#I used to be doubtful about the maybe you're not the worst thing ever scene and thought that may be them considering richard x madalena but

[persefoneshalott]

thinking about how they could've ruined madalena's character so many ways in galavant but they didn't < 3

#madalena #galavant #if they had gone through the richard love interest route that'd have been very not interesting and they could've also just made her the #bitch character which would've made me so mad #but they give her backstory! complexity!!! < 3 #I used to be doubtful about the maybe you're not the worst thing ever scene and thought that may be them considering richard x madalena but #later changing their mind (which idk if true) #but now I think it's great bc it has her opening up a bit when he's talking to her as a person and on their own rather than trying to push #any romance #and then she closes back up when he starts doing that again and we see her sad face after 'being forced to be the bad guy' #it's a great way to show pre- kidnapping madalena and show she's not one or the other she's both #anyway #LIKE madalena has trauma the way a traditional male hero would have trauma if that makes any sense

[chubphoe-linkclick]

People like to point to a lot of random scenes in Link Click to justify why ShiGuang being romantic is canon. Now, I'm not the creator of Link Click, I have no authority on the subject. So most the time, it's a "lets agree to disagree" situation.

However, there is one scene from Episode 1 that I find down-right offensive for people to point to as evidence of Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang being an item:

There is no doubt that this scene is incredibly beautiful and loving, but romance isn't what makes this scene beautiful, nor is it what makes the bond they share so touching and engaging to watch. The fact that they honest-to-God love and care about each other is.

What makes this particular scene really lovely is information we're given later in the show. Its full tenderness only clicks in hindsight once we know more about the characters and Cheng Xiaoshi's past. Specifically, when we understand more about how their powers work and the tragic fact that Xiaoshi is (effectively) an orphan.

So we need to back up a few steps.

The scene begins with us seeing Emma dreaming about her parents, and we eventually see a visual representation of how Cheng Xiaoshi is also experiencing this dream as her, taking on her feelings.

Then there's her parents leaving, metaphorical for how out of her life they are now and how much Emma misses her parents (duh).

The fun part comes from the fact that it's not Emma we see as a child at this point, but Xiaoshi. He is being left behind by his parents.

Look at this face. IT'S THE FACE OF PAIN, and for me it honestly didn't make sense why this dream was as emotionally impactful for him as it was (on my first watchthrough).

Afterwards Cheng Xiaoshi wakes up, and Lu Guang notices this. At times like this, I really appreciate the dub for localising what's being said better than the more literal subtitles (even though the dub definitely says some shit that just ain't true). The dub's word choices are:

LG: "You're up?" CXS: "I dreamt that I had spring rolls with my parents." LG: "Folks on your mind?" CXS: "Yeah, and they're on hers as well."

LG: "When you became her, you took on some of her feelings and her memories. It must be tough." CXS: "... I wonder if they'll come back."

and then Cheng Xiaoshi rolls over and starts hugging himself tightly because of the unbearable pain

It takes a hot second for Lu Guang to realise what Cheng Xiaoshi actually means by his statement, that the 'they' in question is his own parents rather than anyone in Emma's life. Naturally, Lu Guang understands that Cheng Xiaoshi is suffering immensely right now because Xiaoshi's being forced to feel the agonising hole is his life that came from the worst thing that ever happened to him.

And so, he reaches through time and space (metaphorically?) to comfort him, his all-time best friend and, yes, potential romantic partner, telling him that "It will work out, just rest." Because SWEET JESUS, WHO WOULDN'T TRY COMFORTING THEIR FRIEND IN THAT MOMENT!? WHO??

It's beautiful. It's sweet. It's loving. It shows how in-tune they are to each other and that they care about each other's well being. No macho shit here, only a wholesome connection that we are all jealous of and celebrate.

Bonus analysis: knowing Cheng Xiaoshi's emotional state at this point, his re-suffering of the pain from being separated from his parents, then makes the message from Emma's mother and his reaction to it all the more emotionally touching.

Maybe the reason he sent the reply "I miss you" wasn't even for Emma's sake in that moment, but a result of the line between his own loneliness and hers having become so blurred in that sleepy moment.

I'd just like to clarify again, if you think they're gay together: cool. If you think this scene is the reason why: not cool.

Romance isn't the highest form of love, and it's not gay or weird to love your friends. What Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang have is really beautiful, and I honestly don't think I've ever seen such a great depiction of two men who are so comfortably close to each other.

Whether their relationship is platonic or otherwise doesn't really matter here. What upsets me is the unhealthy elevation of romantic love as the most true and purest form of love over all other kinds -- that you can only care about someone this much and want them in your life ONLY if you want to marry them or something -- an idea that ends up hurting a lot of people.

Romance isn't what makes this scene beautiful, nor is it what makes the bond they share so touching and engaging to watch. The fact that they honest-to-God love and care about each other is.

#link click #shiguang dailiren #link click analysis #cheng xiaoshi #lu guang #whatever they have is lightyears ahead of human comprehension #bros that travel through time together stay together #no homo tho

[keiththecat]

Admissible (Part Two)

Pairing: Sam Winchester x Female Reader (You)

Summary: You've always hunted alone. That is, until Bobby sends you on a hunt near the Winchester brothers. How will things change when they come to help?

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: 18+, series typical violence and monsters, weapons, cursing, groping/ almost sexual assault, self-doubt/ self-esteem issues, character death, injuries, hurt/comfort

Author's Note: Warning! The groping and almost sexual assault is stopped, but it is at the beginning of this part. I have marked the end of the section to skip with <>. (Be warned, the section to be skipped starts right at the beginning of this part!) I have also put a small summary at the very end of this part to explain what you need to know about the part that is skipped. (So if you're skipping the start, scroll down to the end, read the short summary, and come back up to the <>). Feel free to message me if you have any questions or concerns about anything. Y/N is your name, and feedback is always welcome. Thanks for reading and thanks for all the love so far! <3

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, or any of the related characters. The Supernatural series is created by Eric Kripke and owned by The CW Network. This work of fan fiction is for entertainment only. I am not making a profit of any kind from this story. All rights of the original Supernatural series belong to The CW Network.

Part One

AO3 link here

You’ve been patted down, fingerprinted, photographed, and now you’re sitting handcuffed to the table in an interrogation room in front of Officers Davis and Johnson. Davis is the ray of sunshine that arrested you and processed you, getting a little too handsy when patting you down and taking your weapons and belongings. Johnson is a very tall and gaunt man in his 60s with the worst dark circles you’ve ever seen. He also looks like he hasn’t seen sunlight in probably the last five years. Desk jobs will do that to you, I guess. Davis is the one doing all the talking, leering at you.

“So here’s what we know,” Davis says, counting offenses on his fingers, “You’re not FBI. In fact, the name on your badge is completely fake. You had illegal knives on you and an illegal unregistered pistol. And you were caught around two of the families who have already had members killed recently. Sure does make us wonder who you are and what you were doing.”

Missus Miller must have been the one who called them. You stay silent, knowing that it’s your best bet. They won’t find an ID by searching your prints, but they will likely find them tied to other crime scenes, just due to the nature of your job as a hunter. They won’t find any record of the pistol, the serial numbers have been filed off for years. You send up a prayer to anything listening that they won’t find anything serious enough to keep you for more than a few days. 

“You would be smart to talk to us, explain some of this. Maybe if you gave us some answers, we could help,” Davis says.

You know he’s lying. The last thing you want to do is dig this hole any deeper. You smirk at him, then look at the ceiling and start counting the tiles to kill the time.

The officers sit, watching you for several more minutes. Davis continues trying to get you to talk, you continue ignoring him. This is going to be a very boring few days. I hope the boys can figure everything out and kill whatever it is before it gets anyone else. I hope they’re doing okay.

“I don’t think she’s talking, man. I’m taking a few,” Johnson gets up and walks out, leaving you alone with Davis.

After a moment, Davis gets out of his seat, moving around to lean on your side of the table. He places his hand on your chin, forcing you to look at him. “Just us now, sweetheart.” You glance at the camera in the corner of the room and notice the red recording light is no longer on. He’s leaning closer and you’re trying to decide if you can get away with headbutting him, adding assault to your charges, when there’s a knock at the door. Davis drops his hand as the door opens and Sam walks in. 

<>

“I certainly hope you haven’t been questioning my client without me, Officer,” Sam says, practically spitting out the last word. “I trust she has been informed of her rights and any charges against her?”

Davis moves away from you, “You’re her attorney?”

“I am, and I need a moment with my client. Thank you,” Sam leaves no room for discussion, taking a seat across from you and looking at Davis expectantly. 

Davis looks between the two of you for a moment, then scoffs and goes to leave. 

“And make sure all recording devices to this room are off,” Sam calls after him.

Davis grumbles under his breath, closing the door behind him, leaving you alone with Sam.

“Not that I don’t appreciate you being here, because I do,” you say, “but why aren’t you still out there hunting this thing? I can handle a day or two in jail-”

“Y/N,” Sam cuts you off, “I’m here. I’m getting you out of here. Dean is working on it. He can handle himself for a few hours. Besides, I saw how that creep was with you, I’m definitely not leaving you here. They’d probably have you here for longer than a couple days, impersonating a federal officer is a felony. Anyway, I’ve called in some help. What do they have of yours? Anything we can leave behind?”

You tell him about your weapons, holsters, and phone. He nods, looking up and seeming to think to himself for a moment. He pulls out a small kit from his pocket and picks the lock on your handcuffs, finally freeing your wrists. You reflexively rub at the red skin. “You seem strangely comfortable here,” you comment.

“Yeah, I was on my way to becoming a lawyer before... well, just before.” He stands, coming to your side of the table. “Ready?”

“Um, I guess?” you answer, “Want to fill me in on this plan of yours?”

You hear what sounds like wings fluttering, you register a hand on your shoulder, and the next instant, you’re standing inside your hotel room. Sam is still in front of you, “yeah. That’s my plan. Meet Castiel,” Sam gestures behind you.

You turn around, looking into comforting blue eyes. A man stands in front of you, messy dark brown hair, wearing a suit and tan trench coat. “Hello, Y/N. It’s nice to meet you,” he says. “You’ll find your belongings on the bed. Don’t worry, I disabled their cameras. They were not able to see me retrieving your things or us leaving.”

“Oh, wow, um, thanks,” you stutter out. “I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but who are you? What are you? How did you do that?”

Castiel takes it all in stride, “Not rude at all, Y/N. I would expect you to be curious. I am Castiel, an angel.”

“Oh. Okay.” That’ll take some getting used to. “Thank you, Castiel.”

“Of course, Y/N. Any friend of Sam and Dean is a friend of mine. Pray to me if you should need help again,” he says, then nods at Sam and disappears.

“I can send you his cell number, too,” Sam says, pulling out his phone.

“He’s an angel with a cell phone?” you ask, starting to pick up your things and put your weapons back in their places on your body.

“Yeah,” Sam says, “he’s basically one of us but with perks.”

Sam’s phone rings and he answers, “Hey Dean, you’re on speaker. Y/N is here.”

“You busted out already? That was fast,” Dean says.

“We had some help. I called Cas,” Sam tells him. “What’d you find out?”

“Well, Sam, remember the bank in Milwaukee?”

“A shifter?”

“You betcha. All dealt with. I’m on my way back to the motel now. You guys need a ride?”

Hearing it’s over, you let their voices trail off and sink down onto the edge of the bed. I stupidly got caught, Sam had to save me, and Dean finished the case. Maybe I’m not good enough for this job after all. You realize Sam is no longer on the phone and is looking at you in concern. “You okay, Y/N?”

“Yeah, I’m good,” you try to convince yourself.

You can tell he doesn’t believe you, but he doesn’t push the issue. He goes to watch out the window for his brother. A few minutes later, the Impala is pulling up outside and Dean is knocking on the door.

“Alright, Princess, I figured out what is wrong with your car. I can get it up and running in the morning, should be able to have you out of town by noon, “ he says, making himself comfortable on the chair across the room.

“Sounds good. Thanks, Dean. What do I owe you?”

“Hmmm,” he taps his chin, thinking, “I’ll consider us even if you buy me some pie at that diner.”

“That’s it?” You ask. He nods. You smirk, “Wow, you’re easier than they say. Deal. Let’s go.”

*

You end up at the diner, all having a slice of pie, Dean filling you in on the details of the shifter. Apparently Missus Miller was the shifter, or rather the shifter was pretending to be Missus Miller. Dean went back to question her, and she recoiled when he shook her hand. “Silver ring,” Dean explained, holding up his right hand and wiggling his fingers in the air. He was able to draw his silver knife and stab her in the heart before she could attack him. “Reflexes like a cat,” Dean bragged, mouth full of pie. You can’t help but smile at him.

You all finish your pie and pile back into the Impala to go back to your rooms for the night. Once again, you can feel both of them watching you during the drive. You do your best to ignore it, watching the streetlights pass by outside.

Outside your rooms, Dean promises to text you when he’s done with your car tomorrow. You thank him, say goodnight to the brothers, and head into your room for the night.

You strip down, deciding to take a bath to unwind. With the bath full of warm water, you sink in and hear your phone go off.

[Sam 9:52PM: You doing okay?]

[Y/N 9:53PM: Doing fine, sunshine. Why?]

[Sam 9:53PM: You’ve seemed off since Dean’s phone call earlier.]

Yeah, I’ve seemed off. I should be able to do this job by myself. I have been able to, until now. I shouldn’t have to rely on you and your brother and your angel friend to save my ass and finish my case.

[Sam 9:55PM: You know you’re one of the best hunters out there, right?]

You let his message go unanswered again. After a few more minutes, you decide to call it a night. You get out of the bathtub, dry yourself off, and put on your favorite pajamas. You’re crawling into bed when you hear a knock at the door. You get up and look through the peephole, seeing Sam standing there in black sweatpants and a long-sleeved grey henley. You sigh and open the door, “Yes, Sam?”

“You stopped answering, so I figured you could use a pick-me-up,” he holds up the bags in his hands, small smile on his face and dimples peeking out. Damn that smile and those dimples. You step out of the way, letting him inside. He comes in, emptying the bags onto the small table while you close and lock the door. “So, I brought ice cream: Phish Food and Americone Dream. I also got some Kit-Kats and M&Ms. We can talk or watch some TV. I’ve also been told I give good hugs.”

You feel like you’re in shock. He just met you today. Sure, he had apparently heard about you from Bobby, but you’ve only known each other for about ten hours. So far in those ten hours, he has taken your sarcasm in stride, gotten you out of jail, went shopping for snacks for you, and is now standing in your room offering hugs. Either he’s insane, or I’ve stumbled upon the eighth wonder of the world. You’ve spent your entire life building walls around your heart, firmly believing that feelings lead to nothing but hurt or death. Somehow in less than half of a day, this man in front of you has managed to obliterate them, leaving you feeling more vulnerable than you ever thought possible.

He turns around, looking at you, unsure what to make of your silence. “Or I can leave. I mean, if you want to be alone-”

He’s cut off by you rushing forward into his chest, wrapping your arms around his middle and resting your head against his chest. My God, he’s solid like a tree. Once his brain catches up, his arms wrap around you too and he rests his chin on your head. He’s absolutely right, this is the best hug ever. He squeezes you a little and then runs his fingers through your hair. You feel all your muscles relaxing. You stay like this for a while, his hands switching between playing with your hair and rubbing circles on your back.

“I’m strong,” you whisper.

“I know,” he says.

“I can take care of myself.”

“You do,” he agrees. “And you’ll continue to. We’ve just joined in now.”

You pull back a little, tears forming in your eyes. You look at each other, his eyes flicking to your lips for a moment before returning to your eyes. You shy away, pulling out of his arms and clearing your throat. “This all seems very… not your taste, Mister Chicken Wrap,” you joke, gesturing to the sweets and trying to deflect.

He shrugs, “Not really yours either, Miss Salad. But sometimes a little sugar rush can be a good thing.”

You give him a small smile, greatly appreciating that he is willing to change topic, opening the M&Ms and pouring yourself a few before offering the bag to him. He takes the bag, pouring out a couple into his hand and popping one into his mouth.

You sit on the bed, back against the headboard, and pat the space beside you, "So, tell me all about the enigma that is Mister Sam Winchester."

He sits beside you, and you spend the next few hours trading questions and learning all the little things about each other. You learn that his favorite color is blue, he is full of knowledge about true crime and serial killers, and he hates clowns. He listens to The Smiths, Bon Jovi, and Celine Dion. He prefers to eat healthily, and he runs at least once a day to stay in shape. “There are so many unknowns in this world and so many things that can take you out, I refuse to let my cholesterol be what does it,” he reasons. You open up to him as well, telling him your favorite holiday, color, music, and foods. By the time 2AM rolls around, he has resorted to telling you terrible dad jokes.

“You know,” he says, sounding serious, “I’ve realized I only know 25 letters of the alphabet. I don’t know y.”

You groan and laugh at the same time, “Your jokes are terrible, Sam!”

“Oh, I’m well aware. But hey, they make you laugh,” he says, laughing and nudging your shoulder with his. 

Your laugh dying down, you rest your head against his shoulder and sigh. “I guess we should get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” he sighs, “you’re probably right.” He pats your head before getting up. You follow him to the door and when he turns around to say his goodbye, you wrap your arms around him again. “Thank you, Sam. You’re kind of alright, I guess.”

He laughs a little, “yeah, you too, I suppose.” You think you feel the ghost of his lips on the top of your head before he pulls away from the embrace. With a smile and small wave, he closes the door, leaving you alone but your heart feeling lighter than it ever has. You crawl under the covers, smiling to yourself and sending one more message before turning out the lights.

[Y/N 2:09AM: Goodnight, Sam.]

[Sam 2:09AM: Goodnight, Y/N.]

<> You have been arrested and are being questioned in an interrogation room by two officers, Davis (who arrested you) and Johnson. You stay silent throughout their questioning, despite their threats and their attempts to coerce you into talking. Johnson leaves, and Sam enters shortly after.

Part Three

#sam winchester #sam winchester x reader #female reader #supernatural #sam winchesterx you #sam x you #spn imagine #supernatural imagine #spn #reader insert #fanfic #fanfiction #dean winchester #castiel #bobby singer #sam winchester imagine #sam winchester fic #sam x y/n #pov you #keiththecat

[fizzingwizard]

Time for some semi-ritual bitching about one of my favorite bitch-worthy topics, Yugioh

Why couldn't they have just done Memory World properly

Why make us suffer through Doma... and especially KC Grand Prix, a single episode of which is more boring than filler in any other fandom... and they made an entire filler arc out of it! Like Doma has lots of faults but at least it tried to do something interesting. It tried to develop characters, which proooobably shouldn't have been undertaken by a filler arc with no canon script to follow, but gold star for trying! Had a shitty finale not remotely worthy of its awesome beginning, but did we really expect any better? lol. KC Grand Prix tho, no. That's just there to Idk be mean to men with pink hair and dumb names?? In the ridiculous hair dumb names anime???

cut because Fizz has the curse of long-windedness thanks my evil fairy godmother

anyway back to Memory World, maybe the issue was the story in the manga still lagged behind where the anime was. I don't remember. If so I guess there was no choice but filler. Still, did they have to blow the budget on it? They lost most of their good animators during Doma, where they also introduced a couple new crap ones who stuck around till the end of course -___- And no doubt the animators were getting paid peanuts for long hours of work, and if they'd run out of budget to even pay that... well clearly the show should have been shorter. Like two whole filler arcs shorter. Just take a break, take a pause, come back when you're ready to do Memory World the way it should be done. Back then no one took breaks, "The fans will forget us," nowadays TV shows just up and away for multiple years at a time x'D before returning suddenly with a new season.

The reason I'm still salty and plan to be salty to my grave is just this. Memory World is the one and only YGO arc since season zero that was not explicitly about card games. They'd been dropping hints since the first that we could expect ancient Egypytian shenanigans in the finale. We were supposed to find out about Atem's lost memories and recover his name. That was the driving force behind everything that wasn't filler. I specifically became a fan as a kid because I enjoyed reading about Ancient Egypt and thought the idea of a millennia-old feud between a pharaoh and whoever Bakura really was sounded neat. So I watched hours and hours and hours of card games all for the sake of making it to Ancient Egypt.

(don't get me wrong I enjoyed the card games lol. Never ask a YGO fan to explain how watching characters stand around and yell "Pot of Greed allows me to draw two cards from my deck!" for hundreds of episodes somehow stayed fresh and interesting)

So we reach Memory World at loooooooong last and. And the animation is the worst. Atem falls off a cliff it's just like "ow." Bakura isn't have as intriguing anymore now that he's a poorly drawn anime guy with scars. He arrives toting Atem's father's mummy it should be scary. It should be shocking. But instead, for some reason we watched dancing girls of questionable historical accuracy repeat the same frame several times, while Atem makes a face like a baby trying his hardest to go number two in his diaper. In the manga this scene is really funny, with Siamun being Sugoroku in every way, and Atem in his awkwardness being more Yugi-like than we've ever seen him. In the anime they are just going through the motions. There's no life in anything.

The one thing the anime version got right was understanding that this was the one and only opportunity we'd have to learn about Atem. You know, half of the main character for the whole show. Even the manga is really so busy doing plot stuff it kind of forgets to make us care about the ancient Egyptian cast. The anime took advantage of the need for pacing to give us a couple low key moments about Atem & Friends, but for some reason it decided we should 1) know what Atem looked like falling flat on his nose as a toddler, and 2) show us that from a young age he was making grand progressive speeches about equality. Seeing Atem portrayed as a nice guy who cared about people gave me mixed emotions after watching him struggle for seasons with the possibility that he might have been a bad king and not remember it. Because we got a whole season of him making mistakes and disappointing fans in Doma, and now in Memory World the final answer to what kind of person Atem was is just "well he's a good guy in the modern sense of the word lol" and then we move on. Also, neither that speech, nor Doma, are manga canon, but fans on the whole remember Doma much better than they remember nice guy baby Atem. Which is so very nice -.-;

So Memory World could have been so much fun, exciting, adventurous in a way you can't always be when you have to stay put on a holo-duel stage (card games on motorcycles hasn't been invented yet!), and insightful about a character who has been the central point of everything yet whom we knew next to nothing about. Instead it was a poorly animated clusterfuck of battle scenes that were difficult to make sense of. The Bakura stuff was the best. The Kaiba-insert filler was the worst. I was disappointed with Set's arc in the manga as well, another thing that had been built up for years and years and ended up more about the mysterious waif-like dragon girl than Set vs Atem. If the anime changed something to add in Kaiba, I wish they'd have rewritten the Set vs Atem duel so it was mildly interesting, and Idk maybe Kaiba could have teamed up with Atem against his past self, which would have aggravated him to no end? Instead of just wandering around insisting none of this could really be happening. Or he should just not have been there at all. Personally I go the DSOD route and pretend Kaiba was never in Memory World, same as the manga. It's not like erasing him from the anime version has any impact on events bahahaha. He was included for MONEY MONEY MONEY popular character NEEDS to stick around even if he has abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do because MONEY MONEY MONEY

I love DSOD to pieces. But my own dream for the anniversary project was a remake of Memory World. Even if it had been a 90 min movie version instead of several episodes, as long as it was better quality, and invested in Atem as a character instead of simply as a pawn in a game, I would have enjoyed those 90 mins better than the entire Memory World season. Doma and KC Grand Prix were a mistake if they played a role in how awful Memory World was.

But they did the Millennium Duel well. Not astonishing, but really, except for useless Kaiba being there, it was more than adequate. (And although Kaiba himsefl was useless, it was cool seeing him rejected as an opponent for Atem in favor of Yugi. Actually I kinda wish they'd made a bigger deal out of that...) Kid me cried buckets (actually I must have been well into my teens by then bahahaha. I def cried though). Thanks to those final two episodes, the series send-off didn't leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. If it had ended with Memory World it would have been an even bigger disappointment to me than the finale of Bleach. And I despise the finale of Bleach x'D

#yugioh #youre never too old to be salty about cartoons amirite little kuriboh

[llycaons]

ep38 (2/3): heartbreaking: the worst person you know just came out

man I feel like xxc is SUCH a romantic. he likes being in love he likes having a partner he's drawn to those idealized fairy-tale romances he doesn't look too deeply below the surface (consciously or not) because he just loves having that kind of connection with someone. and ah he and song lan were perfect for each other. if not for that foolish mistake...! but tragically he's not a main character so his suffering will lead not to a happy ending but to death

anyway. scream? I assume these are yi city residents? fuck, but that's so many. an entire city

he just loves giving those expressions to xy for no reason. unhinged menace

this is honestly hilarious. obviously 'all he wanted was a domestic life with famer's market trips uwu' is a patently absurd claim because look what he DID with that life but I cannot lie this is very funny to me. like sure maybe DEEP DOWN that's all he wanted but my sympathy for him is like. nonexistent because look what he chose to do

also. this man is gasping in fear. does xxc not notice?? willfully ignorant, perhaps

SONG LAN!!!! thank god you're here there is such bullshit going down here xxc needs you. he just lit up so much when he heard about xxc

she's such a little survivalist <3

omg remember that translation meta that described sl's answer as like 'he is world-endingly beautiful' or something? first of all he was right. they casted xxc perfectly, second of all how the hell did she write this and not make them canon gay. insane.

this kills me bc at this point SL KNOWS but I don't think he even considered approaching this with the care he would have needed to. and why not just confront xy? it's not like he knows xy has a tool to make xxc kill him

also sl is standing here in broad daylight and xy just walks past him? I mean his back is to sl but that's weird, I feel like he'd notice him just STANDING there esp if a-qing jerks away and hides

damn I hope she hasn't been hiding every time xy is around. that's her home too. she could technically leave but I doubt she wanted to abandon xxc. and she's not likely to trust any of the sects to intervene either even if she told them. and I don't think she understands that xy is making xxc kill living people

witnessing sl see how xy treats xxc (familiarly, cruelly, lying) is like. that IS a man watching someone he loves involved with someone else who's hurting them. not even jealousy, just heartbreak and righteous anger. li bowen NAILED it

I don't think sl and xxc were ever actually together which just makes this entire thing more exquisitely painful

THE SINGLE TEAR

oohh and the BLOOD

at this point a-qing is distressed enough to grab onto wwx for comfort :(

it's not often that I see the xxc/xy situation described as abuse but xy DID abuse his power over xxc to trick him into murdering people (and then the heavy implication that they were in a relationship too 😬)

I love this expression from SL. no detached justice here. this man is furious and ready to kill

this fight scene is actually good? so many fight scenes in this show are bad and this one just rules. the chemistry, the action, the drama, the tragedy. what a neat and tight little narrative

ohh double-meanings. KILL HIM SONG LAN

this was so insane of xxc to do. man had one great love of his life and he dug out his eyes for him then walked away 😭

this is so funny though. he is the worst. oh SHIT THERE'S THE CHEETAH-PRINT ROBES. what a slay

also now xy won't stop rubbing it in his face and playing on sl's insecurities. deflecting from his own crimes. as jgy does, later in the temple. xy probably learned from him honestly. but don't fall for it song lan!!! he is literally using xxc to murder people!!!

this is a taunt eerily reminiscent of wwx. his voice goes up all high, like 'awww, were you SAD? huh?' wwx taunts like this, all sarcastic. but also he's not like, evil

BITCH YOU'RE THE ONE LYING AND MANIPULATING HIM

when sl's tongue gets cut out, a-qing gets all this splashed on her. ugh

NOOOOOOOO XIAO XINGCHEN!!! THAT'S THE MAN YOU LOVE!!!

#cql re-rewatch #this is so upsetting!!! bro!!!!

[messinwitheddie]

Dipper "Thank you for your time, Nny and for not trying to brutally murder any of us. I'm sure it was tempting."

Nny "It took every last shred of willpower I have. Nothing personal. You're ok as...people go. I just hate people-- in general. I know I shouldn't and I'm a terrible person for it, but-."

Dipper "All good, I do too. I mean, I hate being around people. Er, well, not even so much that, I just...I'm just awkward around people."

Nny "Yeah."

Dipper "Speaking of which, sorry for... how horribly everything went tonight. And uh, I'm so sorry about Grunkle Stan too. We're used to him and all his... Stan-ness, but-."

Nny "You don't have to keep apologizing for him. As excruciating as this whole experience was for me, I'm glad I went along with it. It was nice reconnecting... sort of. Stan was--is the WORST and I hate him, but, he's also the best and I don't. Never tell him I said that."

Dipper "I won't. "

Nny "When he told me why he was taking off I thought he was just messing with me or making fun of me like he always did. Then when he actually disappeared for Oregon I was so angry and hurt, I completely blocked him out of my mind for YEARS. Oh well. I highly doubt things would have ended better for me had he stayed or had I left with him. Still.... Guess the good memories are the most painful sometimes."

Dipper "I really REALLY wish he hadn't crashed our seance, but I'm glad I got to talk to him again. We really miss that crotchety old sociopath."

Nny "I did too. Don't EVER tell him I said that either."

Dipper "I know your time in this plane is almost up, so again, thank you for agreeing to this interview."

Nny "To be very clear, I DID NOT agree to be interviewd. This was a favor for Squ-- Todd. I didn't appreciate being summoned especially in the middle of summer. I didn't appreciate stumbling into a half dozen strangers setting up two studios and a small lab's worth of equipment in my living room. I didn't appreciate Todd putting me on the spot. I DID NOT enjoy a single moment of this."

Dipper "I know; you mentioned this many times tonight."

Nny "Ok then, so you understand there will be no follow up interview for any reason whatsoever. Don't summon me again unless it is of DIRE importance. At least never here again. My old house depresses me. Do you understand?"

Dipper "Yes. I'm deeply sorry for any intrusion and I promise we will NEVER disturb you again."

Nny "This is an extremely unlikely scenario because once we're "dead" again I plan to ditch him in a black hole or something at some point, but... if you ever summon Stan on Halloween or Summerween or whatever and I'm within range, could you extend the invite? I wouldn't mind a tour of the Mystery Shack."

Dipper "Really?"

Nny "Yeah, at least one visit to settle my curiosity. If it's half the fever dream nightmare-scape the Mystery Hut was, it will be worth all the painstaking social interaction. That, and it's a relief to see Todd surrounded by friends and family worth having. He always deserved better company than me."

Dipper "Oh DUDE, we're definitely dragging you through a tour on Halloween!"

Nny "Sshshshshshhh! Don't announce it to everyone. Come on."

Dipper "My bad. You're going to have a BLAST, Nny. We'll try to keep the guest list short for you."

Nny "Thank you."

Dipper "So um, do you have any questions for us or me before you go?"

Nny "... *sighs* OK. I'll bite. Why do they call you "Dipper", Dipper?"

Dipper *brushes back his hair, exposing birthmark*

Nny "Whu-? OHhhhh... Neat! I was expecting to hear some stupid frat boyish sex joke."

For context: Dialogue to an 18-years-later au flashback where a 21-year-old Squee supervises a 17-year-old Dib and Dipper's first ghost hunting team up.

Maybe if I spew out enough small scenes from my head I can make a coherent story out if this.

#jthm #gravity falls #the seance/ interview #nny #dipper pines #cringe fun :D

[gleefullypolin]

Yes! I agree with you (once again) wholeheartedly.

Being the third son in a privileged family with no one actually listening to him who have the habit of writing him off or ignoring what he's saying, having Penelope's full attention must feel very much like a drug. She cares, sincerely, about what he says, thinks, and feels.

Even in the Marina situation, he was a chess piece. No one who knew what her plans were, outside of Penelope, cared about how he might be affected. They treated him like the immature boy in the first flush of infatuation that he was but he still deserved more respect than most of them afforded him.

They have said that this season is about them growing and I think that's obvious (Penelope's hair is the first thing I noticed in regards to this, seeing her hair almost completely down in a couple of the scenes that look like they have a lot of romantic tension makes me weirdly happy because I love me some good symbolism) when you look at the costumes and their interactions. The show is definitely telling us that these people are now adults.

He's always been happy to see and talk to her but I don't think it's unfair to say that Colin needs to learn what losing that might be like since it's easy to feel entitled to something that you've never had to do without. It might even be fair to say that he has a better grasp than some to truly understand the hurt in what he said with a family that writes him off a lot of the time.

It's really easy to feel like the hero and go off acting like a man before you've truly matured and see the world with some swagger when you're chasing nothing but experiences while waiting for reminders of home. Penelope is in her consequences era but so is Colin and I think it will mature the both of them nicely.

And now his drug, his warmth and affection have gone pretty much cold. It’s like having to go through withdrawal AND he will have to watch her turn those pretty eyes toward another. Those smiles she ONLY ever gave to him, suddenly are being shared with Debling. Talk about a knife to the heart.

That comment he made about how naturally their relationship had taken shape that one could take it for granted will definitely come back to haunt him. I think it grew without his knowledge and honestly, no disrespect to him, he put time into it, dances at balls here and there, but when he was done with their conversations, he had a habit of walking away without a thought. While she stood and watched him leave breathless as thoughts continued to swirl in her pretty little head for hours after.

Pen continued to feed her love for him long after he would leave until the scraps he gave her left her starving. Until his words he spat so carelessly without even a thought about her at the last ball, spoiled the taste.  

I love that you described her changes as growing up and less about changing herself. I don’t think that she is changing herself necessarily but more that she is simply growing up. She is becoming a woman. She is using her own thoughts, her own likes and desires. It’s what she wants for a change. Not what mama wants, what Colin wants, but what PEN wants. She is an adult and is going to do what she needs for herself to find a husband to get out of her situation.

Colin is going to return to think he’s going to see his friend, Pen, the girl he left behind. The girl he saved. But Pen doesn’t need him to save her. Pen is damn Lady Whistledown and I think he’s going to find he’s gotten more than he bargained for. He will swoop in to perhaps find her a man, because yes she may not know how to be a proper lady who bows and turns the eye of Dukes and Lords, hang society, who needs that, but she is more than that and maybe that is what he’s always needed her. I’m very interested to see what Lord Veggie is like…I don’t want to like him but maybe liking him won’t be the worst thing either. I doubt that but who knows. I’ll go in with an open mind. But I hate his face already LOL.

But, Once Colin finds out who Pen really is which I’m thinking is after or during episode 4…that’s when the playing field is really leveled because then the little girl image is truly gone. She’s already removed him off the pedestal of the perfect man. They are both now just these imperfect people trying to find their purpose in a world where they can’t even find their place. But maybe that’s exactly where they need to be……….and that’s why I swoon! God damn these two.

#my asks #wonderful people

[bahamutgames]

AFTERTHOUGHTS - ROUNDUP ROUND 2

Yahoo!! Got another afterthoughts round up thing. Like last time this is just a collection of thoughts for games I played recently, but didn't have a whole mountain of text to express my opinions on it. So I figured it'd be easier to just bundle them together. I'm contemplating maybe doing this once a month or so? But we'll see if I feel like it.

Regardless, just like last time (and any other time) these aren't meant to be serious reviews. More so they're just my thoughts thrown up onto the screen so people can see what I thought of each one! If ANY of the games I talk about are interesting to you, consider checking them out!

Kirby's Dreamland (April 27, 1992) - Gameboy

For some reason, this was the very first thing I played when Gameboy was added to the NSO service. I SWEAR I've played this game on the Wii Kirby collection before. I remember certain scenes so well like the shmup boss fight. But other scenes I just don't remember AT ALL!!

Regardless, yeah it's pretty fun. It's simple and cute. But absolutely is CRAZY boring just because there's no copy abilities. It's honestly nuts to me there was EVER a time where Kirby didn't have them. But the game is still worth playing, just maybe the Superstar remake of it instead of the original. Even still it has cute music and surprisingly great visuals for gameboy! Plus it still has fun and playful things like Microphone Kirby and again, the great Shmup bossfight which never came back despite being awesome.

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (October 21, 1992) - Gameboy

HERE WE GO!! This is what I SHOULD have played first. This is a game I can confirm I've played TONS in my life because it's easily my favorite Gameboy game (between this and Wario Land 2/3 or maybe DuckTales)

Mario Land 2 is a FANTASTIC platformer that's super fun, super creative, and surprisingly in depth for a gameboy game. Hidden endings to levels, lots of unique worlds, a brand new powerup, original enemies for each world ect ect. It's a VERY creative game and without a doubt one of my favorite 2D Marios. Super easy to pick up and play and with its GREAT ost and sprite art, it still holds up. For real if you've never played it or are looking for a Gameboy game to try. This is the one I recommend! (then the Wario Land games. Which I haven't replayed 3 yet cause I wanna replay them all in order soon.)

Gargoyle's Quest (May 2, 1990) - Gameboy

For those who don't know, I am actually a BIG fan of Firebrand. Demon's Crest on SNES is easily one of my all time favorite games. And I've been meaning to play Firebrand's first two games for a while now but just... Never felt compelled to do so. Until they added the game to NSO and I figured. Why not?

Eeeh... I'll be honest, even though this has a LOT of the Demon's Crest staples. Like item collecting and swapping weapons. This game was just REALLY boring. The overworld sections with random encounters were REALLY dull and made the game feel so much longer than it needed to be. It does have pretty good music and nice sprites (although not as good as the above 2 cause it's 2 years older). Overall even though it's FAR from the worst game I've ever played, it just pales in comparison to Demon's Crest. Which is SO unfair to say, I know. But those are my thots, and you're gonna have to live with them. I'll certainly check out Gargoyle's Quest 2 to experience the full trilogy soon.

I WILL SAY THOUGH! This game gave us Firebrand's theme which gave us this SICK AS FUCK MvC3 remix! Love this song!!

APE OUT (February 28, 2019) - Nintendo Switch

And here we go! The first indie of the list! This wasn't a game I was SUPER looking to play just cause I'm not crazy about top down stuff like this. But the APE got into Fraymakers, which made me want to try it EVENTUALLY. And then my brother picked up the game on Switch! And I can't turn down the chance to play a game when it's RIGHT in front of me. So I played it! And yeah this game is PRETTY cool!

First off, I love the visuals. They're very simple but cool and the way blood splatters everywhere with the simple art style is a REALLY cool look. Plus, you play as a gorilla! That's awesome! How many games can you say that have a gorilla protagonist? The gameplay is tough, but simple and levels are quick enough that it's easy to just get up and try it again. The music is also cool and I REALLY love how it goes with the gameplay! My only real complaint is that your push attack can sometimes feel REALLY stubby. I had multiple times where I was trying to hit someone and would just miss for no reason and get shot to death. But I also was not stealthy at all and played the game very chaotically so maybe that had something to do with it lol. Regardless, cool little game!

Scribblenauts (September 15, 2009) - Nintendo DS

Next up is a game I haven't played in YEARS but suddenly had a huge itch to try again! This game is SO interesting and genuinely was a total blast to play. The gameplay of solving puzzles by just typing anything you want is GREAT and makes the game a super creative experience to beat for the first time. I tended to use a lot of the same tools to beat levels (pegasus, black hole, rope, trex, ect ect) but even still it was VERY fun to try and figure out how my favorite items could solve puzzles. And even when I got stuck, looking up a solution was always fun because there were TONS of answers filled with ideas I had never thought of! This game is just a blast to mess around with and see the limits of what you can make! And I was surprised by how much I LOVED the art style (the reptiles all looked SO CUTE) and especially the OST! What a lovely experience!

My biggest issues with it though has to be the controls. This game has some BULLSHIT in it from time to time. There were tons of moments where I'd try to pick up an item, only to have Maxwell move instead. Or I needed to look at something far away and the camera kept pulling back to Maxwell. Or the ropes just WOULDN'T WORK!! It could be frustrating but I think for the DS and a game so tied to the touch screen + stylus I don't really know how else you could make it work. Also... man, is it just me or do the action stages totally SUCK! They were so annoying compared to the puzzle stages.

Regardless, fun game. I will probably check out at least Super Scribblenauts cause getting to use adjectives sounds like it would make this format CRAZY!

Cuphead (September 29, 2017) - Xbox One

And here's the last one on the list! A game I just beat right now, actually! This is another one I hadn't played since it released, but I randomly had a huge itch to come back and try it again. And while it didn't super click the first time, it ABSOLUTELY clicked this time! I had a BLAST with this game! The visuals and music are amazing, that's a no brainer. The bosses all have so much personality and the whole experience is just FANTASTIC to look at and listen to. But I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the gameplay this time around. I'm usually not super into Contra stuff (I prefer shmups in like, flying vehicles I guess?) and I'm especially not into brutally hard games. But I absolutely have to say, this one felt VERY good. When I finally overcame a tough boss, I really felt good about it, which is not something I usually feel when playing super hard games. The characters are cute (I played as Mugman and Grim Matchstick was probably my favorite looking boss along with some of the girl bosses who were kinda hot I won't lie). And I LOVED that there's so many weapons to choose from. My setup was Spread, Roundabout, Smoke Bomb, and Energy Beam!

My complaints are mostly salty stuff. I think there's sometimes TOO much to focus on. A lot of phases just had little extra things here and there that were SO unneeded and made the phases so much worse for no reason. Then there were problems where I got hit when using my dash, or couldn't parry things I KNEW I parried, or would get fucked over by random bullshit, or could NEVER parry things above me despite it feeling like they wanted me to, or FUCK HOW'D I GET HIT BY THAT AUGH!!!... *cough* well, anyway. My biggest issue is the same I have with any difficult game. It's fun when the levels are short and sweet. But the longer levels were MASSIVE chores that felt annoying to grind through. The worst boss, without a question in my mind, was the Dr. Kahl fight. The third phase is SO easy but it's basically impossible to reach it with full health cause the first phase lasts SO long and has SO much needless BS in it. Oh well, I have more thoughts on the difficulty but honestly I had a lot of fun with it so I'll keep it to myself for now.

As for the Delicious Last Course? Eeeeh... Maybe some day. But right now? Nah I need to play something easy. Regardless, super cute game! Glad I came back to give it another go!

#2023 #Roundup #Thoughts

[ryuzakemo128]

Cosmic

Chapter Four: Night Terrors (Part Two)

Chapter Summary: The details of her parents lives where fuzzy at best and confusing at worst.

Trigger Warning: Cursing, mentions of death, graphic violent scenes.

Chapter Master List: Link

As it has been at least three months since her family started finding out more about her parents, she feels as if they have just scratched the surface of all they need to know about them. It was clear to Marianna that this was going to end up being more of a goose chase the longer it dragged on. The truth is that her own mother has already said this many times over the years, so she is not alone in believing this. After that, she said that she wanted to live with her uncle because she had decided to relocate back to America.

"Now that we have come this far, and your mom over there, the one who adopted you, has finally left to go back home, we can get into the deeper terrain that really at the end of all of this, concerns you most of all."

"Why wouldn't you bring this up while she was here?" Marianna asked with a frown on her face.

"As a result, this would only implicate her as well."

"I'm not sure how to describe that, but it sounds ominous as fuck."

"There is a reason why no one else is permitted to know how your parents passed away. Maybe, just maybe, someone may have even the tiniest hint as to how they died." Illya motioned his hand in the direction of his head and made a noise like a gunshot. As a result, they would be killed."

"I don't understand. I know about my parents and I know how they ended up. A drunk driver swung around and hit them. They died on impact and it was all over the news for months. I almost died in that car crash too." She paced around in circles. "And now you're telling me that didn't happen?"

"No, not in the way that you would have imagined it to be. I do not remember it as you do, I remember it differently." Illya replied sighing and bringing in the tapes that he retrieved from his office. As soon as you get back home in time for the new school year, you need to listen to these tapes about your parents."

"I have been experiencing night terrors since the accident. It takes me more than five hours to fall asleep even with medication."

"How long have you been having those night terrors?"

"The car accident that I was in has affected me ever since I was 12 years old."

What is the effect of it on you? I know you were not hurt. You only had a few bumps and bruises, but you did not get hurt. I understand how it can affect you emotionally. "However, according to what I was able to gather from your mother, you seemed to be doing well." The last part made him feel sick to his stomach as he spoke. There was no doubt in his mind that the woman that adopted her was not able to be enough for his niece or the mother she deserved.

"Please understand that I believe that you would have been better off staying here in Russia." He stated after fifteen long minutes of awkward silence in between the two of them. "I cannot believe how much you look like your mother compared to what I had imagined."

In the months that followed, she was completely confused. The tapes were the last thing she wanted to listen to. The only thing she knew to do was wait until she was back home so she could listen to them again. She was bothered by it because her curiosity just continued to grow as her stay grew increasingly confusing with large amounts of information about sabotage and espionage. The staged deaths that her uncle explained to her only added to her confusion.

"I know this sounds rather overwhelming, way too much to take in at once and I think this book might explain it better than I could. I wrote it at least 14 times just to make sure it was easy enough for you to understand." Her uncle explained, "Your mother had the idea to use the tapes. I didn't think much about it until she was already gone."

Marianna returned just in time for the new year. She found her mother waiting for her at the airport and most of her parents' belongings with her. She didn't understand why she had to bring so much back with her. As much as her uncle thought it would have been better to be in Russia. He knew it wouldn't be fair to the parents that adopted her and cared for her.

"I do not wish to travel back to Russia anymore. I don't think I can travel back." Marianna expressed to her mother as they left to go to Marianna's place.

"I got you a welcome home present while you were in Russia." Her mother said to her. Which sparked her curiosity and attention. Marianna mentally thanked her, now that she had changed the subject so quickly.

"I'm guessing it's something I'm not allowed to guess until I see it right?"

"Bingo. I can't have you spoiling the surprise now can we?"

"I suppose it wouldn't be much of a surprise if it got spoiled." Marianna laughed along with her mother.

"You're not gonna believe what you missed by the way. Galina came over to apologize and the shock on her face when I told her you weren't there. It was certainly something, but nothing like what I expected from her."

"It certainly doesn't sound like her. Are you sure it was her and not some doppelganger?" Marianna joked with a slight smirk.

"Oh it was definitely her. She came in saying that she was sorry for something that happened. But other than that, she wouldn't explain herself to me or your father. Other than the fact that she was sorry and she couldn't explain why."

"I doubt she was really sorry and if she has anything to say about whatever it is, I'm sure she will." Marianna sighed. "I don't think she'll say it out right. She might dance around it for a while before actually declaring it."

The rest of the drive to her place was mostly quiet and the occasional bump in the road was the only amount of noise made. "I hope I don't think that night terror will occur. I really don't want that to happen the first night I'm back home." She thought to herself thinking about the same night terror that occurred over and over again. It was only the clarity of each one and how far she could see that differentiated them. How much detail was in these night terrors changed with each one.

"Time to wake up Maria, we're at your place." Her mother said to her as she pulled into the driveway of Marianna's house.

"Weird I didn't have a nightmare this time."

"You might have felt safe enough to not have a nightmare?"

"I think so. It might explain why"

At about thirty minutes past nine at night, Marianna's mother and I pulled Marianna's luggage into her house. She and her mother wanted to make as little noise as possible while doing this. The majority of the old stuff belonged to her parents. Even so, the amount was still insufficient, as her uncle had promised to send more through the mail that year.

"Before you get inside I want you to go down to the store and get a few things for dinner." Her mother said as her father pulled into the driveway with her present.

"Okay, I will check out what they have and I will get back to you as soon as possible." She said as she took her handbag with her.

"Psst, hurry up, Robert, before Marianna returns to the house." Marianna waved him inside as she walked to the store to get some things for a late dinner.

Marianna arrived at the store with her stomach rumbling because she had not eaten anything since five thirty the previous morning. Mostly because her family members, the ones still alive wanted to see her at least once before she left.

"Thank goodness you actually arrived on time." Darcy sarcastically said to her. "I mean other than the fact that you were lucky enough to miss out."

"Miss out on what exactly?" Marianna asked rather confused as she placed up the items she was about to buy.

"Well first Mike made some kid pee in his pants, Galina dumped me for some other dude and now this: I got a new job here."

"It doesn't sound like I missed out on much," Marianna commented. "Anything else though?"

"Steve got his ass kicked by Will Byer's older brother. Nancy dumped Steve for the guy." Darcy explained as he continued to work. "Galina is finally a black belt in kickboxing. Although she said it felt meaningless after you switched instructors or something."

"Yeah, I mean I did say I wanted nothing to do with her. So it was obvious that I would have done that. Even if she didn't see it coming." Marianna said as she paid for her things and turned to head back home.

"Be careful on the way back home, okay? Things haven't been the same since you left." Darcy yelled out to her.

"I'll see you at school alright? Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

"Don't slam the door." He groaned as the door slammed shut right after she left.

On the way back home, she noticed that she had goosebumps on her arms, and the hairs on the back of her neck were standing up. She was always looking behind her every five to ten minutes. "Whoever it is, stay away from me," she thought to herself as she sped up her pace.

As soon as she managed to get home, she paused to catch her breath before walking into her house and closing the door behind her.

"Surprise!" Her parents said to her as they brought in a box that was filled with two kittens who were meowing inside.

Upon seeing the kittens, her heart melted, and she cried with joy. "We thought since you're responsible enough to take care of yourself, we thought you'd be more than capable of taking care of these two kittens as well." Her father explained to her.

Taking a moment to wipe away her tears, she walked over to the newly adopted pets she had just adopted and said, "Thanks mom and dad."

The kittens were just wandering around the kitchen now that they had been let out of the box her dad had them in.

"Well I'm about to head back home. You both stay safe. A lot of weird things have been happening lately. I'll see you again tomorrow, goodnight Maria."

"Goodnight dad." Marianna said in response after picking up one of the kittens that wandered closer to her. At least ten to fifteen minutes later, Marianna began to prepare her favorite Russian meal, a flavorful stew, even though it was already late.

Marianna said, "Goodnight dad," as she picked up one of the kittens that wandered closer to her. She started making her favorite Russian dinner, a warm stew, even though it was already late.

After putting the cat with her sister, her mother piped up to say "Have you picked a name for them yet?"

"I have. Opal and sapphire."

"Interesting. Why did you choose those names instead of something like Lemon or Tangerine?"

"Mainly because of the way it sounds and I like buying gemstones for you." is what she wanted to say.

But she said "It's mostly because of their fur and eye color."

As Marianna continued to cook, her mother moved ahead and looked around her home. By the end of the night, the two kittens were in Marianna's room and her mother had insisted that she sleep in the living room instead. With that the new school year began and the old one ended.

The first day of school was her new start, and that was something that she wanted to express this year. Since last year, it's been more challenging than the year before. The morning classes seemed smooth enough, minus the glare from Galina someone she used to consider her friend.

"Look what the cat dragged in." Galina stated as her friends laughed like it was some form of background laugh track.

"Look who's here a nasty bitch who can't keep her mouth shut."

"I was thinking now that you've had more than enough time to figure your shit out. I think it's time we got back to being friends."

"That's not how it works. You two timing moron, once you stop being friends with someone else. They stop being friends and there is nothing else you can do about it."

"I mean we promised to be friends forever though."

"No we had an agreement that if things did not get better we would stop hanging out. By not hanging out with you anymore, it clearly states that I don't want to be your fucking friend anymore."

"My first thought is that you have started making sense again."

"My first thought is to throw myself into a woodchipper than deal with you right now."

"Fine, do what you want. See if I care."

"Do yourself a favor and stop pretending that you don't care when it's quite clear that you actually do care."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Galina scoffed at Marianna.

She paused after finishing her lunch to say, "I think you do. I don't believe you ever played dumb, I don't believe you are stupid. But a lot of what you've done to be so popular wasn't the smartest."

"I certainly didn't think you'd follow through with most of the stupidest things you've done." Darcy said to her crossing his arms.

"Marianna, I wanted to be popular, but one of us stayed the dull, stale loser." Galina pointed out as her friends continued to wait for her.

"I didn't change so someone or a group of naïve, spoiled brats could like me. I stayed true to myself and you didn't. So fuck off before I punch you."

"Oooh I'm so scared." Galina had started to mock Marianna and Marianna just became angry as the mocking continued.

"Don't bother Marina, she's not worth punching and I say that after dating her last year." Darcy said.

"Thea, Bailey and Darcy. Those are the people that you chose to be your friends." Galina said as she made a weird noise, that could almost be mistaken for a laugh.

Marianna pointed out in annoyance, "Dustin told you to stop, and you didn't prove your immaturity and stupidity." She was above and beyond irritated with her at this point.

"Guys I just told you to stop, so stop arguing. You two are supposed to be friends."

"I'd like to point out that the fact that Marianna and I are friends is a result of our bond over our hatred of you." Darcy explained in defense of his new friend. "Furthermore, Thea and Bailey were already her friends, so you decided to be her only friend, the only person that she needed, since you were the only person to be there for her."

"We knew you were bad news from the start and unfortunately for you, she sees how much of a miserable human you really are." Thea stated with her arms crossed.

Moments after she huffed in a snarky tone, things finally de-escalated and calmed down. "Dustin, we stopped being friends last year. I hate to break it to you, but she's not a pleasant person to be around and if she does anything to hurt you or make fun of you. You tell me and I'll make sure she stops."

Dustin is then left more confused than he was before the argument happened. After Marianna and her friends left to get things out of their lockers.

In the midst of this, two new students arrived at the school. These two are complete unknowns meaning she didn't even see them in any of her night terrors.

#Stranger Things #Stranger Things Fanfiction #Stranger Things Fanfic #Stranger Things Fluff #Billy Hargrove #Max Mayfield #Dustin Henderson

[ddudumemes]

SOUR SENTENCE STARTERS 

(( collection of ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY THREE sentence starters taken from OLIVIA  RODRIGO’s first album ‘ SOUR ’ . ))

001.  BRUTAL  . ‘  i  think  that  i'll  die  before  i  drink  .  ’ ‘  who  likes  me  ??  ’ ‘  who  hates  you  ??  ’ ‘  who  am  i  if  not  exploited  ??  ’ ‘  where's  my  fucking  teenage  dream  ??  ’ ‘  i  don't  stick  up  for  myself  .  ’ ‘  i'm  anxious  and  nothing  can  help  .  ’ ‘  and  i  wish  i'd  done  this  before  .  ’ ‘  and  i  wish  people  liked  me  more  .  ’ ‘  all  i  did  was  try  my  best  ,  this  the  kinda  thanks  i  get  ??  ’ ‘  i  wish  i  could  disappear  .  ’ ‘  ego  crush  is  so  severe  .  ’ ‘  god  ,  it's  brutal  out  here  .  ’ ‘  i  feel  like  no  one  wants  me  .  ’ ‘  and  i  hate  the  way  i'm  perceived  .  ’ ‘  i  only  have  two  real  friends  .  ’ ‘  lately  ,  i'm  a  nervous  wreck  .  ’ ‘  i'm  not  cool  ,  and  i'm  not  smart  ,  and  i  can't  even  parallel  park  .  ’ ‘  got  a  broken  ego  ,  and  broken  heart  .  ’ ‘  god  ,  i  don't  even  know  where  to  start  .  ’

002.  TRAITOR  . ‘  i  played  dumb  ,  but  i  always  knew  .  ’ ‘  i  kept  quiet  so  i  could  keep  you  .  ’ ‘  ain't  it  funny  how  you  ran  to  her  the  second  that  we  called  it  quits  ??  ’ ‘  ain't  it  funny  how  you  said  you  were  friends  ??  now  it  sure  as  hell  don't  look  like  it  .  ’ ‘  you  betrayed  me  .  ’ ‘  i  know  that  you'll  never  feel  sorry  for  the  way  i  hurt  .  ’ ‘  you  talked  to  her  when  we  were  together  .  ’ ‘  loved  you  at  your  worst  ,  but  that  didn't  matter  .  ’ ‘  it  took  you  two  weeks  to  go  off  and  date  her  .  ’ ‘  guess  you  didn't  cheat  ,  but  you're  still  a  traitor  .  ’ ‘  there's  no  damn  way  that  you  could  fall  in  love  with  somebody  that  quickly  .  ’ ‘  remember  i  brought  her  up  and  you  told  me  i  was  paranoid  ??  ’ ‘  god  ,  i  wish  that  you  had  thought  this  through  before  i  went  and  fell  in  love  with  you  .  ’ ‘  you  gave  me  your  word  ,  but  that  didn't  matter  .  ’ 003.  DRIVERS  LICENSE  . ‘  i  got  my  driver's  license  last  week  .  ’ ‘  you  were  so excited for  me  .  ’ ‘  and  you're  probably  with  that  blonde  girl  who  always  made  me  doubt  .  ’ ‘  she's  everything  i'm  insecure  about  .  ’ ‘  how  could  i  ever  love  someone  else  ??  ’ ‘  i  know  we  weren't  perfect  but  i've  never  felt  this  way  for  no  one  .  ’ ‘  i  just  can't  imagine  how  you  could  be  so  okay  now  that  i'm  gone  .  ’ ‘  guess  you  didn't  mean  what  you  wrote  in  that  song  about  me  .  ’ ‘  you  said  forever  ,  now  i  drive  alone  past  your  street  .  ’ ‘   all  my  friends  are  tired  of  hearing  how  much  i  miss  you  .  ’ ‘  they'll  never  know  you  the  way  that  i  do  .  ’ ‘  today  ,  i  drove  through  the  suburbs  and  pictured  i  was  driving  home  to  you  .  ’ ‘  i  still  fuckin'  love  you  ,  babe  .  ’ ‘  i  still  hear  your  voice  in  the  traffic  .  ’ ‘  i  know  we're  through  but  i  still  fuckin'  love  you  .  ’

004.  1  STEP  FORWARD  ,  3  STEPS  BACK  . ‘  all  i  did  was  speak  normally  .  somehow  ,  i  still  struck  a  nerve  .  ’ ‘  you  got  me  fucked  up  in  the  head  ,  boy  .  ’ ‘  never  doubted  myself  so  much  .  ’ ‘  am  i  pretty  ??  am  i  fun  ??  ’ ‘  i  hate  that  i  give  you  power  over  that  kinda  stuff  .  ’ ‘  it's  always  one  step  forward  and  three  steps  back  .  ’ ‘  i'm  the  love  of  your  life  until  i  make  you  mad  .  ’ ‘  do  you  love  me  ,  want  me  ,  hate  me  ??  ’ ‘  i  don't  understand  .  ’ ‘  maybe  in  some  masochistic  way  i  kind  of  find  it  all  exciting  .  ’ ‘  which  lover  will  i  get  today  ??  ’ ‘  will  you  walk  me  to  the  door  or  send  me  home  crying  ??  ’ ‘  did  i  say  something  wrong  ??  ’ ‘  it's  back  and  forth  ,  going  over  everything  i  said  .  ’ ‘  did  i  do  something  wrong  ??  ’ ‘  maybe  this  is  all  your  fault  instead  .  ’ ‘  i'd  leave  you  ,  but  the  rollercoaster's  all  i've  ever  had  .  ’

005.  DEJA  VU  . ‘  so  when  you  gonna  tell  her  that  we  did  that  too  ??  ’ ‘  that  was  our  place  ,  i  found  it  first  .  ’ ‘  i  made  the  jokes  you  tell  to  her  when  she's  with  you  .  ’ ‘  do  you  get  déjà  vu  when  she’s  with  you  ??  ’ ‘  do  you  get  déjà  vu  ??  ’ ‘  do  you  call  her  ,  almost  say  my  name  ??  ’ ‘  let's  be  honest  ,  we  kinda  do  sound  the  same  .  ’ ‘  i  hate  to  think  that  i  was  just  your  type  .  ’ ‘  now  i  bet  you  even  tell  her  how  you  love  her  .  ’ ‘  don't  act  like  we  didn't  do  that  shit  too  .  ’ ‘  you're  tradin'  jackets  like  we  used  to  do  .  ’ ‘  a  different  girl  now  ,  but  there's  nothing  new  .  ’ ‘  i  know  you  get  déjà  vu  .  ’

006.  GOOD  4  U  . ‘  good  for  you  ,  i  guess  you  moved  on  really  easily  .  ’ ‘  you  found  a  new  girl  and  it  only  took  a  couple  weeks  .  ’ ‘  remember  when  you  said  that  you  wanted  to  give  me  the  world  ??  ’ ‘  good  for  you  ,  i  guess  that  you've  been  workin'  on  yourself  .  ’ ‘  i  guess  that  therapist  i  found  for  you  ,  she  really  helped  .  ’ ‘  now  you  can  be  a  better  man  for  your  brand  new  girl  .  ’ ‘  well  ,  good  for  you  you  look  happy  and  healthy  ,  not  me  ,  if  you  ever  cared  to  ask  .  ’ ‘  good  for  you  you're  doin'  great  out  there  without  me  ,  baby  ,  god  ,  i  wish  that  i  could  do  that  .  ’ ‘  i've  lost  my  mind  ,  i've  spent  the  night  cryin'  on  the  floor  of  my  bathroom  .  ’ ‘  you're  so  unaffected  ,  i  really  don't  get  it  but  i  guess  good  for  you  .  ’ ‘  well  ,  good  for  you  ,  i  guess  you're  gettin'  everything  you  want  .  ’ ‘  it's  like  we  never  even  happened  baby  ,  what  the  fuck  is  up  with  that  ??  ’ ‘  good  for  you  ,  it's  like  you  never  even  met  me  .  ’ ‘  remember  when  you  swore  to  god  i  was  the  only  person  who  ever  got  you  ??  well  ,  screw  that  ,  and  screw  you  .  ’ ‘  you  will  never  have  to  hurt  the  way  you  know  that  i  do  !!  ’ ‘  maybe  i'm  too  emotional  but  your  apathy's  like  a  wound  in  salt  .  ’ ‘  maybe  i'm  too  emotional  or  maybe  you  never  cared  at  all  .  ’ ‘  maybe  i'm  too  emotional  .  ’ ‘  your  apathy  is  like  a  wound  in  salt  .  ’ ‘  maybe  you  never  cared  at  all  .  ’ ‘  good  for  you  you're  doin'  great  out  there  without  me  ,  baby  ,  like  a  damn  sociopath  .  ’

007.  ENOUGH  FOR  YOU  . ‘  i  wore  makeup  when  we  dated  'cause  i  thought  you'd  like  me  more  .  ’ ‘  tried  so  hard  to  be  everything  that  you  liked  .  ’ ‘  i  knew  how  you  took  your  coffee and  your  favorite  songs  by  heart  .  ’ ‘  i  read  all  of  your  self-help  books  so  you'd  think  that  i  was  smart  .  ’ ‘  i  knew  from  the  start  this  is  exactly  how  you'd  leave  .  ’ ‘  you  found  someonе  more  exciting  the  nеxt  second  ,  you  were  gone  .  ’ ‘  you  left  me  there  cryin'  ,  wonderin'  what  i  did  wrong  .  ’ ‘  and  you  always  say  i'm  never  satisfied  but  i  don't  think  that's  true  .  ’ ‘  all  i  ever  wanted  was  to  be  enough  for  you  .  ’ ‘  and  maybe  i'm  just  not  as  interesting  as  the  girls  you  had  before  .  ’ ‘  but  god  ,  you  couldn't  have  cared  less  about  someone  who  loved  you  more  .  ’ ‘  i'd  say  you  broke  my  heart  but  you  broke  much  more  than  that  .  ’ ‘  i  don't  want  your  sympathy  ,  i  just  want  myself  back  .  ’ ‘  i  just  want  myself  back  .  ’ ‘  don't  you  think  i  loved  you  too  much  to  be  used  and  discarded  ??  ’ ‘  don't  you  think  i  loved  you  too  much  to  think  i  deserve  nothing  ??  ’ ‘  but  don't  tell  me  you're  sorry  .  ’ ‘  feel  sorry  for  yourself  .  ’ ‘  someday  ,  i'll  be  everything  to  somebody  else  .  ’ ‘  you  say  i'm  never  satisfied  but  that's  not  me  ,  it's  you  .  ’ ‘  all  i  ever  wanted  was  to  be  enough  .  ’ ‘  i  don't  think  anything  could  ever  be  enough  for  you  .  ’ ‘  nothing's  enough  for  you  .  ’

008.  HAPPIER  . ‘  you've  moved  on  ,  found  someone  new  .  ’ ‘  i  thought  my  heart  was  detached  from  all  the  sunlight  of  our  past  .  ’ ‘  does  she  mean  you  forgot  about  me  ??  ’ ‘  i  hope  you're  happy  but  not  like  how  you  were  with  me  .  ’ ‘  i'm  selfish  ,  i  know  ,  i  can't  let  you  go  .  ’ ‘  find  someone  great  ,  but  don't  find  no  one  better  .  ’ ‘  i  hope  you're  happy  ,  but  don't  be  happier  .  ’ ‘  do  you  tell  her  she's  the  most  beautiful  girl  you've  ever  seen  ??  ’ ‘  remember  when  i  believed  you  meant  it  when  you  said  it  first  to  me  ??  ’ ‘  and  now  i'm  pickin'  her  apart  like  cuttin'  her  down  will  make  you  miss ��my  wretched  heart  .  ’ ‘  she's  beautiful  ,  she  looks  kind  ...  she  probably  gives  you  butterflies  .  ’ ‘  i  wish  you  all  the  best  ,  really  .  ’ ‘  say  you  love  her  ,  just  not  like  you  loved  me  .  ’ ‘  think  of  me  fondly  when  your  hands  are  on  her  .  ’

009.  JEALOUSY  ,  JEALOUSY  . ‘  i  kinda  wanna  throw  my  phone  across  the  room  .  ’ ‘  i  know  their  beauty's  not  my  lack  .  ’ ‘  i  can't  let  it  go  .  ’ ‘  comparison  is  killin'  me  slowly  .  ’ ‘  i  think  i  think  too  much  'bout  kids  who  don't  know  me  .  ’ ‘  i'm  so  sick  of  myself  .  ’ ‘  i'd  rather  be  anyone  else  .  ’ ‘  my  jealousy  started  followin'  me  .  ’ ‘  i'm  happy  for  them  ,  but  then  again  ,  i'm  not  .  ’ ‘  oh  god  ,  i  sound  crazy  .  ’ ‘  their  win  is  not  my  loss  .  ’ ‘  i  can't  help  gettin'  caught  up  in  it  all  .  ’ ‘  all  your  friends  are  so  cool  ,  you  go  out  every  night  .  ’ ‘  you're  livin'  the  life  .  ’ ‘  i  wanna  be  you  so  bad  and  i  don't  even  know  you  .  ’ ‘  all  i  see  is  what  i  should  be:  happier  .  prettier  .  ’ ‘  all  i  see  is  what  i  should  be  .  ’ ‘  i'm  losin'  it  ,  all  i  get's  jealousy  .  ’

010.  FAVORITE  CRIME  . ‘  know  that  i  loved  you  so  bad  i  let  you  treat  me  like  that  .  ’ ‘  i  was  your  willing  accomplice  .  ’ ‘  i  watched  as  you  fled  the  scene  .  ’ ‘  one  heart  broke  ,  four  hands  bloody  .  ’ ‘  the  things  i  did  just  so  i  could  call  you  mine  .  ’ ‘  the  things  you  did  …  well  ,  i  hope  i  was  your  favorite  crime  .  ’ ‘  you  used  me  as  an  alibi  .  ’ ‘  i  defended  you  to  all  my  friends  .  ’ ‘  now  every  time  a  siren  sounds  i  wondеr  if  you're  around  .  ’ ‘  'cause  you  know  that  i'd  do  it  all  again  .  ’ ‘  i  hope  i  was  your  favorite  crime  .  ’ ‘  it's  bittersweet  to  think  about  the  damage  that  we'd  do  .  ’ ‘  i  was  goin'  down  ,  but  i  was  doin'  it  with  you  .  ’ ‘  i  say  that  i  hate  you  with  a  smile  on  my  face  .  ’ ‘  look  what  we  became  .  ’ ‘  i  hope  i  was  your  favorite  crime  ,  'cause  baby  ,  you  were  mine  .  ’

011.  HOPE  UR  OK  . ‘  his  parents  cared  more  about  the  bible  than  being  good  to  their  own  child  .  ’ ‘  he  wore  long  sleeves  'cause  of  his  dad  .  ’ ‘  somehow  ,  we  fell  out  of  touch  .  ’ ‘  don't  know  if  i'll  see  you  again  someday  but  if  you're  out  there  ,  i  hope  that  you're  okay  .  ’ ‘  she  raised  her  brothers  on  hеr  own  .  ’ ‘  she  couldn't  wait  to  go  to  college  .  ’ ‘  she  was  brought  into  a  world  where  family  was  merely  blood  .  ’ ‘  we  don't  talk  much  ,  but  i  just  gotta  say  i  miss  you  and  i  hope  that  you're  okay  .  ’ ‘  nothing's  forever  ,  nothing  is  as  good  as  it  seems  .  ’ ‘  well  ,  i  hope  you  know  how  proud  i  am  you  were  created  .  ’ ‘  but  ,  god  ,  i  hope  that  you're  happier  today  .  ’ ‘  'cause  i  love  you  and  i  hope  that  you're  okay  .  ’

#sour sentence starters #sour meme #lyrics meme #rp meme #ask meme #sentence starters #rp starters #lyric starters #music starters #this has been sitting in my drafts since this album came out

[ravenadottir]

Rank the LIs from best to worst kissers

i've been staring at this ask ever since it came in my inbox and wondering whether i should answer or not, but... you asked for it.

should i include all of them? that's a lot of people... then again, i got some time... let's make bottom to top.

also, let me say this: being at the 'bottom' spots doesn't mean the ones i put there are bad, it just means that others are better in my opinion. after all the ask came to me and it's subjective and personal, so the following lists are my thoughts on it, which is what the anon asked.

alright, let's begin!

season 1:

7th place: levi. very detached and technical, not an ounce of originality and overall kinda dull. it's exactly what you expect from a pretty boy like him. sorry levi stans.

6th place: allegra. taking control at all times and possibly using a really strong grip, which sometimes hurts physically. she definitely needs to chill. with that being said, she knows what she's doing, it's just that she does it strongly, not firmly, which is an important distinction.

5th place: mason - there's a touch of tender but sometimes it might feel like he's trying harder than he's letting go and losing himself in the kiss. it comes across as someone who doesn't relax ever.

4th place: tim. sweet and all about the waist grabbing. he has a good grip but not as much control as some of us like. with that being said, he's definitely the type to make you laugh when pulling away, possibly acting shy. and that’s really sweet. all we have is one lousy scene so…

3rd place: jake - definitely top 3 material, knows his timing, when to go harder or when to calm down, the whole dynamics between his hands and your waist is definitely the stronger point of the whole thing.

2nd place: talia - this girl will definitely tease and leave you wanting more. she's the type to let you hang a little when you go for seconds, and smiles when you do. she also has a grip on your thigh and that's just... exactly what is expected from her. talia no doubt has a really strong game!

1st place: rohan - he has all the attributes to me. not afraid of touching, sweet and slow, manages everything quite effortlessly, shows vulnerability... his kissing scenes are the sweetest and we get two on s1; both of them with that "shy and teasing" energy and that's why he's number 1 here.

season 2:

17th place: felix. clammy. don't need to explain any further. if you know you know.

16th place: jakub. the fact the game reinforces he's a "powerful kisser" is enough for me to press the 'doubt' button. i think he's numb from lifting and can't quite measure force and that's actually what they meant. it feels he's the type of guy that has strong fingertips and if you never had the type then you're fucking lucky! it's the worst.

15th place: rocco. oh my god, the things he says are so cringey it doesn't matter if the technique is on point. everything counts and what he says afterwards makes my face contort with severe force. a solid 3/10 for his scenes because of the "sensual kisser" line.

14th place: lottie. she doesn't strike me as the type that takes her time and that bothers me a little. canonically there's only a handful of scenes, maybe less, that we can go from, but even those weren't as detailed. i just think she has some issues with control, like allegra. it could be her lack of trust, but either way, there's not enough to go from.

13th place: elijah. it's not that he's bad, it's just that everything with him is pretty brief. granted, we don't get lots of scenes with casa guys and that's a real shame, but some of them have better ones than others' in my opinion.

12th place: priya. why do i think she's the type that grows extra teeth during a kiss?! you know what i'm talking about, right?! there's always that one girl you kiss that somehow turns into a shark when you're about to lock lips... it takes a few attempts to get there and sometimes it never does... maybe it's the velocity she's going for, but either way, i think she's really rushed when she kisses, mostly out of nerves. she's never confident but something tells me that takes some time.

11th place: arjun. his scenes are pretty sweet. i'll say this, arjun definitely deserved better when coming to the villa because he didn't have nearly as good as he had it while in casa amor. granted none of them had, but the writing for him while in casa was way superior.

10th place: elisa. i think it's definitely part of elisa's identity to be goot at it. it's a shame we didn't have more time with her, because i do think she was a character with a lot of potential. but either way, she's still top 10 because of her moments in the game and after leaving the villa.

9th place: carl. he gets nervous the poor guy. he does have a cool technique but often prefers the girl taking control, which to *some* is definitely what they want, so... yeah... sub energy for sure. it takes him some time to be confident and pull off his A game.

8th place: marisol. i don't know, she really feels like she knows what she's doing and definitely takes control without overpowering the other person. also, something tells me she's slightly more grabby with a girl.

7th place: ibrahim. sweet, calm, slow, but can change speed and style just as easily. definitely leaves you wanting more but has some issues with *noises* if you catch my drift. he can be a little uptight about it.

6th place: bobby. sweet and has a really good rhythm. but i struggle finding him better than the others that are to come. also, he'll make you laugh with nervous energy in between and that to me is a skill that counts.

5th place: kassam. takes control and loves to whisper thing during, especially in the foreign languages he speaks, which honestly? HELLO KASSAM. his hands really shine here and he knows his grip has some power.

4th place: noah. very tender at times but the type that will push you against a wall for a simple 'hi' kiss. he likes surprising and exceeding expectations. AND pleasing his partner if she's a dom, which c'mon! he's a bottom no doubt!

3rd place: gary. not even sorry. he's top 5 material and we have several pieces of evidence. he can be sweet or just plain horny, fast or slow, bottom or top, that whole dynamic really come in handy. gary knows what to do for his partner because he reads the situation. the type that leaves you a bit "how the fuck did he know?" and that's on "reading body language".

2nd place: henrik. yeah it's a whole experience... he has this quality about him that just says "i'm here for you and you only" and it adds to the list of things i love about him. he changes it up according to the mood, he's thoughtful every time, there's always a sweet thing happening with him and i quite frankly think the writers did a great job with his scenes. from being dumb and charming to the point of actually getting smiles from mc, i don't know, i feel henrik is really top 2.

1st place: lucas. my whole blog is the explanation on why lucas is number 1 to me. everything about his scenes honestly make up for the fact that we got some plotholes and ooc moments. lucas was written to be perfect and who am i to go against logic?? all of his scenes, without doubt, are really amazing and he's earned this spot! it's just the way he teases, the way he talks, or how invested he is in making her feel comfortable and safe. but yeah, definitely number 1 in my opinion.

season 3, i'm definitely not the right person to ask this, so i'll leave this one blank. i strongly dislike the season and there's only a few characters that save it a little bit (half of them are no li's, so... yeah, i don't care for s3.

#litg #love island the game season 2 #love island the game #litg s1 #litg s2 #litg season 2 #litg season 1 #litg levi #litg jake #litg talia #litg lucas #litg henrik #litg gary #litg bobby #litg kassam #litg carl #litg priya #litg elisa #litg marisol #group asks #queue

[firein-thesky]

COIN TOSS– PART III

(18+ MINORS DNI)

PART I → PART II

PAIRINGS: Tomura Shigaraki x Reader, a little Shouta Aizawa x Reader

SUMMARY: As you fall asleep, you wonder faintly, almost sadly, if you’re the first thing he’s fully touched without losing in a long time.

You are Eraserhead’s troubled protege with a Quirk that cancels out others the moment they touch you. Tomura Shigaraki takes great interest in you.

(Enemies to lovers, a lot of angst, some hurt/comfort)

WARNINGS: Unhealthy/complicated relationships, age gap/power struggle, violence, gore, Tomura’s trauma specifically, (in later chapters) murder, smut, some blurred lines, rough sex, a smidge of a spit kink, a smidge of somnophilia (let me know if I’ve missed anything!)

If you are under the age of 18, you should not be reading or interacting with this!

↳ A playlist I made for this fic, if you're interested!

A/N: here is your final part to this series! again, thank you @randomrosewrites for beta-ing this!! and thank you guys so so much for your support and comments, they mean so so much to me!! i had a lot of trouble with this last part, there was a lot of scenes i cut out and alternative endings before i settled on what is there now and i'm not even fully happy with it still lol. i have a lot of Thoughts about this, so feel free to reach out if you want to know more or just chat!! i hope you guys enjoy this!!

Read on Ao3

***

Shouta apologizes to you soon after. You sheepishly get out your own apology, even though you’d planned on holding a grudge a little while longer.

Still, Shouta confides that he also had his doubts and worries as a young hero and that he shouldn’t have dismissed yours. He talks in a soft, low voice for you, sits beside you on the edge of the couch.

You hate it because it’s easier to be at odds with Shouta lately, easier for your conscience. He put distance between the two of you, but you forced it apart further– if only to keep him in the dark. Maybe if only to spare yourself all the lying, all the pretending you’d have to do.

He says, “You know, you can always come to me. Whenever you need me.”

You have to swallow hard around the lump in your throat.

“I’ll always be here for you, despite everything.” he promises gently, trying to catch your eyes. Your gaze ducks away, out of his line of site.

Still, you hug him, tuck your face into his shoulder so he can’t see the guilt written across your face. Your secrets will constrict around you if you’re not careful. You know Truth is tricky and likes to reveal itself with Time’s help.

Once more, you become acutely aware of the clock ticking away on your relationship with Tomura.

But this time, you also realize how much trouble you could get in. You realize that you’re endangering Shouta now, too. You swallow hard, try to keep all of that down inside of you, but you feel nauseous suddenly. Bloated with guilt.

You wonder if you would’ve confessed to him then, if you would’ve spilled your guts the way you’d wanted to, if it would’ve saved you the heartache of it all.

Instead, you’d just clung to him, little fingers twisting in the back of his shirt, praying that you’d never need to make good on his promise. Praying you’d never need to test how far he’d go for you.

(It’s far– you’ll realize, further than it ever should’ve been. And you’re all the worse for it.)

***

Tomura thinks one of the troubles with heroes is their willingness to sacrifice anything for their greater good. He doesn’t think there’s anything noble in it, there’s nothing glorious or good in leaving their friend behind because they think it will save more. Nothing honorable in facing down a threat you know you can’t win against alone. What good is their world if they’re willing to sacrifice all that’s good to them in the process?

Everytime he watches you patrol, go up against other villains, maybe yakuza members, throw yourself in harm’s way needlessly, he realizes the Hero Commission uses heroes’ bodies as collateral damage. You are nothing to them. Even to other heroes; your sacrifice is expected. He knows it isn’t wanted, per se, but it isn’t surprising.

It doesn’t help that you have a streak of recklessness in you. You are quick to danger, just as quick to flash teeth and stand your ground, to fight mercilessly.

You struggle against large, powerhouse types. He watches you nearly get crushed or strangled some nights. Your Quirk doesn’t do much for you when your opponent has strength and weight to defeat you with a singular blow.

Your mentor is often pulling you out of danger with his capture weapon, yanking you away from a massive swinging arm or a curled fist about to smash you into the ground. But if it came down to you or the greater good, he knows what your mentor and your heroes would pick.

He thinks it’s strangely unfair, for you to give them your loyalty over him. He’s more loyal to you, isn’t he? There is very, very little he wouldn’t destroy for you. They would sooner let you be destroyed for the sake of their world.

Destroying the hero society that is so careless with you now feels, in part, like his gift to you. Freedom from the world that only cared about you when they realized you could be useful–

There is a night you become not just useful to your heroes but imperative.

It starts with your sacrifice, just as you were trained to do. You shove a civilian out of the way of a villain’s Quirk– it’s something with tusks and teeth that jut out from his body, sharp and ready to gut you.

Your mentor is busy with this villain’s accomplice.

Tomura watches when he shouldn’t. He was supposed to meet with Kurogiri, but he knows you patrol in this area and when there’d been commotion, he couldn’t help but watch from the shadows.

He watches one of those tusks jut towards you, your hand reaching out in hopes of disengaging the Quirk. But it’s a physical Quirk, not something like Dabi’s fire or his disintegration. And he doesn’t know if this Quirk disengages with it’s user or if it’s just his body.

Tomura feels his heart drop, the trapdoor given way to all icy fear as he watches one of those tusks pierce into your stomach.

Tomura stops breathing.

You grab hold of it, a scream getting caught behind your clenched teeth. Your fingers are tight, near frantic as you press into them– hope with everything in you, in him, that his Quirk disengages with yours.

Your broken off scream is wretched from your struggling body when another tusk rushes to crash into your shoulder.

You’re the only thing between the civilians behind you and this villain.

Your other hand reaches for the tusk at your shoulder, digging fingers and nails into it desperately.

Your eyes are bright and feverish with the hot pink of your Quirk.

Tomura stutters towards you, before the villain let’s out a pained groan. Your teeth are bared, blood bubbling up in your mouth, but you’re still standing, vicious and undeterred.

The tusks begin to crack where you grip them, splintering apart–

A sudden fission of light through those crevices, same fire pink as your eyes, arcs throughout the villain. A flare of it that makes the villain almost see-through, the lines of his bones burned by light, an x-ray flash, as if you’d struck him with lightning for a moment.

Eraserhead shouts for you.

When the flare dies, there is a scream of pain and it’s not yours.

The tusks shatter, splinter apart into gleaming bone that flies through the air.

You’re left standing, blood oozing from your stomach, your shoulder, but still standing, your eyes crackling and too bright.

The villain, tuskless, crumples at your feet, smoking. A normal, Quirkless looking man.

Did you–?

“What happened?” he hears the distant voice of your mentor, laced with worry, whose already reaching to staunch blood, blood that seeps so dark out of you. Tomura’s stomach rolls, twists suddenly, but you’re still standing. You’re okay– you’re okay–

“I-I don’t know.” you manage, but you sway into your mentor’s arms and Tomura has to look away, jaw clenched tight, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat.

He hears, “I need an ambulance– there’s a hero and villain down–”

But he’s already turning away, his mind churning, trying to keep the nauseousness from overcoming him. He feels suddenly furious, that it can’t be him at your side, that he has to watch, pushed to the outskirts. His fingers rush to scratch at his neck, his throat, desperate for relief from the pressure that has built in his chest.

He will try to call you– later, much later– the only time you’ll answer him. He is certain you will be okay with your healers and–

He thinks of the flare of light, the breaking of those tusks, the sudden heap of that man on the ground. If Tomura is correct about what you’d done, about what your Quirk actually is, the heroes won’t let you die now.

No, now you’re imperative. Now you’re trapped.

And the destruction of hero society will be his gift to you, an end to all the strings in place, the hands holding you both back.

***

“You destroyed his Quirk.”

“W-what?” you manage to get out, wobbly. You’re bandaged up, your torso and shoulder wrapped in fresh gauze after Recovery Girl healed the worst of your wounds. You’d been sleeping, hooked up to an IV to aid you in recovering. “That’s not possible, my Quirk only cancels–”

The doctor that has entered to give you this news shakes his head, “No, we’ve done scans, tests, the works on this guy. His Quirk is gone from his DNA. No trace of it.”

Shouta, who's sitting beside your hospital bed, speaks up, “Is it possible that it will eventually return?”

“I suppose, but we think it’s unlikely. It’s gone from him. There’s nothing left. She destroyed it cleanly. It’s like it was never there at all.” The doctor answers.

“I don’t understand–” you manage to get out, your head beginning to swim, giving a painful throb at your temples.

“It seems your Quirk isn’t so simple as cancelling out another’s. It’s likely that subduing other’s Quirks was just the surface of yours.”

“Is the man okay otherwise?” Shouta asks now, fidgeting in his seat when he senses your sudden distress. He leans towards your bed more and you have the sudden urge to latch onto him and not let go.

“Physically, yes. He’s fine.” the doctor answers, “However, mentally...he’s inconsolable at the moment. As you know, Quirks are incredibly– well, they’re a part of who we are, aren’t they?”

You swallow hard around the lump in your throat.

You think Shouta says something else, finishes speaking to the doctor for you. The moment the door clicks shut, the tears that you stubbornly had been holding back rush forward.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” you get out on just a hissed breath. “I-I didn’t know I could.”

Shouta shushes you gently, “It’s okay, this happens. Sometimes people don’t know the full extent of their Quirk.”

“I destroyed his Quirk, it’s not okay!” you respond, guilt thickening inside of you, dragging you down heavy, clogging your throat and chest. “I didn’t mean to do that– what if I do it again?”

“You were under distress,” he soothes, reaching out to brush a tear away from your cheek, “Really, you were fighting for your life.” And when he says it, something gets caught in his throat. Something hitches in yours, too.

His eyes rove over your face slowly, taking you in carefully, as if he hasn’t been by your side the entire time. As if it wasn’t him in the ambulance, or him kneeling beside your bed when Recovery Girl put you back together.

“I should’ve been there. It shouldn’t have happened.” Shouta admits, the confession filling the small space between you two.

You take him in now, too, tired and worried, his face finally displaying the fear and care he has for you. It softens out his features, turns his eyes gentle and dark.

You realize suddenly that you miss him. You miss quiet nights on his couch as he graded papers. You miss his clothes and his cats and the tenderness that blossomed in all your silent spaces to fill you both out.

You wonder if he misses you as bad as you’re realizing you miss him.

You think of him cooking for one again, eating alone, and it does something horrible to your heart– mangles it, twists it up horribly.

It’s made all the worse because you’re lying to him. And here he is, at your bedside.

“S’okay, Shouta,” you get out, reaching up to touch his cheek with a trembling hand. He leans into the touch, letting his eyes flutter shut for a moment. He savors your touch in a way that he hasn’t ever allowed himself to before.

But after a moment, he shakes his head fractionally, and he murmurs “I’m supposed to protect you.”

You don’t know why, but your bottom lip wobbles. Big, fat tears well up in your eyes, burn hot and put pressure on your already foggy head. You feel like you’re unraveling, your chest all swollen and tender, too, aching horribly.

You can’t decide if it’s because you’re lying and disobeying him so badly or because no one has ever bothered to say something like that to you, let alone mean it.

And you’re betraying him, your mind hisses.

When he notices, his face falls, his thumb moving to try and brush away your tears. “Don’t cry,” he hushes, “I’m sorry, don’t cry.”

You lean into his large and warm palm at your cheek, let him cradle and coddle you.

“I-I’m sorry–” you barely manage to choke out, for reasons far beyond him.

“No,” he coos, “No, sweetheart, don’t apologize.”

You choke on a sob and he grows more worried, leans over you more, brings his other hand up to stroke at your hairline, too.

He says your name softly, trying to soothe you, “Why are you crying, huh? What are you apologizing for?”

You shake your head, more tears loosening, your small fingers twisting themselves in the shoulders of his shirt. You think you’ll drown in all this guilt, it’ll fill your lungs with pressure, choke you out slowly as you struggle and thrash.

But for now, all you get out is a warbled, slurred, “Please don’t hate me–”

Shouta moves then, shifts to sit beside you on the bed. He’s painfully careful with you as he slides strong and sturdy arms beneath you, lifts you slightly into his lap, mindful of your IV, and cradles you to him.

You bury your face into his chest and try to hold back another sob as he murmurs, “Why would I hate you? I could never hate you.”

He strokes your hair, he hushes your cries, rocking you gently. Rocking you until you can stop crying, until you’re exhausted and aching and tender.

“I’ll help you with your Quirk,” he promises gently, holding you tight to him, “We’ll be okay, huh?” he murmurs, and it just forces another cry out of you, swallowed up by his chest that he cradles you to, “We’ll be okay, sweetheart.”

It’s the we’ll in that sentence that makes you squeeze him tighter. You wonder how willing he’d be to use it if he knew where you were every other night, who you filled your time with.

If he knew who called you late that night, when you’re alone in your room, aching and sore and alone. If he knew who you answered to, your voice hushed in the inky darkness;

“Tomura,” you exhale his name through the receiver.

“I saw what happened,” he answers instead, “I saw what happened today.”

You can feel the sudden jump of your heart, your nerves wringing themselves tight. “Oh,” you respond lamely.

To your surprise, Tomura rasps, “Are you okay?”

You don’t know why, but you cradle the phone to your cheek tighter, your eyes slipping shut for a moment.

“Yeah, I’m alright. Sore and tired, but I’m okay.”

“Good,” he responds, his voice softer than it usually is, just a breath when he asks, “What happened? What’d you do to him?”

You’re silent for a long moment. You can’t decide if you should tell him or not. You think of Shouta earlier and his voice like a hearth and the tender way he holds you, you think of his we’ll be okay.

But you can hear Tomura’s soft breath on the other line. You can see Ryuji in the patch of sun that splays out against the corner of the couch in the evenings. You think of him curled tight around you, like you’re the last good thing left on earth.

“I destroyed his Quirk,” you say, voice barely above a whisper, “With mine.”

“That’s new,” Tomura almost hums, but it nearly seems like he was expecting the answer.

“I didn’t mean to.”

A quiet snort from him, “What are you trying to prove to me?” he asks, “I’m not your heroes. I won’t look at you differently whether you intended to or not.”

The thought strikes like an arrow between the ribs, sharp, sudden. It stings, when you realize it’s truth. How hard have you tried to prove yourself to Shouta? How hard are you trying to prove your goodness to yourself?

“You could’ve killed him,” Tomura says, “And I wouldn’t think differently.”

You wince for some reason when he says that, “Don’t–”

“What would your heroes think then?”

“Tomura–” you snap, voice gaining some bite, a warning.

But for some reason he presses, “How badly does the Hero Commission want you now? With a Quirk like that?”

“What?” you ask, suddenly shocked.

“Don’t be naive,” Tomura says and there’s an edge to his voice. He sucks in a breath, “That’s a big Quirk. Destroying someone else’s? You don’t think they’ll be interested in that?”

You feel the pressure of tears work their way through your head, your throat. Your fingers clutch so hard at the phone that your knuckles are turning white and before you can think, you hiss out, “And how interested are you now?”

“As interested as I was before.” he returns, sharp and quick, and then with a vitriol he hasn’t directed at you in months, he says, “Don’t compare me to them.”

You bare your teeth, tears stinging sharp at your eyes, prepared to fight back when he hisses, “Mark my words, they won’t let you go now.”

“Stop it,” you spit, “You don’t know anything–”

And he laughs at that, caustic, harsh, a grating sound. Villainous. It slithers through the phone, down your spine. Your stomach twists. You hate this– your head is throbbing. You don’t want to fight. You want to stop crying, God, you wish you could just stop crying–

“I’ll be here when you realize it.” he says and there is too much heat behind his voice, simmering and venomous. You can feel the end of this conversation, the bitter goodbye in his words.

Your bottom lip trembles, and for some foolish, lovesick reason, you gasp, “Wait– don’t hang up–”

But you hear the click of the other line and he’s fallen away from you, leaving you with an empty, static silence that buzzes around in your head. In your heart.

You throw your phone across the room. You hear it clatter somewhere in the darkness. You turn to press your face into your pillow and let out a sudden, childish scream. It tears at your throat, before tapering off into this pathetic little sob.

It’s worse because he ends up being right.

And it’s ironic because it’s another string tethering you to him, the ability to destroy something with a touch.

It’s like some part of him knew all along, or maybe some part of you.

You scream into your pillow again, louder, kicking at your covers before it breaks off into a bitter cry.

***

The Hero Commission is very interested in the new discovery of your Quirk. They run tests and scans on you, over and over again, trying to find something interesting. They want you to practice with it, but there’s no way for you to practice without potentially destroying other people’s Quirks.

They offer up criminals to practice on.

It turns your stomach.

“I don’t want to do this,” you tell Shouta one night after another long series of poking and prodding at you by white coats from the Hero Commission.

Shouta is silent for a moment, “No one is making you.”

“But they want me to. It’s expected of me.” you tell him.

“They want to make sure you can control it,” Shouta answers, “And the only way to do that is practice, unfortunately.”

Or do they just want to be sure they can control me? The question bubbles up unbridled inside of you. It sounds suspiciously like Tomura’s voice.

You frown, “I can control it. I don’t go around destroying Quirks with every touch. I just mute Quirks still.”

“Under distress, too? Can you summon it completely calmly? Or stop it in an instant?” Shouta asks.

“I don’t know– no, I don’t think so.”

“Then you can’t fully control it.” he answers, which makes you ball your hands into fists.

“It doesn’t feel right taking people’s Quirks– practice or not. And it’s controlled enough.” you respond, gaining a sudden edge to your voice.

“Then don’t do it.” Shouta responds, almost impassively.

You try not to grow upset or so frustrated that you say something you might regret. You swallow tightly. “Will you be disappointed? If I don’t?”

Shouta tilts his head and in the quietness you fear he will be, but he eventually answers, “No. You’re right; you have it controlled enough that it doesn’t hinder your day-to-day life.”

You let go of a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding.

“Besides, if you’re under that amount of distress again, it probably flares for a good reason. It’ll probably save you if you ever need it again.” Shouta then says, “And if what they want you to do doesn’t feel right to you, then you shouldn’t do it.”

You stare up at him, a little surprised but–

Relief sweeps through you, sweet and cool.

“I trust your instincts,” Shouta says, the curl of his lips small but promising, as he reaches out to nudge your chin with his knuckle.

The guilt blindsides you later, so hard that it makes you lock yourself in your bathroom and keep a sob trapped behind the palm of your hands.

But for now, you smile up at him, the curve of your smirk playful, something he hasn’t seen from you in what feels like forever that you give to him again freely.

“Can I get that one in writing?” you ask and his answering laugh strikes you so suddenly it almost makes you dizzy and it’s like hearing the notes to one of your favorite songs that you hadn’t heard in a long time.

Like you couldn’t ever imagine forgetting it, now that you’ve heard it again.

***

Tomura wonders what it will take to make you leave your heroes.

Specifically, your precious mentor.

When he sees you again, you look like you did before nearly bleeding out in front of him and destroying the Quirk of another. It’s almost as if it never happened at all, almost like your argument never happened at all, either. In this little apartment where the rest of the world doesn’t exist, just you and him and sometimes Ryuji.

Except when he lifts your shirt there is a twisted, ugly scar from where they patched you up. Another at your shoulder. He doesn’t kiss it or run his fingers over it gently, he doesn’t make any sort of comment. He just thumbs at your waist and glares at it, wishes he could make it disappear like the villain who gave it to you.

(Not because he finds it ugly or unacceptable, only that it is now a permanent reminder of what he’d seen. Only that it reminds him that you are not guaranteed to him, not in life nor in loyalty).

You’re a little hesitant with him now. You feel more fragile to him now, too, like you’re holding something back, waiting for everything to finally fall.

The inevitable crash and break.

Tomura is gentler with you– he knows he needs to play his cards right now. It’s crucial. Something is building, even for the League of Villains. There’s more on the horizons.

And despite everything, he wants you there, when the sun is bloody and falling on a dismembered, new world.

He thinks he shouldn’t have pushed you now, when you’re so delicate, barely stitched together. But he had– he’d started another argument. He’d tried to convince you of the heroes’ lack of care for you, their greediness upon discovering the depth of your Quirk.

You throw it back in his face; isn’t that what All For One does to him? Isn’t that what he does for the League of Villains? Aren’t they all just pawns for him? Is that what he wants of you?

He seethes, digging into the skin of his neck desperately. You don’t stop him. He can feel the facade of this little apartment beginning to crumble, fall away into dust and he–

He knows he destroys everything he touches.

But you were supposed to be different.

(You are, his mind hisses, you are, you are, and that’s the worst part of it all).

You storm out that night. You leave him, no doubt to return to your precious mentor.

He thinks about destroying the entire apartment complex. He could now– he knows what’s coming. He won’t be staying here any longer. He has plans, so many plans.

You come back to him a week later, though. You’re bound to him in some way, returning again and again when you know you shouldn’t.

The make-up part is nice, with him buried so deep inside you that he’s trying to turn your stomach. Make you sick with him, the way he is with you. Your gasping moans, with the arch of your body far too pretty for hands like his.

And still, you lay on his chest afterwards, you let him run his fingers over the planes of your shoulders, the line of your pretty neck. He drags his knuckles against your soft skin, enamored with the feeling, with the way you soothe the haunting, sunken part of him. His Quirk submits to yours easily, dimmed inside of him. Maybe he should be frightened of your new potential.

But you’ve never been frightened of him, so he’s not of you, either.

You’re very bold, though, he thinks, for you to say, “Your parents were cruel.” After the argument you both had last time.

He tenses beneath you, grits his teeth. He’d thought you’d both learned your lesson, getting too personal in a place as sacred as here.

“You don’t know anything,” he says and it’s just a breath. Surprisingly toothless. He’d said it to you last time, in your argument. You’d said it to him before that. It feels almost ironic now.

You shake your head against his chest, your nose nudging into him, lips soft against his skin. You remain calm. “I know your name is Tomura. They were very cruel to give you that name.”

You say this as if it’s a fact, something as simple as the sky being blue. But it’s dark out now and the stars are dull, the moon just a scythe in the sky, caught in the window’s glare.

“What?” he demands quietly.

At least you have the guts to tilt your head up to find his eyes now. You look up at him through dark lashes.

“Your name–” you say again, gentle, “It means ‘to mourn.’ I don’t know why anyone would give their child such a sad name.”

He knows what his name means.

But this takes him by surprise, for some reason. Only because it’s not the name his parents gave him. You don’t know that, though. You don’t know anything about him, technically. He has the urge to tell you suddenly, that’s not my name.

He doesn’t, though. He stays silent. It’s his name now. And he likes the way you say it, the syllabus softened by whatever it is you feel for him.

(He won’t give it a name, he’s realizing now that names can be very powerful.)

Your fingers are gentle on him, rubbing strange patterns against a scar near his collar bone.

You have rendered him silent.

And eventually, as you begin to drift off to sleep, you murmur, “You were just a kid, you know?”

He doesn’t really know what you’re getting at, only that it does something strange to the tempo of his heart. He swallows hard, tries to keep his fingers gentle on you. Your breathing has slowed, the rise and fall of your back measured and even, but his has gotten tight.

He squeezes you against him, glaring at nothing, at darkness.

You were just a kid, you know?

It’s this part of you, the one that sees the human in him, that makes him think maybe you will be at his side until the bitter end of it all. Your compassion, the sympathy you have for the child he was, for the person he somehow became. Your unending ability to understand the worst of people.

He doesn’t dwell on the child he was, just has buried it in the cemetery of his chest– a part of him that only you have been able to reach through Quirk, through something too massive to name. You’ve soothed it, put it to rest like the dead, lit your incense in the spaces of his heart. Said your prayers along the notches of his ribs. Tried to appease that restless spirit that possesses him.

He doesn’t know why, but he starts to shake. He can hardly breathe.

And in the dark, when he thinks you’re asleep, and his secrets will be lost to your dreams, he admits for the first time in years what has always trembled inside him. He speaks the tragedy that has made a home of his body, the mourning that he was given name to;

“I wanted to be a hero– when I was a kid.”

***

Tomura thinks, for a moment, when you’re splattered in blood, that this will be your great turning point.

Your fall, the tearing and burning of your wings from your holy back. It will hurt, but he will be there on the ground with you, a hand extended to guide you. He will be there to cradle you into his chest, to hold you close when your world falls apart.

The way All For One was there for him.

The beginning of the end starts with you being a hero.

But you save the wrong person.

Toga’s been following him around as she does every so often, dogging in his shadow, skipping along beside him. You’ve become accustomed to her, too. She likes having you around. Something about not being the only girl. You’re kind to her in the same way he thinks you probably wanted kindness at her age.

The sky is mottled purple, bruised as the day sets into night. The sun looks like an open wound, violent and red.

When he thinks about it, he figures he should’ve been more careful, but then there’s a petty villain Tomura knows vaguely, someone they’ve clashed with before, who he’s pretty sure Dabi and Toga pissed off. He spots Toga first. Your back is turned to him.

“Uh oh,” Toga says, peering over your shoulder.

Tomura grabs your wrist, “Hide,” he hisses, and when you try to peer over your shoulder at what Toga is looking at, he forces you back around so the villain doesn’t see your face.

He doesn’t know why he saves you like that. Only that he doesn’t want you to get in trouble, doesn’t want you taken from him like that. He is not an idiot; if the villain recognizes you, if it somehow got around that you were seen with two of the most notorious villains, the Hero Commission would eat you alive.

And here’s the part that really gets him. You listen to him. You trust him.

You dart away, swift and fast like a fox, disappearing into the shadows the way you were trained to.

“Hey!” the villain shouts and he’s large, Tomura remembers now.

Stupid, too, he thinks, as he barrels towards them.

The glint of Toga’s knife in the sun makes him pause.

Better to not engage, Tomura thinks, not yet, not now. Too much on the horizon for something foolish to happen tonight. The apartment isn’t far from here. He hopes you’ll retreat there. He just needs to get Toga away safely now.

“Oh, I’ve missed fighting!” she sings.

“No,” Tomura rasps, “Don’t engage. We need to go, too.”

She whines a long and drawn out, “Why?” just as the hulking mass of a person swings at her. She ducks away easily, quickly.

However, then his Quirk bursts to life and it’s far worse than what Tomura had hoped for. He doubles in size, his arms in particular growing longer, and fill out with what seems to be rushing water.

“Dammit, Toga,” he hisses, shoving her out of the way as the villain blasts a large cannon of water at her.

Tomura takes the hit hard, black coloring his vision when he hits the ground.

In truth, he thinks he is out for at least a full minute, because when he’s come to, you’re shouting at the villain. You’re tugging desperately at his massive shoulder, clawing and screaming. You’ve canceled his Quirk, but he’s still too big, even without it.

Toga is pinned beneath that arm, choking and spluttering, drenched. It actually looks like she’s choking on water. She can’t even scream, too garbled, too water-logged. She looks like a doll, she looks horribly small. Her face is turning a deep shade of red as she struggles for breath. Her little hands claw at his wrist, too.

Tomura tries to stand, his vision swimming, swaying so bad that for a minute everything goes sideways.

Fuck, he curses, just as he watches you get tossed away by that villain’s other hand like you’re nothing. His Quirk suddenly ripples back to life and he blasts Toga with another bout of water, plastering her to the gravel, the onslaught of it unending.

You’re up in an instant, throwing yourself onto his neck, trying to wrench him off. His Quirk disengages again, and Toga heaves and gasps for breath, coughing up large amounts of water.

“You’re going to kill her!” Tomura finally can catch onto what you’re saying, what you’re desperately screaming. His ears ring.

You get thrown off again. More water. Toga is being blasted so hard that she can’t even choke or struggle.

Tomura thinks you’re trying to rationalize with them, you’re trying to explain you’re a hero. And to disengage. Stop, please stop, please stop–

He’s not listening, though, of course.

And he’s too big. You tried knocking him out, tried putting him to sleep with the grip of your elbow. You’re trying everything, even to crush his Quirk beneath yours. Tomura catches the flutters of pink, your inability to summon your destruction when you need it.

It wouldn’t matter anyways, not with how big he is. You struggle against powerhouses.

Tomura stumbles.

But you’ve always been gritty and sharp and determined, if nothing else. You have always fought so desperately for your life, never mind law or honor or glory.

He thinks he catches the glint of your knife, the desperate threat to let her go, leave her alone!

The villain grabs you with a massive hand around the throat, lifts you clear off the ground.

Toga has gone slack against the pavement in a puddle of water, face colored a strange shade of red and blue. A little like the way the sky blurs before his eyes.

You kick and thrash, a horrible growl wretched from your throat. You don’t think, just lash out.

And then there is blood. So much blood. It’s all over Toga now, seeping into the water– did she cut him? She managed to cut his throat? Because that’s where the blood is pouring out of–

Tomura sways.

You’re dropped.

You stumble away.

Your blade– the one you used to threaten him with, is bloody.

“Fuck!” you shout, raw and so sudden that it jars him a little. He forces himself over to the scene. So much blood. His stomach rolls.

He looks at you, your shell-shocked face. You’re looking at the knife, at the blood. At Toga, who's still not moving.

He goes to her first, tries to shake her a little, fingers held away from her shoulders carefully. For a moment, she doesn’t respond, limp and lifeless and something inside of him threatens to overwhelm him. No, no–

Her eyes flutter, though, and she wheezes for a breath, suddenly turning over to vomit up far too much water.

“I-Is she-?” your voice, so small and lost, cuts through his thoughts.

He looks at you again, blood splattered and terror caught in your eyes. Pale and slack faced and half-mad. You look like a ghost, standing there in the aftermath, in your gruesomeness.

“She’s fine,” he says, just as she wretches up more water, “You saved her.”

Toga falls limp again. He checks frantically for a pulse at her wrist with two careful fingers. Still there. She needs a doctor, though. He stands to face you.

You make a noise, high pitched, trembling. You cover your mouth to keep it in, it’s something like a sob, an animalistic noise.

“I didn’t mean to– I didn’t, I didn’t– she was just–” you’re trying to get out, almost doubled over now.

Tomura doesn’t bother to check if you killed the villain. He knows the dead when he sees it. And he won’t lie to you now, he won’t soften this blow or shield you from it.

But he also knows what he needs to do.

You keel over, about to scream more and– no, that won’t do you any good.

He grabs for you, hauls you back up and you’re shaking so hard that he fears you’re going to split apart. You’re about to lose it.

“Listen to me,” Tomura hisses and you choke on a cry. He shakes you a little, tries to force you to look at him and not the body behind him. Your eyes, feverish pink, meet the wildfire of his, “Listen to me.”

“I– I don’t–”

“Sshh,” Tomura hisses, palm going to your cheek, a little too rough, forcing you to look at only him. “Sshh, listen.”

You try to swallow and he continues, “You’re going to call reinforcements. You’re going to tell them there’s a villain down.”

“W-what?! I’m going to– they’re going to–”

He shakes you again, harder, your teeth click together with the force of it. He needs you to understand this– needs you to hear this if he wants to keep you safe and out of jail.

“Tell them I decayed him. And before that, tell them Toga cut him, and it splattered onto you. Say you heard commotion and like the good hero you are, you ran to help.”

“Tomura–” you sob.

“Do you understand me?” he snaps instead, grabbing you harder, his fingers curling against your cheek to press desperately into you. “Answer me!”

“Yes–” you gasp, wide-eyed and terrified. “Yes!”

“Good,” he hushes, wiping blood from your cheek, “Good. You saved her,” he tells you, “You saved her, do you understand?”

You nod, jerky, and he continues, hand petting your cheek, messily pushing your hair from your face, “You did everything right.”

Your breathing is still labored, but you’re quieting with the praise. When he thinks you can handle it, he breathes, “Now, are you ready? I’m going to decay him and the knife, then I’m going to leave with Toga. You’re going to call for help.”

You glance at the villain, lying lifeless, in his own pool of blood and Tomura ducks his head to force you to look at him. “Okay?” he asks, “Answer me.”

“Okay,” you exhale slowly.

“Good,” he murmurs, “Good. Now give me the knife.”

You press it, trembling, into his hands. It’s slick with blood. He forces himself to stay calm for you.

He steps away, let’s go of you. The knife turns to dust.

“Look away,” he commands then, his voice a rasp.

And you– you listen to him. You trust him. You turn away. He sets his hands on the villain. And just like that, his body breaks down, gore at first, until it is nothing but dust. It blows away easily.

And then he goes to Toga and he lifts her carefully. She’s like a ragdoll in his arms, soaked and cold. He’s certain to keep his hands away from her, fingers lifted away, but she lolls into his chest.

When you turn around, Tomura says, “Thank you for saving her.” And he means it.

You swallow hard. You look to where the villain was. He’s gone now.

“Now call your heroes, just like I said.”

You nod, eyes filling up with tears. That’s fine. They’ll have more sympathy for you, for what you’ve witnessed. They’ll believe you more. Your mentor will protect you, with those tears in your eyes.

Tomura’s eyes burn crimson as you pull out your phone, “Do what I said and you’ll be okay.”

And you do, just like that. You lift the phone to your ear. That semblance of calm that he had coaxed you into shatters the moment someone picks up on the other end.

Your voice goes high, near hysterical, “T-There’s a villain down–”

He turns away from you as you stutter and cry into the phone about what happened. You give them the lie he told you to feed them. You make Tomura out to be the villain, you make yourself out to be innocent. He holds Toga close to him.

He tries not to smile, a dizzy slip of a thing, as you do exactly as he told you to– as you lie and lie and lie through your teeth.

Toga stirs in his arms. Police sirens are heard in the distance. An ambulance for a pile of dust. The sun sets, darkness blanketing the world, shielding it from the light.

And as he stalks away, with Toga alive and in his arms, he thinks maybe he’ll make a villain of you yet.

***

The police believe you. It’s hard not to, when there is so little evidence otherwise. Tomura destroyed it all for you. It’s hard not to believe you, when you’re crying and terrified, as you should be for witnessing the death of another person at the hands of Himiko Toga and Shigaraki Tomura.

Shouta, however, is not as easily convinced.

Not after so many strange occurrences with Tomura.

When he brings you back to his apartment, when the door is shut tight, and you still stand in bloodied clothes with your teeth chattering, Shouta eyes you warily.

You want to shower, burn yourself beneath the spray of water, like you could wash away what you’d done. You squeeze your eyes shut.

You saved her.

You swallow down the lump in your throat.

“What really happened?” Shouta asks, almost tentatively, standing in the middle of his living room.

You turn and you don’t– you don’t know how you should react. Should you be offended that he’d doubt you? React in outrage after all that’s happened? Should you act confused? Play dumb?

You can’t stomach any of it. Not when someone’s dead at your hands. But someone is alive because of them, too.

Your eyes well up with fresh tears.

“I-I told you.” you choke out.

Shouta’s jaw ticks. He draws in a slow breath, “Something isn’t adding up. You have had more contact with Shigaraki Tomura than anyone has been able to have.”

Your stomach drops. Your tears fall harder.

“What’s going on?” he asks and the distance between you two feels massive. It feels continental in the small space of his living room. He seems suspicious.

The lie comes out on a sob, “I–I think he’s been stalking me.”

“What?” Shouta asks and any uncertainty he has in you evaporates as he watches your face crumple.

You let your guilt overwhelm you into choking on another cry, cover your mouth as if you could catch it in the palm of your hand. Shouta doesn’t know the truth of it, so he believes it.

He crosses that distance like it’s nothing now. He stands tall in front of you, reaches to try and brush tears away from your cheek.

“I don’t know–” you gasp, filling out your lie, “I think he's interested in me because of my Quirk. Because he can’t– I can’t decay, when he touches me.”

Shouta tips your face up towards his but you can’t look him in the eyes, let your eyes squeeze shut when he asks, “Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”

“I don’t know–” you choke out, “I wasn’t sure.”

“Did something else happen?” Shouta prods gently and you grit your teeth to keep back another sob. More tears cut tracks down your face, right into Shouta’s waiting, gentle hands.

There is a long moment where you think of giving everything up. You think of telling Shouta everything, if only to lift the weight that has settled onto your chest. Surely, it will crush through your sternum, surely your heart will burst with it’s pressure.

“It’s my fault,” you whisper, “It’s my fault he’s dead.”

“No,” Shouta says then, gentle but firm, shaking his head, “I know it may feel like it–”

“He was going to kill her.”

This stops Shouta. He goes very, very still.

“What?” he rasps softly.

“He was drowning her– he wouldn’t stop. I tried to get him to stop and he started choking me–and she saved me by–” It’s a fabrication to save yourself. That’s not how it went! Your mind screeches, that’s not how it went– you saved her by killing–

Toga was turning blue, she didn’t help you. She didn’t save you. She was drowning. She didn’t kill him. You did.

“You saved Toga Himiko, a notorious villain, one of the most wanted–”

“He was killing her!” you hiss, “She was turning blue–”

“She’s a powerful villain, too, you should’ve tried–”

Something inside of you fractures, bursts apart the way glass does when thrown against a wall. You think there are a million, shining pieces of you now lying on the floor.

“She’s Shinsou’s age!” you snap, hoping one of your shards cuts him, suddenly half-furious through all your tears. “She’s Shinsou’s age, do you know that?!”

You break now, wrenching away from Shouta’s touch and rushing to double over the sink to dry heave again, body squeezing painfully. You threw up everything in your stomach already at the scene, when recounting the story to the police, to Shouta. You claw at your stomach, trying to stop it, to keep it all down inside of you. You curl your fingers into the divots of your ribs, try to force them to give you air, but they won’t– betrayers that they are, they squeeze and squeeze until there’s nothing of you left.

Your knees buckle, head spinning when you turn away from the sink and crumple into a heap on the floor,“She’s just a kid,” you wail desperately, “That’s all I saw when I tried– when I–”

Your head bows forward, body folded in on itself, forehead digging into the ground as you cry, “I didn’t mean for him to die, I didn’t mean it– I didn’t, I swear I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

Shouta moves again finally, drops to his knees down beside you. He cradles your skull in his large hand, pushes your head into the crook of his neck to hold you, “It’s alright,” he breathes, curling his other arm tight around you, “It’s not your fault,” he hushes, “It’s not your fault.” You sob hard into his chest, fingernails digging into him, clawing at his biceps, “Sshh, it’s okay. It’s okay.”

And he holds you, buries you in the bulk of him, like he always has when you need him. Your constant, the love you never once deserved. Especially not now. Especially not here, with blood stained on your clothes, sunk to the floor with nothing but the anchor of your guilt.

He strokes your hairline, gentle, cooing softly to try and calm you.

He murmurs, his voice so deep and soft and earnest, “You’re a good hero.” When you make a strangled noise against him, he presses on, “You are. You’re compassionate. You see everyone’s humanity and that’s a good thing.”

He hushes more of your cries, fingers gentle in your hair, and you try not to throw up again when he tells you;

“You’re a good hero, I promise. I promise.”

The beginning of the end starts with you being a hero for a villain.

***

The next time you see Tomura, he questions you about what happened, if you pulled it off. You tell him you managed it, somehow. You don’t tell him anything else. You don’t tell him you haven’t been sleeping, that you can hardly keep food down. You don’t tell him that you take too many showers, trying to wash away the phantom blood.

You remember when it was Tomura’s blood on you, so long ago. A beginning that now seems so hazy. You hadn’t minded blood, then. You had never been particularly squeamish but now–

Now it could make you sick on your best days, downright hysterical on your worst.

Your guilt tears chunks out of you, bites down and shakes the meaty, soft parts of you until you’re all torn up.

It is easier to be with Tomura than Shouta now.

We have more in common, you think, and it makes you want to laugh, empty and wobbly.

You look in mirrors and hardly recognize yourself, wonder if this is really your body. If this is really your life, or if it’s someone else’s. Maybe you are possessed, maybe that explains how you got here.

You don’t tell him any of this. You stay silent.

And that’s okay because Tomura seems strangely quiet after that, pulling you to lay on his chest. He doesn’t let you put the TV on. You can tell he needs to think. You let your eyes drift close as he runs his fingers through your hair with a surprising amount of gentleness, compared to his usual petting.

But eventually he says, so soft that you fear you almost imagined it, “A yakuza head visited the League recently.”

Your eyes flutter open and in your surprise, you sit up a little, looking down at him. “Tomura–” you start, almost a warning.

He knows he isn’t supposed to talk like this here, in this little slice of another world.

But he continues anyways, his voice just a rough scratch, “He killed Magne.” And then, “And Compress no longer has an arm.”

Now you really pull away to look at him. You can feel your eyes widen out, your shock, then the stomach-turning sadness. His face is unreadable, but his jaw is tight. His eyes are simmering, so red, even in the low light like this.

“It was a set up.” he hisses, “I failed them.”

He doesn’t cry, but you can feel the slightest tremble in his body.

You hurt for him, you realize, your heart falling into the pit of your stomach. Those are two of his closest, some of his inner circle.

He looks shaken.

He looks young, with the weight of his world on his shoulders, with the crown of thorns placed on his head. Heir to a monstrous throne. All For One’s successor, boy prince to inherit an underground empire.

You just see him, though, just Tomura who's twenty, who likes sour candy and video games.

He swallows hard. He looks angry and hurt.

“Nobody mourns us,” he says eventually, looking away from you, somewhere in the darkness of the apartment.

Except you, you want to say, with a name like Tomura.

You lurch forward, throwing your arms around his neck, hugging him tight to you. “I’m sorry,” you tell him, soft, the way Shouta speaks to you, “I’m sorry.”

And then you think, I’d mourn you, and you squeeze him tighter, I’d mourn you, oh God, I’d mourn you–

He doesn’t hug you back, but you can feel the shaky breath he exhales, and the way his fingers tighten in the fabric of your shirt.

***

Tomura thinks it should be you, at his side, when he takes Overhaul’s arm. You are everything Overhaul wants. Your Quirk is what he has tried to bottle.

Tomura thinks you could’ve been useful, to switch off his Quirk, to destroy it in an incredible twist of irony. It would’ve been the ultimate power move, to have you at his side by the end of all of this.

But you’re not there, no, not with him.

You’re with your heroes, Toga had told him.

It shouldn’t, but it feels like a betrayal. It stings hard and sharp inside of him, like a livid bee that jabs at his heart.

He seethes about it. Hadn’t he done everything right with you? He’d played this game slow, knew that the rewards would be worth it.

You’re still walking away from him, though. You’re still not his.

And you’ve still got one of his ribs, left a gaping wound inside of him.

He wants it back. He wants it back.

***

Eri looks up at you with watery, red eyes when you first introduce yourself to her. You crouch to be on her level. She has silver hair. She’s timid, wobbly bottom lip and flushed cheeks.

You almost start crying, looking at her now. You wonder if this is what Tomura was like as a child– small and terrified of his Quirk, round red eyes pleading with the world. All you see in her is every other forgotten child.

“Hi, Eri,” you hush, half for her, half because you’re scared your voice might break.

“H-hello,” she trembles.

You try to keep your smile in place, but it’s a weak, sad thing.

Still, you say, “I’d like to be your friend, if you’ll have me.” And you extend your hand to her, palm up and offering. “I have a Quirk like Mr. Aizawa’s.” you tell her gently, “If you touch me while using your Quirk, it’ll stop.”

She brightens at this, not smiling but, surprised, “Really?” she asks, just a breath.

You nod, swallowing around the lump in your throat, “Really.”

She takes your hand then, eager, tightening with her small fingers, despite her Quirk still being off.

Then she looks up into your face and offers you a tentative smile. Small, just the corner of her lips lifting up.

“I’d like to be your friend, too.” she murmurs bashfully and you close your hand around hers. It’s small, almost fragile. She’s all bandaged up, arms wrapped in gauze.

You look at Eri and her red eyes and silver hair and see a coin toss, see it up in the air, spinning and spinning, catching in the light. A twist of fate like the flip of a coin.

But you think you could call it now, with her hand in yours, and the heroes that hover protectively around her.

***

There is a morning shared in blush light that isn’t the ending but feels like it could be one. In truth, you’d prefer to remember this as the ending, more of a whimper and less of a bang. The night before had been one of your better ones, too– you’d only woken once with a nightmare. Tomura had already been awake and he’d soothed you with a careful hand that drew patterns across the bare skin of your back.

That night, that morning, was gentle in the wake of all that violence, love taken root, finally bursting through your veins to make a mess of your insides.

Dawn is too mellow a place for the two of you.

(You have come to the conclusion that Tomura looks best in dusk, saturated, sharp and rich in color. Bold and vivid. You didn’t know it, but he thought the same of you.)

You never told him you loved him.

You think about that a lot, wonder if it would’ve made a difference in anything. You wonder who was the last person to tell him that, if anyone at all.

He’s still half hoping that you’ll follow him, but you think he knows he’s losing you. You are not content in fuming misery, cannot stomach to leave the mentor that has loved and cared for you with such perseverance and softness. You cannot stomach to turn away from the boy with violet hair, or now the girl that reminds you of him.

You wish you could keep him, too, despite it all, but all you see in the future with him is rubble.

In the least, you’ve always had a sense of preservations, survivor that you are, scavenger that you are. You know when to move on, can’t linger too much longer now or you won’t live through it.

You sleep better with Tomura, though, and that’s the cruel part. You wake with less nightmares. You sleep more soundly, wound up in him, so tight that you two might just grow together. Palm to palm, your Quirk quieting his, lulled and softened.

And that morning, you wake slowly, twisting around fitfully with the warmth that has blossomed gently inside of you.

Consciousness creeps to you, fighting against the pull of sleep, being coaxed awake by the fluttering of your heart, the slow roll in your core.

Your eyes lift, heavy with sleep, finally awake. You blink blearily before a sudden, sleep soft cry escapes past your lips.

You glance down the line of your body to find Tomura nestled between your legs, tongue tracing messy patterns into where you’re most sensitive. Your stomach swoops sweetly, flares into a spark of heat.

The light is soft on him. He cracks a ruby eye open to gaze at you, to open his mouth so you can watch the flash of glistening pink as his tongue laves against you slowly.

“About time you woke up,” he gets out, voice still morning-rough, a little grating. His fingers squeeze your thigh, pulling you apart further to be at his mercy, spread open all for him.

“Tomura–” you gasp, your hands finding their way into his hair, fingers gentle and weak with sleep.

He sets his mouth to you, sucks on the bundle of nerves in a way that makes you keen, almost arching away from him. He fixes his eyes on your face, watches as your expression twists up.

You can see the way his hips are twitching into the mattress. Sometimes you think he does this more for himself than you, takes pleasure in rendering you down to your most basic, most desperate.

Pleasure coils warm, simmers on the inside of you. Your fingers flex, tighten in his hair until he groans against you. When he pulls away for another moment to admire you, his lips are spit slick, a string of translucent spit and slick bridging between the two of you.

It makes you flush darkly, makes you throw your head back and whimper.

He takes you apart with the savagery and viciousness that he has always carried. Dawn spills over the bed sheets in rays of peach and honeysuckle, lovely for the impending destruction. You shatter like glass, pretty and ringing beneath his hands.

And then he’s flipping you onto your stomach, letting you claw at your pillow as he sinks deep inside of you. He hisses when he fucks into the crux of your sweet, supple thighs. Your hair is messy with sleep. He presses his chest to your back, presses you into the mattress.

You fist at your pillow, whining at the burn and stretch, and you can feel the sickle cut of his smile against the arch of your shoulder blades. He leaves sloppy kisses, scattering them, sucking at your skin until he has claimed and marked and branded you.

He nudges his nose against your cheek until you tilt your head back to his, to rub back affectionately, nudge into him like a cat. He hums in satisfaction, in pleasure, the sound of it rumbling against your back.

You feel like he’s trying to savor this. He doesn’t pull your hair, or speed up his hips. No, he waits until you arch your back for him, until you’re near begging.

He likes you weakened, maybe delirious, maybe like he’s giving you a dose of your own medicine. He’s trying to make you as addicted as he is, but there’s no need.

No need when he covers your hand with his, slots his fingers between yours. All five of them, squeezing at your hand.

“You were made for me,” he gets out, giving you a rougher thrust, his eyes flashing to your hands, “See?” he groans, fingers digging into your wrist, your knuckles, “Made for me.”

You moan, too, all wobbly and pitched, with all the pressure, with the squeeze of his hand. With the stretch of him inside where you’re vulnerable and soft and slick.

He drags everything out that morning, fucks you both into oversensitivity, until you’re both shuddering and gasping. He breaks you down, until there are tears streaming down your face, until he’s gripping you so tightly that he’ll leave a bruise in the shape of his hand.

He fits his hand against your throat at one point and your eyes roll into the back of your head. You end where you began, with the violet petal bruise of his fingertips into your skin.

You linger in bed with him that morning, letting him pet and stroke and touch you. You stay gentle, even when he gets rough.

You make cheap, bad coffee for the both of you.

You feel twenty something with a boy and his tiny apartment. A cat chirps at the window and you’re smiling when you let him in. The breeze is cool. You don’t put on clothes because you feel like an adult, with a lover.

You feel normal for a fraction of a moment after everything that’s happened.

You feel sated and tender and saddened. Your chest fills with aching as you watch Tomura drift in and out of sleep in the sunbeams.

You were made for me, he’d said and you reach out to brush a strand of hair from his face. You were made for me.

You swallow around the lump in your throat, the one that feels like needle pricks and the hard truth. You don’t have the heart to tell him that he may need you, but you don’t need him.

You want him, though, your fingers trailing down the lines of his face, you want him so badly that it hurts. Your fingers travel over the hitch of his scars, his body as familiar as a home.

You want him, but you don’t need him, you try to tell yourself in this moment. You want him, but you don’t need him. You will survive this.

Still, it’s going to hurt. You’re bracing for impact, can feel the free fall rush up to the ground, can feel your stomach swimming up where your heart is.

You’ll survive it, you think, breathing hard, trying to keep back your tears as you look at him. But it’s going to hurt, it might tear out something very precious inside of you.

You’d rather he just break your arm again. At the thought of it, you try not to choke on the bitter, furious laugh that splits from your aching ribs.

***

You get to know Eri, try to spend more time with her and Shouta and Shinsou like you’re trying to fix something you broke. The pieces aren’t quite matching up right, though. It can’t be fixed, not really, not fully.

You can’t close your eyes without seeing that villain in a pool of their own blood. Or Toga’s face made blue. Sometimes in these dreams, it’s Shinsou who is drowning. Sometimes the villain in blood is Shouta. Tomura is always the one who saves you.

You can’t look at yourself anymore. You can’t stomach to. Your lies explode out of you when you catch a glance of yourself, haggard and exhausted and beaten down.

Shouta takes you to a hospital after your fist collides with the mirror in your bathroom. Glass shatters into hundreds of reflections of your warped and terrible image. They’re not as pretty, when the sun isn’t setting in a warehouse with a boy that you think you love.

Your hand bleeds the way that man’s necks did–

Your world spins as you lean over the bowl of the toilet to throw up your lunch. You’d made it with Eri earlier, before Shouta had gotten home from class.

Shouta finds you on the floor, sitting in all that glass, with your hand clutched tightly to your chest. He must’ve heard the commotion next door.

“What happened?” he asks, voice flooding with concern. He doesn’t hesitate to step carefully over the glass to you.

The question feels too large for you.

I did something horrible, you think, that’s what happened.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter weakly, lifting your chin from its place on your chest. “I didn’t mean to.”

(That isn’t true and you know it.

(But you’re always trying to prove you’re good. Especially now. Especially to Shouta– trying to prove you’re worthy of his love.

You suddenly crave Tomura. You didn’t have to prove anything to him.)

Shouta lifts you carefully, cradles you to his body to carry you out to his car to bring you to the hospital. He treats you like you’re fragile, made of glass yourself. “What’s going on with you?” Shouta murmurs gently, but there's almost a plea in it, concern that is so transparent it hurts, “You’re scaring me– I’m worried about you.” he confesses, almost desperate, “You know you can talk to me, don’t you?”

The laugh that sputters out of you is hollow, a grating noise that gets choked off. Shouta looks at you warily, uncertain and fearful.

The hospital keeps you for three days. Eri asks Shouta about you, apparently. She misses you. Shinsou helps her decorate a card for you.

Get well soon! Is written in her poor handwriting with far too many colors, and in Shinsou’s messy scrawl at the bottom;

Miss getting my ass kicked by you.

The doctors tell Shouta you’re struggling with a lot of survivor’s guilt and you have to fight back another absurd, off-kilter laugh.

Part of you thinks you’d be better off with Tomura at this point (your coin uncertain, hanging suspended in the air), if only to relieve you of this guilt, when Shouta tends to you and cares for you and loves you so steadfastly that it makes you feel rotten and horrible and monstrous. He has no idea who he’s loving. And you don’t deserve any of it–

But you think of Eri and the way she clings to your sleeves. And how you and Shinsou share granola bars during training.

And mostly, you are terrified to be without them.

None of it’s the same, though, and you think it’ll eat away at you until you’re nothing at all but the empty lies you kept feeding them.

You want to be better, you realize, when Eri draws you in pictures, holding her hand. You want to be better, you realize, for kids like you, like her–

(Like Tomura–)

So you decide one night, with your hand still bandaged, with Eri sleeping peacefully on the couch in the crux of your arms, and Shouta at the opposite end of the couch, that you will stay with them. The easy thing to do would be to leave, to not look back. But you have always been nothing if not determined, if not a fighter.

You will become who they want you to be, who they believe you to be, even if it tears you apart from the inside out.

Which means giving up Tomura, which feels like giving up a rib.

***

You had hoped you’d be able to slip away from Tomura and leave your secrets in a rundown apartment in a part of the city you grew up in. You had hoped that you could get away unscathed, without Shouta ever knowing more.

But Dabi mentions you to Hawks.

Offhand. Something about another traitor hero. Something about Shigaraki’s bitch.

Tomura also mentions Hawks to you.

And here is your trouble, what you were hoping to avoid by never allowing him to speak about his plans; you now know that the Number Two Pro-Hero is a traitor. However, the only reason you know that, is because of your secret relationship with the leader of the League of Villains that you have been slowly, painstakingly trying to sever yourself from.

(It doesn’t help that he’s latched on tighter–)

So, if you go to Shouta to warn him that the Number Two Pro-Hero is a traitor, you have to also conveniently come forward with your own truth. And what if he thinks you’re a traitor, too?

Surely, it looks that way.

Truthfully, you might as well be– you killed someone.

You killed someone.

Your stomach squeezes tight.

You think of Shouta and Shinsou and Eri and the loss of their love, when you’ve been trying to earn it back.

You don’t get much time to mull this over, though, because while walking back to your own apartment at U.A., a shadowy span of wings fall over your form.

Your heart falls into the pits of you, the drop of it sharp, horrible.

You think running will make it look all the worse.

Besides, he’s fast.

You can’t decide how this will go. Maybe he’ll only want to speak with you, traitor to traitor. But then you will be confronted with the undeniable truth that you now need to share with Shouta, with the Hero Commission, for the sake of people’s safety. You will have to come clean. Maybe it will be worse. Maybe he’s not after you at all, but just in your neck of the woods because–

All other thoughts are cut short when he lands in front of you.

You try to think of a proper reaction. Should you be expecting him? On guard? Should you act surprised?

His wings flare and you realize quickly how massive they are. They throw you into their towering shadow, make you feel like a mouse.

His eyes glint when he pushes up his visor, the gold of them sharp, his pupils a pinprick. The eyes of a predator.

You try not to cower. You stand your ground, lift your lips a little like you might bare teeth in warning, your hackles raising. Backed into the corner, you feel half wild, too.

But Hawks beats you to any form of a greeting, his smile a menacing twist of his lips, like he’s trying to be pleasant but he wants you to see all of those sharp, white teeth of his. You think he doesn’t look like much of a hero in this darkness, with the way his wings look thorny and maroon. His voice is barbed wire, the drawl of it stinging.

You know you’re in deep trouble now;

“You and I need to have a little talk.”

***

You are kept in a steel room that the Hero Commission tells you is not a holding cell, but you definitely think is a holding cell.

Your mind has not slowed since you got here.

You scramble for a story to tell– for lies to sew.

Hawks is not a traitor. Not to the heroes’ at least. He is a traitor to the villains and you know, logically, that this is for the greater good, but something about it bothers you. Villains aren’t people to the Hero Commission. You feel strangely protective of Tomura’s league of outcasts, even if you know you shouldn’t.

But they’re young, with feelings and thoughts and lives and pasts.

Nobody ever mourns us.

No, they don’t, you think, trying to keep away bitter tears from springing to your eyes. They don’t bother trying to see the big picture, they don’t bother to try and figure out why villains are on the rise.

They can’t stomach the idea that maybe their precious hero system has given birth to their villains.

Or maybe they can and they just don’t care.

They need heroes for their charts and money and power, don’t they? So they need villains. A never ending cycle, forever going around on this carousel. You’re dizzy with it, you’re sick of it, caught up in it’s riptide.

You don’t look at Tomura Shigaraki and see the most dangerous, wanted criminal in the country. You see a twenty-year-old pawn, a chip in a bigger game. You see someone as starving and desperate as you were.

You see a coin flip.

(You see the person you fell in love with–)

Shouta enters silently and the moment you see him, you have to try to keep from bursting into tears. Your lip wobbles.

He approaches slowly, cooly, but when he gets near you, his eyes are livid and searching your face, like maybe he could finally find the lies you’d kept buried so deep inside of you. They’ve finally blossomed, you think, all of them sprouting from your body, creeping through your lungs and up your throat to choke you out.

“Tell me the truth finally.” Shouta says, sharp and icy. He speaks like he’s speaking to a criminal, “Now.”

You suck in a shaky breath, try not to flinch when he leans across the metal table and snarls, “And if you are a traitor, at least have the decency to tell me now, before they come in here and interrogate both of us.”

Tears catch in your lashes.

Through the throbbing of your head, you realize you have jeopardized Shouta in the way you never wanted.

“I’m not a traitor.” you get out, voice quiet but firm, barely above a whisper.

“No?” Shouta clips and you can see it now, the hurt in his eyes. He feels betrayed, deeply so, and you can’t even blame him. “Hawks says differently. Says you’ve been working with Shigaraki.”

You rub furiously at your cheek to try and keep the tears from falling, shaking your head quickly, “No–”

“Then what happened?” he snaps and through the blur of your own tears, you catch the way his own eyes glisten.

“I didn’t tell you everything, when I said I thought Shigaraki was stalking me.” you say, having readied this lie the moment that Hawks brought you to the Hero Commission’s doors. You give them the story they want to hear of you, not the one where you fell in love, but the one where you jeopardize yourself for them. You are careful to peer up at him through damp lashes, “I–I got close to him, because he let me, because he was interested in me.”

Shouta goes very, very still. All you can see is his chest rising and falling, quick, as he slowly begins to walk the path you’re leading him down.

“And I thought he might tell me his plans, I thought that I could help–”

“No,” Shouta says in disbelief as it all begins to connect, leaning away from you in shock, “Please tell me you didn’t–”

You lurch towards him slightly, naturally, your hands coming up to the table like you’re reaching for him. “I wanted to prove I could do this–” you choke out, voice breaking, “I wanted to prove I could do undercover work like you wanted– like they wanted!”

“What were you thinking?” he hisses in return.

“You never would’ve let me do this!” you snap, almost plead with him, and it must strike true because he looks away from you momentarily, “I-I saw an opening so I tried to take it– I was perfect for it. Shigaraki was interested in me. I used to be a thief. I would’ve fit in.”

The moment you say it, you realize how true it rings. It startles you, maybe, with how close you were. Almost, but didn’t, your coin doing an extra rotation in air. And why didn’t you? Why not be with Tomura now? Why not be where you fit in most? Where hero society wanted and expected you to be?

“I’m not a traitor,” you cry, tears tracking down your cheeks freely now– you think you’re trying to convince yourself as much as Shouta now, “I promise I’m not a traitor– I couldn’t do that to you. O-or Shinsou. Or Eri–”

And there is your reason. The truth to disguise your lies. You look at him, across from you, his face almost unreadable, with his furrowed brows and tense jaw. His eyes shine, though, gleam with unshed tears as he listens to you. The man who gave you everything, who has cared for you since the moment he found you– perhaps the sole reason your coin has flipped in their favor. All because he did more than what was asked of him, because maybe he just saw someone starving, too, like the way you did with Tomura.

Believe me, you plead, believe this.

There is a long stretch of silence after that, where all you can get in is hiccuping breaths.

Finally, Shouta asks, “Did you find anything out about him? Or the League of Villains?”

You exhale hard with relief, your shoulders finally falling. You collapse somewhat, exhausted, folding in on yourself.

You hang your head, then shake it slowly, “No,” you sniffle, wipe at your drippy nose, “He didn’t tell me anything. He didn’t trust me.”

Shouta eyes you warily.

“So that’s why you encountered him so much. That’s why you were there with Toga Himiko when–” Shouta cuts himself off when he sees your wince, the shuddering of your features at the mention of that incident. But he finally put all of the pieces together. All the pieces you’ve given him, at least.

You nod, stray tears falling quick, dripping off your chin, “I’m sorry for lying,” you get out, “I hated it— I hated lying to you.”

Truth.

Shouta throws you a hard look, “You shouldn’t have. It was dangerous and irresponsible. And now look at what you’ve done–”

Your stomach knots up tightly.

“I thought I could handle it.” You breathe and there is another truth, sprinkled throughout your lies.

But you were so horribly wrong–

Shouta is about to open his mouth again, but the door swings open and a man in a suit enters slowly. His gaze is cool as it falls on you and Shouta. You know this isn’t the end of your conversation with him, you know he wants to know more. But now, he focuses on the higher up that encourages him to sit, too.

He says, because Shouta has been such an upstanding hero and teacher, they are allowing him the courtesy of explaining everything now.

And then you watch as Shouta opens his mouth and lies and lies and lies for you.

He tells them that it was his idea to allow you to get close to Shigaraki. He knew, every step of the way. He tells them he bypassed speaking with a committee at the Hero Commission’s because it would’ve taken too much time. He says that they needed to act quickly and accordingly.

He takes the brunt of it, saves you from far more trouble. He’s a trusted hero. You’re an ex-thief in the eyes of the Hero Commission with a too-big Quirk. They won’t believe you and truthfully, if they did more digging, if they pried more, there is a chance that the truth might leak out of you, open like a wound.

Shouta protects you, the way he always has. You don’t deserve it and you can feel your heart tearing itself to shreds.

You know you can’t go back to Tomura, not after all this.

You watch Shouta lie for you, speak for you, get you out of the grave you have dug yourself. For the second time in your life, Shouta saves you. You try to hold back more tears, you try to hold back from throwing yourself onto him, clinging to him.

And finally, they ask, “Did you learn anything, then? About Shigaraki Tomura?”

He likes sour candy. He has trouble sleeping. He drinks too many energy drinks. There is a scar at the corner of his lip. He has a beauty mark on his chin. He is desperate and starved of love. He let’s a kitten sleep in the sunlight of his apartment. He tries to take care of the League to the best of his ability– he cares about them more than he will admit. He is not heartless. His hands are often cold but seeking, longing for what he can’t have.

Your eyes well up with tears but you take a slow, steadying breath. They don’t want those pieces of him, the human, messy ones. No, they want to know how evil he is, how diabolical his next plan is going to be. But you don’t know any of that, just that he holds you as if he never wants to let you go when you fall asleep at night.

So you’re not lying when you say;

“I don’t know anything about Shigaraki Tomura.”

Only that he wanted to be a hero– when he was a kid.

***

The days following are the worst between you and Shouta.

He doesn’t trust you anymore. You can’t fight him. You have nothing to say, which is perhaps worse than if you tried to fight with him.

There’s no defending you, especially if Shouta even knew half of the truth. He barely speaks with you some days.

He wedges the distance between you two wide, forces it apart further.

He does not comfort you, he does not hold you when you cry this time. He’s not there with soothing, hushed words or the gentle touch of his hand to your cheek.

A piece of his trust is broken, now so severely that it’s just a jagged edge, something you don’t think can ever be soothed.

(And you’re right, in some way– there’s a deep shift in your relationship with him, changed and scarred. It never returns to what you once had, when your life was very simple and all you knew was him.)

He doesn’t ever say, I forgive you. I will trust you again, in time.

But he eventually will make dinner for you again and you will sit beside him, shoulder to shoulder at his table with a respectable, lonesome distance between his heart and yours.

Nothing is ever the same again.

You think about running– from Shouta, from Tomura, from all of it. It would be the easiest option, where you never have to look either in the face again.

But the Hero Commission looks at Eri the same way they looked at you when they discovered you could destroy Quirks and you can’t stomach the idea of leaving her to them.

(Tomura was right in a lot of ways.

And when there’s a war on the horizon and the Hero Commission seeks to use you as a weapon, you will think of him again.

I’ll teach you, if that’s what you want, he’d said to you once. And he did.

You hate the system, the endless cycle, Prometheus chained to his rock, the need of villains to have heroes, the creation of heroes to make villains. The endless bodies, the using and discarding of real, human lives for a greater good. You wish you could destroy it.

But there is more than only destruction, too. What good is rubble and ruin and death?)

You stay so you can do what you can, so you can protect a child with red eyes, with silver hair, and a Quirk too big for their own body.

And you think maybe if you stay with her, it makes up for leaving Tomura.

***

You go to Tomura one last time, walk the distance to his apartment with your hands shoved into your pockets. It’s a familiar walk now. The pavement is wet from rain. It’s cold out. You don’t know what you’re going to tell him. You wonder how he’ll react– for a moment, you’re fearful. Will he lash out? For a moment you wonder if he’ll try to kill you.

But you know, deep down, he wouldn’t. Won’t.

And you won’t pretend you’re scared of him now. You won’t play the innocent hero, not in front of him.

The moment Tomura sees you, he knows something has changed. You are too expressive and now you look at him with a sense of foreboding. With a sadness that he feels uncomfortable gazing at.

You tell him, “I got in trouble with the Hero Commission.”

For a moment, he lets his hope grow and stretch inside of him. Maybe this is finally your turning point, your fall from grace that he will catch you on. But no, your lip wobbles and your eyes dart away.

“I can’t see you anymore,” you whisper.

At first, he wants to snap at you, hiss out something cruel between his bared teeth. Maybe if you had done this a few years ago, a few months ago, he would lash out, try to tear into his neck or you or the world. He thinks about hurting you, slamming you against a wall or–

The thought is unfortunately repulsive to him. He doesn’t want to hurt you, not like that.

His anger and resentment wells inside of him, swarms his chest viciously. He wants to argue, to point out every way your heroes have failed you. The world feels so absurdly unfair suddenly, to give him you– you who quiets his Quirk and touches him gently and winds your arms around him in the way he likes so much– only to then take you away, too. You who destroys with a touch, too. Who is perfect at his side.

But for all his work and care and strategy, he can’t get you to stay.

You will run back to your heroes.

You don’t need him, he realizes now. But you have his rib, tucked away inside of you. He wants to dig into you, pry it out, rip it from your body and take it back for himself.

But you’re crying.

And you’re pretty in the dark, like you’ve always been. This time, though, you’re not looking for a fight, there is no viciousness in you now. Maybe you’re too tired to fight.

So instead of erupting, instead of lashing out, Tomura steels himself. He’ll play the longer game, then. You don’t want to go, but you will. You’ll go back to your heroes and they will disappoint you. As they always do, at some point, eventually.

You will come back to him again, he tells himself.

And he will be forgiving, the way All For One has been with him. He sees it now; you, needing his hand, needing him to take you back. He will welcome you back into his arms, as if you hadn’t even left, and you will know then that you were right to leave.

He gazes at you, red eyes smoldering, “Then don’t.” he rasps and he’s trying to remain dispassionate, but his voice has a trembling note in it, the hidden fear underneath the harsh coolness.

Your eyes flicker back to him, your lips parting in surprise. You wipe at your eyes.

“So that’s it?”

And this makes him angry, the sharp tug of it like a dog at the end of it’s leash. He lurches forward threateningly, like he might hurt you.

(You don’t flinch. And he stops himself before he gets too close.)

“What?” he snaps, “Did you want me to beg for you to stay?”

He wants to, he realizes, he wants to howl and scream and tear apart everything in sight. He wants to say don’t go, don’t go, don’t slip from me, too.

He wants to bargain with you– what is it he can’t give you that they can?

Your heroes only love you because they don’t know you, they don’t know what you’ve done. Your heroes only love you as far as truth and justice go. A hero would sacrifice you for the greater good and you would agree with them, even if you were shaking and crying, even if you burned with all that liveliness.

But he’d sooner sacrifice the world for you.

You have his rib, he wants to scream, of course he wants to beg.

You shake your head, though, more tears falling free, “No,” you say, voice surprisingly strong, “No, I never made you beg.”

The truth of it burrows beneath his skin. He knows. The itch squirms beneath his skin. His hand reaches up, digs into the crook of his neck to scratch at it.

It’s Dabi’s voice in his head that says something about getting too distracted with this braindead hero. He has bigger plans than hiding in an abandoned apartment with you. More to do. You were nothing but a side quest.

His pause screen.

Besides, what’s there to be upset about? You’ll come back.

He won’t even punish you for leaving, he promises. He promises.

“Then that’s it.” Tomura tells you, a bitter curl to his lips.

There’s no goodbye, just the breeze between the two of you, the empty space that he always hated. The nothingness between that he always sought to destroy.

Eventually, he just turns away from you. He can’t stomach looking at you any longer. He can feel your eyes pressing into his retreating form– he imagines you rushing for him, crashing into his back to throw your arms around his middle. You can’t do it, you’ll cry, burying your face between his shoulder blades. And he’ll freeze, but eventually he’ll wrap his arms around yours and bow his head with the strength of your feelings for him.

Or he imagines later, when it’s the end of the world, and you emerge from the rubble to reach for him. It’ll be like his dreams, when the sky is falling, and you only want to hold his hand in yours.

He imagines you shouting to him, changing your mind, saying his name like it’s a song to sing, not mourning bells, not a curse or an affliction.

But none of it happens.

And when he turns around, you are gone.

You leave his life as viciously as you entered it, suddenly there, all furious and beautiful, and now gone, like a lightning strike, like a lifetime.

***

You tell yourself you’re going to be fine, but you spend random days weeping over a villain. You spend long nights awake, missing him, replaying it all in your mind. You cover all your mirrors. You try to be different. You wish you could say you regret ever getting involved with him, but it would be one more lie. You wish for the time before the worst of it, the strange honeymoon you never should’ve had.

You wish you’d remembered to slow down, to savor it all a little more. You try to remember what your first kiss was like and the shade of his eyes through the evening light of an abandoned warehouse.

You try to remember when you didn’t feel so heavy, so corrosive and lost.

It doesn’t help that you’re suspended from heroing; a choice made by both the Hero Commission and Shouta. There’s nothing for you to do some evenings.

Shouta lets you train with him and Shinsou still. Shinsou tries to cheer you up, though he doesn’t know what’s wrong with you. Still, it hurts because he’s trying. It hurts because he cares so much, even about you.

You don’t deserve it, after everything.

You take care of Eri more, too, now that she is nearly in Shouta’s care. You babysit her while he’s away. You grow close with her, fiercely protective of the young girl, careful to keep the Hero Commission at a distance from her. She settles in your lap on the couch in Shouta’s apartment most evenings, watching TV and movies, while he grades papers at the opposite end.

Sometimes she falls asleep tucked into your side. You stroke her silver hair and try to bite back tears.

She catches you, sometimes, perceptive as she is, and asks very gently, “Why are you sad?” even if a tear hasn’t slipped free yet.

And you always shake your head, trying to dispel the thought of Tomura and the parents that gave him such a tragic name as a child. You force a smile for her and you tell her something silly to distract her, “I’m not,” you promise, “I just think there’s an onion nearby.”

She wrinkles her nose at this, “No, there isn’t!” but she’s easily distracted with tickles or the promise of painting her nails or having a tea party with Shouta.

Miraculously, your relationship with Shouta begins to heal, despite your betrayal. You think he can tell something worse happened to you during your time with Tomura, you think he can tell that you’re hurting, so he ends up gentler with you. He doesn’t trust you, though, keeps you on a tight leash. He looks at you some days like he isn’t quite sure he knows you.

Nothing is the same. Part of you wants to regret it. The part of you that loves Tomura can’t stomach the idea of regretting it. Someone is dead because of you. Someone is alive because of you, too.

But Shouta doesn’t ask and you don’t tell, can’t seem to speak the words.

You can’t even say, I fell in love, can’t speak the truth because it is so horrible.

And you know what everyone would ask; who could love the likes of him?

Me, you think, vehement and grief-stricken, me, you think defiantly. Why couldn’t you? He was a child once–

Shouta lets you burrow into his chest, wraps his arms around you. He sways with you in the kitchen until you can keep back your tears, until your heart has slowed to the tempo of his. He kisses the top of your head.

And it’s Shouta who is with you, when you return from training, and open the door to your apartment to reveal a scruffy, mangy looking grey kitten that wasn’t there when you left.

Ryuji chirps happily at you, rushing to the open door.

For a moment, you’re so shocked that all you can do is stand, startled, as he rubs himself against your legs.

“Don’t tell me you found another stray–” Shouta starts, but all you get out is a small, choked noise.

And here is the impact from the fall, you think, looking at that little cat that is excitedly winding itself around your legs. You can feel the shattering of your heart, like he’d lobbed it against the wall. You wonder if it catches light the same way glass does, all stained with color and broken into shards.

You drop to the floor with the weight of it all, with the clean splitting of your heart.

The moment Ryuji climbs into your lap, a sob finally ruptures out of you.

Shouta is fast, coming down beside you, you think he’s asking what’s wrong, why you’re crying, but you’ve already gathered the kitten into your arms, cradling him to your chest as the tears come quick and furious down your cheeks.

You think maybe you should be more concerned as to how he got Ryuji here, in U.A. dorms, you should be worried about security and safety but all you’re thinking about is that little apartment that you hid from the world with him in.

No, all you’re thinking about is the way light fell through the lone window to turn him hazy and soft in your memory. You’re thinking about how he never denied you affection, so long as you gave it tenfold in turn. The drawl of his voice. The pressing of his fingers into your skin like you were a miracle.

To him, you were.

Another sob spills out of you, from somewhere deep inside you.

What a lonely life, to only be able to touch one person in certainty. You wonder who will be the next person that will lay their hands gently on a body that has known too much pain. You wonder if you will be the last person to do it.

The thought hurts, opens up a part of you that is tender and shaking and desperately furious.

When Shouta can’t figure out what’s wrong with you or why you’re crying, he gives up, and sits on the floor with you. He gathers you into his lap so your back is pressed to his chest, pushing your head beneath his chin, Ryuji still cradled in your arms.

You cry harder when Shouta tries to comfort you, when he hushes softly, so sweetly, only because you don’t think there’s anyone to comfort Tomura like this.

You think of Tomura alone, even without Ryuji and it just–

Crushes you.

You squeeze the kitten tighter to your chest as you cry and cry and cry. You let Shouta hold you against him, but there’s no comfort in the aching hollowness that is growing in the pit of your chest.

You want to scream at the world that tossed the coin.

But all that comes out is a garbled, misery struck, cry.

You never told him you loved him, never gave word to what consumed you. And you realize, sitting on the floor with a kitten in your arms, that you won’t ever be able to tell him now.

It will live and die inside of you, never spoken into existence.

And even though it’s too late and Tomura Shigaraki is readying for a battle with a giant without you at his side, you still whisper the words you never got to speak into the top of Ryuji’s head.

Your lips barely move with it, the quietest, most desperate, “I love you– I loved you.” that escapes you with a trembling breath.

Shouta doesn’t even hear the confession.

Ryuji nudges your cheek with his, though, purring softly, keeping your secret safe.

And in the least, you are able to twist into Shouta’s arms and bury your face in his chest to cry as hard as you need. There’s no distance between the two of you now, like you always wanted.

Always here when you need him, even now, when it’s not him you want.

The irony isn’t lost on you.

You mumble incoherent apologies into his shoulder, try to hide in him, like he might be able to shield you from all the hurt and ache of your first love. He doesn’t ask, but he tells you very gently, his voice like the hearth of your home, “If you ever want to talk, I’ll always be there for you.”

You keep Ryuji, clean him up, fit him with a new collar, a new life. Shouta helps you care for him.

Eri adores the kitten, hugging him to her smiling face every time she sees him. Thankfully Ryuji is even-tempered, eager for affection. Almost desperate for it.

Ryuji is like proof of another world, proof that it all happened.

Sometimes you rub between his ears and ask, “Do you miss it, too?” but all he does is peer at you inquisitively, eyes large and fixed on you.

You sleep with him, though, let the kitten curl up in your lonesome arms, hold tight to him the way you used to hold tight to Tomura.

***

In the middle of the night, your phone wakes you with its insistent chime and buzzing. You blink awake sleepily, slowly and blindly paw for your phone.

You turn the screen towards you and squint at the bright light, making out the word that flashes on it;

Unknown Caller.

You grimace, rubbing at your eyes. You debate putting your phone down, letting it ring and go to voicemail. Why should you answer for an unknown caller in the middle of the night?

And yet, something in you squirms, urges you to pick up. You have no idea who it might be— maybe someone needs your help. Is it possible it’s Shouta? Shinsou? What if it’s—

You answer finally, groggy voice slurring out, “Hello?”

You’re met with static.

“Hello?” you say again, voice hushed with sleep.

Still nothing.

Tomura sits on the other side, with the phone pressed desperately to his ear. He holds everything inside of him, barely allows himself to breathe on the other end.

He doesn’t know why he’s done this, only that he is on his way to proving himself with the League and he wishes you were still at his side.

He swallows, hears you call again, “Hello? Anyone there?”

He tightens his four-finger grip on the phone, squeezing his eyes shut at the sound of your voice, sleepy and soft in his ear, wrapping around the jagged parts of his heart.

He exhales and you must hear it because you say, “Is someone there?”

He bites back an answer, feels his lip tremble slightly.

He hears you huff, indignant little thing that you are and his lips pull into a shaky, painful smile. “I’m going to hang up now,” you say, all prickly, the way you’d get if he woke you too soon.

He used to soothe you with lips and teeth and tongue, run diligent fingers over you until you were sighing and arching into his touch. Until all your hard, vicious edges softened with the flattening of his palm on your body.

And for some reason you try, one last time into coaxing him to answer, “C’mon,” you say, almost like you know, “Nothing?”

Nothing, he wants to echo, but doesn’t.

His heart pounds an uneasy rhythm, a haunted tempo. He feels himself shaking again.

“Okay,” you exhale, slow, like you’re giving him a chance to stop you, “Goodbye.”

A beat passes, before he feels his heart lurch painfully in the hollow place of his chest at the thought of not hearing your voice again like this, so near. He doesn’t want you to go, wants to listen to you until it coaxes him to sleep.

“Wait– don’t hang up–“ Tomura hisses into the phone at the last moment, unable to decide if he wants you to hear him or not.

He gets his answer in the buzzing silence, long and drawn out, that fills his head. His heart.

And he sits there with his phone still in hand and his heart still on the line.

***

Tomura shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be watching you from afar, in the park that he thought you’d looked like a painting in. You’re beautiful.

But what does someone like him know about beauty, anyways?

The fireburst leaves are nearly gone, barely clinging to lone and stark branches. They claw up into the sky now, but the sun is shining. It’s mid-morning. You’re in the park with your mentor, with the violet haired boy he’d seen you with before, and the little girl with silver hair. The one that was in Overhaul’s care, with the devastating Quirk.

She tugs excitedly at your sleeve now and you give her your undivided attention, your face lighting up with whatever it is she tells you.

You scoop her into your arms and her echoing giggle is like wind chimes, melodic and childish and care-free.

You look happy, he thinks, with your mentor’s hand on the small of your back, looking down at you and the girl fondly. The violet-haired boy says something that makes the girl laugh, it makes you smile as you watch her.

You look back at your mentor with a look that Tomura has come to know; one that begs of attention and approval and affection. He can see the desperate glint to your eyes, hungry for his love.

He swallows around the sharp bitterness he feels. Jealousy floods him in a way he has never fully known. But it’s more than just jealousy for you and your attention, for the way you’re looking at your mentor.

No, it’s something greater, far worse.

He’s jealous of your mentor, with the easy way he gets to touch and look at you out in public. But he’s also jealous of you and your life.

He doesn’t realize it at first, but he’s begun to shake.

Because you were saved– isn’t that it? You were saved. And he wasn’t.

Maybe he’s jealous of the boy with you, too, with the possibility of his life so much brighter already. He has more of a chance than Tomura ever had.

Or maybe it’s the girl in your arms, with eyes like his, who he is most jealous of now. He has never allowed himself to ask;

Why couldn’t it be me?

But now he does and he can feel the pit in his chest grow with a livid sort of despair. Grief for a life never lived. Didn’t he deserve to be saved, too? Like the girl in your arms? Like you? Didn’t he deserve a life like this, too? What’s the difference? He wants to demand it, what’s the difference?

You were just a kid, you know?

His fingers dig into his neck. There is no one to stop him from breaking skin, for drawing blood on his own body. His chest festers, angry, like a blister. His stomach turns, his body trembling harder, like he’s a child, like he’s going to shake apart.

He looks at your smiling face, the curve of your lips, and wants you so bad it hurts. He wonders if you ever dreamt of him as a hero, the way he dreams of you as a villain. He wonders why it feels so unfair suddenly, the turning of your lives, the coming together and falling apart.

He shudders, feels the sudden lump in his throat. He tried not to mourn you, when you left him. He told himself that there was nothing to mourn; either you would be back or you weren’t worth it. He feels the pressure of tears now, though, much to his frustration. He feels his lungs burn for breath as he watches you hand the little girl off to your mentor, who props her onto his hip easily.

He watches you throw your head back and laugh, the sound of it distant, but he catches it, the outskirts of it. He used to feel that laugh against his throat, against his lips.

But now he watches you live a life he apparently never deserved.

His bottom lip trembles, a furious scowl marring his face.

He could scream or shout at a world that wouldn’t listen. The fact of it all, the helplessness of it all, burns beneath his skin like wildfire, like acid.

Tomura takes one last look at you; the expressive glimmer of your eyes, the flash of your teeth. He lingers on you, commits you to memory as if he could ever forget you. Maybe someday he will. Maybe he won’t have to, if you come back to him.

But he won’t wait on it, in an apartment that still has traces of you in it’s corners and crevices. No, he has more to do, bigger than him. Bigger than you.

Even if the horrible tempo of his heart begs differently, even if the shaking in his shoulders is an indication otherwise.

One last look of you– you’re talking, saying something with your hands. The little girl laughs again, her red eyes crinkling up happily.

Tomura turns away.

He walks a familiar path to the apartment, the wind tries to slice through his jacket, kicks up leaves and litter in shadowed alleyways.

He enters and there is no one trailing behind him, your hands twisted into the back of his hoodie, or his sleeves. It’s quiet. Empty. He surveys it once, the bed with unmade sheets. The window that let in beams of colored light, that Ryuji would sit at.

And then he sets his hands on the wall, all ten of his fingers down, the way he used to touch you.

The wall begins to decay, cracks and crumbles beneath his hands. It spreads, and spreads, and spreads like a disease filling out the body of the apartment. Dust begins to fall like early snow.

His heart squeezes painfully, his eyes suddenly flooding with pressure, with tears he tries to keep back. His head throbs, feels like it’s going to cleave apart. His ribs ache– hurt so bad it’s like he can feel the one you took from him, the gaping part of his chest.

His Quirk flares hard and hot and fast. It burns through him, floods his veins in a way that makes him cry out, suddenly shaking, suddenly pained.

He destroys the apartment, disintegrates the tiny world he created with you that existed outside of the real one. He unpauses the game. He takes apart what the world should’ve been, when he was here, with you. He sees now that a world like this cannot exist.

The peace, the ideal, the way you had understood him. Your unending compassion. It’s rare. Not enough to save the rest of them.

So he tears it all apart, pushes at his Quirk in a way he hasn’t been able to before, nudges at its strength to test it. It flares outward, eating away at the entire space, at the furniture, at the floor. Everywhere.

He seethes, blooming, finally allowing that livid and vicious thing inside of him to burst forward. It’s explosive, wrenching out of him in the form of terrible destruction.

He’ll grow into what he was supposed to–

I wanted to be a hero– when I was a kid.

The only option he ever really had, the hand extended to him a villain’s, gentle when he’d taken it.

He destroys the boy inside him, the one that was naive and hopeful and weak. He let’s that boy inside of him fall apart, split open and leaks gore before turning to dust, too. He kills the part of him that he had only ever shared with you, in the blue-dark of night, when you were lulled to sleep with just the sound of his heart.

He swallows down his anguish and his jealousy and his bitterness, keeps it safe inside him, like All For One always said to do. He’ll nourish it, let it grow, fester inside of him until the only thing it can do is explode out of him to tear the world apart, too.

When he’s standing in the rubble of the tiny world you’d made with him, the apartment complex demolished, the people inside gone, he knows what he has to do.

And he has so much work to do in order to achieve it.

He tries to forget you, to destroy your memory, too. He will not carry the weight of you around inside him.

(But in his dreams, you sit cross-legged in front of him, serene and beautiful, like a painting he knows nothing about.

In his dreams, you ask for his hands to have, and he gives you them to hold.)

#shigaraki x reader #tomura x reader #shigaraki tomura x reader #shigaraki x you #tomura x you #shigaraki tomura x you #shigaraki x y/n #tomura x y/n #shigaraki tomura x y/n #tomura shigaraki x reader #tomura shigaraki x you #tenko shimura x reader #bnha x reader #bnha x you #shigaraki fanfiction

[verobatto]

Destiel Chronicles

Vol. CXXVIII

It was a love story from the very beginning

I Love You and Goodbye

(15x18)

Hi my friends! We are finally in episode 15x18 "Despair" or "The Truth". The episode in which Destiel went canon.

So, let's grab our napkins and let's start with this.

Remember this meta is a summary from my metas from season 15 with some new additions now that the show ended.

You can find my metas from 15x18 following these links: X, X and X.

The last Destiel mirrors

I want to start this meta summary with the last two destiel mirrors from episode 15x18. Both of them were foreshadowing the big lover separation at the end.

Charlie always mirrored Dean, so it's very interesting to hear her talking about how her relationship with Stevie started.

She mentioned she didn't want to try that love thing again, it's a parallel of Dean's past with Cassie earlier in the show. It started as a game could be also related to Dean first attempts of flirting with Castiel in season 4 and 5.

I'll go with you...

One of the most iconic Destiel quotes has to be recalled in this episode too. Loyalty, love and abnegation from Castiel to Dean.

Because I Love You (Romantically)

This whole description from the scene it had been taken from my meta, I want to transcript the whole analysis here just because the moment I wrote this I was still hoping Dea would rescue Castieo, and I was crying and laughing hysterically, so... I wanna share that to all of you:

This love confession was beautiful, and Castiel made it clear he was talking about ROMANTIC LOVE, because the whole prelude in his wordings were perfectly clear. There's not doubt he was confessing his romantic love for Dean. He even mention THE ONLY THING I CAN'T HAVE is the thing that will make him happy.

It's canon he was asking himself what happiness could be!!! It means CAS THOUGHT ABOUT HOW COULD IT BE TO HAVE DEAN NOT JUST AS A FRIEND!!!!

He says too FROM THE MOMENT HE TOOK THAT BURDEN! FROM THE MOMENT HE RESCUED DEAN FROM HELL!!!!!! 'It has always been you', Dean!'

I'm gonna stop here just a little to point out why the quote "IT HAS ALWAYS BENN YOU" said by Billie takes a huge significance in here. Because Dean is not just the centric problem of a Cosmic entity, like Death, but the centric topic in Castiel's confession.

The love confession from 15x18 was a recalling of the first Destiel scene in the barn. In which Castiel saw a broken soul, a man that thought he didn't deserved to be saved, and immediately he took that challenge in his arms. The challenge was to make Dean BELIEVE HE WAS WORTHY. That he deserved to be saved AND LOVED. That's why from this moment on, Dean will change the way he sees himself.

When Castiel says he understood HAPPINESS IS NOT ABOUT TO HAVE IT, BUT IT'S ABOUT TO SAY IT (FEEL IT) immediately after saying he couldn't have that thing (Dean) is marking to all the audience that knowing HE CAN'T HAVE DEAN, HE IS HAPPY JUST FEELING THAT LOVE FOR HIM. LOVONG HIM AS HE DOES IS WHAT MAKES CAS HAPPY, AND CONFESSING THAT LOVE TO DEAN, RELEASE HIM.

Because Death gave a speech that became a summary of all the villains through this show, Castiel is the one purifying each mean word by transforming them into Dean's virtues.

While naming Dean's sacrifices and protective behavior, and showing him HE DID IT FOR LOVE, Castiel is trying to make Dean to see himself as CAS sees him.

Love yourself, because you are precious, because I LOVE YOU. You are not a monster, you are all this good things I see on you.

Gif set credit @mugiwara-lucy

Castiel crying, loving Dean with all of his self, and Dean in shock (or silenced by the network and the writers).

All the foreshadows of Dean gagging, vomiting, swallowing, eating... all of that was for this moment here. Dean's silence. Dean eating his words, Dean being silenced.

We could try to find other explanation, or live forever inside Jackie's magnificent acting options (giving us that swallow and mouth shut, as if he was trying to speak... as if he was trying to reply to his angel...) but truth is... C*W and the writers silenced him.

And then Castiel was swallowed by black goo, again. And that was Misha's last apparition. The ultimate sacrifice for love. Again.

Castiel Love's confession word by word

I'm gonna talk about specifically of the Destiel scene. Word by word, as I wrote in the third meta on the top of this volumen, with some new additions.

“I always wondered, ever since I took that that burden, that curse, I wondered what it could be, what...what my true happiness could even look like. I never found an answer. Because the one thing I want...it's something I know I can't have."

It's canon now that Castiel was wondering what would it be to have Dean not just as a friend, but as a lover, and I'm.... Okay. (Internally screaming).

Pointed by @weird-dorky-little-d, the parallel here with Pamela (Dean's fem mirror in Rocky's Bar) in which she said DEAN ALWAYS WANTED WHAT HE COULDN'T HAVE. It means, both dumbasses in love thought their love were unrequited (in the worst scenario) but maybe to Castiel was the Sacred Oath? Perhaps...

"But I think i know...I think I know now. Happiness isn't in the having. It's in just being. It's in just saying it.”

This is such a deep thought and it talks about Castiel's maturity of character. He understood once for all, that loving Dean Winchester, feeling what he feels for him, and expressing that to Dean, is his true happiness. Because...

METATRON: "(...) You draped yourself in the flag of Heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human. Right?"

Dean: "What are you talking about, man?

This question coming from Dean shows the audience Dean didn't know what Castiel was trying to say. So this could be a clue about Dean thinking his love is unrequited.

Cas: “I know. I know how you see yourself, Dean. You see yourself the same way our enemies see you. You're destructive and you're angry and you're broken. You're...you're 'Daddy's Blunt Instrument.' And you think hate and anger, that's...that's what drives you. That's who you are. It's not. And everyone who knows you sees it.

Cas: You know, ever since I met you, ever since I pulled you out from Hell...

I was hoping Dean to give us our angel back, but well. It was Jack. Hehehee.

Gif set credit @spnsmile

I recommend to go to the third link on the top of this meta and read @mrsaquaman187 amazing body language reading of this scene!

But now, about what Castiel is saying...

If you are still alive, i just want to point how romantic is this, because he is saying that Dean changed him for good. And he is naming all their family, Sam, Jack, and humanity, the world. Dean. So practically, Cas is saying, Dean showed Cas how to take care of others. Damn...

This is a call back to Castiel's talk with Ishim in 12x10:

ISHIM: The way you let those simians talk to you... Castiel, when did you get so gooey? You know why we're meant to stay away from them humans? Hmm? It's not because we're a danger to them. They're a danger to us. Case in point.

CAS: Well, my friendship with Sam and Dean has made me stronger.

Castiel rewording again, because he knows what Dean did on him, Dean changed him for good.

DEAN (quiet, resigned) Why does this sound like a goodbye?

CASTIEL: Because it is. I love you. (he smiles)

DEAN: Don't do this, Cas.

Dean's last words to Castiel... don't do this, don't confess your love for me and then die again.

It's painfully beautiful. Castiel was the light that touched Dean's life changing him for ever. He was loved and cared by this angel, and at the same time, Dean learned how to love Castiel in silence.

To Conclude:

The most beautiful love story ever told could've ended differently, happily, the way Dean and Cas deserved. But it ended up as a tragedy.

And we are here to fix it.

Destiel is canon and Destiel is forever.

Hope you like this meta. See you in the next one that will be the last one!

Tagging @magnificent-winged-beast @emblue-sparks @weirddorkylittlediana @michyribeiro @whyjm @legendary-destiel @a-bit-of-influence @thatwitchydestielfan @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @lykanyouko @evvvissticante @savannadarkbaby @dea-stiel @poorreputation @bre95611 @thewolfathedoor @charlottemanchmal @neii3n @deathswaywardson @followyourenergy @dean-is-bi-till-i-die @hekatelilith-blog @avidbkwrm @anarchiana @dickpuncher365 @vampyrosa @authorsararayne @mybonsai1976 @love-neve-dies @dustythewind @wayward-winchester67 @angelwithashotgunandtrenchcoat @trashblackrainbow @deeutdutdutdoh @destiel-shipper-11 @larrem88 @charmedbycastiel @ran-savant @little-crazy-misha-minion @samoosetheshipper

@shadows-and-padlocked-hearts @mishtho @dancingtuesdaymorning @nerditoutwithbooks @mikennacac73 @justmeand-myinsight @idontwantpeopletoknowmyname @teddybeardoctor @pepevons @helevetica @dizzypinwheel @horsez2 @qanelyytha

@destielle @spnsmile @shippsblog @robot-feels @superlock-in-the-tardis @superduckbatrebel @belacoded @madronasky @anon-non2 @cea1996 @lisafu02 @asphodelesauvage @deancasgirl777

If you want to be added or removed from this list, just let me know.

If you wanna read the previous metas from this season, here you have the links:

Volume CXXI, CXXII, CXXIII, CXXIV, CXXV, CXXVI, CXXVII.

Buenos Aires, August 28 th 2021 9:03 PM

#destiel #destiel chronicles #destiel meta #supernatural meta #season 15 meta #15x18 meta #vol cxxviii

[dabiboy]

I couldn’t help it and I wrote a self-indulgent Hawks scenario. 50% angst and 50% fluff, hope you guys like it🥺🥺

My Angel [warnings: some manga spoilers]

''Babybird, look what I bought!'' Keigo said happily, quickly opening the bag that he had with him, crossing your legs you rested your elbow on the arm on the couch and watched him with a smile.

''Is it food?'' You said, raising your eyebrows.

''Nah-uh, I'm learning to control my cravings. Damn, you made me think about food, now I want some chicken'' He stopped his actions, looking away as if he was picturing his favorite eating place, and he was ''Nevermind, check this!'' He took out the recently bought item, and you couldn't believe your eyes. 

''Are you serious, Takami Keigo?'' the truth was, that you wanted to laugh at the cuteness and a part of you couldn't believe that he spent money on that.

''Yes! Are they ugly?'' he pouted ''I think they're cool'' Keigo looked again at the pair of socks, Endeavor socks. They were a kind of dark yellow, and the Number one hero's face was printed all over the material. 

''No, but... I... Do you really want me to look at Endeavor while we're cuddling?'' You laughed 

''I can cover my feet with a blanket'' Keigo raised his shoulders, remaining silent for a few seconds, eyes glued on the socks. ''Are they that bad?'' He furrowed his nose, looking as if he regretted buying them. 

''I'm kidding, Kei,'' You gave him a smile when he sat next to you ''If they make you happy, I'm happy'' Cupping his face on your hands, you kissed his lips. 

''Damn, I don't deserve you'' Keigo laughed as he placed his hands on your hip, moving his lips against yours softly without erasing the smile on his lips ''I love you, my chicken wing'' from one second to another, his body was over yours, and his mouth was leaving soft kisses on all his favorites places.

''I love you too, my angel'' You said in a whisper, caressing his wings softly'' 

Your body was still shivering, even as a hero some scene and news reports were hard to take. If it hadn't been for a student, it would have been the end of Hawks. The day he had fought against Dabi, you were at home, that night it was supposed to be your night, some drinks, movies, the usual before his free day. But things took a turn, and the only thing you saw on the news was how he almost died, and then the hospital personal calling you. 

''What else should I bring?'' you asked the nurse.

''Anything, miss. Probably just some underwear and things like that. A toothbrush, just personal items.''

''Ok, thanks. I'm on my way'' 

In a bag, you saved his tooth brush, a hair brush as well. You opened his drawer and took some boxers, and then, you saw them. Those damned socks. Despite his cocky attitude, there were some traces of his personality only you got to meet, he was childish at times, got excited with tiny things. Maybe, it was because he didn't have a good childhood, and now he had the chance to buy whatever he wanted, even an ugly pair of socks of his favorite hero. Those socks were an allegory of his essence, his innocence and love for simple things, an image of how now he was enjoying those parts of his childhood he didn't get to have. Tears filled your eyes as you held them against your chest, keeping them in a bag after short seconds.

The ride to the hospital was the longest ever, and once you were there some kind nurses guided you to the back door to avoid the annoying journalists. The elevator ride was long as well, and your heart was beating fastly against your chest. Was he awake? Was he fine? All of those doubts were answered when you entered his room. 

His back resting on pillows, semi-sitted and looking at the window. Lots of bandages were on his face, his torso was naked, but also covered in different types of bandages. But... Something was missing. His wings, his crimson wings. 

''Kei?'' You asked softly, walking inside.

''Hey kid'' His voice was soft, so soft it was concerning. 

''You scared me so much'' Fighting your tears, you sat on the chair next to him, holding his hand. ''I... I brought you your things'' you opened the bag ''Your hairbrush, teethbrush, underwear... And your socks'' Words where hard, what else were you supposed to say in a time like this?

''You brought the socks'' He laughed weakly, trying to avoid his pain. 

''Yeah, I did. Thought they could cheer you up'' You said, knowing what had happened, but unsure of what to say.

''Cheer me up? I'm fine, baby bird!'' Keigo smiled, although you knew he was pretending ''It was just another fight, right?'' It sounded as if he was trying to convince himself'' 

''Kei... you know you don't need to keep things from me, right?'' You stand from the chair, now sitting on an empty spot on his bed, a hand caressing his golden locks.

''I...'' He drifted his eyes away from you, looking at the window one more time. And as if it were a cliché movie, a bird was flying free. You could see him, his lower lip ws trembling, and his fist was gripping the sheets tightly.

''I know'' You whispered, now caressing his face tenderly, and just there he looked at you. Crystalized eyes, still trying to put a smile on his face.  A broken one.

''I lost my wings'' Keigo finally stated. The smile lasted only a few seconds, because tears came right after. A drowned sob as he looked down and played with his hands. 

''Come here'' That's all you could say, moving an inch closer and holding him against your body. His face was buried in the crook of your neck, not caring about his tears staining your skin and shirt. Your hand was playing with his hair as the other cas carefully resting on his back. Keigo's grip on your body was strong, holding you with his life. Tears leaving your eyes. ''They can grow again,'' you said ''There's a whole team trying to find solutions, I'm sure they will'' 

You spoke with your lips on his temple, kissing that same spot repeatedly. It was heartbreaking to see him like that, the man that was usually cocky, that was always walking around with a smile and something to say, the one who was childish and got excited over a pair of hero socks was broken in front of you, in your arms.  

''What if they don't?'' He asked, a hiccup left his lips, still hiding on your neck. 

''Hey, look at me'' You grabbed his face slowly, using your thumbs to wipe his tears, then caressing his stuble, forehead, and cheeks again. ''Everything will be fine, ok?'' You tried to comfort him, his image still hurting you, but even with puffy red eyes, pouting his lower lip, and the bandages and cuts covering his face he was beautiful as always ''And if the worst happens, we will work it out together'' A small smile appeared on your face, lost in his eyes. ''You will always be my angel, Takami Keigo. Are we clear?'' He nodded, and right after you pressed a kiss on his forehead.

''Thank you'' He whispered as you held him again, his body shivering and his eyes closed ''I love you. So fucking much'' Keigo said, his voice sounding a little bit better. 

''I love you too, and you don't need to thank me for anything, my love'' You ended the hug, looking at him again and pressing a delicate kiss on his lips. ''You're trembling'' You said, touching his bare shouolders covered in cold sweat. 

''Yeah... I'm a bit cold'' He sobbed again, calming himself.

''Come on, lets put your ugly socks on'' You gave him a smile among the tears on your face, standing up and grabbing them. 

Keigo let out a small but genuine chuckle, looking at you with pure love. He was indeed, the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, and you were going to be by his side no matter what, even more now. His wings were beautiful, they made him strong and they were a big part of his identity, but to you... He was an angel for who he was, the cocky and childish man you loved with your entire heart, your angel. And who knows, maybe those late night flights over the city were not going to be over, all you two needed was time. And you were going to be by his side all the neccessary time. 

#hawks x reader #hawks headcanons #hawks #my hero academia hawks #mha hawks #hawks imagine #keigo x y/n #bnha keigo #keigo takami imagine #keigo takami #takami keigo x reader

[bokuroo-squeals]

Of rough time, marriage and fears

Daichi x reader

Genre: Requested angst to fluff

Summary: After a year of being happily married, trouble seems to appear at paradise when Daichi starts growing distant.

Note: This is not the best, and I don't think I took it the right direction but it was fun to experiment with this. Let me know if there's any orthographic or grammar mistake ,and thank you for reading!!

Marriage is more than a pretty wedding and golden rings, more than a cozy house with nice plants to water. Marriage is way more than all that, so it's not surprise to have though days, fights and disagreements are not a foreign concept, but nothing of this was enough to break you and Daichi. Or so you thought.

One year into your spouse life started like a dream. Even when the road had potholes in the way, you two were mature about it and faced them together. Every morning you woke up next to the love of your life, and he held you close as if you were the most valuable thing in the world, and for a while, you thought you were to him. But months gone by taught you otherwise, because now the space between you was unbearable, like ice left too long on skin. And how it started you don't know, but you wished you did.

The first sign was Daichi growing distant, the second one was him getting in contact with an old friend, a past 'almost something' he knew since high school. And then, it was him spending more time with friends, with her, and you left alone at home to play the loyal housekeeper, the cute spouse that cleaned and cooked but couldn't enjoy dinner with the husband. So it hurt, the feeling of being left behind was slowly filling your lungs until you couldn't gasp for air normally, until the sensation was too much to handle.

The night was as normal as it could go, with you sitting on the couch, waiting for Daichi to come back home from work. Dinner had grown cold, and the clock's hands had moved so much for you to remember how long have you been waiting. Alone in a house meant for two, you couldn't help but feel lonely without Daichi, and you stop to thing briefly, maybe it's your own fault.

It's almost midnight when you hear the door open, then the shuffle of his shoes against the floor. He comes to through the frame, notices your figure and walks your way with heavy steps, Daichi's weight pulling him down in every movement of his legs shows how tired he is.

"It's late, you shouldn't have wait for me. I was out with Suga and the rest after work" he explains briefly after he collapsed next to you on the couch, finally giving into exhaustion.

The conversation ends like that.

Next time is not as peaceful

"Where are you going?" You asked again, the third time already on the week. You're tired, tired of not feeling like you still matter to him, exhausted of feeling him escape through your fingers even when he is right there in front of you.

"Another class reunion. Yuna-san..."

Your blood rushes with anger and you don't let him finish, you can't. It's too unbearable, the feeling of fury.

"Yuna-san? Another reunion? Daichi, please. You're rarely home this days, please, can you just stay with me this time?" Is not easy or possible for you to mask how exasperated you are at this point. Your husband notices the trembling of your body, coming closer to you with a tired sigh.

"We talked about this. Don't do this tonight, Y/n" with how hard he mutters it, it comes out like a warning, one that you're willing to ignore in favor of your feelings. This time is different, any patience or consideration have been thrown to the drain by you, and you are finally ready to explore.

"No! We haven't talk about this, we never talk, and that's the problem! Is always just you asking me to drop it, to leave you alone, to swallow everything inside me, and honestly, I'm not doing that anymore" He stares at you with brows knitted together tightly, a clear sign of him not approving what he takes as a tantrum for his attention.

"We'll talk when you have calmed down. Until then, I'm going out" Daichi turns to walk out, about to leave the scene like nothing, like your marriage was nothing.

Tears you didn't know were there start falling out of your eyes, dramatic style out of a lame romantic movie.

-

For him, it started with jokes and teasing from the team, making fun of him for a few laughs. It wasn't anything too malicious, a few comments here and there over his marriage life, how he was an old man now and how they were getting ready to not see him anymore at reunions or parties. Daichi could handle that, even laughing along with them, until Yamamori Yuna arrived back into his life.

There was a school reunion that he decided to attend after months of being stressed by work, just going out for some drinks and catch up with their past classmates, a night to refresh those records left in their memories from their youth. Everyone was chatting animatedly, the same jokes Daichi was used to were repetead, which he responded with an equally happy laugh. But the girl next to him frowned, her hand discreetly sneaking in a smooth motion all over his arm to get to his shoulder.

"Doesn't it bother you, Sawamura-san? They're making fun of you. " The seemingly troubled expression on her face was enough to cut his laughter.

"It's alright, I'm having fun out of it too"

"Well, it's not fun for me as your friend. Ever since the wedding you have been so engrossed on your partner, that it looks like have forgotten to be your own person, and now you're the joke of your friends". Yamamori's frown deepened even more, her pretty face painted with fake consern. She was so immersed in the little act, in her own selfish intentions, that every word sounded like authentic worry.

That conversation stays engraved on his mind more than it should've.

It's not like he doesn't love you, because he does. The band on his finger is the proof of his adoration towards you, but the fear of losing himself is powerful and big enough to overthink. Daichi starts going out more, because after thinking about it, he was closing off his friends, going out less, not answering texts, missing calls and updates from his friends.

Yuna seems to have all the answers for the questions plaguing his mind, so naturally, he hangs out more with her and his friends. Getting loose and enjoying himself with other people that's not you, because he thinks it what he needs.

He's told you before that she's hanging out with the boys and him lately, he's talked about her when you ask where he was or what was he doing. It's not like he's hiding the fact that he's been in contact with her, yet you still feel like trash when the ghost of doubt makes it's way on your heart.

-

When he returns, he doesn't expect you to be awake, thinking that you'd be on your shared bed, passed out after calming yourself. But you're as awake as you could be, with bloodshot eyes and dry tears over your sad features, and his heart pants with pain at the view. Is heartbreaking, seeing you as equally heartbroken, and us even more heartbreaking knowing he was the cause of your suffering. So he holds you, close to his heart to comfort a little what he has hurt.

"You don't love anymore. You're gonna leave me for her, Yuna" your words are tainted by anguish. An uncomfortable affirmation from your part, one that's not even close to the truth. His breathing stops and for a moment, he swears his heart does too.

"Don't say that, don't you dare say that again. I love you so much, you don't even understand." He opens up his heart with you.

Fifteen minutes is how much it takes him to explain to you all what has gotten to his mind ever since the first reunion. How he was afraid of not being him anymore, of being forgotten by his friends, of hovering over you too much.

"I'm awful, I'm the worst. My selfishness is the worst. I know, now I know. But please, you're the only one for me, I'd never cheat or leave you. The only one on my mind is you. At this point, you've ruined everything for me; love, sex, even religion. No-one can come close to whatever you do, to whatever you make me feel, I can't be tempted by anything that isn't you".

You belive him, you do. The way words spill so easily, flowing like water, can't be faked, neither can be the sparkle in his eye which you hadn't seen in weeks.

-

Daichi's path to redemption begins with being home early after work. Coming to your arms as soon and fast as he can, welcoming your warmth deep in his soul. Once again in your embrace, is hard for him to think just how much has he been missing out.

Is the kisses and hand holding, is your voice and your love what makes Daichi feel safe.

"Daichi, you have to shave" you tell him between giggles, his facial hair caressing the skin on your neck making you itchy.

"Later" he murmurs while he inhales your scent. It calms him down, it relaxes him.

Right now, he has to hold you close, love you as much as he can to make up for the bitter days he had made you suffer. Right now, you feel as safe and as happy as possible, between his arms that are your real home, beside him where you belong.

Marriage is more than just a pretty house and golden rings. Marriage is failing and hurting, with the promise of fixing whatever it needs to mend together.

#haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!! #sawamura daichi #daichi x reader #daichi sawamura x reader #daichi fluff #daichi headcanon #haikyuu fanfiction

[mc-critical]

Hi. What do you think about Mahidevran getting freed? Will it affect Mustafa's position as the heir apparent? Will it end up with her getting separated from Mustafa? Because I think Mahi deserves it. I mean, if SS will just ignore her, I'd rather see her live the rest of her life as a free woman and mother? In that way, Hurrem wouldn't be able to use the "you're just a slave, know your place" kind of card against her. 🤔

I totally agree that Mahidevran deserved to be freed. She deserves to be happy and proud and loved with those she cares about and I'll always stand for that. Especially when there wasn't a decent reason for me as to why SS didn't free her in that particular scene in the show - yes, he didn't love her, she wanted it for herself and all, she was pushing her boundaries by giving an ultimatum etc. etc., but there's one teeny tiny detail: the narrative was trying so hard there to frame Mahidevran as wrong for ever trying to begin with in this scenario (with perhaps being too late in her reaction and then "doing it wrong", at least that's how it felt in my eyes) that it only made the whole thing way too tendentiously "rigged" to fail for the plot and SS to look like even more of a total jerk as a result.

We can only speculate what would happen if SS freed Mahidevran. If he only freed her, say, in the same scene I mentioned before, but didn't marry her (which is indeed the more likely outcome, IMO), unfortunately, she would be, almost for sure, separated from Mustafa. Remember when SS freed Hürrem, but after Hü refused to sleep with him, he exiled her and she was allowed to take only Mihrimah with her? Yes, on one hand, that could be simply a punishment, because we know what kind of a behind the scenes horrible trickster SS is, and it is an exile, but on the other hand... that was probably the rules. A freed person without a marriage probably loses every single link they have with the dynasty and they can only take their children that are girls, maybe due to the rights of the princes for the throne and stuff. Even if we leave that aside, I doubt SS would give Mustafa to Mahidevran just like that, because no matter how SS feels about him, he is a heir to the throne and since SS pats himself on the back about how justful he is and how much he respects the rules and how much he is above them all and how he decides on everything... he would want Mustafa to stay with him. (in that scene, he was willing to let Mahi go, but not Mustafa, before Musti stood up to him, I feel that's telling enough.)

I'm not sure how much it would affect Mustafa's chances as a heir. I don't know how much he would get the throne even then, because it's like SS always loved Hürrem's children more from the get-go and he dreamed about Mehmet on the throne when he was a baby. Mustafa would surely miss his mother. He would probably try to stand up to SS, too, and maybe fail this time around. I also see little Mustafa declaring in front of SS that the throne and titles don't matter to him at that point. Certainly not more than simply being next to his own mother. Mustafa would maintain his independent mindset and it could even increase in her absence. If Mustafa still got to his sanjack, Mahidevran's guidance and advice would be definetly missed, because... no matter how much he didn't listen to her, there won't really be anyone next to him to put him down to earth as persistently and frequently as her. The only one that would be left to do that is Ibrahim and he is days away from Mustafa. He may find out about stuff Mustafa would want to do that could risk his relationship with SS too late, as well. And even that would be all done after his death. Maybe he could be more prone to making mistakes, thus have even less chance with SS? Would he accept her will to move on from everything and leave her own life? He probably would at some point, but this would hurt him. The worst case scenario would be Mustafa ending up like MCK Bayezid in his possible inacceptance. But maybe his loyalty to SS would waver for separating him from his own mother, so he could rebel, for real this time? I see it as very possible, too. There're so many options here.

But the more important question is: would Mahidevran ever accept a life without Mustafa, even if she were free, even if she became fully independent of the will of the person who walked over her for years? My answer is no, definetly not. She loves, adores her son way too dearly to let that happen. Because if she becomes independent of his will, Mustafa, as a prince of the dynasty, would never be and Mahidevran wouldn't for a second just become impartial of all this, because of her own already too deep-seated desires for happiness and how aware she becomes in S04 that the sultanate, the power to rule over everyone, isn't worth having. She wants her son on the throne and she would want to guide him and protect him regardless, to be aware of everything happening around him, so I guess she would rather to be together with him in a place like Edirne or in the sanjack than become free with the consequence that she would go away from all this, but without Mustafa. It all would be different if SS married her, as well, but as we saw with Hürrem, then life wouldn't be any more peaceful, on the contrary even, and her only solace would be that Hürrem won't be using elitism on her anymore. She deserves to not have the reminder of what she's lost and what her enemy has above her always in front of her eyes, but I don't think that would be enough. Still, yes, if she keeps fighting (which she probably would), she deserves to be on that equal ground with Hürrem BIG TIME and the upper hand in their confrontations wouldn't be all that evident anymore. (and we'll no longer have formulaic smackdowns in their scenes, ha! 😏)

#magnificent century #muhteşem yüzyıl #muhtesem yuzyil #mahidevran sultan #ask #fangirlthoughtsanddreams #i know i'm shading on SS again #but I don't trust him when it comes to Mahi and Musti sorry