#shoomp

what happened was, i was cleaning the cobwebs from under the windowsill with the new vacuum when i thought to myself “haha man. this new vac is so powerful. i bet it can suck the paint right off the walls.”

24. The protection of laughter.

Wrathion laughs when you mention black dragons.

Depending on how exactly it’s brought up, it can be anything from a quiet, condescending chuckle to a mock-amused, head-reeling fit.

Anduin hates it at first. It’s petty of him, he knows, but every time the topic comes up, either with him or with someone within earshot, Wrathion laughs it away. And Anduin can’t stand that, when Wrathion hears words like ‘black dragon’ or ‘World Breaker’ or 'Onyxia’, he laughs, like it’s easy, like it’s fine, like it’ll all be okay.

He thinks Wrathion is mocking him or making fun of him when champions, well-intended but still rude, ask about Anduin’s past with black dragons when Wrathion is sitting right across the table. Because Wrathion laughs it away, sometimes before Anduin can even say anything.

And one day Anduin says something less than considerate, something petty, in response to a champion’s well-intended but still rude question, and he notices the laughter die right in Wrathion’s mouth. There’s only a fraction of a second, between when Anduin looks and Wrathion avoids, but in that fraction he sees it. A glimpse behind the laughter, and what’s hidden there is not mockery and it’s not all okay.

He can’t stop noticing things after that.

Wrathion laughs when you mention black dragons. He tenses, his eyes widen, the muscles in his smile strain, his back straightens, his words are faster, his knuckles need to be popped, his heart races. And he laughs to hide it all.

It’s all so subtle, and it takes Anduin forever to unravel it because it’s unlike anything else that rubs Wrathion the wrong way. Anduin knows what his anger looks like from their board game. He knows what his disgust looks like because once in a while he doesn’t like Tong’s newest brew. He knows what his hatred looks like because there’s no other way to describe how he feels about the Burning Legion.

This is none of those. This is something else, something that lacks those things’ fire; something Wrathion needs to burn up some other way. Eventually, Anduin gets so good at seeing it that he can see the mention of black dragons smolder in Wrathion’s mind for hours, making his nose crinkle and his breath labor. It’s consuming, distracting, suffocating.