go higher than high

writing sideblog

[miyakari]

hic sunt leones

post-apocalyptic cyber AU, 10,663 words [AO3] It’s on a November day that Her Imperial Condescension releases the Lord English virus, causing a mass system failure among the carapacian androids of her own production and plunging the world into chaos. Four hundred thirteen years later, Rose Lalonde goes missing.

[miyakari]

people in love

FE8 Week, Day 2 - Prompt Serve/Refuse

The first time they meet they’re both simple cadets, anonymous soldiers among a sea of others just like them, with their accents and armors the only details differentiating them. Syrene wears an unfit, scrappy breastplate as white as her newly assigned pegasus (her pride and joy, eyes so vigil they remind her of the little sister she’s left home sometimes), while Selena carries herself tall in her mage robes.

She’s no Fluorspar yet but the way she measures the ground with her steps might as well already scream of her future every time her boots clack on the stone pavement of the hallways of the castle. Syrene thinks idly that the only other person to walk those hallways like that is their archer princeling, who still smells of his late mother’s milk no matter how mature he thinks he has to act, and maybe it’s that thought that makes her approach Selena.

(Or at least, that’s how she’ll justify it to herself in a late future.)

“Hey there,” she says, as casual as she can manage with the weight of her full gear on her shoulders and a few strands of hair blocking her eyes. She blows those out of the way. “Looking for something?”

Selena stops dead in her tracks, something that didn’t look just quite possible only a few seconds ago, and turns towards her, bows her head just slightly in recognition.

“Not really,” comes the dignified answer, thick Gradoan accent coloring her consonants and folding her vowels as thin as Carcino silk robes. “It’s break time and I wanted to see the castle.”

Syrene smiles, wide enough that she’ll remember the pull of her cheeks years later, countless other smiles later, and offers herself as a guide. “I’ll even give you a ride on my pegasus if drinks are on you tonight,” she declares, bolder than she feels, and prays Selena is not a lightweight.

She finds out soon enough how well they can both hold their liquor.

***

The first time they topple over onto Selena’s bed, giddy with euphoria and the best Gradoan wine to celebrate Selena’s recent promotion, Syrene lets herself melt in between the sheets with a helpless giggle, taking in the sight above of her. Selena’s flushed skin, all the way down to the collar of her shirt, the countless, faint freckles on the bridge of her nose, the black of her pupils eating up the stark blue of her eyes.

She probably makes a crude joke, something slurred about mages being good with their hands that only sounds funny in her head, but Selena is gracious enough to at least snort.

“I live for my Emperor.” Her voice is a huffed murmur tickling Syrene’s ear, and if the way the dim light dances in her stare seems foreboding Syrene doesn’t know what else to do about it but press closer, shivering as Selena continues, “but you, you’re—”

She trails off, like she doesn’t know what to say next except for Syrene’s name, voice feverish like a convict, and it makes Syrene’s fingertips dig deeper.

Later that night, with the blueish darkness right before the dawn seeping through the walls almost as if it were solid, Syrene thinks people in love shouldn’t be that desperate.

Selena is sleeping next to her, hair a halo on her pillow, and her mouth hangs ajar as she snores softly. It smells of her, and of bedsheets and the lingering alcohol, but the knot in Syrene’s throat quivers like the imperceptible, harmless tremors that shake Grado from time to time.

A nightingale starts singing outside the window and Syrene tugs at the covers so that they’re covering them both up to their chins. She traces the outline of Selena’s jaw with two fingers, careful not to wake her up, and thinks of Frelia, of her King and the princeling who’s all grown up now and his little sister; the child fills to the brim the gaping hole nostalgia’s gnawed in the middle of Syrene’s chest like a woodworm with every passing day. She’s duty-bound to them, just like Selena’s duty-bound to her own country, her own woodworms, but Syrene is going to smoke those out one by one.

“Just you wait,” she whispers, muffled by the sheets and the pillow, and with that she falls asleep.

[miyakari]

zenyuki week 2017 day 1 - connected 

“I think these were the last ones,” Shirayuki says as she drives her spear into the twitching mass at her feet, scattering it in a flurry of pixels. She makes quick work of the remaining malwares as Zen’s voice crackles in her ears through her helmet.

“Good work out there,” he’s saying, relief clear in his tone. “Need me to send an extraction team your way? I think Obi’s free right now.”

She would usually laugh at him for that, maybe tease him about how much of a protective boyfriend he can be sometimes, and Zen, the second son of the head of the Clarines organization, would splutter something about how that’s absolutely untrue. Today’s been rough though, so Shirayuki lets herself be spoiled.

“That’d be lovely, yeah.”

If Zen finds her acceptance unusual or alarming he doesn’t say so; instead he just hums and Shirayuki can hear some tinkering and slight static as he gives Obi her position.

“He says he’ll be there in ten, he was already stationed close by,” Zen says, now back to Shirayuki’s channel, and she sighs. That’s enough time to do something about the nasty gash on her thigh at least.

She sits down, then rips the cloth of her pants out of the area and reaches for the flask of disinfectant. She doesn’t look forward to the next part one bit.

“Keep me company?” she asks, wishing Zen were there with her instead of back at their base, only connected to Shirayuki by feeble radio signal. So childish, she chides herself: she and Zen have completely different roles inside the organization. Shirayuki is a trained operative, a white cell, a doctor of sorts if their world could be compared to a sick patient, while Zen is there to make sure they all don’t collapse like a big, apocalyptic jenga tower.

But Zen is also her boyfriend and he’s most likely having the same thoughts. It’s reassuring.

“Sure thing,” she hears him say, a tad bit strained with worry, and after a beat Zen starts telling her of how that morning Kiki and Torou broke into Mitsuhide’s room and hid all his socks. Shirayuki takes a deep breath and focuses on the lull of his voice as she dabs the liquid on her open wound and tries her best to bandage it with only one hand (the other is still numb from a close one with a Trojan).

It’s not her best job by far but it’ll have to make do until she gets back and can get Ryuu or Garrack to fix her up.

Zen laughs with a flourish of static and she can hear someone, most likely Mitsuhide judging by the deep timbre of their voice, complain loudly about Zen’s biased recounting of the socks accident. It makes the lingering stress gnawing at Shirayuki’s guts melt just enough to huff out a breathy laugh herself.

Then Obi materializes in front of her, seemingly out of thin air for any untrained eyes, and Shirayuki smiles.

“I’ll be home soon.”

[miyakari]

ode to the sun

akagami no shirayukihime || obizen || modern au || 4119 words

The new apartment isn’t so bad, or that’s what Obi tells himself as the freshly-painted white walls stare at him devoid of any sign of life except for the few piles of boxes he’s spent the day amassing in the living room.

“We’ve just moved in, of course it looks lifeless,” he says to no one in particular, or maybe to Ryuu if he’s within hearing range and not already engrossed in one of his too-big books. Obi marvels at the wonders of genetics every time he sees his son’s nose stuck in any of those; they’ve got to weigh more than him too, what with how tiny Ryuu is.

“That’s true,” answers him an apparently still in the realm of reality Ryuu, wiping his hands on his pants as he waddles out of the bathroom. “At least we already have water. And electricity.”

His eyes look more half-lidded than usual and Obi feels a pang of guilt at that. Hopefully— hopefully this’ll be their last time moving, so that Ryuu can finally make some friends his age at school and have the carefree childhood he deserves. Obi has to make it work, for him.

“You know what?” Obi starts, and the look he’s given tells him that nope, Ryuu doesn’t indeed know what. “I’m going to get us some nice croquettes for dinner at the convenience store we saw on our way here, that fine by you?”

He starts making his way to the door while waiting for an answer and is about to put his shoes on when the doorbell rings. Obi blinks, takes a look through the peephole with his shoes still in his hands: outside their new apartment stands someone with bright red hair and a smile that’s almost distracting enough for Obi not to notice the stockpot in the stranger’s hands.

He slides the door open with a growl of his stomach right after putting his shoes back. “Uh, hello?”

“Hello!” the stranger greets back, positively radiant. “I’m Shirayuki, I live next door. Is now a good time? I figured you wouldn’t have much to eat on your first day here so I… well, this is for you!” She thrusts the stockpot forward as she speaks and the smell coming from it is enough to make Obi’s stomach growl again, this time louder.

Shirayuki doesn’t comment on it, for which he’s grateful. Instead she tilts her head a bit, spotting Ryuu in the living room, and her congeniality melts into something warmer, not a single smudge of judgement or pity in her big green eyes. Obi already likes her.

“We have enough plates and cutlery for three,” he blurts out, the weariness from the long day somewhat lifted from his shoulders. “And whatever’s in that pot looks a bit too much for Ryuu and me to finish all by ourselves.”

“Is that alright? I wouldn’t want to impose—”

“Nonsense!” Obi singsongs, already ushering her in and taking the pot from her hands so that she can take off her shoes. (Also because the thing is heavy as hell and wow, just what kind of muscles does this girl have under her blouse.)

“If you insist…” Shirayuki finally agrees, carefully shutting the door behind her, and Obi’s momentary triumph almost bursts like a bubble when he bumps into one of the boxes and nearly sends their dinner flying.

“Ryuu,” he huffs, grip tightening on the handles of the stockpot, “could you get the plates? They should be in that box over there.” He points at said box with one foot and can’t help but smile when Shirayuki rushes to help Ryuu with it; he guesses she might simply be that type.

Dinner goes by smoothly once they’re done setting the table and Shirayuki’s presence makes the apartment feel less empty as she chatters about her life, a certain Zen guy she lives with and who wasn’t home tonight to greet them like a good neighbor (she seems such a great that girl Obi’s not surprised at all that she’s taken) and all that there is to know about the building and their neighborhood.

When she offers to help washing the dishes Obi gives her a pointed look, which is thankfully enough to dissuade her, and instead she ends up dragging a chair next to where he’s standing.

“Oh, if you or Ryuu ever get sick don’t hesitate to come to me,” she says as he scrubs sauce from the bottom of the stockpot. “I’m a doctor.”

There’s a certain pride in the way her voice rings out at that; it makes Obi stop and turn to her out of instinct and Shirayuki flashes him a grin that would most definitely sway him were he into girls at all.

Not gonna make the same mistake again, he thinks, then cringes at his own wording. There’s nothing about Ryuu that he could ever consider a mistake but, well, forcing himself into a relationship out of sheer inadequacy and misplaced expectations hadn’t been his brightest moment in life.

“I’ll take you up on that then, Doc.”

***

Obi likes Shirayuki a lot. She’s a good person, a cool neighbor and she seems to get along with Ryuu swimmingly, which are all reasons why Obi likes her and also why he’s currently standing in front of her boyfriend like a deer in the headlights because the guy is— the guy’s pretty, there’s no other way to put it.

He’s known the kind and wonderful person Shirayuki is for barely a day and he’s already managed to get the hots for her significant other.

“Um,” Zen (at least Obi remembers his name) says, most likely not for the first time, as he takes a look at a very still Obi standing in front of his door, “you’re the new guy, right?”

His eyes are kind, although a bit confused at the moment, and Zen himself seems to radiate a vague sense of calm, strands of soft-looking bed hair sticking up in every direction and clothes that hang loose on him. It’s enough to calm Obi’s nerves just by being near him.

“It’s me, yeah.” He nods, then styles his lips in what he hopes is a convincing-yet-casual smile. “I’ve baked you something to return the favor.”

Zen’s eye fall on the cake Obi’s carrying and his cheeks colour the faintest shade redder. Pretty. “Ah, I wasn’t even home, really… Shirayuki did all the work.”

Obi’s smile widens as he gently shoves the cake in Zen’s space. “Then I can count on you to save some for her, can’t I?” he asks, only to lean back on his heels when Zen finally accepts the gift with an awkward laugh and a dip of his head.

“Dunno, it all depends on how good it tastes,” Zen says with a grin that matches his own, and Obi knows he’s utterly and unprecedentedly screwed.

He makes his way back home in a few hurried steps after bidding goodbye to Zen and makes a beeline for the kitchen as soon as he slips out of his shoes, grabbing the first clean glass he sees and pouring himself some cold water.

“So what,” he mumbles with his mouth pressed against the rim. Then louder, “it’s okay to appreciate a good-looking guy when you see one!”

“That’s usually how it goes, yes,” comes Ryuu’s voice from behind him and Obi nearly breaks the glass against the counter.

“You don’t have school on Sundays and I’m an idiot, huh.”

Ryuu’s head comes resting against his leg with a quiet sound. “One of those is most certainly true.”

***

The first time he gets to see Shirayuki’s place happens one day on his way back from the library with Ryuu. They’re walking up the stairs, Ryuu with a handful of new books to burn through pressed against his chest and his free hand in Obi’s, and Shirayuki turns to them with a smile from where she’s watering the potted plant of their landing.

“Good afternoon!” She waves at them, and there’s something tugging at Obi’s chest as Ryuu slips his hand out of his grasp to wave back. Shirayuki’s started lending him some of her favorites novels as soon as she’s found out just how much of a bookworm Ryuu is and the two are planning to start their own book club as far as Obi knows.

“Is that I am a cat that i see there?” Shirayuki asks with a low whistle. “You’re really amazing, Ryuu!”

Obi’s apparently amazing son seems to be too busy studying the floor to answer that but to his credit he does mumbles something like a thank you, to which Shirayuki answers with a sunny smile and a knowing wink in Obi’s direction.

“Ah, Zen and I have something for you,” she adds. “Can you come inside a second?”

“Can we?” Ryuu asks, no longer looking at his feet, and Obi can’t find any possible reason to refuse so he nods, quietly shushing his own thrill at the idea of maybe seeing Zen again.

Shirayuki and Zen’s apartment is pretty much the same as he had pictured it: it smells nice, something like wild flowers and fabric softener, it’s fairly tidy and yet still full of little details that make it feel well lived, full to the brim of the same soothing energy as the two living in there. There are a few watercolours decorating the walls but Obi doesn’t dwell on those too much, at least not until reaching the living room and seeing Zen, apron-clad and sitting in front of an easel with a paintbrush in his hand.

“Already working on a new one?” Shirayuki asks him breezily at the same time as Zen flashes Obi and Ryuu a welcoming smile.

“I was feeling inspired,” is all he says, then points with a swing of his paintbrush towards the dining table. “Their gift is there by the way.”

“Gift?” asks Ryuu.

“You paint?” coughs Obi.

Zen narrows his eyes at him like he’s ready to stab Obi with the brush. “Yes, a gift, and yes, I paint. Sometimes.”

“Zen’s being shy but he soldiered through a really bad art block to finish this,” Shirayuki interjects, something in the look she gives Zen not quite belonging on the face of his supposed (it’s not like they’ve ever actually said they’re together, Obi muses, but what else could they be) girlfriend. She’s holding a frame in her hands and when she turns it towards them it takes all of Obi’s self control to school his expression into something less awestruck and more grateful.

He hears Zen grouse about not being shy and how his art block wasn’t that bad but what must be a pretty endearing scene goes lost on him as he keeps his eyes glued to the painting— the painting Zen’s made for him and Ryuu. It’s a simple landscape, yellow flowers peppering a hill with a flock of birds taking flight in the distance, but it’s lovely.

“I thought you might want to start decorating your place a bit.” Now Zen’s looking directly at him and Obi feels himself melt under the weight of it, starting from the flush on his neck to his stomach to his knees. He wonders if it’d be appropriate, to liken Zen to a sun of sorts.

Obi opens his mouth but it’s Ryuu’s quiet voice that he hears. “It could use a dragon or two, but we appreciate it.”

When Zen laughs the light catches in his eyes.

***

“Ugh, you smell of booze.”

Torou dismisses his complaints with a wave of her hand, bracelets jingling around her wrist, and closes the door behind her, starting to make her way inside. “I’m just a bit tipsy, don’t be rude.”

Obi sighs as the prospect of a quiet night spent by himself with the warm buzz of beer and one of Shirayuki’s novels evaporates before his eyes, mercilessly dispelled by Torou’s inquiring gaze on him. He knows that expression and it usually doesn’t mean anything good for him.

“Ryuu fell asleep on the couch,” he whispers to her once they’ve reached the living room. “So be quiet and don’t even think of waking him up.”

Torou brings one of her hands to her chest in an affronted fashion, but her eyes soften as they land on Ryuu’s blanket cocoon. She walks up to him with feather-light steps and crouches down in front of where his head peeks out from the covers, something unreadable in her expression as she looks at him as if she’s trying to memorize every little detail.

“How is he?” she murmurs. “Is he making friends at school?”

Obi plops down on the pavement next to her with a sigh, outstretches his arm to grab at the can he had just opened before Torou barging in out of nowhere. “There’s this Kirito he’s been talking about lately,” he says, then takes a sip of thankfully still cold beer. “I told him to bring him over if he wants, but we should make the house a bit more presentable before.”

Torou’s laugh is a sliver of her usual one, both in volume and bite, and she turns to Obi for a moment when she says, “look at you, being a proper dad and all.”  Then, lower, “unlike me.”

There’s a shimmer in her eyes that isn’t because of the tipsiness and Obi resists the urge to reach out for her, taking another sip instead.

“Work is work,” is all he says, because he knows it just as well as she does. “Plus, it’s not like he never sees you. And you help with his expenses a lot.”

The nod she gives him seems unconvinced, but she’s quick to shift the conversation to more comfortable (for her, of course) grounds.

“So…” she starts, and Obi already doesn’t like her tone. “Found the hunk of your dreams yet?”

He nearly chokes on his beer at that, and the feeling of dread he usually gets whenever Torou decides to take it upon herself to help Obi with his heart woes is made worse by how quickly Zen’s face flashes in front of him at that.

“I wouldn’t really— I wouldn’t call him a hunk,” he rasps.

“So there is someone!”

“Yeah, and he’s taken.”

Torou’s face falls, which is way worse than any of her teasing. “Oh, Little Mermaid,” she says, “what have you done…”

Absolutely nothing he wants to retort, but instead chooses to put the now almost empty can down and slump against the couch with a huff he hopes is eloquent enough. Torou seems to be in a merciful mood because she drops the subject as well, busying herself with Ryuu’s blankets instead.

“I’ll carry him to his room,” Obi offers, hoping Ryuu won’t wake. “You can take my bed if you want to crash for the night, but I’m expecting pancakes in the morning.”

The smile Torou gives him is genuine if a little bit tired and Obi lets her ruffle up his hair like she did when they were younger and always biting more than they could chew. He blames the nostalgia on the alcohol.

***

Running into Zen at the convenience store shouldn’t be a surprise given how close it is to their building, yet the idea of someone who looks as high-class as him in such an everyday place still makes Obi smile. At least the stuff in his cart looks way healthier than what most people usually by at a convenience store: fresh fruit, a carton of milk and a few packs of frozen noodles that are currently on sale.

Obi looks at his own cart, where two portions of curry rice lie covered by sweets and Ryuu’s favorite juice, and wonders if it’s worth trying to explain that his usual grocery list is slightly more sensible.

“I saw you had a guest the other day,” Zen says, voice easy and breezy, but there’s a look in his eyes Obi can’t quite place. (So he shrugs it off, because it’s better off that way.)

“I hope she didn’t say anything weird to you…” he mutters, but Zen’s expression is still there no matter how hard he seems to be trying to smother it so Obi adds, “she’s my ex, Ryuu’s mom. I think she must have fought with her girlfriend and decided to crash at my place.”

Torou hadn’t really given him an explanation but that’s just how things have always been between them, implicit truths and wordless hints.

That seems to have cleared whatever was going through Zen’s mind though and the way his shoulders droop as he gives Obi a sympathetic pat on his arm makes Obi feel more relaxed as well, the ice gone from under his feet. “Man, I feel you,” Zen’s saying now, “Shirayuki becomes a mess every time she fights with her girlfriend too.”

Obi sputters at that, the ice suddenly very much there again and ready to crack and swallow him whole because there’s no way he’s heard it right. “Her—”

“Oh, she didn’t tell you?” Zen looks kind of mortified, kind of worried, and Obi wants to wipe that off his face. “She’s usually always gushing about Kihal to everyone she meets… It’s a miracle you’ve escaped it for this long.”

“Uh,” Obi says, feeling and looking like a fish out of the water. “Maybe she told Ryuu, he’s her favorite.”

Zen’s laugh is loud enough to make a few heads turn to them but Obi barely registers it; he doesn’t even know what he says to Zen next, and the walk home is a blur of late afternoon sunlight and pale blue eyes.

***

meowbi: hes not taken

extorourdinaire: ?? mr not-a-hunk?

extorourdinaire: i think i saw him btw. real cute 10/10

meowbi: yeah meowbi: he says the girl he lives w/ has a gf

extorourdinaire: and u assumed they were an item bc… ?

meowbi: cause im stupid and still struggling w/ the poison of the heteronormative society that raised me

extorourdinaire: :’)

extorourdinaire: look at u, all grown up and self aware

meowbi: i had a good teacher extorourdinaire: save the flattery for the boy!!

Obi stares at the screen of his phone for a long, painfully hopeful moment, then sighs. As if.

meowbi: he could still be str8 :/

meowbi: [sad sticker]

extorourdinaire: lmao tell that to the frankly quite nice sum he donated to a lgbt shelter last month

meowbi: wait meowbi: how do u know

meowbi: actually dont answer that extorourdinaire: ;3c

meowbi: torou god Fucking damnit

extorourdinaire: the fact that u capitalized ‘fucking’ and not ‘god’ says a lot abt u

meowbi: dont go all illegal on my crush maybe???

extorourdinaire: aw u use such harsh words

extorourdinaire: anyway gotta go <33 call u later sweetpea

meowbi: by all means dont

***

meowbi: and btw allies donate money too extorourdinaire: go get him tiger

***

“Wish me luck?” His voice kind of cracks on the last syllable but he thinks he can forgive himself for that, what with the looming evening he’s about to spend with Zen all by themselves because Shirayuki is staying at Kihal’s place for the night. Obi has no idea whether this is a date or not.

Ryuu’s little hands are warm and grounding on his chest where he’s stubbornly smoothing out the wrinkles of Obi’s shirt. “Good luck.”

He pauses, maybe satisfied with his work, and looks up at Obi with calm eyes as he says, “from Mom too.”

“Aight,” Obi huffs, getting up from the couch once Ryuu’s clambered off his lap, “here goes nothing.”

There’s a ring at the door that announces Torou’s arrival and Obi watches with a smile as Ryuu picks up his backpack and waves at him, closing the door behind him once Torou’s taken him by the hand and snuck a wink in Obi’s direction. He waits a few more minutes after that, steeling his nerves, then grabs the keys and hurries to Zen’s place with the best nonchalant grin he can muster.

“Yo,” he says in greeting when the door opens: Zen looks nice, hair tidier than usual and a navy blue cardigan that hugs him softly, and there’s an inviting smell of food wafting from the kitchen.

“Hey,” Zen greets back, standing aside to usher Obi in. “I made hot pot, hope that’s okay.”

Obi hums in confirmation and steps out of his shoes, the only fancy pair he bothers to own; he starts walking down the hallway with Zen chattering idly about his day by his side and an open pit at the bottom of his stomach. He sure hopes dinner won’t be too much.

It turns out the hot pot tastes delicious and its warmth is comforting enough to ease Obi’s nerves after the first few bites. He tells Zen how much of a good cook he is and watches entranced as he turns the same delicate shade of red he had when they first met, only this time Zen doesn’t dip his head and instead flashes Obi a smile that makes his eyes crinkle in open joy.

“You’re pretty good yourself,” Zen says around a mouthful of noodles. “The cake you baked for Shirayuki was amazing.”

Obi laughs, a witty remark not quite making it past his lips, and they spend the rest of their dinner talking about simple stuff, from Ryuu’s scholastic endeavors to Shirayuki’s gardening. It feels like testing the waters but Obi’s okay with it; if there’s something he’s good at it’s waiting for the right occasion to present itself.

And baking cakes, apparently.

Once they’re done Obi helps bringing the dishes to the sink but Zen is adamant about washing them himself, so he ends up standing next to him a little awkwardly as he busies himself telling Zen of that one time Torou and him snuck in some rich guy’s backyard to rescue a cat stuck on a tree.

When he turns Zen’s giving him a look that makes the anticipation inside of him spike all at once. It’s open, not unreadable like the first time he brought Torou up, and the raw urgency of it is a question that Obi answers by leaning down, barely realizing what he’s doing until a still wet and soapy hand comes resting on his own.

The first kiss is soft, Zen’s lips a quick promise on his own before Obi pulls away with something strangled in his throat that melts away as soon as Zen’s hands move up to his face. “Is this okay?” Zen murmurs, so intimate that Obi’s head swims as he nods, one two three times yes please go on.

They kiss again and this time Obi nibbles Zen’s lower lip carefully, tilting his head when he feels Zen’s breath catch. There’s a bright flush on Zen’s cheeks when they part for breath and judging from the burning he can feel under his own skin he must be in pretty much the same state, so Obi burrows his nose in the crook of Zen’s shoulder, nudging the fabric of the cardigan away and pressing his mouth on the the fluttering pulse under his touch.

Zen groans low in his throat, one hand tangled in Obi’s shirt and the other grasping at his hair, and Obi hoists him up the sink because he needs more of this, he needs to—

“Bed,” Zen huffs in the shell of his ear, something like tickling where his eyelashes brush against Obi’s forehead. “We’re not doing this in the kitchen.”

His eyes look unfocused but pleased when Obi looks up to him, full of affection that makes him feel lightheaded almost as much as the long, slow kiss Zen gives him after hopping down the sink.

Obi grins. “Lead the way.”

***

Morning comes with white sunlight filtering through the curtains and Zen’s warm weight against Obi’s side. His hair is sticking out in every direction again and his mouth hangs ajar, kind of squashed where his cheek is resting pressed on Obi’s chest.

It’s cramped and a bit too toasty and Obi still feels groggy with sleep he wants to wash from his face, but he also wishes, secretly and with a tinge of embarrassment, for the moment to drag on for as long as possible.

Zen’s told him, voice a murmur in the quiet of the night, that they can take it slow and that he wants Ryuu to be happy, to be comfortable, and Obi believes him like he believes in the sun and the earth and every subtle tugging of fate that has brought him to this place.

He sneaks an arm around Zen’s shoulders and eases into his pillow. Everything else can wait.

[miyakari]

the first fool with a wish

akagami no shirayukihime || obizenyuki || fantasy fusion || 1427 words

read it on ao3!

Watching Shirayuki at work, Zen’s learnt over the years, never seems to grow boring. Be it grinding medicinal herbs or assisting the people in her care or making the staves the castle healers use it doesn’t really matter, she brings an easy grace into everything she does and keeps Zen wrapped around her callous fingers.

He does love it the most when she’s making staves though. Or rather— making might be the wrong word for it considering that’s what the blacksmiths do, hammering the metal and giving it a shape, while Shirayuki imbues the gift of magic inside of it. Her job is to polish the stones that go on top of the staves, to make them smooth and turn them into, as Shirayuki herself explained it to him one day, a link between the healer’s life force and the rest of the world.

“You need stones of the highest purity for that,” she had said, rosy cheeks from working near the forge and hands much, much stronger than what Zen remembered before her leaving for her apprenticeship in Lyras.

She’s pulling out some fragments from the forge right now too and Zen squints his eyes through the steam as she drops them in a bucket full of iced water, trying to catch the gentle shimmer they give off. They kind of look like stars lying at the bottom of a puddle like this, ready to be picked up by the first fool with a wish.

“This should do it,” Shirayuki declares with a satisfied hum, wiping the sweat from her forehead with her leather glove as she turns to face Zen; she’s got a smudge of soot right above one of her eyebrows and Zen laughs, wipes it off with the hem of his sleeve as Shirayuki puffs her cheeks and chides him for getting his fancy clothes dirty when she’s got a towel ready exactly for that.

“It’ll just go away if I wash it,” Zen says, then pauses. “... Right?”

This time it’s Shirayuki who snorts, swatting his head lightly with one of the gloves as she gets up and starts shrugging out of her workwear. An airy yes, yes is all he gets in reply but he doesn’t mind, not when Shirayuki flashes him an open smile as she asks him if he wants to go grab something to eat together.

“Sure,” he says, and takes her hand.

.

Sometimes the ugliest worries coiling in the back of his mind get the best of him.

It’s on one warm night that he dares to say it out loud, with Obi’s arm thrown across his chest and Obi’s breath tickling his jaw with every lazy exhale.

“Am I holding you two back?” he asks, voice a sliver of his usual volume, sticking to his throat like a moth blinded by the light. “Am I doing this all wrong— I mean, I know you chose to stay and Shirayuki says she can be both a royal healer and my, huh, wife but…”

He can feel Obi’s hesitation for a moment, a blink-and-you-miss-it half of a second, but Zen’s gotten quicker on the uptake ever since knowing him so he catches it, just like he doesn’t miss the look Obi gives him as he heaves himself up from his position curled by Zen’s side enough to have some semblance of an eye to eye conversation. Then Obi sighs, and the light pressure of his arm still on Zen’s chest makes Zen’s own breath catch.

“Back when we were in Lyras Mistress told me,” Obi begins, painstakingly careful, “that she can’t see her job and her relationship with you as two separate things. Our fine king thinks the same but you already know this, don’t you?”

He smiles, swings one of his legs past Zen’s so that he’s straddling him; the mattress creaks under the pressure of his hands and knees, Zen’s heartbeat thuds against his bones.

“What about you?” he insists, bringing one hand to Obi’s face and tracing the line of the scar there absentmindedly. He’d rather not have Obi sneak his way out of the big picture, not with how much he cares about him.

“What about me?” Obi singsongs in that infuriating way of his he knows Zen’s all too fond of. His hands slide upwards as he readjusts himself closer to Zen. “Master fears he’s locked me up in a pretty golden cage all this time like a little bird?” His tone is playful but there’s determination in there, bubbling under the surface of his voice like one of Shirayuki’s medicines.

It makes his eyes shine in the dark like the stones she brings to life with iron and charcoal when he says, “I’m not that helpless that I wouldn’t leave.”

If I didn’t love this rings out unsaid and Zen lets himself feel a little dazed.

He tugs Obi down, gently, and Obi breaks into a victorious grin right before kissing him.

.

This time there’s blood on Shirayuki’s clothes instead of soot, finger-shaped smudges on her apron where she’s wiped her hands. Ryuu is in the same state and the woman in front of them moans in a pained way that sends panic down Zen’s spine; he grits his teeth, tells himself he can’t faint no matter what.

The woman’s wife has been clutching her hand for the whole time, standing still like a pillar amidst the flurry of healers coming in and out, and her crumpled expression goes slack with utter stupor the moment the first wail pierces the air. Then she’s crying, all scrunched up again, and Zen can’t help but sag in relief when Shirayuki turns to him, exhausted and shaky and so, so happy as Ryuu hands the newborn to the mother, all wrapped up in clean cloth.

“Zen,” she murmurs, and the strength of it comes crushing down on him, “come closer.”

He peels himself off the wall where he’s flattened himself against through the whole thing, inadequacy paralyzing him where he stood, and walks up to the two women. They fumble, try to pay him their respects but he stops them, fumbling right back. He could swear he’s heard Shirayuki laugh behind him.

“So, uh,” he starts, makes some stilted gesture that he hopes doesn’t look as awkward as it felt. “Congratulation on your first child.”

The women smile in thanks and Zen feels himself relax a little bit too, then Shirayuki is tapping on his shoulder with an expectant smile. “Well then, Prince Zen, I believe I’ve taught you what to do.”

He still thinks it should be his brother to bless the baby, because what’s a prince’s blessing when the king is right there, but the two mothers have asked for him and Garrack says it’s one of his many duties he should be carrying out by now so he steps forward and lets his dominant hand hover above the baby’s head.

“May you grow tall like the trees, white like the snow,” he recites in the language only spellcasters still speak, the weight of his people wrapped around him like warm wool.

.

He can see Shirayuki and Obi standing by a stall across the other side of the town square: she’s got her arm linked to his and he’s whispering something in her ear that makes her burst out laughing. Both have flowers woven in their hair, hanging from their necks.

Mitsuhide and Kiki are off somewhere enjoying the festival too, never straying too far from Zen’s side, and there’s someone playing the violin from a makeshift stand.

It’s soothing, to watch Shirayuki drag Obi away from the stand for a dance, fried treat still dangling from his mouth as he hurries to chew it down and powdered sugar dusting his cheeks, until they start drawing closer to him. Before he can scramble away to hide behind Mitsuhide (or Kiki, her glare should be a far stronger shield than Mitsuhide’s admittedly inviting wide back) Obi catches him by the wrist and reels him in, laughing out loud at Zen’s squawk of protest.

Shirayuki’s hand sneaks her way into his other and they’re dancing in fast circles in the middle of the square, stomping on each other's feet like children.

Zen finds out he doesn’t really mind, not even when they stop and his head is spinning and Obi drapes himself heavy on Zen’s side as Shirayuki spreads her arms and blinks the world back into place like a fawn that’s just learned how to walk.

After all, they love him and he loves them.

[miyakari]

for you, for me

ensemble stars || reikoga || 585 words i recently 1)got into enstars 2)bought my first animal crossing (I Know) so uh take this?

Rei’s head feels heavy on Koga’s shoulder, forehead nestled against the crook of his neck. It tickles too, the combined action of Rei’s bangs and his warm breath fanning Koga’s skin almost enough to send the swimming feeling inside of his stomach haywire.

“Can I call my avatar wanko?” Rei asks, cradling Koga’s 3DS (pitch black, of course, with cute dog stickers on top of it) in his hands like something foreign and fragile.

He held Koga’s hand just like that once, but that’s stuff from the past.

“Do you have to be an unnerving bastard about literally everything?” Koga retorts at the same time as Rei’s finished typing.

It doesn’t say wanko, thank you very much.

“Ah, you gotta pick a name for your city now.”

By some kind of miracle Rei doesn’t seem inclined to come up with names such as Doggie Town or Pawland, which by the way would give Koga a fully valid excuse to haul the jerk down the window of their clubroom once and for all. Instead he stays quiet for a few seconds, stylum hovering above the screen, then clicks his tongue in mild distaste.

“I can’t fit Yumenosaki in here,” he says, like it’s some kind of personal offence.

“What, you’d name a city after your school?”

The look Rei gives him (he has to twist a bit for that and his nose grazes Koga’s jawline for a moment; then there’s just the ghost of a feeling— like always) is so full of raw, stubborn love that Koga’s hands reach up to brush the hair from his face before his brain can catch up and stop his traitor of a body from slipping back when things still were— were. When Rei was.

“Right, you’d do that, you vampire bastard,” he mumbles, tries his best not to sound as choked up as he feels when Rei leans into his touch, his space, with a content hum that sounds a bit too much like an apology for Koga’s taste.

“Koga,” Rei says, and the air inside of Koga’s lungs catches fire like hay. “You pick a name then. Build me a house too, while you’re at it.”

“Hell no, then I’d be the one playing.”

It comes out a bit croaky and definitely not all that convincing, not when he’s already thinking about how Pawland doesn’t sound half bad after all.

“It’s going to have to be near the sea— you can do that, right?” Rei’s voice resonates like an echo down to Koga’s bones as he hangs his head low again, shuffling and rustling until his limbs end up all over Koga’s lap, somehow.

“Whoops, I totally sounded like Kaoru-kun just now, didn’t I.”

Koga groans, which turns out to be a terrible idea judging by the way Rei’s fingers curl and uncurl in the blink of an eye, or how he presses closer without even trying to be the least subtle about it.

Nice to know Koga’s not the only one steaming inside (and outside too, in his case, because he knows when to let go and not push himself too hard all the damn time—), caught in between their Could Have Been’s and the present in all its empty handed daze.

“I’ll build you a goddamn villa,” Koga says, “so you’ll have to sleep in a goddamn bed.”

“A bed without wheels,” he adds for good measure.

Rei laughs, the shaky curve of his smile soft against Koga’s neck.

The future is still there, still theirs.

[miyakari]

oh simple thing

kuromukuro || yukina/mika || 453 words

happy birthday to the best lee who ever lee’d <3 @shenmei-liu

Mika’s hands are warm on her cheeks, palms soft and smooth. Mika doesn’t have callouses, just well kept nails and hardened fingertips where she prickles herself with the needle sometimes.

It makes Yukina wonder, thoughts sluggish and all jumbled up like a pile of goo growing in the back of her head, when did her own hands stop feeling like that.

(Probably as soon as the military people got their way with their oh so cursory survival summer training camp, something tells her.)

Mika’s brushing Yukina’s bangs from her face now, scraping slightly against her temples, and she drags her fingers along Yukina’s scalp with a displeased hum.

“You’re making the face,” she says, clicks her tongue to further convey the extent of her indignation.

Cosplayers, Yukina thinks.

“What face?” she asks, half serious and half bemused.

“The Face.”

Mika is starting to sound more and more irritated with every passing second, which is never a good sign but it sure feels endearing — at least until she actually takes action.

“Are you capitalizing that in your head?” Yukina pushes her luck anyway because right now, right as the world is getting invaded by the aliens (or demons, or both) her father used to tell her about and she’s being shoved into a killing machine no one’s really given her any proper prior talk about, even getting roped into wearing the most embarrassing outfit in Mika’s possession for some shooting session would be a welcomed change of pace.

Proof that she’s still Shirahane Yukina, even.

Mika doesn’t answer though, instead tugs at her hair (ow, goes an apathetic voice in her brain) and scoots closer, nips at Yukina’s lips (the voice is less apathetic now) as her thighs brush against Yukina’s hips.

Soft, soft skin.

Mika doesn’t have a single speck of war on her.

“This,” she murmurs in the crook of Yukina’s neck, gravity in her words all of sudden. “All of this— it’s not going to change. We’re not going to change.”

And Yukina wants to shrug her off, tell her that people change, all the time, but she knows that’s not how Mika means it. Mika who will always be there for her, Mika who let her stay over when the whole world was screaming for Yukina to smear alien blood on their vulnerable, helpless human soil.

“Let’s go to the shopping district tomorrow,” she says. “Kennosuke keeps destroying my stationery.”

Mika laughs, jerks her head back up to give her a nod of approval and her eyes are calm, crinkled at the edges. Comforting.

Yukina smiles back, then stores the memory away like sun dried laundry: she will shroud herself in it when the world starts screaming once again.

[miyakari]

deep night tales

akagami no shirayukihime || zenobiyuki || 432 words || modern au

this is so vanilla but the fandom is sorely lacking in terms of poly so there we go. for @kosakachihiro bc she keeps me worm 

She puts the book down with care, lets her fingers linger on the cover as she takes a look around her. It’s always a bit like coming back from underwater, finishing a book.

“Aaah,” she sighs, maybe a tad bit exaggerated, “fairytales sure are nice, aren’t they?”

Next to her Zen unglues his eyes from the screen of his laptop (red, Shirayuki thinks, making a mental note of getting him some eyedrops), while Obi merely smiles from his spot, sprawled on Zen’s legs with an arm hooked around his waist like a dead weight.

“Did the girl become a professional dragon slayer in the end?” Zen asks, nose wrinkled in that somewhat graceful way of his that means he definitely doesn’t approve of any slaying of dragons.

When Shirayuki nods Obi lets out a quiet whistle, finally blessing them by opening one single eye. “Wow, even though there was all that stuffy princess business?”

“Of course!” She balls her fists as she swings her arms up, knowing she’s being judged right now and not caring in the slightest.

She just really loves cool stories with good worldbuilding, okay.

“Poor dragons,” Zen sniffs, laptop long forgotten and resting closed on his thighs. “But you’ve got to appreciate endings like these, I guess.”

Obi hums, then closes his eye again, prodding at Shirayuki’s right foot with his own.

“Miss, don’t you have work at the lab tomorrow morning? It’s getting kinda late,” he says, eyebrows wrinkled as he tries to imitate Zen’s sternness. “I’m not giving you a last minute ride on my bike again, especially not in your pyjamas.”

“Same here,” Zen chimes in before she can even think of asking him and honestly, she’s got the worst possible husbands on Earth.

“Ryuu loved my pyjamas,” she grumbles, as morosely as she can, then stretches her arm out to switch off the light.

There’s something shifting and rustling somewhere near as Obi makes his way from Zen’s legs to the space between him and Shirayuki, his bony limbs all over the place until he manages to settle in. He kisses Shirayuki on the temple (she has no idea of how does he manage not to knock their faces together in the dark), then turns around to do the same with Zen and get rid of his laptop without dropping everything present on the nightstand in the process.

Zen huffs something, but it’s lost to the soft, content buzzing settling in the back of Shirayuki’s mind as she drifts asleep, hands that belong to two different people raising the blankets up to her shoulders.

[miyakari]

secondhand sunlight

fire emblem fates || selena & ophelia || 401 words || babyrealms don’t exist

Ophelia does this thing sometimes, Severa muses, when she looks at people with eyes so wide it makes her look like she’s trying to suck the whole world in, retain all its deepest secrets in the glint of her pupils. She’s doing it right now too.

“Aunt Selena, say—”

She tugs at the hem of Severa’s vest even though there’s no need, round fingers clutching to the fabric, leaving traces of things Severa doesn’t really want to investigate right now.

“Say, can you do magic?”

She asks it with the particular kind of voice children use when they’re convinced they’re asking the most important question mankind could ever come up with, eyes now full of the most serious looking brand of awe Severa’s ever seen.

She wonders if it’s a childhood thing after all, thinking that adults can do anything.

“Nope,” she says in all honesty, because there’s no way she could ever lie to Lissa’s eyes, to Owain’s daughter. To the child sitting on her lap.

“I don’t have much magic in me, sorry ‘bout that.”

The harsh truth doesn’t seem to rock Ophelia’s tiny boat of stubborn fascination all that much, it gets merely brushed aside with a dignified huff from a dignified nose.

Severa’s starting to think she might have a lot to learn from this kid.

“My mother did though,” she goes on, and that seems to get Ophelia’s attention back in full swing. “She preferred lances but she could work some magic, she— she had books.”

“You mean tomes?”

“I mean I’m the adult and I say it’s the same thing.”

Ophelia’s eyebrows shoot up almost comically as she gasps, tugs at Severa’s vest again with one hand as she flings her other arm around. “It’s really not! Tomes are tomes! Books are—”

“Books?”

When Ophelia squeaks in protest Severa can’t help but smile, hands ruffling up her hair hoping that it will be enough for her not to notice just how terribly fond she’s feeling right now. She will make sure to tell her later.

“One day you’ll see,” she murmurs, mostly to herself, lets the hues of the ylissian sun lighten her memories as she smells Nohr all around her, on her clothes and her skin and Ophelia’s warmth on her thighs and chest.

Severa lulls her to sleep with tales of a world that’s hers to claim, if she will ever want to.

[miyakari]

lonely children wrote the bible

fire emblem awakening || owainigo || 2572 words || the future past post-canon

He watches Lucina sink Falchion into Grima’s body (or maybe it’s Robin’s, yeah, it’s always been Robin’s after all) and for a moment she’s just as tall as Chrom used to be in his memories. For a moment Robin smiles through the blood the way all their parents must have smiled, like martyrs.

Doom dissipates from their world, dries the clouds upon their heads clear, lets gravity drop back on their shoulders, pool in their knees, anchor their feet to the ground below.

It knocks Inigo’s lungs upside down.

Then Lucina crumbles to the ground and she’s a knot of cuts and bruises and grief but she’s looking up and there’s raw joy prickling her eyes.

Inigo knows it because it’s the same for him.

They’re all quiet for a while; the sunlight hits them like spring after the snow has melted away and there’s nothing but tender, green grass beneath.

Brady walks slow steps around them, Maribelle’s staff clutched in his hands, as he mutters a string of kind words, makes their wounds glow and itch.

At some point the streets of Ylisstol start their murmuring too: it climbs the walls of the castle in gusts of warm air, carries disbelief and hope and all what’s left with it like a homage, a memento. It grabs them by the collar and shakes them to their senses.

Cynthia and Owain are the first to run back inside, run back where there’s still life, where there’s people waiting for the good news.

Grima has been defeated, we’ve won, we’ve made it, it’s over―

Inigo hollers it all down the edge of the castle roof.

.

They throw a bunch of old, dusty bedsheets on the floor of Lucina’s room, empty every closet until the pavement disappears under layers of blankets and pillows. Kjelle grumbles under her breath about frivolousness but she helps them out anyway, takes her armor off for the first time in a time longer than Inigo can remember.

It’s their first peaceful night from the day they were born and they spend it huddled together on the floor of their princess― no, Exalt’s bedroom, a heap of sore bones and newfound dreams rustling like sparrows clustered on spread soil.

Owain finds his way by Inigo’s side in the dark, wraps an arm around his waist without actually pulling him closer, just to make sure he’s there and that he knows Owain is too.

He’s been doing it since their mission in Plegia but there’s something more to it now, something new in the way they let each other in, let sleep take over every inch with no hesitation.

It makes Inigo wish for the dawn to come in slowly.

.

“You look sleepy.”

Nah glances up at him from her spot near the fireplace. She’s been on patrol duty together with Cynthia and Gerome for the past four days and the manakete inside of her is starting to get sharper, the green of her eyes wilder.

“I’m positively exhausted,” she says and it makes something inside of Inigo clench so tight it kind of hurts. “Lady Tiki is being quite… encouraging though. I guess.”

He remembers his father, knees pressing on burnt, sterile ground, blood stains on his hands and his clothes. They used to pray together sometimes, pray for the ears of a dragon long gone.

Now their heavens have ears that can listen, and a voice that can talk.

Inigo is sure his father would be overjoyed if he knew.

“That’s good,” he says, has to clear his throat as he crouches down by her side. “Really good.”

Nah just nods, maybe hums under her breath but it’s lost to the crackling of the fire, to the warmth turning back to ashes years of disheartening silence and one way conversations with graves that should not have been theirs to mourn.

It makes Inigo wonder about the charred wood that still creaks below his sternum, about how heavy the things he’s lost can be.

Maybe that’s just how loss itself works.

“I’m going to write it all.” Nah’s voice’s always got a certain shakiness fraying at its edges but it feels like molten steel now. “I’m not letting anyone forget, not even when it’ll be just me.”

Inigo inhales thick smoke, swallows the burnt and the dirt.

.

He’s feeling antsy.

He knows there’s no reason for him to be, yet leaving Ylisstol still feels glaringly wrong somehow.

“You’re picking at your scabbard,” Owain states, no real judgement in it. “You shouldn’t do that.”

“Well, if only somebody would’ve stayed behind at our Exalt’s side instead of following me―”

“Lucina can look after herself just fine. And don’t you forget the valiant heroes that lurk in her shadow, ever alert to the dangers that still roam our beloved halidom―”

“That’s enough, thanks.”

Owain merely laughs, ruffles Inigo’s hair in some poor attempt at reassuring him. Not that it doesn’t work every time.

“Ah.” Inigo stops, almost stumbles: in front of him there’s the house he’s grown up in until his parents never came back and he was taken away by the troops. “We’re here.”

Ivy has claimed the most of the walls, clawed at the bricks and the mortar, turned it all deep green. It’s kept the house from turning into an empty shell, alive even as risen made life seem the most volatile of things.

Owain is staying quiet for once, and Inigo can’t see his face because he’s got his eyes glued to the front door (the red paint has faded and the wood is chipped, the doorknob is missing) but he can hear his footsteps by his side and that’s enough to stop him from kneeling down like a pilgrim in front of the ruins of his temple.

He’s still alive, he’s still the proof they were alive too.

“You know,” he says out loud, probably. He hopes so. “My mother was really good at playing hide and seek.”

He can see Owain turning to him out of the corner of his eye. “Olivia?”

In any other situation Inigo would take the chance to give him a taste of his own medicine, something along the lines of No, our great universal Mother Naga the holy manakete, and Owain would bite his lips into a poorly disguised smirk, maybe shove him with no real intent.

Right now he doesn’t do that.

“She had a talent for finding the most improbable places where to hide, I swear.”

The door opens up for him without too much wrangling, caves in with a high pitched whine; inside, the house is painted in hues of dust and mold and there’s a field mouse quickly scrambling away from them.

Inigo steps in first, thankful for the silence they’re both keeping. It’s refreshing compared to his mother’s singing voice that won’t stop howling in his memories, projecting afterimages of a child he no longer is leading him through the hallway.

“There was this cupboard in the kitchen― She hid in there one time, no idea how did she manage to fit inside.”

Owain makes what should probably sound like an impressed noise, soft and low, and truth be told it makes Inigo laugh a little.

“I searched for so long I actually ended up crying.” His voice still sounds way too thin though, way too earnest, the memories from that day too vivid. “She rushed to me and she wouldn’t stop apologizing, it was almost funny… Mother and child sobbing over an hide and seek session went bad.”

This time it’s Owain who laughs, presses a callous palm against Inigo’s nape as if it could be enough to hide the longing tearing them both apart, eating up, hollowing them from the inside.

They’re still alive, so that’s enough.

.

He visits his mother’s grave the day after. He knows Owain has gone too in the early morning and that now he’s off somewhere, doing something.

Probably hunting, or reciting poems to trees Inigo hopes can’t really hear his atrocities.

“Just so you know,” he says, sits down in front of the grave with a huff. “Whatever that guy might have told you, don’t listen to him.”

There are weeds and moss covering up the stone so he starts plucking and scratching, careful not to touch the flowers: his mother used to love the humblest things.

“I’m doing just fine,” he adds after a while and he knows he’s being stubborn but then again, children are allowed to be stubborn with their parents, or at least that’s what Severa told him years ago.

He tries to dance for her, spins himself around for hours until his legs bend and his vision blurs, until he can’t hear his own thoughts over the thumping of his heart in his ears anymore.

It feels like the worst performance he’s ever given, like a closed cupboard in an empty house.

.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

He’s just come back to Ylisstol and he’s already being overwhelmed by the passing of time, the noise, the constant pulse beneath it all.

In front of him Cynthia grins like a wild beast; the smell of the barn is making Inigo feel a bit queasy but she’s utterly unaffected, tall and undefeated in her throne of hay and mud.

“And I can’t believe you managed to drag Severa into it, that’s seriously impressive.”

“I didn’t drag anyone, I just asked!”

They both know Cynthia’s asking often tiptoes around the fine line between questions and orders but neither of them bothers to admit it out loud. No point in stating the obvious.

“She wants to bring back the pegasus knights just as much as I do, you know, she’s putting real care into this.”

For a moment Inigo wonders if there’s anything Severa wouldn’t put care into, if there’s a way to stop her from giving the whole of herself away without a second thought.

That’s not just her, something in the back of his mind objects, and he admits defeat to it.

“Do you think we should follow our parents’ footsteps?” he asks instead. “Is that the right choice?”

Cynthia blinks up at him like she’s not sure she’s heard him right, head cocked to one side, the whole blue of the sky reflected in her stare.

“There is no right choice, Inigo,” she states and for a second it’s his father speaking through her lips, calm and true and wiser than he will ever be. “There’s only what you want to do.”

.

Before, when the dark felt like part of their skin, sticky and ice cold, reeking of iron from their rusty weapons and rustier blood, they didn’t have much to eat.

“This stuff is so much better than bugs,” Owain declares like he’s singing the praises of long lost heroes (Inigo supposes he kind of always is, in his head), then shoves another spoonful of venison stew in his mouth, making a point of being as noisy as humanly possible. Gross.

“I don’t know,” Inigo retorts, his own bowl of food warm between his hands. “Bugs have that crunchy factor…”

“Don’t say that while I’m eating!”

“I’m eating too.” And honestly it’s kind of surreal, kind of alienating because he’s not used to this, he’s not used to not being on guard for every little thing or feeling clean or safe or anything― anything the aftermath of their win has brought him.

He’s not used to having.

The meat in his stew is tasty, the potatoes and carrots sweet; he chews it all up thoroughly, waits for the warmth to settle down in his stomach like a dead weight.

For once, guilt doesn’t come.

When they’re both done (it doesn’t take long, in the end they’re still two starved wolves), Owain lets himself fall flat on his bed with a content sigh. “That was good.”

“I guess so, yeah,” Inigo concedes, and they both laugh.

Their hands are touching but they choose not to comment, not when Inigo’s got his head turned to the wall and Owain’s humming an old feroxi lullaby to himself. Probably a memory of his father.

That night Inigo dreams of kind words and slow dancing routines, of his mother’s pirouettes and the taste of warm stew.

.

“I believe our parents are watching over us,” Lucina tells him one day.

They’re walking through the streets of their capital and everything is filled to the brim with sounds and colours and smells so vivid they make Inigo’s head spin on itself just a little bit.

“And I believe they are happy.”

A girl with rosy cheeks offers them a basket full of fresh eggs, some children swirl around their legs with flower crowns in their hands. They drape some on the both of them in the middle of the market and Lucina smiles her brightest smile, giggles without holding back as she bows down shimmering with glory, enthroned once more.

Inigo thinks that if it’s her, if it’s his friend and comrade and Exalt with flowers hanging askew all over her forehead, then he will believe her.

(He always has.)

.

His dancing has gotten better.

He’s gone back to his house too and he’s started to clean it up, room after room. His kitchen wasn’t any different from how he remembered it, just a bit quieter, and when he opened the cupboard there was nothing inside.

Not his mother, curled up and ever waiting, not the war that took her away from him, not a single accusation.

Only a few cobwebs and the weightless, breathless realization that the world wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.

Since then he’s started to dance again: he throws himself into it every night, the way he used to when he was younger and prone to sneaking out, and it doesn’t feel quite as hopeless as before.

“Let me say,” Owain declares with his usual I’m about to make you regret thinking that starting a conversation with me could ever be a good idea, “that I consider myself utmost honored for you, my friend, have deemed me worthy of gazing upon your private performance―”

“Owain.”

“Okay, okay, you go. Geez.”

Inigo bows his head to him, tries his best to hold back a snicker because right now Owain is his audience and snickering at the audience would be pretty distasteful.

Instead he counts to four in his head and music wipes the world away. There’s room for just his body and the motions he’s practiced for so long he doesn’t even need to think anymore.

He dances and there’s nothing holding him back.

When he stops he can feel the flush on his cheeks, the trembling in his shins, the silence ringing in his ears.

“I, uh,” he starts, but the next moment Owain is up and rushing to him, grinning down with a smile that’s all scrunched up, all folds and freckles and pride.

Inigo kisses him.

It feels like that night in Plegia, the leftover adrenaline shaking them both from head to toes like drums parading through their bones because they’d made it, except this time death is nowhere in sight and all their cuts are mended, all their bruises faded.

“You’ll make a wonderful dancer,” Owain murmurs, nose pressed against Inigo’s temple, and he sounds like the embarrassed kid he his but that’s what makes Inigo drag him closer.

“I know,” he says, hides his laughter in the crook of Owain’s neck.

.

.

.

title from "Lullabies for Little Criminals", by Heather O'Neill

[miyakari]

shake, bend, break

magic kaito || hakukai || 606 words || hp au

2.13

He must admit this, he might have grown somewhat fond of Kuroba’s muggle tricks after years of mutual contemptuous side glances.

This doesn’t mean he’s okay with being the victim though.

“C’mon, Hakuba.” Kuroba’s switched to his cutesy voice, the one that means you’re here forever and the only way out is to humor me, and Hakuba really does not want to deal with any of this.

“We both know I don’t actually have a saying in this,” he states (and he probably sounds and looks like a sour lemon while doing so but whose fault is it now?). “You’re just going to materialize whatever you want no matter what I pick.”

Now Kuroba looks kind of offended, which means Hakuba must have kind of hit bullseye. As usual.

“Just. Just pick a goddamn bean, will you stuck-up talking lamppost—”

“The white one then.”

Life has been unfair to him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have a few revenges along the way, can he.

Kuroba regards him with a slanted stare for a moment, like he’s wondering about something, about faraway days maybe; then flashes a grin that’s all stage lights and adoring audience.

It makes Hakuba quiver.

“Wise choice!” Kuroba exclaims, his dominant hand quick to disappear under a white handkerchief together with the Every Flavour beans it was holding.

The next moment he’s holding a chocolate bar in front of Hakuba’s face, the consummate magician grin now almost sheepish.

Hakuba takes the chocolate bar with the same amount of caution he would use to handle a rather nasty baby mandrake. (And he’s sadly, regrettably speaking from experience.)

“This is my favourite brand,” he says, and Kuroba gives him a look that could easily be translated as something like duh, weren’t the both of them far too deep in their little game of outwitting each other in the most dignified way possible.

“It’s an apology,” is the last thing he hears Kuroba say before he’s out of their room and running down the tower already, too far for Hakuba’s mildly terrified inquiries.

2.14

He wakes up with a chocolate frog sitting on his chest.

They have a bit of an impromptu staring contest until the frog jumps flat on his face.

It fills him with dread.

Through the day the chocolate frogs start following him around: at first it’s just a few, merry artificial amphibians hopping at his feet as he walks, then it’s a party, then a crowd.

He gets swarmed in a couple hours.

Kuroba has long stopped pretending not to be laughing himself senseless in the nearby background and honestly screw the Most Dignified Way Possible, the guy is an asshole and a fool.

“I hate you,” Hakuba hisses between his teeth, loud enough it won’t be drowned in the general frog concert that’s playing around his legs. One single brave chocolate demon is now perched on top of his head and it’s terrible.

Kuroba merely clicks his tongue, the jerk.

“That’s not what you’re supposed to say when someone gives you a gift on Valentine’s Day, Hakuba-kun,” he retorts, and Hakuba’s never despised honorifics as much as he does now.

Then it hits him.

It hits him and it must have shown because there it is again, the almost sheepish grin, except this time there’s pink on Kuroba’s cheeks and the most whitewashed smudge of doubt in his eyes and enchanted chocolate frogs all over the place.

“I hope you don’t expect me to eat all of these by myself,” Hakuba says after what feels like a hundred years of croaking silence.

Dignity can wait another day.

.

.

.

title sorta from ‘wild’ by troye sivan (it doesn’t fit but i had no ideas literally zero ideas and this dang song kept playing in my head oKAY)

[miyakari]

if it’s a little bit cold

fire emblem awakening || owain & lissa || 302 words

She looks calm about this. Calmer than him, that’s for sure.

She looks calm, and young, so much younger than him.

“I’m so sorr―” he tries, falls short, throat going dry and tight like dying rivers under the midday sun.

Lissa smiles.

“You’re lucky he didn’t hear it,” she muses, voice quiet, a puddle with a piece of sky in it. She’s always been up high for Owain, was she dead or breathing next to him.

Now she’s sitting and her head is no higher than his shoulders.

She’s sitting and her feet don’t touch the ground.

“He would’ve like, dunno, probably exploded or something,” she continues, laughter peeking from under her words. “You calling him dad like that and all.”

“Aren’t you scared?”

This gets her attention, makes her eyes snap and sink into his, same colour, same shape, he’s taken those after her.

“I mean, you’re― you’re fifteen, you weren’t supposed to know, I wasn’t supposed to…”

“Hey.”

She had this thing with her words back in his world too, when she could make people around her settle down with nothing but crumbs of her voice; uncle Chrom would always look a tiny bit nostalgic those times.

“Hey, Owain, darling.” He’s got her hands on his cheeks now, and they feel younger as he feels older, smooth against the dirt and the bruises. “It’s okay. We’ve got all the time we want.”

We don’t, Owain thinks. He’s going to make sure he’s wrong though.

“I would’ve loved to see him explode,” he says instead, searches though her eyes before trying to crack a smile of his own. “It would’ve been…”

“Owain―”

“A blast.”

When Lissa screeches out her outrage she sounds like a fifteen years old girl, yet she sounds like Owain’s mother too.

Maybe he’s already been proved wrong.

.

.

title from ‘stillness in woe’ by purity ring

[miyakari]

ballabile

fire emblem awakening || owainigo || 862 words || pacific rim au

He’s never really had the chance to learn the ways of music, the signs and black curls on white paper, the theories; he lacks basic grammar for a language he’s only ever heard the way people breathe in secondhand smoke.

His mother, she used to be the real thing back when the whole of their lives didn’t revolve around fearing kaiju and fighting kaiju and dying at the hands of kaiju.

She’s taught Inigo how to dance in between battles and practice, smiled quietly to herself when he was handed a wooden stick for the first time and his steps followed a rhythm that had nothing to do with sparring.

“You’ve got a weird style going on,” Owain tells him after the fifth time Inigo has sent him landing with his back on the floor. They’re 5-7 with this and those are the first intelligible words Inigo’s heard him say since they’ve started. “I like it.”

What he says next is the actual deal though, the moment Inigo’s mother would make the melody do her bidding and the ground shake below her feet. The moment she would strike the kaiju right through the skull.

“Drift with me.”

Inigo falls flat for the eighth time.

.

His mother’s told him of the way orchestras sound when they’re getting ready for something, of how harmony is hardly as simple of a concept as people make it to be but rather something like a clash, like the mess hall when breakfast comes after a night with no drills.

The first drift with Owain feels exactly like that, the jaeger they’ve been assigned whirring and beeping around them, and Inigo’s breath catches for a split second as someone else’s life washes over him, his own washing over Owain.

Lissa’s eyes shine bright green in front of him, then the jaeger moves.

.

“You’re way easier to understand in the drift,” he whines as Owain goes on about heroes and destiny and other words Inigo’s not sure he’s ever heard before. Maybe they don’t even exist.

“Excuse you,” Owain retorts, eyes far too quick to find his, like he knew exactly where would they be (and maybe he does, maybe that’s the aftermath of giving yourself away like goodbye kisses). “It is clear that the issue lies within you, my friend, for my speech slashes through the ears of my comrades like a polished blade.”

“Oh my god.”

“And besides.” Now Owain’s putting on his best outraged expression, the words you fiend written all over his face. “You’re impossible in the drift.”

Coming from the guy who says his speech is like a polished blade (you’ve got the simile all wrong! he can hear Owain say inside his head, probably not a good sign) Inigo should probably take it as an insult, coming from his co-pilot he decides to listen.

“Really?” he asks, just a hue too self-conscious. He grits his teeth.

In the glow of the neon lights Owain softens as much as it takes for Inigo’s jaw to slack and his stomach to sink.

“There’s music everywhere,” he says. Inigo’s stomach sinks deeper.

Owain’s forehead is pressed against his own now, hands curled around his sides as Inigo leans back.

“I’ve been taught to be quiet when music speaks.”

.

Every inch of his body hurts, every inch of Owain’s too, the drift exploding in blotches of crude light in front of his eyes, their eyes; below them the kaiju howls its last breath at the night sky towering above.

Inigo thinks of nocturnes, of overseas melodies and his father’s fingers tapping on the table in front of him. A military base is no place to keep a piano after all.

“Chopin,” Owain says, and the next moment his end of the drift turns into a blur.

Inigo follows right after.

.

His dancing is imperfect, sometimes raw, fighting and instincts taking priority, taking over. Inigo takes note of every mistake he makes, knows the faltering and stammering of his legs, the flailing of his arms.

When he sees himself inside of Owain’s mind he can’t find any of that.

.

It’s a strange thing, knowing that Owain loves him and that he knows Inigo loves him back but never doing anything about it.

Because they’re at war, because kaiju keep slowly eating their world away and do not seem to stop, at all, because there’s no room for anything but blue blood raining down on them.

Because they’re both geniuses in the art of bullshit, though that’s just what Severa says.

(It’s not like she’s wrong, but the truth weighs less when it’s on someone else’s tongue.)

“You should start working on a routine for two.” Owain’s voice sounds unusually quiet, almost distant, like he’s trying to take a step back from his own words as soon as they leave his mouth. “So you can teach it to me the day this all ends.”

There’s no wondering if the day it all ends will really come, doubt squeezed out of their horizon for the time being, possibly till the next alarm goes off.

“You better not step on my feet,” Inigo says, and when Owain laughs it’s rock solid.

[miyakari]

compass points you home

fire emblem awakening || cherche/gaius || 327 words || reincarnation au

Gerome’s breath is quiet, muffled against Cherche’s lap, the curve of his back raising and falling so slowly it makes Gaius feel almost sleepy.

He’s getting used to this, used to waking up in the middle of the night to his son crying by the side of their bed and a mortified look pale on Cherche’s face. He remembers starting to get nightmares back when he was Gerome’s age too, the neighbor girl he’d always played with now just a body lying in front of his eyes, a wyvern’s howling piercing his ears, splitting his head apart.

“I wished he wouldn’t remember,” Cherche says, as quiet as Gerome’s breathing. “From the day he was born, I wished he wouldn’t remember.”

It makes Gaius cringe and shrink and he’s glad the room is so dark because darkness is where’s he’s still at his best, where he can rub his thumb in circles on Cherche’s back and hope she won’t notice he’s biting at the inside of his cheeks.

(He knows she will anyway, tries his best to pretend.)

“But I’m happy, you know.” Now Cherche’s voice is dripping with guilt, so heavy it kind of breaks, cracks under the pressure of one too many lifetimes. “Your own son not remembering you― that’s got to feel lonely, right, I’d feel lonely.”

Gaius knows the only thing keeping her from crying is the boy asleep next to her, the boy she’s lost and then found and was ready to give up on if that meant he’d be happy, happier.

“It’s going to be alright,” he hums, hates the strain still ringing clear in every word. Cherche nods once, just as strained, and then she’s leaning back against him, a whole week of sleepless nights dragging her down.

He watches her sink like a stone in the sea; her hands don’t move once from the small of Gerome’s back.

That morning the dawn brings him dreams from the future for once.

.

.

.

title from ‘compass’ by zella day

[miyakari]

thicker than water

one piece || fisher tiger & koala || 373 words

bday fic for lee aka Best Child whom i love immensely <3333 happy bday smol <333

side a.

The mark burns like a raging fire on his skin, livid red, and it’s ugly, but what keeps burning even harder is the shame, the fury tucked inside his fists.

That one never fades, never subsides, ever present even when he manages to escape and to come back and to destroy; the shame burns as bright as the sun he tries to drown it with.

He hates humans, will always hate humans.

Then there’s this child, this small, quivering thing that doesn’t even reach up to his knees.

This human who’s got the same mark as him on her back and the same heavy footprints on her pride.

He curses (maybe even blesses) her with the same sun that rises on them all, makes her one of their family. He’s still going to bring her back home though. (Maybe he cursed himself, maybe even blessed.)

When they shoot him, he can still feel the warmth of Koala’s hand on his palm.

.

side b

She grows up with a reminder.

It’s a reminder of cruelty, of wrong, but it means hope and life and home all the same. It’s a reminder of the one who stood tall against something more terrifying than hell and burnt it all down to ashes.

She makes sure to grow up just as tall, the marked skin on her back spread wide, wider, growing pain jabbing her in the ribs.

A ship from the Revolutionary Army docks at the shore of her island one night and Koala is barely fourteen but she scribbles her goodbyes on scrap paper and sneaks in.

They find her when it’s already too late to turn back.

To Dragon (this is also a man who stands tall, a man who burns and wrecks and picks back up) she offers her back, lets her shirt slip down until there’s a flash of red wiping the words off everyone in the room. Everyone but Dragon.

He says, “let’s talk for a bit, pirate of the Sun.”

And she talks till dawn, lets it all spill out like a waterfall, like blood from a broken nose; Dragon welcomes her among his people.

Koala smiles, as sharp as shark teeth. The smile Tiger was proud of.

[miyakari]

the earth says hello

aria || alice carroll || 295 words

bday fic for susu!!!!! happy bday satan, love ya!!! its super short and im ashamed but at least this time i didn’t kill anyone <3

She likes waking up early in the morning, likes to stir as the birds take their first flights, dots of black against the glow of the dawn.

Sometimes, when the weather is summer sweet and the sun lazy to rise, she walks up to her gondola and rows in the quiet until she flows out of the maze of Neo Venezia right into the open, into the untouched.

Her gondola makes ripples in the water she leaves behind but it all gets lost in a matter of seconds, waves sinking back into stillness, asleep like the rest of the city. Alice only looks at what’s ahead.

That’s the reason why she wakes up so early in the end; it’s all for the view, for the grey of the sky reflecting in the grey of the sea, for the dim pinks and blues and whites and the moon still lingering up there, for the horizon that doesn’t quite exist yet but will soon because it happens every day and Aqua would be a strange (stranger?) place if there wasn’t a horizon, Alice knows that much.

She breathes in, lets her eyes get lost in the sea and the sky and the place that doesn’t have a horizon yet, then sings. She sings her good night to the moon and her good morning to the sun, to Neo Venezia shimmering faintly all crouched down on the bay.

The birds answer her from up above, like they always do, and Alice sings for them too, like she always does.

When she tiptoes back to Orange Planet there’s Maa-kun ready to get tangled in between her feet, and Athena’s smile soft with sleep that still lingers in the corners of her mouth.

She likes mornings like those the best.

.

.

.

title from ‘good morning starshine’, from the musical Hair

[miyakari]

aere perennius

one piece || trafalgar law (very vague lawlu) || 1649 words || canon divergence

There’s a spotless sky on spotless streets when they land at Dressrosa and Trafalgar Law thinks he’s going to die.

He’s known it for a long time (since he was ten, ashes and poison dusting up his lungs, blinding white), and he'd got a reminder when his voice wouldn’t make more noise than the snow falling around him, the smell of wood and gunpowder and blood burning through his nose. He’s known it, he’s been thinking about it, dancing around it, romancing the very idea until it tinted his dreams from white to bloody red.

They’re easier on his eyes like that.

Standing there though, feet on the ground that’s going to be the scenery of what he doesn’t really feel like calling a battle (battling is what Strawhat does, what people who haven’t spent thirteen years of their life longing for murder do: battling has rules Law was never taught about), kind of feels like his perspective has shifted, the weight on his shoulders doubled.

He wonders what does Strawhat think of traitors.

.

The moment he realizes Doflamingo is still a Shichibukai feels ridiculously outstretched, ridiculously heavy, and Law bites down on panic and regret and the thought that he may have dragged Strawhat and his crew into something that looks more and more like there’s no way out of it, no possible crack in the wall, nothing at all.

He takes a deep breath.

It doesn’t matter how far up high Doflamingo stands, doesn’t matter he’s got an admiral by his side, doesn’t matter he’s still snuggled so deep into the World Government he’s probably got roots wherever he pleases and the higher ups all wrapped around his fingers: the bullets he left into Corazòn’s body one night thirteen years ago are the only thing that matters to Law.

.

He manages to keep the Thousand Sunny safe, pulls teeth until he’s sure it’s disappeared somewhere with no clouds in sight.

Aren’t you focusing too much on Doflamingo right now?

He spits blood and a couple curses; the alliance is over anyway.

.

He knows there’s a tournament going on, knows about the prize and the people who crave it like it means nothing for them to stand in that arena, fighters free no more.

He knows how Doflamingo treats his little birds.

What he doesn’t know is why in the world is Strawhat standing behind the bars, the godforsaken seastone bars, and just what the hell does he think he’s doing with their plan and his life but he doesn’t really get the chance to ask before Doflamingo lands a kick right where his ribs were already cracked and it all goes blank.

The last thing to reach him is the raw strain ringing loud in whatever Strawhat is yelling.

.

"Our alliance is over." He's sitting (he's tied up, he's not sure he can feel his arms anymore) on the heart-shaped throne.

He's sitting on everything that loomed tall above Corazòn for years and he can't get up, can't will his lungs to stop gasping for air like fish in a bucket.

"That's pretty self-centered of you!"

He's being chided.

"I decide when it's over and I say it's not yet."

He can't hear the sound of his reply over the crash of wood broken in two, Strawhat's fist black with haki and just a few inches over Law's head. The upper half of the throne hits the ground in splinters.

"There, you're free!"

Law swallows, thinks Strawhat's grin looks as sharp as the wood at his feet.

.

There are strings shooting in every direction, slicing the sky into countless identical slivers of blue, and Law is back being no more than a child, back to that night. Back to terror wrecking his temples like thunder, like earthquakes, like Corazòn's shaky fingers when he'd brushed the snow from his face one last time.

He's back being one of Doflamingo's little birds. Maybe he never stopped being one.

.

"Did your master plan involve keys to free me at some point or," Law trails off, lips pursed as he tries to wriggle his fingers, failing.

The birdcage seems to sneer at them, at him.

He breathes.

"Of course!" Strawhat's loud, almost offended, utterly indifferent to the seastone dragging Law down (or maybe he just trusts him to pull through, to stay by his side and never fall back, never turn away). "Rebecca's bringing them to us, it'll be fine."

He has no idea of who Rebecca might be but Strawhat does, somehow, and that’s enough as far as Law is concerned.

After all Strawhat's only ever trusted the wrong person when he shook hands with him.

.

Rebecca does bring the keys to them.

She's coated in bronze and leather and dirt and so, so much pride she kind of looks like a lightning could strike her at any given moment and she would still stand tall. The shape of her helm makes her look like a bird of prey.

It makes her look like she could get out of there alive, like they all could.

"'m sorry you didn't win in the end," Strawhat's saying to her, and he sounds sheepish but Law can sense the thrill in the lows of his voice just fine.

Rebecca only shakes her head. "It's okay, he deserved it just as much."

She's smiling now, no, she's grinning and Law could swear the ground under their feet just got a lot trickier in a matter of seconds.

"Have you seen any decent swords in this hell? Mine's got a blunt blade and I need go hand Diamante's ass to him."

Law gapes, Strawhat laughs like that was exactly what he was expecting to hear.

.

As he shoves the Gamma Knife all the way to Doflamingo's vital organs he thinks about how it's these people, the people under this man, who taught him how to fight, how to be like this.

Then he thinks about Corazòn's hands, warm and rough around his, never letting go. He twists the blade.

.

"He couldn't pull the trigger." His voice is hoarse, crooked, and there's throbbing pain where his right arm should be. "But I will."

There's a strange, quiet second in which Law realizes no one doubts he could do that, not even Strawhat.

He gets knocked down before he can even grimace at the bile on his tongue.

.

"It's beyond me how you've not, like, passed out already," the guy supposedly called Cabbage tells him, and there's the faintest hint of annoyance in his voice but also the faintest hint of admiration, of understanding.

"I've got to see this," Law states, makes a face when his broken ribs dig into him. "I've been wanting this for half my life."

He keeps his eyes on the battle across the roofs and streets of Dressrosa, the birdcage slowly shrinking around them, crushing whatever stands in its path.

He should be there too, either murderer or dead, bright red or hushed white, but he can't move a muscle.

Strawhat's haki has just run out.

.

His bones are rattling; he can feel them, can feel the hollow of a scream that won't come out grating at the front of his throat, right beneath his pulse, and he knows Strawhat can feel it too because he's Strawhat and being barely conscious with his back on the hard ground isn't enough to stop him from being annoying.

"Hey," he's saying, calling out for Law, a hand outstretched blindly in his general direction.

Law takes it, because he doesn't know what else is he supposed to do and because he needs grounding like he needs Doflamingo to disappear, to shatter into pieces.

"Hey," Strawhat repeats, this time with a smile, faint but there. "Your hand is shaking, you know? Surgeons should have steady hands, Chopper told me so I know it's true."

He doesn't answer, and Strawhat continues, "surgeons are doctors, doctors save people. That's really, really cool."

His vision is getting blurrier too, but only five minutes have passed and Strawhat is still lying down, his fingers are still resting on Law's, and he just needs to wait five more minutes, five more times replaying Corazòn's last words to him in his head.

Five more minutes of apologizing to the dead.

"You're the second most amazing doctor I know."

He thinks of all the hospitals they went through.

Strawhat's hand feels warm and rough and is not letting go.

.

Crying with multiple broken ribs feels as if he's getting stabbed, one blow for every intake of air, sharper, faster as he sees the birdcage dissolve like it was never there.

Except it was, and there's rubble all over the place to prove it, to scream it, and Doflamingo is still alive right in front of him, unconscious, unguarded.

Strawhat is crouched down next to Law's feet, breath heavy, but quiet.

He weighs on Law's mind more than the gun in his hand.

"He deserves this."

Strawhat hums, lets his head lull against Law's leg.

"Impel Down is not gonna cut it," Law continues in between ugly, choking sounds, and he knows Strawhat's stretched too thin right now, too tense.

Strawhat who would never kill anyone, who smiles just like Corazòn, who came back from the dead just to save his brother and fail.

Strawhat who says, "the marines are going to be here soon."

He knows he's stretched just as thin, as tense. He can feel the pulling and twitching of his arm, the cold metal of the trigger right below his finger.

Corazòn was probably such a terrible marine back in his days.

He throws the gun at the only wall still standing, drowns the feeling of Strawhat's hand squeezing his ankle in the burnt of his shout.

.

There's a skyful of stars above the littered streets of Dressrosa that night and Trafalgar Law thinks he's going to live, maybe, after all.

.

.

.

.

title from horace’s odes book 3rd, the whole phrase is ‘exegi monumentum aere perennius’ aka ‘i built a monument more long-lasting than bronze’ (welp translating from latin to english feels weird)