I’m sorry to say that there won’t be any Shunpei in the shipping today, but that’s because this one is coming to you directly inspired by a picture from the Wizard photobook The Last Magic, which I picked up recently.
I can’t resist jacket-sharing.
12. “What’s the magic word?”
The day starts misty and cold, and Kosuke has overslept.
Overslept.
Shit.
He rolls out of Haruto’s slightly-too-small-for-both-of-them bed and nearly lands facefirst on the floor, and he’s half dressed before he realizes that he hasn’t overslept, because it’s barely seven in the morning, and also it’s Sunday. Which solves one problem, but it’s shortly replaced by another, as he finishes getting dressed and reaches for his favorite vest and finds that it isn’t there. He definitely hung it up last night, where could it have gone?
Drowsy, irritated, and slightly chilly, he wanders out to the front, only to discover Haruto sitting on the antique store couch, drinking a cup of coffee and wearing his vest. He looks up at the sound of Kosuke’s footsteps and smiles. “So you’re finally up. Wajima’s in his workshop, Shunpei went grocery shopping. Coffee?”
Kosuke blinks several times, trying to clear the sleep away. “...vest?”
Haruto looks guilty, but only slightly. “It’s cold, I wanted an extra layer.”
“I’m gonna steal your jacket.” It takes some navigating around the room’s various display tables to get to the little coat rack where Haruto’s jacket is hanging, but he manages it, although a problem presents itself when he actually puts the thing on. “On second thought, never mind.”
The bell on the door rings as Shunpei shoulders it open, three bags of groceries in his arms, and stops at the sight of Kosuke struggling to take the jacket back off. “Why are you wearing Haruto’s jacket?”
“‘m not wearing his jacket, it’s trying to wear me. Too tight in the arms.”
“Hey,” Haruto says mildly, “I’m not that skinny.”
“You are, though.” Kosuke glances at Shunpei and says, in a conspiratorial stage whisper, “He only looks like he has abs because he has no body fat.”
Shunpei hides his stifled laughter behind one of the grocery bags.
“Anyway.” The jacket goes back on its hook, and Kosuke makes his way over to the couch, drapes himself over the back, and buries his face in the side of Haruto’s neck. “Give me my vest back,” he says, muffled.
Haruto twitches ticklishly. “It’s so comfortable, though.”
“Baby, come on, I feel weird without my vest, give it back.”
“Mm. Maybe I will, what’s the magic word?”
There’s a long pause, and then Kosuke says, “Give it back or I’m going to take it off you myself.”
“That’s, uh. Not the one I was talking about.”
“Oh, you got all pink, I love when you get all pink.” Kosuke thinks about it for a moment, face still hidden in between Haruto’s neck and the furry collar of the vest. “Give me my vest back and I’ll take the rest of your clothes off you myself.” Another pause, and then, in a somewhat-accurate impression of Haruto’s Driver, “Please.”
At this point Shunpei, who’s been standing there listening to them with his face hidden behind the groceries so they can’t see him laughing, turns bright red and hurries out of the room, mumbling something about putting everything away.
Haruto raises an eyebrow, turning to look at Kosuke as best as he can. “But what if I get cold without your vest?”
"I'll keep you warm with my, my ancient magics."
“Well, that sounds fun, which ones?”
“The...sexy ones.”
“I didn’t know you had those.”
“I gotta, I have to have sexy ancient magics, I’ll ask Khimaira. Later, I’ll ask him later, come on, please come back to bed, it’s cold and there’s nothing happening today.”
“But what if I come back to bed with you and then decide to keep your vest anyway?”
Kosuke makes an irritated grumbling noise into Haruto’s shoulder, takes his empty coffee cup and puts it aside, and then grabs Haruto by the waist and picks him up bodily from the couch.
Haruto lets out a startled yelping noise and attempts to say, “Put me down,” to the small of Kosuke’s back, although it dissolves into laughter at the end.
“Sure I will.” Kosuke pats him on the hip and turns to head back to the bedroom. “But you gotta say the magic word first.”
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Duck could feel himself drifting off. “You know what I think?” he said softly. His thumb traced circles on Indrid’s shoulder. “You’re just as human as the rest of us.”
Indrid took a deep breath and slowly, slowly, let it out. “I don’t want to be human,” he whispered. His voice was as soft as sand rushing through an hourglass. “I just want to... be.”
There was a lump in Duck’s throat. “I mean you belong here,” he said, “if you want to be. On Earth. With us.”
But Indrid was already asleep.
send me a 🌹, I’ll post a random sentence from my WIP!
that big monster benry is so fucking cool holy fuck
YEAH, FUCK! HE’S SO COOL!!!! HE LIVES IN MY BRAIN RENT FREE!!! the fic that’s attached to it is surprisingly really good, too - it’s really creative and very well-written, esp considering everything the source material is. christ, that gif though. it’s so GOOD
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Ok, I shit you not, my dear, I have been thinking about this prompt all goddamn day, and I’m grateful to you, because it’s giving me the chance to go back to a fic idea I wrote about half of two months ago and then abandoned. The original thing was inspired by Dorian Electra’s track “Man To Man,” which is a very beautiful song about the inherent eroticism of beating the ever-loving tar out of your bro as a viable alternative to a confession of love. This story is...not that, but bits of its genesis remain.
Surprisingly, it’s Kazumi’s idea first, pacing like a trapped cat in the lab until finally Sento asks what his problem is and he says, “Look, I’m going fucking crazy with all this waiting, can we do something? I saw a gym a few streets over, do you think it has a pool or something?”
Banjou perks up, and Gentoku says, “It’s worth checking, at least,” and Misora and Sawa both agree that swimming could be nice, and Sento is dubious but finally acknowledges that at the very least he needs to go outside for a bit.
The gym was busy only a week ago, a popular spot for the city’s few professional sports players and occasional wealthy fitness enthusiasts, but now that almost everyone’s evacuated it’s a ghost town. They didn’t even have to break the lock to get in; whoever was last here left it open--maybe it was an oversight, but it’s just as likely that they didn’t care. The place is untouched, anyway, equipment dusty but in pristine working condition, the water still running, the refrigerators in the little shop still humming along as they preserve a variably-absurd selection of sports drinks.
Unfortunately, there’s no pool, but there are heavy bags, and the tension visibly goes out of Banjou’s shoulders when he sees them. “I’m gonna...” he gestures at them vaguely. “It’s been. So long since I actually got to punch something in a normal way.” He steals a package of hand-wraps from the shop, strips off his shirt, and in moments he’s off in his own little world, methodically beating down whatever opponent his chosen heavy bag embodies.
After a minute of staring at this, Misora and Sawa grab a bag of pretzels, find a bench to sit on, and settle down to watch him.
“I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing here,” Sento says to the air.
“You could also watch Banjou punch things.” Misora offers him the bag. “It’s not like you don’t spend enough time staring at him as it is.”
Sento turns bright red, makes an indignant noise, and then sits down next to her and takes a handful of pretzels.
Gentoku wanders around the room for a few minutes, looking at the various machines, and then grabs another two packages of hand-wraps from the shop and throws one to Kazumi. “Hey, Potato. Fight me?”
“I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with these things, Beardy.” Kazumi waves the package at him. “Also, since when do you box?”
“I was in the judo club in high school until the meetings started interfering with Model UN. And I boxed a bit in college. You don’t know how to wrap your hands?”
“No, who does that? I mean except him, he’s like. A professional. Me and the boys used to fight for fun, but we never used these things.”
Banjou stops dead and turns a disbelieving stare at him. “What kind of fighting were you doing?”
Kazumi shrugs. “You know. Boxing. Clear out a space in the barn, get some whiskey, fight until everyone’s either bored, unconscious, or too drunk to stand up.”
“You used to fight bare-knuckle in a barn?”
“It’s moments like this when I remember that I’m surrounded by city people.”
“I don’t know if this makes me respect you more or less.”
“Yeah, that’s part of my appeal.” Kazumi’s already pulling off his coat and shirt. “Nobody can make up their damn mind about me.”
“This is much more fun than I was expecting,” Sawa says to nobody as Gentoku and Kazumi start circling each other. “I mean, no pool, but I think this is better.”
For the next ten minutes or so nobody really talks. Banjou beats up the heavy bag. Gentoku and Kazumi feint at each other and land very few actual hits. Misora and Sawa watch them, passing the bag of pretzels back and forth and occasional murmuring to each other. Sento also watches and has some pretzels, but then he pulls a piece of the Hassyar out of his coat pocket and settles in to repair it.
The silence is finally broken when his precision screwdriver clatters to the floor and rolls away. “Fucking--”
Banjou steps away from the heavy bag, grabs the screwdriver, and brings it back over, crouching down to hold the piece steady while Sento screws the panel back on. “This shit’s tiny, how do you do this without getting a headache?”
“I don’t, I always have a headache. And my hands cramp up.”
“Maybe you need wraps.” Banjou takes the piece and the screwdriver from Sento and sets them aside on the bench before taking one of Sento’s hands in both of his. “Here, one of my instructors taught me this for dealing with arthritis stuff, it’s really good for--” and stops. “Sento, when did you break your finger?”
Sento frowns. “What? I didn’t break my finger.”
“Don’t bullshit me, this finger was broken. And not set right. It wasn’t, like, a big break, but it was definitely broken.” Banjou frowns down at Sento’s hand. “So was this one. And this one might have--lemme see the other one.” He grabs Sento’s other hand over Sento’s irritated protest. “I’m seeing...at least two breaks here, and none of them healed right.” Beat. “Sento, make a fist.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, asshole, I need to see something.”
Sento scowls and curls his right hand into a fist.
Banjou looks at it closely, and his eyebrows draw down. “Who taught you how to punch? Isurugi must have--he just put you in the suit but didn’t teach you how to hit someone?” At Sento’s flinch, “Look, don’t answer that, just. I mean at least your thumb is outside your fist? That’s something? Because otherwise you would have broken your thumb and you would definitely have noticed that. Have you just been breaking your fingers all this time and ignoring it? Didn’t you care that they hurt?” As he’s talking, his hands are busy, adjusting the curl of Sento’s fingers, the position of his thumb.
Sento sounds more weary than anything when he says, “All of me hurts, Banjou. I don’t know why my hands should be any different.”
Everyone is already turning politely away as Banjou goes a bit red in the face and says, quietly, “Well, I care that your hands hurt.” Then, louder, “Come on, stand up, I’m going to show you how to punch.”
“Can’t I just watch you three and figure it out?” Sento isn’t actually fighting as Banjou pulls him to his feet. “I have things I could be working on.”
“No, you can’t just watch me, you have to feel how it works. And you definitely can’t watch them, because they have terrible goddamn form,” said loudly over his shoulder in the direction of Kazumi and Gentoku, who pause in the middle of trading headlocks to flip him off. “And also when’s the next time I’m gonna get to be the one who knows something you don’t know?”
“You’re never going to let me forget this, are you.” Sento pulls off his sweater. His mouth has a familiar twitch at the corners, as if he’s trying desperately to suppress a smile.
“Hell no, I’m gonna be riding this high for at least a week.” Banjou grins at him. “Come on, smart guy. Punch me.”
A sunflower is a good and gentle thing! I puzzled a little bit over what would be the best thing to post in response to a sunflower, and then found a story start I’d actually forgotten about entirely. The title in the file is “Pellucid,” and the beginning, at least, is about Philip receiving an unexpected visit while he’s doing some research.
God appears to Philip while he's in the stacks.
Fortunately he's reading for his own pleasure, not in the middle of a lookup, so none of the others are around to get worried. Briefly he's concerned that he might be unwell, that this might be a hallucination, but then the sweet smell of fruit hits him and he knows it's real.
"Kazuraba Kouta," he says, putting aside his book on ballroom dance. "This is an unexpected visit."
"Yeah," says Kouta, "I'm kind of surprised myself, I wasn't expecting to be able to show up so easily here."
"Maybe manifestation is easier for you here because this isn't a physical place." Philip taps his chin thoughtfully. "It is, at least in part, an extension of my mind. Maybe one could call it a shared dreamscape."
"You know, that does make sense. Anyway, you look like life's been treating you well. How's Shoutaro?"
"He's admirably healthy and in good spirits, thank you." Philip takes a moment to consider phrasing. "How have you been enjoying the experience of godhood so far? I imagine it's very different."
"It's..." Kouta pauses before saying, "It's a lot. It's hard to describe. Actually, I'm surprised you haven't read about it before."
"I have limited access to information about Helheim, since it's not Earth. I've read Sengoku Ryouma's research notes, but the most detailed files are locked to me."
"Really? Hang on, I think...I think I can give you access." Kouta stares fixedly into space for a long moment, and the smell of fruit intensifies, and then he passes Philip an elaborately designed book that appears in his hand even as he's reaching out to give it. "Here."
The book is warm to the touch, and the cover has the soft-smooth texture of flower petals. Embossed on the spine are the words "Helheim Forest." It's very beautiful, and in the act of taking it Philip falls to his knees in brief, blinding agony as something opens up within his mind.
When he opens his eyes Kouta is looking concerned. "Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't realize it would hurt."
"Neither did I. It's all right. Sometimes the pursuit of knowledge is painful." Philip's hands sting, but he doesn't drop the book. "But I assume you've appeared to me today for reasons other than idle conversation. What can I help you with?"
