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 Posted: Mon May 22, 2023 11:40 pm
From a medical perspective, Kaifeng supposed he probably shouldn’t have been out patrolling slightly over a week after getting stabbed, but it wasn’t his fault, okay? He’d taken a few nights off to stay home with Táotáo and try watching one of the danmei dramas from which people kept paying him to cover songs.
He’d quickly given up on aforementioned danmei drama because he could forgive a lot of things when it came to Tencent Video productions. He really, really could. Even the fact that the wigs were very obviously wigs, even to him, someone who regularly forgot that most drag queens did not wear their natural hair when he was drunk. Even the abysmal fact of life about how this, a literal gay love story, would be censored to within an inch of its life (not the fault of anyone involved in production, unfortunately). Truly, no question, Líanlí could overlook a lot of things here.
………But the guy playing the gege of the Love Interest Boy who spoke like a textbook, though? No. No, no, no, no, no. Ugh. ********. Absolutely not. Never, period, end discussion.
Just………that casting choice was completely unforgivable, in the face department, in Líanlí’s true and entirely correct (to him) opinion. Maybe it was the actor, maybe it was just the character, but he looked like he would write Líanlí a poem and cry for forty-five solid minutes after sleeping with him. That made everything about Fictional Gege’s scenes too creepy to endure (especially in light of how cute Fictional Gege’s possible love interest boy was), and Líanlí had given up about halfway through the sixth episode.
After that, he had quickly gotten Bored.
As ever, Hayden had given him some perfectly valid and sensible advice. Namely, to get over it and do something relatively non-stressful with himself because Líanlí had gotten stabbed and Shenanigans, generally speaking, did not mix well with the aftermath of getting ******** stabbed.…… As was often the case, Líanlí had chosen to ignore Hayden’s completely reasonable advice and suit up as Kaifeng anyway. He wasn’t getting too crazy as he bounded across the rooftops of Destiny City, looking for messes that he could help clean up.
Anyway, his roof-hopping had led to him finding a certain Ming-er, who……might have been out late? Or maybe he wasn’t? Kaifeng didn’t rightly know about Ming-er’s and Qi-jie’s schedules, at least not in copious detail. They had, after all, only been back in contact for a few days. Either way, Ming-er seemed to be heading home from something, and it was probably okay for Kaifeng to follow him, right? Not in any kind of creepy way, but……making sure that Ming-er safely made it home to his wifesband. He didn’t know what all lurked on the streets of Destiny City.
Granted, Kaifeng didn’t know the full extent of it either, but he certainly knew more than Ming-er.
For example, he could sense the youma aura that popped up not too far ahead of them. As they got closer to it, he knew there was something to look for—and he spotted it, down in an alley, barely illuminated but still visible. Gods, it was hideous, too. The body looked like some kind of oversized nasty-a** honey badger, long but broad and thickset with messy, matted fur (black all over, absent the white stripe that went from head to tail on an actual honey badger) and bandy legs. But where a honey badger would’ve had a tail sweeping the ground behind it, the youma had a long, thin, wavy tendril, looking like a ******** eel. From up here, Kaifeng couldn’t rightly tell if the beast’s tail was a lamprey sort of eel or not, but he didn’t want to risk it. Finally, there were the wings.
Last Kaifeng checked, crazy nasty-a** honey badgers did not have wings. Especially not sizable black bat wings.
He took a deep breath, looking from the thing in the alley over toward Ming-er.… Maybe the youma would leave Ming-er alone. Maybe. And if it didn’t…… Well, Kaifeng was a Page of Saturn now, so he’d just have to do something about that, wouldn’t he?
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 12:27 am
Lian Ming had run out to grab a late dinner from the tiny little hibachi place on the corner—both he and Qiye had long days, and he'd told her to boot up a movie while he went out for them. Neither wanted to cook, not even to reheat leftovers, but a ten minute walk in the cool spring night and supporting his favorite little local hibachi diner sounded great. He hummed to himself as he walked along, carrying the bag of boxed up food carefully. The last thing he wanted to do now was lose it, even if he'd tied the bag up. Naturally, this of course was the perfect time for a wild animal attack. The... thing knocked him to the ground and sent him sprawling, and instead of protecting himself, he clutched the bag and went down <******** went his shoulder for a week, probably.
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 1:40 am
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 1:54 am
Lian Ming stared. What.... the ******** whole thing seemed like something from a terribly scripted dream, if you asked him. He just wanted to go home to his wifesband and eat teriyaki chicken & noodles and crab rangoons, damnit. He carefully placed the food tucked behind a corner of a dumpster, glad it was in boxes in a bag that he'd tied off because otherwise this would be seriously ******** off, ugly!" he shouted at the youma, chucking a bit of concrete at it. Not smart, but the guy who'd tried to rescue him (with an awful pun) clearly needed some help reminding himself he needed to oh, you know, kick some a** or call animal control or something.
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 2:15 am
Oh, for ******** sakes.
Kaifeng could have throttled his idiot cousin-in-law right about now. The concrete whizzed right past him and thwacked into the youma’s forehead. Even made the stupid, mouthy little thing wince and grunt in pain, so Ming-er had accomplished something, it seemed. If not for the part where Ming-er didn’t have any magic of his own and was putting himself in danger like this, Kaifeng almost would’ve deigned to be proud of him.
Except then, the youma roared—loudly enough to make Kaifeng flinch. It thrashed, waving both its face and its tail, and okay, yeah, that was definitely a lamprey-style tail: the end of it didn’t open into a conventional mouth but instead had several concentric circles of vicious-looking little teeth.
“Way to go, Ming-er!” Kaifeng snapped at him without thinking about it. If he hadn’t gotten so thoroughly swept up in the heat of the moment, he probably would’ve thought about that, and about the ~*ooooh, secret identity*~ business of it all, and about being even remotely safe. But Kaifeng couldn’t help it. His instinct with Ming-er was to be mean to him. “Get back out of the way before you—”
Too late.
The youma barrelled through on its bandy ******** legs and threw itself—and more so, its bitey chompy mouth full of nasty-looking bitey compy teeth—at Ming-er’s calf.
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Posted: Tue May 23, 2023 2:22 am
Ming-er?!Who the ******** did this guy think he was?! He wanted to shout at that guy—wait, how did he even know Lian Ming's name anyway, to use such a familiar tone to begin with?—but it didn't matter, not ********!" he shouted, only stumbling to move just before getting bit anyways. He slammed his fist into the head of the thing, trying to ignore the pain he felt.
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Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2023 11:11 am
Dammit.
“Ugh, sit down, you idiot,” Kāifēng snapped. Idly, he wished that he had some kind of healing magic wrapped up in either his fan or the signet ring he’d found up at his tower. But seeing as he didn’t, he’d need to handle the youma and then handle Ming-er.
Good thing Ming-er hitting the thing with his first got it to lay off of him someone. It grunted in pain, flinching back—and offering Kāifēng a perfect window of opportunity. Screwing his courage to the “rescue this ******** damsel and get him home to Qi-jie” place, Kāifēng jabbed his fan down toward the youma’s eye, spokes first, like a harpoon. That alone didn’t take care of everything, but Kāifēng had boots and he knew how to stomp them.
Specifically, he knew how to stomp them down on the youma’s neck.
That, finally, seemed to get the youma gone, with a nasty screech and an anticlimactic poof of dust. But whatever. At least the thing was gone.
Turning to Ming-er and pulling a little first aid kit out of his subspace, Kāifēng sighed. “Let me see where it bit you,” he said, still not explaining who he was underneath the glamour or why he felt so comfortable addressing Lian Ming as Ming-er. “We’ll get you cleaned up and then I’ll get you home to Qi-jie.”
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Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2023 11:43 pm
The monster crumbled to dust and Ming sighed in relief, sitting down and resting his back against a wall. Geez, that hurt. "Get back!" he snapped at the stranger, kicking out with his good leg against the stranger's ankles. Probably not the smartest route, given what he'd just seen the guy do to the monster, but he clearly had a ******** stalker of some kind, here. "Who the ******** are you to call me and my wife like that?" he asked with a snarl, fists up. "Explain, before you come near me again, ******** class="quote"> amorremanet
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Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2023 12:03 am
“Oh, what the <********> Huffing in the most offended manner, Kaifeng put his hands on his hips and frowned down at Ming-er. “You did all that ******** work and tied yourself up in knots about the ethics of artificial intelligence and you can’t even recognize me when I’m……”
……Powered up. And in a magical glamour that disguised his identity.
Right.
“Ugh,” Kaifeng sighed. Briefly crouching down, he set aside the first aid kit. Then, he cast a glance around the alley around them, another glance at the street where Ming-er had been initially, and then a third up above them because maybe there were flying youma who would also fancy a chance to be sassy and annoying. But the coast seemed clear, so he stretched his arms up over his head—wincing only slightly at how it pulled the side with the stitches—and told Ming-er, “Is that any way to talk to your Li-ge?”
By way of proving it, Kaifeng powered down back into Liánlí, his pretty skirt, pretty boots, and pretty waistcoat melting back into what he’d been wearing before he’d decided to go out: black yoga pants, plushie Cthulhu slippers, and a black t-shirt with a screenprinted cartoon of a skeleton being turned away from a Christian church. “Sorry,” the priest in the cartoon told the skeleton, “but you can’t play here with no organs.”
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Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2023 12:11 am
The gears started to click slowly together at the mention of the artificial intelligence, and he still pressed himself more into the wall when the stranger knelt down— Li-ge?!Sure enough, the outfit melted before his eyes and it was as if the wrench in the cogs of his brain got yanked out and he gasped. "Li-ge," he breathed, finally relaxing. The pain shot up his leg a few moments later, the adrenaline wearing off the moment Ming decided he was safe. "What the ******** was that? No, don't tell me, you'll need to explain to Qiye, too, and—oh man, how am I going to get home? i just wanted to go out for hibachi for us tonight..."
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Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2023 3:55 pm
“Sounds like the best idea, honestly,” Liánlí conceded, crouching down by Ming-er and cracking open his first aid kit. “There’s kind of a lot to explain. And a lot that I’m still learning over here, honestly? But, one, that thing was called a youma. I’m not really used to them talking, but they are generally nasty little bitches like that. Come in different flavors, too. Some look like bugs, or bats, or pretty naked ladies down to the waist, where they turn into, like? Feathered serpents or something?
“And two?” Liánlí sighed. “After I’m done getting you cleaned up, I’ll power up again and carry you. You’re tiny and light, so I should be able to get you and your takeout home fine? I am just……y’know.” As his cheeks flushed hot and pink, Liánlí glanced away in embarrassment. Pursing his lips, he held up one of his stickishly skinny, very non-muscular arms to help illustrate for Ming-er what he meant. “I get a strength boost as Kaifeng of Saturn,” he admitted, “and since Liánlí probably wouldn’t even intimidate a ******** third-grader……”
Huffing, he made himself look back up at Ming-er. Met his cousin-in-law’s gaze with an expression that looked as Done with Liánlí’s s**t as many people probably felt with him when he was being some kind of ridiculous. “Sorry for using the bad break-up line, but it’s not you; it’s me. Ming-er is a skinny legend and all the other horse-girls are jealous of him. Li-ge is just a silly stick-bug cosplaying as a human and needs his knightly power-up to make sure he can carry Ming-er home safely.”
With which, Liánlí turned his attention back to Ming-er’s leg. Good thing he hadn’t felt any other youma or Negaverse auras around, so he had some time to make sure that Ming-er’s wound got cleaned up and bandaged properly. Humming softly—David Bowie for the moment, “As The World Falls Down” (There’s such a fooled heart, beating so fast, in search of new dreams, a love that will last……)—Liánlí took care in rolling up the leg of Ming-er’s pants. He cringed and, despite telling himself not to, let an “eugh!” noise slip out of his mouth at the sight of it. The youma really did mess Ming-er’s leg up pretty bad. Getting the first aid kit’s rag ready with some hydrogen peroxide-based antiseptic, Liánlí sighed.
“Not a doctor, obviously,” he said, “but you might want to take it easy on this leg for a couple days, alright? Give yourself some time to heal. And—this Li-ge apologizes for how this will sting? But I’m not bandaging you up until I clean it up some.” He took a deep breath, then another, and another, motioning with one hand for Ming-er to follow suit. Once he was reasonably satisfied, Liánlí held up the rag, “Okay. Ready for the sting in three………two……one.…”
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Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2023 4:16 pm
Quote: Ming experiences having his ED triggered. Ah... hmm. Ming sighed, reserving his questions for later, because what Lianli said didn't quite make sense to him. Not when he'd been bit and felt rather dizzy. Ah, he'd probably need to keep dinner down tonight, especially since he was injured. ********. He'd have to work twice as hard once he was healed to slim back down again. He inhaled deeply, opening his mouth to say something, when more of Lianli's words caught him off guard. Skinny legend? No way! Not if Lianli had to—to, what, become his superman self in order to carry Ming? No. ********. ********! And he wouldn't be able to redouble his efforts for a while, now, because he'd been injured. His vision swam and his breathing became shaky. No, no, no, no. Nobody was jealous of him, not when he was still fat.The pain shocked him and he barely turned his head in time to finally let the vomit that had been boiling in his stomach since Lianli said he needed a strength boost fly out, away from the two of them. s**t, s**t, double and triple s**t. That wasn't good. He prayed that Lianli would just think it was related to the ugly wound in his leg, rather than anything else. "S-Sorry," he whispered, tears flowing down his face as he covered it with his hands.
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Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2023 4:45 pm
Liánlí was trying to work quickly but thoroughly. Just because he hadn’t felt any other auras didn’t that mean things would stay that way. The sooner he got Ming-er cleaned up and back home to Qing-jie, the better. Meant significantly less risk of Ming-er getting hurt in ways that he’d never asked to have invited into his life and could not have reasonably expected to come as part and parcel of finding his wifesband’s long-lost favorite cousin again.
The sound of Ming-er retching yanked Liánlí out of his work, though. And kicked him right in the heart too, for that matter. Ugh, poor Ming-er had to be feeling so overwhelmed right now, between all the crazy, rushing emotions of the situation, the pain from the wound itself, the pain of the antiseptic, and no doubt, the head-rush of magic and monsters being real when so much of mainstream, “rational” society said that they were flights of fancy and not to be given any serious consideration.
Taking a deep breath, Liánlí powered back up into Kaifeng, but only so he could dig around in his subspace again. As soon as he had the couple of objects he wanted, he once more powered down into Liánlí. First thing was first, he held out a washcloth for Ming-er, in case any of the vomit had gotten on him or he needed help cleaning it up.
“Hey, you’re okay, I promise,” Liánlí told him as gently as possible, working hard to keep his voice soft and to moderate his natural tendency to be rather loud. Hoping to help Ming-er reduce some stress and not need to worry about so many complicated tasks, Liánlí opened up the bottle of water himself before handing it over. “Tonight’s been all kinds of stress that Ming-er never expected, and all Ming-er wanted to do was go get dinner for himself and Qi-jie. It’s only natural to be upset about things going so badly awry, and finding out that nasty things like youma exist, and so on.”
Liánlí huffed softly, lifting up the third thing he’d brought out: a little plush doll in the shape of a black rabbit (albeit one posed like it would’ve been a bipedal bunny, in the same way as Hello Kitty, Kuromi, and My Melody), handmade and one-of-a-kind, though the hands that stitched it together had done such a quality job that one might not have guessed. The bunny also had a cute little outfit—a black t-shirt with a red rose on it, and a black-and-red plaid skirt—and black hair styled in a messy ponytail like the one Liánlí was wearing right now. Topping it all off, a pretty purple ribbon held the ponytail in place.
Still humming his David Bowie, Liánlí brought the bunny over to Ming-er’s face with a series of little hopping motions. Then, he booped the bunny’s snoot into Ming-er’s cheek and made an exaggerated kissy sound to go with it.
“Xiao-LíLí thinks you’re being very brave tonight, Lián Ming,” Liánlí told him very seriously, giving him a smile that Liánlí hoped was reassuring. “And I happen to agree with him.… One of my fans on Patreon made him after the stream Táotáo and I did for Lunar New Year.” He huffed and his smile grew into more of a grin. “I wore black bunny ears for it so Táotáo and I would match. Hence……bunny.”
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Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2023 5:04 pm
Ming took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. Lianli didn't suspect anything. Good. Good. He couldn't take it if one more bad thing happened tonight. He wiped his face off with the offered cloth and checked himself—clean—before sucking on a clean corner of the cloth so he could try to get the taste out of his mouth. Then he realized he was being offered a water bottle and blushed, feeling silly. He took it and drank a few long pulls from it. The bunny was a surprise, and, caught off guard, he let out a soft laugh, poking it right in the rose on its shirt. "That's sweet. Thank you, gege. I'm sorry I made so much trouble for you tonight."
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Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2023 7:59 pm
Reassured by Ming-er’s little laugh, Liánlí shifted Xiao-LíLí into Ming-er’s free hand. Maybe having a soft friend would help keep him grounded and make the pain from the antiseptic a little easier to bear. Before starting up again, Liánlí refreshed the antiseptic on the rag, held it up to warn Ming-er, then counted down from three one more time.
“It’s no trouble, Ming-er,” Liánlí told him seriously, being very careful about cleaning the wound, trying to be thorough but also take his time so Ming-er might not get so overwhelmed. “Protecting people is part of the whole magical Knight of Saturn business. I was patrolling around here anyway. I spotted you and decided to tail you in case anyone tried to start trouble. Wanted you getting home to Qi-jie safely.”
Then, he paused. Made himself take a few deep breaths as he considered the situation, and specifically Ming-er’s apology. Even though they needed to get Ming-er bandaged up soon, Liánlí paused his ministrations so he could look Ming-er in the eye as he said, “You don’t need to apologize, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong. This Lí-ge apologizes. I lost my temper and snapped at you when you were just trying to help in a scary, very high-stress situation that you didn’t understand. The only person who made any trouble tonight was the youma, okay? Not Ming-er.”
Liánlí could count the number of times he’d ever apologized to Ming-er on one hand, and he wouldn’t have needed all five fingers. But……well. If things were really going to be different between them now, he supposed he owed it to Ming-er to get in the habit of owning up to it when he acted like a ******** and hurt Ming-er’s feelings in the process.
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