Fandom: World of Warcraft
Pairing: Garrosh Hellscream & Male OC [Platonic/Familial]
Rating: SFW
Content: Fluff, Crochet, Exactly what it says on the tin
Date written: 2nd February 2021
Summary: Garrosh learns a new skill from his somewhat-nephew.

Author's notes: what's the timeline of all this??? fucked if i knew. i'd say it's some sort of AU where garrosh....doesn't go fricking beserk and stays warchief and thrall and his fam live in durotar but away from orgrimmar. because fuck you i do what i want.

also in this story my oc emmerich is thrall's adopted son and i dont care how self indulgent or cringe that is lmao 😊🧚♂️✨💖 i just want to have fun

It was the same stitch he had been doing for the past 4 days.

Skip one stitch. Double crochet into the next stitch. Chain one. Go back into the stitch that was skipped over. Yarn over and enter the stitch and pull through the yarn and repeat that six times before grabbing and pulling the yarn through the many loops hanging over the hook. Chain one and repeat all over again.

To most it was tiring, boring and extremely tedious work. Making a blanket big enough to fit an entire orcish family underneath it was no easy feat, and it took extreme amounts of time, effort, patience and yarn to complete such a project.

Emmerich felt lucky that he genuinely enjoyed such repetitive and tedious work. He had dove into it head first when his Ma had mentioned that they needed some new blankets that would be big enough to fit all of the family underneath, as the few furs they had were just too small for all four of them. The moment he had dived into making the blanket, everything else had disappeared into background noise.

He did stitch after stitch, repeating the same line over and over, working the hook through the stitches until he finally got to the end of the line and turned over his work to do it all over again on the next line.

Emmerich had become hyper-focused on his task, and nothing short of his little brother biting him on the arm to get his attention was able to bring him out of his focused state of mind.

“Argh! What did you do that for?” He scolded, rubbing where Durak’s tusks had dug into his skin.

The much younger orc jumped up and down, grabbing the tassels of Emmerich’s poncho as he started to speak quickly, “Uncle Garry's here! Come on!” He continued to pull on the older orc’s clothing until he eventually gave in, abandoning his work as he got up from the floor, letting himself be led by his little brother.

He was led to the entrance of the home, where Garrosh was standing at the doorway. He was wearing his usual attire- Mannaroth's tusks, the big steel belt, combat boots and the chains that dangled from his brown pants- and Malak was standing only a few feet behind him, rather alert to her surroundings and wearing her full armour, too. Garrosh and Malak were both dressed for official business, perhaps even a battle, and obviously wouldn't be staying long.

"Um...sorry Warchief, but Ma and Pa aren't here right now. It's just me and Durak at the moment."

Garrosh huffed through his nose. “Where are they?”

“I uh...wasn’t...really paying attention to what they were saying when they left so...I actually don’t know.”

Garrosh sighed in exasperation. “Do you at least know when they will be back?”

"Um...most likely before nightfall. Probably."

The Warchief grunted in response, though he didn't move. Durak had already ran up to Garrosh and made grabby hands at him. Garrosh looked down at the young orc, and his expression softened slightly as he picked him up, holding the boy close to his chest. Durak played with the tooth necklace around Garrosh's wide neck.

"I'm not going to spend all day trying to figure out where Thrall has gone and go on a wild goose chase after him. I'll stay here and wait."

"You don't have anything you need to do? No official business or anything?"

Garrosh stared at him in a way that said yes, I do, but it was obvious that he wasn't going to leave despite needing to be somewhere else.

"Oh. Um. Well...come in, then..!"

Garrosh had to take off Mannaroth’s tusks in order to be able to fit through the door. Malak went around to the side of the hut to lay down and take a nap in the shade. Emmerich led the Warchief into the small little hut.

There was really nowhere for Garrosh to sit besides the floor, so that is where he sat.

"Do you want something to eat or drink?" Emmerich asked.

Garrosh growled quietly in response. Emmerich took that as a negative. He sat back down on the floor next to the blanket he had been working on and continued to crochet to his heart's content. He wasn't the type of orc to try and start up a conversation if he knew the other person didn't want to talk, so he stuck with companionable silence instead.

Besides, Garrosh had his hands full with Durak, who had started to play-fight with him.

"Raah! I'm gonna kill you!" Durak yelled, biting down on Garrosh's shoulder. Garrosh barked out a laugh. Durak's tusks and jaw weren't yet strong enough to break through Garrosh's thick skin, but it wouldn't be long before both him and Emmerich would have small little pin-holes poked through their skin. Maybe in a year or two.

"I doubt that an orc as small as you could kill me." He replied, antagonising the child on purpose. Durak made a noise that was something like a growl and hiss combined, and gave the much bigger orc a grin.  "Oh yeah? Watch this!" He said, punching Garrosh square in the jaw, like how he'd watched Emmerich do that one time during a sparring match with him and Pa.

"Oh, so that's how it's gonna be? Very well, then, little whelp."

Garrosh quickly wrestled Durak to the ground- gently, of course- and growled in the boy's face, challenging him. Durak grabbed onto Garrosh's tusks and started pulling on them, trying to tear them out of his gums. They did not budge, of course, but in the Warchief's opinion it was a valiant effort for a mere child. He chuckled. "You are going to have to try harder than that to kill me, little one."

Durak snarled and punched Garrosh directly in the eye. His fists were small enough to fit in Garrosh's eye socket, without having to worry about the surrounding bone knocking against his knuckles. He hit the most vulnerable fleshy parts of the eye, and despite his punch not being particularly strong, it was akin to accidentally stabbing oneself in the eye with their own finger- It still hurt. Garrosh pulled his head back and growled, covering his eye. "Ow."

"Yay! I win!"

Emmerich had stopped his crocheting half-way through the play-fight to watch the two tussle, and had started laughing when Garrosh got punched in the eye.

"That's what you get for underestimating him. He doesn't play around."

Garrosh started to chuckle too. He was honestly impressed. Durak got up to do a victory dance, but Garrosh quickly pulled him back. "We are not done here, whelp. You may have punched me in the face but you didn't kill me. I'm still alive."

Durak laughed as they continued their play-fight, and Emmerich was able to drown it out as he continued working on his blanket, only looking up every once in a while when Garrosh or Durak growled particularly loud, or when Durak got in another punch to Garrosh's other eye.

Ten minutes went by before Garrosh managed to wear out the small orc enough that he was finally tuckered out. Durak had started yawning, and soon fell asleep in the larger orc's lap before Garrosh was even able move him to the soft furs that made up the family's bed. He refused to move and risk waking Durak before he was supposed to, so he stayed still instead.

It was silent again, for quite a long time. Neither Garrosh nor Emmerich really wanted to interrupt the calm silence. It wasn't often that either of the two got to just enjoy some peace and quiet. For Emmerich, his days were usually filled with all sorts of activities from working around the hut and helping his Ma and Pa with things, to playing with his little brother and teaching him new things. Garrosh's days were far more hectic and usually filled to the brim with all sorts of chaotic bullshit and other official Horde business.

Both of them rarely had the time to just relax. So they allowed themselves to just enjoy the silence.

Garrosh watched Emmerich work on the large blanket for the longest while, watching him maneuver the yarn and hook with the speed of a master craftsman; like he'd been doing it since the day was born. It was surprisingly fun to watch the half-orc work the yarn over and over again. It gave him small hints of nostalgia from when he was much younger and living on Draenor, watching Greatmother Geyah stitch new pieces of clothing together.

The hint of nostalgia was gone like a wisp on the wind, and it was replaced with a strong urge to understand how Emmerich was even making the blanket in the first place.

Obviously he could see that there was a small stick and some yarn, and that Emmerich was moving the yarn with the stick, but he wondered how in the world the puffs of yarn stayed put and didn't just...fall apart after a while. It was unlike any orcish method he'd ever seen before- neither traditional nor modern- and he was sure it wasn't another Horde race's methods either; he would recognise it. Emmerich's hands were moving far too quickly for him to be able to properly discern the method for himself, so he broke the silence.

"What are you doing."

Emmerich looked up from his work to look at Garrosh, still weaving the yarn through the blanket. Apparently he didn't need to be looking at it to know what he was doing. Garrosh thought it was curious.

"Making a blanket for Ma and Pa. Well...all of us really. Needs to be big enough to fit all of us underneath it, and it's gotta be thick enough to keep the warmth in. It's gonna take me ages."

"I can see that, pup. What method are you using?"

Emmerich bit his lip, seemingly contemplating something.

"It's a human method. It's called crochet."

Garrosh narrowed his eyes slightly. Emmerich chewed on his lip harder now, his nerves getting the better of him.

"I learned it from that neutral town, with the big church- Not my home town. There was a lady there who knew how to crochet, and it was getting really cold at the time, and I had no gold to buy myself warmer clothes, so she taught me how to make my own."

"I see."

"Yeah."

They were both silent again, for a while. Garrosh knew that it wasn't easy for Emmerich to talk about his upbringing or his past, so he never pried for information unless it was absolutely necessary. Emmerich had returned to crocheting his blanket, but he looked more on edge. Garrosh thought it'd be a good idea to take his mind off of whatever he was thinking about.

"Show me."

Emmerich looked up again. He blinked. "Huh?"

"Show me how you do this...'crochet.'"

"Oh! Oh...okay!"

Emmerich's mood seemed to brighten up, and he put the blanket down as he stood up, walking over to where he kept his personal belongings in a crate. He rifled through it for a moment before pulling out a small wooden box. He opened it, and plucked the biggest crochet hook that he owned, and then went over to the large sack next to the crate and pulled out a ball of yarn that he knew would be perfect for the hook size he had picked. He walked back over to Garrosh and handed the hook to him, and despite the hook being the largest that Emmerich owned, it still looked comically small in Garrosh's huge hands.

"Know how to do a slip knot?"

"Yes."

"Good, do a small one and then put it over your hook."

Garrosh did so, putting the slip knot over the hook and pulling it tight. Emmerich saw how tight the yarn looked and adjusted it. "You wanna make sure the yarn is not too tight over your hook. Beginners starting in crochet always make the mistake of crocheting too tight, rather than too loose."

Garrosh grunted in affirmation.

"Okay, first things first. You need to know how to hold the yarn and hook properly, especially the yarn. You wanna make sure you have the right amount of tension in the yarn or it'll be impossible to crochet."

Emmerich showed Garrosh how to hold the hook, holding it almost like one would a fork or a spoon when they're about to dig into some food. Then he showed him how to hold the yarn, wrapping it around his pinky and draping it across the back of his hand before wrapping it around to the front of his hand, using his index finger to change the tension of the yarn.

"You want to make sure you're grabbing the tail end of the slip knot when you're starting so it's easier to do the starting chains."

Garrosh nodded.

"Okay, cool. So we're gonna start our chains now. Every single crochet project starts with chains so you’ll need to know how to do this. You'll wanna put your hook over the top of the yarn before wrapping it around. You'll find that the hook is now facing up, but you need to turn it back down so that when we pull the yarn through the loop on our hook, it'll actually go through. Because if you don't, it'll just get stuck on the loop."

Emmerich showed Garrosh the chaining as he explained, making sure to go slow so that he could see it. Garrosh then started to do his chains. He had a bit of trouble with figuring out the tension and the maneuvering of the yarn, but he slowly started to get the hang of it.

"Hah. I see why they're called chains."

"Yeah, they look exactly like them. Also, cool thing about crochet is if you mess up in some way you can just do this-"

Emmerich took the hook out of the loop and grabbed the yarn and started to pull, undoing all the chains he just did.

"Hm. Much more forgiving than some other clothing making methods." Garrosh said. Emmerich couldn't help but grin. "Yes! That's what I like about it so much, besides the fact that it's a really easy skill to pick up."

Garrosh hummed at that, continuing to practice crocheting the chains until he finally got the hang of it.

"What's next?" He said after a while.

"I'll teach you the single stitch and the double stitch. There's a lot of different stitch types but those two are the most common and easy to do, and you'll be able to create almost anything with the single and double stitch.

You see the chains that you made? Well, you're gonna insert your hook right into the middle of the second chain. After that, you’ll grab the yarn with the hook and pull it back through the chain. If you’ve done it right, you should have two little loops of yarn on your hook, and all you have to do is grab the yarn again, and pull it through the two loops. And you just keep repeating that until you’ve reached the end of the chain.”

Garrosh nodded as he watched Emmerich’s demonstration, and followed along as best as he could. Emmerich had made it look so easy, and Garrosh could feel himself become a bit frustrated when the yarn wouldn’t do what he wanted, but as Garrosh continued with his task, it slowly started to become easier.

Once he reached the end of the chain, he looked over to Emmerich expectantly. Emmerich smiled at him. “Okay, now you’re going to make one more chain, and then flip over your work. I can show you how to do the double stitch now, if you’ve memorised the single stitch already.”

Garrosh hummed in confirmation for Emmerich to teach him the new stitch as he chained one and flipped over the small piece of fabric he had created.

“The double stitch is very similar to the single stitch, just with a few added steps. Before you even put your hook into the stitches below, you need to wrap the yarn around your hook. Then you can insert the hook into the stitch to grab the yarn and pull it through. You’ll have three loops on your hook this time. Like last time, you’ll be grabbing the yarn, and pulling the yarn through the first two loops. You’ll end up with two loops on your hook after that, just like last time, and you’ll do the same as you did before; pulling the yarn through the two loops. That is the double stitch.”

Garrosh furrowed his eyebrows in focus as he attempted it himself, and with another demonstration from Emmerich, he managed it. The stitch was taller than the single crochet stitch had been, but this one had been much more involved than the first one. He looked up as Emmerich started speaking again.

“Once you get used to crocheting those two stitches, you’ll be able to tackle almost anything crochet related.”

The room was silent once more as Garrosh continued practising the double stitch. He was getting better as time went on- his hold on the hook was getting better, and his use of tension on the yarn became more appropriate. His hand was starting to cramp up, though.

After Garrosh was certain he knew both stitches well, he stopped.

“I want to learn the stitch you’re using.”

Emmerich raised his eyebrows at that, but lowered them when he saw the look in Garrosh’s eyes. He was determined to learn how to crochet as fast as possible, apparently.

Emmerich couldn’t complain. After all, he’d made his own scarf in only two days after a single day of learning how to crochet.

To be fair, it had also been winter and it’d been a matter of either being alive or freezing to death. Garrosh had no other excuse other than he wanted to acquire another skill as quickly as possible, because he simply felt like it.

Not that there was anything wrong with that.

“Okay. Here, I’ll show you.”

The stitch Emmerich had been using for his blanket was a bit more complex, but he’d described it as being similar to the double stitch, just with many more steps. He took his time in explaining it to Garrosh, and after a while he started to be able to do it on his own without Emmerich having to tell him the steps.

Garrosh had undone all of his previous work to start anew, deciding on a whim that he wanted to use this new, complex stitch he had learned to make a scarf. It would be easy, simply do the steps of the stitch and flip the work over and continue doing the same thing over and over until he got it to the length he wanted. Emmerich had said that there was also enough yarn for him to be able to complete such a project, so he went to work.

Garrosh knew he probably wouldn’t wear a scarf very often. It rarely if ever got cold in Durotar, and the times when it did, it was also wet - usually during the rare thunderstorms they sometimes got during summer, which tended to bring in cold air from the sea.

He thought that maybe he could use it as a reusable bandage if it never got cold enough to wear a scarf. Though, he doubted he’d be able to wash the blood out completely if he did. The yarn Emmerich had bought seemed as though it would probably soak up blood a bit too well.

He could always just suffer through the pain and wear the scarf in summer, and damn anyone that said anything about it. Or he could wrap it around the handle of his axe, have it be a decorative piece?

There were lots of possibilities.

Garrosh let his mind drift as he crocheted, and as he continued to make progress on his scarf, it occurred to Garrosh just how much he’d missed making things with his own hands. It reminded him of a time long ago in his childhood when he would sit in the Nagrand sun, making little bracelets and necklaces with beads, polished stones and the teeth of dead animals that he would carefully drill holes into. He’d make them for himself, but occasionally he’d make some for Greatmother Geyah and any other members of the village who he thought would appreciate them.

It was always satisfying, making something physical with his own hands. It didn't matter if it was clothing, a tool of some sorts, or just something that gave comfort to his own soul- like a bracelet or a necklace. It was a task that he knew he could complete. Something within his range of skills, something he could realistically complete if he just knew the right methods and put in the right amount of effort, or did it like this instead of like that.

It was satisfying, because he could see it once it was complete. He could physically see it. He could reach out and touch it. He could pick it up and use it in some way, or wear it.

He didn’t get a whole lot of that when he was leading an entire faction, besides perhaps the steel upgrades he’d ordered for all of the buildings in Orgrimmar, and the additional weapons and buildings he’d ordered to be built. Those were the only times he’d get that true sense of satisfaction, of being able to see the results of long hours of work and effort that had been put into a project.

Garrosh was glad he was getting to do something with his hands again.

Hours had passed, and it had started to get dark. Both Garrosh and Emmerich hadn’t stopped crocheting in all that time, except for when Durak had woken up to a pile of yarn on top of him. Garrosh had completely forgotten he’d had the small little orc in his lap when he’d started to really focus on making his scarf, up until the point that the rowdy child started to tug on it, trying to play with him. Garrosh was completely fine with stopping what he was doing to play with him again, but that was when Malak had decided to step inside the hut, and Durak decided that he was going to play with her, instead.

Garrosh was fine with that, and he went back to silently crocheting as his wolf and little nephew played. Despite Malak’s ferocity in battle, she was as gentle as ever with Durak. They played for a while, before Durak started to complain about his stomach.

“I’m hungry!”

Emmerich looked up from his blanket and immediately stood up. “It is getting dark. I should cook something before Ma and Pa get home. They’ll be hungry for sure.”

Garrosh stopped crocheting and got up a few moments later. “I will help.”

Emmerich nodded, and they both got to work preparing dinner.

It wasn’t long before Thrall and Aggra came home to the smells of meat, vegetables and multiple different spices all being cooked into a stew. The smell wafted out of the hut, and it was delightful. When they eventually got inside, however, both were surprised to see that Garrosh and Malak were there. Malak was lying on the floor as Durak sprawled over her, petting her fur, while Garrosh was sitting next to Emmerich as they both waited for the food to cook.

Garrosh looked up once he realised there was someone at the door. “Hmph. Finally got home, I see.”

Durak looked up to the person Garrosh was talking to, his face breaking out in a grin once he saw who it was. “Mama! Papa! You’re home!” He said, getting up and running over to his parents, gripping onto both of their legs. Both Aggra and Thrall smiled down at their youngest son. “And how are you doing, my little one?” Aggra asked.

“Good! I punched Uncle Garry in the face three times! And it hurt him!”

Aggra laughed out loud at that, picking Durak up and giving him a hug. “Already learning how to fight now are we? I hope you’ll learn to keep those tusks of yours to yourself.”

“Too late, Ma. He already bit me and Garrosh, today.” Emmerich said. “We’ll probably have to get him something to chew on. Preferably something that’s not my arm.”

Thrall chuckled. “Sounds like a solid plan, son.”

As they all settled down and eventually got to eat their stew, Thrall noticed that near the blanket that his son had been making, there was a new project. It looked like it was turning out to be a scarf from where he was sitting, but he couldn’t be entirely sure unless he got a closer look. One thing he could see, however, was the very large hook and very thick yarn that was being used for the project.

Looking over at Garrosh, he could see that his friend’s shoulders were not as tense. His eyebrows were not so knitted, and although he ate in silence, it didn’t seem as though his inner thoughts were troubling him. He looked back over to the new crochet project, and when he looked back to Garrosh, he was looking directly at him. He looked happy; content.

Thrall smiled.

End notes: POV you’re garrosh hellscream and you speedrun the crochet skill