sportsanime | Bonus Round 5: Myth & Lore

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Bonus Round 5: Myth & Lore

Summer's a time for swapping stories around the campfire. With that in mind, this round draws inspiration from the stories humanity have told each other over the centuries.

This round is CLOSED as of 7PM on August 4 EDT. Late fills may be posted, but they will not receive points.

RULES

This round does not have prompts. Instead, we ask you to draw inspiration from the wide pool of mythology, fantasy, folklore, and fable. An urban fantasy or supernatural AU? A re-imagining of your favorite folk tale? Characters swapping ghost stories or playing D&D? As long as your fill in some way incorporates the fantastical and/or supernatural, it's welcome here.
Your fill still has to be about a ship from one of our nominated fandoms. What ships you create work for is up to you, though.
To submit your fill, simply leave it as a comment as a reply to this post.
Remember to follow the general bonus round rules, outlined here.

FORMAT

Bonus round shenanigans all happen in the comments below. Brand-new works only, please.

Required Work Minimums:

400 words (prose)
400px by 400px (art)
14 lines (poetry)

There is no max work cap.

Remember, this is a NO-PROMPT round. Format your fill comment in one of the following ways:

If FILLING:

If FILLING as a TEAM GRANDSTAND participant:

FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP], [RATING]

Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team you belong to
- Write it exactly as it appears on the team roster (without brackets) or your team will not receive points
Replace RATING with the rating of your fill (G - E)
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NSFW FILLS: Please cross-link these fills and use clear tags in your comment. Written/text fills should be hosted at AO3 ONLY as a new, unchaptered work. Art/visual fills can be hosted anywhere. You may include a small safe-for-work preview of the fill in your comment.
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FILL: TEAM GRANDSTAND, [RATING]

Replace RATING with the rating of your fill, G - E, as explained in the rules
Place applicable major content tags and word count before the fill, where applicable
If no major content tags are applicable, make sure to state this-- even if including other additional tags
NSFW FILLS: Please cross-link these fills and use clear tags in your comment. Written/text fills should be hosted at AO3 ONLY as a new, unchaptered work. Art/visual fills can be hosted anywhere. You may include a small safe-for-work preview of your work in your comment.
To place an image in your comment, use this code: <img src="LINK TO YOUR IMAGE" />
Visual example

Posts not using this format will be understood to be unofficial discussion posts, regardless of what they contain. They, like all comments in this community, are subject to the code of conduct.

SCORING

These numbers apply to your team as a whole, not each individual teammate. Make as many fills as you want!

For fills:

First 3 fills by any member of your team: 20 points each
Fills 4-10: 10 points each
Fills 11-20: 5 points each
Fills 21+: 2 points each

All scored content must be created new for this round.

Etc.

If you're hunting through the prompts looking for what to fill, a good trick is to view top-level comments only.

Have a question? Check The FAQ first. If you still need help, feel free to contact the mods. Happy fanworking!

Threaded | Flat

Note: This story is inspired by a combination of the Qallupilluit, a creature in Inuit folklore that hides beneath the ice to snatch children who wander too far out on the frozen sea, and accounts of pibloktoq, aka Arctic hysteria, a cultural illness characterized by acute dissociative episodes. Please note that neither the Qallupiluit nor pibloktoq are accurately represented in this story.

Aoyagi Hajime/Teshima Junta; Yowamushi Pedal

Word count: 1874
Tags: Mental illness (fictional, based off of pibloktoq; dissociation, self-destructive behaviour), hypothermia (and vague treatment thereof), angst

For as long as he could remember, Teshima had heard whispers over the sea ice. His mother always said it made him special, that he could hear them, but she warned him never to listen to what the voices said. They were malicious, wicked beings, she told him, and they wanted nothing more than to draw him away from the safety of their little warm home and to take him under the vast, frozen ice, forever. Their voices were magical and if he listened to the words, he would be put under their spell and he would give himself over to them, and his family would never see him again.

The voices did sound magical, sibilant and lilting like the sound of fresh snow in the wind, and it scared Teshima witless. He learned from a very young age how to block them out, to ignore the whispers in the cold salt air. And he never once let himself hear what they were saying, despite the little, insistent tug in the back of his mind that told him to open his ears, to just listen, to wonder what they had to say.

***

Teshima stared out of the window of their little home, out across the sea ice, watching the low-swing of the midday winter sun and absently tracing a curl of frost on the glass. The cold seeped up his fingertip to the knuckle. He fancied he could see around the edge of the world, under the red-orange sun at the horizon. The colour seeped away down the back of the world, and he wanted to go and find it, catch it, bring it home in a sealskin bag and bottle it for Aoyagi, paint it on the walls and in the snow and across his body --

“Junta?” Aoyagi said, voice quiet behind him, and Teshima smiled at the window. He reached for Aoyagi, and drew him up close, and the heat from his body radiated through Teshima’s cold hands and to his heart.

“Look at the sun, Hajime,” Teshima said. “It’s melting.”

Aoyagi’s hand traced up Teshima’s back, under his shirt, bumping along the ridges of his spine. Teshima felt Aoyagi’s eyes on him, sharp and warm, and he leaned into the touch and continued to stare out the window. His hands were cold again, and he realized suddenly that they were on the window, cupping the liquid colour. It dripped through his fingers and splashed across the windowsill. He tried to scoop it up.

“Junta,” Aoyagi said again, and his hand circled around Teshima’s wrist, pulling it away from the window. “Come and eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Come and eat.”

Teshima finally blinked -- the sun burned orange on the back of his eyelids -- and looked at Aoyagi. The world shifted around him and he inhaled deep, noticing the scent of baked fish and spiced potato for the first time. The whispers in the back of his mind faded. “Oh. Okay.”

***

The sun had been down for hours, already, by the time Aoyagi started tidying up his paints to get ready for bed. Every lamp they owned was turned on, casting a halogen glow over the inside of their home, twisting up in shadows in the corners and the folds of Teshima’s blanket. Teshima finished the row he was knitting, and carefully set his needles and yarn in the little basket beside his chair, and he stretched, shoulders and back cracking. It echoed around his skull like the boom of ice floes slowly colliding and bumping away again, and he took a breath to steady himself.

“That’s really good,” he said, looking over at Aoyagi’s painting, taking in the blue-dark glimmer of moonshine on hard-frozen snow, the glowing yellow ripeness of a full moon in the sky. Aoyagi hummed, and Teshima could tell he was pleased with his evening’s work. The sound swelled within him and warmed him from the inside out, and he untwisted his legs from the thick blanket so he could cross the room for a hug and a kiss and the scent of Aoyagi’s skin. Aoyagi relaxed into him, and they stood for a moment in the halo of intersecting lamplight.

Teshima wondered when the sun would rise again.

***

He awoke to darkness and the sound of light, slow breathing. Teshima stared up at the blackness and listened to the wind blow across the ice outside.

Here

He sucked in a hard breath, and it fell out of him like a whisper of snow. He was warm. Too hot. The heat sucked out of his fingers and his arms and his legs and up, into his stomach, his chest, and he threw off the blankets and stumbled out of bed. He pulled off his sleeping sweater, and it slither-hissed down the wall to pool in a dark heap on the floor.

A glass of water. He needed something to drink.

He reached for a lightswitch but then Aoyagi shifted in the blankets, and Teshima froze with his hand outstretched. Aoyagi sighed, and rolled over, and Teshima left the room in darkness, door ajar.

He stopped.

The moon was there, in their living room. It was small, and faint, but it was full and so close he thought it could reach out and touch it. He raised his arm, and he saw his fingertips, reaching, but he couldn’t feel anything --

The moon smudged and smeared under his hand, and the pale yellow swirled grey and it sucked the breath from Teshima’s lungs and he stumbled back, falling against the wall. The grey stuck to his fingers. He could see it, sinking in, spreading, and he wiped his hand frantically against his shirt. But then the insidious grey started spreading across his shirt, twisting and dark and he ripped the shirt off, hating the darkness. He wrapped the shirt around his hand to cover the inky grey on his fingers.

Here come here

The snow whispered in his ear and he gasped, the sound pulling out of him like syrup, thick and heavy. Everything around him was dark and he whirled, trying to find the sun.

There was a glow, out on the ice, and he stopped, and stared. It came in through the glass, hundreds of times brighter than the moon in his home, and he stumbled towards it, reaching --

Something turned under his hand, and the night hit him, cold and bright and it tingled in his feet.

The moon hung high in the sky, quarter-full and glowing. He stood in space, stars glittering around him. The shirt fell unnoticed from his hand.

Come here here

Teshima walked towards the moon.

***

For forever, he walked in the sky. The moon dipped lower, but it never got any closer. Teshima’s feet tingled and burned and he bent down to remove his socks, but his fingers floated away from him and he couldn’t find the second sock. He wasn’t sure if there ever was a second sock. He straightened, and followed the moon.

Here come here drink of us drink from our depths

He was thirsty. He felt desperately hot, burning all over, and so thirsty he felt his tongue shriveling in his mouth. Ahead, he saw the moonlight falter over a crack in the shimmering sky. Among the whispering of the stars and the snow he heard the faint shush shush of water in ice.

The crack grew larger, widened, and opened in front of him, and he watched his hand reach for it. He faltered, afraid, at the dark blackness around his nails, fading up his hand. He plunged his hands into the icy water and scrubbed, trying to wash the darkness away.

In the water, there were other hands. They were pale, and glowing, and Teshima wanted them. They reached for him and he reached back.

Yes yes ours come to us yes yes YES

***

Something wrapped around Teshima’s waist and pulled him back, away from the hands, from the moon, and he screamed.

***

Everything was burning and Teshima was floating.

There was orange-red on his eyelids, and Teshima wanted to find it, to take it, but he tried to move his fingers and the skin sizzled in the fire. He tried to scream and it ripped and stuck in his dry throat, barely more than a quiet sob-gasp.

“Shh, shh, Junta, it’ll be okay. It’s going to be okay.”

It sounded like someone was crying.

***

When Teshima woke, he was shivering so hard that he bit his tongue and tasted a burst of rust. It didn’t hurt, though, not with the way that his entire body was burning and squeezing and he shifted uncomfortably and tried not to groan.

He couldn’t see. It was dark and he couldn’t see and he felt himself spinning and gasping until something warm touched his cheek, grounding him, and he found his eyes again and blinked them open.

Aoyagi’s face was blurry and shadowed above him, pinched and drawn and so heartbroken that Teshima felt tears welling up and spilling out before he could try to stop it.

“Ha-haj,” he tried to say, but he couldn’t get his mouth to work. He tried to reach for Aoyagi, but his hands were wrapped and his arms shaking so hard that he could barely move them.

“Shh,” Aoyagi said, his own hand shaking as he rubbed it quickly up and down Teshima’s bare arm. The friction burned and tingled across his skin but Teshima leaned into it, craving the comfortable warmth, even as his heart hammered in fear.

“P-please,” he managed to moan, his own voice little more than a whisper, “please, Ha-hajime, t-turn on the l-l-lights.”

He felt Aoyagi’s hand go still, and he tried to look at Aoyagi’s face but it was too dark, and the darkness pushed inwards, around the outside of his field of view, and he was so scared. He couldn’t see Aoyagi and he cried a painful, loud sound just before there was the faint click of a lamp and soft orange light flooded his vision.

“Oh,” he gasped, and his entire body relaxed, and through the fiery, tingling pain he could feel soft blankets around him, see the familiar shapes and colours of their bedroom, and Aoyagi. He greedily drank in the sight of Aoyagi next to him, half-under the blankets and with one arm wrapped protectively around Teshima’s shoulders as he shivered.

Aoyagi’s mouth was tight with worry and his eyes were ringed with dark shadows, but they were still bright and sharp and Teshima let himself fall into them, filled with the incongruous combination of relief and love and intense, abject guilt.

“I’m --” he started to say, and then faltered. He didn’t know what to say. There was no way to explain. Aoyagi, though, seemed to understand what Teshima couldn’t find the words for, and he shook his head and started to pull the blankets back up around Teshima’s chin.

Teshima had a sudden realization, and his eyes widened. “I ruined your painting.”

Aoyagi stopped and stared at him in shock for a moment, and then his expression crumpled and he buried his face against Teshima’s neck and sobbed.

Edited 2016-07-23 23:45 (UTC)

Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Haikyuu!
tags: interspecies romance, mentions of blood, organs and act of gore, future character death
511 words, merman!oikawa + human!iwaizumi AU

“The bottom of the ocean isn’t as quiet as they say,” Tooru tells Hajime.

Hajime tilts his head and considers what Tooru has just said. He runs his fingers along Tooru’s back, nails catching onto the scales littering the lower half of it, and takes care to not accidentally pull any of them off. “What is it like then? It can’t be that noisy down there with only fishes and reefs around.”

Tooru preens under Hajime’s attention, floating closer so that it’s easier for the other to touch him. “Wrong, Iwa-chan! The ocean is home to many other creatures.” He turns around and lies his head on Hajime’s lap, uncaring of the water dripping from his hair that soaks a good part of the human’s pants. “I’m not the only merman that exists in this world, you know.”

Hajime can only close his eyes and sigh. “Good to know that you’re not the last Mohican of your species, Tooru. Are the rest as tiresome as you?”

It takes more than a beat for an answer to come. The sea wind blows cold, despite the afternoon, when Tooru’s voice finally drifts up. His tone is quiet and matter-of-fact. “Well, some of them do eat humans like you, Iwa-chan.”

“And what’s stopping you from eating me?”

“What makes you think I’m not going to be eating you?” Tooru’s head rears forth, his stare as pointed as a pirate’s dagger boring into Hajime’s stuttering heart. The merman is dangerous like this, but also so very beautiful; it’s all too easy to be drawn into the abyss, and the worst thing is Hajime finds himself not minding it.

There is not a single bit of trepidation within him towards this prospect at all.

“Then, you’d better make sure I’m the best damn thing you’ve ever had to eat, idiot. Don’t let any part of me go to waste.”

Tooru licks the salt crystallising on his lips and bares his teeth, each sharp row glinting under the sunlight. “I’ll tear into your veins to lick up every drop of blood and clean off all your bones and organs. There’ll be nothing left of you then, Iwaizumi Hajime.” He breaks this display of menace, though, by wrinkling his nose. “Your hair might call for an exception because keratin is always hard to digest.”

Hajime laughs and pulls Tooru back onto his lap. “Fair enough. I trust you’ll make some kind of supreme feast out of me when the time comes.”

“You’ll be an ace, alright.” Tooru hums. “To be honest, you’ll be more of a buffet, like Hunky Meat Galore!!! or something as you humans so like to name your gorging marathons.”

“Oh, so you think I’m hunky?” Hajime gets a face full of sea water for that, with great thanks to a flick of a certain merman’s tail.

“Nah,” Tooru chortles sly and wonderful, “I think you’re chunky.”

(In the end, it all boils down to who’s more the fool: the human that chooses to be the prey or the predator who plays with his food?)

Chinatsu/Akira (&Tatara) Ballroom e Youkouso
no tags, Word Count: 1463

Servants listened, and knew things. This was one of the first things Akira had learned as a child. Sometimes the things they knew were the things that everyone knew, like the fact that the princesses had each wore out a pair of dancing shoes for the seventh night in a row. Sometimes these things were things only other servants knew, like the fact that the palace cobblers had begun muttering about the speed in which they were now forced to make new shoes (No wonder they're worn out in a night, Akira heard one say, There's no time to make good quality shoes in a day). Sometimes, though, there were things known only to a single soul who happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Akira knew where the princesses went at night.

She had found out quite by accident, hearing a loud noise from their bedroom as she passed by through the servants' passages late one night. Worried that something terrible had happened, she had looked through to see the youngest princess, Mako, disappearing down a large corridor that appeared to have been hidden by the eldest princess' bed. Akira gasped, quietly. She knew this palace inside and out, and there was no passage so large as that. And definitely not on the third floor. It must be magic, then.

Or so she assumed, as she had yet to follow them and see for herself. She told herself it was because it might be dangerous, either for herself or for the princesses, and that the smartest thing to do would be to find out more about the passage and the princesses' late night wanderings. But she knew that the truth was that she was afraid. Afraid of being found out and being executed, or sent away from the palace and everyone she knew, or of being shunned. Akira had been bullied as a child, and she was unwilling now to do anything that would provoke social exclusion once more.

Which is connected to her other reason for not following the princesses-- fear of disappointing or angering Chinatsu. Princess Chinatsu, who was strong and beautiful and called her Aki-chan and had taught her how to dance all those years ago. Chinatsu had just started lessons, and had instructors of course, but she had been practicing by herself when she had noticed Akira passing by, and had asked if she wanted to be her partner. Akira couldn't have refused even if she wanted to, but she didn't want to, at all. She'd long admired Chinatsu, and was flattered and overwhelmed at the chance to spend time with her. So she'd nodded, and blushed fiercely at the pleased smile Chinatsu gave her, and tried very hard not to trip as Chinatsu taught her how to dance.

Their practice continued for several years, and although Akira knew it was inappropriate for a princess to spend so much time with a servant, and that Chinatu's dance instructors had given her grief for her preference for leading, she was unwilling to stop. She was addicted to the warmth of Chinatsu's hand clasping hers, to the press of their bodies, to Chinatsu's expression when they danced, happy and concentrated at once. And while some of the servants shook their heads and clucked their tongues at the friendship, the bullying had at least stopped, and the other servants her age were nicer to her now. It might have been only because of her connection to Chinatsu, but that was ok.

But then the princesses had started disappearing at night. They left their worn-through dancing shoes outside of the door, and slept half the day away. They grew distant and vague. Chinatsu stopped looking for Akira.

Akira held the knowledge close to her chest as the king, in despair, began to seek help in determining where his daughters went each night. One by one, men came and went, or came and disappeared, never to be seen again. There didn't seem to be a pattern to who did what, but after a while Akira noticed that the ones who disappeared had the same graceful posture and elegant movements that Chinatsu had, and wondered.

Months passed, and the king grew more desperate. There were rumors now that the next man who failed to answer where the princesses went would be executed. It was this rumor that finally gave Akira the strength she needed to follow the princesses down the passage.

She slipped down silently behind them, accustomed to moving unseen and unheard. The princesses talked and giggled ahead of her, the new man looking lost and stunned in their midst. They made their way down through the tunnel, and Akira held back a gasp as it opened to a field of gold. She brushed the grass as she walked through it, and it was warm and delicate against her fingers. At the other end of the field was a gate, and she followed the princesses through it to find herself in an orchard of silver, every detail cool and perfect. She plucked a silver peach from a branch and slipped it into her pocket. Finally, there was a forest of shimmering diamond, and Akira stopped and stared for so long she nearly lost sight of the princesses, so entranced she was by the artistry.

Finally, they came to a splendid pavilion, which housed a dance floor and was lined with tables holding a variety of refreshments. Akira wondered briefly where the servants were, to refill glasses and remove soiled plates, but remembered that this was magic, and there would be no need for servants here. She stood just outside the pavilion, and watched as Chiduru laughingly poured the new man a glass of wine and offered it to him. He drank it and offered his arm to her, which she accepted. As if this was a sign, other men came from the opposite end of the pavilion and began to offer their arms to each of the princesses. Akira recognized several of them as the ones who had disappeared, but others were strangers to her.

After what seemed like hours, she found herself thirsty, and carefully made her way over to a table to get herself a drink.

“If you drink that, you'll be enchanted, too,” a voice said, as familiar as her own and far more dear. Akira looked up, startled, to see Chinatsu smiling at her. “You would wait down here for night to fall, and only be able to dance.”

“I miss you,” Akira blurted out, then covered her mouth with her hands, horrified. Chinatsu's smile slipped.

“I've missed you, too, Aki-chan,” she said softly. “But things are different now that we've found this place. I can dance as much as I like here, however I like, and no one will chastise me.”

“I've never chastised you,” Akira replied. As if she ever could. As if she ever would.

“No,” said Chinatsu, smiling again. “I have always loved you for that.”

Love. The word made Akira feel bold, and she spoke before she could second-guess herself.

“If I drank, I could dance with you every night.”

“Yes.” Chinatsu's face did not betray whether she thought this a pleasant possibility or an unpleasant one. But she had said love, and Akira missed dancing with her.

She drank.

(It has been months, or years, or merely days since Akira drank. Time moves differently when you are enchanted. She has no need to eat or drink or mark the passage of time. The only thing that matters is dancing with Chinatsu all night under the stars. Sometime new men come, and Chinatsu will dance with them for a time, but she always comes back to Akira.

“You understand me best,” she says, and Akira glows.

But now Chinatsu is arguing with a man by the refreshment table. They are starting to draw the attention of the other princesses, and when Chinatsu sees this she waves them off with one hand and pokes the young man in the chest with the other. Finally, she grabs him by the wrist and drags him onto the dance floor, where they snipe and glower at each other for the rest of the night.

Akira thinks she has never seen Chinatsu dance so well, and feels her heart break, a little, as much as an enchanted heart can. They don't seem to like each other, but there is still something present there, some sort of connection. Akira never sees him clearly, only catches glimpses of his messy hair and wide dark eyes, but she hates him anyway, as much as she can.

When morning comes, the man has not yet drunk, and Chinatsu never comes back).

Aoyagi Hajime/Teshima Junta; Yowamushi Pedal

Word count: 519
Tags: Voltron AU! Implied torture and PTSD, non-consensual amputation, vomiting, nightmares

When Aoyagi dreams, his sleeping mind pulls up everything his consciousness has forgotten, shoved away in hidden pockets of his psyche for its own protection. If he’s lucky, he doesn’t remember the dreams when he wakes up in a cold sweat or in screaming, crying hysteria, surrounded by the soft cleanness of his room in the Castle of Lions, his metal arm aching and twitching with phantom pain.

Continuing the trend of his recent life, Aoyagi is rarely that lucky.

But there’s several small comforts to take, now, when he wakes up with the taste of narcotic poison on his tongue and the echoes of Galran chants ringing in his ears. He’s free to leave his claustrophobic cell of a room and wander the wide, empty hallways, and to watch the stars from the flight deck. He can knock himself out with rigorous midnight workouts that leave his mind muddled and his muscles shaking. Most of all, he can go down to the engineering deck, where Teshima is almost always awake and tinkering, or passed out on top of a desk with a tablet drooping from his hand.

Tonight is no different, when Aoyagi wakes up with tears on his face and a fresh memory of Tadokoro screaming in pain under the Galran witch’s experiments. He stumbles out of his room, detours to a disposal chute to spit up a foul mix of bile and radiation-green food goo, and makes his shaky way to the one remaining piece of his life on Earth.

Teshima looks up with a tired smile when the pneumatic door hisses open, a smile that quickly slips away into a frown. He immediately makes his way to where Aoyagi lingers inside the entry, stopping just short of a hug that, some other day, Aoyagi might violently rebuff, strains of don’t touch me don’t touch me don’t touch reverberating in his head. Tonight, though, Aoyagi steps into Teshima’s arms and squeezes tight. Teshima is solid and comforting and Aoyagi tries to get his breathing under control.

“I’m here,” Teshima soothes, and Aoyagi is grateful beyond words that he never says “it’ll be okay,” or “I understand,” or any of the meaningless platitudes he gets from the well-intentioned others. It’s not okay. And nobody understands. But it’s enough, for now, to have Teshima there.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Teshima asks, like he always does. And Aoyagi shakes his head, just like he always does, and leans into the kiss that Teshima presses to the side of his head.

“I had one, too,” Teshima says conversationally, after a long silence broken only by their overlapping heartbeats, because Teshima is different. He needs to talk. And Aoyagi wants to listen, even if it hurts. “About. When I found out you were dead. They didn’t tell me, you know. I saw it on the news like everyone else.”

The pain is fresh and raw in Teshima’s voice, and Aoyagi tries to squeeze it away.

“I’m here,” he says in a voice rough from screaming, and Teshima takes a deep breath and nods against his cheek.

no tags
Oikawa Tooru/Iwaizumi Hajime Haikyuu!!

IWAOI ELLA ENCHANTED AU, BASICALLY KILL ME NOW (FEATURING SUGA AS THE FAIRY GODMOTHER)

(the rest are in another comment, so I don't overload the page :) )

Furuya Satoru/Sawamura Eijun, Daiya no ace
No major tags

Sleeping Beauty AU

Even after Sawamura woke him up, Furuya kept falling asleep randomly but they still lived happily (?) ever after

Fuji Syuusuke/Kaidoh Kaoru (Prince of Tennis)
no major tags, shape-shifting
850 words

Kaidoh Kaoru was interesting, at least Syuusuke thought so. His eyes when he glared at people. The beads of sweat that rolled down the side of his face when he ran. The arch of his back as he jumped to serve. The soft way he left a piece of fish for the cat who slunk around the courtyard, glancing first to make sure no one was looking.

Syuusuke was looking, looking all the time. One day, looking during tennis practice wasn't quite enough and Syuusuke followed Kaidoh out from the club room, a few steps back, making himself fade away a little so Kaidoh wouldn't see him.

He went down to the park and sat cross-legged in the grass. Syuusuke looked through the leaves at interesting Kaoru to see what he could see.

The grass rustled and shook and a tiny snake slid up to Kaidoh. Syuusuke pulled a rock from his bag, but Kaidoh was bending down to it, whisper-close to its flickering tongue and shining green scales.

Another snake curled out of the grass, right up onto Kaidoh's thigh. It hissed softly and Kaidoh turned his head and hissed back. The green snake raised its head and Kaidoh hissed down to it too, the three of them, heads together, like friends taking turns to speak.

When Kaidoh left the park, the snakes left too, each going its own way. Syuusuke stayed behind the tree.

+

The next day, and the next, Syuusuke looked as more snakes came, coiled up Kaidoh's arms, curled around his knees. The tiny green snake whispered in his ear and Kaidoh answered him with words that Syuusuke couldn't quite catch, no matter how hard he listened. He wanted to know the secrets, he wanted Kaidoh to sigh those words into his mouth, and when he swallowed them, he would understand. He would know the language of the snakes. The language of interesting Kaoru.

+

Yumiko had a charm for him and all Syuusuke had to pay was a kiss on her cool cheek. He held it in his hand all day, coiled green soapstone, stroking his thumb around and around. And in the park, looking from behind the tree, he touched it to his mouth.

One brief and agonizing squeeze and he was stretched out on the ground, long and lithe with a red-marked back. It was no effort at all to slither and twist, to read the hums and smells on the air. Maybe he had always been a snake, just wrapped away.

Around the tree, and up to Kaidoh's feet. The little snake was circled around Kaidoh's wrist. Syuusuke wanted to strike and bite and chase it off, but he just reared up in the light and said, "Hello."

Kaidoh looked down at Syuusuke, eyes so direct, the tip of Syuusuke's tail shook just a little. "You're new," he said. "Hello."

Syuusuke flicked out his tongue, because that was how snakes smiled, and put his head on Kaidoh's knee and listened to him talk to all the snakes.

"I ate a mouse," one said. "I opened up my jaws and swallowed it down."

"A dog scared me," another said. "It chased me away."

Snakes were boring, Syuusuke decided. But Kaidoh listened and nodded and agreed with them all, until they'd each said their piece and slithered away.

"You're nice," Syuusuke said and looked at Kaidoh until he stood and walked away.

+

Next day, Syuusuke left practice early so he was coiled and waiting by the tree. He wound himself around Kaidoh's arm, head on Kaidoh's shoulder, while Kaidoh listened to the tedious talk of all the snakes. He touched his tongue to Kaidoh's skin, tasting his interesting taste, and feeling each vibration of Kaidoh's voice as he sympathized with each petty snake problem.

Two days later, Syuusuke curled around Kaidoh's shoulders, nose against Kaidoh's jaw, tail not quite circling Kaidoh's throat. "I like you," he whispered in Kaidoh's ear. When Kaidoh turned his head, Syuusuke flicked his tongue against Kaidoh's mouth, because that was how snakes kissed.

Kaidoh stroked Syuusuke's head, once, twice, down the back of his long body. Syuusuke sighed and settled closer, warning off the small green snake with a long flat stare.

+

"Can you stay and help me?" Syuusuke said to Kaidoh.

"What is it, senpai?" Kaidoh paused, fingers on the buttons of his white shirt.

"Wait and see," Syuusuke said, looking. When the last first year tumbled out the club room door, he came up to Kaidoh. He tipped up his face, pressed the charm in his hand to the side of Kaidoh's neck, just inside his collar, flicked his tongue against Kaidoh's mouth. "I like you," he said.

Kaidoh's body went still, his eyes opened wide. Then he pressed his interesting mouth to Syuusuke's.

+

Syuusuke cut his afternoon classes. He came back for tennis practice and looked at Kaidoh serving the ball, running laps, wiping sweat from his face.

"I should go to the park," Kaidoh said, and Syuusuke went with him, but no snakes came out to talk.

"Maybe it's because I'm here," Syuusuke said and slid his hand into Kaidoh's.

Tags: Minor implied mind control, sexual references.
Word Count: 948.
Miyuki Kazuya (daiya)/Oikawa Tooru (haikyuu). Oikawa is a kitsune.

The day that Miyuki meets Oikawa is as normal as can be. There's no omens, or portents, no unnatural animal behaviours or weather patterns. He supposes it is a hot day. That's something. Hardly unusual, but enough to remark on.

Miyuki flaps the front of his T-shirt as he approaches the stranger in the edge of the school grounds, attempting to cool the sweat clinging to his skin from exercising under the hot sun. Now that he's captain, he supposed he should be more concerned about an unknown person lurking around like this, but he's not. Still, he tries to keep up appearances.

"Are you lost?" he asks, keeping his voice casual but firm.

The stranger turns, and Miyuki realises that his ears are pointed, furry, and on the top of his head, and what he'd assumed was an accessory under the glare of the sun are actually twin bushy tails curling out from the base of his spine. Miyuki resists the urge to swallow.

"I don't believe so," the stranger says with a flash of a grin. His canines are pointed. Because of course they are.

A breeze passes Miyuki and a second later the stranger's ears twitch. No chance that this is a costume, then. The hairs on his arms prickle, so he folds them. "Mind letting me know what business you have here? This is private property." Or he thinks they're still within the school grounds, he didn't wander that far.

The stranger laughs, an odd barking sound that makes Miyuki's gut twist. "This was my home long before your kind passed by."

Miyuki does his best not to bristle, but from the stranger's steady gaze he must see Miyuki's shoulders tense. He forces his expression into a casual smile. "That so? And how long ago was that?"

The stranger looks around, his ears swivelling ahead of the motion. "A hundred years ago, I suppose."

Miyuki steps forward to slap the stranger on the back, slinging his arm over his shoulder and leaning in like he's about to share a secret. "Times have moved on, then, and so should you."

The stranger moves fast - faster than anyone over a hundred years old should be able to - grabbing Miyuki's chin to hold it in place and twisting under his arm. He brings their lips together in a crushing kiss and Miyuki's eyes go wide. Of the things he thought this guy might do, this wasn't one of them. The stranger leans into his lips, and Miyuki is too surprised to do more than lean away. One of the guy's canines nicks his skin and copper blooms in Miyuki's mouth. Before he can think about it, he opens his mouth to lick the blood away, but the stranger's tongue is in his mouth before he can.

Miyuki freezes as the stranger continues working their mouths together. The stranger smells a little like a dog, and sweat from the heat is trickling down the back of his neck. It occurs to him that no one is going to believe him now if he tries to tell them about his first kiss. And it's that thought that lets him relax into the stranger's touch, shift his hands so they're on his waist and soften his mouth so the stranger's lips fit against his more easily.

The stranger pulls back for a second, and Miyuki wonders if the moment is over. But all he does is say, "Good boy," before continuing. He moves his touch from Miyuki's chin to his chest, sliding his fingers down his sweat soaked T-shirt, apparently confident enough that Miyuki isn't going anywhere.

Minutes pass with nothing but them kissing, pressing closer until Miyuki is whining against the stranger's mouth. It's a wonder that the stranger worked out he'd be so easy when given a tongue in his mouth. But, eventually, when Miyuki's lips feel hot and swollen, the stranger breaks away, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"You going to fuck me now?" Miyuki asks with a laugh in his words that comes out more nervous than he intended. He's not sure he would protest if the stranger said yes. Having his first kiss and first real fuck on the same day seems appropriate for who he is, but the stranger wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. It occurs to Miyuki that the stranger is hot, with wide shoulders and height that means he's looking a handsome kind of beauty that stops just shy of 'pretty'.

"It would be my right..." the stranger says, and trails off with a glint in his eye. Miyuki swallows as a rush of heat heads south to under his gut. "But not just yet. Did they give you a name, human kit?"

"Miyuki." He swallows. "Miyuki Kazuya. How about you?" He forces out the question, because his mind is rapidly drifting towards offering to suck the stranger off instead.

"Oikawa Tooru," the stranger replies easily enough, which is a surprise. Miyuki thought he might have to give him something else to get his name. "I'll see you again, Miyuki-kun." And with that, he walks away, stepping behind a tree, his tails swishing behind him, and never appearing on the other side.

Miyuki swallows, roughly, staring at the spot he disappeared, and brings his fingers to his lips. They're tender under his fingertips. The only evidence that he met Oikawa in more than his imagination.

His mind has cleared, and returned to the present moment in the short time that Oikawa has been gone, but he still adjusts the crotch of his trousers as he starts on the path back to the dorms.

No Tags
Oikawa Tooru (haikyuu) & Miyuki Kazuya (daiya), Kitsunekawa.

"So, I've got to ask," Kuramochi begins, eyeing the creature at Miyuki's feet, "what's with the fox?"

Miyuki looks down, as if he's only seeing it for the first time. "Dunno, ask him," he says with a grin. The fox grins, too. Kuramochi glares.

Inui Sadaharu/Fuji Shuusuke (Prince of Tennis)
Tags: vomiting, drowning imagery, supernatural elements (summoning rituals), genderswap(girl(?) Fuji), Lovecraft(-ish) AU
Word Count: 664

Inui managed to make his way to the sink before the bile rose past his throat and he vomited into the sink. But what came up was only water. His mouth was filled with salt and silt as the muddy water bubbled up from his throat.

He pressed his hands to his lips, and wiped away the gritty substance. Definitely seawater, he thought hazily. But he was landlocked here, no source of seawater for miles and miles.

It worked.

The success felt a bit shallow as his stomach was still lurching slightly. He stumbled back out to his study. There were still books lying open all around, in various languages, handwritten in varying levels of legibility. His notes were scattered everywhere, tapped on the walls as well as arranged on the floor. Normally his notes would be much more well organized, but his endeavors as of late had worked him up into a bit of a frenzy.

In the center of his study was a web of complex runes that he’d painstakingly drawn in chalk. Candles burned at key points and the entire thing was outlined by a thick circle of salt.

The writings said that the ruins could summon an Old One, a being from the Space Beyond Space. Beings of great power, and greater knowledge.

No being had appeared before Inui had been overcome with the need to vomit the near black water that had filled his stomach. He looked around the room, trying to find any sign that something had been summoned. But despite a lingering feeling that he was being watched, he saw nothing.

Slowly he began picking up his notes and blew out the burning candles. He stopped when he noticed one book that he had hastily thrown when he’d felt the need to vomit. It had fallen on the salt circle, and the circle was broken.

Inui frowned. Perhaps that was why the being had not been summoned; perhaps the ritual had only been half done. An uneasy feeling filled him, but he pushed it away.

He would try the ritual again later, when his stomach felt more stable.

He dreamed of her.

He dreamed of her every night since the ritual, and he couldn’t even say who she was. All he could see was beautiful sparking water, as the sun set over an ocean that stretched out as far as Inui could see. She emerged from the water, with slow, languid movements. But when he awoke, he couldn’t quite say what she looked like.

He remembered clamped shut eyes and the soft curve of wet skin.

He remembered her soft smile.

He remembered the ever-turning shining ocean.

The more Inui slept, the less rested he felt. He was consumed with trying to get the summoning to work, but every subsequent time he tried, nothing happened.

He read and translated and tore his books apart, but found no answer. In his sleep-deprived haze, the runes seemed to dance around on the page. And somehow, it looked like her.

A new obsession overcame Inui. Summoning an Old One seemed less important. He needed to find that endless ocean, framed by coarse sand and jagged rocks.

He needed to find her

Inui felt the coarse sand enveloping his feet, as if it was sucking him down.

He could hardly remember how he’d gotten here, how he had figured out the exact location of the beach that lingered in his dreams. It was sunset now, and his eyes were set on the sparkling water.

There was a blackness just below the surface. It moved of it’s own accord, it’s shape and size defying calculation.

Inui felt like he couldn’t breathe. It was as if air and water had switched and his lungs were filling full of thick, murky water.

A form emerged from the depths, and all Inui could fathom was her wide, unending, smile.

Fuji Shuusuke/Kawamura Takashi (Prince of Tennis)
Tags: body horror, blood, supernatural elements (angels)
Word Count: 824

Ever since Taka could remember, he’d been able to see angels. A Kawamura family trait, his father had explained to him. His father had said that it meant that they were destined to do great things.

Taka didn’t feel destined for much of anything. It felt normal, and so did he.

There was a reason that angels were known for saying, “Do not be afraid.” Angels were incomprehensible beings of light and fire, made up of a patchwork of creatures that were both real and mythical. When they interacted with the living, they took on a form too condensed to fully house their full being. For those that could see past their illusion, they became jittering, writhing masses, pieces shifting and rearranging behind, and around their mortal shell.

The first time Taka saw it, he had nightmares for months.

But once he got used to it, even that form became part of Taka’s normal.

When Taka joined the tennis club, and met Fuji Shuusuke, it was the first time in a long time that seeing an angel surprised him. A faint light surrounded Fuji at all times, along with the same jagged, ephemeral jittering that Taka had come to expect from an angel folding itself into a human shape. But beyond all of that, Taka could still see Fuji’s smile.

And soon, playing tennis with an angel became normal for Taka too. As normal as Fuji’s ever present smile.

“You played well today, Taka-san.”

Taka smiled, stowing his racket into his locker. He’d been hurt while playing, but had managed to finish his match anyway. He knew he’d need to change the tape on his racket, since his had been bloodied from his injury, but he decided that could wait until tomorrow. “Thanks Fuji. You did well too.”

When Taka looked up at him, his smile was faltering just a bit. His human face was staring at Taka, as if fascinated. (His inhuman faces were too hard to discern any emotion from. Taka had stopped trying altogether.)

“Your righteousness served you well today,” Fuji said.

“Righteousness?” Taka repeated, frowning. “That’s a weird way to put it. I don’t know about that…”

“You wield a racket like a sword,” Fuji said. “If you’d been born centuries ago, you’d have wielded a sword with the same ferocity, in service of your home or a god. But you use your racket the same way, to protect your friends.” Fuji paused, and the jittering slowed, letting Taka see a bit of his true form’s pensive shifting. “It’s interesting.”

Taka swiped a hand over the back of his neck, still frowning. “I never thought of it like that, I guess.”

“It took me a while to realize,” Fuji said, still staring at him. “That you were righteous and that you could see.” He shrugged, and his true form swayed with the movement, his extraneous parts fluttering in the same way wings protruding from his back might. “But I guess you knew me for what I was all along.”

“Oh, the angel thing?” Taka said, keeping his voice low. “It’s been awhile since I really thought about it, I guess.”

Fuji stared at him. His eyes cracked open a bit, and Taka could see the bright light seeping out from them that was always just barely contained. Fuji shut his eyes just as quickly. Taka wondered if Fuji was afraid of blinding him, but the light never hurt too much.

“You forgot I was an angel?” Fuji asked, an edge of amusement to his voice.

“Not really forgot,” Taka said. “It was just… normal…”

Fuji smiled at him again, and Taka felt instantly more at ease. “You’re very interesting, Taka-san.”

Taka blushed. “I don’t know about that.”

Fuji took a step closer to him. “Did you know that most humans can’t touch angels for very long? For the wicked, it could burn them alive. For average people, contact too long might still cause a bit of discomfort.”

Taka shook his head. “Guess I never actually touched one before. I just… can see them.”

Fuji nodded, and held out a hand. Taka wondered if he should be worried, but didn’t flinch away.

“Only two kinds of humans can see angels,” Fuji explained. “The very tainted and corrupt, or…”

“Or?” Taka asked, staring at Fuji’s hand.

“Or people like you,” Fuji said. “The very good. The righteous.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve never held hands with a human before,” Fuji said, smiling. “It would be too much contact. Too risky.”

Taka stared at him.

“I can heal your hand,” Fuji said. “But I don’t want you to think that’s my only motive.”

“Oh.” Taka reached out slowly, and put his hand in Fuji’s. There was tingly feeling the moved through his palm and spread up to his elbow. More than anything, it was warm, comfortably so.

Fuji’s human face smiled at him, and Taka smiled back.

tags: no major tags (some implied violence/monster fighting, off screen)
Ship: Takigawa Chris Yuu/Tanba Kouichirou
Word Count: 1,200

this is a gods and mortals AU, aka "the one where Chris is functionally Athena"

-

The corpse of the minotaur fades into the chamber floor, leaving Tanba alone in an empty room. The point of his sword stabs into the ground, braced between a crack in the stones and straining beneath his weight as he slumps over it for support. He's breathing hard; his chest heaves as he sucks in air. It's the only sound he can hear.

He doesn't dare to hope that his trial for knighthood is over.

A hush may have descended over the chamber of trials but it's a waiting silence, heavy with the possibility of more danger to come. Sweat drips down Tanba's forehead and face and trickles down the back of his neck, wetting the tunic he wears underneath his armor. That is heavy where it weighs down his body, chainmail over his chest and a shield affixed to his arm.

It's empty of any standard. The symbol of his kingdom is a lion, rendered in gold against a brilliant blue backdrop, but Tanba hasn't earned it yet. A yawn sounds out of the darkness, with a rushing like all the air is being sucked out of the room. Tanba yanks his sword back up, and plants his feet. In a trial to prove his courage and bravery, he will not be caught looking down. He will not appear defeated. He will be strong for his kingdom.

If anything, the space around him seems darker than before, the walls disappearing into the blackness. Tanba loses any sense of his presence in anything like a room, as if he's no longer rooted to one place with a grounding in reality. The ground underneath him shifts, and he stumbles, tightening his grasp around the grip of his sword.

"Lower your shield, knight," a voice says, "and put away your sword. There will be no need for violence in this test."

Tanba is familiar with traps and trickery, and while he's uncertain of the nature of the new trial, does not immediately lower his blade. Light returns to the room, diffusing into their surroundings from all directions at once. In its growing glow, Tanba can see the man standing before him, posture relaxed, weight shifted back onto his heels.

His hands are empty, palms spread open before him. "Do I look like I'm about to attack you?" he asks.

He doesn't. The possibility of deception remains, but Tanba is a knight who's been taught chivalry and courtesy, as well as courage and bravery. When invited to talk peacefully with a stranger, he can do little more than allow his manners to assert themselves, before he slides his sword back into its scabbard at his side.

"I am Tanba Kouichirou," he says. "A knight in training, and I greet you."

The man smiles, a slim spreading of his lips mirrored by a gentle glow that kindles behind his amber eyes. His face is handsome, as handsome as any of the nobles Tanba has seen about court, many of them of much better birth than what small scrap of nobility Tanba can boast. He has sharp cheekbones, a strong chin, thick, blond-brown hair that runs back from his forehead in gentle waves. Two lone curls fall about his face, just above his eyes.

He's dressed simply, in a long tunic the likes of which only remains popular in paintings. It's nothing like what's become fashionable about court, but in the moment, Tanba does not think to question it.

"Well met," the man says. "And well met again. I would introduce myself, but I believe you have already made my acquaintance... If you only think back on things a moment."

Tanba's brow furrows, creasing up with his confusion. Someone with such regal bearing he would have remembered; doubtlessly he would have served them when he was a page waiting upon the king's court. This man must be a duke, or a baron, or—

There's a signet ring on his finger, glinting gold and flashing briefly in the uncertain light. The symbol engraved on it winds around and around itself, wider at the top than the bottom. Or the patron goddess — god? — of the knight order, Tanba finishes in his head, suddenly unsteady on his feet for a far different reason than because he'd faced down some unspeakable monster.

"I'm sorry," he says, glancing away to one side. He doesn't know how to behave with a god; he doesn't know whether it's rude to meet the man's eyes. "I should have paid my respects to our patron. Please forgive me for my transgression against the order."

"Please," the god echoes him, a subtle pressure behind his words that presses Tanba to look back up. "If I expected any particular treatment, I would say so."

"You don't look how I was expecting," Tanba admits, so softly, just softly enough that his voice doesn't shake, "when I've imagined the patron goddess of our order."

The god's smile spreads wider, softening at the edges. "I've worn a lot of faces, before a lot of different heroes. The face I wear today is for you and you alone." His voice drops, taking on a tone that in anybody else Tanba might have described as secretive. "And if you attempt to describe it to another mortal, you will find your recollection too foggy to be put into words."

Tanba swallows, certain that some part of that was meant as a warning, and clears his throat. "So I shouldn't tell anyone that I met with the goddess of law, justice, and war strategy in the trial chamber?"

"Would anyone believe you if you did?"

Put that way, Tanba is aware that they wouldn't. "What do you want from me?" he asks instead.

The god glances down at Tanba's shield with its empty standard where it hangs still from his arm. "I want a champion. If I call upon you, will you serve?"

Serve the symbol of his order directly? Given a dozen years, Tanba doubts he could find the words to refuse. Slowly, shakily, he lowers himself to one knee. With head bowed, he unlatches his scabbard from his belt and lays his sword out before him, the handle pointed toward the god. His hand feels impossibly light, when it's taken from him.

The sword's weight returns, dropped first to Tanba's right shoulder, then the left. When the sensation passes, Tanba lets himself look up, into glowing golden eyes and a smile full of teeth almost too white to look upon.

"Leave the chamber," the god says, "and you'll find that your trial is complete. If you ever have need to call on me directly, don't pray for wisdom, or for justice. Trust in yourself, and ask for Chris. Gods are only as powerful as their presence in the mortal world; I may as well have a modern name to answer to."

It feels awfully familiar, calling a god by any man's first name. But before Tanba can find the words to express as much, the roaring of a great wind passing rises again in his ears. As the rushing drops off, ordinary light returns to the room, and Tanba finds himself alone in the chamber of trials once again.

Miyuki Kazuya/Oikawa Tooru, Daiya no Ace & Haikyuu!
no tags, pyrokinesis, arson
1077 words

Miyuki sees a boy sparking a pile of leaves by the pavement into flames without a match or lighter, and just like that, his curiosity is damned.

“Hey!” He yells out through cupped hands around his mouth. “Hey, you there!”

The boy glances at him for a moment before paying him no mind again, intently watching the leaves crinkle into brown dust as they’re eaten by the fire.

What the guy hasn’t taken into account is how familiar Miyuki is with cold shoulders, and how they have never fazed him when he wants to achieve something.

In this case, he wants to achieve clarification, so he saunters up— jaunty, unafraid, and eager. Miyuki stops beside the stranger, raises his hands above the small flickering heat in front of them to feel the warmth it emanates.

(The fire is real, not just a figment of Miyuki’s imagination.)

“Hey.”

The subject of Miyuki’s current intrigue, snorts and finally deigns to grace him with a proper look. He actually seems pretty handsome – brown curls, button nose, sharp eyes— if Miyuki squints past the frostiness in his features. “What do you want?”

Miyuki grins. “I want to know how you did that.”

“Did what?” The boy answers, still having the gall to play pretend, but it doesn’t deter Miyuki from going on.

“You started the fire without using anything. That’s pretty amazing, you know.” He tilts his head. “Or was it just a magic trick?”

The other rolls his eyes before stamping his foot on the ground once. A tiniest lick of flame springs up beside his shoe, then, it quickly extinguishes itself. “Happy now?”

(Miyuki’s heart skips a beat.)

“I guess.” He nods, continues, “I’m Miyuki Kazuya, by the way. Can I have your number?”

The brown-haired boy balks and stares at him with comically wide eyes. He turns his nose up, snippily replying, “If you want the great Oikawa-san’s number, you’re gonna have to work for it.”

Ah, Miyuki thinks, I’ve always loved a challenge. So, he pushes the frame of his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose, and accepts.

“It’ll be an honour to, Oikawa-san.”

*

He first brings Oikawa a stack of cardboards.

They’ve agreed to meet every Friday night at an empty parking lot nearby, because fire always burns prettier when it’s dark.

Miyuki chucks his stuff onto the middle of the road and shrugs his shoulders. “Be my guest.”

“Cheap,” Oikawa comments, but doesn’t miss a step; it’s barely five seconds before the cardboards explode into a wall of flames.

Amber hues and flickering shadows play across Oikawa’s face, and the sudden blistering heat surrounding them makes Miyuki swallow a lump he never knew was stuck in his throat.

When the burning dies down, it leaves a sooty dark spot as a memento.

Oikawa stretches his arms above him and walks away, calling out, “Bring something nicer next time, Kazuya-chan, that wasn’t even fun!”

Miyuki has no complains about that at all.

(He wants to fill the whole parking lot with burnt marks too; they’ll be reminders of the type of people Oikawa and him are.)

*

The broken pieces of wooden furniture Miyuki manages to scavenge from a public construction site sets Oikawa clapping his hands excitedly.

“Wood is always the best!” The boy crows, gleeful, almost too young like this.

Miyuki, on the other hand, tries his best to refrain from blurting some stupid innuendo concerning mornings and wood.

This time the flames burst immediately once Miyuki has thrown the material down, and, oh, what a sight it is: a pillar of red waves blazes upwards, growing higher and higher as if it wants to licks its fury against the sky, nearly blinding in its illumination.

Oikawa cackles. Miyuki is breathless.

In fact, Miyuki is so breathless that he wants to share oxygen from Oikawa’s open mouth, only that concerns kissing and putting his lips on a walking, talking human torch who essentially is a stranger he’s just met two weeks ago so—

He fucks logic. Catches the boy’s collar and drags him in.

Oikawa snickers, lips quivering against Miyuki’s chapped ones; Miyuki wants to sock him somewhere, anywhere, for dragging things out this long, but, hey, he’s got something better to focus on right now.

“Good try.” Oikawa wipes his mouth on the back of his hand after they pull away from each other. “But, you’re still not getting my number.”

“You have a terrible personality, you know that right?” Miyuki spits back, sounding so fond even in vitriol.

“Pot, kettle, take your pick, Kazuya-chan!”

(He doesn’t pick either, just chooses the red glow he keeps seeing when he closes his eyes, simmering in a corner of his mind.)

*

Third time’s the charm.

Oikawa’s mouth drops in awe at the box of sprinklers and fireworks Miyuki unearths from his knapsack.

“It’s too early for Tanabata,” he whispers, taking in all the different brands and types.

The smirk on Miyuki’s face widens exponentially. “It’s never too late or too early for monkey business, Oikawa-san.”

“True enough.”

And they get down to it.

Later, Oikawa slaps Miyuki’s shoulder and holds out an open palm. “Give me your phone.”

Miyuki tears his sight away from the multi-coloured flowers and spirals decorating the sky above them, coughing a little from the smell of ozone and sulphur. “Huh?”

“Your. Phone.” Oikawa repeats sweetly with fake patience and taps his foot on the ground, eliciting baby sparks in its rhythm. It’s sort of cute.

He passes it wordlessly, memorising the way the phone screen shine a blue spotlight onto Oikawa’s face as he types his number in.

Just as it’s saved, the last of their firecrackers die down, letting night and silence fall over them once more.

(But police sirens sound in the distance.)

“I’ll call you later, Oikawa-san!” Miyuki shouts as they quickly part ways for the week.

He gets flipped off for that. However, he also grasps the tail-end of a resigned it’s Tooru! and that’s fine too.

*

Tooru actually picks his call up when Miyuki dials his number the next night.

“Hello,” he laughs, surprised and light. “This is Miyuki Kazuya, and I think I like dangerous things.”

An affronted snort comes from the other end of the line, then: let’s be real, you’re just a pyromaniac, Kazuya-chan

[I had a lust
I had a firecracker
I had a love for the sound of this world]
— ”Firecracker” by Voxtrot

Kominato Ryousuke/Kuramochi Youichi, daiya no ace

mentions of character death, violence, alcohol/drinking, supernatural elements
overwatch au
2127 words

“I fought my brother,” Haruichi says underneath his mask—a robotic voice that still manages to convey sadness that makes Kuramochi tip his hat in respect.

“Well,” Kuramochi says with a shrug of his shoulder, “how does that make you feel?”

“Hm,” Haruichi says and taps a hand to his chin, “it makes me feel—I’m not sure. He hasn’t forgiven himself for what he has done but I have. He needs to heal.”

Kuramochi scratches the back of his head. He kind of gets it, in an empathetic way—he saw his dead comrades come back; Tetsu, Jun, just to name those right off the bat, but he never really had to kill his own younger brother, think he’s dead for god knows how long, and then find out that he’s not dead while trying to kill him again thinking that he’s an assassin.

(It’s a mess. Kuramochi doesn’t know all the finer details aside from Takako caving in to his eyebrow waggle and a promise to quit smoking cigars for an entire week.

Also known as the worst week of his life, also known as the time he dropped five mugs in the span of ten minutes one morning, also known as the time he sucked on tootsie pops with a fervor no grown man should have.

But hey, he’s nosy. He can’t help it.)

“Well, give ‘im space and time.” Kuramochi sighs noisily through his mouth. “I mean, it took you time to get better too. Weren’t you raring to kill ‘im or something when you woke up?”

“Hm,” Haruichi responds, crossing his arms and shifting his weight.

“Here’s looking out at ya, kid,” Kuramochi says, lighting his cigar and taking a puff. “I’m gonna head to the shooting range.”

“Goodbye, Kuramochi-senpai,” Haruichi says and clasps his hands together, bowing at the waist.

**

“Well,” Kuramochi says and his comm. hisses in his ears, Sawamura yelling about location and coordinates, “I’m a little screwed guys.”

“Kuramochi, I’m on my way,” Sawamura shouts and Kuramochi laughs, high pitched, because he doesn’t think Sawamura’s going to get to him in time even if he were to blink over.

Blood runs down from open wounds and forces him to close his right eye. With his left, he sees the Talon grunt raise his gun to his temple, the cool metal shocking against his heated skin.

“Any last words?” The Talon grunt asks and Kuramochi sighs—damn, he’s going to have to ask Takako to respawn him again and god, that’s always painful—

He hears a shout of Japanese, thinks Haruichi, but then he sees a flash of blue instead of pink, two dragons instead of one, and oh god, oh god.

“Oh,” he hears a voice and a shock of pink drops down in front of him, the Talon grunt flat on his back on the ground, “the dragons didn’t kill you? Hm. What a shame.”

“What the fuck,” Kuramochi whispers.

“Is that my brother,” he hears Haruichi ask in the comm.

He takes in the other’s appearance. Pink hair, closed eyes, Japanese clothes that still has one shoulder bare, the left of his chest visible, and smooth, unmarked skin. Kuramochi tries not to focus in on the dusty nipple but it’s hard when the two dragons swirl around the other, pressing into his arm and shoulder until they return to their inked form, and now Kuramochi has an excuse to openly drink in the sight of the other man.

“They like you,” the other accuses, eyes narrowed, as if Kuramochi’s the one at fault.

“Well,” Kuramochi laughs, “they wouldn’t be the first.”

Pink Hair smiles, a small sliver of white teeth showing through, and Kuramochi understand it for the death sentence that it is.

Haruichi drops down, pink lights of his suit glowing, and his hands are on his blade as a warning.

“Big brother,” his voice rumbles, “it’s good to see you again.”

“Haruichi,” Pink Hair doesn’t turn around—Kuramochi imagines that he could probably sense Haruichi move before his eyes could pick it up—and tilts his head. “Is this one of your comrades?”

“Yes,” Haruichi responds.

“Hm,” Big Brother Pink Hair tilts his head up and Kuramochi realizes that if he stood up, he’d be taller, “how interesting.”

“Will you be staying,” Haruichi asks and Big Brother pauses, stiffens a little, and then relaxes his shoulders with a shrug.

“I suppose—I should know those who keep my little brother company.”

**

“I dunno,” Kuramochi says as he flips the pancake high in the air and only barely manages to catch it with his skillet, “he sees well adjusted to me. I didn’t really sense any hostility.”

Sawamura hums and squirts whipped cream directly into his mouth. It’s only five in the morning. He’s on his morning jog and Kuramochi couldn’t sleep.

“He’s got those dragons right,” Sawamura hums, “that’s pretty weird. Do you think that Haruichi’s got those tattoos too—although Takako told me that modern medicine couldn’t save those tattoos so maybe if he takes off his face plate, we’d be able to see a pink dragon wrapping around his eyes or cheeks or mouth.”

“Well,” Kuramochi shrugs, because that’s none of his business and he imagines that Sawamura’s the closest to getting Haruichi to take off his face plate anyways, “I just thought it’d be—well, that Ryousuke would be angrier. Aggressive. He seems like he’s having a good time.”

“Hm,” Sawamura says, his chronic accelerator spinning wildly, “he doesn’t join us for team dinners, does he? I don’t really think you can say that he’s having a good time when we have our big feasts and he’s not there.”

Ugh, Kuramochi thinks as he spatulas the pancake onto Sawamura’s plate. Damn it.

**

“Nabe,” Kuramochi calls out and the AI glimmers to life right in front of him, “can you give me information on Ryousuke that doesn’t make me feel like a creep?”

There’s a pause.

“I can give you the times when he enters the shooting range.”

“Yeah, great, that’d be great,” Kuramochi says and runs a hand through his hair, “yeah, just, lordy, Nabe, don’t tell anyone.”

“My lips are sealed,” the AI responds in a voice that does nothing to comfort Kuramochi, and then a screen pops up.

“Does he sleep,” Kuramochi mutters as he reviews the data—it seems that he’s practicing from three to six, ever morning, and that’s enough to make Kuramochi’s head spin. Kuramochi wakes up at 11, like every regular person, and eats brunch like a regular person.

“I can provide you with a copy of his sleep schedule,” Nabe pips up, “but I feel as though you would consider yourself a creep if you had that.”

“No,” Kuramochi says, as in no, I don’t want it, but then realizes that he’s saying. “I mean, yeah, I would, but thanks, Nabe. Can I see my sleep schedule?”

Another screen pops up right in front of him.

“30 hours so far. This is a miraculous improvement from last week of 23. Are the nightmares fading away? Would you like me to contact Takako-san for medications, if needed?”

“No,” Kuramochi says, because he knows that the AI only counts when he’s sleeping, like, actually sleeping, and not waking up in a cold sweat. “Thanks for the information though.”

“My pleasure,” Nabe says and disappears.

**

“Yo,” Kuramochi says when he arrives at four at the shooting range and sees Ryousuke there, just as Nabe predicted. Ryousuke doesn’t look back, his dragon tattoos shifting against his skin at the newcomer, and shoots a bullseye. “It’s a little early, or a little late, but I was wondering if you’d want a drink,” Kuramochi calls out and takes a seat.

“Is it water?” Ryousuke asks.

“Um, no,” Kuramochi wrinkles his nose, “it’s sake.”

“Well then,” Ryousuke says and spins around, a light sheen of sweat covering his chest, “is a drunk archer a wise archer?”

It’s an archer, so any way is a good way. This is what Kuramochi wants to say but his throat chooses this perfect time to go dry. It’s not his fault—really, it’s not, he doesn’t know the last time he’s beat it off because being killed every other week does a number on activities like carnal delights. It’s ridiculous. It’s not his fault.

“Join an old man,” Kuramochi says and pats the spot next to him.

“You are younger than me,” Ryousuke wrinkles his nose.

“No kidding?” Kuramochi raises an eyebrow. That’s hot. He thinks. That’s hot. He accidentally says out loud.

Ryousuke levels him with a stare. Then, he sighs and walks over with slow, purposeful steps.

“It’s because they like you,” Ryousuke says and sits down, the tattoos shifting eagerly. “They’ve been itching to touch you.”

“Oh,” Kuramochi says, “well—they can? I don’t mind.”

“How kind of you,” Ryousuke tilts his head, eyebrows furrowed, and the dragons peel off of his skin, springing to life and swirling around the two of them.

They glow underneath the strong lights of the shooting range, eventually settling their heads on Kuramochi’s lap and nudging the softness of his belly. Then, as if they wanted to get closer, they slide around him and squeeze him tight in the weirdest makeshift hug he’s gotten from mythical tattoo dragons.

Tenderly and carefully, he lifts a hand to place it on top of one of the dragon’s head. The other one snorts and headbutts his free hand, not stopping until Kuramochi is petting both of them absentmindedly. Contented, they pulse in tandem against him, illuminating his body with a blue glow like a heartbeat.

“I don’t understand,” Ryousuke murmurs, the corner of his mouth turned down.

“Maybe I’m just good with dragons,” Kuramochi tries to joke.

“No,” Ryousuke cuts him off, swift and definitive, “that cannot be it. You are the last person on this planet who would be fit for dealing with dragons..”

“Uh,” Kuramochi says because that’s a blow to his ego, even if he hadn’t prided himself on being good with dealing with dragons in the first place. “Okay.”

Ryousuke stands up with his bow and returns to the target range. Kuramochi watches as he shoots bullseye after bullseye on every target that Nabe sends his way; the dragons nudge him again and again for attention and he gives it to them in a series of pats and scratches and strokes.

It’s only when Ryousuke finishes—the clock strikes six and Kuramochi hadn’t realized so much time had passed, simply entranced by the way that the other moved—that the dragons start to shift impatiently.

“Guess you want them back,” Kuramochi says as they slither up to nudge him on the lips, the cheek, his neck.

“Yes,” Ryousuke says in a tone that suggests if that he’d be rolling his eyes if they were open, “their affection for you is distasteful.” If dragons could whine, that’s what these two would be doing—but Ryousuke extends his arms and they go back, sliding around his arm and pressing themselves back into ink. Satisfied, Ryousuke collapses his bow and wipes down his sweat with a towel. He slings his duffel bag over his shoulder and is at the door when—

“Do you want to join us for dinner,” Kuramochi clears his throat, “tonight, I mean. Just figured that you’d be tired of being alone by now.”

Ryousuke stops, mid-step, and hums thoughtfully in response. Then, he walks out the door.

**

“Is there protocol for allowing a guy you’re just met to magically manifest mythical—hey, alliteration, Nori, give me some points for that—beasts that molest you freely?”

The look Nori gives him speaks louder than any words ever could.

**

He’s five seconds from punching Sawamura for the last crab cake when the dining hall door slides open and everyone’s head snaps over to see who the newcomer is.

Ryousuke stands in the doorway. He walks over with his head held up high and, when Sawamura excitedly pats the seat next to him which happens to be next to Kuramochi as well, sits down.

“Hey,” Kuramochi says, breaking the silence.

“Hey,” Ryousuke replies, looking defeated as his dragons slide around. “They want to touch you again.”

“Well,” Kuramochi shrugs, “if they come out small, they can wrap around my wrist?”

“How kind of you,” Ryousuke turns his attention to the bowl and chopsticks that Sawamura blinked-got for him. “Thank you.”

Haruichi openly stares. Sawamura slips up and calls Ryousuke “big brother” roughly four times, but the world doesn’t end after the third time and everyone’s stopped holding their breath. Kuramochi ends up spending the rest of the meal with blue dragons encircling his wrist in the weirdest single handcuff.

It’s nice.

Art fill. Blood. (possible body horror re: partial transformation?)
Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru, Haikyuu!!
the king and his dragon S-Support, Fire Emblem: Fates AU

dark themes, kidnapping
Kuroo Tetsurou/Akaashi Keiji, Haikyuu

Kuroo is Hades, Akaashi is Persephone

i… was planning to do a fill in the last round but then i lost the link, the deadline punched me in the face, and then this spiraled away from the original prompt anyway? the quote included something about flying carpets? will link if i stumble upon the comment again! ~5.2k. also on ao3

tags: profanity

As an enchanter, Ennoshita has run into his fair share of odd requests despite the ‘WILL NOT ENCHANT PEOPLE, BRAINWASHING IS ILLICIT’ sign he’d jokingly - and then worryingly, seriously put up right by the counter in his shop to discourage the more far-fetched requests which pass through his shop’s door.

But if there was one thing Ennoshita could trust about the world, it was that people wanted. They wanted things to bend to their will, other wills to bend to their will, odds to work in their favor, luck on their side, a shortcut, a fun time, insurance and assurance both. A security lock to be made extra sturdy against possible thefts. A frail book with tattered binding that wanted augmentation before it frayed and spilled its pages everywhere, succumbed to age. A girl’s pocket mirror that reflected falling cherry blossoms every time she opened it to look at herself. Vanity, maybe, although it had been too cute when she first saw herself and gasped.

“A flying carpet,” the man before the counter wishes.

“A… flying carpet,” Ennoshita slowly repeats. He manages to sound professional instead of incredulous – an employee making sure he’s heard correctly rather than someone who has just listened to something ridiculous. It’s an accomplishment considering the grin that breaks out onto the other’s face, enthused and all too serious. Not a joke, then.

“Yeah, man. Magical. Like in that Disney movie? Aladdin?”

“I’m familiar with it.”

“Great! So can you do somethin’ like that?”

Ennoshita stalls by taking a seat to ostensibly look at his schedule (rather free for commissions, as if he’d turn down the money) and mull over possibilities. At first impression it sounds pretty impossible. But maybe with the right steps he could produce some sort of favorable result, or at least not a total abomination, even if he knows nothing of rug making or weaving. It would be much easier to enchant a carpet while it was being made by a professional rather than modify an old one but… threads were threads, weren’t they? Fabric held onto spellery almost as well as metal did.

Maybe not totally impossible.

That was a start, if any.

“Maybe… I’ve not done anything like it before. Nothing about carpets are really meant to fly, and the heart of enchantment is the augmentation of already present strengths and purposes. Whatever happens, it definitely won’t be as… fantastical as what you’re thinking of. No flying through the clouds.”

The man frowns severely. “What, no Whole New World?”

“Um, no... My spellcraftmanship isn’t that good. I could try referring you to someone who can-”

“No, dude, I was just joking. Trust me, I’ve already been around town for this. The first person I asked turned me down flat. Most enchanters don’t seem to, you know – they ain’t very up for trying to do the crazy sounding stuff, but you’re saying you’ll give it a go? That’s pretty cool of you.”

“Oh,” Ennoshita says, and fails to think of a better response other than, “Okay.”

The man jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “I have the rug in my car. I can go grab it if you need to take a look at it.”

“Thank you. Do you need help bringing it out?”

“Nope, I got it. It’s real small – you’ll see in a sec!” The man turns to leave, and after the doorbell jingles to signal his exit Ennoshita blows out a sigh and rounds the counter to lean against it and wait. True to his word, it doesn’t take long for the other to return with a rolled up rug propped on his shoulder, ducking and weaving to avoid the hanging mobile near the door.

Ennoshita pushes away from the counter. “If you could spread it out in the center aisle there, I’ll take a look at it.”

They get the rug neatly spread open. It’s rectangular, small enough to have been a decorative welcome mat, maybe; splashed with intricate patterns, and curling around the edges to show its age like a scarf just beginning to unravel. It even has four tassels on each corner, an odd addition that nearly makes Ennoshita smile. Flying carpet, huh.

He kneels beside to rug, not too worried about another customer coming in during the slow crawl hours of a business day. The weaving is soft beneath his fingertips when he follows the curve of a loop, a swathe of light from the front windows brightening the colors. “Can you tell me anything about it? What it’s made of, how old it is –“

“- where it’s from, whether it’s been enchanted before. I gotcha. Like I said, I’ve been asking around.” The man takes out his phone and squints at it. “It’s a pretty standard dantsu rug ‘bout two generations old? Not exactly too sure about the age, just that it got passed down from my grandma. Forty years or something? 100% cotton, handwoven, made in Hyogo. Never had any enchantment done to it.”

“I can sense that. There’s rush grass on the bottom though,” Ennoshita points out, flipping a corner of the rug over to slide a hand over the sturdier material there. The stuff of tatami mats.

“Oh? Oh. Oops. So like, 90% cotton.”

“It’s not a problem. It helps that it’s all natural. Synthetic material is harder to work with.”

“Yeah?” The man asks, voice rising on a hopeful note. Ennoshita nods, then straightens up. The both of them kneeling at opposite corners of the rug.

“This is going to take a while. I need to do some research to see if anyone’s ever succeeded in crafting something like this before, so if you were expecting your flying carpet quickly I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. You didn’t need it for a specific occasion soon, did you?”

“Nah, there’s no rush.”

“Then consider this a consultation. I’ll keep your carpet here for a week or so, figure out if I can make an enchantment work. If I’m unable to find a way you can come back and I’ll refer you to another store free of charge. How does that sound?”

“Sweet. Sounds great. And if you do figure out how to make this baby float?”

“Then you’ll have it as soon as I can finish.”

The man cheers, startling Ennoshita, and rolls the rug up again to leave it propped behind the counter. He dusts his hands off and shuffles his feet while Ennoshita grabs a notepad and writes down the information that’s been given to him so far.

Cotton. Good stuff. Common but relatively easy. Forgiving to work with. It’s the spellcraft that will be the doozy, not the canvas itself.

The fidgeting remains in the corner of his vision, so he eventually glances up. “May I have your name? And was there something else?”

“Tanaka Ryuunosuke. Uh… D’you think I can come over and watch while you do your thing?”

Ennoshita jots down one final note and slowly lowers his pen, trying not to give away his immediate distaste at the suggestion. “You mean, watch as I enchant?”

“Yeah, that.”

“It’s not typically something that I do with customers.”

“No exceptions?”

Ennoshita frowns and twirls the pen. Tanaka reads the hesitation for the rejection that it is, yet it only spurs on more determination.

“Aw, c’mon. It’s just that that rug’s real important to my family so I wanna be there and make sure it doesn’t go up in flames or something.” A pause; a sputter “N-Not that I think you’ll do that!”

“Of course not,” he retorts, unaffronted. At least not by that particular worry. The request, though…

“So I won’t be a bother, yeah? I’ll stand quietly in the corner and leave whenever you want. You get fed up after ten minutes? I’m gone. I just wanna be there for at least a little of it?”

Ennoshita stays quiet, considering. Now that he’s seriously begun to think about this enchantment his eagerness to see what it could reap is too strong to back away now, not when he’s yet to explore anything. And what was one person peering over his shoulder? He’s survived schooling, training, and an apprenticeship. Eyes on the back of his head cause him no jitters anymore.

People wanted, Ennoshita remembers. Insurance and assurance.

Just a small compromise won’t hurt anything. He’ll have to tolerate half an hour of Tanaka’s watching at most to be polite, or until the other realizes that enchantment isn’t bright and fantastic like magic and excuses himself all on his own.

Ennoshita sets his pen back to the paper. “In that case… Can you provide some contact information?”

*

oikawa tooru/oikawa tooru, haikyuu!!
mild body horror (of the plant variety

this is essentially my brain's response to this art. i don't really have any other excuse OTL

from the ground, up
682 words, AO3

A morning like every other, seen from a viewpoint unlike any other. Tooru blinks, registers the flutter of the motion even as he recognises himself, unblinking before him, walking familiar streets with familiar feet. Except that can’t be right; Tooru is standing right here.

Isn’t he?

Trailing after himself-that-isn’t proves itself no simple feat, either. Where this Oikawa treads bloom flowers in lieu of a shadow — hydrangeas, mostly, primroses and camellia threading up to grow in the spaces remaining — and although they are beautiful Tooru finds them almost impossible to navigate, Oikawa’s footsteps exceedingly difficult to follow.

Tooru chases anyway. Every stride he makes stretches out to cover more and more ground, feeling no less challenging for Tooru’s increasing progress. Still, he rolls his shoulders back and pushes forward, imagines wings taking root at the heart of his spine, unfurling further momentum to carry him forwards.

The flowers grow closer together the more distance Oikawa walks; Tooru wonders how anyone else manages to make it through the dense undergrowth. Not that anyone else remotely looks like they’re trying, everyone Tooru comes across either heading back the way Tooru came or else turning at another direction entirely. Tooru doesn’t lose sight of where he’s going, though, and knows with certainty first unfounded that Oikawa is making his way to the gym. And Tooru finds he’s right, Seijou’s gates creeping closer so Tooru splits from the flowers Oikawa leaves behind to run ahead.

There’s barely any breeze at all today but Tooru feels lighter the faster he runs. He laughs, sound sweeping out from his lungs and cresting up into the air, the sky. And for a moment Tooru glances back; doesn’t turn his head entirely, only catches on to movement from the peripheries of his field of vision.

So Tooru turns, perhaps expecting to find Oikawa, himself-that-isn’t, following close behind. After all, if they’re even remotely the same person, Tooru knows Oikawa would follow. Or, not follow — chase. The intention to surpass changes everything and nothing, further roots Tooru in what he knows of himself in the same moment it brings him higher than even that, soaring.

It’s like this: no matter the world, no matter the time; cost means nothing in the face of Oikawa Tooru’s relentless growth, unyielding, indomitable.

Which is why finding Oikawa still behind him — with less distance separating them than Tooru anticipated, but that’s irrelevant — doesn’t surprise Tooru in the slightest. It’s the wing, no less striking for its singularity, sprouting from Oikawa’s shoulder blade that encompasses Tooru’s attentions.

At least, Tooru thinks it might be a wing. Tooru’s wing has no feathers. Formed from vine, leaves shape the wing instead, verdant and alive. No flowers grow from it, but Tooru thinks it might only be a case of no flowers blooming yet; the leaves are bright but young, nowhere near complete. Whether they ever will be, or if Tooru’s wing is even there at all — well. Tooru supposes this, too, is something only unseen for now.

And finally, finally, Oikawa catches up to him. Together they stand, facing the doors to the gym, unmoving.

“So,” Oikawa begins.

“You’re coming too, then?” Tooru responds.

Oikawa laughs. “I’d think you of all people know what happens from here.”

Smiling, Tooru tilts his head, appraising the boy beside him, waiting. Real or not, Tooru believes he’s there, and that’s enough. This time when he reaches out his hand to rest on the door, Oikawa moves too, mirroring the motion. Left and right hands on the door, they push it open. Just before the view inside becomes visible, Tooru says:

“But I don’t.”

Oikawa doesn’t pause but he does slow, and Tooru supposes his hand must’ve slowed against the door, too.

“What?”

“I don’t,” Tooru repeats. “Know what’s going to happen from here.”

“Does that matter?” Oikawa hums, considering.

“I never said that. Though I suppose you knew that, too.”

“Well, who can say for sure?”

And Tooru laughs as the doors slide open completely, hears himself above the groan of the wood on the floor, echoing against the walls, resonating.

Kasamatsu Yukio/Kise Ryouta; Haizaki Shougo/Kise Ryouta; Kuroko no Basuke
possession, consent issues; demon!Haizaki
word count: 1230

The school is quiet at this time of night. Kise likes it; he likes the fact that there aren't any other students hanging around, so that they can practice in peace. As much as he likes basking in the attention of his fans, there's something to be said about these moments, when he and Kasamatsu are the only two in the gymnasium, practicing until they're both too tired to keep going.

There were more people staying late before the Winter Cup, but now it's over, there aren't any more tournaments for the rest of the school year. There's no real reason for Kasamatsu to even be hanging around this late, when he has university entrance exams to be studying for, when he's technically not even the captain any more.

Kise isn't used to that thought just yet. He hasn't yet come to terms with the fact that soon, Kasamatsu will be gone. There's an ache in his chest that isn't there when he thinks about the other third years graduating, and he knows what it is even if he refuses to give it a name. He thinks that perhaps Kasamatsu knows it too. It explains why they both stay here for as late as they can justify, even if they aren't actually talking about it, or acting on it.

"Kise," Kasamatsu says, panting softly with exhaustion as his drive is stopped for the third time in a row. "I think it's time we called it a night."

Now that Kise actually thinks about it, he realises that he's tired too. He doesn't even have the breath to reply and just nods instead, lifting his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face. He catches Kasamatsu looking at him for a moment as he pulls his shirt back down. Kasamatsu meets his eyes with a guilty expression, then turns away. Kise thinks that the tips of his ears are turning pink, and turns away as well to hide his smile, to try and stop his heart from racing with hope that maybe tonight . . .

"Let's go," Kasamatsu says softly, and leads the way to the locker room, so they can shower and change.

It's late, and Kise just wants to go home to rest, so he showers quickly. Kasamatsu is still quicker, already changed by the time Kise walks out of the showers. There's something odd about the way he's standing, like he's tense, and he isn't quite looking at Kise.

"Senpai?" he asks, walking past to his own locker.

He wonders if the tension has anything to do with before, with the way that Kise caught him staring. He wonders if they're actually going to talk about it, and he tries not to let himself hope for it, but he's aware that their time together is running short. If they're going to act on this while they still can, now would be the perfect time. Perhaps Kise shouldn't even wait for Kasamatsu at all, he thinks as he pulls his pants on, then his shirt. He could just—

Kasamatsu clears his throat. "Ryouta."

Kise freezes up, glancing over at Kasamatsu. "Did you—?"

Kasamatsu walks closer, his brow furrowed the way it usually is when he's thinking hard about something. He only stops when he's standing right in front of Kise, looking up at him.

"Why don't we just stop wasting time, huh?" He touches Kise's wrist briefly, then lets go. "We both know what we want."

He's imagined this scenario so many times before, but he has no idea what to say. Instead, he just blinks at Kasamatsu, and the first thing he can think of is, "…You called me by my name."

"Yeah."

Kise licks his lips. "Do it again?"

Kasamatsu smiles, the same approving smile that always makes Kise feel warm inside. He leans in, grabbing onto the front of Kise's shirt and tugging him forward, until their faces are closer.

Then, Kasamatsu's grin grows wider, into something that Kise recognises. Something that isn't Kasamatsu. "Ryouta."

"No," Kise gasps, feeling his stomach dropping out. He tries to pull away from Kasamatsu's grip. "Don't. Get away from here. Get out of him."

It's not Kasamatsu at all, he realises.

It's Haizaki.

When people referred to the Generation of Miracles as monsters, most didn't know exactly how right they were. Kise does. He knows that it applies to him. That it applies to Kuroko, to Aomine, to Midorima, to Murasakibara, to Akashi, to Nijimura.

Just as it applies to Haizaki too.

He's a demon, whose power is linked to his ability to steal moves from people. All it takes is for him to steal someone's move; the moment he can get in their head, he makes a path for himself to get into their soul too. He can borrow bodies—no, steal them. Never for long, and he doesn't tend to do it often, because it's draining for him, but just long enough that he can cause trouble when he wants to.

"What's the matter?" Haizaki asks, and it might still be Kasamatsu's voice, but the mockery is all his. "I thought you wanted to kiss your captain. You couldn't stop looking at him when you were on the court together, it was pathetic. You were so happy when you thought he wanted to call you by your name."

"Stop it," Kise mutters, pushing Kasamatsu—no, Haizaki—away. "I don't want this."

"Yeah you do," Haizaki goads. "You want to feel his lips against yours, don't you? You want to know what it's like, for once in your life. Before you lose your chance entirely. This guy's probably not going to make the first move, and you're too worried that he'll reject you, so you're stuck, huh? I'm helping you out here, Ryouta."

"Don't do that," Kise shudders, shaking his head. "Don't say my name in his voice."

If anything, Haizaki only grins wider. "I want you, Ryouta. I think about you all the time. I want to get my hands all over you, I want to—"

"Stop," Kise says, louder this time, pushing Haizaki against the lockers angrily. "Get out. Leave him alone."

Laughing, Haizaki uses the momentum to pull Kise closer, crashing their lips together so hard that it hurts. Kise gasps, trying to pull away, but Haizaki holds him firm, nipping at his lips until he hisses in pain.

"Get out," Kise repeats, muffled against Haizaki's—no, against Kasamatsu's lips. He wrenches himself away, just in time to catch Haizaki's grin and wink, before he's gone, just as suddenly as he came.

In his place, Kasamatsu is left pushed against the lockers, looking dazed, his lips red from their rough kiss earlier. Kise wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, feeling his heart sinking as Kasamatsu blinks at him slowly.

"Kise. What just happened?" he asks, quiet and firm.

Opening and closing his mouth, Kise shakes his head. "You won't believe me."

"Try me."

Kise balls his hands into fists at his sides. Kasamatsu isn't going to believe him no matter what he says. No one's going to believe a story about monsters, about demons, about possession.

He shakes his head harder this time. "I'm sorry, senpai. I have to go."

Picking up his bag, he walks out of the locker room, ignoring the way Kasamatsu calls after him, and refuses to let himself look back.

no tags

Matsukawa Issei/Hanamaki Takahiro Haikyuu!!, Winter/Frost God!Matsukawa/Autumn/Harvest God!Hanamaki AU

Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru; Haikyuu!!
no tags; modernised pygmalion + hinted past lives
word count: 642

At first, he comes to life under Tooru's hands. With each stroke of his pencil across the page, something from the very back of Tooru's mind takes shape in the curve of a jaw, the slope of a nose, until he looks down at a face looks back up at him from his sketchbook. It stirs something within Tooru's chest; something odd that he doesn't really know how to put his finger on.

I know you, mixed with, I want to you know you, and, I want to see you. It's too confusing for Tooru to pull apart and understand, and he chalks it up to the late hour, because he refused to go to bed until he was done with the sketch he was working on. He yawns loudly, his eyes so tired that they tear up a little. He rubs his eyes, putting his pencil down, and leaves his sketchbook open as he gets ready for bed.

That night, he dreams of—

Someone.

He can't quite put a finger on who, but he dreams of warm, rough hands on his skin, soft lips against his own, and he wakes up feeling fulfilled and lonely, all at once.

He doesn't think about it again until he's sitting at his computer later that afternoon, with his drawing tablet out. He's just sketching aimlessly at first, unsure what he wants to do, beyond the strong urge that tells him that he wants to draw.

He draws a hand at first, and it throws him right back into a vivid memory of last night's dream. He sketches it out with rough lines, unsatisfied with it when he's done because it isn't attached to anything, and it's an awkward place to start a drawing.

He deletes it, and without even having to pause for thought, he starts drawing a face.

It's the same face as the one he sketched out last night, and he doesn't even realise until he's almost done. He keeps going, and he's not entirely sure where this inspiration is coming from, but he ends up drawing shoulders, arms, a torso, and then stops there so he can start adding details. He starts with the face, drawing narrowed eyes, a mouth with lips that are just subtly curved upward, a strong jaw. He doesn't know the man that he's drawing, but at the same time, he can't shake the feeling that he does.

Tooru spends the next few days drawing him. It stretches on into weeks, and the blurry figure in his dreams starts to become clearer, until Tooru realises it's the same man he's been drawing.

He wonders if it's narcissistic, on some level, to fall in love with his own drawings. Except it's not just that, he thinks. There's something about the man that he can't quite put his finger on. Something that has turned the strange stirring in Tooru's chest into a soft ache, like he's missing something without even knowing what it is.

Not until he's walking through the shopping centre a few train stops away from where he lives, not entirely paying attention to where he's going, and bumps into someone.

"Sorry," the guy says, steadying Tooru with both hands on his shoulders.

Tooru looks up, and sucks in a sharp breath at the same time the guy in front of him goes very still.

"You," Tooru breathes.

"You."

"I think I drew you—"

"I think I dreamed you—"

They both fall silent, staring at each other until they laugh. It's a little awkward, but not entirely uncomfortable.

"I'm Oikawa Tooru," he introduces himself, with a smile.

"Oikawa," the guy repeats, and holds out his hand. "I'm Iwaizumi Hajime."

When they shake hands, Tooru swears that he recognises the warm, rough hand against his. There's an odd look in Iwaizumi's eyes that says he feels it too.

interspecies relationship, polyamory, honoka/kotori/umi, love live!!
686 words

Flights of winding staircases and miles of endless hallways later, Umi found herself at the top of the tower where the Princess Kotori was trapped. She leaned against a wall to catch her breath, gripping her sword tightly by her side. Being a knight of the queen’s court wasn’t easy, especially not when she was charged with a difficult task like this. Though she would persevere. Princess Kotori was trapped behind that door and Umi was going to save her from the wicked dragon who had caught her: or at least she would try.

Umi swallowed the lump in her throat, shoving herself against the door with all the force she could muster, barreling through it with all her strength. The door unlatched open with surprising ease. She found herself stumbling into the chamber, practically tripping over her feet as she struggled to regain her balance. Umi spun around, surveying her surroundings. “Who’s there?” she cried. “Show yourself!”

She heard a soft, familiar voice, and a laughter like the tinkling of bells. “It’s only me.”

Umi’s eyes widened as a girl with long, brown hair pushed the door open, smiling the softest and kindest of smiles. She barely had time to exclaim, “Princess Kotori!” before another girl stormed into the room, flame-haired and blue-eyed, taking a step in front of Princess Kotori and extending her hands out wide.

“What do you want with the princess?” she snarled, narrowing her eyes. “Haven’t you heard? A great and dangerous dragon lives here. She’ll kill you if you come too close.” The girl took a step closer towards Umi, who swallowed the lump in her throat. A void of pitch-dark panic was beginning to bubble up in her chest, and she couldn’t quite explain why.

Yet her sword hand didn’t waver and her stance did not shake—she had been taught to stay calm, no matter what. It was the way of the knight. Umi frowned. “I’m more than equipped to deal with her,” she said, trying to ignore the sound of her heart pounding against her ribcage. “Who are you? One of her minions?”

The girl just grinned. Umi’s grip on her sword tightened so much that her knuckles went white. In her mind, she was already charting escape routes: there was the door she’d entered from, but the window in the room was far too high for her to jump down from. This wouldn’t be too hard-- all she had to do was grab Princess Kotori, get past the girl, run through the door, and she wouldn’t have to face the dragon at all.

Umi’s mind flashed back to the lack of traps, and the lack of danger on her way up to the tower. Something about this wasn’t right. It was all too easy.

Princess Kotori was the first one to break the strange tension. “Honoka,” she said, taking the other girl by the shoulder and giving her a light shake, “Maybe if you told her I was happy here, she wouldn’t try to take me with her—“

“Eh?” The girl—Honoka, whipped around, expression softening. “That’s what you said about all the other knights, though. Then they tried to fight me, and then I had to chase them away.”

Princess Kotori shook her head. “Honoka… This one is different.” A wrinkle appeared on her pretty brow. Umi took a step back, lowering her sword slightly. “See? She’s already backing down.”

Honoka sighed. She slung her arm around Princess Kotori’s shoulder, strong and protective; a chuckle escaped her lips, along with a breath of smoke. Umi froze in her tracks. Wait. This- this could only mean one thing.

The girl—no, the dragon pressed a soft kiss on Kotori’s cheek, turning back to face Umi with a sharp glare. Now Umi knew the truth, she could see the fire dancing in Honoka’s eyes, bright and valiant as the mayhem she’d wreaked. Honoka snapped her fingers, and there was a small burst of flame.

“Well, I’m your monster, and here’s your princess. What are you going to do?”

Umi felt her sword crash onto the ground.

no major content warnings
Oikawa/Sugawara

I'm not sure how apparent I made it that Suga is a witch who makes succulents grow out of the concrete. Hopefully the magical sparkles help.

no major content warnings
Fuji/Inui

that's just red tea.

they are bonding over being immortal

narumiya mei/miyuki kazuya, daiya no ace
character death, allusions to sex. 1,384 words.

based off of the myth of icarus. :')

i.
You first meet Narumiya Mei on a day when the sun is so bright, it's near blinding, or maybe it's just his presence, the way he carries himself. A star contained in the body of a seven year old, sitting next to you at the park on the swings with his hands towards the sky.

You tell him your name, and he insists on calling you Kazuya, says, Kazuya, Kazuya, one day I'm gonna get all the way up there and touch the sky.

You tell him that he'll burn up before he even gets close, and he just laughs and laughs, and passes his juice box across to you even when he says you're the crazy one.

Mei is the crazy one, but a part of you wants to believe him.

ii.
By the time you're twelve, both of you have been taken on as apprentices in local steam shops--people are calling Mei a genius, his abilities with tools and steam as talented as an adults even at his young age.

At first, you watch Mei flourish, and there's no jealousy, just Mei, shining, shining, holding a bronze and steel bird in his handsand letting it go to the awe and delight of the crowd around them. It flies up around the crowd and lands right on your shoulder, and you roll your eyes behind your goggles when Mei grins at you.

(He's not the only genius; your land based tanks could shoot down his birds any day, any time.)

He tells you the bird is a gift from across the park, waving and smiling, cupping both of his hands over his mouth so he's heard, so you can see all the things you could be doing if we worked together.

But you wave him off and hold up the bird in your hands so he can see; you'll take his gift, but working under Takigawa Chris Yuu is worth more than any stupid bird, and if Mei can't see that, he's a fool.

iii.
The bird flies around your workshop, until one day it falls from a ceiling beam with a dull thunk onto the ground, broken into pieces.

You're too young to take it as an omen.

iv.
By the time you're sixteen, you've made a proper name for yourself. Your dad earned his life in this business through steel, and you're following in his every footsteps, in boots that had always felt just a little too small. Miyuki Steel is what every person in the business uses to make their inventions, to structure cars and trains and elevators and everything in between, and it's there that you work, with Chris in the back room, when Mei interrupts the dusty aired silence like an incoming hurricane.

He leans on the counter and knocks over your tools without a care for their placement, demands the best quality steel and flatters his way to a discount, charms Takako at the front desk until you have to come up and do something about it.

"Don't get jealous now, Kazuya," Mei says, cocky and shining, and holding a bag over his shoulder. He doesn't give you a chance to reply as he hoists it up and there's a jingle and a clang from inside. "I'm here for you."

v.
You tell Mei he's crazy for the hundredth time, when he spreads out the pieces of his latest invention. It's a skeleton, made out of low quality bronze, but it shines with promise in your dim work room, something half beautiful, half terrible, and you can't tell if the knot that starts to rise up in your stomach is from awe or from recognition.

"I've tested it with birds, and I made a miniaturized model for a mouse." Mei's explaining, his fingers skirting the edges of the frame like a lover's, over each ball joint, each man made feather, "It's got a two cylinder engine, powered by the steam joints, here."

You're not watching Mei's creation--you're watching his eyes, almost glowing in the dim workroom. There's so much pride there it almost overflows the room, ambition and something darker, something choking, a miasma of obsession that you can recognize as clear as day.

"Kazuya," he pleads, and his hand shoots across to cover yours, "I need you."

This is the worst idea you've ever had, you reply, but your fingers flex and curl underneath his, and you settle on your metaphor of a hurricane--Mei will sweep up everything in his path, whether he wants to or not.

You don't stand your ground.

(Because you don't want to.)

vi.
The two of you take six months to construct the feathers for Mei's wings, steel casing instead of down or flesh, the very definition of the modern age. They'll win him prizes--if they work, you remind him--They'll earn him fame--if you can even get off the ground--They'll let him touch the stars--and then what happens after that?

Some days you fight about it, Mei throwing barbs and you catching them, turning them around and jabbing them into his ribs, his every insecurity, because you know them like you know the air you're breathing, like you know the feeling of cold steel even through your gloves. He's an unstoppable force, you're an immovable object, but you never once tell him you could die, because it doesn't even occur to you.

vii.
"Tell me you'll watch, Kazuya, tell me I'm going to fly--" he says, hot against your mouth, his body on yours in the workshop, sinew instead of steel, his hands on your face and your hips driving into him, and you laugh, you tell him you're crazy, your ego's out of control, Mei, Mei.

He's beautiful above you like that, with the sun shining down from the high windows onto your workshop floor, and when you put your hands on his hips and arch forward and he drops his head back and almost sings, you could see a world where he'd had those wings all along.

viii.
On the day he decides to fly, it's sunny outside and Mei invites a crowd. It's unsurprising--he's the town darling and he loves the attention, can't wait to be reminded of his genius, and it makes you roll your eyes, but you told him you'd come.

You watch with the rest when the engine roars to life, when the sunlight gleams off the steel casings you'd worked together to make. Mei looks back at you, his eyes wild behind his flight goggles, and smiles, so wild and free that you think back to every time you told him this wouldn't work and wonder how he'll enact his punishment to make you eat your words.

It'll be obnoxious. Troublesome, probably.

You watch him take off with a whoop, and the crowd goes wild beneath him, all around you, people screaming his name as he swoops over their heads and starts his climb, up, up, up.

iv.
When the engine fails, you're the only person who's not surprised.

You're the only person to cast the cynicism aside and start running when you see him fall, too.

x.
The news headline the next morning is brief. Human flight proved impossible; tragic loss of a young life. Mei's picture smiles back at you on the front page, the ambitious gleam in his eyes present even in the frozen photograph, and it taunts you just for a second, I told you, I'll end up in the papers.

You're the one who picked up his broken body from where it fell into the water in the cliffsides of your village, his head lolling from his broken neck when you pull him up over your shoulder and gasp for air, and in the cruelest of irony, his body almost took you down with him, plunging straight for the deep.

His father says he probably died on impact. You're not sure if it makes you feel better or worse.

The world keeps spinning, and the gossip disappears after a day or two, people wondering if he was sabotaged, people casting odd looks your way. You keep your head down.

In the end, people forget. You keep the remains of the wings in your closet.

Life picks up and moves on.

Threaded | Flat

Page 3 of 24

FILL: TEAM KOZUME KENMA/KUROO TETSUROU, T

FILL: TEAM IWAIZUMI HAJIME/OIKAWA TOORU, T

FILL: Team Grandstand, PG

FILL: TEAM KOZUME KENMA/KUROO TETSUROU, T

FILL: Team sawamura daichi/sugawara koushi RATING: G

FILL: TEAM FURUYA SATORU/SAWAMURA EIJUN, G

FILL: TEAM KUROO TETSUROU/TSUKISHIMA KEI, T

Fill: team Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, M

Fill: team Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, G

FILL: TEAM MIYUKI KAZUYA/MIYUKI KAZUYA, T

FILL: TEAM MIYUKI KAZUYA/MIYUKI KAZUYA, T

FILL: TEAM MIYUKI KAZUYA/MIYUKI KAZUYA, G

FILL: TEAM IWAIZUMI HAJIME/OIKAWA TOORU, G

FILL: TEAM Miyuki Kazuya/Sawamura Eijun, M

FILL: Team Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou, T

FILL: Team Aldini Takumi/Yukihira Souma,T

FILL: TEAM OOKIKU FURIKABUTTE, T [1/?]

FILL: Team Kuramochi Youichi/Miyuki Kazuya, T

FILL: Team Kyoutani Kentarou/Yahaba Shigeru, T

FILL: Team sawamura daichi/sugawara koushi RATING: G

FILL: Team Kyoutani Kentarou/Yahaba Shigeru, G

FILL: Team Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou, G

FILL: Team Kanzaki Miki/Tachibana Aya, G

FILL: Team Kanzaki Miki/Tachibana Aya, G

FILL: Team Kominato Ryousuke/Kuramochi Youichi, T