#uproar

🧋MinaseRio🧋

“H-hi, Mr. Vex..!” she spoke in a slightly nervous tone. “My name is Sack-Chan, owner of the Vex fanclub! And… *she holds up some sort of makeshift poster reading “JOIN THE VEX FANCLUB TODAY!!!” and a small pencil to Vex* ..You see I’ve always wanted to meet you face to face ever since i first saw you in Loom that one time, so would it be possible if i could uhhh… get your autograph? Please?”

Recoiling backward with a hand pressed against his chest in mock surprise, he quickly regained his composure. Eyeing you with a cautious expression, he couldn't tell whether you were being sincere or not. Despite the chaos occurring around you both within the Uproar, his demeanor remained unfazed.

"Well now! If it isn't an adoring fan! You are fortunate you happened across me while I was in one of my generous moods! However, seeing as you have come with a request, I offer you a token of my hospitality!" Chuckling, he scoops up the poster and pencil." Not bad! It's almost like looking in a mirror! It doesn't compare to the original though!"

Scrawling his signature across its surface, he snapped his claws. A familiar insignia materialized onto the piece of parchment, signifying the Overlord of the Uproar had graced you with his presence. Crouching down, he extended the poster out to you once more.

"Don't let it go to your head now! The last thing we need is rabid fan girls intruding on my domain!" A familiar dark chuckle emnated from his chest, his smile so wide his stitches strained." Now then, why don't you be on your way? Wait! Loom?! Tell me, what do you know of my latest conquest?"

Just gonna keep going on this one! First part of this chapter is here, and per usual I will be uploading the whole thing to Ao3 once it's done (in about thirty years).

So morning slid into afternoon without any passage of time, curled in pot smoke and sunlight. Tāne found himself bundled noisily into Geri and Miriam’s truck, smushed against Geri on one side and Madigan on the other, while Miriam rode in the flatbed to steady the homemade wine they were carting to Hemi’s.

Tāne and Madigan could have walked, as Hemi’s was not far down the hill on the other side, and there was a path through sheep fields and bush that would have got them there in fifteen minutes, rather than the twenty-five it took on the road. But then they would have missed Geri cursing every bump and pothole, checking her rearview five seconds to five seconds to see that Miriam hadn’t pitched off onto the verge. And there was Madigan—smooth and cool now in a patterned Hawaiian shirt studded with palm trees and lurid coconuts that made him look like a suburban dad on vacation, in the best possible way—clinging to the door frame through his open window and smiling.

Tāne tried to sit in the moment, but the joy was bursting out of him, and the ache with which he wanted this, always.

Hemi’s place was almost equidistant between town and the farms. It had begun life as a glorified shack; Hemi bought it, and the parcel of land it sat on, for next to nothing. Then he worked it and shaped it into a house that reflected himself, a home that had been nursed and incubated and then cut from his thigh, from the tin-roofed shed surrounding a DJ booth to the greenhouse out the back where he grew herbs and flowers that cascaded like the tā moko on his neck.

The wine-dredged truck pulled up onto the yard. Miriam was the first to topple over and out, catching wine casks as they slid into her arms, followed by Tāne and Madigan on sea legs.

He could smell the smoke from the hāngī before he saw them: Hemi and Tick and Louie stood in the posture of Men at Grill somehow repeated the world over, regardless of culture, with beers in their hands and gestures of exceptional importance. The arrival of The Lesbians made a dent in the testosterone, at least. Tāne meant to introduce Madigan again, but by the time he’d carried the remaining wine casks from the flatbed, Hemi had collared the half-priest and dragged him into the conclave of the grill.

It was like that for the first twenty minutes or so. Tāne exchanged a wine cask for a pallet of beer, and kissed Tick’s wife, Tiff, and Louie’s girlfriend and newborn. He said hello to the half dozen gathered around the TV shouting at the football, then passed back through the house, around Geri and Miriam stacking the casks in the shed beside the table waiting for food, around Tick monkeying with sound equipment, until he was looking across the spackled yard.

Madigan stood beside Hemi now, and had obtained a long-necked beer that dangled from his freckled fingers. His blond hair glinted gold in the autumnal sun, recalling the moment that was now a lifetime ago, when Tāne had crested the hill in the early morning at St. Gilbert’s, and saw that tow-head dipped over The Transit of Venus.

He loved him. He knew it before Geri spoke that morning, but her words had spun the threads of his knowledge into a cloth that would warm him in the winter and wash him in the cool summer waters. He loved him with a greater, more encompassing power than he thought possible.

So when he took his place there by the pit, he had to touch as he was not allowed to touch except in the secret, fleet-footed shadows of St. Gilbert’s. His fingertips stroked the smooth fabric at the small of Madigan’s back, until he splayed his palm, and pressing lightly, let it rest. Madigan moved, but not away—he shifted back. The action made Tāne’s hand firmer against his sun-warmed shirt.

@beautitudes @eddie-redcliffe @livwifeofkarl @roxyrondell @naranjapetrificada

@anniegetyourblog @gentlebeardsbarngrill @follows-the-bees

being vocal is one of the best ways to show support, even if it's not mandatory