#iridiswrites

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Art for my MCD Rewrite fic, Shared Interests, diving into Zane’s trauma (mainly from becoming a Shadow Knight, though there’s definitely some religious trauma and trauma from his family thrown in there too)

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Garroth growing up in a blood family that doesn’t treat him with any love, so as a kid he wishes so hard for the destined, perfect love of his life to come and save him, whisking him away like a knight in shining armor, to a life where he’s truly loved, and it’s that escapism in fantasy that he’s constantly using to cope and keep himself sane growing up

He dreams of the day someone will love him, unconditionally and truly, and though he doesn’t really know what that’ll look like yet, it’s something that he just knows intrinsically in his heart and yearns for desperately. He’s a big lover, he’s super empathetic and sensitive, he has a big heart, especially as a kid. Whenever he falls for anyone, he falls HARD, but he can’t seem to find anyone who would love him back as much as he loves them (especially since people keep seeing him as The Prince and not lovey little Garroth)

Then Garroth being forced to marry a woman he had never loved and barely even met before. Marriage being used as a giant weapon to forever seal him into the horrific life as heir to the throne, as one of the permanent pieces of this broken and abusive monarchical system, when marriage and love was supposed to be one thing that got him out, and it breaks him so much that he abandons everything and runs away. If no perfect and magical knight in shining armor will save him, then he’ll do it himself, alone.

And then he meets the most romantic knight in the world.

Laurance is so extremely homoerotic and suggestive and flirtatious with him all the time, even in canon, especially in canon

Laurance loves LOUDLY and a LOT, he’s very honest and up-front about all the emotions in his heart, and when he falls in love with someone (as opposed to falling in surface-level lust with someone) he falls HARD, but unlike Garroth, he is NOT shy about it lol

Laurance sending love and affection Garroth’s way in droves, and Garroth being utterly confused and clueless about it, because no one has ever spoken to him this way, hell, I don’t think his sheltered Princely blood has even SEEN any other person talk this way. Like Laurance just honestly and bluntly telling him “Hey big guy, I think you’re hot and cute as fuck, we should fuck on the beach right here, whaddya say?” like how is his brain going to compute that, he’s never even SEEN an affectionate relationship before, let alone seen someone be so clear and forward about it

And Laurance is honest and means every word he says, he’s not trying to play or trick Garroth. At one point Garroth thinks he is and gets super suspicious of him, but then Laurance laughs and denies it so casually and easily, and now Garroth is lost again

He literally meets the most affectionate person ever. He’s honest and upfront about his affections, he’s patient enough to give Garroth all the time in the world, he’s emotionally intelligent enough to know why he’s struggling so much with his gestures, and he’ll just patiently stand there and watch him while he has an existential crisis trying to figure out what love even means after Laurance gave him a bouquet of hand-picked flowers. Trust Issues Garroth would eventually try to accept all these kind things Laurance says about him, rather than deny the compliments and insist he’s all the things Zane and his father called him as a child. He leans into the affections, and Garroth learning how love actually works, as the very man he dreamed of as a child holds his face in his hands, and does not mock or beat or hurt him, but kisses him on the cheek instead.

Garroth learning how to love from Laurance’s unconditional and obnoxious affections, slowly becoming less and less afraid of it, until he embraces it completely and starts to give Laurance So Very Much Loving in return like he was always capable of doing. And Laurance is perfectly capable of handling the immense amount of affection, he finds it exciting actually

And though I don’t think homophobia is a thing that exists in this fantasy world, I think it’s also thematically perfect that Laurance is the exact kind of person that Garroth’s parents would HATE having as a son-in-law. Laurance’s rebellious pride is perfect for that role of breaking Garroth free of the abusive strings of his evil monarchical family and learning how to love himself instead

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

A Mystreet/MCD Christmas special for the holiday season! <3

Summary:

In a post-Starlight world where the events of the Celestial Cannon made everyone in the Mystreet cast remember their previous Diaries lives, members of the Jury of Nine arrive at a redeemed Zane’s doorstep, looking to reunite with their old leader… and friend?

Zane reunites with a batch of old friends… Hopefully for the better!

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I want a (non-canon compliant) Narinder whose gentle.

I want a Narinder who was once a kitten, newly crowned immortal, under Shamura’s careful mentorship. Who grew up the hard way, who learned you have to be rough, loud, mean, manipulative, and maniacal, you have to be bloody and violent and cruel, in order to survive in this world. In order to survive against Leshy and Heket’s brutality and Kallamar’s back-handed cunning. He learned from a family cruel and cold that love was a fool’s game, that sentiment was insignificant, that caring was weakness. So he scoffed at caring for anybody at all and learned how to break and toy with people as if they were dolls, made only for his own consumption and desire. That’s what his siblings told him, that’s what Shamura told him, that’s what his subjects and the fight to survive told him.

But he never saw his toys fit for anything more than the most necessary use, he never let them come any closer than professional arms-reach business, and he made sure to throw them away the second they were no longer strictly necessary. And he hated the cruelty of his siblings. He hated how they treated him, he hated how they made him fight for his fair share. And then he kept rebelling against the doctrine of the Old Faith. He would take the cruel, old, traditional rules of how one was supposed to act, and he would take them more as loose suggestions than anything severely concrete that you had to live by. He would start making up his own rules, or ignoring other rules that he simply didn’t like or deemed “inconvenient.”

He quickly became the black sheep of the “family.”

And then the Gods of The Old Faith betrayed him. And everything he was ever taught became a horrible lie. Everything became unjust. Everything turned into a false, corrupted kingdom that had to be torn down, that he could fix, that he could replace with something better. He tore it all down, violently lashing out against the family he had trusted, the family he had followed to the end of the road at his own expense, tearing them apart with his own two hands, because the scars he bore over the years became far too fucking loud to bear. Because everything had been a lie all along. Everything had been wrong, this whole damn time.

And they killed him for it. He screamed so loud about their lies that they simply had to smother the sound. They murdered their own brother—if he was ever a real “brother” to them at all, or nothing more than another religious heir to a crooked throne.

He was a God turned exiled heretic.

So he’d make his own fucking kingdom instead. He would undo everything, and start anew, following the doctrine he always knew was better. What he thought was superior. But problem is, it’s not that easy to shake off the entirety of one’s religious upbringing overnight. He was still clinging on. He would scream and shout about the incongruities and arrogance of The Old Faith all damn day—but then he’d keep Aym and Baal, a gift from his old mentor and oldest sibling, close to his side. He would call them fools and tyrants and wretched liars, but he’d remember the Darkwood flowers with a fondness, yearning to stand in his brother’s flower fields again someday. He would stay in the Lamb’s cult, when he could easily become a constant dissenter and leave like any other follower, when he could attack them, maybe even kill them, at any given moment. He doesn’t. He stays. He clings on to the fondness. He never fully let go of that old sentimental feeling.

I want a Narinder who doesn’t understand what love looks like, because the closest thing he’d ever known to true, honest love growing up was the scraps he’d receive from a withdrawn and uncertain Shamura. Those rare moments where Shamura was kind, warm, gentle, full of love, when he’d listen to the lullabies and the poems that they would weave to put him to sleep, when he’d be wrapped up in the blankets of their webs and their nests. When they would give him gifts.

When they gave him their final gift.

He doesn’t understand love. He was trained to view it as weakness. He still feels deeply, severely insecure about showing said weakness, he doesn’t want to face the severe and violent consequences of welcoming it. There’s a part in him deep down that understands devotion, that already internally understands what real trust, respect, loyalty, and integrity looks like. But it’s buried deep, under layers upon layers of indoctrination, manipulation, fear, insecurity, doubt, ungodly amounts of pain, and rage. He has enough of a natural moral compass to be able to tell when someone’s entire belief system is flawed or fucked up, and he has enough justice in him to want to tear the entire damn world apart from the ground up. Even if it’s just in the name of avenging the kitten in him that was forced to die all those centuries ago.

He isn’t aware of it. He doesn’t understand what’s going on inside of him. He’s never even taken an introspective glance at himself and why he feels everything that he does, he’s never even asked himself why everything hurts so much beyond the simple “my siblings betrayed me, therefore they all must die as they killed me” surface level. Frankly he’s too scared to look, so he pushed it all away and easily leans on the grinning, devilish, mean mask he always depended on before.

Then I want a Lamb that’s everything he ever needed. Literally, yes, as the vessel prophesied to save him, but also emotionally.

The Lamb had everything taken away from them by The Old Faith. They were killed and thrown away to Narinder’s feet like a broken toy. They want to destroy the doctrine of the Old Faith, they want to rip the world apart from the ground up and completely start anew. They share Narinder’s moral core, his drive for justice, his drive for revenge.

But they also learn, through their own cult, how to rule with love and mercy. They save and spare each follower individually, they marry their own followers, they cook for them, clean for them, house them, decorate for them, they love their followers. They learn that there is value and strength in utilizing the “sentiment and care” that the Bishops deemed as weakness. Literally: one of the best and most overpowered mechanics of the game is building your friendship level with your followers. You can’t live without them. You are their servant as much as they are one to you.

And when Narinder demonstrates his upbringing at its fullest by betraying Lamb and throwing them away like they were nothing more than a toy—The Lamb spares him, too.

I want to express to you how much that means, especially to him. I mean, hell, Narinder wasn’t spared by his own family. But instead, this tool, now proven Almighty God, gave him a level of grace that he wasn’t even allowed to fathom before. There couldn’t be a stronger, faster way to take a wake-up-sledgehammer to someone’s childhood manipulation. The Lamb was sent to destroy every last trace of the Old Faith, and I don’t think Narinder ever considered the extent of what that entailed.

He’d been lied to his entire childhood, being told that heart was weakness, that kindness would be his downfall, that sentiment was heresy. And yet here was a God besting him and every other deity/bishop in the land, and still cleaning up their servants’ shit with a broom. And I like to think that Narinder would undergo a massive change during his time in the cult.

He’d start off hostile and vicious and mean, because he’s still convinced that the Lamb betrayed him and “betrayal” is kind of a very emotionally heated topic for the guy right now. Even if the Lamb actually did the opposite of what his siblings did to him. He’s also terrified, confused, lost, and he certainly doesn’t trust any of the flowery, overly friendly mortals getting all touchy-feely with him.

But maybe he starts to show a little more wistfulness and nostalgia through his side-quests, maybe he’s trying to gauge how trustworthy the Lamb is by asking them to bring him special items from his childhood, and when they follow suit, he dips his toe in the water and shows just a little bit more of his heart, a tiny, itty bitty fragment. And then they don’t hurt him for it. They treat him with the same kindness they give to all of their followers.

And over time, he starts to see that the Lamb’s dominion is one of safety. All of their safety had been violently torn from them in the hunt for the last lamb, so now they do everything in their power to make their cult a home. And they welcome Narinder into that home, and Narinder is safe, and he’s loved, and he’s taken care of, and he’s respected, and he becomes one with the community. The Lamb is able to rule like this and still keep their power. And actually, their power is tripled by their bond with their people! Their kindness literally becomes a strength, and Narinder has never seen anything like it before, but they pull it off! In fact, the Lamb literally defied and beat Narinder into the ground because they weren’t willing to give up their home and their people.

I think he’d come to see The Lamb very differently over time. He’d go from seeing them only as an insignificant weapon for someone else’s use (possibly projecting a lot onto them), to bring in total awe of them, to learning that they’re trustworthy and safe, to seeing them as an equal.

I think they’d be two halves of the same whole. They understand each other in ways that no one else ever will. They’re the Gods of Death, past and future, they belong to the same power. They sit on this throne together. They teach each other everything they ever needed. They’re immortals together. Lamb once served Narinder in total devotion, then Narinder served Lamb in total devotion, and now they’re equals in every conceivable way. They have literally trusted each other with their lives. They were forged in very similar religious trauma and bloodshed, they were there at each other’s darkest time, working as a team. They’re vengeance-bonded. They saved each other. They spared each other, gave the other a second chance. They made each other better. Bonded in blood, divine vows, death, and resurrection. They are THE POWER TEAM.

As their bond grows, Narinder would end up letting his repressed soft side shine through. I can see him allowing himself to be kind for the first time, learning to recognize that not only is it safe for him to care here, it’s fully embraced and encouraged. The Lamb will punish him if he’s too mean to one of their followers. He can be gentle here, he can let his guard down and unwind. So he does, and he becomes a whole new cat. The Lamb eventually trusts him with leadership positions in the cult, until they’re ruling side by side, as they should. Narinder moves on from any desperate reach for power, because he’s secure enough in himself to know he doesn’t need to fight for it anymore. He would fight and die for Lamb as much as they would fight and die for him. They’ve given him true sanctuary, true family. True devotion.

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Shadow Knight Switch AU - Chapter 1: “Say My Name”

One day, a young woman by the name of Aphmau left her mother’s cottage and adventured out into the world for the very first time, eyes bright and sparkling with innocent joy.

Ten hours later, her dead body was found in the woods by a wandering hunter.

Aphmau’s soul woke up in a white void, with a churning in her heart that felt sharply unfamiliar, yet hauntingly… exactly like the feeling of an old home. A man made of black and red smoke and swirling fire met her on the other side, as he had been waiting to do, for hundreds of years.

A Shadow Knight Switch MCD AU! Garroth and Aphmau (and likely other characters…) are now shadow knights, while other characters like Zenix, Laurance, Sasha and Gene are alive and well, mortal and good. Aphmau is both the reincarnation of Irene… and the newest vessel of the Shadow Lord, with a fiery and justice-fueled cause, seeking to destroy everything the last Irene had created. Will she be a savior and make a better world, or will she leave it all rendered to smoke and flames?

Chapter Word Count: 3.6k words

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Laurance sings. Not masterfully by any means, he’d never be well-renowned for the beautifully trained technique of his voice, but he grew up in a bustling trading port town with a constant influx of seafarers, fishermen, even pirates—mariners from all over the planet, from every possible town and culture, and with them they brought their songs. Sea shanties of every breed and variety. And as the Head Guard of Meteli, he would be there to manage all the trades and imports, so he’d be right there on the docks, hearing every song that comes in and out of town and gleefully listening and learning to sing along. He’s a mariner boy, he grew up right by a channel into the sea, he has dozens of sea shanties memorized in-and-out and will sing them regularly, just to entertain himself and others around him. Aphmau, Garroth, and the others grow used to hearing Laurance bust out sea shanties all the time on their travels, like singing 99 Bottles of Beer On The Wall while you’re on a road trip, but like. The medieval equivalent of that

Vylad is in the same boat. After he faked his death, he ran off into the wild world of Ru’aun And Beyond to have a life full of constant adventure, and most of those ended up being overseas. Vylad became a swashbuckler of sorts, a petty thief with egregious debts to the local crime guilds that he never paid, the kind of person who would show up one day for a heist, and completely disappear off the face of the planet the next. Vylad was a pirate. Maybe not a grand or well-known one, maybe only for 7 months out of every year, but he’d stowaway on a number of ships just to get across channels and off to new places. At least a few times, he worked as part of a crew in order to get some coin, and one time, he was Captain—before his ship and the fake identity he took went up in flames only weeks later. Vylad knows a wide list of sea shanties, and he still sings them from time to time. It’s a comforting reminder of his humanity. It keeps him grounded, prevents him from forgetting the past and getting too lost in the chains of being a Shadow Knight.

Zane sings. Very differently from Laurance & Vylad. Zane was a High Priest, which means he held & organized church, regularly. Churches usually have music, and his religion is heavily based off of Catholicism, so it’s very likely that he was the one to arrange the O’khasis church’s liturgical choirs. It’s likely that singing in church was part of the regular routine that everyone present would partake in, including and especially their High Priest. There’s no way he doesn’t know how to sing, very much in that kind of Medieval-Classical-Latin-Catholic Choir vocal technique/style. It has a very different sound from Laurance and Vylad’s more…”free-balling seaman” style, but he was professionally trained on how to sing since he was young, and can sing quite well. (Also, Kestin is a good singer, which is an added bonus)

Zenix could not sing to save his life. His regular speaking voice is already very rough and sandpaper-like, and his singing voice is even worse. He’s tone deaf, if you heard his singing voice, which sounds more like a dying, extremely strained screeching wail, you may never want to hear anything ever again. It’s just a very naturally unpleasant sound. And that’s fine, he’s never really been much of a singer or that musically inclined. He’s more arson-inclined, frankly. However, I can picture him channeling his destructive energy into being a good percussionist, by way of “needing to hit stuff” + getting down a good sense of rhythm = producing a pretty decent beat. Maybe he also beatboxes? Zenix has enough “hyperactive boy” energy to be a beatboxer, that’d suit him well enough.

Gene has a luscious singing voice. Gene could sing lullabies that’d put a rhino to sleep. Gene’s voice is the kind of sexy, buttery-smooth voice you feel reverberating in your core. Gene sounds like he’d sing Frank Sinatra, or old classic Christmas songs for a record that’d make millions. He does it so infrequently though, especially ever since he became a Shadow Knight, and mostly uses it now to lull other people into a trance, or when he’s bored. You can’t exactly pursue a musical career when you’re serving as the General of Hell for the rest of eternity. Zenix and Sasha have both heard him sing, at least a few times. In the past, it relaxed Zenix like no other.

Sasha used to sing. She used to have a very pretty voice that Laurance and Cadenza would stop and listen to at any given opportunity. Cadenza would encourage her to push past her shyness enough to sing for her while she worked on sowing her next design (sapphic sasha x cadenza melodies,,,). But after her death by falling into lava, she sustained a certain level of damage both to her body and to her psyche that made her shut down her love for singing entirely. She has not sung once since she died.

Kiki sings to her animals and to Leona all the time.

If Garroth did sing, he would probably have a very similar vocal technique/style to Zane’s, simply by being raised under the same religious roof as him. I don’t think “learn how to sing in a choir” would be part of the Princely/military training Garte would put him through, though.

Zoe and Levin like to sing together for fun sometimes.

In my main rewrite au, the Shadow Knight Rebellion includes Laurance, Vylad, Zenix, and Zane begrudgingly working together as a team. They like to sing together. Laurance and Vylad connected easily and quickly over their shared love for sea shanties, and eventually the three of them managed to bully, bug, and peer pressure Zane into singing with them, and were surprised by just how well he could sing. Laurance and Vylad asked Zenix to join in. Zenix got through the first three notes before Laurance told him to please stop.

The four of them end up making an unexpectedly merry band together. Laurance and Vylad sing, Zane sings sometimes, and Zenix would provide the accompaniment, like a rag-tag improvised a capella group that formed from the cracks in the pavement. They make an anthem for the Rebellion and teach it to all the hundreds of soldiers that join over time. When the SKR eventually reunite with The Phoenix Alliance, the people of the Phoenix Alliance are very perplexed by the band and their musical connection.

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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

My Inner Demons Rewrite - Chapter One

Ava didn’t need friends. Ava was doing just fine all on her own, thank you very much. The universe, however, disagreed.

A rewrite of My Inner Demons. More casual than my MCD rewrite project. Ava is a reincarnation of Irene (but opposite in personality), other characters may end up being reincarnations of the Divine Warriors as well, and Ava is the boss ass bitch who tops every single one of her five new pets. I mean roommates. Her five new roommates.

Note, you do not need to have watched My Inner Demons in order to read this, since I’ll be starting from the top and pretty much doing everything my way from scratch (including all the worldbuilding). Also I barely remember the original series itself since the last time I watched it was like… five years ago, and I’ve honestly only seen a couple of the episodes in the series. So if you know very little about My Inner Demons - same! And yet I’m doing this anyway, because the characters and their underutilized relationships have a lot of fun (polyamorous) potential in my eyes that I’d like to toy with lmao. Bon appetit

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(this mostly takes place in my au’s timeline, but) To compliment my earlier post about Garroth:

Laurance’s demeanor completely shifts after he becomes a Shadow Knight. Before he was bright, jovial, and very playful, you could always count on him to make you laugh. But after his death, getting him to laugh the way he used to would be considered a miracle.

He’s full-on depressed. He struggles from a form of C-PTSD due to what his time in the Nether put him through. He’s still just as gentle and kind and loving as he was before, but his old light is gone. His best days are still weighed down by an afternoon spent low, tired, and empty, and his worst days are rife with panic attacks and paranoia.

So Garroth becomes pretty perfect company for Laurance during this time.

Laurance often flinches at unexpected touch, it shocks him pretty badly, due to the extensive physical torture he went through. A lot of physical touch with him has now been associated with a fear-based adrenaline response—a trauma response. Garroth finds out about this pretty quickly.

Garroth is a very gentle man. He’s the kind of guy you could find cradling an injured bird in his big, meaty hands, and he’d never hurt it, he’d be as delicate and careful as a surgeon. So little by little, he rewrites Laurance’s brain by changing his association with physical touch, from pain, to gentle, pleasant, warm affection. He takes care of him. It’s like he becomes the emotional support golden retriever to his cheetah of nerves lol

He notices the small, new scars on Laurance’s face, so later that night he’d try to rest a hand on his cheek. Laurance would be tense and wary at first, but he wouldn’t push him away. So Garroth would start to softly rub his skin with his thumb, speaking to him all quiet and soothing, until Laurance leans into the touch and closes his eyes. He would remember the man he knew and loved before, who he knew he could trust. Sometimes you just…forget all of that, when you’ve been through a lot.

Garroth cups his face with his other hand. He’d keep his hand still for another moment, testing his reaction and checking in with him to make sure the touch is okay, and once Laurance gives him the a-okay, he’d caress his face and give him a soft kiss on the top of his head. He’d tell him that he loves him, very much. Laurance whispers it back, voice wavering and weak. They would linger there for a while.

In the beginning, Laurance would spend his nights keeping distance from Garroth and Aphmau, when before, the three of them used to regularly sleep in the same bed. He says that since he’s an undead Shadow Knight now, his body doesn’t need to sleep, so he’ll make himself useful and stand guard, keeping watch for the whole night. Plus, it’s probably too dangerous for something like him to be trusted around them at night. They protest, saying they know their Laurance would never hurt them, but he puts his foot down and insists that Shad would, if he got control of his mind while they were asleep. It could put them in serious trouble. He fights them on it hard enough that the two relent and let him stand guard outside.

They know he’s doing it to isolate himself, to keep them at arms length. They worry about him.

After a while though, he’d start to come back to them. He’d go to Garroth first.

(Garroth and Laurance, being Aphmau’s 24/7 bodyguards, would absolutely get their own rooms and living space added on to the Aphmau family house-now-a-mansion. There’s no way they can feasibly live in the Guard Tower on the other side of town and sleep there every night while Aphmau is left alone to be perfectly assassinated by the hundreds of night-dwelling Shadow Knights and creatures after her head. The woman has a massive blinking red target on her back, there’s no way she sleeps alone with no one but Zoe and the kids living in the house with her)

It’s likely the isolation pushing him to the brink that would make him crack. Without Garroth’s frequent gestures of affection and reassurance that “he can always come to him if he needs anything, even if he feels ashamed about it, Garroth’s doors are always open no matter what, NO MATTER WHAT,” he would probably just run away into the woods and cry under a tree somewhere when his thoughts and flashbacks get too loud to bear. But because of the support he’d been showing him the past few weeks, he does the unthinkable and caves in.

Garroth would be sleeping in his own separate bedroom when he’d wake up from the sound of someone else entering his quarters. He’d jump to sit up and confront the intruder, but then he’d stop at the sight of Laurance already climbing into bed. “Do you mind?” He would whisper, and any Defense Reflex at the shadowy stranger appearing in his bedroom would melt away at the tone of his quiet, quiet voice and the broken look in Laurance’s eyes. “No, no, of course I don’t mind, is everything alright?” He’d catch his breath and ask. “Yeah, it-…it’s fine, I just-…don’t like being alone with my thoughts tonight, that’s all.” Garroth would make room for Laurance to sleep next to him. He wonders if this would be the first time Laurance had slept since his return. “Well, you won’t be alone anymore,” he’d smile. Laurance would give a low, quiet whisper, “Thanks, big guy.” Garroth would get settled after him, wrapping his arms around him and bringing him in for a long-missed cuddle. Laurance would let out a sigh and finally, finally relax, just letting everything wash away and be replaced with the warmth of an embrace and a kiss on his head. “…thank you.”

Laurance would fall asleep for the first time in a long time.

He would sleep for over 12 hours, totally sleeping in for hours. Garroth would let him sleep in peace—heaven only knows how rare it is for him now—and he’d eventually wake up to Garroth making him a very nice breakfast. He’s surprised and nervous over it, insisting that he doesn’t need to eat, he really didn’t have to waste their food and spice supply on him, but Garroth insists with the same gentle, warm smile he always has, and Laurance relents. It tastes great. It’s a very nice relief to have another physical sensation that’s actually pleasant, and as a sweet, personal gift for him no less. It’s a strong reminder of his humanity, and a helpful way to reshape how he thinks about his body and physical sensations.

He asks how Garroth managed to make something this good. Garroth sheepishly admits he asked Zoe (the best cook in the house, when it comes to anything but Laurance’s family specialty: seafood) for help and advice. He chuckles.

Garroth sees how much this helps his day be worlds better, so he and Aphmau conspire to create as many more moments like that as possible. They convince Laurance to make the amazing cooked fish dinner he used to make for them all the time, and they rev him up about it enough to convince him to show them and walk them through it while they watch in awe from the dining table behind him. He shows off for the first time since his disappearance, getting an inch of his confidence back. They convince him to dish up, and the happy, nostalgic memories of Meteli and his dads’ cooking nearly makes him cry.

Aphmau and Garroth share a triumphant high-five once his back is turned.

The first time Laurance feels comfortable and safe enough to be fully vulnerable and bare with Garroth, also known as the first time he takes his shirt off in front of him lol, Garroth would definitely be shocked and worried about just how many scars he has, all over his upper body. His armor covers a lot of his body from view, and whenever he’s just walking around the house in casual clothes or pajamas, Garroth couldn’t help but take notice of the fact that he’d always wear long sleeves. Old Laurance would walk around ass-naked all the time if it was legal, but ever since his death, he’s been hiding as much skin as possible, so it’s a big ass deal when he first opens up to Garroth physically. (how do they NOT have a physical relationship in canon it iS SO IMPLICIT—)

It is a MASSIVE silent sign of trust. Garroth would try his hardest to not to freak out over all the new scars, but there’s no way he’s not worrying. He’d gently trace his thumb over some of the scars on his sides. Laurance would mumble under his breath how he got them, avoiding eye contact. Garroth would want to cry for him, with how terribly empathetic and sorrowful and worried he’d be for Laurance. He asks if he can hug him, Laurance hesitates, then nods, and the two embrace. Garroth would tell him he’s so, so sorry that this happened to him, how terribly it must have hurt. Laurance starts to say, “It’s fine,” but he gets about halfway through “it’s” before he starts to cry. He’d hold on to Garroth very tightly. He’s like his rock, that he never ever ever wants to let go of again, so maybe if he holds on tight enough, it’ll burn into his brain that he’s here now, safe in the Overworld, safe in his arms, and his light, his knight in shining armor, his Garroth, will never leave. They’d spend a good few hours cradled like that, probably in bed, they’d probably lay down and just cuddle until they get called to work (Laurance tries to apologize for killing the mood, Garroth stops him mid-sentence, demanding he NEVER apologize AGAIN for having natural reactions like this. Laurance laughs and makes a tired comment about how Garroth’s not the same doormat he met years ago, and Garroth says that’s entirely thanks to him. ,,Laurance hides his face).

Hell, even the first kiss on the lips they share since his return would be a huge deal too, because of how strongly Laurance feels ashamed and scared of himself and his body. He is terrified that someone loving him will get them hurt—or worse, murdered at his own hands, and guilt over getting his loved ones killed was a big sticking point with Laurance already. He’d struggle a lot with opening up to Garroth and Aphmau at first. And of course, Garroth would end up warming him out of his shell, which, to him, would be a very strange thing to have to do for the world’s most passionate, romantic knight, but it happens between them regardless. It happens with them in all fields of their relationship.

Until soon enough, Laurance is sleeping between them again.

He really starts to feel human again, laying beside the two of them.

Garroth would keep doing everything in his power to get him back, little by little. He’d keep giving him hugs, until Laurance ends up relaxing into every single one, until he reaches the point where he wraps his arms around him and hugs him back, until eventually he’s the one reaching for it and tackling Garroth like he used to. Cuddles turn from something he’s hesitant to trust, to something incredibly healing. He holds him very, very gently in his hands, and it’s that gentleness, that unconditional kindness that never goes away, that warmth, that soft smile, that would push him back on his feet. He needs the specific way that Garroth loves and gives affection more than anything during this time in his life, and Garroth is there to give it every step of the way. After all, that’s what Laurance did for him, back when they first met. When he lost Zenix, when he lost Zane, when he was recovering from his family’s damage. Laurance teaches Garroth to finally fight back, stand up for himself, and love himself for all that he is. Then Laurance falls next, and Garroth is there to pick him back up again. He teaches him how to relax, how to trust and be vulnerable and know that he’s safe, how to be himself again. He undoes everything The Shadow Lord and Gene do to break down his individuality, he gives him back his fire and his strength. That way, when things do get bad and Shad starts to control him again, he has enough strength in him built up to say fuck no, to punch back, and make a new name for himself under The Shadow Knight Rebellion. He can stand and fight again, against the very forces that broke him, he can face them head-on and bite back, for himself, for everyone he’s ever loved, because he had someone there to pick him up in the first place.

Laurance needs Garroth. He would be a very, very different man without him. He likely would’ve given up on his humanity entirely if Garroth was never someone to come back to, considering that he’d be far too dangerous to return to Irene of all people. But it’s not just Aphmau he came back for, she’s there to support and help him too, obviously, but if it were JUST her?

He would’ve given up on everything the second he found out what he’d become. Garroth is just that kind of..beacon of a person to make even a man stuck in the darkest pits of hell believe in a second chance for himself. It becomes about more than just “Protect Irene” and more about “do it for the loves of your life that you can’t let go of no matter how hard you try. Do it for your family, even if you’ve grievously let them down, because you still love them too much to abandon them. Do it for your sons, that have suffered through enough and deserve a brighter future. Do it for your home. Everyone in the village is counting on you. Do it for what it means to you. Because there’s far more than just your knightly honor at stake here.”

They all need each other. Garroth and Laurance need each other, desperately. They can’t stay standing by themselves for too long, they need the other man to fall back on when life takes a baseball bat to their ankles. They can’t do it alone. They crumble and (literally) die when they do it alone.

Garroth and Laurance make an inseparable team.