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 Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 3:00 pm
It was late when Vanya rocked up to the apartment and parked his moped. Later than he would have liked, but……well. There’d been extra shifts available on DoorDash after his shift at the restaurant had ended. And regardless of any complaints about weather or interference ******** with cellular data networks or whatever, Vanya wasn’t in any place to refuse a chance to grab extra shifts.
Sure, the lightning storms had been godawful lately. Maybe it really was as dangerous as all the talk about it being worse than usual for Destiny City. Some notifications that Vanya had seen on his senshi phone of late had indicated that some people thought magical stuff was behind it all. Considering everything weird about Destiny City and living here, maybe they weren’t wrong. That all sounded horrible if true and for any other senshi or Knight, Vanya could understand why they might have dropped everything to go fight some guy named Harold or whatever people were supposed to do with all the information people kept posting about talking to powerful aliens or exploring their home-worlds and wonders then getting struck by lightning or trying to break into some palace on the moon?
(Which……come on. Even given that all of them had magical powers, who did these people think they were kidding, talking about some palace on the moon. That wasn’t a thing. Talking like that was stupid. Some kind of collective practical joke that Vanya didn’t know the punchline for because his only magical friends were people like Fang, who didn’t lie to anybody really, or people like Autumn and Taiki, who were too good for their own good.)
But that was their world, not Vanya’s.
In Vanya’s world, his body ached as he trudged up the stairs to the grungy little apartment he shared with Winston. In Vanya’s world, he stared through the darkness, barely illuminated by the light outside his window and the light from the hallway, wondering why all the lights were off, and then marveled at the silence when flipping them on was not immediately met by Winston totally freaking out that Vanya had interrupted his beauty rest. In Vanya’s world, he didn’t see a light on in the bathroom, but checked without stopping in the kitchenette to unpack his carrying case full of refused orders and prank orders, and found……more silence. More darkness. No Winston soaking in the tub, the way he liked to do when he was sulking about something.
Nobody home at all.
Vanya sighed in relief, since nobody would hear him do it right now. Winston had probably gone out to, like, punch some Negaverse people. Or be punched by them. Or whatever. Good for him, Vanya mused as he set his shoulder-strap carrying case on the counter. Quickly ducking over to the table, he opened his beat up laptop and opened up VLC. Set it to play I Saw The TV Glow again, without headphones because why bother if Winston wasn’t home to get upset.
This Saturday night, on a brand new Pink Opaque, the movie’s in-universe TV commercial announcer said as Vanya put a mug of water in the microwave for tea, then started unpacking tonight’s haul.
“Drain Lords,” Vanya muttered in time with the movie, “hundreds of them, coming out of the drains.” His only audience was a microwave-safe container of eggplant parmesan. “Oh wait, sorry,” Vanya drawled, rolling his eyes as he put that in the fridge, “it’s a literal ******** hate crime if you call them anything but aubergines.”
As if a ******** leech couldn’t grow up and handle the fact that people called them eggplants now.…… Well, knowing Winston, he probably couldn’t. Or wouldn’t, anyway, which was functionally the same thing as far as Vanya was concerned since the outcome for him personally didn’t change at all.
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 3:26 pm
Winston made his way home slowly, circling a few times to ensure he wasn't being followed by any of those Chaos bastards who might've wanted to take advantage of the... chaos of the evening, and discover someone's identity. He felt aged. Aged in a way that learning a thousand years had passed hadn't done to him. That had left him somewhat numb, sure, but also with a strange mix of anxiety and relief. Nobody from his past (at least, that had actually lived on his planet, he amended to himself as a vision of Daedalus's face swam into his mind's eye) could chase him down here. Could hurt him. Chaos had consumed them all, and none of them would be alive to harass him ever again. Even if someone from home had reincarnated, he doubted they would care too much about him now. He thought he'd been relatively safe. Then... the monster. The one they'd all fought so hard against tonight, the one they'd tried so hard to kill, only for it to be merely imprisoned again? The Dark Star that had sent it bored into his very soul, even thinking about it made him want to lay down and let the Chaos take him away, destroy his soul, and leave him in perfect darkness and peace. It scared him shitless. He came in to the apartment he shared with Vanya and shut the door oddly quietly, removing his glamour piece and dropping onto the couch with a loud groan. "I don't know how you have the energy to even watch a movie right now," he said exhaustedly, ears fully down. "After everything we just went through?" He assumed that Farbauti had been there and that Achird just hadn't seen him. He'd been quite focused on the space he'd managed to find for himself, rather than look for.... for.... Farbauti. "Or even to microwave something," he added as he realized he heard the low hum of it. "I barely even want to eat something that doesn't require any preparation. Like slices of cheese."
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 4:16 pm
Vanya startled at the sound of Winston coming in, knocking his head against one of the refrigerator shelves and dropping the current takeout container he was trying to find room for. At least it was one of the containers that you had to basically pry open anyway, so not only did it fail to open, but none of the sesame chicken even remotely leaked anywhere. Good s**t. Vanya loved to see it—inasmuch as he could love anything about picking up someone else’s Chinese food that he’d brought home because no one had wanted it.
“Sorry,” he said reflexively, hollowly, darting away from the fridge to turn the movie off. It hadn’t even really started getting good yet. Maddy Tara and Owen Isabel were only just meeting for the first time, bonding over the episode guide about The Pink Opaque. But……well.
Winston was home, and something was going on with his mood. Watching him flop over on the futon—Vanya’s futon, the one he’d rescued out of someone else’s trash, then worked really hard to clean and fix up, and then slept on for the past year and change since Winston had stolen his bed—Vanya couldn’t help but wonder if he would soon be expected to pass out in a sleeping bag on the kitchen floor every night. Why the ******** did people even bother teaching kids to be nice to people and try to help out? God knew Vanya could never pay Autumn back for all the times they’d used their employee discount at the grocery store to help him with getting something close to the right food for Winston’s expensive taste, and as for Winston himself……
Well, pauvre bête.
But, still.
Vanya took a deep breath and turned to the handful of things still left in his carrying case. Rolled his eyes down at the food since Winston couldn’t see that. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got you,” he said, sucking on the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t say Just like I’ve got everything else around here. “One of the prank deliveries from tonight ordered from some fancy steakhouse? Not very much. Mostly appetizers, I think? But one of them was like, some kind of cheese plate or something, so……”
Vanya shrugged and looked for that container in silence. At least he didn’t need to look very far before—“Yeah, found it. It’s four different kinds of cheese slices, crackers, some grapes and apple slices, and this, like? Fancy butter spread that they make in the restaurant.”
Before even finishing the list of contents on the cheese plate, Vanya had turned and started walking over to the futon. By the time he was done, he was holding it out for Winston. “No effort necessary. Unless opening the container counts for that right now, I guess.”
Vanya had kinda wanted the grapes and cheese for himself at least, but……better to just let Winston have what he wanted. Winston would take whatever that was anyway, whether Vanya let him or not. Same as everybody else except for moral exemplars like Fang and Helene, genuinely kind people like Autumn, and people like Taiki who inexplicably believed Vanya had anything inside him but emptiness and disappointment. Better not to ask Winston what the ******** he was on about either, since he’d probably find some way to take that wrong.
Pauvre ******** bête.
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 7:15 pm
Winston was slow to register everything that happened. The night had left him totally worn down. Paradoxically, he was kind of irritated that Vanya had turned off the TV—the noise had been helping him shift his focus from all that had happened, even if it wasn't something he would watch. Vanya and his weird Earth entertainment.... He took the container, baffled, brow furrowed as he looked up at Vanya, and then it all clicked. "Wait a ******** minute," he demanded, gripping the container tightly, "You were out delivering food tonight? What the <******** the meadows, he hated how slow his brain was working now that all the fighting adrenaline had left him.
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 8:06 pm
For a moment after Winston took the container with the crackers, cheese, and fruit, Vanya actually felt……something akin to content? As close as he could manage under the circumstances, anyway. Which wasn’t much, but it was the best he could do when defusing an argument while exhausted, and aching, and desperately trying to ignore the crushing reminder of just how insignificant he was and how he was probably about to be kicked off the futon after already being kicked out of his bed.
But then Winston furrowed his brow. And then he started snapping, which made Vanya frown bemusedly right back at him. And what Winston said when he snapped at Vanya.…… Vanya’s mouth fell open in shock. His brows briefly arched up, but then matched Winston’s for knotting themselves up. Some instinct inside of Vanya screamed at him to shut his mouth and say nothing, to just let Winston be angry in the hopes that letting him win would make this get over with faster……but at the same time, his back ******** ached and just—
“Wait, you’re offended that I went to my job? To both of my jobs, even?” What in the ******** nerve of this guy. Did his people just not have manners or a semblance of mutual respect before Chaos had invaded Achird? “Y’know, the second job you should be groveling gratefully to Taiki about? Because it’s only thanks to him that I can even take it, and I have needed it to make sure that the rent gets paid. In addition to keeping you fed! And clothed? Like, I’m sorry that I wasn’t out punching the Negaverse or whatever you’re ******** mad about tonight, but somebody making a mistake about saddling me with a senshi starseed does not mean I have the luxury of ignoring the BILLS, Winston! ******** na hui, petit cochon-hui!”
As soon as he’d snapped that, Vanya thought it sounded odd. Not just because he was mixing profanity from the different sides of his family, but because he’d made an active effort to avoid talking like that since getting the ******** out of Louisiana. But—well. If anybody he knew deserved it, Winston was that person.genovianprince idi na hui: Иди на хуй, Russian, loosely “go ******** yourself.” It’s direct, confrontational, and aggressive in all the ways that Vanya usually is not.
petit cochon: technically French, but Vanya knows it through Louisiana Creole so he’s 100% pronouncing it in a way that would scandalize any self-respecting Parisian. Either way, it means “little pig.”
hui: Хуй, Russian, an extremely vulgar term for “c**k.” Does Vanya mean to call Winston a pig’s p***s, or to call him a d**k pig? Trick questions: it’s neither. He’s just throwing profanity at the wall like spaghetti.
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 8:20 pm
Winston's jaw clenched. Where the ******** was this coming from? Sorry he needed to eat and wear clothes? Didn't Vanya also need those things? What was this bullshit? It wasn't his fault he came to Earth with only the clothes on his back after a ******** dare you call getting a senshi starseed a mistake," he snarled. "It's a blessing, you idiot. And for your information, I wasn't punching Negaverse idiots tonight. Tonight, I was saving the life of YOUR planet from the gigantic snake-like World-Eater that was so ******** big, it could have worn Earth as a pearl earring, but wanted to eat it instead. There must have been three hundred of us out there, sucked into space, fighting against this impossible thing, and you were delivering food. I ******** died. Or something like it, anyway. You have no idea what I dealt with. What I saw when—" His voice cracked and he snapped his mouth furiously shut, slamming the container of dinky little foodstuffs to the side of him and standing. "Thank you so much for caring," he said, voice dripping with sarcasm, once he was sure it wouldn't crack again. "Don't worry about me, no! I'm not hungry. I'm going to—I don't even know. I can't be cooped up right now." Reattaching his stupid ******** glamour earring, because god forbid these stupid, fragile little humans have to deal with ******** aliens existing, oh no, the horror, he made to storm out of the apartment.
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 9:48 pm
What in the—first, Winston had wanted something low-effort to eat? And now he was throwing things away? Or at least shoving them down the futon and moving for the door, and—oh, what the <********>, no.
Without thinking about anything, Vanya grabbed the plush Litten that he kept near the futon, with his blankets. He threw it, aiming for the back of Winston’s head. “Don’t you dare start s**t with me and then run away from it, ********! Do you have any idea how much I do for you? More than a year, you’ve been here. The only thing you’ve ever done is dishes! Like, maybe once or twice, you’ve folded your own laundry before I did. Once or twice?! Which is not on ME here, because you sure knew how to take things into your own hands when you stole my bed! And my dresser space!”
Maybe Vanya should’ve just left it at that. Focused on the part where Winston was in the wrong, and Vanya could certifiably point to receipts or something loosely receipt-adjacent. But since Winston wanted to make anything magical a big deal right now, Vanya stormed back closer to him, grabbing him by the shoulder with the intent to turn him around.
“And don’t you dare presume you have the right to tell me anything about what a blessing my starseed is, you arrogant, swamp-scum Beta cuck!” Aside from ‘arrogant,’ none of those words applied to Winston, as far as Vanya knew. ‘Swamp-scum’ in particular didn’t because it had been one of Dr. Jacob Renault’s preferred ways of referring to the redneck trailer trash who insistently called themselves Cajun to avoid any potential association with Black people that might’ve been bound up in the word Creole. “Because ever since Ash threw me a henshin pen, do you know what it’s ******** gotten me? Kicked around! Chased by homicidal freaks! Harassed!
“Having the starseed that I do has gotten me ******** shamed, pretty much every time I power up, and for ******** what? Well, because the last Farbauti was huge, and strong, and cool, and everyone who even remotely knew him—or had a past life memory of him—looks at me? And I swear to God, Winston, they’re more disappointed in me for existing than my parents. I didn’t even think it was possible for someone to have less regard for me than the drunk-a** salop who didn’t bother reporting her runaway son missing, then looked right at him with his backpack and suitcase and instead of saying literally anything, she went into a liquor store! Or maybe her equally drunk-a** husband. I didn’t think it was possible, and then I met ******** Grieve!”
Granted, they’d only met each other the one time, up on Cybele, but that was enough for Vanya. Frankly, that one time was more than enough. Grieve probably hadn’t thought about him at all since then because why would she. He hadn’t done anything impressive that day and she’d seemed kinda busy. But Vanya remembered her. He’d thought about being called a wet kitten who’d been s**t out of some magical Cauldron, a pathetic, palpable downgrade from some mountain-punching warrior-poet, well……maybe not every day since it had happened? But certainly enough days that remembering the incident was what finally pushed Vanya into crying angry tears.
“And don’t even get me started on my magic, when it even deigns to work properly! I am sorry that you died on this mission that you volunteered for, Winston. I really am. But the senshi of eggplants has more of a right to be there than the senshi of rage! All my magic does is make people angry. When people are angry, they get ******** stupid. So unless you’re really itching for more people to have died tonight?” Vanya arched a pointed, quizzical eyebrow rather than pointing out how well Winston seemed to have recovered from this alleged death. “It’s better for everyone that I wasn’t there. Especially when all I keep hearing from anybody is that literally anyone else should’ve been Sailor Farbauti, and they cannot. believe. that my starseed wound up with someone so undeserving!”
Maybe no one had said that outright, but at this point, Vanya didn’t think they needed to. What they really wanted to say was obvious.
“And this all overlooking the point about how I. didn’t. know. that there was anything going on tonight. Because unlike you and two-hundred-ninety-nine other people, *I* was ******** working! So my useless ingrate roommate and I don’t fall behind on the rent and end up homeless!”
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2025 10:08 pm
The litten hitting his head had him turning around with a snarl on his lips, and he batted away the hand on his shoulder. He didn't understand more than half the insults Vanya was slinging at him, but that didn't matter. "Who cares about your ******** past life?" he spat. " Who cares?! ******** that guy! He's dead! These people sound like assholes! ******** them, too!" His fists clenched at his sides. "Grieve especially. It's too bad that one survived. Also, ******** your mother." He exhaled harshly. "Rage making people stupid is good, dumbass! If they can't think right to ******** kill you, you have an advantage! ******** you! Stop letting other people tell you you suck just because of your trashy past life; you are who you are now. Now figure it out and be useful in your way. ********, all my magic really does is reduce the damage some of us take! Maybe less of us would have ******** died, yes, I saw that look, a*****e, a lot of us did die. Just because we got better doesn't mean we didn't experience it." He crossed his arms and hissed between his teeth, trying not to scream. He was so, so ******** tired. How sure was he that Vanya wasn't actually Farbauti right now, casting his rage magic, speaking of? "I figured you knew, given you loooove spending soooo much time on your ******** phone," he said, voice dripping with disdain."Everything was on there on the senshi side. You can't even imagine what we all went through tonight. What those of us who died went through tonight. The thing we saw...." He began to shake. His knees buckled a little and he ground his teeth, trying to hold on to the anger he felt for Vanya, but it felt like his life was snuffing out all over again.
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Posted: Sat May 03, 2025 2:23 pm
“Are you ******** stupid, Winston,” Vanya snapped at him, tears and words flowing freely despite the powerful feeling in the back of his mind telling him to just shut up already. Telling him that he’d said too much, and allowed himself to reveal too much, and now it was all going to fall apart because what was going to stop Winston from, like, finding out how to contact Taiki, or Autumn, or Fang, or somebody else who inexplicably thought that Vanya was good and worth their time, and then they would hate him and he would be alone again, the way he deserved.
And yet, Vanya could not make himself shut up: “The civilian phone and the senshi phone are different things. Also? Rage making people stupid is bad if it’s affecting our own people! Which it ******** would be because I don’t know about you? But somehow, filling a literal world-eater with unspeakable rage strikes me as a bad idea! Do you have any idea how ******** nice it would be to have shielding or healing magic! Something that actually protects people instead of just getting them hurt?! If I had something as awesome as that for magic, you damn sure wouldn’t hear me complaining about it!”
Scrubbing at his eyes didn’t help. Didn’t make them stop tearing up. But trying to respond to any of the other things Winston had said……… That had Vanya feeling like someone had put an iceberg in his chest. Had his mouth fumbling open and closed again as he failed to find anything that felt like words.
“I don’t know,” he said coldly, because the words took effort to find but he refused to let Winston have the last one, “maybe I let people tell me that I suck because I’m self-aware enough to recognize that I do. But……” Vanya shook his head. Turned to the kitchenette, grabbing up his laptop (sliding it quick into its case), his keys, and his carrying case, now empty of refused meals. “Whatever. Apartment’s yours, since you died and everything. I’m going to Taiki’s.”
As he made for the door, he collected his Litten off the floor. Hopefully, he’d stop crying by the time he got to his moped.
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Posted: Sat May 03, 2025 3:12 pm
Winston felt like he was going to explode. He wanted to keep screaming, to demand Vanya get his a** back in here and yell some more, but Vanya was gone before he could even ********, he wanted to destroy something. His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, but as he turned to look for something he wanted to hit, all of the energy drained out of him. The coldness of the Dark Star that he'd seen seemed to settle in his gut. He wanted to go home.Home was a place he'd had when he was six years old and it meant safety and happiness. He hadn't had that for a long, long time. He couldn't stay here. Not right now. He waited another half a minute, then headed towards the door—stopping for a moment. What, he didn't do enough around the place, huh? Snorting angrily, he put the container of cheese and grapes back in the fridge, then checked the microwave. Vanya had left his meal in there. Some kind of aubergine thing. ...He didn't want it. He was too tired to be hungry, but too twisted up to sleep. He put it back in the fridge, too. No sense in wasting food. There, see. He cleaned! He wasn't useless or whatever. "They're not even ******** shaped like eggs," he said, scowling into the silence. "Not chicken eggs, anyway. ******** that, he trudged out of the apartment and locked it behind him, walking away quietly.
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