He squints at Choji's curved back in expectant silence until his patience wares away to nothing, then heroically holds out another minute, because he's a reasonable and level-headed kind of guy like that. Eventually, when Sasuke truly cannot take it anymore, he asks "Why does it bother you? You are fat. That's your whole thing. Your clan is strong because they're fat. What's the problem?"
"It's not—!" Choji starts, and then stops with a furious, bitten-off noise. He yanks a hand through his hair and just rips right through the thick curls when they get tangled around his fingers.
"It's not what they say, it's how they say it," He huffs. "Like — like fat is a bad word. Or like the Akimichi are just fat. Like it doesn't matter that my ancestors spent so long finding ways to do things nobody else could do, and making our clan strong, and using that strength to protect people who couldn't protect themselves. Or, or like since I'm fat I can't be anything else. I can't be smart or kind or worth being friends with, because I'm fat. I'm fat and the only thing that matters is the way I look. It's — I didn't do anything wrong! So what if I like to eat? Why is that bothering anybody? Why does that make me, make me stupid and slow and lazy and bad? I'm trying my best! I get good grades, I'm training hard! I do just as well as anybody else and none of it means anything because I'm fat!"
He's shouting by the end of it, fists and eyes clenched shut, face flushed red.
Sasuke has seen Choji's anger thunder the heavens. Every footstep a calamity, his shadow stretching miles long and swallowing over battlefields of the undead. Compared to the man he was the last time around, the child in front of Sasuke now is… well. A child, weak and soft and petulant, full of directionless anger that's doing more to choke him than it is to make him stronger.
Sasuke bends to pick up his own discarded bento. The lid came loose, but unlike Choji's lunch which is now all over the ground, Sasuke only lost a handful of rice, and it doesn't look like any dirt has gotten into the container. He wipes the chopsticks on his shirt to be sure, then presses the whole thing into Choji's hands. Says "Fuck 'em."
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Sabo is in a hole-in-the-wall diner getting lunch while he waits for a pick-up after a recon mission when suddenly a guy with a vaguely familiar face (dark hair, light eyes, freckles) sits across from him at the same table and says "Chair leg. Hot sauce. Chicken."
Before Sabo can ask for clarification about any of that, the little kid at the table next to his who'd been rocking in his chair since he sat down suffers the inevitable consequences of that: a chair leg breaks and the kid goes tumbling back. He's fine, the adult he's with catches him, but the packet of hot sauce he was holding gets crushed in his little fist and it's contents are squirted clear across the room, where they land directly in the eye of a passing waiter. The poor man makes a shocked, pained sound that somehow sounds exactly like a squawking chicken.
In haunting unison with Sabo, the freckled man says, "That's quite a trick. Ah, so is that. Alright, I'll bite, what do you want?"
The man holds up a hand. Wary but curious, Sabo lets him talk.
“Your name is Sabo,” the man says. “You're a noble from Goa kingdom. When you were ten you were blown up by a Celestial Dragon in the waters around Dawn Island and you got picked up by Dragon the Revolutionary do not FUCKING stab me again!”
Sabo, who had in fact been reaching for a knife up his sleeve, pauses. “Again?”
The man gives him a look of absolute exhaustion. "I'm Ace," he says. "I'm your brother. You don't remember me because you have amnesia. We keep having this fucking conversation because I'm stuck in a fucking time loop and I swear to god if you stab me again I'm going to lose my fucking mind."
Sabo puts the knife away again. “… Alright,” he says. “Sure. I guess I’ve got a few hours to kill.”
The man — Ace — drags his hands over his face. “I am so fucking sick of hearing you say that.”
Mr Professor flew through the wide halls of the castle, back to the throne room that sat at the very front of the opalescent building. He had ordered guards at the stairs to the Academy wing, so that none of the recruits would be able to wander their way into the Royal wing and make any complications. They were all young and impulsive, biting at the chance to prove themselves or learn more or simply make trouble, and he had more important things to do than babysit some humans (and assorted others apparently) to make sure they did not make such trouble. No, he had far more pressing matters.
He landed by the thrown, the moment his claws hit the granite floors they turned to boots and his form folded into itself until he stood as a man. Long black cloak drapped across the ground, small glasses upon his nose, and black hair greased back. The queen did not move from where she stood by the window, watching the sunset with a hard look upon her soft face.
"It is done then?" She asked softly.
"It is."
Her breath stuttered and she nodded, gently closing the drapes. "How many causalities?"
"Five recruits, Thirty dragons."
"And each dragon had an egg?"
"Yes."
"Good." She stepped away and crossed to her throne, hand resting on the arm of it, looking down upon it with the lightest of smiles, almost a frown if they were in different light, "I would hate to waste more lives than necessary."
She turned to him holding out a hand, and he took it, pressing his lips to the royal crest upon her finger, then gently led her around the front of the throne so she may sit.
"How long till the eggs hatch then?" She asked, shifting daintly upon the throne as he then stood to her side.
"Days now," he answered, "They'll be bonded with their riders immediately, as their parents' bond will awaken the magic within them, they'll know nothing but their rider's hands and no home but this castle. The perfect weapons to wield, both dragon and magic users alike."
Her eyes closed, "Perfect. We'll finally have the means to drive this Darkness back, no more wrestling with wild dragons that refuse commands. A perfect hand-raised army."
Mr. Professor hummed at that, "That is, if the recuits do well. Many of them seem to be quite stupid."
She chuckled, "Perhaps! But there are so few that can be atuned to dragons, they'll just have to do. If they become a problem we have methods to fix said problems. I trust my guards and your teachers to whip them into shape."
"They're certainly no trained soldiers," he replied, "But, yes, we'll do what we can with them. At the very least them being imbeciles mean they will not grow wise until we can explain our reasonings."
"Let's hope it doesn't come to that, Professor."
"Of course, my queen."
– – –
On the other side of the castle, tucked in a dorm, a recruit—a rider—a new parent holds their egg to their chest. They whisper soft apologies as they mourn a life they barely knew and blame themselves for the loss, with no knowledge of the conversation happening far out of earshot. No on able or willing to tell them that are free of the guilt they feel.
It's actually 2 AUs because they have different set ups but let's do my favourite
So, imagine you're an Auditor, or the Auditors, and you want these stupid alive things to just stop doing that. You realise, eventually, that Ankh-Morpork seems to be a central part of your problems - specifically, that people from Ankh-Morpork, or from places that Ankh-Morpork has somehow changed for the better (for example by not letting a dragon destroy them or not going to war with them), keeping fucking you over!!
And as you look at Ankh-Morporks history, which you can do because you're not bound to stupid human concepts, you realise that they were well on the path to eventual self destruction and making the disc worse for everyone involved until some twink graduates from the assassins guild and a few years afterwards becomes Patrician. You now collectively hate this twink.
As previously mentioned you aren't bound by stupid human concepts and decide that the best (if most morally fucked up) way to deal with this is to kill him as a child, because by the time he's graduated he's already impacted too many things and it's really best to get him out of the way early. Death notices. He was not supposed to die so early. While Death isn't going around resurrecting people (that's certainly not his job), this is a correction that needs to be made. The Auditors are overstepping again.
(It doesn't help that they did a terrible job. This kid is suffering.)
Havelock wakes up in the bony arms of Death, and he's like four so he doesn't care about being "scared" or "uneasy". He's also forever changed, but they haven't noticed that yet. To keep messing with the Auditors plans, Death continues to check in, occasionally foiling a murder attempt (although as Havelock gets older there's less and less need to actually do something other than warn him).
Havelock always knows he's there, weirdest godfather ever. Death gets attached, Havelock gets attached, they're both just pretending that's not true. Susan accepts him as an uncle despite both him and Death protesting that that's not their relationship at all.
During those times that Death steps out of his role Susan bears the brunt of it, but Havelock is more than tangentially affected - you have to get a handle on accidentally walking through solid doors around other people or it gives the game away.
During Hogfather, all that excess belief doesn't just make veruca gnomes and sock eaters. The concept of Ankh-Morporks Patrician was already pretty strong, and Vetinari had added all sorts of mythos to it by virtue of just being good at his job. One million people in Ankh-Morpork and even if they don't like the Patrician they certainly believe in him.
The Patrician knows everything that happens in the city, one person thinks. (Or two or three or twenty)
Havelock's head hurts. There are noises and images in his thoughts and they're loud and not his.
Another person thinks offhandedly, gods I bet the Patrician could get this damn wall taken down. (Of course of course they mean through bureaucracy but for part of them they mean by will)
Havelock takes a shortcut that wasn't there before and won't be afterwards, and he's starting to catch on.
One person thinks, I'm dying and no one knows. And sarcastically, desperately: the Patrician probably knows.
Any door Havelock opens could be the way to a lifetimer room with one million hourglasses inside, citizens of Ankh-Morpork, people who will die in his city.
The Hogfather is saved, and it doesn't go away. That excess belief isn't excess anymore, it simply is.
Death comes to see him, and Havelock shows him the lifetimer room, and Death tries to be reassuring.
IT IS STILL MY JURISDICTION. YOU ARE NOT EXPECTED TO DO ANYTHING EXCEPT WHAT YOU ARE ALREADY DOING, CARING FOR THEM IN LIFE.
"I wanted to retire! Not now, gods not even soon, but eventually-"
AH. YES, I'M AFRAID THAT IS NO LONGER ON THE TABLE, AS THEY SAY. THERE IS... SOMETHING I MUST SHOW YOU.
And Havelock looks in horror at the endlessly falling sand of his lifetimer, now large and settled near the immortals, the Hogfather and the Soul Cake Duck and-
The Patrician, eternal? That wasn't what he wanted! He doesn't want-
"I don't want this."
YOU DON'T WANT TO DIE YET, EITHER, I BELIEVE. THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED. ALTHOUGH, WE BOTH KNOW THAT DEATH IS ONLY SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS AT THE END OF LIFE.
“But not for me, anymore."
I’M AFRAID NOT. IT WILL BE A LONG LIFE, FOR YOU.
“Is it living, if there's no end? No- no rest?"
THAT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU DO WITH IT, I'M SURE. YOU HAVE A GOOD STARTING POINT.
And Havelock doesn't exactly have a choice. He can't force the belief to fade without making the choice to neglect his duties, because as long as he's pulling strings the people will believe he's a puppet master - he looks in the mirror and the grey hairs at his temples are gone, because that is not what the Patrician looks like. Ankh-Morpork tells him everything, and he quickly has to learn to filter it or he'll go mad. Anonymous tips to the Watch surge after Hogswatch, and it only bolsters belief.
He's not ageing.
But, it's his city. What else is he going to do?
Eventually people will take him for granted, and belief will fade, and he can retire. Hopefully. Maybe. Eventually.
Until then, Ankh-Morpork has a god. A patron god, even. One who doesn't even need an organised religion! That's going to draw attention when others notice.
The other version is that during Hogfather all this stuff happens it's just that the Auditors never interfered with his childhood so he hadn't met Death until Death came to give him the "oops! You're an anthropomorphic personification, now what?" talk. That one features Vetinari accidentally learning to walk through things just because he's just that kind of person I think, and him being able to see Death regular style his entire life but politely ignoring him so as to not interrupt anything or embarrass him.
Jack didn’t notice her, not really; knows he hadn’t thought much of her excitement in joining them in the E.D when she had shown up for her first morning shift. Knows he had made a sharp crack about her getting nothing from this job but suicidal tendencies that Robby had tried to sooth the rough edges off. Remembers being surprised when she fought to be able to donate blood and ended up getting Dana to prod any who can to donate during the insanity that Pittfest turned into. He remembers he had been impressed even as he worked on patients at how far she was willing to go to save the life of a patient. Then there was no more time to notice anything but take action after action to save as many people as he could.
He didn’t notice her, not really - noticed bits and pieces of her but didn’t truly start to notice her till some days into the aftermath of that hellish day. Started to notice how she flits about the E.R, zip fast yet bright, during those hectic moments during hand off between day shift and night. Noticed that she spoke stutteringly but assured in a way that was quiet; nearly unintrusive. How oddly warm she is as he overhears her comforting patients as she goes from room to room, awkward at first but still warm. It reminds him of Mohan, who is similarly warm but there’s an edge to hers like she’s desperate for something. King, on the other hand, has the warmth of a steady flame. He notices how steady her hands are that they barely ever shake during whatever procedure she's performing, steady and smooth in their movements. Even as her voice goes a little high and anxious, her hands never tremble.
It's fascinating, the dichotomy of being seemingly held in balance in one person.
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Chapter 2 of my fanfiction Spirt of Freedom is finally up!
Chapter preview:
Lucanis Dellamorte wasn’t sure which he found more tiresome. The drone-like chanting of the insufferable cultists. Or the incessant chatter of his demon companion. He wasn’t sure why, but for the past few days the demon, Spite, had been more agitated than usual. One day the Ossuary was the usual nightmare and the next the Venatori were running around shipping off the other resident demons to Maker-knows-where. All the while Spite went on and on about the Veil opening and feeling the Fade closer. Everything led up to this morning when his jailers forced him back into the clothes he had been captured in, telling him that he needed to be presentable when delivered to “Our Lady.” The mere mention of that Venatori bitch made Lucanis want to vomit from disgust.
He thought he’d be happier to be back in his own clothes rather than the rags they usually kept him in, but instead he felt miserable. The once well fitting armor now hung too loosely on his body. It was humiliating to have proof of just how much weight he had lost over the last year. It made him want to tear his way through the Ossuary, killing anything in his way.
Thanks to their damnable blood magic they had managed to transport him away from his usual cell in preparation for his evacuation. Now he sat in a cramped ice crystal structure as his senses were suppressed by magic, while everyone else in the room wouldn’t shut up.
As if reading his mind (maybe he really did) Spite went silent, though only for a moment.
“New. Smells.”
“What?”
“New. Smells. Not here before. Don’t belong here.”
She's been forgotten. All she can feel about this is something terribly blank. There's enough of her left to keep walking, but not to expect a way out. She imagines that somewhere out there, reality has reknit itself around her absence, that her father is safe, that Agatha and Samuel won't miss her. It could be a comfort, if anything could be.
She imagines she can hear Lupi whine, somewhere, hurting. Without her for the first time in his life. (Will he have anyone now?) It hurts. She imagines she can hear footsteps--
She turns.
There's a familiar stranger walking toward her, a limp dog in his arms.
or, Mia, who thinks she's about to get unexisted, Jaser, who knows he's going to, and Lupi, who thinks he deserves all the petting in the world. And they hug about it.
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Organization for Transformative Works
i did not end up finishing any of my @tododekuweek fics in time but!! here is a snippet for day 1 and the full thing will be up on ao3 uh. sometime. probably
~
theme: summer vacation
~
Shoto spends his second year at U.A. in various states of drowning.
It goes something like this: most days, he floats. He keeps his head up, talks with his friends over lunch, smiles when Midoriya catches his gaze from across the room, laughs at Kaminari’s antics and Shinsou’s sarcasm. Calls his family at least once a week. A good friend, a good brother, a good son. A lake, frozen over, glassy and bright.
Every night, his footsteps shatter the ice and he plunges in. Thrashes around in the inky dark and wakes up with bile in his throat and water in his lungs.
He makes tea. The simple, familiar process is a balm to his frayed nerves, and it washes away the bitter taste in his mouth. Wake up, panic, drink tea, go back to sleep. Rinse and repeat. It keeps his head above the water, and it’s not enough but it has to be.
Two weeks before summer break, he runs into Midoriya. It’s just after two in the morning, and he pads into the kitchen to see Midoriya bent over the sink, scrubbing at his face. Shoto is about to turn around, but Midoriya beats him to it.
“Todoroki?,” he mumbles, voice thick with sleep and something else. “What’re you doing up?”
“I had a bad dream,” Shoto responds, because he can’t think of a lie and he’s never been able to hide anything from Midoriya anyway.
“Me too,” Midoriya says before Shoto can ask what he’s doing up, and once his eyes adjust to the dark he can just barely make out the puffiness under the other boy’s eyes. Midoriya sniffles, turns away to open a cabinet, scrabbles blindly for a mug then looks blankly at it in his hand like he’s already forgotten why he picked it up.
“Need some water,” he says after a long moment, and Shoto tilts his head.
“I like to make tea after a bad dream,” he says. “Would you like some?”
“Oh.” Midoriya blinks owlishly at him. “Um, I mean, yes. Thank you.”
“No problem.”
He makes twice his usual batch, then sits with Midoriya because going straight back to his room feels rude, somehow. And he likes being around Midoriya, who usually fills any dead air with idle chatter but is now quiet and pensive, staring into his mug as if he might find within it the secrets of the universe. The silence stretches out comfortably, peaceably, until the tea is gone and Shoto is once again keenly aware of just how tired he is.
“Thanks for the tea,” Midoriya says, and he sounds a little bit lighter. “It was really good.”
“I’m glad,” Shoto responds. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”
“Had a lot of bad dreams?,” Midoriya asks, and it’s kind of a joke but Shoto nods and Midoriya’s shoulders sag ever so slightly.
“Me too,” he says again, and Shoto has no idea how to respond to that.
“...Good night, Todoroki.”
“Good night, Midoriya.”
~
He writes it off as a coincidence, but all of two nights later Midoriya is sitting at the kitchen table, looking forlornly at a mostly-full mug. When Shoto gets closer, he sees a handful of dark specks floating sadly in the water.
“I tried to make tea,” Midoriya says by way of greeting. “But it just tastes like leafy water.”
Shoto smiles a little, despite himself. He would bemoan the waste if Yaoyorozu didn’t keep the kitchen so well-stocked. “I can show you how,” he suggests, and Midoriya perks up.
“Yes please,” he says, and so Shoto goes through the motions a little more deliberately than usual, even deigns to use the electric kettle instead of heating the water himself. Midoriya watches intently, and Shoto is disorientingly aware of his presence. Not unpleasant, just unfamiliar.
“Thank you,” Midoriya says quietly when he’s done. Shoto nods. He appreciates many things about Midoriya, and one of the things he appreciates most is that he never expects Shoto to talk. Usually, when Midoriya is his typical chatty self, all he needs to do is listen. And now, as they sit together, cradling their mugs and occasionally meeting each others’ eyes through the steam, the silence feels…
Private. Raw, almost. Like Midoriya is letting him in, trusting Shoto to see him quiet, sorrowful, vulnerable. He wonders if Midoriya thinks the same about him. If the other boy’s gaze really is as piercing as it looks, seeing right through Shoto’s frozen surface and into the heart of the roiling storm below.
A small, confused part of him hopes that it is. That Midoriya sees him, really sees him. Sees the things he wishes he knew how to talk about.
“Todoroki?,” Midoriya asks, and he looks up. “How often do you, um…”
He trails off, and Shoto tilts his head. Midoriya takes a deep breath, then forges ahead.
“How often do you make tea?”
It’s not the question he wants to ask, and they both know it, and Midoriya sounds terrified that he might be pushing too far but Shoto is so relieved.
“...Every night,” he says after a long moment. Something behind Midoriya’s eyes breaks, just a little.
“I, um.” His gaze drops, away from Shoto’s, and his hands curl tighter around the mug. “I…not every night. But…most nights.”
“I’m sorry,” Shoto says softly, and Midoriya gives him a small, wobbly smile.
“Me too,” he responds. “And thank you, again. For the tea, and…” He gestures vaguely at the air. “It’s, um, nice. Not being alone.”
Shoto nods. It is nice. Comforting, to share this fragile space. To have a shore to reach for while adrift.
“We should probably get some sleep,” Midoriya murmurs, and (i want to share this silence with you just a little bit longer) Shoto nods again.
“Good night, Midoriya,” he says thickly, and when Midoriya’s hand reaches out to rest on his shoulder his breath stills.
“Good night, Todoroki,” Midoriya responds, and the weight of his hand lingers long, long after it’s gone.
~
The next night, Midoriya isn’t there but something prickles in Shoto’s chest and so he makes two mugs of tea and waits.
The microwave shows the time, little neon green display just bright enough to stand out painfully in the dark. Shoto counts forty-three minutes before Midoriya shuffles into view, pale and haunted. Their eyes meet, and Midoriya hurriedly tries to blink away the shine of tears. Shoto simply warms a mug with his hand and slides it over.
It becomes something of a routine. Wake up, panic, drink tea with Midoriya, go back to sleep. Sometimes they talk, quiet and hesitant, tiptoeing around the conversations Shoto wants to have but doesn’t know how to start. More often, they sit and let the silence relax into something resembling peace, and it’s still not quite enough but it’s certainly better than drowning alone.
He learns that Midoriya is fond of physical contact; bumped shoulders, brushed knuckles, a hug that Shoto freezes under for half a second and then returns, hands unconsciously curling into the other boy’s shirt. He learns that his first instinct is to flee and his second is to cling, that he craves gentleness, craves touch that doesn’t mean pain. He learns that Midoriya’s right hand is gnarled and webbed with scars and that his left hand is soft and warm.
The first day of summer break, as they wait for the trains, Midoriya folds his arms around Shoto’s chest and tucks his head under Shoto’s chin and they stand that way for a long, long time.
