Work Text:
Pillow Fort
Asa has been planning on having a nice, relaxing weekend. It had been a busy week, devils to kill, pets to take care of, devils to argue with, and partners to live with. Just the “usual normal” her life had become, which always seemed to be its own brand of chaos, though one she had since come to deal with in her own way, and that way in particular was merely taking a weekend to herself and catching up with her reading. It was already starting to look up, because Nayuta was going to stay the weekend at a friend’s house with a few of her other friends, a get-together that she seemed very eager to get to. Asa wasn’t certain though if this was another girls’ weekend, or if maybe Nayuta was actually getting them together to plan some kind of violent coup on her class president. Either option seemed perfectly valid as she was concerned, since Nayuta had, once or twice, voiced her displeasure with her school’s politics and her desires to uproot the systems in her favor.
Personally, Asa never cared for school politics, she had enough of that for one lifetime, she just wanted to sit curled up in her favorite chair, book in hand, and enjoy herself.
“Hey, what’s a pillow fort?” Denji suddenly asked from his spot on the couch.
“A what?” Reze had been lying against him, they had been watching TV, some kind of anime or something she wasn't paying attention to, though she did keep an ear out for their conversations in case she felt a need to interject her own opinion.
“A pillow fort?” Denji repeated. “Nayuta mentioned something about wanting to make a pillow fort. I don’t know what that means.”
“Oh? Um…” Reze’s eyes went up to stare at the ceiling. “A fort made of pillows if I had to guess? I mean, I’m having a hard time thinking of anything else it could be.”
“Eh?” Denji said with a shrug.
“It’s just a pillow fort,” Asa said, not taking her eyes off the book. It was a story about a knight going on a journey to find the cure for a saint who had fallen deathly ill, all while pursued by a witch who wished to ruin said knight and make certain that the knight failed in his quest. To be honest, Asa actually liked the chemistry between the knight and the witch more than she liked the relationship he had with the saint.
“You sound like a hypocrite with that line of thinking, I hope you are aware of that,” Yoru said inside her head. “Also, the writer is rather detailed with the combat sequences, he does a very good job of describing just how a sword can skewer a man’s abdomen. Though, that’s not the kind of penetration you’re interested in, right?” she said with a smug tone.
Asa has no idea what Yoru was talking about. Not one bit. Whatever it was though, not that she knew, she wished she would keep her head out of the gutter.
“My head is inside your head, you fool.”
Asa chose to ignore further comments from the devil.
“Well what's a pillow fort?” Denji then asked.
“It’s just that,” Asa answered, turning a page, where the knight was lighting a bonfire. “It’s something kids build.” She then rolled her eyes. “How do you not know this? Did you ever build pillow forts when you were younger?”
“No,” they both answered at the same time.
Asa opened her mouth to argue back, but the response died instantly. Of course these two in particular wouldn’t know what a pillow fort was, between being a money slave for the yakuza, and a child soldier for the Soviets, Asa doubted they had a full bed’s worth of pillows and sheets between them growing up.
“Um, right, sorry,” Asa then said, trying to hide her face behind her book in embarrassment. “I guess that’s not something you two might have had when you were younger…”
Reze slightly pushed herself off of Denji and leaned toward Asa. “How about you? You ever make pillow forts? Like a sleep overs or something?”
“I, uh… Didn’t go to many sleepovers, I never saw much of a point to them, I always preferred to sleep in my own bed given the chance.” The only sleepover she went to was when she was nine, and she was convinced the only reason she was invited was because her and Chiyo’s mothers were friends, which is how most of her short-lived social circles started. It didn't end well, and she was happy to never go to another one again. She certainly didn’t come home crying the next day. Nope. “I did make a few though,” she said, gently stroking a thumb over the corner pages of her book. “My mom and I, she’d sometimes help me make my own little space out of pillows and sheets when I was having a rough day, and we’d sometimes read together.” She took a moment to soak in the memories. ”It was nice.”
“It sounds like it was,” Reze said with a smile, before she returned to her position of laying against Denji.
With them watching TV, and her returning to her book, it would seem that the conversation had come to an end.
“I wanna build a pillow fort,” Denji suddenly said.
“Huh?” Asa looked up from her book with a questioning glance while Rezeglanced up in amused curiosity. “What are you talking about?”
“I wanna make one,” Denji repeated, using an arm to push himself up. “I never made one when I was a kid, the closest I ever got was that one time I had to tie Power up in a blanket so she would try and drink my blood while I was sleeping.
“Sounds fun,” Asa dryly said, though Reze got a chuckle out.
“LIke hell it was!” Denji shouted. “She kept trying to bite and scratch me!” With an annoyed grunt, Denji flopped back down onto the couch, taking his gaze to the ceiling, and already he seemed to be betting that look, the one where a deep sense of numbing sadness had come over him.
“Well, how about we make a fort of our own?” Reze asked, pushing herself into a sitting position.
“Huh?” Denji asked, raising his head to look at her.
Reze adjusted herself where she sat, pushing herself off of Denji just so she could turn around and straddle his lap. “I think it might be fun, at the very least it might be different. Also,” Reze gave a side glance to Asa. “I’m sure Asa knows enough to make an excellent architect.”
“I wouldn't say that exactly,” Asa said.
“Come on, Asa!” Asa playfully pleaded. “Please help us build a pillow fort!”
“Yeah!” Denji excitedly said, pushing himself up, causing Reze to adjust how she sat in his lap as he did so. “Let’s make an awesome pillow fort!” At the very least that gloomy expression of his was gone.
With a roll of her eyes, Asa reached over to grab her book mark, to save her spot in the book for later, before placing it down on the side-table. “Fine, I’ll help. It might be fun after all.”
000
Making said fort in their bedroom was the first of Asa’s instructions. Sure, the living room had more space, but that was where the pets stayed, and she knew that any construction would be instantly torn down if they were allowed anywhere near it. It was a miracle to get them to calm down for any length of time, and she knew that doing something different in the living room would only reset their behavior for the night. So the bedroom was then, and after a bit of cleaning up, they had a good amount of space on the floor for them to set the foundation down. She had sent Denji to gather pillows and cushions, Reze was to get blankets, all while Asa tried to decide how to go about this, trying to imagine how this would be made when everything was together. She already had some idea, and thankfully it didn’t take too long before Reze was able to gather a few sheets like Denji dropped nearly every pillow in the home right on the floor.
The pillows were laid out with blankets placed on top of them, while the sheets had been draped out, the corners pinned by stacks of books on the bed and the dresser to provide a canopy. Cushions from the couch had been propped up to act as walls of sorts, framing the entrance to the door.
It was hardly pretty, but it was functional from what she could see.
“Looks cute,” Reze said, a head tilted to the side. “But now what?”
“Well we just crawl inside to start with,” Asa said, and before she could add anything else, Denji got down to his knees and carefully crawled inside the fort. With a look and a shrug exchanged between them, Reze followed after him, with Reze taking up the rear.
“It needs artillery,” Yoru suggested as she crawled through.
It did not, it was a pillow fort. It did not need guns to keep it safe. They were going to most likely tear this down in the morning anymore.
“Why are you so anti-fun?”
The fort was situated against the dresser, and with the canopy sheet held at the top it presented them with a good amount of head room, though it was still rather cramped. This was apparent as the three of them tried to move around the fort, trying to avoid bumping into one another while trying to make certain that they did not accidentally knock anything over and bring the fort down on them. They eventually managed to get into under the fort’s blakes and down down on the laid down cushions and sheets, though it was maybe not as roomy as Asa would have remembered something like this having been from when she was a child. It made sense, the forts she had built were for a child and an adult, not three adults.
The three of them laid down, shoulder to shoulder, with Denji taking up the middle.
“It’s kind of cozy in here,” Reze said, adjusting herself slightly to make her position more comfortable. “So what do we do now?”
“Uh…” Asa went, looking around the fort, trying to think of something to do. “I really don’t know, I always just read these with my mom. I was actually kind of quick to take them down because I never liked having a mess in my room.”
“Seriously?” Denji asked, already sounding annoyed. He pushed himself up, but his head brushed against the bed sheet that hung overhead. “Okay, give me like five minutes,” he said, before he was crawling out of the fort.
“Sorry this isn’t really all that great,” Asa said in apology. “It’s just us kind of sitting on the floor.”
“I don’t mind,” Reze said, moving closer to her. “Like I said, it’s cozy here, and I don’t see how being in a close, tight spot with you two can be considered a bad thing.” She wrapped an arm around Asa and laid her head into the crook of her neck, giving her a kiss on the skin, which Asa couldn’t help but laugh at the sensation of skin against skin.
“Maybe you’re right, maybe this isn’t so bad afterall,” she said, giving Reze a kiss on the top of her head, which was enough to soften her mood a bit.
That was when the end of the sheet that was on top of the bed came undone as Denji tore it off the mattress and out from the weights that were placed on it.
“Denji!” Asa shouted, pushing Reze away in frustration. “What are you doing? I worked hard on that!”
“Yeah, but I got an idea!” he said with a grin, and in one had he had a broom. Before she could ask what he was doing he took a corner of the sheet and tied it to the end of the broom and wedged it between the bed and the end table, and used a length of string to tie it in place, and Asa had to admit that the improvised adjustment did seem like it was going to give them more room too work with, though it seemed liked the other end of the corner still needed to be kept on the bed. “Also, I threw some popcorn into the microwave, so we can snack on that,” he said, popping his head in through the entrance.
“How many times do I have to tell you, no eating in the bedroom!” Asa said with scorn.
“Come one Asa, just this one time! Make an exception for the pillow fort!” he pleaded. Asa looked to Reze for support, she was usually the more level headed of the two, the one she could expect to reason with, but she gave her a sad look with those big green eyes, and she knew she had no chance. “Fine,” she admitted in defeat. “But just this one time, and don’t make me regret it.”
“Sweet!” he cheered, pulling his head back and out of the fort. “Also, I’m gonna need some help moving the TV into here.”
“What? WHY?!” Asa practically screamed.
Denji popped his head back in once again. “So we can stay up all night playing video games in the fort.”
Before Asa could even argue back, Denji once again withdrew his head, and she could hear footsteps as they left the room and went down the hall.
“You know, I really do think this could be a fun night,” Reze said, clearly amused. “So give it a chance.”
Asa growled, but she accepted that this would be a more complicated affair that she had originally planned it to be, but in the end she did help with Denji in getting the TV into the bedroom, setting it down on the floor and draping the sheet over it so that it was partially inside the fort. While Asa set that up, Denji returned with the Playstation and several games, and Reze came in with two bowls of popcorn and a package of cookies.
Within the comfort and safety of their fort, surrounded by blankets and pillows, they played Pop’n Tank!, Crash Bandicoot and Parasite Eve, and ate snacks, going late into the night, much later than Asa would have thought they would go. It was fun, a lot of fun if Asa had to admit, even though they were yelling and screaming and getting on the floor with active sabotage attempts while they played games. Damn them and trying to kiss her when she was trying not to fall into pits. It was still fun, and after some hours, she couldn’t help but feel her mouth hurt from how much she had been laughing.
By the time Asa was able to look at a clock she was shocked to discover it was nearly three in the morning, and the realization of just how late it was really did set it in that she was beginning to feel exhausted.
“One more round of Pop’n Tanks! ,” Yoru told her, trying to put up a front of eagerness, though Asa could feel the tiredness coming off of her. “I refuse to go to bed until my win-loss ratio against Reze is in my favor.”
Despite Yoru’s protests, Asa knew they had to call it a night, they had run out of cookies and popcorn, and her eyes were starting to get bleary from the TV’s screen in the dark, and she was thankful that Denji and Reze were starting to get onto the same page as her. It was a fun night, she was happy she did it, but she found herself exhausted, and the time for sleep was now. They pushed the TV and games out of the fort and left the empty bowls and cookie packages out by it, with only the unpopped kernels and the most minute of crumbs left, before they tried to settle in for the night. Earlier she had attempted to arrange the sleeping space into something that looked nice and orderly, but the playing and roughhousing had only made a mess that she was simply too tired to fix, so they made do with the piles of blankets and pillows.
It didn’t take too long for them to collapse onto one another, exhaustion soon overtaking them, leaving them in a pile of bodies and entangled limbs, and even though she had been the one to want to go to bed, Asa found herself awake even when Denji and Reze had already passed out. Eyes tried and threatened to collapse on her, she kept them closed and listened to the soft breathing of her partners, taking in their body warm against her own, her limbs wrapped in theirs, and she found herself content, wishing that they could sleep in late tomorrow morning.
It did not take her too long to follow them into dreamland.