An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Summary: Quitting her job at a law firm in the middle of an existential crisis and a broken engagement, and with nothing on her hands but a suitcase and an old typewriter, Cheadle Yorkshire moves to a small town in the hopes of finding true independence and rediscovering her passion for writing. The new life is supposed to promise many things, she just didn’t account for the difficulties of renewing old friendships, a history of familial conflict that follows her, a cat that won’t stay in its damn carrier, and a young man who seems intent on being everywhere she steps foot.
Tags: Slice of Life, Romance, Friendship, Midlife Crisis, Ghibli AU, Whisper of the Heart AU
My fic (general 3) for the HxHBB2019! It feels like I started and finished writing this in another lifetime and I’m happy we can finally post our contributions. Thanks to @hxhhasmysoul for beta reading this story, to the great people at @hxhbb19 for organizing the event, and to all the cool peeps in the server.
Art for this story was done by the wonderful Joolita @art-little-nonsense and it can be found here!
summary: susurration, n. whispering or rustling, murmuring.
notes: @jyuanka (fyi scrivener didn’t think this was a word, but scrivener doesn’t think scrivener is a word sometimes, so take its spellcheck with a grain of salt). also hey @ikarikari, who draws leorio smoking (hot). 900 words, leodle, includes smoking, questionable methods of dealing with uncontrollable circumstances, and child death mention. (so, it is a fic focused on leorio lol)
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Leorio’s not sure how, but he somehow hasn’t sat down in years, or at least it feels like. He’d thought the entrance exams, and then the accelerated coursework his teachers put him through, had been bad enough. He’d thought that fucking hell ship had been bad enough. But here he is, on solid land with barely any time left in his residency, no murder lurking around any corners that he can sense or see, no friends out for vengeance or teenagers with a nose for trouble, and today has been so, so much worse than he could have ever wanted.
Which is how he’s ended up on the roof of the hospital, still in his scrubs and slippers on his feet, the stench of death sunken into his skin so far he can practically taste it. And the taste of smoke, acrid and burning, dancing across that, almost but not quite drowning it out, whispers of a slow painful destruction he doesn’t care to ignore.
Leorio has to stop from twirling the cigarette between his fingers, flicking it over his knuckles like he saw the Zoldyck butlers do that one time years ago, back when it felt like his friends were friendly monsters and he was just a future med student with the world at his feet. Before he watched one of his best friends all but die and another one utterly lose himself to a hatred worse than death, and all he could do was sit around. Too little, too late, too useless.
God, it’s been a long day.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” a quiet voice says, and Leorio nearly drops the cigarette.
“Cheadle! Uh, Dr. Yorkshire, I didn’t—” He leans back against the railing with a sigh. “Sorry, I thought I was alone.”
She smiles up at him, an unpleasant curl to her lips. She’s in her usual dress, hat snug around her ears and boots as far from hospital standard as possible. The streetlights reflect off her glasses, hiding whatever thoughts she might have. She hadn’t been in the OR proper, not part of surgery today, but that doesn’t mean she hadn’t been watching. “Nothing to worry about. We all need space every once in a while. Although most students don’t break into the roof. It’s usually just us old hats who didn’t have a nice garden during our residencies.”
“Old habits, sorry,” he says, flashing a few thin pieces of metal he always keeps on him, like the knife he only rarely uses these days for anything besides opening letters or trimming loose strings. He could have picked the lock with nen—usually does, with an ease that surprises him most days—but tonight isn’t… It’s not…
That’s the problem with emission, with a technique meant to save lives through ripples and echoes. Leorio can feel every breath his patients take bounced back to him, so he can feel the exact moment when they stop taking any more.
He offers Cheadle a grin he doesn’t feel. “I needed to do something a little destructive.”
“Breaking and entering, or the smoking?”
He shrugs. “I’m hedging my bets.”
That wins him a snort, a genuine puff of amusement that comes straight out her nose. “You did your best. We can’t save everyone, Leorio.”
“Best is for shit,” he says, and takes another drag. The burn of nicotine isn’t enough to smoke away the smile the little boy had given him before going under, a smile that was fully content with whatever happened even if it meant not waking up again—a smile that no boy, hell, no person, should ever have to wear, not until they’re old and toothless, having lived a life so full it’s overflowing. It’s a smile he’s seen on too many familiar faces that have yet to really, truly live, a silent susurration of lives unspent he hears far too often.
So far, Leorio’s pretty content with his own life, screw-ups and successes and everywhere in between. But there’s so much more to be done.
He blows out a cloud of smoke, little circles in the air more for show than anything. “I didn’t become a doctor just to do my best,” he says. “Just because you or anyone else can’t do it, doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”
Cheadle stares up at him from behind her bottle glasses, green eyes unreadable except for a little wrinkle between her eyebrows. “Sometimes I forget you’re a Hunter, Paladiknight, and then you go ahead and say stupid shit like that,” she mutters. “Just as bad as the rest of us. Maybe worse.”
He splutters a little, more out of habit than any actual protest. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“We’re bullheaded as a group, but it takes a special diamond-headed stubborn to hunt death like it’s some magic beast.” The cigarette is tugged out of his fingers before he realizes what’s happening, his hand pulled downward to reach Cheadle’s much shorter mouth. “Give me that, please.”
He relinquishes it reluctantly. “You smoke?”
“Not at all.” She pulls too hard and all but hacks her glasses off. Leorio has to put a hand to her back, gentle vibrations easing the sandpaper roughness he knows is in her throat, and she still nearly loses her hat over the side of the roof. When she’s done, eyes bleary and still not loosening her hold on the cigarette, she says, “But a little destruction isn’t so bad now and then when there’s nothing else we can do.”
The whispers of her smile are canine-sharp, and Leorio smiles right back.
