#whewww

i am creation both haunted and holy (made in glory) - sister daniel

part 2 of this post :)

@adukeMN: Napheesa Collier Full and unedited statement

On the other hand, I was wondering if you could write a Shinazugawa Sanemi one. I would really like to read the way all that intimacy and deep fellings during such a lovely moment make him feel and react.

Sorry for this request message so long, haha.

Keep it up! You're brilliant. 🫧💕🫂

Living, learning and loving.

𓏲ּAbout𝄢 Hard to love, but loving harder than anyone else.

𓏲ּּFeaturing𝄢 Shinazugawa Sanemi 不死川 実弥

𓏲ּּCW𝄢 SFW | angst, established relationship, Sanemi learning how to love ™, miscommunication, making up, emotional constipation.

🪽Dove's notes: sweet pookie I'm so sorry for the wait! This man is so hard to write oh my goodness. I feel like I lost ten years off my life coming up with a scenario for him. For a little context, imagine this is in the beginning stages of an official relationship. Also, it turned out super long, I hope that's alright! Enjoy!

Shinazugawa Sanemi does not apologize. He has far too much pride to lower his head. Or perhaps it's because he knows the moment he tips even slightly the weight of his sins will come crashing down and it might just break his neck. People were free to take it up to him if they had a problem with the manner he acted, whether they liked it or not he would continue to speak whatever was in his mind in the way that suited him and him alone. Unforgiving and vulgar was that egregiously honest mouth of his, yet he rarely felt the message he wanted to relay got across correctly. Not that he cared— Or better said, he stopped caring. He abandoned wasting what he deemed to be futile effort on those that weren't worth the trouble. 

Except there was you.

Infuriating and stubborn you that made him hesitate for the first time in his life. The only person to cause him to hold back brazen thoughts from escaping because when they do he is met with silence. Not the familiar violence or cursing but a cold, lingering emptiness that is so still it drives him absolutely mad. He doesn't know how to fill the space with anything other than with his own loudness, stirring and poking the fire for a reaction, and you, oh you, instead of arguing will choose to swallow your words and rather choke on them than spend another hour screaming nonsense at each other. His temper of course did absolutely nothing to defuse the situation and Sanemi wouldn't say he regrets it, he doesn't allow himself to linger in past decisions, but he does, ever so quietly, resent himself for his own shortcomings. 

The argument had begun over something insignificant, as it usually did. You understood his position as a pillar was a heavy burden to bear and that's why you always took extra precautions to make sure you wouldn't get in the way of it. You woke up extra early to see him for breakfast and waited until late for him to come home, all in hope of sharing a single warm meal and hearing more than two words out of his mouth. Yet, time and time again it wasn't nearly as comfortable as a relationship between lovers should be. While eating there was either a thick tension due to the constant rigidity in his body or the attempts at making casual conversations somehow turned sour as a result of a tactless comment on his part. You knew when he said it was stupid of you to spend time searching the market for something "useless" was out of concern for the time spent alone without him to protect you were something to happen. You also knew each time he brushed you off when he returned home was to keep you from being tainted with the brutality and grime from filthy demons.

Yes, you knew all of that. Still, that little fact stopped softening the blows after a while and began to chip away at you. Little by little, you grew fatigued of trying to read between jagged edges and doubted whether there ever was something for you to read in the first place. The thoughts with no way out piled up inside your mind and tonight it had all come pouring out at once over something completely meaningless. For the first time you were the one to say bold and unthoughtful words. Your hands slammed the small box down on the table when he dismissed it— A present. Something simple, something you spent a lot of time making hoping to at least put a smile on that grouchy face.

He had been right when he told you it was stupid before. This entire thing has been stupid from the start and right now you felt like the biggest joke of all.

"Couldn't you just accept it?" Your voice raised in a way that felt foreign to your own ears. "Is it that fucking hard to look at me without making it seem like I'm some sort of inconvenience you are forced to deal with?" The accusations rolled off your tongue faster than you cared to stop them and the biggest part of you, the ugly and hurt part, didn't want to stop.

"Is that what I am, Sanemi?" You pressed, eyes searched his expression for something that might prove those whispering voices in your ears wrong. Anything to ground your feet back on steady ground. "Tell me. Who am I to you?"

There was no answer. For once his mouth remained shut for longer than needed and when he finally spoke again all it had to offer was "Don't ask questions you already know the answer to."

And that? That took all the remaining ground you still had and swept you under.

Shinazugawa Sanemi is loyal to a fault, for better or for worse. He's made a compromise the moment he agreed to have you by his side and, as rough as it's been and might continue to be, he is a man of his word. So, even now when neither of you can bear to look at each other's face and feel as if he might explode because of the suffocating silence, he will not walk away or lay his head down to sleep. Nor will he let you do that. Because the moment someone decides to leave it means they've given up and he does not do that. He will fix it, in his own way. He will try until it works out because that's what it means when he makes a promise.

But, how is he to fix something he is not confident in handling in the first place? He is not built for normality.

For love.

The distant sounds of the crows cawking outside did nothing to ease the weighting silence in the room and only added to his restlessness. It's his fault again, he knows it. He also knows better than to assume this is only about a simple gift. Sanemi doesn’t have the right words to outright say it, though. He doesn’t apologize or begs. Doesn't know how even if he needs to. So he watches. He puts a lid on his boiling feelings and takes in yours instead. Notes how your shoulders resemble his, tense like a taut string, takes in the fact you won't turn your body to face him, the subtle tremble on your lips and realizes just how easy it is to notice those details when he's not bulldozing through every aspect of his life. Again he is face to face with the fact this was what he did– He ruined the lives around him. Each time he assumed to be making the best decisions for those he cared for resulted in relationships burning right in front of him and all he did was let the wind carry the ashes away because holding onto people with his hands, the ones that have lost all their warmth and gentleness, meant breaking them.

And Sanemi could never allow himself to break you.

How is he to keep you when he can’t hold you then? How can he prevent you from ending up put together by ugly pieces and scarred like he is? How can someone that never stopped moving forward allow himself to slow down and lay his head down without fearing his own shadow?

His footsteps were light on the wooden boards as he made his way towards you, who stood before the open window in the furthest corner of the room and, without a word, he planted either hand on the railing, boxing you in front of him but not grabbing. As expected, there wasn't an angry bark like he might've done were him in your shoes. No, there was only that dooming stillness that seemed to make the bedroom feel much too small for both of you.

"I don't know who you are to me." He began, low and oddly restrained. As if he was a still lake and the creaking of the wood under his tight grip were the only ripples on the surface. "It's not something I need to know." It wasn't helping, he knew those weren't the honey covered words you probably wanted to hear but it's the ultimate comfort someone like Sanemi could offer— Raw and clear honesty from his heart.

"What I do know is this— I made the decision to have you by my side." His hands slowly released their grasp on the edge of the window and turned, palm up, held towards you in a wordless offer to accept it or not. "It's my duty to keep you safe." The man paused then you felt a soft weight hit your back as he lowered his head against your nape and his voice turned firmer. "And I know, with absolute certainty, that you are someone I need. You are not a who, but a what to me."

"My strength," You felt his body beginning to lower itself behind yours.

"My reason," Lower,

"My home," and lower,

His knees hit the floor with a soft thud as he sat on his heels, scarred hands stubbornly resting open in front of you, waiting, never once grasping. His head remains high, always held proudly, but Sanemi won’t stand tall and strong if it means making you feel small next to him. Unless you say you still want him– still want this– he can't sink his claws in and force you to stay.

"You are the tomorrow I never once considered to look forward to since I lost every God forsaken person in my life." He sighed heavily, as if trying to physically blow away the tension in his body and failing. His eyes close for a moment, giving himself a few seconds to remain the way he is— Steady. Calm. Vulnerable. He can't allow the walls he's surrounded himself with to come up now, in spite of wanting nothing more than to snap at how ridiculous this whole thing is. He wants to shake you and demand why you don't already know all of this. Complain about being forced to say the obvious out loud.

None of those thoughts seem to matter after your hands touch his and Sanemi feels as if the world began to spin again. He hadn't realized how much he feared your touch never reaching him again until this very moment. The man doesn't allow himself to relax just yet however. He's not done. Instead, he guides you to turn around and face him, look down at his eyes when he speaks and hopefully find what you are looking for. "I don't want you to waste your time or risk your own safety over something that can't compare to the value you have to me." The words are hard to come out of his dry throat but he will say it. He will say every single thing if that's what's needed to make you understand. "The only thing— The only gift I need from you is you. Here, and alive."

"Even if you don't need something, it doesn't mean it has no value." You broke your streak of pretending he doesn’t exist, finally. Your voice would've been music to his ears hadn't it been for the shakiness in it. "What I can do for you will not always be the same as what I need to do, but it doesn't automatically take away the significance of it." You pulled away from him, and although he clearly wanted to reach out, hand stretched out in your direction subconsciously, he waited. Patiently watching you return the discarded gift box on the floor to him.

"The same applies to you.” You pulled the string wrapping around the box and revealed the charm you’ve spent the last month working on. The fabric was no longer perfect unfortunately, which you ignored for the sake of keeping tempers down. “Just because I don't need to share a casual conversation with you to live, doesn't mean I can't appreciate it." You placed the gift in the calloused palms, keeping there with your hand over it in a gentle hold. "And just because you don't need this, doesn't mean you can't appreciate the fact I made it because I wanted you to feel happy."

Sanemi stared at you while absorbing everything you said, barely even blinking as he rolled the words around in his own head. He spent so long being practical he forgot how to do things merely for the sake of it– As long as you were alive and healthy next to him then he assumed it was enough to keep you from suffering. Putting effort into something that won't necessarily make him stronger or ensure survival feels strange, almost wrong. But if that's the case, if he can do things only because he wants to do them and you would appreciate it then...then maybe, he is not as clueless as he’d thought.

His hands place the box to the side and without waiting he pulls you flushed against him, tightly fitting your bodies together. He doesn't let people touch him easily— Never liked the feeling of it since losing his siblings. But your touch never felt wrong on him. If anything, it felt too addicting for him to allow himself to indulge in it further than a few fleeting moments. This time is different though, because you told him he could do it just for the hell of it.

And so, to hell with it.

Those strong arms tighten around your middle, "Alright then." He muttered against your skin while following the line of your neck with the tip of his nose and taking in your scent. Always so soft, unlike him that was all scars and sharp edges. His hands slithered down to your thighs, effortlessly lifting you off the floor and carrying you over to the bed. The soft mattress welcomed your body as he came to hover above you, one hand raising to feel the curve of your cheeks as he took in your features for the nth time, at last clear of all the hurt from earlier. He never got sick of this infuriatingly beautiful face, even when it drove him nuts. His thumb pressed against your lower lip lightly and a low, amused huff escaped his own. “I'll do everything I want from now on, just like you asked me.” There was a clear cockiness laced in his words, one that only appeared when he was confident he had won.

Although his habit of bulldozing seemed like it wouldn't be easily fixed, maybe it was alright as long as you were right there next to him. 

Guardian Angel AU: -ACT II TRAILER-