Pastel Pins {G.E.}

i knew what i was going to see, but i still gasped when i saw it.

engloutir

1.2 K words

warnings - incredibly vague spot in the csm timeline (somewhere post vol. 11 but before part 2), character study stupid daydream bullshit, angst :) and fluff, IMMEDIATE SPOILERS

summary - Denji has never been one to see himself as a "settle down" kinda guy, but now he might be ready for you (not so much plot).

You have to remind yourself, often, that Denji is another person. Under the chainsaws and the lackadaisical attitude, he is still a man. Soft and flesh and tears. Man.

He sits on your porch now. Makima gone. Power gone. Aki gone. Brothers and sisters and lovers - all for a moment in the blip of his lifetime, all beloved with each stretch of his heart. He’s quiet - bizarrely - staring up at the blanketed stars. Chairs shoulder to shoulder, you’re expected to take the one by him.

“I didn’t know if you wanted anything so I got you - uh - this,” you hold a warm mug out over his shoulder. It was a gift from Himeno, on your first birthday since meeting her. Light blue with a picture of you two printed ugly and wide across the front, “Just warm milk.”

“I think I’m lactose intolerant,” Denji takes the mug anyway. He thinks it’s nice you were concerned about his tastes, but he’ll eat anything. He’s hungry for it all and he always wants more.

“I can get you something else?” you hold a hand out and he wants to take it - drag you down with him, but that’d be sullying and he doesn’t know if he’s quite that hungry.

“Nah,” he sips from your warmed milk and honey and you remember he’s been through hell.

The bags under his eyes have gotten heavier and his shoulders slouch a bit more than they used to.

“This is perfect,” his sharp teeth might cut right through your mug, he almost wants to. Just to leave evidence he was ever there. That you let him in.

He’s always liked you - you were kinder than the others, more patient, more attentive, more genuine. Now that Makima can’t hold the leash like she used to, he realizes he liked your method better. The gentler hand that feeds what he asks and chances being bit rather than shoving escargot past his teeth.

Sometimes you forget he’s hurt, it's easy when he usually isn’t so quiet - he can talk faster than Power could clear a room, and he puts it to good use when he doesn’t want people asking questions. You feel bad you don’t ask, especially with the way he stares.

You crawl over the armrest to your other deck chair and stare into your own mug. Plain water is mostly all you can stomach these days. Everything else tastes like Aki and Power and Himeno and Beam and Angel and Galgali even though you know it shouldn’t. Kishibe told you it’d get you killed.

Maybe you shouldn’t have let Denji live with you - milk may start to taste like sunset hair and a vulgar tongue. Maybe Denji won’t be able to stomach water.

It’s cold tonight. And Denji sees you shiver.

“Where’s your jacket?” his tone is accusatory, “Trying to catch something?”

“Forgot it inside, I think,” you know you did, pouting as you huff soon after, “I don’t wanna get up…”

Denji is not selfless, but he sets down the mug with you and Himeno stretched over and braces his hands on the armrests of his chair, “Want me to run inside?”

“No, no!” you bat his arm until he’s relaxed again, “Don’t ruin this.”

It’s a common night. One you see more often than not, but Denji would write home about it just because it’s seen from a clean porch in a cushioned chair outside a nice apartment. With you. But he can’t write home - and the more he thinks about it the more he realizes it might just be because he’d be writing back to you.

The water is flat and plain on your tongue, but it’s better than cracking over the soda Aki used to always buy you when he’d see it.

Denji’s milk is starting to cool and form a thin film over top - he hates the film but he will drink it anyway. Because he is starving, and because you made it.

Denji wants to unhinge his jaw and swallow you whole. Not to hurt. Not to kill. To keep. He wants you in his mornings and he wants you at night. He wants you forever and always and he wants you in my palms. He wants you to want him - want him for Denji, for the human beneath the chainsaws and surrounded by the flesh. To make sure you need him like he does you and secure you like he couldn’t with Aki and Power.

You feel like the warm blanket in December, when you can crawl into a bed at the end of the day and rub your feet together while curling into a ball.

He wants you to swallow him whole.

And when you look at the emptiness left in his chair and ask, “Can I sit with you?” he feels like you’re about to.

He hums and scoots closer to the leftmost arm of the chair, looking up at you as you stand. His eyes are big and wonderful and you can almost see stars twinkle in their reflection - or maybe that’s just Denji.

Almost as he was when you first met him. With big, loud words and no sense of his place.

“You can sit on my lap, too, if you want?” he’s grinning now, and this feels natural.

Talking about how he avoids his birthday and answering the phone can wait another day - for now, he just wants a blanket in December and you’re taking his offer. One leg looping over his and your side caving close to him.

“Such a perv,” you pinch his skin and notice there’s more fat than when you first met him. You don’t say anything, you don’t want him to think too much about it.

“You know it!” he holds out his mug and you clink yours with it, he polishes off his cold milk and the bitter, nasty film that formed on the surface in one gulp. You sip your water and lay your head against his shoulder.

He’s calmer these days, though, and you assume it’s what he’s been through. Having to return from hell.

“Wanna go to the store with me tomorrow?” you angle your head to stare at Denji.

Moonlight mirrors off his skin nicely - cherry cheeks warm against yours and eyes sweet when they turn back to you. You don’t know exactly what you two are, but you do know that if he leaned down to kiss you - you wouldn’t stop him.

“Sure,” he stares a little longer and you hope he likes this angle of your face, he doesn’t think there’s a possibility he couldn’t, “The one with the dog on the sign, right?”

He still likes dogs - you assume that’s the memories of Pochita. You’re glad Makima couldn’t rip that from him.

You nod slowly, grinning at him as he beams back down at you, “Duh. And the free samples.”

“Fuck yeah!” he kicks his legs out and onto the porch banister and leaves them there.

His muscles are less tense now, and when you stretch your legs out to rest by his, he melts into his chair even further - because he is hungry.

He will drink the milk and eat the film and consume your presence in its entirety. He wants to swallow and be swallowed. To be secured like neither of you could do before. Whole. Entirely.

~~~

@chainsaw-man-inserts finally... a return to chainsaw man

Edward: I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you

You: I just opened the door for you??

Edward: happy 2 minute anniversary

It's just for me, I'll put the stories I really loved. I post it to empty my drafts. Don't mind it.

Captain hook

BDS has called for an official boycott of Eurovision2024

Everyone...you know what to do

Joseph Quinn

photographed by Phil Sharp (2022)

When will you upload something? I'm anxious to read something from you:((

i honestly didn't even know someone would notice my absence lmao

I'm sorry, i have trouble finishing my draft (and i have many of them!)

also I'm kind of busy at the moment but i have a lot of things to publish; i can't give you a proper date I'm sorry

but I'm glad to see that you like my writings! thank you! it means a lot to me <3

fr tho why is everything smut😭😭 i wanna read angst that would ruin me, make me sick to my stomach and cry like there's no tomorrow bro i want a fanfic that is so devastating that i won't be able to function for the next few months