wet all that well."
Hizashi wraps his arms around himself, scowling. "I'll be fine."
"Suit yourself."
The sea maiden stands – or at least tries to. She heaves herself upward in a motion that would probably be fluid underwater, then loses her balance, toppling backwards onto the sand, rump first. The sight of her glaring down at her legs is almost enough to pull a laugh out of Hizashi.
"Stupid things," she grumbles, kicking up sand.
Hizashi does laugh, then, which is a mistake. The sea maiden stands, suddenly sure-footed in her indignation, and uses her newfound mastery over her lower appendages to kick sand in his direction.
Hizashi cannot stop laughing. He laughs until his new companion loses interest in burying him under sand. He laughs until the sun finally frees itself from under the weight of the horizon. He laughs until he almost forgets he just tried to kill himself.
When he's all laughed out, the sea maiden is still there. Sitting across from him, hands and feet planted firmly in the sand, peering at him with a smile so dry it's a wonder she doesn't hail from land herself.
Without a word, she stands again, solid and steady, all remaining traces of sea legs gone, and hauls Hizashi to his own significantly less steady feet. While he's still reeling from... all of it – the strength of her hands around his, the seafoam-salt smell of her filling his impossibly pumping lungs, the laughter still clanging through every hollow part of him – the sea maiden takes her sealskin cape and drapes it over Hizashi's shoulders.
It's soft and musky and so warm it feels more alive than he does, but, most of all, it's heavy.
Hizashi tries to shrug it off. "Thanks," he says stiffly, "but I said I'm fine."
"I heard you," says the sea maiden, rearranging the cape around him.
"I don't need it."
"I know."
She fastens the cape closed around his neck, patting his chest firmly. It's so long it covers Hizashi all the way down to his shins. On her, it must have just brushed over the sand at her feet. The uncanny warmth of it doesn't seep even as the seafront breeze hits it, makes it flap and flutter around him in a heavy, even bump-bump, bump-bump beat. Nothing could ever hope to reach him past that beat and that warmth.
"I don't want it, either," he lies, because he has to, because he's never known what to do in the face of so much want, because he's always wanted too many things, and he's wanted them too much.
"Neither do I," says the sea maiden, breezy as the morning. "Maybe we should leave it here, lying around. I'm sure no one else would find it, if we hid it well enough."
Hizashi blanches at the thought. He may not be the kind of man to believe in tales of sea wives, but he has heard enough of them to be wary of the kind of man who does. He fumbles for the clasp at the base of his throat. "Just take it back. Go home."
"Hm, I don't think so." She sidesteps his attempts to foist the cape back onto her, walking away backwards, hands clasped behind her head. "I think I'll stick around here for awhile. Explore the land realm. It seems exciting."
Hizashi chases after her, cape held out like a net. "It isn't."
She twirls away again. "Liar."
"It's too exciting, then. Dangerous."
"So is the ocean – didn't stop you from walking into it."
"That was –" Hizashi falters, loses his footing "– different," he finishes lamely, hands fisted in the sand-soiled cape caught under his knees.
The sea maiden stands over him. "You're right," she says, "that was different – I'm not going into this trying to die. I'd say that alone makes my odds of survival look pretty swell, don't you think?"
Hizashi stares up at her, looming tall against the dawn sky, so tall she dwarves the rising sun itself, and has no doubt she'd survive even the drying of all seven seas if it meant she got to live.
"You're naked," he says, because he's running out of arguments, and the will to keep making them.
"I wouldn't be if you gave me your clothes,” she shoots back, “I gave you mine, didn't I? It would only be fair."
The cape is velvet-smooth as Hizashi slides it out from under himself, warmer still from the heat of his body and the sun-washed sand, which slides off of it like ocean spray from mossy seaside cliffs. His sea maiden – Nemuri – takes it from him and helps him back to his feet. She folds it over her arm, as if merely holding on to it for the moment, and arches an expectant eyebrow at him.
Sighing, Hizashi shrugs off his coat. "Yes,” he relents, “I suppose it would only be fair."
On the dawn of his nineteenth birthday, Yamada Hizashi walks into town with nothing but a sealskin cape on his back and a wife.
Or so the townsfolk like to tell it, because the townsfolk love a good fairy tale romance almost as much as they love to pity him. In time, they will come to pity him even this moment and his sea-wild wife, as outrageous as she is beautiful, as the very ocean itself, and Yamada Hizashi will do what he has always done in the face of undue pity, which is to laugh in it and continue loving whoever and whatever he loves, in whichever way he sees fit.
But that will come later. For now, in the rosy light of a dawn he never planned to see, Hizashi walks into town beside Nemuri, the sea maiden who saved his life – the woman who will be called his wife and be so much more – and is content enough to have finally figured out he’s grateful, even if he has yet to figure out much else. The rest will follow, he’s sure, in good time and – even better – good company.
26 notes · View notes
Text
*crawling, coughing up blood, gasping for air*
oh my god... i'd had severe writer's block for months and months and it was killing me, but every day since new year's day it's like i've been in a trance. just writing every day. fully motivated. no block whatever. i refused to let this hellsite distract me. i have no idea how it happened, but i have actually Written. 2024 is a good year already.
*collapses in relief*
7 notes · View notes
tanukisurpreso · 3 months
Text
should I post something I wrote about my ocs that only me and my best friend know about???
5 notes · View notes
apostatehamster · 7 months
Text
Well, the one positive thing I can say about my frustration over how ofmd S2 handled things is that it got me motivated to write a little more again. Not just essays (can't believe at least 100 people read my word vomit, when I expected none tbh) but also fanfiction
Here's to being driven by ✨spite✨
11 notes · View notes
Text
wow the barbara-centric fic i was writing that was meant to be haha funny crack surrounding the whole thing of her being Oblivious to venti's identity has morphed into angst surrounding the questioning and potential collapse of the faith and religion that she has built her entire life on only to find out that maybe her god isn't so different from her at all and that maybe they're both suffering and imperfect in similar ways and that. yeah wow who could've guessed that this would happen
3 notes · View notes
figthefruitfaeth · 1 year
Text
tagged by my darling dearests @serskets and @fastcardotmp3 i love this and i love also starting with short lines (and then the 2nd line is two paragraphs long)
rules: post the first lines of your 10 most recently published AO3 stories. if you have less than 10 fics posted, post the first lines of all your fics.
the boy in the sweatshirt
It starts with the sweater.
mister funny, mister cool
Steve Harrington is always okay. 
Mail, Murder, and Other Mysteries; from the Nancy Wheeler Files
“Okay. One more time, just so I’ve got it down.”
tagging the lovely incredible amazing fantastic iconic show-stopping writers: @gothbat99 @judasofsuburbia @flashyysins @kkpwnall @cheatghost @yournowheregirl @hellsfireclub @starrystevie
21 notes · View notes
2-wuv · 3 months
Text
if i wrote a timeloop fic wiuld anyone be interested
3 notes · View notes
finxwrites · 2 months
Text
Last line game! I was tagged by both @tanoraqui and @smallblueandloud lo, these many moons ago, but I wasn't writing anything for the longest time. only now I wrote 3800 WORDS in TWO DAYS and I need to shout from the rooftops about it, so!
Tim had no idea what he was expecting. “I need to get home,” Tim told him. “I have to—wait, shit, didn’t I stab you?”
tagging @smallblueandloud and @tanoraqui if you want to go again, and also @thesuninperigee, @marypsue, and @wildfaeworld if you feel like it!
3 notes · View notes
avourel · 6 months
Text
now i'm thinking about making a SVSSS playlist. like people used to do back in Livejournal times! remember those??
pity i don't have the Photoshop skills to make a cover.
4 notes · View notes