First: This all looks way better on archiveofourown, trust me. Works number is 11042910.
Second, if you have not seen the episodes "For the Love of Clamboy" and "Imperfect Fooplicates" recently, this is not going to make much sense. Literary references are cited at the end.
Third, instead of listing out triggers like I normally do, I'm just gonna c&p the ao3 tags for this because this shit is rich, dawg:
Major Character Death, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Alternate Universe – Domestic, Domestic Fluff, this is a YinxYuck domestic AU so you know it's gonna be edgy as fuck, Slice of Life, mentions of cannibalism, off-screen dismemberment, Domestic Disputes, Aged-Up Character(s), Implied/Referenced Suicide, Unhealthy Relationships, Clones, Literary References & Allusions, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD, Angst, Romantic Fluff, Gore, bonding through trauma and murder, the dream team amirite guys, mentions of sexuality
The following tags are invalid: I was gonna tag this mild gore even though there's semi-graphic dismemberment because anything less than straight torture porn doesn't register as gore to me. Please make sure that your tags are less than 100 characters long and do not contain any invalid characters.
i.
"What would you do if Yang died first?"
She doesn't miss a beat; the water sloshes, dishes click. "Kill myself."
Yuck swallows the last of his pot roast. "Was this an independent decision or something you agreed on together?"
"Together, kinda." She twirls around, drying her hands in her apron. A translucent hand swipes the plate out of his, leaving his tongue cleaning air. Yin drops it into the sink; the knives strung up over the faucet clack against blue milk glass. "He's said he wants me to bake his ashes into a pizza, but the suicide thing is sort of an unsaid agreement."
"Gotta space out the funerals, right?"
"Yeah. Maybe we could get one of those rent to own coffins."
"Sounds like you two have this pretty planned out."
She nods, then laughs. "Once, when Yang had done something really stupid –"
"So being alive."
"–Dad made him write out a will. Said he needed to have his shit together first if he wanted to try to get himself killed."
Yuck groans as he stands, pops his back, and steals to the sink, summoning a tiny storm within the drain that licks clean every inch of china and glass. As he places a stack of dinner plates atop the outstretched arms of the house's old owner, he asks, "Is that where the pizza thing came from?"
How lucky was that he would be shielding his face in such a way that he would form a perfect granite shelf? Yuck has to hand it to her, sometimes. And hey, it's better for this old shmuck, too; they'd tried moving his wife to the basement and ended up dropping her. Yuck will say his toe took the worst violence, but ear-to-ear scars are more convincing.
Yin jumps up onto the countertop, lolling back against the cabinet of souvenir shot glasses.
The way she looks – the rim of her form kissed orange, her cheek pressed against the cabinet door, and her pink hair spilling loose of its bun – Yuck has never understood the artistic drive more than he does at a time like this. A swelling in his chest, electricity running loose along his phalanges.
War and art, as he's been told by the scrolls, are both worthless if the artist does not have anything he wishes to say. Well, if Yuck could paint this moment, he would say it all with two words: She's mine.
(Please commit suicide accordingly is implicit enough to be left unsaid.)
Yin crosses her legs, smiles humorlessly at his jump. "Actually, that was a little later. If I'm remembering correctly, at first he wanted to be fired out of a cannon at people like some macabre game of paintball."
As if pizza was any less. Yuck is going to suggest deboning her brother like a fish and putting the rest through a wood chipper for a good ole meat lovers' pizza, but the tightness in her jaw wires his own shut.
ii.
The old man is still holding those plates. Yin is staring at him chewing her thumb, until she eventually takes the china away and places them in one of their crates, slotting them into the stack of unread contemporary romances Yuck had insisted should be burned for fuel in the winter.
"Think one of your ex-husbands would be willing to hold 'em for us?" Yuck asks, leaning back so he can prop his boots up on the kitchen table. A trifold of windows overlooking the backyard spills sunlight onto a room bursting at the seams. Trash bags of precious heirlooms and decades of memories. Milk crates of scrolls and knickknacks and xylophones of sharp objects, from katanas to double-bitted axes.
Yin acrobats her way through the clutter to blow the dust off the top of a faux-mahogany standing jewelry box – the Box of Infinite Storage, scroll 7B, if he remembers correctly. She throws the bottom drawer out, and it doesn't stop until it meets the edge of the table with a gunshot smack. Yuck leans over, curious eyes widening.
Rings. Hundred—thousands, maybe, of gold and silver rings, some plain bands and others crowned with fat diamonds.
Yin draws his gaze back up with a giggle. "Which one?"
iii.
When asked how best to dispose of the bodies of the ("previous, Yin, it'll get easier the more you say it") homeowners, Yuck simply shrugs and suggests starting a stone garden, maybe even throw in an eternal frost or plague while you're at it.
"That's not happening."
"It doesn't really matter if people know we did it," he tells her, "if they don't have the balls to come and stop us."
Yin rolls her eyes.
In the end, they stand each statue shoulder to shoulder in the basement, and Yuck cuts off each of their heads.
What? You thought they weren't still alive in there?
As she sweeps the rubble into a pan, Yuck can swear he hears her say, "Nothing if not merciful," under her breath.
In the end, they simply teleport to the cliff overlooking a skyscraper drop into the sea, far enough away from the people-thick promenades to push the statues over and empty a trash can after them like pirates using chow to call up the executioners.
iv.
He's granite before the water even hits him. She finishes showering, cognizant now of the statue trying to encircle her waist, and unfreezes him once she's out and dressed, sitting lotus with several books and candles floating about her. But her eyne are closed when she hears the water shut off and Yuck shuffle out, towel wrapped around his hips.
"Are we ever gonna have sex?" he asks. The frankness of it makes her giggle, more of a snort. She opens her eyes and manually corrects one of the book's pages. "If God's looking out for me, never."
Again—the word is shoved off into a corner.
She'd cried; he'd stopped; she'd pushed him away. Wouldn't let him hold her.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Well, you know what they say about insanity.
"Oh, come on," (now they're both breaking into peals of laughter) "don't Kempe me like this."
"You've won, what more do you want?" She scoots over in bed, pulling her legs up to allow his mass. Then her face blanks. A quirked eyebrow. "Did you say that I "cucked" you?"
"Kempe. As in Margery Kempe, y'know, medieval wannabe saint" —no flash of recognition until – "said she'd fucked Jesus while being his mom but also his daughter?"
His weight makes the bed spasm, but Yin still lets him cuddle up to her, even moving the candles so his hair doesn't catch fire. "Oh yeah." His chin on her shoulder, breathing in the rich smell of mango clinging to her hair. A contented sigh, a murmured compliment, a hand slithering over her stomach.
Stiff back, quiet thank you.
"Finally reading through our kindling?"
Slack. Yin readjusts her pince-nez, her eyes remaining focused on the page as Yuck taps its side, turns the small circles into squares, stars, giraffe cookie cutters. "They're perfectly fine books if you give them a chance," she says, a tiny smile in the words.
He snuggles her closer. "And I'm sure they burn perfectly bright, as well."
"Why don't I burn some of your favorite books?"
He shrugs. "Go ahead, I'm not gonna reread them anytime soon."
"Why not?"
"Life's too short."
The incredulous look she gives him brings another round of laughter, allowing Yuck to pull her into his lap as she tries to calm her screaming sides. "We've been twenty for about a hundred years, doofus," punctuated with a light leather-bound smack to the face. He counterattacks the nape of her neck, peppering her flesh with soft kisses.
Yin lolls back against his chest, a mess of giggles and goosebumps.
"Get my Kempe reference?" he mumbles into her neck.
A page flip. Candles dim, close in, flooding the air with the scent of roses. But Yuck keeps his hands wrapped firmly around her waist. "Yeah. Just been awhile since I've heard that name."
They both remember Kempe mostly for demanding a sexless marriage after fourteen children and then, most famously, for saying that if it came to a choice between toting her husband's head around in a basket and climbing again into his bed, she would much rather carry him home.
v.
"I love you," he murmurs into her wet hair, into a mouthful of omelet, into the dead of night.
She usually will smile and roll her eyes, or punch him in the shoulder, sometimes giggle that he's just trying to get into her pants. Often, she is silent.
Only when Yuck is curled within her arms, trembling as the scars along his back, legs, and arms burn scarlet and his lungs fight to accept air will she whisper, "I love you, too."
He lets it be enough. For a while, anyway.
vi.
Over the last one hundred years, Yin has learned a lot about how to ignore someone who is threatening to off themselves behind you.
Sometimes he does it, sometimes not. Every time she cleans up the blood and resurrects him, somehow, either by boiling his bones in her own blood or waving her fooplication charm in the mirror until history takes its course.
She'll always make sure to transfer her bookmark into another volume before she does, though, so he doesn't know how long it took her to choose to save him. She's half-finished a lot of books this way.
Once he's there again, eyes bleary and muscles sore, she'll make him his favorite dinner, and lay her legs over his on the couch, reading until the TV sings them both to sleep.
"I just wanted to know if you'd care," he says once, his voice groggy, as if he'd just woken up. But Yin has had her ear to his heart for the past hour or so, so she knows he was only pretending, too.
"Of course I care about you."
"You don't act like it.
"Well," she sighs, readjusting herself and pulling the afghan tight against their forms, "sometimes you don't either. But I'm still here for you, Yuck, and you still let me be. And that's all that really matters."
Fingers atop her hair, eyne watching the shadow theatre along the ceiling. "I guess."
vii.
"Gently, Yuck, gently! You're going to –"
The poor flower's stem tears cleanly. Emerald light retreats; Yuck cracks open an eye to see if he should apologize or brace for impact.
Frustration, but then shoulders slack. Apology, then.
"Why are we doing this, anyway?"
Wait, that's not it.
They're in the garden of their little stolen cottage, knee-deep in rose bushes and wire-mesh heavy with tomatoes. When Yin said she wanted to start gardening, Yuck had been reminded of a story wherein this man's mother could make even the hardiest ancient tree keel over, so he began to litter her garden with store-bought produce, then whole loaves of bread and unopened cans of spam. It seemed to make her happy regardless. Yuck had even bought a whole fridge-full of greens, just for the occasion.
But no, she had wanted to meld the preter- with the prefix-less natural, because of course she did. Of course she would conflate a green thumb with using a delicate combination of transformation and levitation to physically pull the seed into maturation. Of course, of course. And what better time to impart this wisdom than when it's pushing one hundred degrees?
The last time he had asked her if she loved him, she'd said no. Yuck wipes a bucket of sweat from his brow and considers that she wasn't joking. "When are we ever gonna need this?"
Yin straightens, crossing her arms over her denim pinafore. "When we're gardening. Which is right now, in case you haven't noticed."
"I mean in battle, which is what Woo Foo is for, in case you haven't noticed." Thin ice melted with a cruel falsetto fire. "You're probably only doing this so you don't have to get your dress dirty."
Oh yes, he had noticed that she was wearing that sundress he'd been partial to at the store, an airy pale-yellow slip now strangled with cloth ties. One of his steel-toed boots magically fitted to her feet, thick leather gloves better suited to dragon midwifery than planting a circle of sunflowers around a rock. As always, she looks adorable- adorably out of her depth.
Yin starts to remove the gloves one finger at a time, which means either that she wants Yuck to untie the noose he's made of his tongue, or just that she likes those gloves too much to burn them to ashes.
One finger, two. Three. First hand free, her pink nails glinting in the sun like bloodied teeth. "What do you propose we do with our Woo Foo then?"
Yuck smiles. "I'm glad you asked, actually." Stomps the handle of a spade, catching it in the air ere he chucks it at Yin like a javelin – shields go up, five spades embed themselves in the blue. "Pretty good, huh? Now imagine what you can do it if you were to use the charm as a diversion, too."
Magic vanishes, metal clatters.
Yin's rictus matches the intensity of his pompous grin, freeing her other hand as he crosses sunburnt arms over his chest.
"You know—" Yin's hands pour sapphire down onto the beheaded adolescent Yuck had been trying to manipulate only moments earlier. "I was reading that Vonnegut book you got me the other day, and there was this scene where the main character meets up with his old lover after fourteen years—"
Yuck feels his heart churn. The sunflower is reconnected with maternal grace, its petals beginning to spread and search for the sky as she continues – "and she tells him about how all her servants are mutilated women. There was a good quote in there, if you want to hear it."
Dread, hot and writhing, a rat king in his chest. Her words are completely passionless, which brings a transparent force field to his skin.
A calm, even happy, Yin always preludes disaster.
Although Yuck has never scientifically verified this, he's sure Yin can smell fear like a shark smells a pricked finger miles away, so he merely rolls his hand and tells her to proceed.
"Well, she's telling him about how the girl who let him in lost a leg and an eye to a mine when she was trying to bring her neighbor breakfast, since she'd given birth the night before. They don't know anything about who planted the mine other than that it was a guy. You know what Marilee says next?"
He's about to answer, but the flower is now up to his clavicle, stalk a vibrant green and thick as a rope. Yin smiles. "She says: Women are so useless, aren't they? All they ever think of planting in the dirt is something beautiful or edible. The only missile they ever throw is a ball or a bridal bouquet." Yin seesaws her hand. "More or less."
Pulls a seed from her pocket and drops to her knees; Yuck is silent as she digs her finger into the ground.
"To be fair to me," he finally says, "I am half girl." Thanks to you.
She snorts and covers the seed. "Who isn't?"
viii.
Yin picks up Yuck's head and gently places it in the sink, throwing the water on so that it punctures through him like a bullet through tissue paper. Flesh flaking off, bones crumbling in huge chunks, all no more than a thin film desperate to hold its shape. She jerks the faucet to and fro, until he's dissolved into a ring no larger than a salad plate.
Then she does the rest of his body: the legs, piled upon on one side of the room, blood like skid marks as long as Smoke's sword; arms on the other, limp amongst the weights as if he'd ripped them off lifting; torso atop the stove, the daily mail and pot of leftover rice pushed off onto the floor. Of course, he could be bothered to make sure he caught all of himself on tarp and cut trash bags, but not to simply put the mail on the table and the food in the fridge.
Must have been in a hurry to be done ere she came home from the mall, although looking at the contraption of swinging blades, rubber bands, and ropes that had transformed the entire first floor of their cottage into some foul Goedhart machine, Yin can begin to understand why. Whole thing must have looked one sneeze away from catastrophe when it was wound taut—heck, it still does now.
Once she's done forcing him down the drain, she searches through the milk crates until she finds a framed picture of her brother, posing in the same bulky, brown armor he'd worn after the resurrection of Eradicus. This is the picture of Yang that represents him in the textbook — The Ancient Book of Woo Foo History, 8th edition, page 501, "A Modern Idiot Savant."
Yuck had told her to cover up the pale patches left by the old couple's photographs with her own collection, but she had always told him she wanted to paint the walls first. Even went and got color swatches, but, well, you know how life can be.
She'll never get around to it, at this rate.
Yin squeezes her eyes shut, pinching the frame so hard the wood splinters, herself so hard the skin purples between her fingers.
Gray simulacra fall from the sky, land atop junk and cheap beige rug. As the Yin blows hair out of her face, murmuring curses, the Yang holds his head in his hands, waiting for his vision to stop spinning.
"Clean all this up." The real Yin pulls the fooplication charm out of her pocket, tosses it to the Yang, who tries to catch it with a clap but succeeds with his face. "And in case you're wondering: don't blame me, blame my boyfriend's propensity for histrionics."
"Why can't he clean it up, then?" her copy demands, pushing herself up off the floor.
The real summons a pink overcoat and suitcase with a snap, gestures towards the scarlet-edged blades littering the ceiling and countertops.
As her copy mouths an "oh," her brother's asks, "Has he never heard of a gun?"
"Oh, he has, but like I said: drama." Snaps her fingers again and taps the full-view mirror now abreast to her with the back of her hand. "Don't go crazy while I'm gone."
"Where are you going?" the Yang asks as she slides his seat out of her path with a foot, her suitcase's wheels seesawing over the warped wood.
"Home, to visit some family."
"Didn't you just say your boyfriend killed himself?" the other Yin calls towards the yawning front door.
Yin waves the question off as a cerulean portal opens before her, splitting the air like a wound. Much quicker than teleporting, you see, at least at these distances. "That's just his way of saying I can go."
Both: "What?"
Yin slings her suitcase into the portal, which swallows it with a rubbery reverb. "Oh yeah," she calls back as the door begins to close. "Episodes of crippling depression and agoraphobia, your in-laws wanting to murder you, desperate ploys to get me to prove I actually love him by making me worry." A helpless shrug. "You know how it is."
Her face is only a sliver, but both clones stare at her nose, searching for new growth and finding none. "The holidays are a lot easier this way."
The scenario Yuck references in the garden is from the novel Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander.
The Kurt Vonnegut book Yin is quoting, albeit slightly truncated, is Bluebeard.
Margery Kempe was a 15th century mystic who wrote The Book of Margery Kempe. Yeah, that conversation does happen, although not exactly in the terms Yin and Yuck use.