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#as I’ve said before it’s so easy for people to toss me aside without a second thought it’s happened before it’ll happen again it’s happening

dashielldeveron · 4 months

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soulmate trope | shigaraki tomura

Shigaraki’s route of soulmate trope.

"post-canon shigaraki? canon isn't even finished as of when this was posted on 4 january 2024!"

yeah. thank god. gives us time to write our own endings. and obviously i will be wrong about some things. i recommend you read at least one other route, preferably dabi’s, before reading this one. warnings: female reader. manga spoilers up to around chapter 390-411ish, based on language used by others to describe shigaraki and his trauma. bodily consequences to his trauma (some things are intended to read as AFO having forced an ED on shigaraki, but this is not made definitive). sexual content. stalking. gore (in a game). reader is experiencing a type of gifted kid burnout.

~28k

There’s a hentai book lying on your bed.

You’ve never seen it before.

Flipping through it, you winced at the positions the large-titted, ponytailed woman was manhandled into, and though you were frankly impressed that she managed to wear such intricate lingerie underneath her everyday business attire, the protagonist only just got home from work; let her decompress for, like, ten minutes before railing her against the window, please.

Whom did you know who would read volume four of something called GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK?

Unfortunately, you were burdened with knowledge about your friends’ sexual habits, and some of them, therefore, were already ruled out: Shinsou only read erotica because he preferred his own imagination to any images hentai or live-action could provide, and Monoma only read hentai in which the woman’s eyes had hearts in them to let the reader know she’s enjoying it—not to mention Monoma wouldn’t buy a hard copy of it, let alone a story that didn’t have more plot and character development to it. There wasn’t enough drool for Sero to be interested, and the male protagonist wasn’t enough of a twink for Kaminari to project onto, so whose was this?

Moreover, who the fuck would come all the way back to your old school’s campus to break into your room to leave it on your bed? (Shinsou would be your best bet for that part, but whenever he finished a patrol nowadays, he went directly to sleep, and his and Monoma’s flat was across town.)

You cat, Dango, jumped onto the bed, slithering up next to you and bumping her head on your elbow affectionately.

“Is this yours?” you asked her, and she sniffed the book before climbing into your lap.

You tossed the book aside to pet your cat with both hands, and you resolved not to think about it any longer, even though the cringy way the mangaka depicted the female orgasm was burnt onto your brain.

***

Hopping to put your heel back into a ballet flat, you held the phone between your ear and shoulder while you struggled towards the lift. “I’ve got to cancel on you, Ochaco,” you said, flipping the back of your blazer collar down and adjusting the lapels, “I’m, fuck—I’m not gonna be able to make it this evening, so just go without me.”

Uraraka sighed on her end. “Okay. I know a lot of us were excited to see you after so long—there’s a card Tsu’s made us all to sign, and everything—but we’ll manage. ‘Spose we’ll just have a routine night at the bar and reschedule when you can make it. I miss you,” she said, “and I’m pretty sure I can say the same for everyone.”

The elevator door slid open, and you entered. “All of you are so clingy. I’ve only been away from the agency for around two months, and you know where to find me.” You mashed the button for the ground floor. “In fact, it’s embarrassingly easy to access me.”

“Well, we’re very busy,” said Uraraka, “People are very eager to conscript us for missions, even if they really could be done by the police. U.A. alumni have somehow upticked in their popularity even more since we graduated—”

“Ochaco, I know. I was there. Allow me to weep for your success. I am playing the world’s tiniest violin.” You shifted your bag’s full weight onto your shoulder and exited into the commons. “But listen. I’ve got to go; I’m running late this morning. I couldn’t find my pantyhose even though I laid them out last night, and they weren’t in any of my cat’s usual hiding places. I had to turn my flat upside down and still never found them.” The outside doors slid open when you approached, and the harsh, morning wind upset your hair on impact. “Give everyone my love, O. Tell Todoroki to smile in his next interview.” Eyes darting across your surroundings for any witnesses, you shrank in on yourself and bit the inside of your cheek. “And tell everyone I’m sorry, okay?”

By the time you arrived at U.A.’s administration building, the wind had been joined by a light drizzle that would probably morph into a storm within the hour, a prediction compounded by a plethora of faculty umbrellas in and beside the stand by the sliding doors. The front office was gloriously vacant, though, so you were able to slip behind the front desk without someone rebuking you for being—you shook the computer mouse to wake it up, the clock popping up in the corner—seventeen minutes late.

(You’d graduated with the rest of the class six months ago, and you’d founded the all-girls agency uptown, with most of the women in the graduating class joining to form an instant powerhouse of the industry.

Founding an agency appealed to a good deal of graduates, but you were the only one to go the distance: you were the one to actually make the calls, fill out the paperwork, get aggravating shit done, and by the time to move into the building, it had pleased you to no end that Midoriya had asked you for help on kickstarting his own.

And then two months ago, you’d pulled off, frankly, what was supposed to be an impossible rescue. For the first time, you were getting enormous amounts of attention, from civilians, from press, from other heroes—and you were being followed, never having more than a moment to yourself—always being watched, either from well-wishers or nay-sayers—and sometimes, the analytical critic, eager to point out your faults in the rescue mission to try to drag you out of the hero scene.

You hated yourself for this, but they won.

Too many expectations. All sinking down on you, as if no other hero existed while the light shone in your direction. [And you hated yourself for even daring to consider this—what reprehensible audacity, but—but was this how All Might had felt?]

You’d had something next door to a panic attack when a convenience store, a regular stop in your weekly routine, filmed your reaction to how they’d auctioned off your signed receipt for over nine hundred thousand yen. Breaking their cameras, Shinsou had to escort you out of there in a rush and call Aizawa for help.

Sobbing into Shinsou’s phone on the soggy concrete of a darkened alleyway, you did something you never fathomed you’d ever do, something you could never see any of your friends ever doing, something that seemed as alien and unthinkable as sticking your hand into a pit of needles: you begged Aizawa to get you out of the hero business.

You’ve been handled with care and relocated into a surprising covert secretarial job in the U.A. admin, Nezu’s logic was that you’d adjust to one person needing you at a time, say, over email or at the desk, and if you only answered the phone with only a shortened version of your name, then no intruding civilian would be the wiser.

The job was easy, anyway. Paid well for what it was, but perhaps that was simply standard for U.A. Nowhere nearly as well paying or exciting as working as a hero, but you were adjusting into mundanity. Some days had stretches of hours in which you didn’t interact with anyone, sitting at the front desk without a task, and you even had a few days in which you’d gone in, piddled around at the desk for your whole shift without seeing another soul, and gone home.

Your friends were always so busy. The two times you’ve been able to meet with them contained nothing but conversation about hero work, or else everything was somehow tangentially related to it, and you found yourself unable to contribute to the conversation. Both times, you’d left early, a little overstimulated, leaving Shinsou to make your excuses.

And Shinsou, bless him. Not avoiding you on purpose. In fact, you knew he’d drop almost anything for you to hang out, but you knew his schedule and how little rest he got. So, it was more of a self-imposed boundary on your side, taking into account that he needed sleep more than he needed to spend time with you.

So, yes, some of it was directly your fault, but you were achingly, astonishingly lonely, with an ever-lowering threshold for tolerance of outside stimulation, ultimately feeling like you didn’t belong here.)

Pens aligned. Coaster. Check the school email for—good, no emails. No voicemail. Get out your planner and write your hours in it to look busy. Hey, your water bottle’s nearing empty; maybe you could go fill it or even waste time brewing coffee. But where’s your work mug? You probably left it on the cleaning rack next to the office sink. You should go check.

“Hey,” said Aizawa out of nowhere, ignoring how you jumped out of your own skin, “Good morning. Are you doing a specific job at the moment?”

You gripped the arms of your swivel chair to ground yourself. Is this a test? “I was about to take a moment to make some coffee,” you said, because never let someone in a position of authority know that you were doing jackshit, “Is there something I can help you with, Aizawa-sensei?”

Frowning, he dipped his chin into his capture weapon, still tucked closely to his neck to shield him from the wind, and he shifted his weight to one leg, his fingers tapping in a ripple on the reception desk. “You don’t have to call me that anymore.”

“I’m gonna,” you said, “How can I help?”

Please don’t need anything. Please don’t need anythi—

“Permission has just cleared for me to assign you a long-term task.”

Shit, you thought, internally wincing at how he used the term task and not mission, as if you’d be plunged into the ice-cold water of a panic attack at the word. The kid gloves that everyone handled you with somehow both ingratiated and insulted you.

“You’ll be paid for it,” Aizawa continued, “and it’s low stakes interaction, not even face-to-face. It’s all online.” Aizawa clasped his hands on the desk and hunched over the top of it, the ends of his scarf trailing down onto your keyboard. “You’ll recall moving some boxes into room 310.”

“Of course.” Early in your first month back at U.A., you’d helped clean out and move some boxes into 310 in the same hall that housed Aizawa, Eri, and now you—you’d unofficially dubbed it as U.A.’s drawer to shove social rejects. “Is someone about to move in?”

“He’s been moved in for a while,” said Aizawa, pulling his capture weapon away from his neck, “Keep all of this quiet. You’re allowed to know because I’ve advocated for you, because I trust in you and in your ability to do this well.” Aizawa paused, the silence dragging on much longer than usual. His eyes glazed over, as if considering how to phrase his next proposal.

You waved your hand, prompting him to continue.

His eyes focused again. “The new person is a ward of the school, but All Might and I are his primary—caretakers isn’t quite the right term, and nor is supervisors, so perhaps it’s better to—”

“No, I get it,” you said, “This person is an adult, but they’re not quite independent. Go on.”

Aizawa paused, brow furrowed just slightly as he scrutinised you again, but he nodded slowly after a moment. “I’ll allow him to introduce himself to you. He doesn’t need me to set up expectations. What’s important for you to know, regarding your own participation, is that he’s very new to the hero scene and is receiving his hero training later in life than usual. He won’t be attending class but will be trained personally by select U.A. faculty, mostly All Might, Nezu, and me.”

“Is he officially a student?”

“On paper.” Something strange passed across Aizawa’s face, but you couldn’t name it. “Where you come in is his socialisation. He’s spent most of his life in disciplinary isolation. Because of the adults raising him, his instincts trend towards distrust and animosity.”

So, Aizawa wanted you spend time with him until he was no longer bad with people, like spending time with feral cats at animal shelters until they’re ready to be adopted. “So, he’s distrustful. Hostile. Angry,” you said, scratching the side of your head, “Is he—do you think he’ll bring up bad stuff I’ve done to use it against me?”

“He doesn’t know who you are, aside from someone trusted by U.A. with hero experience,” said Aizawa, shaking his head, “and you can choose what information you give him.”

“Does he,” you said, sucking in through your teeth, “Does this guy know about how you’re going about this? I think—wouldn’t he be insulted if he knew about how you’re socialising him like an animal?”

Aizawa looked over his shoulder at the empty office, but he bent farther over the desk and spoke softly, anyway. “Recently, when I was training him at night, he expressed that he never knows what to do when someone wants to talk to him after mission, whether it’s successful or not. He froze entirely when a senior citizen thanked him last week, and that’s when we decided something tactile needed to be done. Since he’s grown used to me, you’re the solution.”

Okay. A volatile man, someone who couldn’t go to U.A. at the average age but for whom Aizawa, Nezu, and All Might were making an exception, even going so far as to personally take him out at night to practise hero work.

Hm. Fishy.

But if the good, good men who took care of you wanted you take care of another misplaced person, then you’re going to do it to the best of your ability.

“I hope I can live up to your expectations,” you said, making a note in your planner, “What am I doing?”

“I need you to learn how to play a video game,” said Aizawa, “and I need you to be absolute shit at it.”

***

For you to help some loser with socialisation, he would be teaching you how to play some janky, twenty-five-year-old MMORPG called Cipherstone—and not even the current, polished version of it; you had to sign up for an account on the version preserving the game exactly as it was in 2007. Nostalgia reasons, apparently.

You nudged Dango out aside to check your bedside clock. The discord call would start in five minutes, and you were making your Cipherstone account, completely unable to come up with a suitable username.

“Don’t connect it to your other online accounts or your actual identity,” Aizawa had said that morning.

Dango’s tiny prance across your stomach was not helping, and you couldn’t use Dango in your username, because if someone knew about your cat (and hopefully no one did, because cats were not allowed in the dorms), then a Dango username could be linked back to the real you. You plopped your head back on your pillow, knocking against the headboard. What’s something that couldn’t be traced back to you? Slumping, you let your head fall to the side and sulked.

The hentai book peeked out from underneath a jacket on your dirty clothes chair.

GinsengTea

That username is unavailable.

Well. You couldn’t use your birthdate as added numbers. You kept typing.

GinsengTea69

That username is unavailable.

You’re not about to try Lustful Ballsack. Maybe if you put aside your secretarial propensity for being correct for a moment.

GinzengTea

Username available!

Oh, thank God. You sorted out your password and started customising your character, though you couldn’t do much with the negative six billion pixels you were dealing with, and oh, is that the noise discord makes for a call? You plugged in your earbuds and clicked the answer button.

“Hello?” you asked into the microphone on your earbud cord, narrowing your eyes at his profile picture of a rotund, cartoon mouse. Username Tenkopeito. Looks like he ran into the same spelling trouble you did.

“Greetings and salutations,” he said, his tinny, rasping, just-got-out-of-bed, gruff-from-lack-of-use voice striking you with about fifty psychic damage, “I am Aizawa-sensei’s pupil, here to teach you about the intricacies of Cipherstone. It will be my pleasure—”

“Cut that shit out,” you said, narrowing your eyes at his profile picture: actually, that mouse was so round because it had just swallowed an enormous piece of konpeito whole, with the little star spikes jutting out underneath its fur. “No one talks like that. You sound fake as fuck.”

“I see,” he said after a beat, tone deflating to sound resigned (and though he’d relaxed, it somehow sounded as if talking this way took more effort, like it physically strained his vocal cords). “Am I not supposed to be nice?”

“You weren’t exactly being nice. You were using a customer service voice—which is being polite, not nice. Not even kind. Politeness is usually some sort of put-on affectation of niceness, forced for the situation. I understand if that’s what you think you need to do when you talk to people as a hero, but in hero work, since the stakes are high, you need to be genuine, or at least sound like you are.” Dango crawled across your stomach again, but you lifted her off before she could settle into a loaf on your keyboard. “In the field, it’s often hard to be kind because of how involved you get as a hero; being kind takes effort and drains you emotionally. Kindness implies there’s some sort of reciprocity, some sort of ongoing relationship. You can choose to be kind if you want, but it may wear on you in the long run. What will probably be healthiest for you, on your side, is if you aim to be nice, meaning being honest in a gentle way, framing situations positively but realistically for listeners. The public doesn’t want to be lied to and told everything’s fine, but telling them the harshness of reality doesn’t go over well. Kills morale.”

“Holy shit.” He was scratching something close to his microphone—it must be a fairly good mic, since you could deduce short fingernails against a dry surface. “That’s…a lot.”

“It is. But you can do it. All it takes is practise, and that’s what I’m here for,” you said, moving Dango from your keyboard again, “And I didn’t mean to overwhelm you with all of that; it just came out—I, uh, I happen to know a lot about the way heroes present themselves.” Swallowing thickly, you ran your tongue over your lower lip. “Why don’t we begin with what you were saying before? But in the actual way you talk, please. You need to be comfortable in your own voice.”

His mic picked up the distant noise of slurping through a straw, against what sounded like the bottom of a metal cup, which clinked when he set it back down. “Have you played Cipherstone before?”

“Total newcomer. Though I’ve seen some screenshots in memes.”

“Cool,” he said in a way that was clear it was not cool, “I can’t add you to my in-game friends list until you get off Tutorial Island. Share your screen with me until then.”

All right. You can be bad at this. You can be so bad at this. “What’s a screen?” Not that bad, idiot! “I mean,” you said, fumbling, “How do I share my screen with you?”

The scratching grew louder. “Bottom left. Screen button. Right click. Share option.”

“Ah.” You should probably lure him into thinking you’re competent while there was a literal tutorial onscreen so that he would be more frustrated with you later. “Gotcha.”

For a few seconds after your avatar popped onscreen for the first time, nothing came through but the 8-bit tutorial music. “Is that what you look like in real life?” he finally asked.

“No,” you said, not exactly lying. The character had her hair down in her face (which you wouldn’t normally do when you were on patrol, since it could get in the way of physical hero work), and, hoping to endear yourself to this weirdo, you’d chosen the sluttiest shirt: while none of the horrible pixelated options showed any boob whatsoever, the poor rendering still managed to convey that the top was off-shoulder. Again, not great for hero work. “In real life, I’ve much, much more panache.”

Another silence, during which you assumed he was looking up the word. “So, you click on the screen to go where you want to walk, on either the overall game interface or in the mini-map in the corner. Your destination will show up—”

“Wait, what should I call you, screwboy?”

“—as a red flag,” he said, frown audible, his rasping voice screeching to a stop the way brakes are slowly applied to the wheels of a train. “Not screwboy.”

“I’m not calling you by your handle. Not only is it cringe, but you won’t have to answer to it anywhere else in your life. If you don’t want to give me your name, that’s fine. I could call you by your hero name, if you like; it’d help you get used to answering to it. But no, I’m not calling you your username,” you said, shoulders slacking once Dango finally settled in a ball at your hip, “Especially since you couldn’t even get the correct spelling of Ten Konpeito.”

“It’s—it’s not supposed to say that,” he said, sputtering with a groan coming in at the end, “It’s a play on my name, and including the n makes it harder to say aloud. I think these things through; I have to be aware of my public image and branding now; that’s the whole point of this stupid—my name is Tenko, you asshole.”

“Oh, you’re gonna call civilians asshole?” You clicked your tongue. “Bad. Bad and evil. Speaking from experience, people don’t like that.”

“Just fu—just click on the map.”

“Fine. But you can’t fool me with your medieval, point-and-click game,” you said, clicking to pick up a fishing net, “Incidentally, the oldest known fishing net is the net of Antrea, crafted of willow and dating back to 8300 B.C.”

Tenko paused. “What would be the socially expected response to that?”

Your avatar fished for shrimps. “Oh, usually people yell at me. Get mad for bringing up total non sequiturs. My friend Bakugou is fond of telling me that I’m a collection of those bottle caps with facts printed on the inside.”

“Would…would you like me to get angry? Am I supposed to? I was under the impression I was supposed to curb my anger. To be nice.”

Your inventory filled with shrimps.

“You only need one shrimp,” said Tenko.

“You’ll thank me when we have food later,” you said, continuing to fish for shrimps.

“It’s the tutorial,” he said, frown creeping into his voice, “You won’t keep any resources from it. You should go chop the tree down to light a fire.”

“Well, hell. I want my shrimps.” You clicked away from the fishing spot and onto a tree. “Nothing’s happening.”

Tenko cleared his throat. “You need to talk to the woodcutting tutor first. She’ll give you an axe.”

“I thought this game had magic,” you said, guiding Dango’s head away from blocking the screen, “Can’t I just get logs with magic?”

“No, it’s—you must want me to get angry. As a test.” Scratching. “Magic comes later. Not for getting logs.”

You interpreted that as a sign to make the rest of the tutorial go smoothly. You followed the instructions for a few silent minutes, proving to him that you could read, and when you reached the end of the tutorial, a wizard teleported you to the crossroads of a town centre.

“Ah,” you said, genuinely surprised as other players’ avatars, decked out in what must be high-level gear, dashed past, “I don’t know where I am.”

“You can turn your screen-sharing off now.” Tenko typed on what sounded like a mechanical keyboard. “I’m over here. I’ve got—by the fountain—white hair, all black clothes. I’m not—there you are.”

Dozens of other players were running past the two of you, the only bare, new players in the area. Tenko’s pixelated avatar waved at you. Cheeky bitch. He’s so poorly animated and so very 2007 that it gave no indication what he could look like in real life. But he’s chosen to have a black t-shirt as his default, so he has to be a slut.

You resisted the urge to ask to feel his pixelated bicep. “You don’t have any equipment. I thought you’ve played Cipherstone before?”

“My main account is max-ed out. I started a new account to grow at the same rate as you. Before anything else, notice where we are,” said Tenko, “We’re in the centre of the city of Renfield. Get familiar with it. Think of it as home. It’s where you’ll always come back to when you get lost.”

It’s a barely animated town centre, with a short path up the stairs to a castle door and a few market stalls split between fountains.

“I have no idea what that means, Tenko.”

“It means that—that,” Tenko said, and stopped.

You couldn’t stop grinning, biting at your lower lip to keep from laughing—he’d let out a flustered huff, sounding a little strangled, because you’d said his name for the first time—and, judging by how long this delicious silence was dragging on, Tenko was probably his given name, not the family name. Beautiful, really, that a guy his age (however old he was, but he’s at least the same as you, since he couldn’t attend U.A. at the usual time) could get this nervous over a woman calling him by his name.

Tenko recovered in a way that showed he didn’t: “It means that you are always able to cast one spell, regardless of magic level,” he said in a rush, “It is a homing spell that teleports you back to this spot, so even if you get lost, you can always get back to Renfield. You can teleport other ways, too, but that’s for another time, and I need a cup of coffee.” He inhaled sharply.

It's only the first day, so you should go easy on him. Let his moment of awkwardness go.

However, Aizawa gave you a mission.

Excuse you, a task.

“Do you plan on getting flustered every time a civilian calls you by name?” you asked, petting between Dango’s ears, “Or are you planning on avoiding as much publicity as possible by being an underground hero like Aizawa?”

“I don’t—they’re not going to—it’s different with you. I can already tell,” said Tenko (you froze, fingers curled into Dango’s fur), “because I’m going to have some sort of working relationship with you. I assume you’re here to stay.”

Putting it that way made your heartbeat throb around your ears. You decided you could ask directly. “Tenko’s your first name, then?”

“Yeah.” He must have covered his hand with his mouth, muffling his voice at first. “But people usually—people have been calling me something else.”

“Then I can call you something else, if you like,” you said, getting back to petting Dango behind her ears and resolving to treat him with the same tenderness—he must need it, since no one in his life knows him well enough to call him by his given name.

“No, I think you should,” he said a bit too quickly, “Call me that. Tenko. I’m tired of that other stuff. Click on something to keep from logging out, by the way. There’s a timer.” Mechanical typing noises. “No, Aizawa-sensei wants me to be better. Of all things, I need to learn to respond to my real name.”

You squinted at your screen, as if the methodical rise and fall of his avatar’s chest could betray how he was feeling. Something had to have happened to this guy to make him feel this way about such a basic part of his identity, to make other people avoid his real name so universally. Aizawa couldn’t’ve have assigned you this task just to socialise him; something else was unfolding here. How did you enter the equation? If you’re supposed to guide someone who’s also lost their direction in life, you’re a hell of a bad candidate.

But what if you fuck up Aizawa’s plan, whatever it was?

Your recent history is riddled with things going downhill. What if you somehow screwed over Tenko? You’d be dragging someone else down with you, down to…the beginning again, a humiliating re-start, back at your fucking school, when the rest of your friends were out living the dream you’d all crafted together, the dream that apparently could go on without you in it.

Well. Enough of that. Distract yourself. Distract Tenko, too. “Got it. I want a hat.”

“What?”

“I want a hat,” you said, clicking the space around the fountain for your avatar to walk, “My head is cold. How do we get a hat? Hats. You should get one, too.”

“Hats. Very well,” said Tenko, clicking to face you across the shitty fountain, “Do you want one that’s purely decorative or one that has some sort of stats? Decorative ones we can get within a minute, with good RNG, by killing goblins across the bridge. There’s a low chance we could get a low-tier wizard’s hat doing that, too.”

“Then it will be a pleasure killing goblins with you, Tenko.”

“Mm,” he said at the back of his throat, “First, we’ll need to obtain some sort of weapons, since bare-handed punching them will take forever. We could either talk to the melee tutor to get a temporary sword or start wi—actually, we should talk to the melee tutor. Melee will probably be the easiest fighting style for you right now, and it’ll be the simplest, since you won’t have to worry about running out of ammunition or runes.”

“Sure,” you said, leaning back in bed, “Do we go starboard or port?”

“You can just call them east and west, y’know. And we go north.”

To be obstinate, you clicked the opposite direction that Tenkopeito was going, and the moment you ran offscreen, Tenko spoke in a low, grumbling voice into his microphone. “No, don’t run away from me. Come back here.”

The rumble in his voice shot warmth straight to your lower stomach, the nature of the encounter between the two of you changing in a second. Your avatar kept running to her destination, your hand frozen and hovering above the tracking pad. You blinked, your throat drying. Snapping back into it, you ran back to Tenko, who seemed unaware of what he just did to you—and he almost negated your arousal in the way he kept talking about sword upgrades and something called RNG.

Uh.

“—now, it’ll take about ten minutes, but it’ll seem like two hours of hard labour. Follow me across the bridge. Follow—there’s a follow mechanic, if you’ll right-click on me.”

Oh, you’ll right-click him, all right. You needed to know more about Tenko—why you’ve been paired off, what Aizawa’s planning for him, what—a tinge of shame soured at the back of your tongue, because what currently gripped you were minutiae: more about him, what he looks like, what he likes, what he does for fun, if you’re…the sort of person he’d get along with in real life, if you hadn’t been forced together.

God, get over yourself. You spend two months away from men your age, and now, you’re thirsting over someone you don’t even know because he said one hot thing. You needed to be socialised—no, stop. This isn’t about you. Stop thinking about what his hands would feel like on you, what he’d sound like grunting into your ear as he ground against you—

“You’ve been quiet for a minute,” said Tenko, slashing the first goblin, “Are you all right?”

A very heroic question when you haven’t been thinking too heroically. The thought of his voice muttering against your neck still grasped you tightly. “I’m having—technical difficulties.”

***

Poking your head outside of your dorm/apartment door, you scanned the hallway for witnesses. You gripped the handle of Dango’s carrier, still hidden behind the door inside your dorm, and you nodded back at her when she meowed at you.

“I know, baby,” you said, listening for footsteps, “We’ll be outside soon enough. Gotta check for people, though.”

Okay, nothing coming. You shifted Dango’s carrier out of your dorm and pulled out your key, sticking it in the lock at the same time as a door opened down the hall.

Too fast—you had to prod her carrier back inside, your foot stuck in the crack between wall and door, just as—as Midoriya strode down the hall. Keys jangling. Civilian clothes (a Froppy hoodie, in fact).

“Oh, hello!” Midoriya only seemed to notice you once you were struggling to close the door despite the carrier being the way, and hopefully you thrust it fully inside swiftly enough for him not to catch the flash of burgundy. He trotted up to you, hands in the pockets of his worn cargo pants. “I didn’t think you’d be around. Do you not have work today?”

Dango meowed mournfully through the door, and you stepped in front of it. “It’s my lunch break. I’m going for a walk.”

Midoriya nodded, and he glanced over his shoulder back to the room he’d left. “Gotcha, gotcha. Good weather for it, especially after that storm earlier this week.” easy smile stretched across his face as he faced you again, but his gaze weighed down on you, as if the number one hero’s attention magnified your failures in comparison to his rise to the top—and the fact that he didn’t mean to pressure you only exacerbated the feeling.

“Uh,” you said, stuffing your keys in your backpack and setting it on the ground, as if you’re not waiting to go back inside, “May I ask what you’re doing here? Don’t you have better—aren’t you busy?”

Chuckling, Midoriya scratched the back of his neck (and oh, in that laughter, he was hiding something). “I make time. I’m just visiting,” he said, jerking his head back towards the end of the hall, “A friend. I want to take care to see him regularly. I didn’t know you lived on the same hall.”

“If you can call it living,” you said, and for some reason, Midoriya frowned, took a step closer to you, and said your name under his breath, eyes fucking wide and too damn concerned for your comfort. Fuck, you only meant to make a self-depredating joke, not make the situation serious.

“You—you know that you can reach out to us. I mean that. If you’re scared you’re gonna burden any of us—”

You’d squatted down to go through your bag, just to have something to do, to have an excuse to not look him in the eyes. If you were going to cry—which you were not!—then the number one hero’s not going to get to witness it.

“—then reach out to me, at least. I’ve got time, or else I can make it.” Midoriya was kneeling next to you, and you kept your eyes on the inside of your backpack. “If it makes you feel less like you’re bothering any of us, I could check in with you when I come see my friend. I’d already be on campus. I wouldn’t be going out of my way.” He sighed to fill the space when you didn’t answer. “What are you looking for?”

“I can’t find my planner,” you invented, and, acting like you were upset, you zipped your backpack again. “I think I need to go back inside to locate it.”

He shifted his jaw, and he glanced down at your bag and back at you. “Come with me to the vending machines, at least?”

The new symbol of peace, asking to spend time with you. You didn’t deserve it, so you shook your head. “I don’t have much time left in my break. I think I’d better let you go.”

Shifting his jaw, Midoriya tilted his head at you, his eyes glinting. “All right,” he said slowly, “You know yourself better than anyone else. Do what you need to. Rest up.” He started walking backwards towards the stairs. “And I want to see you more—we all do. I’ll see you the next time I come around. Maybe the three of us could hang out?”

“Sure,” you said, shoving your key in the lock to let a thrashing Dango out of her misery.

***

“The church. It’s the one with the altar icon in the minimap.”

You clicked enough so that your avatar would backtrack. “How am I supposed to know that’s the church? Is that icon supposed to be an altar? It looks nothing like an altar. It looks more like a steaming cup of tea.”

“That’s fair,” said Tenko into his headset, “but this is the easiest quest in the game. How are you having this much trouble with it?”

“Oh, stop that,” you said, reaching his character in front of the priest, “It’s intuitive to you because you’ve been playing this for years. Do we kill this guy?”

“What? No. He’s going to give us each the key to a dungeon underneath the church.”

“How can he give us both a key if there’s only one?” You clicked through the dialogue with the priest, and a key appeared in your inventory. “Also, how accurate is this dungeon? Because if this is a broadly medieval game, then the dungeons will be closer to underground bathrooms rather than, like, creepy and wet with shackles and bones. That was popularised by Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.”

“How the hell do you know that,” Tenko asked flatly, “Ne—never mind. It doesn’t matter. Follow me to the trapdoor outside.”

You did, and it was locked. “Are we allowed to do this?” you asked, clicking on the key and then the lock, “Will we get arrested for trespassing?”

“Wha—no. No, we’re supposed to in order to progress the quest. In fact, our characters do a frankly criminal amount of breaking and entering throughout the game and never get checked for it. Hey, don’t go down there without me.”

Your character had only just gone down the trapdoor, prompting a blackout loading screen, but you popped back up to the surface before you could get a good look around. Your character stood next to Tenko’s, still next to the trapdoor. “What’s the holdup? I thought the only step was to use the key on the door. Did I skip something?”

“No, I—huh,” said Tenko, cutting himself off with a tinge of frustration creeping into his voice, “I lost the key.”

Raising a brow, you tilted your head. “What? How’d you lose it?”

“I don’t know. It was in my inventory one minute, and now it’s not. I didn’t touch it.” His mic picked up light scratching. “You’re not supposed to be able to lose the key, but I guess I can go back to the priest to get another. You wait—”

“Hold up,” you said, brow furrowed, “I have it. It’s in my inventory.”

“The hell? Are you sure it’s not just your own key?”

“Positive. I have two of them now. Same key, right next to each other. Want me to share my screen?”

“No, I—I believe you.” Tenko took a moment. “I’m not familiar with this sort of glitch, where an item from one player’s inventory randomly transfers to another’s. This doesn’t even happen, in my experience, but maybe it’s because this is one of the earliest quests coded into the game. It’s twenty-five-year-old code at this point, and it might have glitched because we’re both trying to perform the same quest actions on the same game tick.”

“Sure,” you said, “So, what do I do? Do I drop the key for you to pick up, or?”

“It disappears if you drop it. Trade me. Right-click, trade option.”

Once the key was traded, the two of you went down the trapdoor and wove your way back into the underground headquarters of a low-level cult, vacant for the moment but with evidence of rituals on the walls and floors, particularly in front of their bloodstained altar.

“Okay, we’re in their headquarters,” you said, making your character walk up the aisle, “What now? Priest guy didn’t give us any instructions.”

His avatar followed you and sat on the only programmed-to-be-sittable seat in the pew, his black cape (that he stole from a highwayman’s corpse) folding under his legs. “Actually, he did. You just clicked through his dialogue.”

“Because you’re here to tell me what to do, Quest Man.”

“Click on the—” Tenko heaved an enormous sigh, microphone sparking. “You figure it out. What’s clickable in this room? What has examine text?”

You hovered your mouse over most of the room, and nothing popped up with the examine option, except for something on the altar. “It’s this weird-looking, severed hand, isn’t it? This thing standing up on a slice of wrist by itself?” Your character walked nearer to it, fingers splayed widely enough to hold an in-game apple. “Weirdest ring-holder I’ve ever seen.”

When Tenko didn’t say anything, you glanced towards his character, but he was still sitting on the pew.

“Is this whole quest a pun? Because it’s one of the easiest quests, so they’re giving us a lot of guidance, so it’s like they’re holding our hands to get it through?”

That broke his silence: he scoffed into the mic. “I doubt it,” he said, “You need to grab the hand for the quest to keep going.”

“Fine,” you said, clicking the hand, and the instant your avatar touched it, a zombie spawned from the altar and began to attack you. “Dude! Did you know that thing was gonna jump me?” you asked, clicking away a few spaces but turning around to stab at it with your stupid bronze dagger, “And you just sat there? You could’ve warned me.”

“I did, and the priest did, and the duke who gave us this quest did. That’s why we went and baked all those pies in your inventory, yeah? For you to eat during this fight?”

Your character kept missing hits. “Yeah, but—like! I didn’t know the fight would be now.”

“Hey, relax.” Tenko’s voice sounded muffled, like his mouth was smushed as his fist dug into his cheek. “It’s only a level 12, and you’re level 9. Not too big of a difference. With your armour and weapon, you out-level it.”

The miss sound effect spoke for itself.

“You’ll kill it eventually. You won’t always hit zeroes, so it’ll pass.”

Though your character dealt her first damage, you frowned. “That’s…that’s actually really good advice, Tenko. The stuff you just said would work well if you were trying to calm someone down—reminding people of reality and emphasising perseverance over luck or natural talent are some of the better ways to encourage people.”

“Is that so,” he asked flatly, trying to put off a yawn and failing, “I haven’t—I wasn’t thinking about hero work. Just thinking about the game.”

“Well, it was nice,” you said, “and it seemed like it came naturally. Mind if I ask if something caused it?”

He yawned again, but he must have leant away from the mic so that you wouldn’t hear anything besides the initial inhale. “Nothing special happened today, but I’m too tired to get irritated. Therapy took a lot out of me today.”

Therapy. Therapy. Okay, so he’s got an official diagnosis somewhere. The word today implies that it’s a regular thing, and for some reason, this session was more intense. Intense emotionally? Physically? What kind of therapy? Well, they offered cognitive behavioural therapy on campus, but considering his non-traditional student status, his might be outsourced. Plus, if you, a former hero but technically a civilian, are being implemented into his care plan without being informed directly—

“You usually don’t go this long without saying some inane non sequitur,” said Tenko, that same, strange scratching picking up on the mic, “Snap out of it. You’re gonna get killed by the easiest quest boss in the game.”

Making an undignified noise, you shook yourself and spam-clicked on a cherry pie for your character to eat until she was healed completely, and then you clicked on the zombie to attack again.

“Why’d you pause when I said therapy? Surprised I’d go? Think that sort of thing is below me?”

“Of course not,” you said, trying to seem like you were focused on the fight so that he wouldn’t get nervous about sharing personal information, “Therapy good. Therapy great. Everyone needs to go to therapy.” Since he appeared to be taking this casually, you could probably ask after the type without it seeming too intrusive. “What kind? CBT? That’s what—”

“You think U.A. would arrange for me to get my cock and balls tortured? That wouldn’t qualify as therapy for me, certainly, and there’s no way that U.A. would pay for—”

“Not fucking cock-and-ball torture, you muppet; cognitive behavioural therapy. The sitting-down-with-therapist-to-talk-about-your-trauma-and-restructuring-the-way-you-think-through-practise type. You fuckin’ pervert,” you said, grinning at his avatar onscreen.

“Good to know. I didn’t know the name for it.”

“It’s good that you made this mistake with me instead of with Aizawa-sensei.”

“He’s probably more inclined towards bondage. Congratulations on killing your first boss,” said Tenko, and you blinked in surprise at your character: you’d defeated the zombie while staring at him. It fell to the ground, dropping bones and some sort of arrows.

“Take those. Check to see if they’re iron or steel. All right, equip them in your ammo slot for now so that they don’t take up an inventory space.”

You did so. “Why didn’t it attack me with the arrows if it were holding them?”

“There’s no logic to it besides that arrows are on its drop table. It’s coded to attack by punching you in the face, which doesn’t involve arrows.”

“Sure. Now, let’s get out of the cult basement; I wanna bake more pies until we can make apple ones. Did you know that the first record of fruit pies was around 1600? That means these fruit pies are anachronistic, since this game pitches itself as medieval.”

“Is that…” The hesitance had you beaming, daring him to actually ask it. “Is that not medieval?”

“Tenko, get your head out of your ass. For reference, 1600 is arguably the year the Azuchi-Momoyama period ended and the Edo period began. The game frames itself as medieval European, and 1600 is hard Renaissance-slash-Early-Modern. That’s Shakespeare times, screwboy.”

Only silence on your headphones. Character still on the pew. You made your character walk over to his to perform the curtsy emote, and in real life, you frowned. “Did I go too far there? Bit too annoying? I’m really sorry if I’m bothering you with this sort of thing; my friends say that I—”

“Nothing’s wrong. I needed a moment,” came Tenko’s voice, quiet and steady, “I could hear you smiling, and it was—it was good.”

Inhaling sharply, you pressed a fist to your mouth. Great. Fucking fabulous. Goddammit, you hadn’t aimed for it to go this way, but were you now the one getting flustered at something as simple as—

“Do most people consider a long pause in conversation rude? Did I fuck up with that?”

“No! No, of course not,” you were saying, trying to recover but still startled at how he was able to flip the vibe of your conversations in so few words, words that seemed so casual to him but grabbed you by the throat/cunt, “Especially since you followed-up with a check-in of how it might be strange; a lot of times, people will be comforted by checking to see if something’s okay with them personally…”

Frowning, you trailed off when another avatar entered the cult’s sanctuary and strode up the aisle. You hovered over the new guy’s stupid frog mask to see his username was Venomothman.

“Fucking great,” grumbled Tenko, “Here comes someone else to break our immersion. Ignore him. I’ll go ahead and fight the zombie so that we can get out of here.”

“The zombie’s dead. You don’t have to fight him,” you said, as Venomothman sat directly on top of Tenkopeito, with both avatars glitching as they took up the same space on the pew.

Tenko made some sort of noise in the back of his throat. “No, I have to kill it, too. It’s like each of us is the only one doing the quest, so in your version, the evil has been defeated, but in my version—it’s this thing called an instance—”

Venomothman: wow a couple questing together

Venomothman: bet ur one guy on two accounts

Venomothman: roleplaying that he can get a gf

The new guy’s in-text chat appeared in yellow font above his avatar’s frog-faced head, and somehow, the boggly, green eyes made his words more irritating.

Venomothman: leave the basement sometimes ya incel

“Some people are assholes recreationally,” said Tenko, making his avatar stand to go to the altar as the clatter of mechanical typing came through the mic, “Let me get rid of this fucking scumba—wait.”

Venomothman: ur doing too much work to stare at pixelated ass

“Would it be correct for a hero to insult someone online?”

You shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it. “Eh. You’re not on duty, and you’re not under any persona connected with your public branding. I would say go for it, but since you’re trying to be better with people, you may want to practise.”

Venomothman: somehow this is even more pathetic than never knowing the touch of a woman at all

“Then I’ll shut him down. The shit-talking isn’t bothering me so much as his breaking our immersion in the game,” said Tenko, grabbing the hand on the altar to start his instance of the fight, “I’m trying to cultivate a particular experience for you, and he’s a fucker who won’t stop yapping. Give me a second.”

Venomothman: is this what does it for you??

Venomothman: why no response

Venomothman: hard to type with one hand, isn’t it, ******* shithead

You laughed through your nose. “Cipherstone censors the word fuck?”

“It censors fuck; it censors cunt,” said Tenko, avatar casting a weak air spell at the zombie, slowly, slowly draining its health, “Everything else is fair game.”

“Will it censor variations of cunt? Like, if I typed in cuntbag? Or—actually, let’s find that out later,” you said, tapping the buttons on your earbud cord to turn up the volume, “Let’s practise navigating difficult social interactions. What’s our goal here in this conversation? Is it to continue to engage?”

“No.” His spell missed, and the zombie landed a hit on his character, prompting him to eat half of a pie. “It’s to close the interaction. Therefore, I need to say something concise that invites no response, right? I’m assuming that a simple fuck off is unacceptable.”

“You’re getting better at this, y’know?”

“Is that condescension I detect?”

“Only a little.” You slumped back against your headboard and reached for the bottle of water on your bedside table. “Actually—no. No condescension. Genuinely, Tenko, you’re picking up on this stuff easily, and it’s impressive. You’ll be able to walk little old ladies across the street with style and flair in no time.”

“Hilarious,” he said, voice restrained and tight at the mention of his name (too easy—he gives himself away aurally so freely; who knows what you could read off of him when you had a visual?), “I’m sure no one wants me touching them. Can I—hm.” He sounded like he was pressing his fist against his face somehow. “Why you keep bothering to compliment me? Most people bitch down to me like I’ve spat my own cum in their coffee.”

“Wha—how about because you deserve to be complimented? Listen,” you said, electing to brush over his vivid simile, “Silent admiration rots. By keeping in appreciation or gratitude, you’re not doing anyone any good. Kind regards are meant to be shared. Like, now, if I held back any positive thoughts concerning your growth, then you might not feel encouraged to keep going.”

“Like I’m gonna go around fucking complimenting ev—”

“I’m not saying you have to,” you said, “but consider trying it more often. See if anything turns out better. And be sure to be sincere about it—obviously.”

“This is bullshit.”

“Just consider it. So. What has he told us about himself based on how he’s insulted you?”

“He’s so low-level that it looks like he just created his account. His stats are even lower than ours,” said Tenko, speaking more quickly now that it was a subject he was more comfortable with, unequipping his wand to punch the zombie instead, “But he’s gone out of his way to get the frog mask.”

“His words, Tenko,” you said, unscrewing the cap and doing your fucking darndest to pinch your mouth from smiling at his slight hitch when you said his name, “I’m trying to get you to notice on whom he looks down and what that means for his personal social status.”

“Right,” he said a bit too quickly, a bit of a break in his voice on the word, “He’s debasing me for—oh, you’re brilliant. How the hell do you notice these things? He’s using basement dweller as insult, meaning he considers himself above that. Leave it to me.”

You muted yourself briefly to glug down water; you didn’t know how sensitive the mic was on your earbuds, but considering that you could catch onto Tenko’s occasional rustling of what sounded like plastic bags on his side or typing on his mechanical keyboard, as he was right now, you would prefer not to be emitting the same.

Tenkopeito: Your mom wishes you would come out of your room to talk with the rest of the family more often

You spluttered into your water bottle as the yellow text appeared above his head, and you unmuted yourself. “That is not what I meant for you to—”

“Was I being mean?” The mic caught the creak of Tenko’s chair as he leant back in it, and you could picture him defensive and pouting as he crossed his arms (and it struck you that you couldn’t imagine his face. Grimacing, you bit the inside of your cheek). “I wasn’t being rude. I could be so much crueller, but I thought this would be more of a devastating blow. Living on the same floor as your family isn’t the same as living in the basement, so I’m acknowledging his level of social power while still demeaning—”

Venomothman: i mean you right

Venomothman: lmao how tf did you know it was me

“I think we should log out,” you said, wiping the water off of your chin with the back of your hand and setting the bottle back on the bedside table.

Over Tenko’s microphone, you heard the shrill pitch of a custom ringtone and a startled but violent shuffle at the noise. “Hold on. I’m getting a call,” he said, voice coming through at a distance, as if he’d knocked his mic aside.

“Oh? Who is it?”

It took him a minute, but Tenko eventually replied, “A friend.”

That must be a damn good microphone, because you could still pick up on Tenko’s side of the conversation a few feet away. “Yes, hello?” he asked, a bit more brusquely than you’d heard him before.

“Oh. I didn’t,” he was saying, “How was I supposed to know that you’d—yes, that’s her. The one working with Aizawa-sensei.”

Very nice, you were thinking, as you unlocked your own phone to check your messages. Very good for him to have friends. Not that you would’ve pegged him as the absolute loner type, because he proved to be adaptable and quick on his feet, but since Aizawa’d recruited you for interpersonal help, you’d considered that he may not have friends. So, good on him for having at least one friend, it seemed, who cared enough to create an account on some stupid video game solely to annoy him.

“—cool of you to make an account to hang out with me. Stop fucking laughing; I am trying to be kind to you, shitstain. Okay. I don’t know. I haven’t been in contact with him in the past two days. I’ve been busy. Let me check.” Tenko leant back towards the mic to address you. “Do we have a schedule for the rest of the week? For instance, are we doing this again on Thursday?”

“I thought we were,” you said, scanning your room for your planner so that you could check your calendar, “Did something come up?”

“It’s not imperative that I go,” Tenko was saying into your ear, while you picked up your laptop to walk over to your U.A.-issued desk, “but another friend who’s been out of town will finally be back then. We might hang out.”

“Psh, go with your friends,” you said, delighted that he had more than one (fighting envy that it was so easy for them to meet up), “We can do this another time.”

“Understood,” Tenko said and backed away from the mic.

Venomothman: so have you sucked his dick yet

Tenko’s incensed shout of “Touya!” had you turning down the volume.

Venomothman: not to be the world’s worst wingman, but my dude is packing. and goes commando all the time.

Venomothman: and i would know. “i” sometimes “did” our “laundry”

You: what’s with all those quotation marks

Venomothman: and do you know the last time it was sucked? never

(Fucking hell. This Touya was walking you back into forbidden territory: the sexualisation of Tenko. After that first session, when you’d been turned on by his confident, rumbling voice as he’d given you an order, you’d felt guilty for sexualising him for the rest of the night. It was as if instead of friend-zoning him, you’d sex-zoned him, only able to see him as a sexual person/object. For the sake of your mission task, that felt unfair.

Or maybe you weren’t even sexualising him. Maybe your brain was appropriately interpreting what he’d done as sexual.

Whatever. Something in your gut was begging you not to see Tenko only through romantic or sexual lenses right now, and you couldn’t explain why.

And talking about Tenko’s apparently massive dick was not helping.)

Tenkopeito: Touya if you don’t ******* shut up I am going to tear off your other arm

Venomothman: no need, boss man

You heard Tenko sigh and say into his phone, sounding exhausted, “I’m not your boss anymore, Touya.”

Venomothman: no need, douchebag

***

Draped over the side of your bed, you dangled a shoelace in front of the gap in an attempt to coax Dango out from underneath. “Dango, sweetie,” you said, whipping the shoelace to the side, “Come out here so that I can look you in the eyes. Where is my planner, you whore?”

At a firm knock on your door, you shot up, dropping the lace. “Never mind,” you said, sliding off the bed, “Stay hidden.”

You opened your door on Aizawa, bare arm raised in mid-knock, wisps of hair plastered to his forehead by dried sweat, and a sweatshirt tied around his waist. He took two seconds to look over you before saying, “Get dressed. Civilian clothes. You have three minutes.”

Throwing on yesterday’s outfit, you rushed to follow Aizawa out of the dorm and off campus, nearly stepping on his heels while he wove through night pedestrians, pulling on his own sweatshirt to minimise skin contact once the crowd thickened.

You flipped up your coat collar to sneak a glance over your shoulder. “Is this a test?”

Aizawa combed his fingers back through his hair, gaze straight ahead. “Not for you.”

“Right.” You stepped more lightly, naturally falling back into patrol patterns: noting exits (narrow alleyways favouring the left side, underground into the subway station), checking vantage points (upper-storey windows in the resident buildings, non-industrial rooftops), honing in on light sources (yellow- and LED-tinted streetlamps, ambience from open businesses) and physical presence (close enough to brush shoulders with passerby [putting you on edge, because the slightest touch could be pivotal]). You had to consciously unclench your jaw, body flooded with stress it hadn’t felt in months. Swiping at the inner corner of your eye, you asked, “Does it have anything to do with the guy in the black hoodie and face mask following us?”

Aizawa laughed through his nose, once. “All right, then. What’s that ice cream place you and Shinsou went to all the time? Take us there.”

Bewildered, you changed directions to head towards Nekozawa’s, with Aizawa placing a hand on your shoulder to slow your pace, and by the time you pushed open Nekozawa’s glass door to the glowing, pink parlour, you were prepared to hold it open for your follower in the face mask. You watched his broad back as he ordered some ungodly, radioactive-blue ice cream with gummy bears before retreating to a table outside despite the dropping temperature, and Aizawa gestured you forward so that he could pay for the three of you.

Holding your ice cream, you hesitated at the door, swaying underneath the seasonal cat decorations dangling from the ceiling.

“Go on,” said Aizawa, retrieving the U.A. card from his wallet, “I’ve got to make a phone call, so don’t wait up. Don’t be too harsh on him; we’re here because he did a good job in the field today. Tailing you was extra practise.”

Nodding, you nudged open the door, bracing yourself at the cold, night air, and let it drift shut behind you as you approached the table, the farthest one from the pink lights.

Hood pulled up, Tenko bent over his blue monstrosity, face mask hanging by a loop over his left ear. Scuffing your boots on the concrete to announce your presence, you sat across from him, setting your cup on the cast iron before swinging your leg over the bench. You managed a cursory glance over what appeared to be a sketchbook before he closed it, and once he’d stowed it away, he swopped his spoon to his dominant hand to keep eating.

“You draw, Tenko?” To make him feel more comfortable, you kept your gaze towards Aizawa inside on the phone. “Do you think you’re any good?”

“Not yet. But I’m gonna be,” he said, clicking his pen and clenching it in his left hand, “I’ve got all these fucking artist’s gloves, so I might as well put ‘em to use.”

“Very nice,” you said, nodding, closing your eyes as you dipped your spoon into your ice cream, “But as a reminder, you don’t have to be good at something to enjoy it. I love doing stuff I’m absolute shit at. It reminds me of medieval bestiaries. They didn’t know shit about animals, but, boy howdy, did they have fun illustrating them. Did you know a weasel used to be called a polecat?”

Tenko huffed, his face mask fluttering. “It really is you.”

“Of course it is,” you said, beaming, and for the first time, you looked at him.

Tension flooded your teacup of a body and overflowed into the saucer and onto the floor. Heightened by the cold, a vein on the back of your hand strained and pulsed visibly, and, jaw locking, you lunged over the tabletop to grab him by the shoulders, shaking him.

“What the hell is wrong with you‽” You climbed over the table, pushed his ice cream out of the way (he shot out a hand to save it from toppling off the table, and he ripped off his face mask to set it aside before it fell to the ground), and planted your foot on his thigh and your elbows on his chest, caging him in as you forced him flat on the bench. “Why the fuck are you using your real name in your fucking Cipherstone username, you fucking moron‽ People could fucking track you!”

The man who had been Shigaraki Tomura eyed your fists in his hoodie and then his cup of ice cream. “You didn’t have a problem with it before.”

“I—” This idiot! “I didn’t know it was you. There are a lot of Tenkos.”

“Then there’s my logic,” he said, hands dangling by his sides, making no attempt to touch you—you didn’t know if you appreciated it or not. “I thought you knew who I was.”

“No, I fucking—I would have given you advice that was more specific to you, over the spiel I was giving interns.” Releasing your grip on his hoodie, you sat back up and scooted over on the tabletop. Though you wanted to keep holding him, to hug him after all he’s been through, he probably wouldn’t want that. “I’m—sorry about tackling you. I, uh—fuck,” you said, and, grimacing, you slid his ice cream back to him and reached across for your own, pretending with everything you’ve got that it was perfectly normal that you were sitting on a table next to Shigaraki Tomura, who’s been teaching you to play a video game, who’s apparently living at the end of the hall, who’s decorated his door with Eri’s silver tinsel for Christmas, who’s banned from drinking caffeine, who could rest his fucking head on your thigh if he wanted. Normal. Yeah.

“Again, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to keep doing that,” he said, fishing out a gummy bear like you hadn’t lunged at him, “Your reaction was reasonable.”

“It—it wasn’t, really,” you said, laughing nervously, “I wasn’t expecting you. I mean, no one knows what—what happened to you. Afterwards. It was really unclear.”

“It was that way on purpose,” said Tenko, “It was thought to be better to emphasise the total destruction of All for One instead of whatever happened to his leftovers.” He shifted a bear to his back molars to bite into the frozen gummy better. “Nezu-sensei decided it was better to keep it muddled for now.”

Muddled was a good way to put it. There’d been so much chaos at the end of the war that so much never was accounted for. You’d think that the location of Shigaraki’s body would be high on the list, but satisfaction was found simply in the splintered, spectacular remains of AFO. Shigaraki’s name wasn’t cleared, per se, but in the aftermath, Midoriya especially stressed that yes, Shigaraki committed atrocities, but he’d been abused, groomed, and literally bodily possessed by AFO to think that way. Didn’t excuse him, but wasn’t entirely his fault.

The locations of the other PLF members—well, the core of the League, really—were public, if not vague. Spinner was in the States at a rehab that specialised in heteromorph trauma; Toga was at a local women’s facility called Sakura Grove, and Dabi was living with his family—he must have been that Touya on the phone, holy shit.

So, here he was, sitting on the bench at the same ice cream parlour you visited with the same friends who fought him, hunched over in oversized, black clothes you suspected were Aizawa’s, broad shoulders and faded scars out of place in the pink lights, white hair pulled back in a blunt ponytail with his bangs flopping over his forehead, seemingly unbothered by the toe of your boot pressing against his denim-covered thigh.

God. He’s scratched at his neck so much that it looks like he’s been beheaded with a blunt axe.

Tenko’s eyes flickered up to you, their colour deepening to crimson in the tinted lights. “So. You’ve got questions.”

“Are you okay?”

Tenko swallowed with effort, scowling. “Don’t start with a hard one.”

“Right,” you said, throat drying, “Who knows you’re staying at U.A.?”

“Faculty and staff. My therapist. The police force. The ramen shop Aizawa-sensei and I go to. The intensive rehab I was at before. The top of the hero commission. Touya, Touya’s father, Spinner, Toga. Eri and Midoriya,” he said, tongue swiping over his lower lip, “You.”

Somehow both fewer and more than you’d figured. “What exactly…is the situation? Aizawa-sensei was vague.”

“Officially, I’m like Eri: a ward of U.A. My old rehab thought I was good enough to live off their campus, so I’m back here, where I can be watched by people capable enough to bring me down if I go crazy again,” he said, brow furrowed as he traced the side of his cup with his spoon, “I should resent that, but it’s not like I have anywhere else to go, especially somewhere as comfortable as this. This is fucking stupid to say aloud, but fucking—fuckin’ All Might is the closest thing I have to family now, along with Midoriya.”

“I’m not following.”

“My grandma was the holder of One for All before All Might had it.” He pointed at you with his spoon. “So you can make the connection from there. But it’s stupid; I’m stupid—” He was shaking his head and staring into his lap. “—because it’s like I have a brother in Midoriya and a goddamn father in All Might—and then Aizawa-sensei’s acting like a dad, too, to me and Eri, and Nezu-sensei? Nezu-sensei is so fucking cool,” said Tenko, dragging his hand down his face, “He’s got a driver’s license! I don’t even have one of those. And he can type fucking 210 words per minute with those little rat paws, and I’m still getting used to using all five fingers, fuck.”

Cute. You scraped the bottom of your cup. “Hey, I think you type well.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why it takes me so long to reply in the in-game chat function. Why I prefer communicating over voice call. Learning new habits, and shit.” Tenko stabbed his ice cream with his spoon. “Nezu-sensei has arranged for me to train as an aftermath-clean-up hero. I had been—” His fingers on one hand circled the thumb of the other. “—in discussion with him in rehab about what I could do, and we decided I could consistently help when there’s collapsed buildings after attacks; I could dust the wreckage so that we could find hostages or make it easier to clean up and rebuild, and Aizawa-sensei and All Might-sensei have been working with me to control what parts of what I touch gets dusted so that I could create pitfall traps for holding criminals. It’s…going. It’s going,” he said, curling his lips in his mouth to moisten them, and with narrowed, determined eyes, he took another bite of ice cream, the blue staining the inside of his lips.

“Tenko, that’s a really cool application of your quirk. I hope you can find more,” you said, tilting your head and smiling down at him, “but—I have to ask—aren’t you tired?”

Tenko rolled his eyes. “Of course. You’re part of the group ensuring I don’t have caffeine.”

“No, I mean,” you said, shaking your head, “I mean, you don’t have to be perceived as useful. You’re—you’re just fine if you wanted to rest. You’re worthwhile just as you, not as—as a job, as a, I don’t know, a redeemed hero or anything. You can just be Tenko.”

“I know. My therapist keeps reminding me. But one of the most vivid memories I have from when I was living in that house,” said Tenko, sneering, “is that I desperately wanted to be a hero and that I would pretend to be one a lot. While I’m aware that I can never atone for what I’ve done, if I did nothing but rest, I’d be alone with my thoughts. And with what I’m learning to do, as a hero, someday, someone might…need me. Need my help. I imagine that’s a good feeling.”

You sat back, leaning on your hands, the cast-iron pattern cutting into your palms, to survey him. “You’re very much re-writing my first impressions of you as my gaming buddy and as the post-war Shigaraki. You’re surprisingly well-adjusted.”

He snorted. “I shouldn’t think it’s surprising. I’ve had almost a year and a half in intensive rehab, and I’m still in therapy every day.” He started listing on his fingers, starting with his thumb. “I’m on antidepressants; I know where my next meal’s coming from and when I’ll get it; I consistently have a safe roof over my head, and I know my friends are getting that, too. I have mentors who care for me as a human person instead of as a tool. I get to stay in contact with my friends and get to make new ones,” he said, nodding curtly at you before quickly looking away, “I’m fucking away from that sadistic fuckface. He’s goddamn dead and burned away to nothing. That’s the main thing. Everything else is a bonus.”

Tenko sighed, bangs fluttering with the movement, his shoulders straining as he leaned onto both his elbows on the table. He sighed again and scooped the last gummy bear out of his cup, and you let the silence carry on while you finished eating.

“Long phone call,” Tenko said eventually.

An increasingly grumpy Aizawa was leaning against the glittery wall inside, phone between his ear and shoulder, and furiously scraping the inside of his ice cream cup.

“Yeah,” you said, “but it’s been good talking to you, Tenko. I really appreciate you telling me all of this.”

“I would’ve talked about it sooner, but I figured you knew who I was and didn’t want to address it,” said Tenko, tapping his fingers one by one on the table.

Pulling the collar of your coat closer to your neck, you frowned, hesitating on how to phrase it. You watched your breath cloud in the night air before settling on, “There’s an off-switch?”

Brow pinching very slightly, Tenko followed your gaze to his hand, with all five fingers coming to rest on the cast iron, and he tapped all five of them on it for emphasis. “Yeah. There always has been. All for One kept it from me. Power of belief kept me jittery and alert my whole life.”

“So long as you thought you’d destroy anything you touched, you would?”

He nodded. “That bitch.”

“Agreed. We should kill him.”

And Tenko laughed. Just for a moment, barely making any noise, but he smiled with his teeth, grin stretching across his face as he looked away and eventually closing his lips, the smile lingering for a few more precious seconds.

***

You closed your laptop to answer the phone at work, clearing your throat to ready your receptionist voice before you picked up. “U.A. University Administration; how may I help you?”

“I need you to fucking murder me,” Tenko spat through the phone, angry and panicked, “I need you to rip out my bones and suck out my guts through a straw. He fucking let me hold onto them, and I’ve fucking gone and lost such a fucking iconic piece of—”

“Tenko, please, take a breath,” you said, relaxing your customer service mode but clutching the phone to your ear, and after catching the eye of the woman with jars of strawberry preserves waiting to see Nezu, you slumped over in your seat so that she couldn’t see you over the desk’s overhang. “Tell me what’s wrong. We can fix it. Are you alone? Is everyone else busy? Do you need to come sit with me?”

“I—fuck,” he said, and you heard some deliberately slow breathing, but his voice still had an irate, twitchy edge afterwards. “During our practise patrol last night, Aizawa-sensei was talking about support equipment for me. I’d never given it much thought, because it’s always been just me and my hands. He leant me his Eraser Goggles for me to think about for my—and I don’t know where they fucking are,” he said, inhaling sharply on the last word, “I’d left them on my desk, but I’d taken them up to the roof to sketch them, and then I’d brought them back to my dorm—”

“And Aizawa-sensei must have swung by to pick them up since then,” you said, pushing yourself back to slide in your swivel chair to the back of the reception desk, “because he was here at the beginning of my shift to print something off, and the goggles are on top of the printer. Relax, Tenko.”

“Hooooooly fuck, you’re kidding,” said Tenko, audibly deflating, and you smiled to yourself as you slid their band around your wrist.

You kicked yourself back up to the front. “You’re okay. You’re not gonna get in trouble. I’ll bring them by at the end of my shift.” You sat up straight, and the strawberry preserves woman was shooting a concerned look in your direction. “I’m at work, though, so I think we’d better end the call soon. Anything else you need?”

Tenko hummed into the phone. “Not really. You can’t be that busy.”

You smiled again, feeling—feeling domestic, as if he were your boyfriend calling you during work hours. How strange, Shigaraki Tomura. How interesting. “Would you believe I was grinding in Cipherstone when you called?”

“And you don’t call yourself a gamer,” he said, clearing his throat multiple times, “What skills?”

“Woodcutting and firemaking,” you said, opening your laptop again, “Are you feeling under the weather? Your voice had a bit of a rasp there.” Sounded like his old voice for a moment.

“Further cementing that Aizawa-sensei’s right to be worried about you. He says your brain’s going haywire analysing any detail work you can get, because you’re not out in the field anymore,” said Tenko, clearing his throat again (?), “Am I your new project?”

“Tell me what’s wrong, lest I pick up some damn throat lozenges for you before I come home,” you said, and a voice in the back of your head screamed that that threat was extremely cosy and intimate, especially since you’re claiming both of you have a home in the same place—which, sure, you both lived on the same hallway, but so did Aizawa and Eri, and please shut up; Shimura Tenko needs a friend, not a lover right now. Besides, that stupid hallway wasn’t really home for either of you but was more like a temporary holding cell.

“Fine. I’ve been throwing up all morning.”

“Thank you,” you said, electing not to make a pregnancy joke, “Do you need to see Recovery Girl?”

“No, I’m used to it, and I’ve already talked to her about it. I threw up a lot out of anxiety and stress when I was growing up with All for One, and now I’m throwing up because my body can’t handle the amount of food it’s getting regularly, which is fucking ridiculous, since it’s still less than a normal person’s version of three meals a day.”

What. The fuck. How can he casually drop details of deep trauma like it’s nothing? How could AFO let a child keep vomiting out of stress for years and years and never interfere? Well. Yeah, he could. You supposed that Shigaraki’s voice, as you first heard it as the USJ incident, was the ultimate result of that heavy strain on his throat for years. Explains some things about his teeth back then, too.

God. If AFO weren’t dead, you’d strangle him. Keeping a child physically weak because he’d be easier to mould. It was known that AFO had been psychologically manipulating Shigaraki, but now that you thought about it, manipulating his physical growth would have served AFO, too, since he was planning to move into Shigaraki’s body.

And what did this guy do now that he’s got bodily autonomy? Oh. Just. Play some video games. Talk with his friends. Try out some new hobbies. Make crafts with Eri.

It’s a shame AFO didn’t have a grave, because you’d be skiving off work to drown it in acid.

“My stomach is killing me,” said Tenko, “I’ve got to hang up to drink something and go to sleep. Knock on my door when you get home. I want to start a new quest as soon as you finish work.”

Home. He’d said it, too. He probably didn’t mean it in the same, domestic way that you’d been entertaining, but it made your heart swell. “Okay, Tenko. See you then.”

***

His therapist had assigned him homework: go on a planned, public outing with a peer, and stay out for at least an hour.

It wasn’t exactly a picnic you were packing, you kept telling yourself, scooting behind Tenko to get to the spice cabinet in the dorm kitchen, because that’d be too close to a date rather than homework. But the two of you packed a meal to take, with Eri sitting on the kitchen counter while she nibbled at rabbit-cut apple slices, and she held the thermos of decaf tea in her lap until it was time to stow it away.

After a short train ride and a quiet walk through midtown, Tenko stopped you in front of the back gate to what appeared to be a restored, historical estate, judging by the golden shachihoko shibi on each corner of polished hip-and-gable rooftops of the extensively aristocratic—mansion? palace?—that you could make out in across the distance of its sprawling grounds, the immediacy of which was the excessively well-kept, traditional garden that you and Tenko were breaking into.

“Is this legal?” you asked as Tenko reached through the grate to unlatch the doorway.

“I have an in with the gardener,” he said, sweeping the gate open for you and gesturing brusquely for you to enter.

“No, that wasn’t a joke,” you said, taking the few steps inside, finding yourself planted onto a polished, level stepping stone, and staring down a squeaky clean tsukubai despite the thin layer of frost over the water’s surface as the whole bowl began to freeze, “You can’t be doing anything even vaguely illegal, Tenko.”

When you said his name, he closed his eyes, pausing for just a hair in his relatching the gate, before facing you and shifting the strap of his bag farther up his shoulder. “Prude. Yes, we have permission from the owner.”

He kept looking back over his shoulder at you as he led you through the gardens, hopping across stepping stones to pass over a carefully shaped brook that led to a tiny waterfall near stone lanterns, weaving through trellises with the wintry shells of wisteria vines and shaped evergreens. He tutted and rolled his eyes when you stopped at the waterlily-coated koi pond, its fish swimming and flicking their tails in the artificially heated water (for some, odd reason, what appeared to be a compact duck coop had been constructed near the pond’s edge, its wood new and un-bleached by the sun like the rest of garden décor). You’d been about to ask about it when Tenko had jumped out of his skin at the sound of a deer scare, bamboo tapping stone.

“Stop laughing,” Tenko said, cheeks burning (and you tried not to take too much pleasure in that, but you couldn’t help it).

“Oh, a sensitive boy, a delicate boy,” you said, grinning as you hopped onto the same stone as him, cool, clouding breaths mixing together in the proximity, and you yourself could feel heat rise to your face. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Good traits to have, actually. Means you’re feeling secure and comfortable in your surroundings, if you’re off-set that easily.” Feeling bold—it was the cold; it was how the proximity already flustered him; it was how his hands were full because of the bag; it was—whatever—you reached for his silly All Might scarf and re-tied the front, fluffing it up to cover more of his neck.

You made the mistake of making eye contact: full of caution, his eyes kept darting from your hands to your face, searching for something, his lips parted, otherwise completely fucking frozen.

Were you making him uncomfortable? You stilled, your fingers still in the fringe of his scarf, tension tightening in your chest and jaw (clenching).

Tenko noticed. And—and to this day, you can’t believe he fucking did this—he ran his tongue over his lower lip and lifted his chin, exposing more of his neck to you. He then was suddenly very interested in the koi pond, the ruddiness spreading from his cheeks to his ears.

Throat dry, you gave his scarf a final tug and patted it (?) to show (??) a job well done (???). “Yeah,” you said, smoothly, like a smooth person, like someone who adjusts scarves of hot, in-process-of-reformation villains on the regular, “Where are we going?”

Tenko spun on his heel and strode away, muttering what sounded like, “Right into my grave.”

You pretended not to hear it and let him lead you to the only building unattached to the main house: a small, traditional teahouse that had a recent addition to it in the back. The creak of the bamboo engawa when you climbed onto it was muffled underneath the bright pealing of windchimes strung across the covered porch. Tenko was already kneeling at the tearoom’s sunken fireplace inside, its handle carved into a fish, fiery as its kindling, and was unpacking the travel teacups from the bag as you closed the door behind you, shutting out the cold, enveloped by the comfortable heat trapped inside by the cushioned walls.

Tenko must have arranged for this space to have been prepared for you. A kotatsu with floor cushions was tucked near the fireplace, pre-heated, with two further space heaters in the unoccupied corners, cords trailing into what must be a hallway linking the traditional and modern rooms, the latter of which was shut off from view. Beside a red-tinted wooden dresser stood an oddly empty tokonoma, and instead of a scroll or painting, amidst bits of pieces of scotch tape hastily half-torn off the back was a shittily cut-out, paper heart.

Shaking your head, you took a step towards Tenko, and the floor chirped at you, freezing you in place.

“Yeah, I don’t know why they do that,” said Tenko, pushing on his knees to stand, “They just do.”

“These must be nightingale floors,” you said, crossing to the kotatsu, a bird under each step, “The chirping’s caused by the way the nails rub against the v-shaped clamps holding the floor together. Have you been to Nijō Castle in Kyoto? These are in the hallway—supposedly used as a security measure, but who knows.”

“You need a hobby.” Tenko ripped the paper heart from the back of the tokonoma, crumpling it in his fist. A shred of it remained under the scrap of tape on the wall, which he bent towards to scrape off with a blunt fingernail.

“I have several,” you said, easing down onto a cushion and unfolding your legs underneath the kotatsu blanket, the luxurious heat swaddling your legs and hips. You fought the urge to curl up underneath it entirely.

“How many of them involve getting your ass thrashed by me in Cipherstone?” Tenko retrieved the bag from the sunken fireplace before returning to the kotatsu, and he sat on your left, resting the bag between the two of you.

You took the thermos of decaf tea when he handed it to you. “Tenko, you’ve been playing that game for years, and I just began. Of course my ass is gonna be thrashed by—you know how the game works. You have all of this previous information about the game that I don’t have.”

Tenko scoffed and slid your teacup across the kotatsu’s surface. “As if I could conceal any information from you. You’re too…eh.” He waved it off, shaking his head.

“I’m too what?” You unscrewed the thermos lid, and steam surged upwards, rising to caress the planes of your face.

“It’s been unfair of Aizawa-sensei to make me tail you,” said Tenko, leaning your way, all five fingers curled around his own teacup as he stretched across the tabletop. “I’d have a chance of success if it were anyone else.”

“I’ll give you that,” you said, pouring steaming, amber tea with slices of yuzu into Tenko’s cup, “You’re getting quite good at it, not that you were bad in the first place. But yeah, it’s a bit mean of him to test your tracking skills on me.” He’d never said to stop, so you poured until liquid almost overflowed at the rim.

He gasped at the heat but nudged his teacup back to his place at the table, unable to hold it in his palm anymore. “I think I would’ve preferred working with Hound Dog-sensei for that. He’s less detail-oriented. I could win, if it weren’t you.” Jutting out his lower lip, Tenko glared down at his tea for a moment before slumping in his seat to slurp at the tea without picking it up.

“Don’t feel bad about it. It was literally and actually my focus for hero work, profiling and detail shit and being aware of my surroundings. Information stuff. Infiltration stuff.” Setting the thermos on the far corner, you cupped your hands loosely around your teacup, appreciating the warmth and getting cosier by the minute.

Tenko was rooting through the bag for the other thermoses, full of sukiyaki for each of you. “It’s clear you’ve worked hard to hone your skills. Were you this talented as a student?”

You accepted the new thermos, fingers clenching tightly around it. “Uh. I think I may have been better back then. More focused. More passionate, anyway. I had to think about it really hard back then, make conscious decisions to notice things, and now I think I do it instinctively. I think I’m slipping because of that.”

“Hm,” said Tenko, tongue rubbing over his teeth behind closed lips, and he opened his mouth to say something but shut it, instead twisting off the cap to his soup thermos. He took the first sip of sukiyaki broth and—and was absolutely beautiful (you couldn’t make sense of it beyond that; he was a mess of details that you couldn’t fit together into a larger picture that made any sense: white eyelashes light against his cheeks as they fluttered shut, face muscles relaxed, scars overlapping with laugh lines, cracked lips becoming moistened by the soup, both hands cupped around his thermos like a child, no strain to his posture, baggy hoodie swallowing him up, kotatsu blanket yanked up to his hips to cover his crossed legs, scar on the corner of his mouth delicately shifting with his baffled smirk when he caught you staring, a strange pink rising to the tips of his ears). “What?”

Uh. Hm. You pinched the bridge of your nose and then moved to rub your eyelids. “What were you going to say about me?” you asked, and you withdrew your hand from your face to raise the soup thermos to your lips, taking a mouthful of noodles and the sweet, salty broth.

Tenko shook his head. “I’m trying to avoid thoughts that fall back into my old habits.”

“Try me,” you said, holding his gaze when he met it, “I won’t tell.”

Weary, he broke eye contact, and he fixated on fishing out a certain slice of green onion. “We needed someone like you back then.”

Back then? When he—oh.

Back in the League.

Though you attempted to hide your grin by taking a sip of sukiyaki, you caught his eyes flicker to it. “You would’ve taken me? You would’ve let me in?”

“Would you have joined?” he shot back, a bit too quickly.

“No,” you said, rolling your shoulders and settling down farther underneath the kotatsu, “Never. But since you shared something you shouldn’t’ve, I’ll do the same.” You set your thermos down to rub your eyes again—God, you couldn’t look at him for too long, lest your intrusive thoughts hand you your ass. “I thought about it. About joining you.”

You dragged your hand down your face, peeking between your fingers at a muted clink. Tenko was staring at you, something fucking unreadable in his scrounched eyes, and both hands lay five-fingered and flat on the kotatsu, steam from his open thermos fluffing up hair on one side of his head. “You’re not serious. You wouldn’t have.”

“Not in the way you think,” you said, tilting your head back, “but I often thought, in the aftermath of the Paranormal Liberation Raid, what I could’ve done, if I’d known what I know now. And as the rest of the war was unfolding, I only wanted it more.”

Tenko blinked, slowly. “Tell me what you would’ve done.”

“Oh, you would’ve hated me, down to the dregs of my very soul,” you said, shifting to sit on your knees, “I would’ve started after your fight with Re-Destro, after the PLF was established. When you were letting allllllllll those heroes in, the sidekicks, the nobodies, anyone who seemed like they were with the cause. I would’ve infiltrated. Slipped in without notice. Hawks did, with the Commission, but I would’ve been going in as a free agent.”

“No one notices a U.A. student slide in between the masses. Re-Destro’s lackeys wouldn’t notice you at the door like I would. You get in,” Tenko said, taking his thermos in hand again but still engrossed in you, “What then?”

“There was a short period of time between the PLF establishment and your procedure, right? Around a month? That’s when I go. I worm my way into the good graces of some of the nine lieutenants—I’ve decided my pipeline would’ve been Geten to Toga to you. You’d just come out of an enormous battle, with Re-Destro and that city and Gigantomachia for a whole month. I heard you were bandaged up, on crutches, that you’d lost fingers that you regrew in that regeneration tank,” you said, eyes on his hands, one in a fist in his lap and the other around his thermos, five fingers pressing onto the grip but the pinkie finger hitched farther up than the rest, “That you’d given a speech and made your appearances regardless. That you’d pushed yourself to your limit and then broke yourself a little more. And you would’ve loathed me, because I would’ve come in, earned my way to your side, and I would’ve put my hand on your shoulder, slid it up your neck to cup your cheek to ask Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to rest?” You smiled and huffed, shoving it down, and though his hard stare should’ve pinned you to your seat, you pushed on the corner of the kotatsu to edge yourself over to his side, a knee on his cushion. “I like to think that you’ve sighed, sulked a bit, reluctant to admit anything was wrong at all, because back then, you had no use for moonlight. But I would’ve made you look at me, taken you to a bed, made you lie down until your eyes fluttered shut and the tension swept through your body and left. And you would rest,” you said, finding yourself leaning over him very slightly, knees touching his, just enough so that he leant backwards just a fraction, “I would’ve made that month so soft for you. I would’ve taken care of you, when nobody was fucking paying attention to you in the way that they should’ve. I fucking—I wanted it.” You gripped the front of his hoodie, fist grasping more fabric than necessary to shake him. “I wanted it. I wanted to care for you. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know. And you were fucking alone, in an unfamiliar place, and it kills me to think about that.”

You ducked your head to wipe your watery eyes on your sleeve, taking a breath—and realising what you were doing. You loosened your grip, but before you could pull away, Tenko was cat-like quick to grab your sleeve—why won’t he touch you?

“I wouldn’t have accepted your help,” he said, quiet, controlled, holding you down with his eyes, hand shifting to curve under your sleeved wrist, signalling that you could escape at any time, “That was after the worst month of my life, fighting Machia, and I wouldn’t have accepted it. I had too much to do. I would’ve shaken you off.”

“No, you wouldn’t’ve.”

“I would’ve,” he said, a bare finger, featherlight, skimming over the tender, bare skin of the underside of your wrist (oh, wow), “I wouldn’t trust that easily in that short of a time. You’d have met me, and that’d be it. If you’d persisted, I would’ve ripped you to shreds and tossed you aside.”

“Tenko,” you said, both relief and tightness blooming from your wrist, “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

The hallway shoji slammed open, somehow rattling as it slid in its tracks and shook the walls, and you and Tenko scrambled apart, with you jolting backwards on your hands, grappling for your seat cushion, and Tenko banging his thermos on the kotatsu, hastily wrestling with keeping it upright as he flung his body to the side.

“Hey, fuck you, Touya,” Tenko spluttered out, elbowing himself upright as—as fucking Dabi strode inside, hands in the deep pockets of his black sweatpants. “You said you’d stay in the main house.”

“Don’t mind me,” said Touya, cool as you please, raising both of his hands in defence, “I had to ensure you’re not fucking in my bed.”

“What is—” Tenko clambered to his feet to cross to him, chirping with each stomp, and whisper-shouting once he’d corralled Touya into a far corner. “I said we’d hang out later today, Touya. You swore you’d stay inside and watch Naruto this afternoon.”

The polite thing to do would be to appear fascinated by the tea. You returned to your cushion and poured yourself another cup.

“Yeah, but I’ve been told I’ve got shit to do later. I’ve got to go to this fuckin’—fuckin’ family stuff. I don’t wanna get into it,” said Touya, at full volume, “and I wanted to check that your girl was real. Y’know, she looks nothing like someone who’d have GinzengTea as her username. Have you given it to her already?”

“Shut the fuck up. I was just about to do that, if you hadn’t interrupted, cockhead.”

“Cool,” he said, a bird-note as he shifted his weight, “I wanna see what she thinks.”

“Hell, no—”

“I helped pick ‘em out. Let me watch and have an ohagi, and I’ll leave,” said Touya, chirping towards you before he finished the sentence, and Tenko followed him, muttering under his breath.

Touya sat on the bare tatami next to you, joints cracking as he yanked the kotatsu blanket up his legs, shooting you a small salute and a concerningly charming smile. “Hey,” he said, tilting his head, eyes half-lidded, smile stretching to show more of his even, white teeth, “I’ve seen you before, yeah? When was the last time you laid eyes on me?”

Tenko pelted him in the chest with a plastic-wrapped ohagi, cutting off the ooze of charisma. “Show-off,” he said, nudging another sweetened rice ball your way.

You nodded but didn’t move to unwrap it, since you were still working on your sukiyaki. “I’m surprised you remember, Touya,” you said, the name feeling strange on your tongue, “It must’ve been years since I elbowed you in the tit.”

Eyes lighting the fuck up, you snapped towards Tenko when he laughed into his plastic wrap: still not loud, still not making any vocalisation with it, but releasing a heavy, sharp burst of air with a wide, open grin. He hunched over to hide more of it, using both hands to unwrap his ohagi—and in the moment he realised he’d been unwrapping it with only his pointer fingers and thumbs, he dropped the rest of his fingers onto the rice ball, still smirking to himself.

Biting your lip in your own smile, you turned back to Touya (you caught his moment of mild alarm at how thrilled you were when Tenko laughed—or maybe it was alarm at Tenko laughing at all—but Touya relaxed his eyebrows and shut his mouth the second you faced him again). “God, yeah, it must have been before that last battle that we’d met in a fight, and I’d gotten close enough to hit you, and…” You shook your head. “Actually, I don’t wanna talk about that stuff. It’s not who we are now.”

“That’s fine.” Touya nodded towards Tenko and took a bite of his ohagi. “Shimura, don’t you have something to give her?”

Shimura. That was his last name, you supposed, but wasn’t it odd that Tenko called Touya by his given name and that Touya called Tenko by his family name? Tenko didn’t make you call him Shimura. Well, you supposed that there’s only one Shimura now, and because of the number of Todorokis, it paid to be specific—

“Here.” Tenko set a flat box in front of you, flipping the buckle of his bag back over. “I was going to give it to you with more formality, but since this bastard showed up, I’m doing it like this.”

Biting the inside of your cheek, brow furrowed, you unpacked a pair of pale blue headphones, soft to the touch with a mesh headband so that your head wouldn’t ache.

“Noise-cancelling,” Tenko said, gabbling, frowning very slightly, “Rechargeable. There’s a detachable microphone so it can function as a headset. I wanted to do something good for you.” His eyes darted towards Touya, and they dropped to his ohagi’s bulging filling, seeping out onto the plastic wrap. “You need them, anyway. I’ve been sick of hearing you through those shitty earbuds; their sound is terrible, and when you said you’d lost your only pair—which I don’t fucking understand how you can lose those things, because they just fucking show up in my shit all the time, like a goddamn plague—I thought you needed something quality—just to make it easier on my end, obviously, so that I don’t have to tell you to yell into that shitty, built-in micropho—”

“Tenko,” you said, reaching over to place your tea-hot hand over the back of his, fingers curving with his along ohagi’s edge, “Thank you so much. I adore them. I’m really grateful that you would think of me.”

Tenko froze, the same as he had when you’d adjusted his scarf. Unable to look you in the eye, like a prey animal, stiff, shoulders tense, colour rushing up his neck to his face and ears again—but this time, he lifted his hand just a hair from his ohagi to press back into your palm, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

“Hoo, boy,” said Touya, startling the both of you when he slammed his hands on the kotatsu to push himself up, “I’ve had enough. I’ve had my little snack. I’m leaving.” Once on his feet, he stretched, pressing his hands to his lower back and arching it, grunting.

“Good fucking riddance, cocksucker,” said Tenko, rising and grabbing Touya by the elbow to haul him to the door.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Touya, dragging his feet, chirping slurred and confused by his movement, and when Tenko had him at the wall, trying to shove him out, Touya, smirking under your watch, whispered something to Tenko while forcing something into his palm. Touya ducked out as Tenko looked at what he’d accepted and, letting out a yelp, dusted whatever it was before he hurried back to the kotatsu.

(When you left the teahouse half an hour later, you discovered that he’d decayed only the wrapper and not the condom itself.)

***

“One moment, please. Nezu-sensei is in a meeting right now, but he’ll be out momentarily. Please take a number—yes, the ticket puncher when you first came in,” you said to yet another impatient and pissed client in the admin waiting room, packed to the gills with parents, press, vendors, potential sponsors, and, for some reason, Mt. Lady’s entire representative team. “By the door. If you’ll take a seat, we’ll be with you shortly.”

God, you could punt Nezu for this. Not that there was anything wrong with establishing a new, annual event for U.A.—a cherry blossom garden-set, competitive scavenger hunt coming up in the spring—but because of his casual comment that it would rise to the same importance as the Sports Festival, you were swamped with those eager to invest early. Unable to take a break, you had to work with your head bowed, desperately hoping none of these people recognised you and your failure, when all you wanted was to reply to Tenko’s messages on Cipherstone that morning.

Tenkopeito: You’ll like the next quest. You can pet a dog in it

Tenkopeito: Come over to my room this evening so that we can talk in person

Was he intending to speak with innuendo or with such sincerity that it cut right through you? Moreover, was he aware he was even doing it? Based on what you’ve observed, Tenko had no idea what he was doing to you, nor did he know how hard you were trying not to act on your attraction, though you weren’t even doing a great job of suppressing it.

It’s strange: Tenko evoked some strange, unnameable emotion in you like nothing else. You wanted to coddle him; you wanted to play stupid video games with him; you wanted to sweep his hair out of his eyes, and though you kept telling yourself that you didn’t, you wanted him to tell you how to touch yourself, how to touch him. You brushed it off. Another time. Perhaps never.

“Oh, hi!” Former pro-hero Ragdoll squealed your family name, making you jump in your seat. “It is you. I couldn’t tell from farther back in the line.” Fuck, Ragdoll would recognise you, since she and the rest of the Wild, Wild Pussycats trained Class A, and she specifically spent time with you on your tracking skills because of her Search quirk.

Don’t cause a scene. “Hello, Shiretoko,” you said, doing your best not to let your face be seen from over the reception desk’s overhang, “It’s good to see you. How can I help?”

When she beamed, she was as bright as ever. “Oh! The Pussycats want to offer our services for the scavenger hunt! We wanna get back into charity and civilian events now that we’re back from our mission for—but wait, you know all about that!” You didn’t. But her cheerful voice carried, and people were already turning towards Ragdoll, part of a hero team ranked in the top thirty. “I wanna hear more about what you’ve been up to! Since you left the hero business, no one’s known where you’ve been! Gosh, have you been behind this dreary old desk the whole time?” Ragdoll leant over the overhang, flicking at a loose strand of your hair. “I thought you were sent out on missions out of the country! Like, really important, top-secret stuff. It’s weird seeing you in an office, especially since I consider you a mini me. Why are you back at your alma mater? Did your agency not want you anymore?”

She wasn’t meaning to be cruel. Her loud, blunt sincerity, though, drew the attention of onlookers, and their flashes of recognition, subsequent judgment, and turning away made your chest tight. “I needed a break. That’s all.”

A thin, blonde woman in a burgundy overcoat leaning against the wall immediately next to the reception had been evaluating you, scanning you from top to bottom during the exchange. She didn’t bother hiding her curiosity, and when you shakily handled the rest of the conversation with Ragdoll, she turned to the short, softly featured man beside her. “You know her?” She hadn’t even tried to quiet her voice; it jolted you from Ragdoll, but you steeled yourself and continued printing off a schedule for her—and from the depths of your brain came the woman’s identity: Uwabami, the snake hero, one who usually flaunted her celebrity status but currently dressed down, without her hair snakes (a rattlesnake, a yellow king cobra, and a Japanese rat snake, which—shut up! You don’t need this information right now! Can you be fucking sane, please?).

Her sidekick—no, an intern, a student at U.A., some fuckin’ twink in the year below you, name escaping you at the moment—had some iota of tact when he looked you over, slanting his body away, as if he weren’t staring. “Yes,” he said, trying not to let you hear, “She’s my former senpai and nothing more to me. We didn’t run in the same circles. She’s the one who made that rescue a few months back, the one that got a lot of online backlash.”

“No, seriously,” Ragdoll was saying, “Why are you back at U.A.? Don’t you have somewhere else to go?”

“My—” People behind Ragdoll in line were listening. Trying not to show it. Your throat ran dry, and you couldn’t think of a lie or a pleasant half-truth. “My flat was compromised. My address was leaked, and eventually, people were—look, Shiretoko,” you said, forcing the words out of your mouth, “I really don’t want to talk about this. Here’s the printed schedule. I’ll talk to you later.”

You slid the paper across the counter, and she took it, waving goodbye and still beaming.

“Is this what happens when a hero career doesn’t work out? They just shove you back where someone will take you? At any old office desk?” that fucking twink was asking Uwabami, “I can’t—it honestly scares me to think I could lose myself and be misplaced like that. It’s wasting talent, don’t you think?”

“How can I help you?” you asked the next person in line through gritted teeth.

When Uwabami lowered her sunglasses to glance over them, you inhaled sharply and swung your swivel chair so that you wouldn’t see her. “I don’t know about that. Maybe this dreadful administration office is where she’s meant to be.”

Biting his lip, he shifted his jaw and crossed his arms, slumping against the wall. “You’ll always have a place for me, right, Uwabami? I don’t want this to happen to me.”

“Yes, I can print you out a copy of the same schedule. If you’ll allow me a moment to print.”

“Of course, Kakeru,” Uwabami said, ignorant of how you were gripping a pencil so tightly that it could snap any second, “You’ll never be left behind.” But then she fucking stared you down, deliberately holding eye contact while you were at the printer, and she said, “You’ll never need a place to hide. I’ll make sure you don’t fail.”

“Hey, how about you shut up?” you hissed, ripping the printer-warm schedule from the tray and storming back to your current client to shove it into their hands. “Aren’t Japanese rat snakes supposed to be in hibernation this time of year, anyway?”

***

Someone in Mt. Lady’s group recorded it. Someone posted it.

wizardjenkins11: jesus christ who knew u.a. had its own island of misfit toys

emotionalsupportdynamightsweat: nice to see that she kept her snark, but what is she doing back at school?? don’t heroes have some sort of paperwork component to their work. why isn’t she still at an agency

blood-is-thiccer: lol ua’s the only one who’d take the bitch. she’s being rude as hell to an actual pro hero. lameass quirk anyway and ass flat as hell lmao she fucken deserved that guy lighting her mailbox on fire

LynchianTiddies: You’re encouraging domestic terrorism???

blood-is-thiccer: that’s not domestic terrorism

LynchianTiddies: Then what, pray fucking tell, is it??

blood-is-thiccer: wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalism

XylemPhloemBuckaroo: no but I get what that guy was saying about wasting talent tho. Out of everyone in that class a, she’s the only one not topping the fucking hero charts rn. She’s the only one who’s left hero work. What makes her weaker than the rest of her classmates? What happened to her to make her like this?

koiboi69: wouldn’t you quit if people were camping outside your house/work/grocerystore? And also FUCK, man, there’s no fucking need to say she’s fucking weak. that’s kicking her while she’s down

XylemPhloemBuckaroo: I’m not kicking her while she’s down. I’m stating facts and asking reasonable questions.

koiboi69: bro wouldn’t YOU feel down if you’d didn’t have a home to go back to??? going back to u.a. is like admitting defeat, like you couldn’t handle it on your own and need protection

mawatadaddysgorl: i love seeing updates on her bc it makes me feel so good about what i’m doing with my life

***

Uraraka and Shinsou texted you but couldn’t call, let alone come from across town. Aizawa was AWOL, and Dango was hiding under your bed, so you, blotchy-faced and damp, were crumpled on the floor outside of room 310, eating vending machine bullshit and waiting for Tenko to return home.

Exactly all the insecurities you’d been stuffing down for months and months, brought out to air in front of everyone. Instead of doomscrolling, you locked your phone and slid it across the hallway carpet, burying your face in your hands and stomach lurching to the thought that you might soon be plastered everywhere in sight, again. Another round of intensive laying low loomed on the horizon, especially now that your location was made public. Your little secretary job was good enough, and relocating elsewhere on campus would lead to more job training, which would be a bitch.

Where was Tenko? You needed him here to say something irreverent and vindictive. Something unhinged. Or you needed him to hold you, pull you into his lap, and bitch about the whole thing while watching a movie. Tenko had messaged you to come by after work, so why wasn’t he…?

The staircase door hissed open, Tenko pushing it with his back, reusable grocery bags on his arms, and—and wearing a cape? Who the fuck wears a cape casu—oh shit he’s in his hero costume.

You’d heard that he had one, designed by the same company that’d made Midoriya’s and Shouto’s, and the similarities were clear: a boxy sort of design due to thick fabric that still somehow hugged his chest, a minimalist utility belt, and sturdy, knee-capping boots, positively flaming scarlet in contrast to the dark greys of the rest of his jumpsuit. The most obvious connection with another hero, though, made your chest throb: his cloak fastened with the same clasp his grandmother’s had. His dust-blocking respirator lay around his neck for the moment, but what was most embarrassing for you was how your brain fucking wheezed like a boiling kettle at his bare arms, biceps bulging, every fucking inch of skin down to his fingertips completely on display like a goddamn slut.

Whore behaviour. Whore behaviour! You had to duck your head when he squatted next to you, because oh, now you could see the stretch marks on his upper arms, because he’d gotten large way too quickly to be healthy, and smell his fading Old Spice and sweat from being out on what must have been an emergency call, and he was setting his grocery bags aside, reaching out to graze your shoulder, and wow, he’d been complaining about how he didn’t have abs yet despite working out five days a week now that his stamina had increased, but that fabric clung to his lower abdomen, looking very, very flat.

Initially pinching the fabric of your sweater, he shifted his jaw and laid his hand on your shoulder. “Who am I dusting?”

“God, Tenko,” you said, trying to look anywhere but his arms, or his abdomen, or his fucking lips, but he was leaning so much over you that he occupied most of your line of vision, and the only way to avoid seeing anything besides wisps of white hair was to gaze at the popcorned ceiling. “You’re not supposed to do that anymore.”

“Oh, yeah? Who am I dusting?” He squeezed your shoulder, stretching his thumb out to rub at your collarbone.

“Unless you can dust everyone in the country, I don’t think decay will help.”

Tenko clicked his tongue. “I have been explicitly told not to do that,” he said, shifting to sit on his knees, “I have—” He dug into a grocery bag for a moment. “—this for you. You like this shit, right?” Tenko pressed a bottle of pink lemonade into your hands.

“Fucking. Fuck. I do,” you said, passing the condensation-coated bottle from one hand to another, chest tightening, blinking to keep the water levels low, “Thank you. You didn’t have to get me this.”

“I know that,” he said with a dismissive wave, and he paused, fists in his lap. “Would it help if I gave you a hug?”

(What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the—)

“Yeah,” you said calmly, like a calm person, and when Tenko opened his (muscular) arms, you crawled into them, wrapping your own around his back to rest between his shoulder blades. You rested your chin in a fold of his cape, cheek pressing against the side of his respirator, and you frowned as his embrace tightened, pulling you closer in a sloppy, unpractised sort of way, grounded by the steady rise and fall of his very solid chest.

(This felt…affectionate. Romantic, even.

But Shigaraki Tomura didn’t do romance, and you don’t—you’re not—you wouldn’t dream of being conceited enough to read someone’s perhaps thoughtless actions as flirtation, because why would someone be flirting with you? No one did that in general, and being U.A.’s humiliating problem child exacerbated the fact.

Moreover, why would the man who was Shigaraki Tomura, in the middle of his rehabilitation and re-discovery of self, even in the microscopic chance that he had the mental energy to experience romantic feelings, aim that romantic impulse towards you? It would make more sense if he liked someone he’d known for a while, like Touya or Spinner or Toga, and if his romantic feelings leant towards recuperative trauma-bonding, wouldn’t it be more apt to feel for someone at his rehab? His therapist, maybe? He’d idolised Aizawa before he’d met him, and even that would make more sense than latching onto someone as late in the process as you.

He’d gotten flustered when you’d tied his scarf, and Touya’s played terrible wingman. But still. You couldn’t know. You can’t read into this, even though reading into things had been your job, because—because no one would want you. You’ll have to…You’ll have to gather more evidence. You couldn’t be certain.)

Tenko hummed, chin digging into your shoulder, blowing strands of your hair out of his face. “I calmed a kid down earlier by hugging her. Is this working for you?”

(…oh.)

You sniffled and hid your mouth in his cape so that he couldn’t catch your pout. “That’s—that’s good that a kid allowed you to comfort her. What happened?”

“Pipes broke in an old apartment building in the Takoba district. The third floor collapsed under the pressure, and it trapped families in part of the building. I was called out to dust the rubble trapping them,” Tenko said, tapping his fingers high on your back in a ripple, “and they had me dust some other walls to help start the repairs. It was cool. And this one little girl who’d gotten out before the rest of her family was really nervous, and she was sticking to me, holding onto my cape. I was telling her that everything was gonna be okay, like you’ve taught me, and when I asked how she was doing, this fuckin’ kid extended her arms to me. So, I fucking hugged her. Picked her up so she could see what was happening better. It was weird, but it felt good.” Tenko sighed. “I hate how it wants me to be kind more.”

And fuck, fuck, that’s the last straw to this horrible day, and you’re crying, silently, controlling your breathing to keep Tenko from finding out, because goddammit, this idiot bastard man was surprisingly easy to love.

You buried your face fully in his shoulder, hoping he couldn’t feel any wetness through his costume, and you and Tenko sat in the quiet of the hallway for a minute, interrupted only by the A/C kicking in.

Tenko tried to part the two of you enough to look you in the face, but you doubled down, curling your fingers into the fabric of his jumpsuit and keeping your head bowed. Scoffing, he sat upright, making you follow his movements to stay hidden. “You gonna tell me what’s wrong yet?”

“Forget all that shit I’ve taught you,” you said, grumbling to his tits now that he’d changed positions, hating how stopped up you sounded already, “It doesn’t matter what you fucking do in the public’s eye, because there’s always gonna be someone who hates you. You can’t please everyone, so just fucking be yourself. That’s funnier, anyway.”

“Did you psychoanalyse some press member’s pathetic sex life, or something? Deduce an affair based on the way he knots his tie? Announce the state of his dick to the whole room because of the length of his pants?”

“Fuck off, Tenko. I’m not some pretentious-ass Sherlock Holmes bitch,” you said, pursing your lips and instinctively pulling back to glare at him—

And the moment you did, Tenko cupped your face in his hands, soft at the palm and strongly calloused along his fingers, keeping you facing towards him no matter how hard you tried to jerk away, struggling to stay upright. “You are crying.”

“No, I’m not,” you said, just as a falling tear touched his thumb. As you adjusted to his grip, your hands fell to his thighs, pressing against them in fists.

“Hm. Well, you don’t have to tell me,” he said, eyes on another tear trailing down the other cheek, “but you’re joining me to watch a movie with Eri. I got snacks on the way home.”

You sighed, taking in how big his hands were and how much of your face they encompassed, trying to memorise their feeling until they were snatched away forever. “I thought we were gonna start a new quest tonight. I was excited.”

Tenko balked and shifted into a sceptical grin. “You wanted to play Ciperstone tonight?” he asked, both thumbs rubbing your cheekbones and moving to swipe underneath your eyes.

You sighed again, shoulders heaving as Tenko released your face to flick tears off of his hand. “I didn’t want to be myself for a few hours.”

Tenko pushed on his knees to stand. “That’s actually related to what I originally wanted to talk to you about. Furthering the working-with-others mission,” he said, and he extended his hand to help you up. “What do you know about Dungeons and Dragons?”

***

“God fucking dammit!” Tenko slammed his palm to his forehead and leant back to balance on the kitchen chair’s back legs and then combed his fingers back through his hair, upsetting some strands from his ponytail. Groaning, he crooked his face your way, smushed his face against the chair back, and pointed towards his forehead, where a red splot was forming. “Hit me as hard as you can.”

“Being bludgeoned won’t change the fact that you rolled a three,” you said, nodding towards his d20, “I ignore his whining and continue to drain the fig tree to charge my spell.”

Behind the DM screen, Shinsou rolled his own dice, and once his eyebrows had shot up to his hairline, he turned to Midoriya. “I need you to roll two d12s and a d4.”

Tenko bolted upright, hastily sweeping his bangs out of his face. “Wait, what does Midoriya have to do with it? He’s across the fucking grove! He’s engaged in close-ranged combat.”

You turned away from Shinsou’s sly grin and towards Tenko, mouth nearly a straight line, yanking another cluster of grapes from the communal bowl, and shoving two grapes in his mouth. He pinched at his lower lip as he chewed, twisting and peeling at dead skin, frowning as he focused on his character sheet, scanning it for some sort of information he was forgetting and absentmindedly raising his knee to his chest, the heel of his foot propped on the seat of his chair (thank God his jeans were from Best Jeanist’s Moulded to Your Ass line: the denim strained with his muscles. Your eye twitched). In this particular morning, with the five of you squared off at Aizawa’s kitchen table, papers and dice strewn among grocery store bakery cinnamon rolls and coffee cups (Tenko’s was full of gatorade instead of coffee, much to his chagrin), as Tenko was throwing grapes into Touya’s mouth while Shinsou did math, the narwhal house slippers dangling off Tenko’s feet, it struck you that Shigaraki Tomura had become just some guy. One who went for walks to clear his head, who spent hours failing to do a kickflip on Present Mic’s skateboard, who used emoticons over emojis, who got nervous in fast food drive-throughs, who collected hero merch (of Aizawa fervently and Present Mic against his will), who was losing his sensitivity to foods like leeks and onions, a man who was growing more and more exquisitely mundane.

And goddamn, he’s clever and perceptive and patient and cheeky in a devastatingly attractive way, and he’s flustered easily, eager to do a thing correctly, and utterly, totally captivating in his endless discoveries of what it means to be alive.

You timed it so that the shudder and shock crossing his face could pass as response to Shinsou’s description of how Tenko’s enchanted crossbow bolt missed the Spirit Realm Necromancer entirely, instead sinking into the sacred Grand Oak and instantly shattering the tree as if it were glass, its elaborate root system holding up the floating grove splintering into thousands of tiny shards, the ground beneath your party’s feet crumbling at the slightest suggestion of the shifting of weight. But really he curled in his lips with a furrowed brow and stuttering breath when you reached underneath the table to graze the back of his hand, and when he forced himself to relax, shoulders slackening, frown fading, Tenko spread his fingers to cover more of his denim-clad thigh, which you took as a timid sort of consent. Biting the inside of your cheek, you eased your palm over the back of Tenko’s hand, lacing your fingers through his and going through the motions of reacting to Shinsou’s shattered earth. Neither of you looked at each other while Midoriya’s character suffered the Necromancer’s spell to increase gravity, each movement of Midoriya’s bulky, steel armour accelerating the fall of the floating grove. By the time each of you had had enough turns to land on solid ground, preserving little of the sacred grove but all surviving, Tenko finally squeezed your fingers back, curling his own to grip them more firmly, keeping your hand pinned to his thigh, steeling himself, sitting up straight, and proposing getting close enough to the Necromancer to drive a crossbow bolt directly into his skull.

Midoriya was already muttering to himself over the effectiveness of the action while Shinsou worked, and Touya irreverently flicked his dice at Tenko, chugging coffee with his other hand. “You plunge the bolt by hand into the Necromancer’s head,” said Shinsou, “but with your strength debuff still in effect, you only nick him.”

“I try stabbing it through his ear.”

“It goes through,” said Shinsou, nodding and running his hand back through his hair, which sprung back into place, “It doesn’t pierce the neocortex, so he can still summon another—“

“I stomp him to death with my hooves,” said Touya, picking at his teeth and running his tongue over the spot.

The rest of you turned to him slowly in various states of incredulity.

“You don’t have hooves, Touya,” you said, tilting your head at the same time Tenko rubbed his thumb over yours, prompting your breath to hitch and a strange warmth to travel through your body, making you feel dizzy.

Touya grimaced and reached for a cinnamon roll. “I take off my leather breeches and boots to reveal my hooves. I have been a satyr masquerading as a human this whole time.” He leant forward on his elbow, glaring at Shinsou and gesturing with his cinnamon roll. “I stomp him. To death. With my hooves.”

Tenko sneered, his teeth cutting into his lower lip, but he merely opened his mouth and closed it, poking his tongue into his cheek. “I suppose maiming a party member wouldn’t coincide with my character’s chaotic good alignment,” he said, heaving a huge sigh to—oh, that cunning rat bastard—to conceal how he flipped his hand over in yours to touch palms, weaving your fingers back together and squeezing again, planting them back on his upper leg, massaging between your knuckles with his thumb.

“What’d you just roll?”

“Nineteen,” said Touya, casting Shinsou a slice of his most charming smile.

Midoriya let out a little laugh as Shinsou bitterly plopped his head on his fist. “Fuck you, Touya. Congratulations. You clomp over to the Necromancer and stomp all over him. Stompy stomp stomp stompy stomp. It’s difficult to watch at the insane speed you’re going, so no one stops you from doing such a good job pounding him that he’s ground into dust. Bits of him drift away in the wind.”

Here Midoriya winced. “Weren’t we supposed to retrieve the soul crystal embedded in his gauntlet? We can’t get our reward from that Silver Age dragon rider if we don’t have it.”

“Correct,” said Shinsou, glancing down at his notes, “It has been stomped to smithereens. You can’t even make out what parts of the pile of dust were once flesh.”

Ready to bolt, Touya was getting up from the table and holding up his hands in defence, but before Midoriya could start a speech that would have been more apt for the number one hero to use on patrol rather than during a DND game, the door to Aizawa’s flat opened, and in he walked, covering his yawn with the back of his hand. He halted at the sight of the five of you around his kitchen table, taking in the scattered papers and remnants of breakfast before settling on your DM. “Shinsou,” Aizawa began, disappointment outweighing the exhaustion in his voice.

“You’re the only one with a table that could fit all of us,” Shinsou said, spinning in his chair to face him, “This dormitory doesn’t have a good common area like the student ones do. Would you really prefer us to—”

“We can find you a table; there’s plenty on campus.” Aizawa lifted his goggles over his head to set them on the counter. “Is this why Monoma kept slowing me down during patrol?”

“No,” you and Shinsou said, while Tenko said, “Yes.”

Aizawa actually smiled as he unwound his capture weapon from around his neck. “Look who’s the only one telling the truth.”

“Why would I lie to you, sensei?”

Touya smacked Tenko on the arm. “Suck-up.”

“You promise?” Tenko shot back, nose wrinkling with his grin.

“This coffee had better be amazing, because it’s the only thing keeping me from kicking you all out right now,” said Aizawa, rubbing a dry eye with the heel of his palm, other hand outstretched for someone to pass him a mug.

Tenko’s thumb bent inward to swipe the inside of your palm, a silent protest while he drank from his stupid little mug of gatorade, and when he noticed what was at the bottom, he flinched. It must have been Touya who’d put your dice in Tenko’s cup.

***

Following the video of you insulting Uwabami, you’re garnering an unnerving amount of attention again, but it’s clearly someone different than last time. Whoever your stalker(s) was this time around, they were careless and unsubtle—and this confidence to be careless left you jumping at the slightest sound when you were alone.

Furthermore, you legitimately couldn’t deduce your stalker’s motivations, because no clear message linked his actions. At first, you chalked it up to the dorm’s shitty dryer eating your bright blue thong, but when you couldn’t find your lip balm or trolley pass or eventually your favourite sweater, you concluded that something else was at play here, further cemented by more and more tiny things going missing—things that, if you were stalking someone, you would’ve selected as small enough not to miss.

But bizarrely, your stalker left shit of his own lying about. A phone charger appeared underneath your pillow; loose change and a travel pack of alcoholic wipes showed up in your bathroom sink. Hello Kitty band-aids, a hair clip that looked like one of Rumi’s ears, deep-moisturising hand cream, a tiny lizard keychain with a white hamburglar mask drawn on. You couldn’t wrap your head around it. What could your stalker be trying to say besides he could access your personal space with ease? Hoarding it all in the drawer with the GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK hentai, you were struck with the notion that this may have been going on even before the video.

God, you missed when this school felt more like home instead of a holding cell, back when Shinsou and Uraraka and the rest were all still living together with you, when you could simply turn the corner to the common area to demand who took your laundry detergent and get an answer immediately (you also missed taking Aoyama’s bougie food, though you suspected that towards the end he was buying extra specifically for you). You sent an email to Aizawa about the potential break in security, and he promised to monitor the situation, though there was no evidence of physical entry.

Evidence. It’s been on your mind.

Sure, Tenko’s done stuff that could be read as romantic: how he plops your hand onto his head to demand you play with his hair, how he hovers whenever Touya stands too closely to you, how he gets upset on your behalf when people glare at you in public.

(Tenko grabbed your elbow, breaking your focus on the clothing rank. “We’re going.”

“But we haven’t found you a red coat yet.”

He lifted the hangers from your arm and slid them back onto the rack, despite belonging elsewhere. “Don’t care. I don’t like the way the cashier’s looking at you,” he said, jerking his head their direction, and when you tilted your head to glance at them over his shoulder, Tenko tapped your chin twice, guiding you to look back at him. “You shouldn’t have to be on guard when I’m with you.”)

If you were reading into it—and you were—Tenko was being so careful with talking about the pro-hero scene around you that it was almost as if he’d gotten a mission task from Aizawa to distract you from anything that might make you feel bad about yourself.

(“I hear you’re causing a lot of paperwork for my old man,” said Touya, pulling out another floor cushion from the storage space in the teahouse wall, “He hates that you’ve had to dust so many structures near his agency. He’s a decrepit creature of habit, and now that his commute is different, he’s—”

“Hey, Touya, tell us what flower bulbs you planted this winter,” Tenko said abruptly, clamping the lid on the pot hanging over the sunken fireplace, “Tell us what your garden’ll look like in spring.”

You shut your book, even though you’d just opened it. “Wait, are you saying that Touya is the one who keeps this garden? That’s—”

“You like it, sweetheart?” Touya dropped his cushion next to yours, ignoring the way Tenko was glaring daggers into his back. “Think it’s impressive?”

“Holy shit; I thought we were in the back of some professionally restored historical site the first time we came here,” you said, smiling at how Tenko’s petulant stomps to his seat chirruped, even when he scooted his own cushion towards yours (adorable; you’d think he didn’t like you giving attention to anyone else).

“Well,” said Touya, propping his hands on the kotatsu so that he could get a better view of Tenko, “With enormous pride and a huge erection, I’m pleased to announce that this garden is all my hard work.”

“Stop that,” barked Tenko, jabbing a finger towards Touya, “Stop bringing up your cock.”

“I could talk about yours, if you want. His monster cock is excruciatingly leaky and so shaped.”

Groaning, Tenko clonked his forehead on the kotatsu’s tabletop before Touya could say anything else, arm still outstretched. He peeked out from underneath his bangs towards you, tension leaving his body at your burst of laughter.)

He’s also taken your comment about silent admiration to heart. Over the discord call (through very comfortable headphones), you’d made a dumb joke about not being able to play for long, and he’d shut up immediately. When you’d confessed to lying and hoping you’d scared him, he’d replied seriously: “I want to protect my time with you. I don’t like it being taken away. I feel better when you’re with me.”

You’d frozen in the middle of weaving bowstrings while his character continued stringing them onto bows. You’d never have gotten that sort of remark at the beginning of your relationship. Tenko must genuinely be listening to you.

Anyway. You decided in the event that Tenko was collecting evidence, too, that you would leave him some.

The first time you’d been in his room had been for a specific purpose, which was to help him rub in his new facial scar moisturiser (not to take them away, or anything, because Tenko wanted to keep them, claiming he wouldn’t recognise himself in the mirror if he didn’t have his scars—and you thought they were devastatingly attractive, anyway—but just to keep them hydrated enough not to itch), but now you were here just to spend time in the same space. You were reading on his bed (oh, hohoho, his bed), and Tenko was drawing in his sketchbook on his couch by the window. With his mouth pinched in concentration, he squinted down at his paper, swiping away eraser shavings with his artist-gloved hand.

Drawing by natural light. Tenko was in room 310 because of its wide windows. It had been his one request when U.A. was placing him.

AFO had deliberately raised him in a bedroom without windows. You’d kill him if he weren’t already dead.

Thankfully, AFO’s influence was absent from Tenko’s dorm: Naruto sheets from Touya, an old Nintendo DS on his bedside table with Nintendogs in the cartridge slot, Present Mic’s skateboard propped against the coatrack that held only a black hoodie, unfolded but clean laundry in a basket next to a dresser with prescription bottles atop it, a mirror that served more as a bulletin board of Eraserhead merch than as a way to check his reflection, red shoes by the doorway, books borrowed from everyone from All Might to Shinsou to the ramen delivery guy strewn across the room, on shelves, his computer desk, his rug. The thing Tenko’d had to explain to you was a therapist-assigned painting hanging over his desk: he’d painted a murky, purple-blue, abstract sort of thing, and you were strangely touched when he’d explained it was Kurogiri (and now that you were looking, among his bulletin board of Eraserhead, a few drawings of Loud Cloud were mixed in).

There’s a lot of people in Tenko’s life who care about him now, and you’re happy to be one of them. Setting your book aside, you got up to sit next to him on the couch.

He paused when you sank into the cushion next to—well, no, you were basically sharing the same cushion, especially since he unfolded his legs from underneath him so that you could get closer. You scooted over so that your shoulders touched (scandalous) and looked over his drawings.

He’s drawing your DND characters. While his sketches aren’t exactly good, you can clearly tell who’s supposed to be whom, and they’re fun to look at, so that’s all that matters. At the centre is your character, Ginseng—you named it after your Cipherstone account because why not—in the process of spell-charging. Your character relies on the traditional ritual of tea ceremonies, from the growing of the tealeaves to serving it, summoning whatever tools you needed, like the table and dishware, and if an enemy got caught by the conventions of politeness of the tea ceremony, they were trapped in it until they’d drunk their teacup dry. Tenko had drawn her early in the spell-charging process, with branches of tealeaves sprouting from underneath her skin, with her harvesting them from her forearm. It’s rather flattering, the way her determined expression lit up her face.

Next to Ginseng was Tenko’s character, Peito, also lifted from his Cipherstone character. He was sitting on the same log as Ginseng in the middle of camp, backs touching while he cut feathers as the first step in the fletching process. His carved-willow quiver leant against his knee-high boot, red even in a fictional universe. Peito’s hands were bare, five fingers pressed against his knife and arrows.

Further back in the camp (really just towards the top of the paper, since Tenko wasn’t good at foreshortening yet), Midoriya’s character, Jackrabbit, was holding up two hangers, one with his steel and the other with sleek, black leather armour. A nice touch, really, since Midoriya had swopped Jackrabbit’s primary armour to the more lightweight leather since the shattered grove incident, and wow, you could even tell it was leather based on the pencil strokes.

Seated nearby, Touya’s character, Granddaddy Slapkins, roared with laughter at him. His shoes lay next to him, his hooves out. For some reason, he’s not holding his pet duck; he’s instead cradling what looks like your character’s wild shape, a cat with the same chocolate-point markings as your real cat (your character’s shapeshifted form was just Dango, but Tenko didn’t know that. He still didn’t know Dango existed, because cats were still illegal in the dorms, and Tenko, that little brown-nosing shit, would probably tell Aizawa about her. Cute how he’s only a suck-up to Aizawa, though).

Your favourite detail, though, was how his character was smiling. Unabashedly. As if it were a no-brainer, as if doing anything else made no sense at all.

With a stab of affection, you nuzzled into Tenko’s shoulder, resting your chin there while he sketched loops of chainmail onto Granddaddy Slapkins’s shirt, and a shiver racked through him.

“Oh, are you cold?” you asked, sitting back up and heading over towards the bed, “Let me get your blanket.”

“Wha—no, I—sure,” said Tenko, setting his pencil on his sketchbook and the whole thing on the arm of the couch, eyes half-lidded as you returned with his throw blanket.

And without thinking, you moved on impulse, as if all higher orders of cognition had checked out for the night, because you behaved like you did in your head whenever you thought about Tenko: casually, intimately, and domestically. You wrapped the blanket around yourself and knelt on the sofa before swinging a knee over his lap, and you snuggled into his chest, clutching his shirt and nosing at his neck.

Your eyes snapped open.

(What the fuck?

If this had been a planned attack, then it would’ve been a thing of brilliance: casual, seeming to meet a physical need [heating a chill] in the name of physical closeness. But you fucked it. This wasn’t planned, and thus you don’t have a way out of it without otherwise betraying your romantically-motivated interior.

Thank fuck he’s frozen up, too. But how do you get out of this? God, you really shouldn’t be teaching him how to navigate interpersonal relationships when you get yourself into shit like this.)

You swallowed thickly, pulse pounding in your ears.

“I need your advice.” Tenko’s chest barely rose when he took his first breath since you climbed onto his lap. “What would be the socially expected response to this?”

“Uh. That depends on if you’re into it or not,” you said, forcing yourself to sit back in his lap to give him some space, “If you dislike it, then it’s to get me to get off of you, and if you welcome it, then, uh. Anything else.”

Tenko unclenched his fists at his sides and—a pause, shifting his jaw—he let his hands rest at a barely-there touch on your hips, dragging them upwards to your waist, applying enough pressure there for you to feel all ten fingertips through your shirt. “Is this,” he said, wetting his lower lip, and he couldn’t continue, instead swallowing saliva.

Gathering your nerve, you wove your hand through his hair to scratch at his scalp in the way he’d liked when you’d played with his hair, and at the familiarity, Tenko huffed, shutting his eyes tightly and pressing his forehead to yours in a rush, almost knocking them together. He took another breath, heat washing over your face, and you slid your other up hand to cup his cheek.

Tenko shivered again, and he clamped his hand over yours to keep it there. “Are you sure this is what you mean to do?”

He seemed receptive enough to it, but you couldn’t be certain. “Yeah,” you said, “If I’m reading it right.”

“But it makes no sense. I’ve got to be reading it wrong,” Tenko was saying, frowning, “No one would willingly like me—”

“For fuck’s sake, Tenko—”

Practically slapping your other hand to his cheek, you kissed him, pulling him closer, one of his hands still over yours with the other now gripping your waist as if he’d never let you go. Tenko grunted into it, surging forward to keep his rough lips (sticky from his freshly applied pineapple-beeswax chapstick) seared to yours. You felt, more than heard, his miniscule whimper at the back of his throat when he opened his mouth, sliding his tongue into yours, and you could hardly keep kissing him for smiling. But he needed a breath before you did, so you broke it, sensing he wouldn’t do it out of wanting to keep you nearby.

Panting, Tenko tried and failed to push your hair behind your ear in an attempt to be suave. “Now, I perceived that as romantic.”

“It was romantic, you muppet,” you said, thumping his chest with the back of your hand.

“Good.” He cleared this throat. “Cool. Excellent,” he said, shifting underneath you (with difficulty, under the constricting denim of his Moulded to Your Ass jeans), “I want it to be, when it comes to you.”

“Thank God, I really want that, too,” you said, sighing, “but, like, I really don’t know if it’s ethical to pursue a romance this early into your recovery—”

“The fuck is wrong with you? I want it. I want you.” Frustrated, Tenko grabbed your hips in an iron grip and ground up into you, slowly, and that tight-ass denim let you feel precisely where in the drag of his hips his cock touched you, letting you feel the shift in pressure at his tip, down his shaft, to the first curve of his balls. “I thought I was alone. I thought no one else would ever be able to understand me, having fallen from what I was raised to be. Fallen,” he said, spitting, “Such a nasty word for what we’re actually doing: we’ve been reborn together. We get to build our lives back up together. We get another chance at it. I wanna spend mine with you.”

He strained his neck upwards to kiss you again, insistent, moving with confidence when he took your lower lip into his mouth but only nibbling on it once, despite being posed to bite down with vigour.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about what anyone else thinks of you and what anyone else thinks of me. I—”

“That’s not true,” you said, your turn to catch your breath, “You care so much about what Aizawa-sensei—”

“You know what I mean,” he said, shaking his head, hair falling out of his loose ponytail, “You think of me as me, and that’s all that matters. If you’re really that fucking worried about me getting into a relationship too early, go talk to my therapist. She says you’re good for me. A good influence, anyway.”

“Holy shit,” you said, mostly in reaction to how Tenko started trailing frantic, dry kisses down your neck, and, realising you should probably be doing something back, you rolled your hips, feeling awfully warm under the blanket.

He bucked back up into you, more out of desperation to keep you close over a need for friction but still giving you a taste of what it would be like to have him thrusting into you. “Fuck,” he said, almost grumbling, “I’d say fuck being ethical about it, because I’ve wanted you for a long time. I got hard when you shook me by the shoulders outside of that ice cream shop; I thought my soul was gonna leave my body when you adjusted my scarf. Hell, I—” He cut himself off, grinning in a way that, back before you knew him, you might have described as maniacal. “I wanted you back during the war. I saw you fucking elbow Touya during that battle, and the way you made him crumple to the ground was so fucking sexy. And you recovered from when he swiped at you so easily; you slipped around his attacks like it was fucking second nature. I thought it’d be cool to have you by my side, having you—” He realised what he was saying, and he relaxed, smile fading into a curious, pensive sort of look while he brought his thumb to your kiss-swollen lips. “And now I get to.”

You kissed the pad of his thumb, blinking slowly.

“So. Yeah,” he said, dropping his hand to your shoulder as he broke eye contact, a little red, “I think it’d be cool to be with you, even if we have to be careful.”

“That’s the thing, Tenko,” you said, biting the inside of your cheek as you gathered your thoughts, “I’m scared, because while I know that we should, because that’d be safe, I don’t want to be careful. Since I’ve quit being a hero, every single thing about how I’ve been living has left me feeling empty and alone, because it’s like I’m wandering through limbo. Everything screams that whatever I’m doing now is temporary, that it’ll pass, that I don’t truly belong in this situation, because I’ll find what I’m supposed to be doing later and my real home is somewhere down the line, but—fuck.” You rubbed your eye with your fist. “You, Tenko. You don’t feel temporary. You feel forever.”

Underneath you, Tenko stretched to pop a crick in his back, and he tilted his head to lie on the back of the couch. His ponytail had come loose, and his hair splayed against the fabric as he stared at you, one hand idly rubbing at your waist.

“Well. You’ve got to belong somewhere,” he said eventually, and he tapped all five fingers onto your thigh. “It could be with me.”

***

Dango was missing.

Incredible how the best evening of your life preceded the worst day you’ve had in years. You called out of work and spent hours scouring the dorm and then campus. A gruelling, miserable sort of day, anyway, grey and rainy and cold, and the campus was swarmed with people setting up for the scavenger hunt event later this month, populating the area with non-U.A. personnel and construction. Your cat was out in that mess, and you didn’t even know where to search first. It’s loud, scary, and wet, so Dango would most likely be hiding and not come when she’s called.

Had Dango escaped your flat? Had your stalker stolen her? Had she been confiscated by U.A.?

You couldn’t call any faculty for help; they’d get onto you for having an illegal cat on campus—and Hound Dog, the one who’d be the most help, might just scare her to death. Too early in the morning to call any of your friends, and you doubted they’d alter their busy schedules to help you out of a situation you should be able to fix yourself. But damn it, how come your own tracking skills only worked on people?

You shook yourself, coming out of your spiral the best you could, and you were close to hyperventilating. You sat down on a curb.

You found yourself calling Tenko, despite it being too early in the day for him to be out of training, filling with dread about never seeing your cat again and having to clear out her stuff from your room. Pulling your soaked jacket closer, you wiped at your nose and waited at the dial tone.

“Hey, I thought you couldn’t call during work. Miss me that much?”

The second you heard his strangely chipper voice, you started crying into the speaker.

He inhaled sharply, tone shifting. “Tell me who the fuck I’m stomping to death with my hooves.”

Ducking your head, you managed a smile but continued to fucking sob. “You don’t—don’t have to kill anyone, Ten—Tenko. I’ve f—fucked up.”

“What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“I’m on cam—campus,” you said, unable to speak for a full sentence without having to cut yourself off to keep bawling, ugly and loud and getting snottier by the minute, “It’s my fucking fault that I haven’t been ta—taking my stupid sta—stalker seriously, and I should’ve reported it, but—but I—goddammit!” The rain picked up again, coming down in rapid, fat drops, and, shielding your eyes, you rubbed your phone screen on your sleeve, not that it did much. “Sor—sorry. Rain got heavier.”

“Where on campus?”

“No, Te—Tenko, I’ll get up. I’m coming to you,” you said, sniffling and pushing on your knees to stand, wet and hungry and ready to crawl into your sock drawer to sleep for days. “I—I’m just so fucking pissed at myself, because my cat is fucking lost, and I could’ve sto—stopped it if I hadn’t been so secreti—tive.” Hands shaking, you yanked your soaked hood over your head and trudged towards your dormitory, and you kicked gravel, rocks scattering over the path, before losing your footing on it and nearly falling. Fuck this.

“You have a cat,” said Tenko, losing his fervent. “What’s it look like?”

“Beautiful.”

“I need more than that.”

“She fucking—I based Ginseng’s cat form on her, okay? She’s this enormously fluffy thing, mostly whitish with a brown face and legs, and it makes her look like she’s wearing a mask and thigh-high socks like God’s sluttiest little jester,” you said, knocking on your dorm’s mailboxes for luck out of habit as you passed them, “And you can’t tell Aizawa-sensei about her, because if she’s taken away the moment I find her, then I—”

“I have her,” said Tenko, “She’s in my dorm with me.”

You ran the rest of the way to his room, panting and absolutely disgusting by the time you got there, and when Tenko opened his door, there was Dango, loafing on the back of the couch and watching raindrops race down the window.

“What the fuck,” you said, dropping your wet coat and toeing off your shoes, “How the hell did she get in here?”

Tenko shrugged and hung your coat next to his hoodie. “Can she open locked doors?”

“I hope to fuck she can’t,” you said, and you rounded the couch to wrap your arms around that dear little loaf, and Dango jumped off the couch to crawl underneath it before you could fully hug her. “Oh, good. She’s fine. Acting like normal.” You sat on the couch’s arm, adrenaline evaporating to render you boneless.

“She was in my room when I came back from training. We ended early today, since Aizawa-sensei has something.” Tenko stooped to yank two bottles of gatorade from their plastic rings and headed towards the sofa to offer one to you. “She didn’t seem upset or hurt. She’s been sitting there, napping on and off.”

You accepted it and twisted off the cap. “So, who put my cat in your room?”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“I don’t know,” you said, taking a shallow sip, careful not to overwhelm your agitated stomach, “They’d have to know about Dango in the first place, and I suppose my stalker would, since they’ve theoretically been breaking into my room.”

Tenko paused mid-sip, and he hastened to swallow. “Someone’s been breaking into your room?”

“Yeah,” you said, easing down the arm of the couch and onto its cushions, “I think. There’s no physical sign of entry, but my shit keeps going missing, and stuff that’s not mine keeps showing up. Let me tell you, I need some of that shit they’ve stolen; it’s hard to replace—”

Tenko touched your lips with three of his fingertips to quiet you, and he gestured for you to stay put while he scrambled over to his closet, where he stood on his toes to retrieve a wicker basket from the top shelf. He dropped the thing into your lap. “Are any of these yours?”

All of it was, missing things you blamed on everything from Dango to your stalker to your own forgetfulness: your favourite sweater, your trolley pass, lip balm, your shitty earbuds, your good pantyhose, your planner, your d10, and, among many smaller things, even that bright blue thong you’d lost in the wash (Well. It’s better to find your thong with your new boyfriend over finding them returned to your dorm coated in your stalker’s cum, you supposed).

“I was losing my goddamn mind,” Tenko was saying, “Stuff kept showing up. I thought it was a test at first—”

“I don’t have a stalker,” you said, absentmindedly rubbing the fabric of your thong between your fingers, “Your shit has been—you read that GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK shit? Tenko.”

“Oh, you have that?” Tenko scratched the back of his neck, but not in his self-harm way; it reminded you of Shinsou’s nervous habit more than anything. “Haven’t you read it? Isn’t that what you were naming your characters after?”

“Ah, ha, ha. Moving on. What is important, though, is why and how this is happening to us.”

“Yeah, I don’t…”

The two of you spitballed for a while, long enough for the both of you to finish your bottles of gatorade and for Tenko to start another, and neither of you came up with anything substantial.

“Hell with it,” said Tenko, standing to stretch, his movement disturbing Dango from her nap in his basket of clean laundry, “Let’s go ask Aizawa-sensei.”

Aizawa was not pleased when he discovered the both of you waiting in his kitchen, but he listened to the story, and when you were done, he stepped out of the room to make a phone call. When he came back, he looked even more exhausted than when he’d first come in.

“I’ve just gotten off the phone with Sakura Grove,” said Aizawa, wincing when his bones creaked as he sat in his chair, “Tenko, do you remember villain in-fighting within the PLF? In particular, I’m asking if you remember breathing in a pink dust cloud. It would’ve been in Deika City, in the month between your fight with Re-Destro and your body modification surgery. If our sources are accurate, you would’ve been with Touya.”

Tenko scrunched up his face. “Why would I have been—hm.” Frowning, he reached into the bag of popcorn you’d commandeered from Aizawa’s cupboards. “I know what you’re talking about. They were only letting me eat healthy stuff in the week before I went under. Touya was taking me to scrounge for something salty and shitty for me, because I couldn’t take it anymore. He started hitting on someone he thought was a waitress, and she—this is why I remember it—she compared the width of her hand to his thigh and said no thanks.”

“That’s Ito,” said Aizawa, sighing and crossing his arms, settling his chin into his capture weapon, “When did she use her quirk?”

“She shoved her hand on Touya’s face when he opened his stupid mouth again, and he passed out with swarming, pink particles floating around his head. She turned to me—and she must not have recognised Touya, but she knew me, because her face lit the fuck up. She never touched me, but I remember having to sneeze.”

“She never told you what her quirk did?”

“I woke back up in the PLF headquarters. I assumed whoever picked me up had killed her and that her death negated any effects.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why? What does it do?”

Aizawa let out a soft laugh, muffled through his capture weapon, and he jerked his head in your direction. “You tell him,” he said, snatching the bag of popcorn and heading towards his bedroom.

***

He’d been nervous about wearing a suit. They reminded him of AFO.

But you’d strayed away from dark colours and too much structure, so his light greyish-blue suit jacket stayed unbuttoned even as you leant across to the passenger seat to adjust his All Might tie for him (a Put Your Hands Up Radio tie had been offered, but Tenko had already closed his fist around the striped tie Midoriya would loan him). Part of his bangs had been pinned back to show off his annoyingly handsome face, especially in how his sharp, red eyes observed caught every movement of your terrible attempt to tie the tie based on the pictures Aizawa had sent you.

“We’re not gonna be late, are we?” Tenko drawled out, the corner of his mouth quirking upward, hand resting on the car ceiling as he angled his chest towards you.

“Shush; we are in the parking lot,” you said, looping the larger end. Or were you supposed to be looping the smaller one? “Besides, the world won’t end if we’re a few minutes late to my class’s annual reunion.”

A flimsy excuse for a party, one made because hero agencies needed some sort of named event as an excuse to dismiss your friends en masse. But it was spring again, and they were coming out of the winter blues, and they wanted to see you again, so, hey, why don’t we work something in around your schedule? If you can’t come to this date, then we’ll reschedule it until you can.

And, like. They knew. They knew Tenko was your soulmate. You suspected they all wanted to see what he was like now, too, because no one but Shinsou, Midoriya, and, apparently, Bakugou had known.

You undid the loose knot and tried again. “Are you nervous?”

“No,” he said, scrutinising the tacky balloons and streamers swaying in the night breeze outside of the otherwise intimidatingly elegant venue, “but those kids might be.”

“Those kids happen to be friends my age,” you said, “and I’m barely younger than you are. They know you’re coming. You’re fine.”

Tenko sucked in through his teeth, tapping the roof of the car one finger at a time. “The last time they saw me was as a thing. An object of destruction.”

“Well, they’ll definitely see you as a human person when I spill how you designed a unicorn DND character for Eri.” You pulled the fabric taut but kept it from lying closely to his neck (a boy didn’t like feeling constrained). “You know what? This tie is as good as it’s gonna get.”

He ducked his chin to examine its knot. “It’s shit.”

“It adds to your devil-may-care, reformed-bad-boy sort of charm,” you said, giving the tie a final smooth-down and poorly suppressing your smile when you felt his muscles through his shirt. “Mathematically, there are only 85 ways to tie a standard tie knot. I don’t believe we’ve reached any of them.”

“How do you know these things? You’re unbeliev—” Tenko jerked his face out of view of the window as Aoyama and Kouda, gesturing wildly, strode past the car and into the venue. “Listen,” he said, clearing his throat, “I know I don’t care and that you don’t care, but other people will. Your reputation is gonna plummet right into its grave if we’re out in the open together.”

You shook your head, letting your smile show. “So, I fucked part of a rescue job almost a year ago. So what. So I’m dating my soulmate. Am I supposed to do otherwise? Honestly, Tenko,” you said, curling loose strands of hair behind his ear, letting your fingers linger around his cheek and neck (he leant into the touch), “I don’t care. I would’ve chosen you even without the soulmate bond. You’re too endearing to pass by. You’re too…babygirl.”

Tenko had been guiding your hand to his mouth, and he snorted before it got there, warm air scattering in a short burst. “Don’t call me that,” he said, pressing his lips to the centre of your palm and waiting until you met his gaze to retract them.

A different warmth shot to your lower stomach, but you had to keep pressing, for the sake of the bit. “Oh, then what should I—darling? Honey? Pookie bear?”

He scoffed and nipped at your pinkie. “None of those are good.”

“Tenko.”

He breathed in, shoulders rising, eyes fluttering shut. Taking a moment to kiss the tiny bite mark on your finger. “Yeah,” he said, opening his eyes in a slow blink, catlike, “Feels good. Feels—like coming home.”

Beaming, you reached down to lace his fingers through yours. All five of them squeezed back. “Then let’s go.”

soulmate trope taglist: @bakugouspsycho, @pansexualproblemchild, @doonaandpjs, @sunsetevergreen, @the-coffee-is-on-fire, @liberace2, @ladymidnight77, @nonomesupposedto, @gooooomz, @kissmebakugou, @pachiibatt, @celestair, @tiredkittykat, @cheshireshiya, @90s-belladonna, @infjsnightmare

#bnha #shigaraki tomura #shigaraki x reader #shigaraki/reader #shigaraki imagine #shigaraki fic #mha #shigaraki headcanons #shigaraki fanfiction #shigaraki fanfic #soulmates #soulmate au #soulmate #dash it all

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apocalypticavolition · 5 months

Text

Let's (re)Read The Great Hunt! Chapter 17: Choices

Welcome back! My life's been a little odd lately but I'm finally ready to get back to this project. There's gonna be spoilers for the whole damn series (you remember that, don't you? from back when I did this thing kinda consistently?). Don't keep reading if you don't wanna know em!

This chapter starts with a portal stone icon because we're in a mirror world. It's that simple!

“We’ll run for it,” Rand said. “Hurin, can you gallop and still follow the trail?”

Don't remember where we left off? It's with Rand, Hurin, and Loial about to be killed by frog bears owned by the mysterious woman in white.

“They don’t give up, not ever. Once they have your scent, grolm keep coming, day and night, until they run you down.

Not gonna lie, I feel like she must be exaggerating to make Rand feel desperate.

“I will stop them.” Hastily Rand counted the arrows remaining in his quiver. Eighteen, each as long as his arm, ten of them with points like chisels, designed to drive through Trolloc armor.

We need more ammo counts in fiction. They're usually, even in this series I think, a relatively inexhaustible supply until it's dramatic to be out.

Also, Rand's refusal to obey Selene must be pissing her off so much. This is the price of loving powerful people, honey. They do stuff.

The grolm came on, overreaching one another in their leaps, five great, leathery shapes, triple-eyed, with horny maws gaping. Their grunting calls rebounded from the void, barely heard.

This is a lot like Witcher Vision and what not from video games. Wheel really deserves a good triple A game with all the modern mechanics. They'd be pretty justified in this setting. (Have I already said this before? It's been so long.)

The first grolm died; one of its companions leaped on it as it fell, beak of a mouth ripping gobbets of flesh. It snarled at the others, and they circled wide. But they came on, and as if compelled, it abandoned its meal and leaped after them, its horny maw already bloody.

You really gotta wonder what kinda fucked up world these dudes came from that opportunistic cannibalism is such an easy choice for what should be apex predators.

“It grows easier each time you do it, I’ve heard,” Selene said. “The more you live in the Oneness, the easier.”

Average reader: This is clearly her trying to mask the fact that she knows all of this stuff very well and knows it by heart. She clearly was trained in the Oneness!

Me: Lanfear is so power hungry she can never be in the Onenness without immediately grabbing as much saidar as she can stomach, so the idea of it being easier to resist it with time is in fact something she's only ever heard about.

A coughing bark, all too familiar, sounded beyond the dead grolm, beyond the next hill, and others answered it. Still more came, from the east, from the west.

I think that Selene is actually out of grolm at this point and just using tricks to make the noises of them. Rand was absolutely not supposed to kill the five already deployed and we never actually see one again in this chapter.

The barks of grolm pursued them, hundreds it seemed. It sounded as if the grolm were ranged in a semicircle around them, closing in from every direction but the front.

See what I mean? Which is more likely, that Lanfear is a death metal version of a Disney princess or that she's absolutely fucking with these guys because they're off-script?

Loial threw his quarterstaff aside; it would be of no use against grolm, and it only slowed him. The Ogier had given up riding; he used one hand to haul himself up, and pulled his tall horse behind him with the other.

Oh so that's why I didn't remember the quarterstaff, it was tossed aside almost instantly. That's kind of a shame. This land wanted to be useful but it can't be.

Also the image of Loial having to lead his horse is great. Poor guy. Poor horse.

She spread her hands as if unsure exactly what it was he was supposed to do.

Sure is nice of Lanfear not to try and out him in front of his men. Isolating them from him would be to her advantage, but I guess she knows he's freaking out about his power anyway. But how could she possibly understand a motivation that was against having power?

The symbol was a live coal under his hand; he drank in the light. The world flickered. Flickered. It made him sick, that light; it was water to a man dying of thirst. Flicker. He sucked at it. It made him want to vomit; he wanted it all. Flicker. The triangle-and-circle seared him; he could feel it charring his hand. Flicker. He wanted it all! He screamed, howling with pain, howling with wanting.

This sequence feels a lot as if Rand is being pushed well past his expected limits as a beginning channeler. I wonder if moving around via Portal Stone is, like Traveling, something reserved only for the very powerful. It would help explain why they fell out of common knowledge.

“Remarkable,” Selene said slowly. She glanced at Loial and Hurin. The Ogier looked stunned, his eyes as big as plates; the sniffer was squatting with one hand on the ground, as if unsure he could support himself else. “All of us here, and all of our horses. And you do not even know what you did. Remarkable.”

More evidence for my thoughts on Rand being pushed beyond his limit. If Selene hadn't done this, would Rand have been ready to do the stuff he has to do in the next few books?

The hollow surrounded them without any stairs, though here and there lay a suspiciously smooth piece of stone, colored red, or blue. The column lay against the mountainside, half buried in the loose rock of a fall. The symbols were unclear, here; wind and water had worked long on them.

Funny that the Portal Stones can be so easily destroyed by wind and water when you consider some of the other wonders of the AoL. Maybe the hollows are meant to be the protective wards of some kind or another and once they're gone, the Stones are easily wrecked? Maybe there used to be a shitton more of them and only the lucky few survived? I guess they all have to disappear somehow, even though they feel very embedded into the fabric of reality.

Rand glanced at her, and cleared his throat again. Is she angry with me? She’d certainly be angry if I had tried to kiss her. I think.

No Rand, she'd love that. Feet would pop and everything. But asking her not to brag about how powerful her boyfriend is makes her wonder what the point of having a boyfriend is at all.

“You may not have lost the Horn of Valere yet,” Selene said slowly. “As you know, I do know a few things about those worlds.”

You can really feel her mounting frustration with how Rand keeps going off script and with how Rand doesn't even know he's doing it.

You mean to say, my Lady, I’ve been smelling where those Darkfriends are going to be? The Light help me, I wouldn’t like that. It’s bad enough smelling where violence has been, without smelling where it will be, too. There can’t be many spots where there won’t be some kind of violence, some time. It would drive me crazy, like as not. That place we just left nearly did. I could smell it all the time, there, killing and hurting, and the vilest evil you could think of. I could even smell it on us. On all of us. Even on you, my Lady, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.

Hurin's being the practical smallfolk type means that he's got it exactly right about how awful these modifications to his power would be. It's a shame he doesn't still smell all that Vileness on Lanfear. I suppose the passage of time means that all of her actual atrocities are quite faint.

It's an even bigger shame we won't be keeping him around. I'll miss you, Hurin.

“A wise decision, Rand,” Selene said, “and well thought out.” She touched his arm and smiled, and he found himself again thinking of kissing her.

He really is the Roadrunner to her Wile E Coyote romantic compellings, huh?

Egwene wouldn’t have said I was wise. Egwene would have called me a woolhead.

Well sure Rand, but that's because back when Egwene wanted a romantic relationship with you, she didn't want you to be her enslaved thrall to earn her glory points. If anything, it's probably your lifelong exposure to proper Two Rivers insanity that protects you from Selene.

Welp. That's another chapter done. I hope to have another chapter up tomorrow but we will see. If we're lucky I just might finish this book before season 3!

#let's read #wheel of time #wot #robert jordan #wheel of time spoilers #wot spoilers #rand al'thor #hurin #lanfear #loial

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moonlight-phobia · 1 year

Text

Soul Heart

Soul-heart belongs to Ed Goldfarb

Light Twisted Wonderland x Reader

References to Fairy Gala and Reincarnation AU

Enjoy!~

One of a kind, Forged of steel

From a beautiful mind, And with a mighty heart

That drove men apart..

“Have you heard the Ramshackle prefect speak before? I don’t think I’ve ever heard them say a single thing since they got here.” Two students were walking next to each other down the hallway of the prestigious college.

“That cat they have does a lot of the talking maybe it’s just that.” A shrug from the other young gentleman as they would focus their attention forward “I heard they do a lot of work with House Warden Riddle though. So they have to be good at rules-“

“Probably just the cat then- but you do know the Fairy Gala is coming up! Maybe we can hear them then. I know it’s supposed to be some sort of fancy dress up but there’s performances as well-!” Not aware to presence around the corner that was sulking deep into the shadows. Not that this figure meant to stay hidden..but rather there was no going to try and butt in on a conversation like that.

A forgotten plain, Where only the damaged remained

That's where I found my destiny, One more lost refugee

Come with me

Hands settling over the heart and taking a deep breath- that’s what Grim would see though watching the prefect

“Are you sure you want to do this- you haven’t really spoken I know..you had the accident and all but-“ for once the cat sounds really serious but of course he’s going to be this is a really delicate manor to consider.

“I don’t want to disappoint though Queen Clarion asked me..me of all people..” mind wandering back to the moment of being called to Crowley’s office and meeting the Queen of fairies. It didn’t matter if one was good or evil the fairies all alike still carried traditions to invite the seasons.

“Nyah! You could always ask Azul you know for a contr..nevermind that’s a bad idea..”

“Very bad.” After dealing with so many blots of course and especially Azul’s..had left some traumatic memories. The fight wasn’t easy- watching friends get hurt and tossed around like children toy’s was no better! Sleepless nights is what was usually meet and even more so with this extra added responsibility of singing for the Gala.

“Least you don’t have to worry about your outfit though nyah..and neither do I! The outfits we got are so fancy and nice!” It reminded the prefect of a pantsuit with a dip in the chest but that part was covered with a shiny material that reflected colors. The wrist to elbows covered in golden branches and the same applies to the pants. Paired with a silky cape that started at the shoulders and went downwards like a train.

“They are- they put so much work into them for such tiny things..they were really nice though when we were here during the winter break..” arm rubbing over their shoulder for a moment. It had only been about a month since Jamil had overbloted and even now still having some body pain. The prefect had never voiced their concerns or injuries to anyone aside from the ghost in the house.

“Nyah! Let’s try it again-! The song- you said the song was from your home that’s something you remember right?”

“Yes but there’s some parts that I don’t remember I’ll have to improvise..”

Feel my Soul-Heart

If you've been seeking a new start

Let me be your guiding light

'Til the end of the night

“Stay still- I’m not done yet sweet potato.” The blonde haired man would grunt lowly gently drifting the thin gold eyeliner pen against the eyelids of the prefect “I know you’re impatient for the event as much as I but you have to look perfect.”

Anything less then perfect wouldn’t be accepted by Vil at all! This was the coming of spring event and without the fairies a lot of the college wouldn’t be able to run- especially when it came to the light and fire fairies. Otherwise this school would have failed years age along with the surrounding dorms designed for the reflections of the students homeland.

“I know but- eh hey!” Feeling the cold sensation against your face “tell me at least when you’re going to spray that stu-“

“Don’t open your eyes I’m not done yet and I still have to do your hair too and make sure the veil as well, don’t even get me started with this golden lipstick we will do that last don’t you dare smug it. Your outfit is more expensive then my foundation.”

“I won’t..there’s only a few hours left though till the event-“

“Sweet potato you’ll be okay..just do it like we went through for the last few weeks and nothing will go wrong.”

Close your eyes

Know my Soul-Heart

Keeping watch over the rampart

Let me be your shining star

The event had finally begun though and there was so many people too. Everyone dressed in white, gold, shades of pinks and blues. Ducking back behind the curtains and taking a deep breath

“Hey!” A water fairy would chirp up softly, little wings fluttering at a slow pace in front of you “It’s just for a little~ I’m sure our Queen will be really happy you know she wouldn’t have choose you otherwise!”

“Yea! Show those boys who’s really the best singer here in Night Raven!” A fire fairy would blaze out its flames seeming much brighter then normally.

One of the smaller craft fairies adjusting the opal necklace around the front of your outfit “alright you’re all set! Come on now let’s go-“

Being dragged out onto the stage wasn’t the best feeling but what could be done about this anymore though- so it’s time to really start this isn’t it..the quiet commence of music-

Leading bright from afar

From whoever you were

To whoever you are

Feel my Soul-Heart now

It felt more then just three minutes of singing now reaching the end of the song that had been sung in the past. Students enjoying the real start of the Gala for a song of another world. Perhaps even if it’s a single day it’s peaceful and feels quite relaxing. The silence taking over the crowd for a moment before the uproar followed.

The rest of the Gala had gone by pretty smoothly along with words of praise from the Fairy Queen and HeadMaster Crowley as well.

So why does it feel like not all of it was completely done though..it felt like there could have been more but perhaps leaving it this way was for the best. Heading out the double French doors and onto the balcony to relax with the cold air.

Eyes closing and feeling the heavy wisp of cold and strong air against your cheeks. Face scrunching in slight displeasure for a moment as tears would start building up for a moment- a mix of the harsh weather the ending call of winter having its last breath to the spring bringers.

“Dry all your tears”

“I've returned after so many years”

“Let the creatures I cherish flourish now”

“This is my vow”

Golden decorated eyelashes opening up to show off no other then the horned man who had become more like a figment of imagination with the amount of rare times he show up around Ramshackle. Black nails gently drifting under your cheeks to collect the clear liquid.

“Can you sing a bit more for me? For me only - my orange blossom..”

His voice barely above a whisper with the way he spoke. Like the man was trying to make sure no one else heard him or that of the human.

How many years had he been waiting for such confirmation though..the number is unknown but this is what he’s been waiting for. His lovely orange blossom back after a life time of waiting..

“Know forever my Soul-Heart”

“Anyone seeking a new start”

“Let me be your guiding light”

“'Til the end of the night”

“Tsunotarou-“

“Call me Malleus. My Orange Blossom.”

#twisted wonderland #x reader #malleus x yuu #twst malleus #malleus #fairy gala #Pokémon song #malleus x reader #twst #grim twst #twsited wonderland x reader #twst x reader

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bucksfucks · 3 years

Text

𝙁𝘽𝙍𝙊 ; 𝗯𝘂𝗰𝗸𝘆 𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘀 [𝟳/𝟭𝟭]

summary┃bucky’s past comes back with a vengeance and you’re determined to get the answers you’ve been searching for.

pairing┃roommate!bucky x f!reader

word count┃2,682 words

warnings┃bucky’s past is revealed, character mentions; [sam wilson, natasha romanoff, tony stark], pet name [kid (platonic), sweets & baby], threats made against bucky + reader, trust-issues, mention of hit-men, brief mention of death, phone sex, praise kink, masturbation, mention of toys, slight angst, soft ending — 18+ ONLY • MINORS DNI

notes┃there is A LOT of plot here but also some filthy goodness and a sprinkle of angst <<3

SERIES MASTERLIST

Ex-wife.

Bucky’s words echoed in your ears as he didn’t dare to look at you.

His ex-wife was threatening you.

And he didn’t think to mention her? Ever?

“Can I please explain?” Bucky croaked finally, voice sounding broken as you shrugged your shoulders — in a state of shock.

That was all he needed before he recounted his previous relationship with the woman who was now sending you threatening emails.

Married young, too young and too fast and it ended up blowing up in their faces.

Well, clearly she hadn’t gotten over it.

“I thought I lost her,” he explains. “I thought that moving halfway across the country would be enough.”

You finally looked up to meet his eyes, glossy, sad and terrified as you sniffled.

“There’s a reason only Tasha calls me James.”

It broke your heart hearing that, the way his head hung low and he nearly winced at the sound of his own goddamn name.

But you didn’t know who to trust anymore.

Bucky always glossed over how he, Sam, and Nat knew each other — telling you that they were old friends that go back.

How far back?

You needed to know, but clearly you weren’t about to get answers from him.

“Buck,” he stopped you, taking a step closer as his eyes begged and pleaded you not to finish your sentence.

“I can’t,” he shook his head, “I need some time.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to say those words that would shatter both of your world’s. But you had no idea what the hell you had gotten yourself into and you needed answers.

And you knew exactly who to go to for them.

“I understand,” Bucky sighed. “I’ll stay at Sam’s for some time, okay?”

You could only nod your head, watching him walk past you and into his door.

Then he shut it, something he never did because his door was always open for you. No matter what you needed and no matter what time of day it was.

It felt...wrong.

But you couldn’t dwell on it, grabbing your keys, phone, and whatever other important things you could think of being you nearly bolted out of the front door.

You plugged your headphones into your phone, hitting shuffle and descending down into the subway.

The entire ride made you anxious, slowly approaching your stop and you were way out of place in this crowd.

People rushed by you in expensive suits and what you could only guess were the infamous red-soled shoes that were worth close to your monthly rent, if not more.

You cringed, thinking of the man you were about to see in his stupidly tall office building that you had to crane your neck at an uncomfortable angle just to get a look at.

The elevator could not have taken longer, tapping your foot impatiently as you rode up to what felt like the heavens before the doors opened to revel smooth wooden doors that reach from the ceiling to the floor.

You were so close, before you were stopped.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, you can’t be here right now.” A man’s voice stopped you, dressed in a security guard uniform and oh, this was so him.

“I know him,” you said, intent on seeing the man probably sitting behind those large doors.

“I’m sorry, I can’t let you do th—”

“It’s okay, Marv. I know her,” his voice came not from behind the doors, but from the long hallway to your left.

The security guard, Marv, nodded his head as he looked at you once more before retreating back to where he was leaning against one of the walls.

“This is a surprise,” you rolled your eyes, “Tony, please. I don’t wanna hear it.”

He walked over to you, embracing you in a hug, “oh c’mon, I’ve missed you, Kid.”

You shook your head, “I haven’t been a kid in years,” you tried to remind him, but it was Tony, he wasn’t going to listen as he just laughed it off and welcomed you into his office.

It was much different from last time, all new furniture and appliances, but nothing lasted more than a year with Tony.

Tony was an old friend, sort of.

He was an old friend of your father’s, something like an uncle, but also like your older brother.

So just one giant pain in your ass.

“So,” Tony sighed. “What trouble did you get into this time, Kid?”

You told Tony everything.

From being roommates with Bucky to the way he asked you to be his fake girlfriend to Sam’s wedding and all the way to the situation you were in now. Confronted by his ex-wife without any idea of what she was going to do.

Tony had that look on his face. The one where he was going to tell you that you were crazy.

“I don’t know how you manage to get yourself into these situations,” he chuckled, hand clamping over your shoulder as he walked around his desk and typed something into his computer.

“Last name is,” he looked at you. “Barnes.”

He nodded his head, typing away at his computer again before he stopped.

There was a brief moment of silence, Tony hiding behind the computer screen before he stood up and walked back around the desk, “I’m gonna need some time.”

You understood, shaking your head. You were asking Tony to hack into any known database and collect as much data on Bucky as you could. It was wrong, but you just needed to know who you were dealing with.

“Thank you, Tony. I-I really appreciate it.” You weren’t good when it came to...well, the heartfelt side of things but luckily neither was Tony.

“Don’t get sappy on me now, Kid. You know it makes me sick,” he joked playfully, smile on his lips as you stood up to give him a half hug.

“I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.” He promised before you walked out of the too-tall building with far more questions than you came with.

It was a waiting game that you didn’t want to play, but you didn’t have a choice.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It seemed like your relationship with Bucky was doomed from the start.

Friends to lovers rarely, if ever, works out in anyone’s favour.

The fake dating trope you could handle, pushing your feelings aside to help Bucky win a bet didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world. You had a great time, great fucking sex, and a trip out of it.

Then Steve wouldn’t leave the picture. Going as far as coming to the wedding as Natasha’s boyfriend to spite you not realizing that you and Bucky had gotten married.

Married.

You and Bucky were married. Bonded in a whole other way and now, his ex-wife was out for you and him.

Maybe this was a sign from the universe, a big red fucking flag telling you that it wasn’t worth it and yet...you couldn’t let go.

The apartment felt empty without Bucky, his bedroom left the way it was in the morning with your favourite sweater of his laid out on the covers and a little post-it note on top of it.

You never could really decipher Bucky’s handwriting. It was absolute chicken scratch as you picked it up and managed to make out in case you get cold scribbled onto it.

It was an easy decision to pull it over your head and drown yourself in the scent of Bucky’s cologne as you fiddled with the small gold band you now wore around your neck as a necklace.

You didn’t want anyone other than Bucky. There was no in the world who understood you better. Who knew how to make you laugh when you were having a bad day.

Everything led you right back to Bucky.

So when your phone rang from the other side of the couch, you were secretly hoping it was Bucky.

Instead, Tony’s name flashed and your heart sank into your stomach as you quickly hit answer and held the phone up to your ear.

“You’re not gonna like this, Kid.” Tony’s voice flowed through the speakers as you took a shaky breath in and braced yourself for what Tony was about to tell you.

“He did a damn good job at erasing his history, but you can’t erase all of it,” Tony chuckled as you rolled your eyes, “quit stalling.”

He sighed, “the Howling Commandos was an organization tasked with,” he paused, “tasked with collecting intel and making sure that information never got released to the public.”

This time, it was your turn to fall silent.

“Like, spies?” You asked and Tony hummed, “sort of.”

“They had spies, agents, hit-men.”

No. You shook your head, no.

“James Buchanan Barnes was their highest ranking hit-man. Him, along with Sam Wilson and Natasha Romanova worked as a team. A spy, agent, hit-man trio.”

You had to shake yourself out of spiralling, what you needed was everything Tony could possible tell you.

“Anything on his ex-wife?” You then asked and heard shuffling on the other line, “not much. Mary Barnes, but I doubt that’s her real name, was part of a training initiative the Howling Commandos were testing.”

You bit your lip, at least you had a name, even if it wasn’t her real name.

“By that point it looks like James—”

“Bucky. His name is Bucky.”

Tony cleared his throat after a moment’s silence, “Bucky looks like he had disappeared. Blipped off of the face of the Earth. There’s nothing in his file after 2014.”

That makes sense. Bucky was perhaps the most old-fashioned man you knew, only upgrading from his flip-phone just a few years ago. He barely knew how to unlock it, though.

“Sam and Natasha went on to live normal lives, Kid. I’m sure that’s all Bucky wants.” Tony tries to assure you and you laugh, “you sound like my dad.”

He laughed on the other line, “oh gross.”

“Thanks for everything, Tony.” You said, “you know what number to call in case you’re in trouble.”

With that, you both hung up, tossing your phone away from you to digest everything you’d just been told. You knew you had to talk to Bucky, but you didn’t know when.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“So you’re tellin’ me,” Sam was confused. “That this is the same Mary that tried to get you killed?”

Bucky rolled his eyes, taking another swing of his beer as he rounded Sam’s kitchen island.

“That’s the one, you know, the undercover agent working for Strucker.” Bucky scowled at the name.

He was angry, beyond angry at the fact that his past was creeping up on him despite how far he had gone to erase it.

“But why now? Why come after you now?” Sam poses the question that even Bucky doesn’t have an answer to. So he just shrugs his shoulders and finishes off his beer.

“Unfinished business.”

They stand in silence for a little while longer, listening to the old ticking clock hanging on the wall before Sam takes a step towards Bucky.

“Whatever you need, you know that Tasha and I are here for you, right?” He whispers and Bucky feels the warmth blooming in his chest as he gives him a half-smile.

“Yeah,” he nods his head, “thanks, man.”

Sam knows that Bucky was never really good at the sappy shit, so he doesn’t force it. Instead, he offers him another beer, bottle necks clinking as Bucky’s thoughts race.

He was worried.

Not about himself, but about you.

And you were worried about Bucky, curling up in his bed as you sighed and tossed and turned. There was no way you’d be able to fall asleep alone tonight. And hugging his pillow just wasn’t enough.

So you grabbed your phone, hitting his name and waiting for the ringing to sound before he picked up — tired and groggy.

“We need to talk.” You didn’t give him a chance to greet you. He sighed on the other line, but hummed in agreement, “tomorrow?”

You hummed in response to his question, the sound of his voice soothing as you played with the sheets of his bed.

“I miss you, Sweets.” Bucky whispered, your breathing hitching at how low and raspy his voice really was.

“I miss you too, Bucky.” You admitted, shifting as you got comfortable on the pile of pillows against your head.

There was a moment of silence before Bucky spoke again.

“You know what ‘m really missin’ right now?” His words sent a shiver down your spine as you shakily inhaled, “what?”

Bucky sighed, reminiscent of how he sighs when he runs his hands all over your body.

“I miss that sweet cunt of yours.” Bucky purrs, you know he’s smirking, possibly even dragging his tongue across his bottom lip as he closes his eyes to imagine you under him.

You’re at a loss for words, feeling your panties grow damp, core aching and you’re going to have to touch yourself soon. But that’s all part of Bucky’s plan, you think.

“Here I am, all alone, with my hand wrapped ‘round my cock,” he whispers, but you can hear him stroking himself.

“And all I can think ‘bout is that way your tight little pussy grips me and milks my fuckin’ dick, baby.” Bucky was always so good with his words, knowing exactly what to say to make you melt.

And it was working, because you were a squirming mess in his bed.

“Well,” you could tell he was smirking by his tone, “what’re ya waitin’ for, Sweets. Go on, touch yourself. I wanna hear you work your clit.”

Your hand flew under your panties, being given the permission only made it sweeter as your fingers came in contact with your soaking folds. The sensitive bundle of nerves needed desperate attention as you slowly circled it.

“Good girl, that’s my girl.” Bucky praised, continuing to work himself.

“God,” he hissed, “can’t wait to have you all to myself again. Bury myself deep, maybe even have you sit on my cock as you beg me to do somethin’.”

You worked yourself a little faster, applying some more pressure as you let out a whine at his words.

“Add two fingers, Sweets. I know how much you love bein’ stretched,” Bucky chuckled deeply, “been thinkin’ of gettin’ you a mould of my fuckin’ dick for when ‘m not home.”

Oh my God. Oh my God that shouldn’t be so fucking hot so why does it make your walls flutter and breathing uneven as you have to stop yourself from actually fucking cumming.

He chuckles again, “yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

You can’t verbally respond, too focused on the tight coil in your abdomen that’s ready to snap.

“I know you’re close, can hear it in how fuckin’ desperate you sound,” he pants, “so why don’t you make a mess all over my clean sheets.”

You gasp, how did he know, but you don’t get to dwell on it for much longer than a moment because your orgasm rips through you and leaves you panting Bucky’s name.

Both of your breaths are uneven and ragged through the phone’s speakers, bed springs creaking on Bucky’s side as he hums.

“If only you could see the miss I made for you, Sweets,” you shuddered at his words, closing your eyes to relish in the moment.

“Now get some sleep, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.” His tone has changed, entirely sweet and caring as you grab the phone to bring him closer to you.

“Okay,” you reply, another lick of silence before you hear Bucky going to end the call but you stop him.

“I love you, Bucky.” You quickly blubber out and it feels good to finally say those words because there’s no more denying how you really feel about him.

“I love you too, Sweets.”

It’s a bittersweet ending to the phone call, thoughts and emotions running wild as you’re forced to remind yourself that Bucky has a lot of explaining to do.

#bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x reader smut #bucky barnes headcanon #bucky barnes headcanons #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes oneshots #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes au #roommate!bucky #bucky barnes series

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tumbling-darkling · 3 years

Text

The boy who lived and the professor that didn’t (for the most part)

AO3

During Harry's second year at Hogwarts, a strange and unexpected man starts teaching his Defence Against the Dark Arts class.

(A Danny Phantom X Harry Potter crossover)

Chapter 1

Harry took a seat in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, glancing over to Ron who sat beside him and then scanning the classroom for their new DA professor. He already met the man in Diagon Alley, blonde and very much interested in only himself. Harry shivered as he remembered being pushed towards him as people took pictures of the famous wizard and the boy who lived.

At least it wasn’t worse than a head of the dark lord growing out of the back of the professor's neck.

Well- Harry did thumb through some of the textbooks before classes started. He absolutely agreed with Hermione who was very vocal about the books- they didn’t actually seem to teach anything. Just spoke about the ‘many adventures of Gilderoy Lockhart’.

Maybe this will just end up being an easy class.

The door slammed open 15 minutes past the start of class, startling the students as they swiveled their heads to look at the newcomer, expecting Gilderoy Lockhart.

Instead a tall man with a slim frame and hunched posture strode into the room. He had messy black hair pulled in a very horrible and tangled loose bun with the remaining dreads lazily dangling at the man's shoulders, his chin and cheeks covered in unshaven stubble. His robe was creased and torn, his hat loosely hanging from his hand and his sleeves pushed almost all the way up his arms. What really caught people’s attention was those eyes. Unnaturally clear and bright icy blue, so blue that even in the bright light they seemed to slightly glow.

He quickly pulled down his sleeves as he walked past the students towards the front of the room, grumbling slightly under his breath about something Harry couldn’t catch. He tossed the hat aside, muttering more loudly about how ‘wizard hats are so stupid and impractical I’m not wearing that garbage’ before he turned towards the class.

“My name is Fenton- er Professor Fenton I guess. Since I’ll be teaching you about…” he glanced down at the podium he stood in front of, crouching a little as if looking for something before straightening back up. “Defense… Against the… Dark… Arts,” he said slowly and not very confidently. Then he whispered again to himself but just loud enough for some students to pick up, “they see me fight one god damn ghost and suddenly I’m an expert on all dark magic entities? I think I’ll fight Dumbledore after this.” He straightened a little, eyes looking over the classes.

Harry did not like those eyes lingering on him for half a second longer than the others. He didn’t like this professor looking at him at all.

Something just didn’t feel right.

“Alright, any questions?”

A hand immediately went up, and Harry knew exactly who it belonged to.

“Uh- yes miss-?”

“Hermione Granger. Wasn’t our professor supposed to be Gilderoy Lockhart?”

“Yeah- that guy. He’s a phoney.”

The class went silent before someone yelled out, “WHAT?”

“Guy went around, found Wizards and Witches that did cool things, made them forget it then took all the credit. Tried to take my credit and I hit him a little too hard. Now I’m here taking his place. It’s all over the news, you know. You can read the exaggerated details in there. Anything else?”

The same hand went up.

Professor Fenton sighed, “yes?”

“Why were you 15 minutes late? Shouldn’t professors be on time? And why do you look like you crawled out of the forbidden forest.”

“I fought a ghost. Then got lost,” Fenton deadpanned.

The class went silent.

Fenton then turned around, “well if that’s all, let’s get started with something I know a lot about. What do you already know about Ghosts?”

“You’re seriously more afraid of Professor Fenton than Professor Snape?” Hermione asked Ron. “He’s not even mean! Sure he’s grumpy but he doesn’t beat down every question I ask him! He even seems to be glad I’m asking questions! Unlike Professor Snape who just treats us like idiots for not knowing something.”

“Sure- he’s not mean or cruel but… he just freaks me out. Like how he just stares sometimes at empty walls! Or how the room temperature always drops the moment he seems to take a single step into the room! I can’t even hear his footsteps when he walks! He’s bloody freaky is what he is!”

“Well I for one am glad he’s our Professor! Imagine having a phony for a professor! Though he talks a lot about ghosts. Ghosts can’t cause people harm. At most they give a little scare but it’s not like they could cause terrible damage.”

“What about those ectoplasm based ones he was talking about? The solid ones?” Harry asked.

“Rare and unlikely. Ectoplasm doesn’t form in the magical world, Harry! The stuff that leaks through and hangs in the air is only enough to allow ghosts like Nick or Myrtle to hang around in harmless ways.”

“But he said he fought a ghost before he arrived in class! And he looked really beat up!”

“He said he got lost too! Maybe he just stumbled across a guard dog like Fluffy and made up something about ghosts!”

“What if it’s like the last professor though? What if he’s looking for another secret object in Hogwarts walls?” Harry hissed softly, “Ron is right that he just has a sense of oddness about him! I just don’t trust him!”

“Harry, you’re just paranoid from last year. Professor Fenton is normal. Now pick up your pace, we’re going to be late for our next class!”

Professor Fenton glanced down at Harry, then back at Professor McGonagall, “he has what with me?”

“Detention. You see, Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley caused a bit of a fuss by driving a flying car in plain sight of several muggles, and risked exposing the magical world. As such, his punishment has been detention. I trust you can find some fitting work for him to do as he reflects on his actions?”

Fenton crosses his arms, his mouth tightening slightly into a grimace as his fingers slightly tapped his own arms. “This won’t be every night, will it?” He asked.

“No, we will be switching supervisors for a few weeks but you may also need to supervise Mr. Weasley sometime before then.”

Fenron let out a sigh of defeat, “well- alright. I’ll take care of it then.”

Professor McGonagall gave a curt nod before turning stiffly and walking off. Professor Fenton scratched at the back of his neck as he watched her walk off, then glanced down at Harry, those eyes seeming to search him for… something. Then that stern look relaxed into a lopsided grin, “So you were the one that made that stuck up ministry trip over their hats and scramble around in blind panic! I say, hats off to you young Potter!” He laughed.

Harry blinked in confusion at the shift in mood, then Fenton patted him on the back, “hey, no need to look so freaked out! I’m not gonna bite ya!” He began walking forward, and it took Harry an extra second to realize that the professor was moving and he should follow. “Oh, wait you probably are a little freaked out, huh? I guess my mood could have been a bit better this morning, I was just a little flabbergasted today. I was kinda rushed into this position, you know.” He shrugged, his hands shoved into his cloak’s pockets. He didn’t really walk like any of the other Hogwarts professors. He had this relaxed saunter, like he was more of a visiting relative than a staff member. “Say, let’s say your ‘punishment’ will just be helping me bring some books from the library to my quarters. There’s a lot I need to run through and a single trip would make all the difference.”

Harry nodded, finding it hard to keep up with the man's long strides. “So… you don’t like the ministry of magic?” Harry asked.

Professor Fenton huffed in annoyance, “not one bit. They are almost worse than observants!” Harry had no idea what those were. Another level of magic government? “They try to control every little thing. Don’t expose magic to the normal world. Don’t use magic to make technology without permission. Don’t use magic to save muggle children if people are watching.” His said in a mocking tone, “they have so many rules that are outdated or stupid. Never trust a government, kid! Especially a magical one!”

“What are… observants?”

Fenton glanced down at Harry, “oh those stuck up jerks? They are like the government of the ghost realm. Really annoying. Unlike the Ministry of Magic, they actually know how to find me!” He laughed.

“Ghosts have governments?”

“Oh yeah! They have more of a monarchy, the observants are like hermit wizards that only step in when they believe the world is in peril. Meanwhile the rest falls on the shoulders of the Ghost King.”

Harry frowned, “I’ve never read about that in the textbooks. Hermione says that ghosts are just harmless beings formed from souls that aren’t ready to leave the mortal realm.”

“Well she’s half right. There’s different kinds of ghosts, like Sir Nicolas and the Bloody Baron. They are more like echoes. Souls that cling desperately to this world but didn’t have enough ectoplasm to become a fully solid ectoplasmic being. They won’t leave for the infinite realms until they are ready, though many believe they are trapped here forever. More solid ghosts form in a similar way but are exposed to more ectoplasm, but rarely show up because natural portals to the infinite realms are sparse and in between. Well until about a decade ago.”

“Infinite Realms? Natural Portals?” Harry felt like his head was going to explode.

“Well, there should be some books about that in the muggle section.. Though some wizards would say it’s all garbage because muggles discovered and studied it. Just look up my name under the author and you should find some.”

“Oh… wait- did you write them? Is that why you know so much about ghosts?”

Professor Fenton barked out a loud laugh, doubling over as he clutched his sides, “Ah! No! No, I didn’t write them! My parents did!” He cackled. “Ah, yeah but I did learn from them. And a bit of field work. Tell Miss Granger to check them out too, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind having something to read. She reminds me of my sister in that way.” He stopped in front of the library doors, “Aha! I knew we would find this place eventually!”

Harry looked at Professor Fenton in bewilderment, “you didn’t know where we were going?!”

Fenton shook his head and shot him another grin, “nope! I’ve been constantly getting lost in these dumb halls. This place constantly moves and I absolutely hate it. Even the Infinite Realms make more sense than this castle!”

Harry stuttered, “If the infinite realms is where ghosts go, isn’t that like… the afterlife? You’ve been to the afterlife?”

Professor Fenton lazily shrugged and opened the doors to the library, “yes and no. It’s all complicated. I’ll tell you a different time.”

Harry stood there for a few more seconds as his brain tried to catch up with the information, and once he managed to close his mouth he chased after the Professor.

Harry glanced around the Professors room as he followed after him, arms filled with books that seemed to suspiciously be only about the Dark Arts. He’d never been to a professor's living quarters, at most he had been in some offices. Even so, it was not at all what he imagined a wizard's living quarters would look like.

First off, there seemed to be technology. He recognized a coffee machine on a low table, but it wasn’t plugged into anything. There was an odd box that looked like a slightly smaller television, it’s screen black and wires sticking out of it attached to a rectangular box with a lot of buttons on top of it and a small round device. There was also a radio, and a huge telescope leaning out the largest window. As Harry looked, he began to notice spaceships literally in every corner of the room. Different kinds as well, some would even move and blast off. The most amazing part was the roof of his room. It was almost exactly like the great hall as it rose into dark nothingness, but the stars were MUCH brighter and all the constellations had been traced out, some brighter than others. For someone who knew a lot about ghosts, he seemed to really like space. Then there were also some odd things thrown around, like a very weird looking thermos. Or a metal… boomerang?

“Just place them over here, Harry!” Fenton called as he dropped his pile of books onto a couch in the corner. Harry did as he was told, placing the books down a little more gently than the professor did.

“Professor… how did you get these things to work? Technology usually… explodes around magic,” Harry asked.

“Oh! Well it’s because I power them myself!” Professor Fenton chirped. “They don’t work the same way as regular technology. Again, I recommend checking out some of the notes in the Fentons books, they have a lot of stuff that works in the magical realm.”

“Why would you need it though? Doesn’t magic make up for a lot of technology?” Harry asked.

“Ah, but that’s where you are wrong you see! There is nothing in the magical world that is equivalent to the coffee machine!”

Harry blinked, “... what.”

“It’s a very important machine, Harry. You will depend greatly on it once you need to stay up for an entire week. But! It seems our time together has come to an end. Thanks for your help, Harry, and if McGonagall asks, tell her I made you scrub toilets or something,” he winked.

Harry grinned back, heading towards the doorway to go find Ron and Hermione. He closed the door behind and the moment it clicked shut, he saw a flash appear from under the door.

He paused slightly, but shrugged. Maybe a comet passed by on the enchanted roof of his room. He then headed down the halls to find his friends.

“Not normally invited?” Harry asked.

Hermione nodded, “Ghosts throw death day parties like birthday parties, but rarely do they ever invite living people!”

“I see, so Sir Nick really wanted us to be there,” Harry pondered as the trio entered the party area. He immediately was hit with an awful stench, nearly gagging before he had to swallow it as Sir Nicholas noticed their arrival and approached swiftly with the widest smile they had ever seen on his face.

“Harry! Ron! Hermione! You all made it! Oh this brings such joy to my cold, dead heart!”

“Glad to see you as well, Sir Nick,” Harry struggled not to gag on the smell.

“Say, why do ghosts even celebrate the day they died? Isn’t that… like a very traumatic experience you would rather not remember?” Ron somehow managed to ask.

“Well, ghosts like to celebrate it to commodirate a start to a new chapter of our afterlife!” He paused, glancing across the room for a split second, “most ghosts that is, and the death day isn’t to remind us of our death. It more serves to encourage us to look forward! No one really wants to remember how we died. Never a pretty picture.”

Harry followed Nicholas’s gaze for the split second glance, then noticed a ghost he had never seen before. He ignored the smell (they would have to ask about that later) and nudged Hermione, pointing at the ghost, “hey Hermione, have you ever seen that ghost around the castle before? I don’t remember seeing him from last year…”

The ghost in question seemed so much stranger than the rest, he had a brighter glow, where he should have had legs, merged into what seemed to be a ghostly tail, drifting lazily like caught in a breeze. Long hair whiter than snow itself drifted around like caught underwater, and bits that weren’t drifting were braided neatly and lost in the rest of it as it constantly moved. The ghost had purple skin, pointed ears, green freckles dotting his cheeks and long sharp fangs showing as he laughed at another ghost's joke. He dressed like a medieval lord, wearing a delicately detailed black and white tunic tucked into a braided belt circling his waist, his ghostly tail completely black. Thick white leather gloves covered both his hands as he waved them around while he spoke. A white cape hung off his shoulders, but when the cape occasionally drifted to show the inside, it was like the ghost had taken the night sky and attached it to the garment. Thick fur wrapped around his shoulders and long and sharp horns that looked like ice circled his head like a crown.

Toxic green eyes that had irises that seemed to swirl around the pupil glanced at the trio and Harry suddenly felt very very small.

“I… don’t know. I haven’t even heard of any ghost that looked like him before,” Hermione seemed like she was at a loss, probably scouting through her thoughts and memories for any trace or mention of the unfamiliar ghost.

Sir Nicholas cut in, “oh! That may be because King Phantom doesn’t live in this castle! He’s mainly only here to visit for the year!”

Ron gapped, “... did you say… king? Was he a king before he died?”

Sir Nicholas frowned, “no, of course not! He’s the king of all ghosts! King of the infinite realms! The one who defeated Pariah Dark in single combat barely a year after he died! The youngest and most beloved king we ghosts have had in such a very long time.”

“There’s a king of ghosts? And that’s him?” Harry asked.

“That’s what I just said, my dear boy. Keep up!”

“I don’t want to seem rude, Sir Nicholas but… why is he here?” Hermione gasped, “if he really is such a powerful and imposing figure, doesn’t he have a lot of duties to fulfil?”

“Well, he told us he was technically here on business but that it requires time and an investigation that could take a few months. So he could visit and celebrate with us from time to time! He’s a very relaxed man, I assure you. Here let me introduce you all to him! My Liege! I have some friends you absolutely must meet!”

The King looked over and smiled widely, “friends, you say?” His voice echoed more than the other ghosts, seeming to carry across the room as he spoke. He then blinked in surprise and turned to Nick, “Sir Nicholas… you realize these three are still amongst the living?”

“Why of course! Harry is the Boy Who Lived! The first to survive the death spell!” Sir Nicholas said quite proudly.

The King drifted down towards the three, causing Ron to slightly flinch at his approach, his hands clasped together as worry seemed to etch on his face, “well, most ghosts don’t have a very good sense of smell or taste, right? Which is why we have all the rotting food out?”

“Yes?” Sir Nicholas still didn’t seem to catch on.

King Phantom held out his hand, producing clothing hanger clips made purely of ice, “The living can still very much smell and taste, and I don’t think it’s exactly the smell of roses and lavender.”

Sir Nicholas blinked, “oh. Oh! Oh Harry and friends, I apologize for forgetting such a detail!”

Harry, Ron and Hermione all graciously accept the clips, pinning them on their noses to escape the horrid smell. Then Hermione turned towards the Ghost King with a glint in her eyes, “wait- how did you do that? Ghosts aren’t this solid- and they definitely can’t use magic!”

Phantom chuckled, drifting back into the air as he pointed to the crown of ice horns on his head, “Well first off, I’m the king so I get some bonuses. As well as not all ghosts work the same. You should try listening to that Dark Arts professor of yours when he talks about ghosts. He’s quite knowledgeable about all things not living.”

“But- but years of documentation and research-!” Hermione tried to argue before the King tutted.

“Information is constantly changing and growing, something that seems pretty constant could change in seconds and turn your whole world upside down. Not to mention, many different types of ghosts like myself only became more common recently. Before, most of us were confined to the infinite realms, only ghosts like Sir Nicholas forming for many centuries and the different kinds rarely slipped out.”

“Well-, what changed?” Hermione challenged.

King Phantom sported a playful grin, “I d̶͙͉̓̓i̷̢̩̬̘̟̽ę̴̘̲̹̤͌̊d̸̢̳̞̄.”

He then turned and left the three on that note as he went to join other ghosts at the party.

“What does he mean by that?” Hermione huffed.

“He’s got an odd sense of humour, that’s for sure,” Sir Nicholas laughed.

Harry couldn’t stop his glare that shot towards Professor Snape as he accused Harry of petrifying Mrs. Norris and writing the bloody message that stained the wall. Before he could snap back at him that he did not do any of this, Professor Fenton seemed to almost step out of thin air to his defense.

“Mr. Potter was with me all night, he did not do this,” his voice laced with a chilling venom. Was he… lying for him?

Snape tilted his chin up, attempting to look down on Fenton who was no longer hunched, and instead stood tall at his full height. It was quite difficult to do as it turned out, Fenton towered over every other Professor in the area. “And who, pray tell, are you?” Snape seemed to almost spit.

A sinister grin spread across the tall Professor's features as he stepped in front of Harry, leaning menacingly over the shorter wizard and blocking his view of the student, “Professor Fenton, the professor of the Dark Arts. Accusing a second year of such a powerful spell isn’t a very wise take, now is it Professor Snape?” Fenton basically spat his name.

Snape glared back, “you would be surprised what Potter is capable of, especially the trouble he gets himself in.”

“How about you try not pinning the blame on a 12 year old child?”

“That is enough out of both of you,” Dumbledore stepped in. “We all know Harry was not responsible for this, as Professor Fenton’s defence is true. We have a healthy patch of mandrake roots that will cure Mrs. Norris of her petrification, and students will resume their classes while the professors investigate the issue. Now you three will return to your dorms for the rest of the night.”

Harry hesitated before he headed back towards the dorms, but didn’t fail to notice how Professor Fenton’s eyes flashed toxic green, or the wink sent in his direction.

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itsapeterthing · 3 years

Text

Who Am I? || Peter Parker

pairing: peter parker x avenger!reader

summary: spider-man’s identity is exposed to the world after the death of mysterio. the issue? spider-man has a known relationship with your superhero alias, sorceress, but peter is in a relationship with y/n y/l/n. your identity remains a secret as you are forced to decide to either reveal your identity to the world or to allow your boyfriend to have his reputation tarnished further.

word count: 2.3k

warnings: angst angst angst

masterlist || request || taglist

You stood, shocked, in your bedroom with the television still playing in front of you. For a moment you were unable to move as you watched a photo of your boyfriend, Peter Parker’s face flash across the screen with footage of Spider-man playing alongside it. You always knew the day would come where both you and Peter’s identities would be exposed to the world, but you thought you would be the one to decide when and that you would have so much more time.

Your hands began to shake as you paced your room, picking up your cellphone and dialing your boyfriend’s number. Your identity hadn’t been exposed yet, but you knew there was only a matter of time until there was a decision to be made.

You and Peter had an ongoing relationship that everyone in your shared school knew about. However, it was a known fact across the world that Spider-Man was in a relationship with your superhero alias, Sorceress.

In this moment you were kicking yourself for never realizing that this situation could happen. If they weren’t already, you knew soon enough that people would begin connecting the dots. Peter Parker had you- Y/n Y/l/n- whereas Spider-Man had Sorceress- a woman with an unknown identity. You would either have to come forward and reveal your identity or remain in hiding, allowing the world to believe that you had never known of Peter’s super human abilities and that he had been seeing an Avenger behind your back.

You cursed to yourself as your call went to voicemail, about to call again until you heard banging against the glass of your bedroom window. You rushed across the room, pushing open the window for Peter as he climbed in before you slammed it shut once more.

“What the-” You began.

“Fuck.” Peter cut you off. “Shit. Shit. Shit! What am I going to do, Y/n?”

He began pacing your room, pulling the mask off of his face before tossing it aggressively across your room.

Just then, the phone in your hand began blowing up, buzzing and dinging from texts and direct messages in between phone calls from your family. You knew everyone had started to hear the news.

Silencing your phone and threw it on the bed.

“I- I don’t know, Pete.” You said confused and frustrated. “God, I could just kick that guy’s ass right now. What are we going to do?”

Looking at your boyfriend, you noticed as his eyelids grew red, water brimming on the edge and spilling over them as he tugged at his messy hair. His chest contracted and relaxed rapidly as his breathing quickened and you could hear soft huffs and puffs spilling from his mouth.

Meeting him where he stood in your bedroom, you cupped his face in your hands, pushing your own thoughts aside.

“Peter, look at me.” You told him, searching to meet his eyes. “You need to breathe, baby. We’re going to figure this out, okay? I know this looks bad, but not everyone can believe this, right? You’re Spider-Man. You’ve helped save the world. You’ve never given anyone a reason to believe shit like this because you’re a good person, Pete. They’re gonna have to believe you.”

Watching the tears fall from his eyes and stream down his cheeks, he shook his head, moving his hands out of his hair to instead wrap his arms around you, pulling you tightly against him. Shoving his face into the crook of your neck, you could hear his muffled voice.

“I don’t know what to do.” He sobbed into your skin, his fingers digging into the cloth of your shirt. “It feels like everything goes wrong. F-first Mr. Stark and now this. The world is literally against me, Y/n. I- I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Listening to your boyfriend's soft cries, you rubbed your hand in circles against his back, soothing him.

You swore you could feel your heart shattering in your chest, watching your favorite boy fall apart right in front of you. Although you both had been through a lot- Peter was going through your worst nightmare and had been hit repeatedly back to back to back. You wish you could turn back time and make it right for him just so you could see a smile grace his face once again.

“I’m not going anywhere, Peter.” You whispered. “We’re going to figure this out together-”

Just then, you heard your name announced from the television, your yearbook photo displayed on the screen alongside Peter’s, below it a photo of Spider-Man with his hand rested against Sorceress’ lower back, pressing a kiss to her cheek.

“Shit.” You cursed to yourself in so low a voice you hoped Peter wouldn’t notice, but he did.

“What? What’s wrong?” He asked pushing himself out of your embrace.

As hard as you tried to hush him and keep him in your arms, he backed away, turning his attention towards the television.

“This just in! Sources confirm that Peter Parker, better known as Spider-Man, has had a long-term girlfriend, Y/n Y/l/n, pictured here since before the Blip! Now, for those of you out there that don’t know, Spider-Man has also been in a relationship with fellow Avenger Sorceress for the past seven months! If you’re keeping up- that’s two women! We’ve been unable to reach Miss. Y/l/n so far for any comments at this time, but fellow classmates have been eager to share their sides of the story.”

“This whole thing is just so crazy.” You watched Betty say on screen. “I thought Peter was so nice, but journalist to journalist- Y/n was way above his league. That’s what’s so shocking! I can’t believe he’d cheat on her like that. I guess being an Avenger really does go to your head.”

“Do you know what this means?” Peter asked suddenly, turning towards you.

Feeling your heart thump in your chest, you furrowed your eyebrows at your boyfriend. “What are you talking about, Peter?”

Pointing at the television he raised his voice.

“Y/n, they don’t think that you’re Sorceress.” He explained to you. “They think that I’ve been seeing the both of you behind your back. You... you can still get out of this. You don’t have to go down with me.”

Staring at your boyfriend’s face, the severity of the situation written all over it, your eyes grew wide.

You understood what Peter meant. You had been given an out by some lucky chance. You could lie and say that you weren’t Sorceress and that you had never known a thing about Peter being Spider-Man. You could lie and pretend that you didn’t know who your boyfriend really was.

You could lie and allow Peter to have his reputation tarnished even further by making him out to be a two-faced cheater.

Shaking your head, you wrapped your arms around yourself.

“Peter, I can’t do that.” You told him. “You’re innocent! If I lie and say that I didn’t know anything- that I’m not Sorceress and that you’ve been cheating on me behind my back- then you look guilty. You can try to prove you’re innocent for the whole thing with Mysterio right now because you’ve never given anyone a reason to believe otherwise, but if I let you take the fall for me, Peter, and make you look like a liar and a cheater then that will give them all the more reason not to trust you. It’ll be impossible to change their mind.”

Listening to the words you were saying in disbelief, he pushed his fingers into his hair, tugging hard on the strands and shaking his head.

“Y/n!” He shouted your name. “You don’t think they’ll bring you down with me? If you tell everyone who you are, they’ll think you knew about it the whole time. They’ll think that you knew what I was doing with Mysterio and that you’re just as guilty as me. I can’t ask you to reveal your identity for me just for everyone to turn on you too!”

Flinching from the volume of his voice, a part of you knew that he was right.

You had always wanted to keep your identity a secret to allow you to live a normal life outside of avenging, but seeing Peter’s situation just gave you all the more reason to protect yourself by living a double life.

At the end of the day though, you loved Peter.

You and your boyfriend had chosen each other every day regardless of the hectic lives you both led- sometimes even risking your lives for each other in the process.

Your lives weren’t easy by any means, but you always had each other and promised yourselves that you always would.

“So what?” You asked. “What am I supposed to do, Pete? You think they’re going to stop at you? You don’t think they’re gonna start wondering who’s behind my mask? And God, what kind of life would it be if I kept mine a secret now? I can’t live normally anymore- not when I’m apparently the ex-girlfriend of the Avenger who they think murdered someone. Besides... what? We’d have to see each other in secret from now on so nobody finds out who I am? It’s not worth it, Peter-”

Throwing his hands in the air, he shouted.

“It’s worth if you’re safe, Y/n!” He raised his voice at you once again, before taking a deep breath. “What don’t you get?”

Taken back by his outburst, you both stood there staring at each other in silence.

When you finally reached your hand out for him, you winced as he shied away from your touch.

“I- I’ve lost to many people.” Peter said, his voice nearly a whisper. “I can’t lose you too.”

The way his voice cracked, made your breath catch in your throat as you stared at the broken boy in front of you.

Peter had undeniably lost so much- his parents, his uncle, his mentor- there was no doubt about that and it broke your heart knowing that he worried about losing you too.

Gazing at his tear-stained face- you swore to yourself that he never would. You would do whatever it took to make sure that Peter Parker was never alone.

“I know, Pete. I’m sorry.” You said, slowly stepping towards him. “You’re not going to lose me. I mean, Pete, we went to space and turned to dust for five years and still found our way back to each other. We’re going to figure this out together, Peter. We’re gonna clear your name, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I promise you.”

When the palm of your hand met his rosy cheek this time, he didn’t flinch away, instead nudging his head into your touch.

“I can’t ask you to do this.” He said softly, meeting your eyes.

“I wouldn’t ask you to either, Pete, but you would do it anyway, wouldn’t you?” You asked, brushing your thumb against his cheek.

“Yeah.”

Not being able to help the light chuckle that slipped from your lips, you threw Peter a soft smile.

“I know.” You whispered. “So just... let me do this, Peter.”

Just as Peter opened his mouth to speak, the sound of his phone interrupted him as it began ringing in his pocket. Stepping back from your touch, he pulled the device out from his suit and brought it to his ear.

“What? May, slow down.” He said sniffling. “I’m at Y/n’s.”

Watching as he furrowed his eyebrows, you crossed your arms.

“What?” He asked. “’Check outside her window’?”

Rushing across the room, you pressed yourself against your window, looking down at the street below you. On the sidewalk stood at least a dozen reporters, clamoring outside the door of your building. Eyes growing wide you stepped back, throwing the curtain over the glass.

“Shit.” You muttered to yourself, wringing your hands and turning to look at your boyfriend.

“May, I know.” He said. “I just- let me call you back.”

With that he hung up the phone, slipping it back into his pocket and strode across the room to meet you in your spot. Resting his hands on your arms, he squeezed tightly.

“We don’t have a lot of time.” Peter said meeting your eyes. “I know I can’t tell you what to do, but I want it to be your decision, Y/n. Make sure whatever it is that it’s... that it’s what you want because t-there’s no going back.”

Nodding your head along with his words, your focus shifted from your boyfriend to the dresser in the corner of your bedroom where you kept your suit.

This was it.

You had to make your decision.

You wished more than anything that you had more time, but you knew that you had had enough allotted to you already. You had been given more than any other member of your team and standing there now, you were thankful for every second of it.

No matter what your decision was, your life would change for good from this moment on.

Your heart racing in your chest, you memorized the feeling of your boyfriend's touch and the way his eyes glistened from the tears in his eyes, his cheeks stained red. You remembered the way he smiled when he first saw you again after the Blip and the way he held you so tightly after returning from his trip.

Taking one last, shaky breath you looked up at Peter and nodded.

“I’m ready.”

#peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker oneshot #peter parker imagine #peter parker angst #peter parker blurb #peter parker drabble #spiderman x reader #spiderman x you #spiderman x yn

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 3 years

Text

Fully Completely 1

Warnings: non-consent sex and rape (series), attempted violence, mutual irritation.

This is dark!Loki x reader and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Series Synopsis: There’s a new face in Birch and he’s come to haunt your door.

Sister series to Smalltown Bringdown, When the Weight Comes Down, and Little Bones

Note: I did not plan to get the first part done so soon. I will probably be setting time aside as I write this to also work on some original stuff. When it comes to that, I’d love if y’all might let me know what you think would be a better medium to release it? Kindle, Patreon, etc. I’m really not sure but if it was Patreon it would like be two series running at once with a chapter of each a month + Q&A and maybe some bonus materials? I am a noob at this shit and it wouldn’t be for a while yet.

Anyways, I’m rambling...

Thanks to everyone for their patience and feedback. :)

I really hope you enjoy. 💋

<3 Let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply or an ask! Love ya!

Chapter 1: She simply slammed the door

💀💀💀

The garage smelled like oil and snow. The cold air seeped under the closed metal door as you sat on the low stool and affixed the new headlight to the propped up Harley. It was only the start of an impractical rebuild; your brother wanted everything metal replaced with chrome. You thought it was obnoxious but the parts were paid for and you could never complain for money.

You were funded exclusively by the town’s club, your garage not far from The Asp where the members hung out and revved the engines you found yourself looking at more often than you liked. You were good at what you did though and privileged for it. You had the protection of the club without having to devote yourself truly to its bounds.

You checked the wiring and rolled away from the bike to change the station as the radio crackled. The snow kept setting the speaker to static and the noise was driving you mad. You flipped the switch to play the cassette stuck in the drawer, the old stereo beaten up and filthy. Springsteen’s gristled tones filled the shop and you wheeled back to your brother’s ride.

With the storm would no doubt come more work. Your fingerless gloves itched more than they kept you warm. Your fingertips were numb as you touched the frigid metal and the sweat of your palms made the fabric uncomfortable. You were used to it, rather tolerant as your task kept you distracted.

You were interrupted as you bent to look under the tank and get a good look at the exhaust and the rest of the beast’s entrails. You had the new pieces still wrapped and didn’t intend to do it all at once. Jerome could wait for his tacky redesign.

A loud banging came at the metal door and you glanced over in irritation. Anyone in Birch knew to come in the painted door to the left and not hit the large one. You huffed and stood with a groan, your hips sore from the low stool.

You fixed the front of your fleece-lined denim jacket and pulled the tail of your plaid shirt from inside your jean pocket. You’d been hunched over so long you were all wrinkled. You went past the large door and into the small entryway off the left of the garage and opened it with a tinkle of the rusty old bell above.

You stuck your head out into the gales as the snow continued to fall and squinted at the man in his thin jacket. He stood beside the long luxury car as another man with wild orange hair remained in the driver’s seat and blew into his hands. They were out of place in the small town and you could tell by the way the man scowled at the door that he knew it.

“Hey,” you called to them, “there’s a place down the street. I don’t do walk-ins.”

“Oh, hello, Miss…” he let his voice trail off as he neared and you stared at him rather than provide your name. His accent, his attire, the curl of his lip, it was clear what he thought of you and the bodunk town, “actually I was referred by an acquaintance. One, James Barnes.”

“Bucky?” you furrowed your brow.

“Mm, yes, that one,” he said, “my car will need detailing. We had some difficulties on the motorway.”

“Right,” you tried not to scowl, “well, if he sent you, I guess I can help.”

You left him and the door clattered behind you. He followed a few steps after as you went to the switch and pushed it to raise the wide door of the garage. You waved in the driver of the car and he carefully pulled in beside your brother’s bike.

He got out and you were surprised by his size, he was taller even then his companion and wider; neither could be described as short. You lowered the door as the thinner man walked along the shelves and the long table along the other side of the garage. The bigger man stood by the car and tucked his hands in his pockets.

“Not much better in here than out there,” the dark-haired man turned back to you, “you have heat in here?”

“You need a better coat,” you said as you rounded the back of the car, “and some boots.”

You glanced pointedly at his leather shoes and bent to reach under the table. You pulled out the space heater and plugged it in as you set on the wood. You cranked it up and smiled at him tritely.

“So, what’s the damage?” you asked as you looked to the other man.

“Headlight, maybe,” he said in a peculiar accent, “some scratches. We had a bit off a run-in.”

You neared and bent to examine the front of the car. You sighed as you tilted your head and clicked your tongue. It was easy enough to beat out the dents and buff out the scratches with a quick refinish. The headlight would need to be replaced and you knew they didn’t carry anything for that model in town. No one there was pretentious enough to drive it.

“If you want the headlight done before you leave town, it’ll take some time to get the replacement,” you warned.

“Oh, and how do you know I’m leaving?” he taunted coyly.

“Well, I know you’re definitely not sticking around,” you scoffed.

“Why wouldn’t I? A quaint place like this, I’m sure there is so much to explore,” he said dryly.

You had no delusions of what Birch was but it wasn’t the part of outsiders to deride the dead end. You stood straight and put your hands on your hips.

“You can go back to your castle, my lord, but you will have to wait out the storm,” you sneered. “Two days for the scratches. If you want to take it back after that and wait for the headlight to arrive, that’s fine with me.”

“Two days for the scratches? Surely you could do it before the morning,” the black-haired man insisted.

“I could but I have other work to do,” you replied, “so you can be patient and take your turn in line after all the hicks who live here.”

You went back to the table and grabbed your phone from where you tossed it earlier. You unlocked it and searched the model of his car and scrolled through the parts list.

“You’re Bucky’s guest so I’ll send the bill to him?” you asked, “though you do look to be able to afford it yourself.”

“You can invoice him directly,” he assured, “so you’re one of them?”

“One of them?” you repeated as you focused on checking out. The damn internet kept cutting in and out.

“My brother, those men in this town, I never knew a woman--”

“I’m not a biker. My brother is in the club,” you assured him, “so that big blond dope, he’s your brother?”

“Regrettably, yes,” he slithered, “Loki Odinson,” he introduced himself as he rubbed together his hands, the leather gloves doing little to protect his fingers, “my driver is Korg, and you’ve yet to tell me with whom I am trusting my property.”

“Again, there is a shop down the street. Prices aren’t bad,” you finished up your purchase and tucked your phone in your jacket pocket.

He met your eyes as you turned to him and he looked down his nose. You kept on and brushed past him as you went back around the car and sat by your brother’s bike.

“Sorry about the boss,” the other man, Korg, intoned, “he can be a bit--”

“Don’t apologise for me,” Loki snipped, “I needn’t atone to her.”

You rolled your eyes and wheeled around the side of the bike, “if that’s everything, you two can head back out. I’ll let you know when the car’s ready.”

“We might wait for the snow to calm,” Loki suggested.

“I close in an hour, you’re not staying here all night,” you sniffed.

“Trust me, I have no special desire to spend more time with you than necessary,” he retorted, “I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman so volatile as you, dear, and I’ve only just met you. I never expected you people to have very many manners but perhaps what I did presume was too much.”

You bared your teeth but kept at your work. You would worry about kicking him out when you finished the wiring.

“To be fair, had you not spoken first, I might’ve assumed you were a man,” he added.

You paused and glanced down at the open tool box. You weren’t unused to the comments, you weren’t girly in any way but it wasn’t like you were trying to be a man. You wore what was comfortable and in your work, practicality prevailed over aesthetic. Yet, your years of ridicule as a kid made you less tolerant of the comments and those had stopped long ago because you made sure they did.

“Oh, darling, have I upset you?”

“Don’t call me that,” you said as you reached into the toolbox.

“Well, you’ve not given your name and I’d hate call you what I truly think of you--”

The wrench flew from your hand as you stood and spun to him. It barely missed his head and bounced off the wall and plunked onto the table beside the heater. His eyes rounded and the other man looked at him. There was a thick silence as you glared at him.

“If you weren’t a friend of Bucky’s, I wouldn’t’ve missed,” you hissed, “now I will kindly, before I reach for a bigger wrench, ask you to leave.”

He pushed his shoulders back and tilted his head as his lips thinned dangerously. He swallowed and beckoned the other man with two fingers. His cheek twitched as if he would grin and he nodded subtly.

“Well, darling, how amusing you are. These brutes must adore you,” he snarled, “the exterior does indeed say it all.”

You bent and reached for another tool blindly. He blinked and quickly dodged as you flung the next wrench and he followed his henchman to the entryway. Your temper was a match for many men. It kept you safe.

“Barnes did not say his mechanic was a madwoman,” Loki called back as the bell rang.

“What, are you going to tattle on me?” You stormed towards the doorway, “you precious little princess?”

“Princess?” he met you in the doorway as Korg behind him held the door open and the snow blustered in, “I know Barnes will do me no other favours, but do you think he’ll do you any?”

“Get out,” you spat and shoved him, “I don’t need men to take care of me and I have no problem in proving that.”

He bit the inside of his lip in a crooked smirk and winked before he turned away and strutted out into the snow, shielding his face from the wild winds. Korg trailed behind him and the door sprang back into the frame. You crossed your arms and glared at the peeling paint.

You were tempted to tow his car out and let it weather the storm but you were smarter than that. If he was doing business with Bucky, you would be a fool to get in the way of it.

💀

The snow dwindled to a lazy dusting, the ground thick and treacherous. That day, you started early and around noon, you headed across the street to the diner for your usual lunch of a club sandwich and black coffee. You didn’t have to order as all the waitresses knew what to expect. You weren’t unfriendly but your association made many standoffish.

You tapped on the lip of your mug with your thumb, fingers hooked through the handle. The sleepy town felt dead in the winter. You were used to the dullness of Birch but tolerance was hardly happiness. It was home, where you’d grown up and you had no certain desire to get out, but you wouldn’t mind a little more than what was expected.

You yawned and gulped down the last of your coffee. It was bitter and left a few grounds on your tongue. You leaned back and grabbed the monthly newsletter from between the salt and pepper shakers. You read through the fun facts which weren’t very fun or even new. They were copy and pasted out Guinness and Reader’s Digest.

You looked up as you sensed someone approach your table but it wasn’t the waitress. The man from the day before slid coolly onto the seat across from you at the booth and smirked over the table. You raised the newsletter again and folded it backwards to read about the weekly knitting circle down at the rec center that was also the library.

“Good afternoon to you too,” Loki said, “it must be fortune I ran into you, I was hoping to inquire after my car--”

“I told you, two days,” you said tersely as you continued onto your horoscope …‘a new force will bring change’... You hated this tripe. You swore, every month they just switched the blurbs under each sign and hit print.

“So be it,” he cleared his throat and you lowered the paper as he shrugged out of his jacket.

“What are you doing? I eat my lunch alone,” you said.

“Well, to be frank, I was pointed here on the promise of some famous cabbage soup,” he explained as he folded his jacket over the seat next to him, “you looked like you needed company.”

“I don’t,” you assured him.

Kimmie came over and set down your sandwich. She greeted Loki and you saw the way she eyed his tailored suit. He stuck out in the town of flannels and denim.

“Hello, sir, can I get you something to drink?” she asked.

“Tea, English breakfast,” he ordered smoothly.

“Oh, sorry, we only have um, um, sorry, peppermint, earl grey, ginger lemon, and green,” she listed off as she tried to remember them all.

“Earl grey,” he sighed, “and a menu.”

“No, no menu,” you insisted, “and you can take his tea to another table.”

“And when we’re through, I’ll take the cheque,” he ignored you and snickered under his breath.

“Kimmie, can I get a to go box?” you asked as you shimmied off the seat and snatched up your coat, “I have to get back to work.” You took out your wallet and counted out the usual amount plus a tip, “thanks.”

“Of course,” she smiled awkwardly and glanced between you and Loki.

She scooped your sandwich back up and scurried away with it. You felt him watching you as you walked away and went to stand by the till as you watched Nora flit into the kitchen. She packed up your food and returned with the box. You took it and headed for the door, ignoring the arrogant out-of-towner on your way.

“Wait,” Kimmie called out your name and you turned back as she held up your keys, “you dropped these.”

You met her halfway and took them from her with a mutter. Again, he was watching you… or still watching you. She spun and promised she’d have his tea shortly.

“Hmm,” he hummed and you head to the door again, “interesting, I never would have put the name to the face.”

You pushed out into the snow and gritted your teeth. You thought of getting the work on his car out of the way quickly so he would leave you alone but your spite made you want to put it off entirely. Whatever. He’d be gone soon enough.

#loki #dark loki #dark!loki #loki x reader #birch #fully completely #series #sequel #dark fic #fic #dark!fic #thor #mcu #marvel #au #biker!au #biker au #biker boys of birch #bucky barnes #korg

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jenomark · 3 years

Text

•FRIENDS WITH•

➔Pairing: Jaemin x Reader (Female) ➔Other Members/ Characters: Mentions of Jeno ➔Genre: Romance & Angst & Smut ➔Warnings: Sex, Drinking, A lot of pining etc. ➔Word count: 4,338

➔Summary: Three best friends. One is your ex, the other is someone you've been in love with for a long time, and the third friend is you. You're a mess, but you're trying your best to find your way back to where you belong.

When you opened the door, Jaemin was there, just like he’d always been. Standing on your front porch, with one hand in his pocket, and the other below his heart, as if he had trouble keeping it in place. He was wearing loose fitting sweatpants, and a white t-shirt that left little to the imagination.

“Were you sleeping?” you asked.

“I was tossing and turning before you called,” he said, leaning against the doorway. “May I come in?”

Jaemin had always walked into your house uninvited. He never knocked, normally never announced his presence. Sometimes, you would come home from work, and he would be sitting on your couch eating all of your food, feet up on the table, a lazy smile on his face. It was like he lived with you, coming and going as he pleased, a piece of furniture in your life. But this time, he didn’t waltz past you like he owned the place. He asked for your permission first. There was something about that permission that sat like dead weight at the bottom of your stomach.

“I wouldn’t have called if…” you said, trailing off.

What else could you really say? I wouldn’t have called if Jeno hadn’t dumped me. Jeno, you know him, right? Our other best friend.

Jaemin stood underneath the porch light, the glow morphing his sweet features into stone. His jaw clenched and unclenched, as it often did when he was thinking too much. When you moved aside to grant his permission, he smiled and slipped by you without saying much. The hairs on his arm brushed against yours.

That is when the tears started to fall.

You followed him through the darkness of your home. It had been yours for over a year now, but it felt as much his as it did yours. You hadn’t thought to turn on any of the lights. You came home and immediately called him, because Jaemin always knew how to take care of you. You had sat in the darkened hallway, sprawled across the stairs, until Jaemin pulled up in his car.

“I’m sorry,” you said.

“Why are you sorry?” he asked.

He turned on your lights as he went, each knob or pull of a string easy for him to find. You caught sight of your reflection in a picture frame on the fireplace and turned away. You didn’t want to know what he could see. You already knew what kind of woman would be staring back.

“It’s late, “ you said.

He laughed, “It’s barely midnight, my love.”

“You were sleeping.”

“I wasn’t sleeping well.”

“I’m sorry,” you said, again.

Jaemin turned and looked at you in the light for the first time. You had left your shoes in the car, so you were barefoot. You’d been crying for what felt like hours, eyes feeling like they were swollen shut. You were dressed in one of Jeno’s t-shirts that was too big on your frame. If you moved, you could still smell Jeno all around you.

“Let's get you cleaned up,” he said.

Once the tears started, they wouldn’t stop. Jaemin reached up to wipe them away, his thumb tracing the edge of your jaw before they began to roll down your neck. As he ushered you to your bedroom, he didn’t ask what happened. He had enough respect for you and Jeno not to ask. You knew deep down that his anger fought against him, told him not to react. He once said it was his duty as a best friend to hurt all of the boys who hurt you, but no one ever told him what to do if the boy who hurt you was his best friend, too.

You changed into pajamas and watched trashy reality television until you thought he was asleep. You curled your legs underneath you on the couch and watched him a little while longer. You watched his chest rise and fall, his t-shirt lightly clinging to his chest. He was a busy man, but he would drop anything for his friends. You continually felt like you didn’t deserve him.

“You deserve better, you know,” he said, peering at you through his half-opened eyes, his eyelids heavy with sleep.

“I’m not sure that’s true,” you whispered.

Jaemin stretched his hands over his head. You couldn’t keep your eyes from wandering over to the little sliver of his exposed stomach. You couldn’t keep any thoughts from wondering what it would feel like to kiss him there, letting your lips trail below the waistband of his sweatpants.

He hadn’t dated anyone for nearly two years. He said it was because no women approached him, but you had a theory that he was lying through his teeth. Jaemin had always been a good-looking guy. His kind eyes and weird sense of humor made women fall for him as quickly as they met him. He was single because it was his choice.

“The guys you date are awful,” he said.

“Even Jeno?” you asked.

Though it was dark again, and all you could see were parts of his face illuminated by the television, you could tell he was irritated.

“What kind of man do I deserve?” you found yourself asking out loud.

Part of you wanted him to say that you deserved him. You held onto the hope that you could be with each other one day, that you had simply fallen in love with the wrong friend. Best friends shouldn’t hope for that. It felt greedy to want that life with him.

“I don’t know,” he said. You could practically hear his smile in his words. “Someone who is kind and funny, and knows how beautiful you are. He has to like the things you like.”

You laughed, burying your head in my arms. Jaemin laughed along with you, humming a song you’d been in love with since you were a kid, and twisting his hips around on your couch. It always baffled you how easily he could recall things you’d told him years ago.

“I can think of a million people like that, Jaem.”

“Yeah?” he asked, raising one eyebrow. “Well, they’re not good people, and they certainly don’t deserve my girl.”

You both fell silent, staring at anything around the room but each other. You placed your feet on the floor and leaned your back against the couch.

Do you know how hard it is to realize for the first time that you love someone? It’s not like you can admit it, pack up all of your baggage, take them by the hand, and push your way into a future of bliss. They have to want you back. You have to fight for it. And there are consequences.

Truth be told, you wouldn’t have chosen Jeno at all if Jaemin had loved you back when it was time to. But you did choose him, and you can’t rewind your life to a place in the movie where everyone is happy and everything is right.

“I’m looking in the wrong places, huh?” you asked him. “ I settled. How many times can I do this to myself? How many times can both of us waste our lives sitting on this couch waiting for something to happen?”

“ I like it here,” he said, patting the cushions. “Your couch is my second bed, and you have great snacks.”

You wanted to laugh, but felt tears welling up again. You angled your body so that you were facing him. His eyes were trained on you, but there was no laugh caught on the edge of his lips, and no smile reaching his eyes.

“You’re beautiful.” was all he said.

You and Jaemin fell into a post-breakup routine. You would hang out when he was on break from filming music videos, and you would never talk about what happened until the next time another man broke your heart. He cracked jokes all day to cheer you up, and you laughed until it hurt. Your time together ended before the sun went down, and he would always hug you goodbye a second too long. And you loved those hugs. Being close to him meant feeling what it would be like if you could hug him whenever you wanted. He held you tightly, wrapping his arms all the way around your body. It left you breathless.

Sometimes, you would visit him on set, avoiding Jeno by a mile, and sitting by Jaemin just to be near him. He always got so lost in the monitoring that he forgot you were there. He did this thing where his face would get serious, concentration turning it to stone. You always had to break him out of the spell and remind him to eat something to keep his energy.

Jaemin is and will always be your best friend. You loved him like a best friend. When it began to feel like more, you needed him more. You felt a little bit like you were constantly reaching out for his hand; it just always fell short. And then there were times when you would push him away. You don’t know why you did it.

“You should date more, “ you said. “ Let a girl wine and dine you.”

He laughed. “I don’t need to date , and I certainly don't need to get drunk to have a good time. That's what I have you for.”

“I’m being serious, Jaem.”

He looked up from his mc hosting script. “I know you are, but the question is why you’re being serious with me?”

Because I am mindlessly in love with you, and I am terrified of what it means for me. If you fall in love with someone else, I can just say that it wasn’t meant to be and move on. I don’t want to face the truth that you might never love me back.

“I’ve always wanted to double date,” you said lamely. “It sounds fun.”

“It sounds horrible. How about I swing by after work with a pizza and some nice cola, and we make fun of everyone that’s hurt us?” he asked. “Double dating a slice of spicy pizza isn’t a bad idea. ”

“Sure,” you said.

Your routine was full-proof if you wanted to spend the rest of your life watching reality television with your crush while you thought about burying your face into his chest.

“Have you thought about dating again?” he asked. “You and Jeno seem alright now. You can almost stand to be in the same room together.”

It had been months since you and Jeno broke up, and it was the first time Jaemin had brought him up in a while. The other night, you returned Jeno’s t-shirt to him and talked about how you felt the night he broke up with you. Although your initial friendship would never be the same, you felt like everything would be okay.

“Dating is a bad idea for me.” you said.

“Why not? You can’t sit on the couch for the rest of your life, darling.” he smirked.

Jaemin always stepped so delicately around your dating life, but there was something in his eyes that was reckless and uncaring. He was pushing you, and you weren't sure how you should push back.

“Why have a boyfriend when I have you?” you blurted. Fuck. “I mean, because you...do..things”

He looked up at you, again. The silence in the room was awkward. All you could do from setting yourself on fire was act like a spot on the wall was more important than the entire conversation.

“I..do..things?” he asked.

“No.”

“No I don’t do...things?”

You shook your head. Unfortunately, it left him more confused than ever.

Jaemin said your name, and the way he said it made you feel dizzy. It was like he was pleading with you to finally tell the truth, to admit what you really meant by it. It should have been the moment when you confessed that you were head over heels in love with him, and that it was never going to be about Jeno again.

“I should go,” you said, picking up your bag.

You were scared that if you looked at him and saw the disappointment on his face, you would cry. You knew it was there. You could feel it coming at you in waves.

“See you later tonight?” you asked, popping a thin smile on my lips.

You hovered around the doorway. Jaemin cleared his throat and said, “Actually, I just remembered that I can’t. I have a lot of work to do.”

You nodded and left, hating yourself for not saying anything else.

You hadn’t spoken much in a month. You created the ripple that disturbed the whole dynamic. You felt like you had embarrassed him by suggesting he was yours to claim. Of course he wasn’t yours. He wouldn’t ever be yours. Look at you.

You had been going on dates with a man whose name didn’t matter. He was nice enough, but you didn’t think you would make it past date two. He seemed too into his hair, and he didn’t truly think you were funny. He laughed at your jokes too easily, just like Jeno did, which somehow bothered you. Jaemin would have told you the truth- that you were trying too hard.

I think I am trying too hard. I’m trying too hard to forget him, but he’s all I fucking think about. The way he licks his lips before he talks, and how his humor is always so self-deprecating, but so damn witty. How he’ll dance to anything just to make even the sourest of people smile. He’s the kind of man that is intelligent one moment but extremely stupid the next. He is the kind of man that makes people fall in love with themself.

“You look good,” the mystery date man said, breaking your reverie. He opened the car door for you and checked his watch, impatiently. “I think we might be late for the reservation.”

“Sorry for taking so long to get ready. I sometimes forget what I’m doing.” you said.

“We’ll have to eat somewhere else,” he said.

He put his hand on your thigh when you got into the car. You let it rest there for a few seconds before you shifted your body and he got the hint.

“You look really nice tonight.” he said.

“Thank you so much.” you smiled.

The mystery man was decent looking, if you liked the type of man who looks like he canoes for fun. He was stable, which was good. You could tell he would be a great man for some girl one day, and that maybe she would like getting fingerbanged in the front seat of a car from the 1990's.

When he started the car, he was still looking at you adoringly. You felt like you were being mentally skinned alive from his stare, so you looked away.

“Oh my God.” you said.

The mystery man's eyes snapped to your line of sight. Standing in the gleam of the headlights was Jaemin. His white dress shirt was untucked from his pants, and his tie was shoved into the pocket of his dinner jacket. He stood with one hand on his hip. In his other hand, he held an empty bottle of wine.

“Holy shit, is that a kpop idol?” the mystery man asked.

“In the flesh,” you said, bewildered.

He rolled down his window and yelled, “What’s up, man?”

By the way Jaemin was standing, you could tell he was drunk. He didn’t need to have the evidence stuffed into his right hand. Drunk Jaemin was a show to behold. He didn’t drink much, or ever, but when he did, he usually ended up hurting himself from doing something stupid.

“Get out of the car,” Jaemin said, pointing at the mystery man.” I’m gonna kick your ass, man.”

And there was the something stupid.

“What did he just say?” the mystery man asked.

“I believe he said, “Have a nice date!’,” you answered. “Please drive away now.”

“I’ll hit him with my car if I do.” the mystery man said. “He’s so drunk, look at him. Should I film this?”

“Holy fuck, no, you shouldn’t film this,” you said.

Jaemin got on his knees in front of the car and started crawling towards you. He was making animal noises and pawing at the ground. It wasn’t the weirdest thing Jaemin had done, but it was definitely going towards the top of the list.

“Jaemin, get up.” you shouted. “You’re going to hurt your knees.”

“I’m already hurt.” he shouted back.

“This guy is a legend,”the mystery man whispered.

You rolled your eyes and opened the car door. Jaemin looked up at you and found it too difficult, so he looked down at the ground.

“Up,” you said, sternly.

“Make me.” Jaemin said.

You snatched the bottle still clutched in his fist and threw it across your lawn. Like a petulant child, he got onto his feet and tried chasing after it. You blocked his path.

“Did you sleep with him?” Jaemin asked, trying to get around you.

You could feel red-hot heat creeping to your face. “That is none of your business.”

“You didn’t call me,” he said. “You call me, and I come running to save the day, but you didn’t. You didn’t call.”

“She doesn’t need saving” the mystery man said, waving his hand.

“You didn’t call,” Jaemin repeated.

“I’m not heartbroken,” you said, swallowing the large lump that formed in your throat.

“I am.” he said, touching his hand just below his heart. “Do you love him?”

You could feel a hysteric laugh bubbling to your throat. The situation was too damn funny to you. At the mention of love, the mystery man recoiled back into his car.

“I’m gonna go,” he said.

“Good idea,” you said. “I’m gonna sober up kpop guy. I’ll call you..or I won’t.”

You took Jaemin’s arm and led him up your front steps, never looking back. He groaned and clutched his head in pain.

“Good,” you said. “Maybe it will teach you a lesson.”

“Doubt it,” he grumbled.

You led him inside and thought of how different this was from months ago when he was the one taking care of you.

“Sit. I’ll get you some water and make up the couch for you.” you said.

You went into the kitchen and took a glass down from a shelf. You took a minute to collect myself, leaning your hip against the counter for support. Seeing Jaemin after a long period of time always brought the memories flooding back. You weren't angry with him, because there was no reason to be. You just couldn’t keep the pieces of yourself together when he looked at you like you caused him physical pain.

“You look pretty,” Jaemin said.

You turned around and saw that he was standing in the doorway, gripping the frame to keep from falling over.

“And I mean really pretty,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I fucked up”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not. I ruined your date.”

“I didn’t like him, anyway.”

“He didn’t do... things?” Jaemin asked.

“No, Jaem. He didn’t do things.”

“You sound angry with me.”

“I’m just tired.”

“I’m sorry I’m drunk.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

He shuffled towards you. Under the fluorescent lights, his eyes were glassy and red. He couldn’t quite focus on your face. You filled up the glass of water and handed it to him. His fingers touched yours as he took the glass from you.

“I missed you,” he said.

You smiled and meant it. “You should rest tonight, keep hydrated, and we’ll talk about it in the morning before I leave for work.”

He nodded. “Okay. In the morning.”

Jaemin fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. You watched him from the bottom of the stairs. He was moaning in his sleep, one arm flung over the couch, and he was drooling. You wanted nothing more than to go to him and run your fingers through his hair to calm him, but you couldn’t bring myself to move from the spot.

You had tried to work out your feelings for the past month while he went missing from your life. You tried to pick apart all the reasons why you felt like you needed him. You tried moving on, but there was no moving on from him. You had every intention of falling out of love with him, but if falling out of love was easier, everyone would do it.

Dammit, Na Jaemin.

You woke up around 4 a.m. to feel Jaemin crawling underneath your sheets. He was quiet and careful not to touch you. You both laid side by side, inches apart, and listened to the rain beginning to drum on your window. You could feel your heartbeat quicken, just knowing that he was so close to you, that you could feel his body heat warming your own. Your breathing felt so loud in the stillness. You controlled each breath, focusing only on the way your chest rose and fell beside him.

You reached out and let your fingers touch the soft skin on his forearm. You couldn’t feel him move at all, as he took your hand in his and squeezed it tightly.

Neither of you spoke. Even if you could have gotten the words out, you didn’t know what either of you would say. You just laid there, the only movement coming from his thumb massaging your palm.

And it was a perfect moment. You turned your body onto his, interlocking both of his hands with yours to steady yourself. Your hair cascaded onto his chest and fell a little into his mouth. He pushed it back to get a good look at the plains of your face in the moonlight. His eyes were cleared now, focused on your mouth. You sat up, straddling him with your knees on either side of his slim hips. You rubbed your thumb across his wet lips, the tip of his tongue colliding with it. His eyes dared you to kiss him, but you were too slow. Jaemin yanked your wrists, pulling you back down to him. His lips brushed against yours, teasingly. You wanted to taste him, to devour him. You pressed your palms against his chest and leaned down for the kiss, parting your lips to let him know that you were all his. Kissing him was like kissing a moment. You kissed all of your laughter, all of your pain. You kissed all of your hellos and goodbyes.

Jaemin’s hands roamed underneath your shirt, holding the small of your back to keep you in place as he pushed against you, harder. Your body rocked against his, grinding him lightly as his hands moved down to your ass, squeezing it. You couldn’t taste the alcohol on his breath. His lips would make you drunk without it. You needed him all around you. You needed to know what he felt like inside of you.

You were frantic, grabbing at each other like it was the last time, instead of the first time. He leaned his body up so that you were both sitting. His lips worked their way down your neck. Your body felt like electricity everywhere he touched you.

You unbuttoned his shirt agonizingly slow. Jaemin’s dark eyes were ravenous as you made your way carefully down to each button. He pushed your hands away as you got to the last one and ripped it from his body. Your fingers curled around his belt and yanked it away from him.

A sound escaped from his mouth that you could only explain as crazed. He wasn’t intoxicated anymore, but he looked like a man whose self-control had vanished. Holding you tightly, he flipped you over so that he was on top, his body fitting against yours like a glove. His weight felt good on top of you, almost scandalous. You could feel every muscle of his against you, every soft spot resting against your stomach when he breathed. You could feel his cock, could feel the hunger burning inside of you with the thought of him fucking you.

Jaemin stopped only momentarily to get a good look at you from above. A smile broke out onto his face, as his eyes covered every inch of your skin.

“You’re so fucking beautiful.” he said.

He slid your panties down your legs, brought your t-shirt over your head, and let his hands feel you. When he slipped a finger inside of you, you arched your back, and your breasts met his mouth. You couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. You swayed your body into his fingers, letting his thumb brush against your clit.

The lazy smile didn’t leave his lips. Every time your body moved, he went with it, leaving a trail of kisses behind. He wouldn’t let you come. Every time you got closer and closer, he would stop and watch how you squirmed beneath him.

You wrapped your legs around his waist to tell him that you were ready. You couldn’t wait any longer. He kissed you softly on the lips, reeled back and let his cock enter you. You exhaled as he moved inside of you, his body meeting yours, and his hands holding you down. You reached out for him, and he lowered himself so that you could dig your nails into the flesh of his back. A moan escaped from his lips as you brought those fingers to his neck. You let them tangle in his hair and pulled his strands until his moans turned low and gravelly. You could feel the pace picking up.

Jaemin couldn’t control himself any more. He wanted all of you, every last drop. You pushed him onto his back and climbed on top of him. As you lowered yourself down onto his cock, he whispered, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

#jaemin #na jaemin #nct #nct dream #na jaemin smut #na jaemin angst #jaemin smut #jaemin fluff #jaemin fanfiction #jaemin oneshot #na jaemin oneshot #jaemin nct #nct jaemin #nct dream jaemin #oof please forgive typos #i wrote this really fast and kept getting words mixed up slkdjfks

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dameronology · 3 years

Text

rescuer {din djarin}

summary: din djarin rescued you - and then you rescued him {for @drinksomecoco !! i hope u enjoy}

warnings: brief mentions of torture, swearing

this is like....4k words?? it got a little out of hand, i won't lie to u.

- jazz xx

It wasn’t often that The Mandalorian found himself becoming attached to bounties.

Twice. He’d done it twice.

The first time, he swore to himself that it would be the last. Adopting his little green surrogate...frog? Son?

Okay, adopting his little green surrogate Grogu had brought enough tension into his life. It had gotten him back onto the radars of both the Empire and the New Republic; thrown him into some weird form of fatherhood that he wasn’t quite ready for and tipped his entire way of life upside down. Despite all that, he never stopped to question if all the exhaustion was more trouble than it was worth, because he loved his kid. Completely and entirely in ways that no parenting book or fairytale could ever quite describe. It was an intense form of love and attachment - and Din knew it was going to hurt when he would eventually have to return the Child to his own people. That was a little far off though, because he couldn’t investigate any further til he had the means to do so. Money and resources weren’t limitless and even The Mandalorian had to find means to an end.

Going back to the Bounty Hunter’s Guild wasn’t ideal, especially not with the kid in tow - but did he have any other way? Din didn’t know any other way of life, let alone another way of earning money. Besides, he figured it would only be a quick few months. A couple jobs here and there until he had enough in savings to travel far enough to find where Grogu really came from.

But it was two bounties; two bounties that he would find himself becoming attached to. Grogu was the only one.

It was through that decision to return to the Guild that Din Djarin would find himself stumbling across the next one. He was offered five pucks - the first four were easy. Standard jobs, really. Runaway criminals and Imps who had crossed people so many times that trying to work out their loyalty was head-ache inducing. He found them all in a matter of days, really. They were good at hiding but it didn’t count for much when The Mandalorian was good at finding.

Then there was you; the fifth puck. The one he thought was going to be the easiest.

Finding you wasn’t a problem. Tucked away in a corner of rural Tatooine - maybe twenty, twenty five minutes shy of Mos Eisley - you were hiding in plain sight. It would have been enough to protect you from anyone else but Din was an unrelenting expert in finding those who didn’t want to be found.

He never quite knew what to expect when he closed in on a bounty. Sometimes they ran and sometimes they hid. A few of them had tried to appeal to his humanity; to try and connect with the man they hoped was behind the mask. Because aside from the husky voice that occasionally escaped the helmet, there was no proof that The Mandalorian was anything other than a very convincing droid. That was, until, someone would lay a hand on his son or ship and suddenly, a wave of pure human rage would burst out from beneath the beskar.

You couldn’t have hidden from him or run away, even if you wanted to. Not because you were scared, but because you were chained up; wrists and ankles in shackles, keeping you tied to the walls of a filthy docking bay. From the sand piled around your feet, it was clear that you had tried to kick up a fuss at some point.

But based on the way that you looked at him - with tired eyes and a hopeless expression - that made Din realise: you’d lost the will to fight. He knew that you weren’t going to wriggle away or try to engage in combat.

“Are you…” The Mandalorian trailed off. “Are you alone?”

“Probably,” your eyes flicked up from the ground, unknowingly capturing his gaze. “I think I’ve been left for dead.”

He sighed. “I’m looking for a...Kan Durant. Is he here?”

“No,” you shot back. “He left me here for dead about a week ago. Probably knew that a bounty hunter was going to come after him at some point.”

“Do you know where he went?”

“I’m chained up,” you said. “Isn’t the answer to your question a little axiomatic?”

“Maybe,” he replied. “But if you know anything, it might be helpful.”

“Try Corellia,” you muttered.

Corellia. That was...doable. Not too far and not too hard to search. That would be his fifth and final puck and then Din could set off for the sunset in search of his kid’s home planet. That’s what this whole thing had been about.

But...you. You’d been left for dead - and based on the bruises around your eyes and on your limbs, that was the least of what you’d gone through recently. What kind of man would it make him if he left you? A fucking awful one, obviously, but what was he supposed to do?

Din slowly leant down, pulling a thin tool from his belt. He fiddled around with your cuffs for a moment, until there was a low hiss. They fell from your hands and onto the sandy ground - he expected you to get up, or to run, or do anything but sit there and stare at him with gaunt eyes. Maybe it was foolish of him to think that merely freeing you of your restraints was doing his part for the greater good.

“Is there anywhere around here where you can go?” he asked. “An inn? A cantina?”

You snorted. “No. I’ll die.”

“You can get food and medicine out there.”

“Mos Eisley is swarming with Durant’s men,” you explained. “The minute I step foot in any town or port here, they’ll know.”

Maybe being with Grogu had softened him, or maybe The Mandalorian genuinely couldn’t find it himself to leave you. But, he found himself doing the unthinkable: sticking his hand out to you, lifting you up, and leading you out of the docking bay and back towards his ship. He didn’t know what he was going to do or how he was going to do it but really, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. His main focus had been on keeping you alive until you were within the safety of the Crest.

You stumbled slightly when he put you down, tripping and falling towards the control panel to shut the loading bay doors. At least you were intuitive.

With that, you fell back to the ground. It was becoming clearer and clearer that you were in a bit of a state - how long did you say it had been? A week since Durant had left - so that was at least seven days without proper food or water. It was a miracle you were alive. Din had got there just in time.

“Why are you helping me?” you asked. “What do you want?”

He glanced over in your direction. “I don’t want anything.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” you shot back.

“I wasn’t going to leave you there,” Din replied. He paused for a moment, before turning to face you. “I’ve heard Durant’s name before. I know what he does to people.”

“Aren’t you more worried about finding him and getting the bounty?” you pushed.

Truth be told, Din wasn’t that bothered. He had enough money from the last four pucks to get him where he needed to be. The fifth had just been a little extra, so he had an easier time letting go of it. He certainly wasn’t the only hunter going after Durant’s ass and worst case scenario, Karga would give him a little bit of shit for not completing the job. All of that was a lot more manageable than living with the guilt of leaving you in the dark to die.

“Someone else will get him. I’m sure.” Din muttered. He reached for a ration pack stored away on a shelf and tossed it in your direction. “You should eat this. I’ll get us in the air and find some bacta-”

“- you really don’t need to,” you cut him off.

“Eat,” he pushed again. “You’re weak. You’ll need it.”

Over the next few days, you would come to find that forceful-but-caring demands were The Mandalorian’s main language.

He didn’t talk much - or at all really. He didn’t need to, not when you kept to yourself on the lower deck of the ship whilst he dealt with everything else. He didn’t seem to mind that you weren’t helping; after all, you’d been in a weak state when Din had found you and standing up had been hard, let alone maneuvering around the flying hunk of metal. You were beginning to feel a little more spry, thanks to the food, water and bactaspray. The combination was hardly an elixir of life but you’d found yourself feeling a little more human.

Sleep was the hard one. A combination of confusion - at the situation, at Din, at where you were going - and nightmares made it hard. Every time you closed your eyes, you found yourself hurtling back in time to when Durant had first captured you. You’d been a test dummy for all his weapons and experiments and really, you were just lucky to be alive and in one piece. It didn’t count for much though, not when you couldn’t get a single fucking second of shut eye.

You would have been a fool to think that Din hadn’t picked up on it.

He was observational by nature and even more so by craft. A man who was constantly looking over his shoulder and straight ahead; a warrior who had been raised to keep a weapon by his side at all times. Of course he was going to notice your insomnia, and the way your eyes seemed even more sunken and dull than when he’d first found you.

You were sitting in the hull when he approached you. Not a lot had been said, other than the occasional eat this or put this on your bruises. Again - all a little forceful, but with a sense of genuinity behind the words. You still had a hard time believing that he was legitimately just a man who wanted to help you.

“I find that noise helps.”

You glanced up at him. “I’m sorry?”

He cleared his throat. “When I can’t sleep, and when I have nightmares, I find that being in a room with white noise helps distract my brain.”

“Oh, right,” you gave him a small nod. “I s’pose it is pretty quiet down here.”

“It’s noisier up there in the cockpit,” he replied. “We’re going to be in hyperspace for a while so if you want to get some sleep, I’ll stay down here.”

“Thank you.”

For the first time in days, you finally showed a glimmer of emotion. It was just a smile - and one he figured was a forced one - but still, it was a good sign.

Din’s eyes followed you as you stood up, heading for the ladder up to the cockpit. You stopped in front of it for a moment, palms wrapping around one of the rungs. At first, he thought you were just pondering, or taking a moment to rethink your actions, but then a light bulb went off in his head. You were too weak.

Moving slowly, The Mandalorian positioned himself behind you.

“Is it okay if I put them here?” he quietly asked, large, gloved hands hovering over the side of your hips.

“Uh, yeah,” you replied. “Thank you.”

With Din’s support, you were able to grab onto the hatch above and pull yourself up, boots hitting the ground of the cockpit. He followed you up, guiding you over to one of the pilot’s chairs. The lights of hyperspace were flashing by, illuminating the entire room in a white-gold glow. It felt odd to be up here after so many days of confining yourself just to the hull - forbidden, even with the invite from The Mandalorian himself.

“How did you know that I get nightmares?” you asked, turning around to face him.

The helmet tilted slightly. “I get them too.”

“I’m sorry,” you softly sighed. “Thank you again for your help.”

“It’s okay,” Din brushed it off as though it were nothing. “We have about four hours til our next stop. I’ll wake you up before we get there.”

“Is that where I get off?” you asked.

“No,” he firmly replied. “It’s not safe there either.”

You had more questions that you wanted to ask - now more than ever that he was finally talking - but you were far too exhausted to even try. Once you’d fallen back against the chair and been handed a blanket out of nowhere, the noise of the surrounding machines practically dragged you out of consciousness.

---

One question you had wanted to ask Din had been about the duration of your stay.

How long were you supposed to stay on board? How long did he want you there?

You were almost scared to ask, for fear of the answer. After all, you barely knew him. He could get up at any moment and demand that you left, and you wouldn’t have been able to argue. All of this - this looking after you, this roof over your head, this care - felt too good to be true. Like it was all part of some elaborate ruse.

But it was funny, because you were even more scared that it wasn’t. If Din - or The Mandalorian, as you knew him - was truly just a nice person with pure intentions, then that was about to be dangerous territory for you. The minute that you started trusting him, and the minute you started to see him as someone who could protect you, would spell trouble. You had never intended to become attached, but it was only natural. You hadn’t had a single person look out for you - not once in your life.

Every time he made you food, or helped you up into the cockpit, you felt yourself slipping that way. A six-foot pile of beskar should not have been a sign of comfort, but the helmet came to symbolise...something. You didn’t know what. Attachment, maybe? A little inkling of affection for whoever the hell was below those inches of steel?

A few weeks passed and the tension slowly began to falter. It was probably the proximity more than anything, but the time proved to you more than anything that Din was genuine. He was helping you because he wanted to - there was no personal gain for him, nor monetary. He actually, honestly just wanted to do good.

And doing good, he was. Whilst he still kept his distance, he looked after you. He made sure that you ate enough to recover from your periods of deprivation and once a day, he would clear out of the cockpit for you to get some rest. He still helped you up the ladder every time -and even when you told him you were strong enough, he still stood back and watched just to make sure.

Because, truthfully, The Mandalorian was beginning to see something in you. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what, but he was intrigued by the way you were slowly beginning to show him parts of yourself. Where your eyes had once been gaunt and lifeless, they now had a spark in them. You were quiet when you’d met, but now you spoke to the kid and you hummed to yourself. It was like the life that was sucked out of you was slowly being breathed back in, day by day and bit by bit.

“Do you wanna get some sleep?” Din asked you one day.

“Yeah, sure,” you glanced up at the Child, giving him a small smile. “When did you last sleep, Mando?”

Another helmet tilt. “I get enough sleep.”

“I don’t believe you,” you thinned your eyes at him.

The Mandalorian sighed slightly - normally, that would have been a sign to literally anyone else to drop it. But with you? Nope. You saw that as a sign of progress; that the little, tiny display of emotion meant you were beginning to chip past those godforsaken layers of beskar.

“I get nightmares about Durant,” you continued. “Every time I panic and wake up in a cold sweat, I remind myself that I’m safe, because I know that you and the kid are here.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” you admitted. “You can tell me anything and I promise I won’t judge you. You’ve never judged me.”

He pondered for a moment, before releasing another deep breath. “I can’t sleep alone.”

“Really?”

“Last time I did, I woke up and my parents were gone,” Din explained. “So I wait til the kid wants to go to sleep and I just go with him, so that I’m not alone.”

Your heart dropped a little at that - partially because he’d opened up to you, but also because the Child rarely ever slept. If Din only ever waited around for their exhaustion to coincide, it must have been months since he’d last got a decent night’s rest. It was the least he deserved.

Nodding, you stuck your hand out towards him. “C’mon.”

“What?”

“I’m gonna sleep and so are you,” you replied. “You need it and if I’ve done everything that you’ve instructed so far, I think I should have the same in return.”

Din didn’t want to admit it to himself at first.

It being multiple things: the fact you were helping him, the fact your presence on his ship had made the place seem better, the fact that his heart skipped a beat every time you brushed past him.

Bar his surrogate son, Din had never been close with anyone before. He’d never even slept in the same goddamn room as anyone else, even. That was a fucking mammoth step for him, but when you took his hand? It felt like a baby step. Just a tiny hop from A to B. Not a massive milestone, or a moment of personal progress. You had made it seem so simple.

Maybe that was it.

You never over-complicated anything. Your intentions were always clear and simple - there was no moral ambiguity, no moments where Din had to question whether or not he could well and truly trust you. He just knew. It was funny, because it was the exact same situation you’d had with him - questioning why he was helping you, trying to work out what he wanted. This whole time, Din had been helping you solely because he thought it was the right thing and it’s what you were doing for him too.

Din liked when you sat close to him. There was a little wave of warmth he felt every time you shuffled a bit nearer to him when you both crashed on the floor of the cockpit, and a tiny swarm of butterflies that flew through him when you stuck by his side in busy towns and cities. It was clear that you found comfort in him after so many years of going without it.

In turn, he found comfort in you. Not just in the way you unintentionally looked after him, but just...everything. Your presence had been a little odd on the Crest at first, but now it felt weird to be without it. Hearing you single quietly in the shower and have one-sided conversations with the Child filled a hole in his life that he hadn’t even realised had been there.

It was as though he’d had a missing puzzle piece his entire life; a gap between all the interconnected parts that hadn’t been integral, but certainly inconvenient. And now that it was filled, he could take a step back and finally look at the bigger picture that had been forming. All the pieces were finally there - you and the kid and whatever odd family unit that made you - and the galaxy didn’t seem so nonsensical anymore.

A little over two months after he first found you, word got around that Durant had finally been captured. Not by Din, but that hadn’t mattered - because killing the man who had hurt you, even after everything, would never amount to everything he’d done for you.

The relief didn’t last long for you, though - because as soon as you realised you no longer had a reason to hide, it dawned on you that you no longer had a reason to stay with Din. Or, at least not one you were willing to share with Din. Begging to let you stay just for the sake of being near him didn’t seem like a very convincing argument - at least not from where you were standing.

But from where Din was standing, it was a little different. You were part of his life now, even if you had no idea. That wasn’t your fault, though. He wasn’t exactly the best at vocalising it. Admitting it to himself had been hard enough, let alone to you.

“So,” you spoke softly, clearing your throat. “I suppose you’ll drop me off at the next planet?”

You were both sitting in the cock-pit; the Child was asleep downstairs and the Crest was soaring through the last stretch of hyperspace before Nevarro.

Din didn’t want to drop you off. He didn’t want his ship to be silent all over again or to sleep without you by his side. The thought alone of not having you around anymore was enough to make him a little watery-eyed beneath his beskar barrier. You’d grown on him, and in return, he’d kind of, accidentally fallen in love with you.

“You don’t have to go,” he said.

You peered over at him. “If you can think of a reason for me to stay aboard, please do let me know.”

“I want you to stay,” Din replied. He gently reached out a hand and took it in his - it was the first time that he’d given you such a vast gesture. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

“Yeah,” you smiled. “It is.”

Staying aboard the Razor Crest was one of the best decisions you’d ever made.

Not only because it meant you were well and truly safe, but because Din’s direct request was a sign to you that you weren’t imagining things. Whatever attachment you felt to him, he felt it too - but it ran deeper than that. There was a mutual concern and respect for one another. Something born of two lifetimes spent on their own, finally coming together in one.

Things had been a little slow before then; the way that you danced around each other, like two magnets that were meant to come together - just with a little hesitancy. There had been a lot of late nights and long trains of thought about the signals that the other was giving off; about whether you’d misinterpreted the way his hands lingered over yours, or the way you’d practically passed out on his shoulder.

But, after that - after Din had openly asked you to stay, and you’d happily agreed, things began to move a little faster. Where you’d once been slowly walking down that hill and towards each other, you were now slipping, tripping and falling.

With each passing night, you inched closer towards each other. God forbid you ever found out, but Din even found himself pushing the pilot’s chairs closer to each other when you weren’t in the room, just so he could properly feel you next to him when you dozed off. He enjoyed your presence at the best of times but it was those dark, quiet moments when he genuinely and fully needed you.

It came to a head one night when you’d laid down with the Child beside you - not upstairs in the cockpit, but in the tiny cot in the hull of the ship.

There wasn’t room for one person, let alone one person and a tiny creature. Even worse, for two people - one in a beskar suit - and the creature. It just didn’t work. It shouldn’t have worked.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way, and the moment that Din saw you dead to the world with the Child in your arms, he was certain that he was going to make it work. Maybe with a bit of reshuffling there, and if he just moved the kid here - and that was when Grogu bit him pretty hard on the finger.

Disregarding his reshuffling plan, he knew there was only one option left.

It was something he’d never dreamt of doing before, simply for how terrifying and exposing it was - but he took one glance at you, and once glance at his kid, and he knew it was going to be worth it in the long run. It was merely a necessary step to getting closer to you - physically, mentally emotionally.

You stirred slightly at the sound of metal clattering to the floor - not enough to wake up, but enough to be a little more aware of the room around you. A moment later, there was a quiet hiss, and then everything went black.

In your sleepy state, your brain reacted a little slowly - but then the mattress beneath you dipped, and you felt someone’s skin against yours. Not just skin, but stubble against the back of your head as he pressed a kiss to it, and warm fingers tangling with yours.

“The armour,” you murmured. “You took it off.”

“It was the only way,” he softly replied. “It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”

“Okay,” you let out a sleepy hum. “Good night…”

“Din,” he quietly said.

“Good night, Din.”

#din djarin x reader #din djarin reader insert #din djarin imagine #din djarin imagines #din djarin x you #mandalorian x reader #mandalorian reader insert #mandalorian imagines #star wars reader insert #star wars fan fiction #star wars x you #star wars imagines

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multifandomthoughts · 3 years

Text

Dark King of Desire

MINORS DNI

Requested by: Anonymous

Warnings: Penetration, Dry humping

The rain beats down on the Oro Jackson, lightning and thunder making it almost impossible to sail. But to support your captain and his crew, you stayed outside, gripping the side of the ship. The ship rocks and sways but one thing that doesn’t budge is Rayleigh.

His posture is tight, his voice booming through the storm as he shouts commands, muscles glistening from a mixture of the rain and sweat. His arms bulge as he pulls in the sails, and you have to avert your eyes just so you can focus on the task at hand. You’re soaked, and the only thing you want to do is go inside and dry off. But you have your own work to do. You linger a bit longer to watch him work. He’s just so alluring, the moments turn to minutes and soon you’re all settled in to brave the worst of it. Rayleigh looks over the whole deck to make sure everyone is accounted for, and your eyes meet. You look away quickly, hoping that between the distance and the rain he can’t see your blush.

You swear that his eyes having been wandering just like your own, but to what you can’t figure out. It can’t possibly be you, he has much more important things to do than talk to you. But here he comes, long strides and firm shoulders as if he’s talking to the most powerful person in the world. You shudder to think of what could possibly be so important that he’s coming over here for.

You try and find something to do so you look busy, and end up fiddling with a knot in the rope ladder. “Can I… help you, sir?” You ask politely, not looking at him yet. He looms over you, a serious look on his face but mischief in his eyes. “Seems like I should be asking you that. You were looking at me like you needed my attention for something. Mind telling me what that was?”

Gulping loudly, you begin to try to think of an excuse. It was rude to stare, and you had no idea whether or not he was actually looking at you. “I wanted to go down and lay in my room for a bit…the swaying of the boat was making me feel uncomfortable. But once I made eye contact with you I figured that I had been found out and I had to stay. I felt I had to keep looking at you to make sure I was still required above deck.” You mumble out, trying to look past his exposed chest and look him in the eyes

He nods in agreement with this explanation. “Alright, guess I can excuse that then. But going forward, you can just go ahead and slip below decks even if you see me looking. I’ll make the connection as to why, I’m pretty perceptive. For example, your panties are damp… or was that just the storm?” He asks, grinning devilishly

Your face turns a deep red, understanding the entendre almost immediately. Shaking your head, you take a deep breath before responding with a sly “I don’t know, why don’t you follow me and you can find out?” Letting out a deep belly laugh, you were almost certain that you were screwed. Instead, his strong firm hand clasps yours as he walks you down to your private quarters.

As you’re led inside and get a chance to think things over, you come to the embarrassing realization his innuendo was actually quite correct. Without even realizing, you had indeed become aroused. Mentally setting that aside as a fun surprise for Rayleigh later down the line, you squeeze his hand as you enter your room. Now comes the moment of truth, he called your bluff before so you have to follow through for the sake of your dignity. “Guess I should get out of these wet clothes before I catch pneumonia or something…” you sigh playfully, seeing Rayleigh has already dropped his wet coat and taken a seat on your bed to watch.

Your pants were torn, not from wear and tear but from slashes and stabs. That being said, it made it a breeze to drop them. Sighing, you step out of the soaking puddle around your feet. You bend over, pulling a bandana out of you hair and whip it back, allowing your hair to be free. However, it releases all the water, causing you to shiver slightly. Next was your crop top that you had created yourself; it was too fancy and frilly upon your purchase. As you cross your arms to pull it up and off from the bottom, you glance over to see his reaction. He’s just tapping his finger and giving an easy going smile, as if this means nothing to him. Frowning, you turn around so he’ll have to stare at your back rather than the perky breasts you’re now exposing to the cool night air.

You toss your top over your shoulder at Rayleigh, not even looking at him now. If he wants the show to continue he has to ask, otherwise he better be content with wet fabric. You hear the sound of a weight being removed your bed, then the soft creak of footsteps across the floor, and the next thing you know Rayleigh’s arms are around your waist. “Might if I help with the grand finale?”

You try to act indignant. “Hmph! I don’t see why you should get to, you weren’t nearly appreciative enough of what I’ve done so far.” You haven’t given me one look over, not one compliment, nothing! I might as well let your wet clothes cause you shrinkage. You turn away from him and pout, not letting your true emotions be known.

Rayleigh rest his head atop yours in a pout. “Don’t be like that. I was just being patient; you don’t applaud in the middle of a great concert, you wait until it ends.” It’s a great line, and he knows you liked it. Damn smooth talker… “I guess that logic is acceptable. Fine, I’ll let you do the last bit, but you have to show off for me first. And I’m not turning around until you say something else nice.” You can feel the chuckle ripple through his chest to his jaw, then he leans down to kiss your neck. “If I didn’t have my spirits literally dampened by these clothes I’d be rock hard and dying to feel you… How does that sound?” A delighted shiver runs down your back, and suddenly you’re soaked all over again.

In an impressive feat of strength, he rips off his shirt with only his bare hands. Drops of rain still cling to his smooth chest, a sigh escaping his lips. “I’m at least a little bit warmer now, but now my upper body is cold.” You don’t understand, what does he mean? Oh. Oh. He smirks, watching as you struggle to respond. You decide to tease him one more time. “Then go ahead and lie back on my bed. I’ll handle those pants, and then we’ll see if you even want to sit up again to get me naked?” Now it’s his turn to feel flustered, biting his lip to hold back a devilish grin. “I don’t know, most people can’t handle what I’ve got. But you, sweetheart? You seem like you’ll be a formidable challenge for me.” He coos, throwing hot and heavy words back at you.

“Then lie back and let me feel challenged, stud.” You order, sitting on your knees on the edge of the bed and waiting for his obedience. When he complies your hands immediately dive to his fly and within seconds his pants are around his ankles… and you were so eager you yanked off his underwear too. Leaning over his waist, you’re now staring down the barrel of his sex pistol, and it’s every bit the monster you expect from Roger’s right hand man.

You rub yourself up against Rayleigh’s thigh, kissing him hard. “Does someone want attention? Or are you just going to sit there and make me do all the work?” Firm hands grab your thighs as you squeal, being hoisted into the air and directly onto Rayleigh’s lap. “Ooh, seems I came in for a rough landing…” you jeer, knowing full well what he is doing. “I guess you did my dear, and what are you going to do about it?” He retorts, a sparkle in his eye sending shivers down your spine.

You begin to grind your clothed pussy against his hard length, hoping to making him eat his words. Somehow, he’s going to wish he just shut up. His grip on your thighs immediately tightens, and you can see his brow furrow in concentration. His hips twitch, as if it’s taking a lot of will not to buck and roll against you. Guess he still wants to keep the air of composure. That won’t last much longer.

You can feel how hot and ready his saber is just waiting for you to sheath him. You have to bite your own lip to hide how much fun you’re having with this, and at the rate it’s going you might draw blood before any other fluid.

You run your hand across his cock, it’s warmth evident. Along with your hand on his shaft, you begin to wiggle, pressing into him. “Two can play that game.” He sneers, cupping your bare breasts in his hands. Kneading softly, he carefully runs his thumbs over the gentle buds, eliciting a squeak from you.

As if it couldn’t get any better, he pulls you as tight as he can against his throbbing dick. Every move you make, you can feel it pulse and throb. You stop for a minute, with Rayleigh pressing his face directly into your cleavage. His beard tickles as he gently shifts his face, looking to the left and to the right.

You don’t know how much longer you can wait. You’re not at your breaking point, however, your core aches to have his thick cock inside of you. Even just thinking about him makes your thighs clench, and you feel a damp spot in your panties.

Just as you think you’re about to give in and beg for more, he lets go of your chest and starts pulling at your waistband. Jackpot, he cracked first~ You put a hand over his and tut at him in playful judgment. “Tsk tsk tsk… someone’s run out of patience I see. But these are my favorite panties, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tear them apart like a wild man, okay?” On wobbly knees you climb off of Rayleigh and bend at the waist to slide the damp garment down your thighs. The fresh air reaching your wet and sensitive nethers is enough to overwhelm you for the moment, and you fall forward onto your hands and knees. Without meaning to, you’ve provided him with the perfect view of your bare sex.

“you know I’m going all out after that torturous foreplay, right?” You give a nod, and hope your body can endure it. That’d be a hell of a way to go out, your corpse being found by your crew mates the next morning with a shattered pelvis and signs of a heart attack from over excitement. But before he enters, you feel his hard cock playfully slide between your asscheeks and down to rub against your folds, causing you to let out a loud moan

Smirking to himself upon hearing your reaction, Rayleigh holds you steady by your waist and slowly presses his way in. He gives a guttural groan at the sensation, while your moan raises in pitch with every inch he buries in you. You push yourself against him, trying to attain more friction. Each inch he puts in adds another layer of pleasure, waves causing you to shudder. Once he is all the way in, he begins with a steady pace and hard thrusts.

Your body shakes with each thrust, your hanging breasts jiggling and swaying as his pelvis claps against your ass. Hands gripping the bedsheets, you try not to get lost in thinking about how deep he’s getting and how full you feel. Pleasure like this had been unimaginable before now, but you don’t want to picture what it would be like if it went away again.

Rayleigh is clearly enjoying himself as well, his grunts and moans soft, but audible enough for you to hear what he says. A curse or an oh god slip out of his mouth every so often, and that turns you on more, quickening your release. Meanwhile, Rayleigh is having an internal struggle of his own, your tight and soaking pussy treating him better than he can recall getting from any other. He wants to enjoy this for as long as he can, but between the mad teasing before and this current euphoria it’s hard to hold the tidal wave back for too much longer.

The two of you continue to rock the bed while the ship rocks in the storm, passion deafening all noise but each other. The wave reaches its crest sooner than you would like but later than you thought with how worked up you were to start with, and Rayleigh hunches over you to keep you close and deep as he finishes. Your orgasmic scream is muffled as he cranes your head back for a deep kiss, and you remain joined at both ends as his pulsing member pumps a hearty load into you.

You sigh, collapsing from exhaustion. Always the gentleman, Rayleigh pulls you up into a comfortable position. “Are you alright?” He questions, a slightly glassy look in his eyes. You gently nod to him and run your hand over his chest with a happy sigh. He pulls the covers over you two, and wraps an arm around your shoulder. What an end to the night.

#one piece #one piece imagine #one piece scenario #one piece x reader #rayleigh x reader #silvers rayleigh x reader #I will fix formatting later

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stupid-sloot-headcanons · 3 years

Note

I noticed there's no Garou on your masterlist soooo: Garou and “I know you don’t want this, but I’m going to continue until you need me.” or “I’m not doing this because I hate you, I do it because I love you.” Kinda similar wording but either could be wildly different.

(I think I've written for him once or twice, I'm just a lazy fuck who hasn't updated the masterlist lol)

Garou/Darling: "I know you don't want this, but I'm going to continue until you need me."

TW: noncon/dubcon

He knew it was stupid to take them, he knew it. But they never made it easy for him to think clearly. He had been wandering the streets, looking for any place he could sleep without drawing too much attention. The alleys didn't look comfortable, but it was better than nothing. And just by chance, ____ had spotted him on the sidewalk and--noting his scabbed-over wounds and bruises from a bout with a Hero--immediately dropped everything to ask if he needed help.

He'd never had anyone ask that before, and he didn't know what to say aside from the first thing that had come to mind: "I'm starving." Surprisingly ____ had just smiled and taken him to the nearby Don Quijote to buy him a ready-made meal, some snacks and drinks, and some bandages and disinfectant for his cuts. "There's a capsule hotel a few blocks from here," they'd said, motioning for Garou to follow them. "But I've only got enough spare cash to have you stay for a night or two. Hmm..." ____ looked him up and down. "You don't give off any creepy vibes...I've got a couch that turns into a futon, if you want to spend a few days in my apartment."

Garou's stomach was so full from the noodles they'd bought him, and he didn't want to spend any more time out in the cold if he didn't have to now that he had felt nice and warm over the hour they'd spent in the convenience store. Without thinking about if this was a trap or if it was a good idea to trust a stranger so much, he'd agreed and followed them to his temporary home.

Weeks had passed since then, and he'd just finished the last box of cookies that ____ had bought for him as he lay on the ruined couch of Takeo's "hideout." His primary focus was on survival, but he kept finding that his thoughts always led back to ____. They had cared for him without any reason to. Hell, they were the closest thing to a Hero he'd seen so far and they were a weak little thing. If he'd really wanted to, he could've torn them apart with just a flick of his fingers in their apartment.

That little realization quickly snowballed into a desire to keep an eye on ____, just to protect them from anyone who might take advantage of their kindness. Garou insisted that it was just so he could repay the debt he owed them, and that was all. Still, his mind couldn't help but wander more and more whenever he watched over them from afar. They were so blissfully unaware of Monsters, Heroes, just working their boring little job and coming home to their apartment with a tired smile. Every time he saw it he wished he was back on their couch to see them smile from a closer distance, hear them talk about their boring uneventful day and ask him again if he wanted green tea or black tea with his Cup Noodles. Feel them pat his back when they thought he was asleep. Feel their warmth against his skin. Against his tongue and teeth.

His eyes widened as he stared at them through the window. Where the fuck had THAT thought come from? He'd been so shocked and strangely flustered by it that he'd left to return to the hideout and tossed and turned on his couch until he eventually fell asleep. He'd never felt much interest in other people (romantic or otherwise) unless he was sparring or fighting someone worth his attention. But he didn't find himself wanting to fight ____; after all, it would be more of a slaughter than a fair bout. He was feeling...something. Something that made his face warm and his chest tight and his cock twitching whenever he imagined seeing their face.

The dream he'd had that night didn't help either. He had finally become the monster he'd always wanted to be, a terrifying mass of sharp fangs and claws with a menacing feral aura as he tore and slashed at everything that blocked his path. ____ was the only being that didn't run away in fear or tried in vain to attack him; instead, they'd walked slowly to him and carefully placed a hand on his snarling face before smiling sweetly. They discarded some of their clothes and then lay on the ground in front of them in only their underwear, beckoning him to come down and join them. Garou leaned down to pin them underneath him, tore their last bits of clothing with one of his claws, and licked a long stripe down their cheek before biting down on their neck. Just as he was about to mount them and fuck them senseless--

He'd woken up, sweating bullets with a hard-on straining against his pants. Fuck. Fuck, he needed to do something about this. He had started to pull down his pants and had only given his shaft a few pumps. Still, just fucking his hand and letting his imagination wander wasn't enough. He wanted ____'s warm body around him, to hear them whine and beg for him to fill them up and look at them panting underneath him while he pins their ankles over their head to mate with them like a fucking animal.

Garou growled in frustration and pulled up his underwater and the waistband of his pants, still half-hard. He wiped the precum off of his palm and headed out to break into ____'s apartment while they were at work. If he was going to do this for real, he'd need some time to prepare.

The first signs of guilt started to tug at the back of his mind when he entered their apartment once again. He had no idea if ____ wanted him like that or even felt anything outside of sympathy or pity for him after they'd found him wandering the streets. Was he really going to repay the person who'd been so kind to him by hurting them like this?

He sat on the couch and ran his fingers through his hair, trying to keep his thoughts from racing and think clearly. I want to be a monster, but this is...different, he thought. But monsters take what they want, don't they? They have the strength and power to do that, and then kill anyone who tries to get in the way. I want to do that. I want to BE that. He noticed a small framed photo of ____ with a friend on a nearby table and stared at it. Monsters don't fall in love though, assuming that's what I'm feeling right now. But I bet lots of them have mates. That's what I want. I want ____ to be my mate. I can still protect them and make them mine, even when I've finally become a monster.

He made his final decision and resolved himself, and headed to their bedroom to lie in wait for when they came home in an hour or so. If he was going to become the first human monster, then ____ would become the first human mate for him.

____ had only just locked their door before they got the feeling that something was off in their apartment. Nothing looked out of place, and they couldn't hear any signs of someone inside, but there was still something in the air that made their hair stand on end. They narrowed their eyes and reached for their phone to enter the emergency police number into the keypad, and as they cautiously walked through the house their finger hovered over the dial button.

Nothing in the kitchen. Nothing in the living room. Nothing in the bathroom. As they headed towards the only room left in the apartment, they held their breath and found themselves shaking slightly with every step forward. They had only gotten a few steps inside before a strong pair of arms grabbed them and quickly knocked the phone out of their hand. ____ tried to scream, but the intruder had already clapped a hand over their mouth before pinning them to the bed. ____'s eyes widened when they recognized the person looking down at them with shining golden eyes that made them shiver.

"Don't scream," Garou ordered quietly. "Or I'll have to make you quiet." He tightened his grip around their jaw and they whimpered. They reluctantly nodded and he moved his hand from their mouth to pin both of their arms above their head.

"Why?" ____'s voice was wobbly and thick with tears that were already threatening to spill. "I just wanted to help you. Please, Garou, don't do this. You don't have to--"

Garou's clothed cock brushed against their thighs as he started to rut against them. He had wanted to hold back long enough to explain why he was doing this, but after feeling their warm body squirming underneath his he couldn't take it any more. He tried to comfort them a bit by slightly loosening his grip on their wrists and caressing them with his thumb; when he leaned down to sloppily kiss them, he felt their tears as they wet both his and their cheeks.

He finally broke the kiss to pin their sides with his legs and hold them in place while he pulled their shirt off over their head and tugged their pants off. He was ready to pin their arms down the second he felt them try to escape or fight back, but all ____ did was cover their face now that their arms were free. He finally tore their panties off of them, leaving them completely naked and trembling before removing all of his own clothes as well. If he was going to claim ____ as a mate, he didn't want a single part of their bodies hidden from each other.

Garou clasped his hands around their wrists and slowly pushed them back to either side of their head so he could see their face again. As he rutted against their pressed-together thighs, smearing a thin layer of precum into their soft skin, he moaned and moved down to kiss and nip at their neck. "I know...you don't want this," he said haltingly, groaning when the head of his cock slipped between their plush thighs. "But I'm going to keep going until you need me, just as much as I need you." He used one free hand to pry their legs apart and pressed a thick index finger against their entrance; the two of them hissed as he explored their incredibly tight and velvety walls. He was unbearably warm before when he thought about touching them, but now he felt like his hand was melting inside of his mate's core.

Garou kissed their neck again as he continued to finger them, and when he bit down on their collarbone with his sharp canines they winced and cried out. He licked and gently kissed the wound as a small apology for getting to excited, but he also noted how their walls had clenched around his finger after he'd bitten them. Maybe he wasn't the only one that would enjoy him making his dreams come true.

#tw: noncon #tw: dubcon #tw: stalking #yandere opm #yandere garou #.queue #.garou #.opm #.myshit #.prompts

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oonajaeadira · 3 years

Text

Long Fall Into Oblivion (Ezra x reader)

(header by sirtadcooper - check out the whole beautiful set here.)

Rating: Mature.

Pairing: Ezra (post-Prospect film) x f!reader

Warnings: Non-explicit sex. Some swears maybe (think there’s a f*ck in there somewhere, my GOODNESS). A lot of gooey, syrupy, soft fluffety fluff. Author attempts at writing Ezra dialogue. A lot of chewy prose.

A/N: I can’t believe I’m posting this, but here goes. I love Ezra. He is a man of questionable morality and an insufferable tongue and I really shouldn’t. But I really do. I just wanted to give him a try. I’ve softened him up here, putting a few years on him so maybe he’s fluffed up some since the events in the film. Also I just ignored the fade or assumed that aurelac mining was still happening because scarcity/demand. Doesn’t matter. Just wanted to go exploring.

Summary: You take a job as an aurelac prospecting trainee and Ezra shows you the ropes. You’re gonna fall in love with him. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

TAGLIST: you can always request to be on the taglist for this or any of my work. If you’d like to be on taglists for upcoming fic, please sign up here –> TAGLIST

MASTERLIST

________________

Bakhroma is one of the smallest gas giants in the sector, but as you stand on the surface of the Green Moon, it dominates the entire horizon, pulling your focus, threatening to engulf everything around it. You almost feel sorry for the lush moon as you walk through its undergrowth, so gentle and full of beauty, destined many years after you’re gone to give its life to her.

A moon is an orbiting admirer, and what is an orbit but a long fall to oblivion?

There’s a painful, sour ache in your heart as you walk back to the camp in twilight, watching the back of Ezra’s helmet bob along in front of you. You’d spent two days digging that claim only to find the weakest aurelac nest you’ve seen yet, only three viable nodes. You’d dug through one of them by accident and completely melted another like an incompetent fool. Kevva’s ass, you were such a disappointment. Three months in the Green and you still can’t cut a blister out properly. Not even once.

Ezra’s shoulders are wide and tense, his one hand splayed out as he walks, running over the tops of the tall ferns, catching one every now and then only to rip the top away, twirl it between his gloved fingers and toss it impatiently aside.

The other two members of your team headed out on a sling this morning, another two will be arriving in a few days. And you wonder if Ez regrets just not cutting his losses and leaving with them, or at least sending you back in exchange for another kip.

You think about shifting through the comm channels, hoping that he’s chattering away in one of them, switched without your knowledge, but it’s a lost cause. You can hear him breathing on the channel between you. It’s not often Ezra has nothing to say.

________________

You thought your father was leaving you an inheritance. It’s not the reason you took care of him through his illness, but you’d dropped everything to be back home with him through his final months. In a way, it was a blessing, a reason to quit the Dasha factory and the terrible working conditions there, come back home and focus on your dad, relive good memories, just spend time. The reconnection lifted your heart, but his death sank it low again. When you learned he had nothing to leave you but a small house and some old vehicles, you sold what you could and traded in the rest.

Then you had nothing. No family, no job, little savings, questionable future. It almost broke your spirit. But the last few months with your father rekindled your love of him as he told you about his years in the Fringe, mining and prospecting. And your heart had said, “what the hell, let’s try that.” So you listened.

It took some time to track down the right inroads, but you were able to find some ads for prospecting teams, in particular those who were willing to take on members in training for a re-distributed cut. With all provisions included--other than suit and gear, which your father’s inheritance neatly covered--it seemed like just as good of a deal as any, and an adventure to boot.

But the reality was, every team you met with was full of hardened men, and while you were not a soft Central woman, you also weren’t overly versed in weaponry and didn’t know if you could defend yourself out in the Fringe against attack if things got crusty.

You were just about ready to admit defeat when you walked into yet another conference bunker and found your match. The first thing you noticed was that he was standing when you arrived, waiting for you politely rather than manspread at the table. Second were his eyes. Deep, brown, and sad. Maybe sad was the wrong word, certainly it seemed by the lines in his face, possibly by the missing arm, that he’d seen enough sadness, but toward you, it read more as concern. You wouldn’t know it until later when he confessed his feelings about this first meeting, but he was worried you wouldn’t choose him. Ezra had a hell of a time hiring partners. He may have been one of the longest-working aurelac diggers out there, but young kippers saw his greying beard and seasoned diggers saw his lacking arm and they all tended to turn around and walk out before he even said hello. So he’d tried to put himself out there as a trainer, show that he had something more to offer.

It didn’t hurt his feelings when you admitted to him later that those qualities were exactly why you chose him. He seemed the opposite of threatening. And his eyes were bright when he smiled at you. With his thrumming baritone and his Fringe twang and his mixed deck of mosaic words, he had a way of speaking that felt like a fluffy blanket curling around you, your brain vibrating with comfort at every new monologue. He was eccentric and perhaps a little jarringly rough in his humor at times, but there was something about him that you trusted immediately, even though you’d come to learn later you probably shouldn’t have if you were being overly cautious.

Not that your judgement ever came to detriment. Not that he ever proved you wrong that way. Not when it came to you. But the man was dangerous when he had to be in a way you hadn’t initially picked up on.

________________

You hadn’t been out in the Green two weeks before you looked up from the bottom of a dig hole to see Ezra standing over you with a thrower.

“You get down and you stay down, understand?”

“Ez? What--”

“I said stay down! Do not make me waste words on mere repetition!” The fuzzy blanket of his voice replaced suddenly by a snarling, snapping brush wolf, a quick change hitting you like a slap in the ear.

There’d been pops and whizzes as shots rang through and you did as your trainer said, face down, the view of your visor giving you nothing but dirt. Your helmet was a chorus of quick breathing from both of you and sweat rolled down your neck as you begged the eyes of Kevva to look down upon your partner. When the crossfire faded, you’d heard Ezra stalk away. Then there were a couple more shots. Then more footsteps returning.

“You are permitted to stand, trinket. All is well as it can be for us. But not so much for our dearly departed friends.” These words were as soothing as much as his previous ones had burned, and he simply went back to working at the dig at hand as if he’d just come back from taking a leak. It wasn’t until you left the site that evening that you tramped past two rotting raiders, gaudily outfitted with broken face shields, left to let the Green take them.

Ezra whistled as he stepped over them, stopping only to harvest their filters and munition rods, which he tossed your way to stow in your pack, and then continued lazily down the path toward camp. Just another day on the job.

He may be a little peculiar and not someone to trifle with, he may have just killed two people without remorse or further comment, but his lack of reassuring words told you that this was just part of the deal. You wear the suit, you use the air scrubber in the tent, you follow the landing pod instructions as written, and you defend yourself against those who wish to harm you. Survival by any and all means is paramount, mundane, and something he has no qualms with on any level.

There was something deep down inside of you that instinctually pulled you to follow him, not just down the literal path before you, but whatever path Ezra chose to wander.

________________

Before you’d left the station with him, he’d taken you to a thrower range to gauge your skill which was decent in theory, but dismal compared with what he could do. No matter, he still patiently taught you how to properly clean and charge a weapon and the best way to breathe and pull the trigger; “like you’re taking hold of a man’s...well... Just go easy and firm.” He suggested you should come and practice every day before lift off and then hope to Kevva that you didn’t have to rely too heavily on it.

“If I find myself in a coffin of my own suit, then feel free to defend yourself as a final means of preservation. Otherwise, when it comes down to shots fired, best to let me do the dirty work. Might as well keep the blood where the blood has been.”

You’d been a little nervous about sharing a freighter pod alone with him, but Ezra was...well, not so much a gentleman as just a comfortable soul.

He always waited until you were hungry to eat, thinking it rude to eat alone in front of you. He never moved around the pod while you were sleeping, content to keep still with a book in his cot. And if you couldn’t sleep, he was always willing to read to you from whatever impossibly dense old world classic he was digging through for the umpteenth time, letting his voice come up from the deeps and pull you gently under. If you asked permission to turn on the radio, he’d ask you “why Isn’t it on yet, woman,” quietly tolerating your taste in harsh and gleeful babblecore pshcyopop. In the later days of the journey, he’d even come to dance with you from time to time, although both of you were dismal at it and ended up with you in a fit of giggles. It was a sure-fire way to cure a case of the pouts you carried through from the morning fitness sessions when he beat you at pushups. Again.

When it came to privacy in the tight space, he had a habit of turning away without having to be asked or stopping his stream of talk when you went to change clothes, just happily chattering away until you called the all clear. Although he was not squeamish about his own state of undress, should you happen to catch it by accident. While he was respectful of your privacy, he seemed to need none of his own, but neither did he flaunt anything. You might look up from studying the flight manual to notice he was changing into a fresh pair of compression pants, tugging them on haphazardly with one hand, more concerned with telling you the overwhelmingly disgusting manufacturing process of Bits Bars than his own ass hanging out where you might see it. At least he always changed facing away from you which was a kindness.

Until it wasn’t.

After you realized you’d fallen quietly in love with him--a sudden, soft moment on the Green--then you’d admit only privately to yourself that you wouldn’t mind if you accidentally saw a little more than the occasional shirtless attire he might wear around the tent.

But in the pod, the only part of him that had caught your curiosity was his stump, and you’d known Ezra intensely enough over the past couple of weeks where you knew he wouldn’t take offense. Especially if you asked him the right way.

“Will you tell me a story, Ezra?”

“I feel that it is my duty to do so whether you ask me to or not. Shall I choose, or is there something in particular you would like to hear?”

He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, propped up against his cot, going through his kit, cleaning his gear. You waited until he noticed your lack of answer and looked up to meet your eyes. When he saw that you had put your manual down and were focusing all your quiet attention on him, he stopped his busy work.

When Ezra gives you his attention, it is absolute. When he knows you seriously need something from him, that becomes his immediate main priority and all else can wait. It’s only gotten more intense since that day, but there is a trust that resides between you when you look into his eyes, gathering your words as he waits patiently every time to hear whatever you’re going to request of him. There’s always hope there in his big browns, always something specific he’s waiting for you to ask, and every day you get a little bit closer to understanding what it might be. But until then, any question is a welcome one, any query is met with his wish to provide.

“Will you tell me how you lost your arm?”

At first you thought you may have gone too far, that maybe you insulted him, as his eyebrows peaked together and he looked down at his hand. But then, “That is a tale that may cause you some consternation, trinket. The Green is dangerous and unforgiving, and there were times I may not have been a man worthy of fair opinion.”

“My father was a prospector, you know. I’ve heard stories. Have you ever killed anyone?”

He clicked his tongue and screwed up an eye, causing the thin white scar on his cheek to twist. Then he sighed and returned to your locked gaze. “To be honest, I have. Though I have never done so with pleasure, I have killed in defense and out of desperation, and it was out of dispatching a man in this way that I came to lose the second favorite of all my appendages.”

“Second favorite?”

“Well, it depends what you classify as a limb.” He huffed a small laugh, a spark in his eye, trying to diffuse the harsh subject in his own way.

His leaning into baseness never bothered you. There was something earthy about it, gritty and rough, but never lewd. You rewarded his crassness with a smile. “Do you plan on killing me out in the Green?”

“I would hope my murdering days are behind me, and if they are not, you would see me aim a thrower at everyone but you in the course of my spree. You are under my tutelage, and for that, I owe you a duty of care. That is my word by Kevva.”

“Then tell me the story. I like your stories. I promise not to judge now-Ezra by then-Ezra.”

A dimple formed on his cheek, a punctuation mark framing the approaching anecdote on his lips. “Then I will declare myself absolved of any sin heretofore and regale you with a clean and grateful heart.”

________________

You can see the tent through the trees and you realize with some horror that it’s just you and Ezra for the next few nights. If he’s angry with you, and this is how he is when he’s upset, the silence will be unbearable.

Even that little girl he helped out here years ago was probably more capable than you. You feel so lost in this moment, and it’s only made worse by his silence. You fumble with your communicator and hit the mute just in time to choke on a sob.

This isn’t like you. You’re not one to cry when things get rough. You hardly shed a tear when your father died. But the thought of that just brings another sob and as acting as your own psychologist you realize that you are experiencing some displaced sorrow, the odd need to please the leading male in your life, the one that’s walking ahead of you, away from you. If he’d just turn around and throw you his worn weary smile, if he’d just start up a conversation you’d know that there was hope for you, you’d know you didn’t give up everything to be here in a job you couldn’t hack.

You gotta stop this. Or it’s going to be an uncomfortable night.

Shake it off.

Once you enter the tent, the usual dance happens. Ezra reaches up to turn on the air scrubber and you unhook his filter tube from his helmet. When he turns to you, you pull open the zipper cover on his suit and start his zip for him before lifting his helmet up and off. He can pull the zip the rest of the way, but you generally pull the left collar down for him so he can get his arm out. He’s on his own from there as you turn to fuss with your own gear.

________________

You remember it starting easily enough. He was telling you a story about the breeding habits of the Tokovian Musk Owl and you could see he was having trouble with his suit zipper, yanking at it and trying to look down at it even though it was under his chin and his helmet. Without another hand to keep the fabric taut, the zip didn’t want to release, so you simply batted his hand away and started it for him. He didn’t even stop his yammering, just threw in a “thank you” somewhere in between “could hear them screeching” and “for a fuck.” He’d right out asked you the day before if you wouldn’t mind disengaging the filter tube just because it was delicate and he didn’t want to mangle the expensive part trying to pop it out one-handed day after day. And while he could manage the helmet fine enough, his prominent nose thanked you for a smoother removal for sure.

It wasn’t the only routine dance you’d concocted.

There was the harness dance.

While dig days were excruciating, you always looked forward to helping him attach the harness for his prosthesis--a kind of rigid pole attached to a shovel so you didn’t have to do all the hard digging alone. There were a couple of straps that came around his torso with multiple latches and you’d come to really enjoy wrapping your arms around him to fit the straps on. Sure, you could do the job just as easily from behind, but if you embraced him at the front, he’d usually raise his arm and let it come to rest around your shoulders while you worked. If you let yourself dream, it would be easy to imagine that he might be pressing you into him just a little bit.

And there was the harvesting dance.

On a dig, you were the one to mix the fazer and Ezra did the pour. He fished the sack, you cut the cord. You sliced the outer casing and held it open while he did the extraction. And with the flesh-covered stone, he told you every time to “hold it like you love it” so he could cut away the slippery blister before cleaning the gemstone.

It was a beautiful harmony. And the only way it worked. Because once on every dig he urged you to do a solo extraction, and on every dig, you pierced the blister and lost that stone. And on every dig, he squeezed your shoulder and told you it was a wondrous try, that he was proud of you, and there would always be another turn. There was no sarcasm, no pity, just a warm smile and ceaseless optimism even though you just lost both of you thousands in pay.

These were the first touches, these shoulder squeezes that ran down your arm on the let-go. Sometimes he would just reach out and grab onto you like a pole to help himself up, or he might stumble off balance on uneven ground and without the counterweight of his right arm he’d throw his hand out onto you to steady himself. He wasn’t beyond lightly touching the small of your back to encourage you down a path or to take your next try at a gem pull.

This was all part of something you’ve secretly named the left-handed-lover’s dance. Basically, that you keep on his left whenever you can in case he needs your help or has the inclination to reach for you. It started out as just trying to be a good partner. Then it became a passing hope that it was more than just a friendly bond. But you were both here to do a job. He was here to teach you to be an independent prospector and you were here to assist and learn. That was evident at the end of the day; once you were both in the tent and out of the suits he never touched you, never so much as bumped into you or grazed your hand in passing an item or clapped you on the arm after a good joke.

But out in the field all zipped in and helmets on, there was nothing more natural than his gentle hand guiding you or reaching for your assistance, including the day you realized you loved him.

________________

Before you can turn away to strip off your own coverings, Ezra catches your arm, spinning your face into the light. You try to shake him off, not wanting him to catch your eyes puffy from crying and your cheeks still streaked with tears, but his grip is not so gentle now and he yanks you back around to his stormy glare, chin up, brows low. His intensity paralyzes you, rendering you unable to continue your struggle when he catches your eyes with his.

When Ezra gives you his attention, it is absolute.

His gaze travels back and forth between your eyes, waiting for an explanation, a minute so stringent it breaks you down, dissolves you into the tears you’d tried so hard to hide.

“I’m sorry, Ezra. I really am trying... I don’t know why I’m such a scuffer at this and I know it would only be right to release you from the contract and tell you to send me back but I don’t want you to, I really wanna stay, I really wanna learn and I’m so, so sorry.”

Your words have an immediate effect, softening him, pulling his glare into concern and wonder, his lips parting just the tiniest bit in surprise.

“This is the reason for your heavy mood? You think I am provoked by your proficiency in the field?”

“I crusted up good today and it seems like you’re not happy about it. Just...know that it means so much to me that...I don’t wanna let you down.”

“Oh, trinket, no.” An incredulous huff jumps out of him and his grip on your arm loosens, becomes a splayed warm support behind your shoulder, moving in soothing patterns and you’re instantly relieved that your assumptions were wrong. “You have done no harm in my book. It is not an easy thing to deliver a gem of this ilk into the world unscathed. Your opportunities have been few and scattered and it takes many sticks before a lover becomes a lothario.” He knows the crass humor will make you laugh, knows what to say to lighten your heart, to get you to soften, and bring you into his intimate, conspiratorial mood. “To be perfectly honest, I am selfish to an unrighteous degree, for every gem you burn keeps me in value to you. A worthy sacrifice to guarantee you mightn’t be so quick in your need to fly away from me until your training’s complete.”

This causes a hitch in your breath as you see the welcome turn the conversation he’s taking and you follow the path he’s making for you. “I don’t want to leave you, Ez.”

A smile creeps up one side of his mouth. “Well then I am a happy man. A bargain is struck! Partners it is.”

“Partners it is.”

A moment hangs between you as he rubs his thumb in slow circles on your shoulder. There’s that look in his eye again, the one where he’s waiting for you to ask the question he wants to hear from you. So close now.

Still, you’re unsure. “I guess I’m lucky I found the one person who wants an incompetent partner.”

“No, I do not, nor is it what I have and I must express my objection to your self-debasement. This work is not for the shiny, and you have not once complained about taking on the meat of the digging or the crawl of my schedule.” His hand comes to your helmet shield and he rakes his thumb across it as if he ached to wipe away one of your staleing tears. “Those bright eyes of yours got a penchant for spotting deposits more skillfully than I could ever manage and that’s not something that can be taught; that’s talent, girl. The blistering?” He shrugs. “Even I can’t manage that without the steady help of your fine hands. You may think that your blunders in education are causing us some financial ruin, but our fortunes are creamy. I assure you, we can afford it.”

That look is still there. He’s waiting. “There’s some ‘us’ and ‘we’ in there, Ez.” Your hands drift to his sides, taking fistfuls of his compression suit top, willing him closer.

The edges of his eyes take on the crinkle you’ve come to find so much comfort in. “So there is.”

You’re almost there. You know what he wants. “Why were you so quiet on the walk back?”

“Because for the next few days we are alone here and I have a mind full of questions I do not know how to ask you.”

“Then let me go first.” A yearning happiness settles in his brown eyes; finally. Finally you’ve found out what it is he needs you to request of him. “If I take this helmet off, are you going to kiss me, Ez?”

His eyes close in contentment and he nods, “Yes. Yes, little jewel. Yes I am, that and more. I hope I have inferred correctly that it is your wish that I do so, because I am in free fall. I feel my orbit ending and my pull to you is complete.”

_______________

“A moon is an orbiting admirer, and what is an orbit but a long fall to oblivion?”

Speculating days were some of your favorite times, just wading through the brush and looking for the telltale signs and shoots of an underlying deposit. Sometimes you came upon nests of strange groundling insects or flowers that only grew in secret. There were treasures underfoot on this poisonous moon, but if you remembered to look up as well, you might find some dangerous beauties there too.

On that day--the one where you finally understood your heart--you’d looked up to find that you were on a cliffside overlooking a valley, the canopy a million different hues of green, the gas giant looming over half the sky in a big pink and orange semi-circle. There was a fallen log that served as a perfect seat for the perfect view and you knew Ezra wouldn’t mind if you stole a few moments to sit and to take it in. It’s just the kind of thing he’d appreciate. And you were proven right when he came up behind you, putting a hand on your shoulder to steady himself as he swung one leg then the other over the log, finding a perch next to you, spouting pretty words through the channel link--soft and low--about moons and orbits and obilvions.

“That glowing beauty is Bakhroma. She is quiet and fierce, made up of the unfathomable and the unknowable, always within sight, but out of reach and untouchable unless one would trade the honor with great sacrifice. She reflects the light that is given to her with a patience that is heretofore untold. And the Green Moon upon which we ride follows where she goes like a lovesick fool, spinning around her in a heady kind of adoration, full of secret treasures buried deep down that will ultimately one day belong to her, falling incrementally over eons until he finally loses himself in her, all his glories gladly forfeit to her welcome and inevitable embrace. Alone but together, seemingly eternal, pulled as one by the laws of a mysterious universe.”

The void that came after those words was filled with the beating of your heart, and you were sure he could hear it through the channel.

When he’d landed there beside you, you’d registered how his hand slid off your shoulder, diagonally down across your back, coming to rest at your waist, his arm draped lightly around you. Natural. Easy. Everything was warm--the colors of the sky, the care with which he kept you close as if to better hear the honey sweetness in his prose, the fire burning in your lungs and neck.

Ezra probably didn’t know that you spoke a little Vayok.

Bakh being the Vayok word for adornment. Ornament, Gem. Roma was a modifier, a diminutive. Small. Dear.

Bakhroma. Sentimental bauble. A little jewel.

In other words, a trinket.

All you wanted to do was sit down to take in the view of an entire world for a few moments, but by the time Ezra took your hand and helped you to your feet, all you saw was him.

________________

The helmet is barely off before his lips are sealed to yours in a press of greed. Even if he can’t form words when he kisses you, he can’t help but express his deep relief in a heartbreaking moan. It’s a fight to release yourself from the suit when he keeps pulling you against him and every time you try to get some space between you to work the zipper, he chuckles into your mouth, enjoying the tease and the struggle. It’s simultaneously frustrating and thrilling and you give in for a few moments just to give him what he seems to want so desperately right now.

Ezra kisses like a man starved for air, long, hard, and full of need, peeling his lips away only to come back for another breath of you until his initial want is slaked and he slows, allows for more time between his taking, his mouth starting to mumble against yours, praising you with pet names, telling you how perfect you are to him, how long he’s “fought against my more dubious natures to respect your womanly virtues and take them only when you could see in me a man worth bestowing them on.”

You’re able to use his weakness for monologuing to turn around in his vice-like embrace, finally freeing yourself of the suit and he takes the opportunity to drawl more pretty words in your ear, warning you that “I’m afraid I have been enamored of you overly long and may be extra eager in my attentions. So you just say the word if you need a slow down, gentle one, and I will do my best to comply. Although I will admit it will be a difficult endeavor indeed as I feel I am entering your atmosphere and nothing might quell this burn but finding some drowning place to land.”

Your first impression of him was of a man whose age and temperament and body would not be able to overpower you.

Your first impression was wrong.

Of course, it helps that you are willing.

It doesn’t take long for him to strip you down, and then himself. To kiss you down onto the floor. To find exactly where you like to be touched most and how long it takes for you to break from it. He has so many words for you, so many praises to sing about every part of you that is round or soft or wet, comparing you to things that are sweet and plush or celestial and holy. And when you take his favorite limb in hand--as wondrous as the rest of his body--and guide it to its fit, he plunders and harvests all you have to give him, filing you with himself, for as long as you call for it, as long as you let him. He loves you like he speaks to you: rough and drawn out, full of beautiful tangents and meandering plotlines, but in the end it is beautiful and fulfilling; you may be just a little bit confused how you got to the ending, but you’re completely in awe.

When you lay breathing heavy, staring but not seeing the ceiling of the tent, your consciousness seemingly lifted to see through it to the stars, to the glowing face of Bakhroma, you run hands through rough-chopped hair on a head laying on your chest. He’s listening to your heartbeat, waiting for it to slow down so he can start again. The air is thick--even the air scrubber can’t keep up with all your humidity--and there’s a halo around each bulb of the string lights just barely illuminating the darkness.

“How long, Ez?”

“Hm?”

“How long have you been waiting for that.”

“Most likely since the day you walked into my interview. I am a man of simple wants and you had all the right parts for my preferences.”

“For real, Ez.”

He tipped his head up to find you. “What you ask has many true answers, and I stand by the first. I have no qualms telling you of my weakness for a pretty succulence and a kind smile the likes of which you possess. But if you are asking when I knew I would have it, well, that may have been the first day you danced. Or when you asked me to read you to sleep. Or when I understood I wouldn’t let those bastard raiders get near enough to take their turn at your qualities when I had not had them myself. Or when you finally saw me as a viable person to drape your affections on; maybe it was that day too.”

“When I finally saw you as....”

“I have read many tomes and verses but none so full of beautiful passages as your face that day on the cliff. There is a difference of knowing and being. I knew the feel of your pull that day, but found I’d been in orbit all along.”

How he can live this way, twist everything into a tossed away poem...it should be exhausting. Yet you feed off it. You breathe it like air.

After another long cycle of frenzied entanglement and violent euphoria, you ask Ezra if he’d like to move to a cot, maybe get some sleep. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to walk to the dig tomorrow morning,” you confess.

“No need to worry about tomorrow,” he says, wapping his arm around you and dragging you back to him, grumbling into your ear. “We are the only prospectors in this sector and the aurelac will wait. Until our new compatriots arrive, we are officially on hiatus. Recreational mining only. Restricted to the confines of this tent. By order of your supervisor. In the interest of more precious treasures. And I intend to strike it rich.”

“Well. I’m here to assist. And learn.”

“When it comes to this dig, trinket, you are more than competent. I am no longer your trainer. Partners it is.”

“Partners it is.”

The new contract is struck, signed and sealed in kissing and in touch and a long, slow fall into inevitable oblivion.

#ezra x reader #ezra/reader #ezra prospect #prospect fanfic #prospect fanfiction #pedro pascal #soft #soft ezra

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doyumacy · 3 years

Text

ʀɪᴅᴇ ᴏᴜᴛ - 1

ʏᴜᴛᴀ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ x ᴍᴀʀᴋ ʟᴇᴇ

ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ɢᴏɴᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ᴀ ʏᴇᴀʀ, ʙᴜᴛ ᴠᴇʀʏ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ʜᴀꜱ ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇᴅ. ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴀʟꜰ ʙᴏᴛʜᴇʀ’ꜱ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴀ ʟᴇɢᴇɴᴅ ɪɴ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀɢʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ʀᴀᴄᴇꜱ. ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴀᴍᴇ ɢɪʀʟꜱ ʜᴀᴛᴇ ʏᴏᴜ. ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴀᴍᴇ ʙᴏʏ ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴍᴀᴋᴇꜱ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ ʀᴀᴄᴇ, ʙᴜᴛ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴏɴ’ᴛ ʟᴇᴛ ʜɪᴍ ɢᴇᴛ ᴄʟᴏꜱᴇ ᴇɴᴏᴜɢʜ ᴛᴏ ʜᴜʀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ. ɴᴏᴛ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ. ɴᴏᴛ ʟɪᴋᴇ ʙᴇꜰᴏʀᴇ.

ᴍᴀʀᴋ ʟᴇᴇ ʜᴀꜱ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ᴀʀʀɪᴠᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴛᴏᴡɴ ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴇ’ꜱ ᴏɴʟʏ ꜱᴛᴀʏɪɴɢ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴇɴᴏᴜɢʜ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴇᴛ ᴜᴘ ᴀ ꜰᴇᴡ ꜱᴛʀᴇᴇᴛ ʀᴀᴄᴇꜱ, ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ꜱᴏᴍᴇ ᴍᴏɴᴇʏ, ᴀɴᴅ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ꜰᴜɴ. ʙᴜᴛ ʜᴇ ᴍɪɢʜᴛ ꜱᴛɪʀ ᴜᴘ ꜱᴏᴍᴇ ᴛʀᴏᴜʙʟᴇ ᴡʜᴇɴ ʙᴇɢɪɴꜱ ʜᴀɴɢɪɴɢ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʜɪꜱ ꜱᴘᴏɴꜱᴏʀ’ᴀ ʜᴀʟꜰ ꜱɪꜱᴛᴇʀ, ᴀɴᴅ ɪᴛ’ꜱ ɴᴏᴛ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ʜᴇʀ ʙʀᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ʜᴇ’ꜱ ᴘɪꜱꜱɪɴɢ ᴏꜰꜰ.

ɢᴇɴʀᴇ: ꜱᴍᴜᴛ, ᴅʀᴀᴍᴀ, ᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: ᴍᴇɴᴛɪᴏɴꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴅʀᴜɢꜱ, ɢᴜɴꜱ, ɢᴜɴꜱʜᴏᴛꜱ, ꜱᴇxᴜᴀʟ ᴊᴏᴋᴇꜱ, ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴛʜʀᴇᴀᴛꜱ,

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 5,3ᴋ

three years ago

you slide out from under the car you've been working on when you hear an unfamiliar engine approaching the garage. it must be a customer, you think as you go to the front desk to help them.

the man who enters the office surprises you. he has light brown hair and is wearing black jeans with a white shirt with black flowers. his dark brown eyes sparkle with curiosity as he sees you. a black maserati is parked behind him.

"can i help you?" you ask, freely.

"i have a faulty spark plug and my garage is on the other side of the planet. they told me this was the best place in town."

"and it is. go ahead and go into the store."

"don't mechanics normally keep people waiting in the office?" he asked amused.

"only when the person doesn't know anything about cars. obviously you do, so you have to keep me company while i fix it," you smirk.

"what's your name, suh? -he asks, using the last name on your work shirt.

"y/n. yours?"

"yuta. nakamoto yuta."

"nice to meet you. let's get that car fixed, shall we?"

a few minutes later, the black car is with the hood open in the garage. yuta, on the other hand, is helping you by handing you the necessary tools. you let his fingers brush a little more than strictly necessary when yuta hands you a wrench.

yuta smiles and leans back against the car once you're done. "how much do i owe you?" he asks quietly.

it takes you a second to really register how close you are to each other. you look him in the eye. "how about you take me out to dinner and the debt is settled?" you ask in a sudden flare of audacity.

fortunately, he smiles.

"my thoughts exactly. what time will you be out here?

“six.”

he looks down at that ridiculously nice black gold watch.

"it's only an hour from now. how about i keep you company until then?"

"i'd like that."

"so what were you working on before I showed up?"

"my charger over there. there are some bastards who want to compete with me saying their luxury imports can beat it. tonight they're in for an ugly surprise."

you assume yuta has heard about your garage, knows about your regular clientele. they consider themselves the best store around to the fellow street racers. but to everyone else, it's just a small garage.

"that sounds like something i'd like to see. mind if i stay and watch you kick their asses?"

"it'd be my pleasure," you smile.

as expected, you end up following yuta back to his apartment after winning the race by a solid car length. the endorphins from winning the race flood your senses, and yuta is amazed that he had managed to stumble upon such an amazing girl. someone like him.

sl walking, you find yourself wrapped in warm arms and leaning against a hard chest. you caress the dragon-shaped tattoo on his right shoulder and plant a kiss on it.

a quiet moan tells you she is waking up. his arm tightens around her. he plants a kiss on your forehead.

"Good morning to you too," you say.

yuta rolls you onto his back and rests his torso on top of yours. "good morning."

"You look happy.

"i woke up with a beautiful, bad-ass, street-racing woman in my arms. how could i complain?"

you laugh. "well, i could say the same thing. it's not often i get to wake up next to a hot guy and that brother would probably beat up if he knew where i spent the night."

he barks out a laugh. "you're most likely right..." he bites his lip. "there's something you need to know."

your smile disappears. "you're not married, are you?"

"no! god, no," he replies instantly. "i just want to know if you want it to be more than a brief fling."

you are silent for a moment as he thought.

"yes, i think so. i mean, we could get to know each other better but yes," you explain.

"then we're on the same page," you nod absently. "do you want to have breakfast before we go on with our talk?"

you can't help but get a little nervous. what does he have to say?

"what do you want for breakfast?"

"uh..." you sit up, holding the black sheet against your chest to cover yourself. "whatever. i'm not particularly picky."

yuta nods and gets out of bed, pulling on a pair of gray sweatpants. he leaves his room and you lie back down on the bed. your cell phone rings somewhere in yuta's room and you grunt getting up to look for it. you find it inside your jeans.

"y/n! where the hell are you?" johnny asks as soon as you answer the phone. “you didn’t come home last night, and jaehyun said there was a guy watching you the entire race.”

“don’t worry about it, brother. that guy was my date last night. i’m at this place right now,” you grin.

“hold on, you had a date?! who? why didn’t you tell me?” johnny bombards you with questions.

you sigh. you saw this coming.

“everything all right?” yuta asks, entering his bedroom.

“my brother,” you say with your mouth. “johnny! easy with the questions. i’ll tell you later, bye!”

“be responsible!” it can be heard from the phone and you hang up.

you exhale dramatically and fall back on the bed.

“trouble, dear?” yuta inquiries.

you raise your head to look at him. “big brothers are tedious,” you announce after a minute.

“i wouldn’t know; i’m the older brother.”

“oh?”

yuta smiles warmly. “i have a younger brother. the idiot used to fight older bullies in the yard, and i was the one who had to finish them off.”

you smirk. “you protected him. my brother’s the same way.”

“let’s eat, okay? i still need to talk about something important,” yuta declares.

you nod and he tosses you slightly one of his shirts. you put it on and grab your panties putting them on.

yuta made sunny side up eggs and french toasts. between bites, yuta begins to speak. “i work for the korean mafia.”

“huh?” you stop eating and stare at him. “you what?”

yuta laughs lightly. “i work for the korean mafia.” he repeats. “i bet you’re wondering what a japanese guy is doing working for the korean mafia.”

“not exactly my first thought but yes,” you shrug. “what do you do?”

“let’s say i’m a middleman between the korean mafia and the yakuza,” he confesses.

you frown. “so you buy goods from them and sell them?”

yuta raises an eyebrow at you. “what are you? a businesswoman?”

you laugh and have a bite of your toast. “i went to business school, but i dropped out this semester.”

“hot,” he plants a kiss on your lips. “so yes, that’s my job. aren’t you scared?”

“of what? you? your job?” you snort. “i’ve seen way worse in the underground. i gotta say i’m surprised because i thought you were a good boy.”

yuta chuckles. “i am good at other things,” he winks at you.

you push the plate aside and sit on his lap. “i can’t recall, do you mind refreshing my memory?”

yuta grins and places his hand on your ass cheeks. “aren’t you too sore?”

“pain is my best friend,” you nip at his lip and he groans.

yuta kisses you and his hand goes to your throat tilting your head to the side and biting your neck harshly. you whimper at the painful yet pleasurable sensation. yuta shushes you and darts his eyes to you. “i thought you enjoyed the pain, baby girl.”

one year ago

you’re standing in front of his gravestone and place the flower bouquet next to it. the only sound is the wind, rustling through a nearby copse of trees. it has been five days since yuta died and the hole in your chest only gets deeper.

it hurts.

you’re broken.

your life without him means nothing. the city without him means nothing. nothing makes sense without him.

“you shouldn’t have died,” you say. “we could have been better.” you mumble, sitting in front of the grave. “it’s weird, today i woke up and i thought i heard your voice. am i going crazy?” you scoff.

you stare at the gravestone and then lower your heard. “i came to say goodbye. i can’t stay here anymore. everywhere i go i see your face. everyone reminds me of you.”

you feel tears streaming down your face. “i’ll never forget you, yuta. i love you so much.” you burst out crying.

after you left town, you were pretty much everywhere: singapore, thailand, indonesia, philippines, malaysia and even japan for a few weeks. racing and making a fame known as the ‘nameless girl’ who would beat everyone.

you left a note to johnny saying you’d be okay and you would return when you feel ready to.

you didn’t stay long in every country and you didn’t make any relations so things didn’t attach to you there. you were lonely but you got used to it. and you didn’t dislike it.

one night, you decided it was time to come back home. yuta would never come back and you felt you moved on.

the train arrives at its last stop and you grab your small suitcase exiting it. you walk and take a taxi to your house, or johnny’s house just to find a party. people and their racing cars everywhere.

of course. it’s friday.

you get into your house and see people everywhere. people dancing, no, grinding on each other’s bodies and blowing some smoke. perhaps weed. you walk through the crowded living room and spot johnny sipping a beer. you don’t know how he's going to react since you didn’t tell anyone you’re back.

you walk to johnny but he’s interrupted by a red haired and kissed him. you roll your eyes, johnny and his bitches.

you change your direction walking to the kitchen and see jaehyun talking to some people. he turns to you and doesn’t seem to notice you, it’s when he turns again and his face brightens up with a smile. “y/n!” he walks to you and tugs you for a hug, lifting you from the ground.

“hi,” you giggle, placing a kiss on his cheek.

jaehyun puts you back on the ground and smiles, "i almost didn't recognize you, you've changed so much."

“i just dyed my hair: i got babylights,” you grin.

“i like them, you look great,” jaehyun nods. “but where have you been?!”

“huh everywhere?” you shrug.

“and you couldn’t call?” he stares at you.

“i know, i’m sorry,” you rest a hand on his shoulder. “we’ll talk later, okay? where’s everyone?”

“johnny is lena, jungwoo is having a blunt with jinsoul in the yard and of course jisung is in his room, he’s not allowed to come downstairs,” jaehyun comments.

you nod and rest your hands on your waist. “i don’t know half of these people. who are they?”

“johnny became kind of a sponsor?” jaehyun frowns and you laugh. “no, it’s true! half of these people are rich kids betting on johnny's people, he met two guys that are literally gods of racing.”

“i’d like to see that,” you add. “what are their names?”

“mark lee and lee donghyuck,” jaehyun hands you a beer. “they’re dickheads but we’ve been getting so much money because of them.”

you scoff. “they’re just lucky. i am back.”

jaehyun whistles, smiling. “that’s the attitude, baby. i can’t wait to see you race again.”

you smirk. “i bet you wanna.”

“ah, johnny’s coming,” jaehyun murmurs.

you turn and see a blond haired johnny walking towards you. you tuck your hands into your jeans pocket and smile nicely. “hi brother.”

“when people started saying my sister was here i didn’t believe it because maybe she left this fucking town a year ago leaving just a note!” johnny exclaims. “and thought ‘why would she return just like that?’”

you sigh. “i’m sorry, johnny. but i’m back and i’m okay. that’s the only thing that should matters.”

johnny rolls his eyes. “are you dumb?”

you frown. “just because you’re my brother i d-

“half-brother,” johnny remarks.

“fuck you, johnny,” you hiss and leave the kitchen

when johnny gets upset he tends to be the classical dickhead and uses the ‘half-brother’ excuse just to hurt you. you think you might deserve it, but why is it so hard for him to understand why you left? why you need to leave?

maybe it’s because he has never loved someone the way you loved yuta. or maybe he’s too selfish to understand it.

of course you also think you didn’t do the right thing by simply disappearing out of the blue, but again, you don’t owe anything to no one.

you go to the bathroom that is next to the stairs and groan when you realise it’s locked. you lean against the wall and sigh. next to you, there are three girls whispering and laughing. you don’t care, until you hear your name.

“did you see y/n? she’s back,” one of them says.

“yeah. i thought she was in jail,” the other mocks.

“in jail? for what?” she laughs.

“apparently she was the one that killed yuta,” she comments. “and ran away, but my boyfriend told me the police caught her.”

the blonde one laughs. “poor thing.”

“and i’d go back to jail for ripping your ugly faces off,” you murmur, still leaning against the wall.

the girls stare at you and they decide to leave. you groan, rolling your eyes. “assholes.”

someone walking down the hallway whistles and smiles at you. “should i be concerned about my well being right now?.”

you look at them and you see a black haired guy, wearing a green jacket with black ripped jeans and black shirt. you scoff. “fuck off, dude.”

“but please don’t rip my face off.,” the guy rests his hand on his chest.

you stare at him and clench your jaw. “bugger off, dude. really, i’m not in the mood to take someone’s shit.”

“sorry,” he nods. “i’m mark by the way,” he passes the bottle of the beer he’s drinking to his free hand and extends his hand.

you look at his hand, hesitant. you shake your head and take it. “y/n.”

he grins, gripping at your hand. “you’re the famous y/n.”

you chuckle. “and you’re not the famous mark lee.”

mark smiles sideways. “so you’ve heard about me.”

“very little,” you shrug. “nothing impressive.”

“ah, they weren’t wrong when they said you’re a bitch,” mark frees your hand.

“did i hurt your feelings?” you pout mockingly.

“you’re gonna need more than that to hurt my feelings, gorgeous,” he winks at you.

you nod. “noted, boy. well, it was nice talking to you.”

“you leaving already?” mark asks.

“yeah. i’m tired and i need a place to sleep,” you say. “i guess i’ll see you around.”

mark nods. “have a good night, y/n.”

(...)

“when did she get back? how come i didn't see her?” donghyuck slides off the plastic armrest of the outdoor sofa he was sitting on.

jeno walks away to get a drink. “who 's back?” he asks.

“y/n suh,” mark replies.

“johnny’s sister?” jeno looks at him.

donghyuck and mark nod.

“what was she in jail for, like, a year?” jeno’s voice drops to a whisper.

“she was in jail?” donghyuck stares at mark.

“no. she just disappeared last fall,” mark explains.

“it was probably jail,” donghyuck adds, “that or she had a baby. i mean, the timing kind of fits for that, don’t you think?”

“and where’s the baby, smartass?” mark glances at him.

“gave it away for adoption,” donghyuck shrugs.

“what are you fuckers talking about,” johnny questions, going outside the house.

“your sibling,” jeno admits, earning an elbow to his side by mark.

johnny laughs and turns to look out over his yard. “which one?”

“y/n.”

“watch it, dude,” jaehyun warns him, joining them outside.. “johnny’s not too forgiving when it comes to his siblings.”

“noted.” jeno nods.

“anyways, i’m here to talk business,” johnny sits in front of them.

“back to the things i like,” mark comments.

johnny grins. “there’s a race next weekend, 15 grand for the winner.”

donghyuck whistles. “i like what i’m hearing already.”

“it’s a bit complicated since it won’t be in an enclosed area as usual. it will be in downtown LA,” johnny adds.

“count me in,” mark says.

“dude, do you know how risky it is?” jeno stares at him.

“i’ve done riskier things and here i am,” mark rolls his eyes. “i’ll be there, johnny.”

“you’re my favourite,” johnny smiles and looks at jeno and donghyuck. “you two are disappointing me.”

“i can live with that but not in jail,” donghyuck smirks.

“pussy,” jaehyun hums.

“sorry mr. in-n-out-from-jail,” donghyuck rolls his eyes.

mark chuckles. “that race it’s already mine. and the cops can suck my dick, they wish they were as fast as me.”

“my canadian boy right here is the shit,” johnny smiles.

(...)

the bright neon lights. the skimpy clothing worn by chasers. the many cars lined up.

it's another night in los angeles, and another night means another race.

mark breathes it in as he leans on his orange acura nsx. not a single scratch in sight on the top of the car. although he's working with a sponsor, he has his own gang known as death angels, because they’re risk takers, or most of them are.. he can hear the countless bickering of his gang, who are also his closest friends. donghyuck, jeno, and earphone yves, lucas, bickering about god knows what now. jeno and lucas are conversing about seeing some new people joining the race.

there's no doubt he probably owns the most showy and expensive car in the entire parking lot. until a brown haired girl, who he knows, motioned him to come over.

you.

"seems like you got a challenger," donghyuck murmurs.

"tsk, anyone can beat her. what's so special about her anyway?" mark says, annoyed.

yves clicks her tongue. "i wouldn't be so sure about it, babe."

you get off from your car, hair tied up, perfectly showing your features. your toned eyes are slightly covered with black eyeliner. wearing tight jeans, black t-shirt and a red leather jacket.

you look like you are meant to be there. not a chaser wanting attention, not a flag girl wanting to show herself off, but. tracer. the crowd don't bother you. you begin to slightly look around, and that's when you see mark. you and mark lock eyes, and with a strut, you walk with a confident walk over mark.

crossing your arms, showing off your figure, you take a breath, and open your mouth. "no shit you're here as well."

mark scoffs. "i'm a car racer, where else was i supposed to be?"

"junior leagues," you shrug and you hear one of his friends laugh.

mark stares at you and grins. "i challenge you to a race. simply, nobody else. that is if you are up for it."

the offer is rather simple.

an easy 10-second style race, just the two of you, nobody else.

you let out a breathy chuckle, nodding your head. "alright then, it's settled." you reply, standing up to his level, and leaning over his ear. "but don't be crying when you loose, sweetheart"

mark scoffs at that. "you're underestimating my ability right now, gorgeous." he says, poking his lips out in a seductive manner.

you laugh and he smiles.

you turn around for just a few seconds, yelling over to him words that are barely audible. “te veré al inicio de la línea,” (i'll see you at the starting lineyou say.

mark’s orange acura nsx is a perfect fit considering the late at night arrival they have been in. it’s his prized possession, obviously. he checks the side of his car, smirking to himself seeing the NOS lined up on the passenger seat. however, your white nissan gtr is a good contrast. no dent is seen on it, and the engines flare when you start it, earning an erupt from the spectators. fifteen thousand dollars are on the game, and you need that money.

you notice the flag-girl as one of the members of death angels. she wears a simple purple and black outfit: purple harem pants and a black bomber jacket, carefully showing her slightest laced bra. she looks good, there’s no denying it. and with that, she points at mark, starting his engines and giving a show for his car. then she points to you, and you’re wearing a smile on your face. your engines starting.

and time seems to stop when you hear words emit from her mouth. “go!”

mark and you immediately go and hit the accelerator at about the same time, so you two are neck and neck. you know your strategy, and mark knows his.

8 seconds left.

knowing this, mark uses his NOS, eating a prideful laugh and his back hitting the seat. but you have different plans. you wear a smug look, and let out a giggle. “the NOS he’s using will take a shorter time than it relatively should.” you think you yourself, and activate yours.

6 seconds left.

you fly back to your seat, seeing the crowd erupt in cheers. mark sees your white nissan catch up to him, and before he knows, you’re way ahead of him.

“shit!” he yells.

2 seconds.

and before he knows, you are at the finish line, turning your car around and creating a donut with it, earning praise from the crowd. marks ends up second, or last in this case. he gets out of the car with a scowl, and you make your way to him, with a smile on your face, and your hair is out of the ponytail you have been wearing.

“the NOS you used, doesn't take up as much time as normal NOS used. it was a bit too early,” you say, giving your hand out to him. he clicks his tongue, now slightly irritated to know the fact you're indeed right. marks gives you the money. “pass by the shop any time you want.”

“why would you want to help me anyways? we’re rivals now,” he cocks an eyebrow.

you sigh, when you are interrupted by the shouts of numerous spectators and blaring sirens.

“cops! cops!”

everything happens so fast. next thing you know, you are in the back of your car, hitting your foot on the accelerator and immediately rushing out of the area, keeping an eye out for cops in your view mirror. luckily, you don’t seem to spot many. but where you don’t look?

right in front of you.

bullets ricochet throughout the alley way, earning a slight flinch from you. you are scared. only a few times bullets have been in front of you. you quickly take out your silver handgun from out of your shirt, shooting at the cop, not enough to kill him, but it’s enough to get him to surrender.

“bullet proof vests don’t cover the legs, idiot,” you mumble, smirking ever so slightly. you turn a sharp left, going back to the place where you call home. a right. then left. another right. straight forward 2 miles, and there you are.

“ＳＵＨ　ＭＥＣＨＡＮＩＣＳ　ＡＮＤ　ＭＡＮＵＦＡＣＴＵＲＩＮＧ” is written in bold letters. you love this place, you and your brother practically grow up there. you make your way inside, after swiftly parking your car into your garage. the shop is somewhat connected to the house from behind, so you make your way out of the garage, locking the door swiftly, and arriving with 2 familiar faces.

“you had no business ruining mark’s race!” johnny stands in front of you. he’s angry.

“forget about that!” jaehyun stares at johnny and then at you. “you just returned like two hours ago and the cops are after you already? can you be more careful?”

“ah, br- sorry, half-brother, jaehyun. i appreciate the concern and all, but i got this covered, you know?” you reply and look at your brother. “and please, if you really cared about mark you would have recommended him a new NOS. his sucks.”

jaehyun presses his lips together. “it’s true. i’ve been telling you about that for weeks.”

johnny rolls his eyes. “it’s not my fault. the kid won’t change them.”

“well, then you should find a new guy because you won’t make much money with him.” you say and you take out your money. “and me? i am back, baby.”

jaehyun smirks. “then i guess beers are on you.”

“you guess right.”

(...)

mark rushes off in his car, having donghyuck joining him. he locks his gun, having his fingers on the trigger for any given moment. mark sighs out a stuttered breath, immediately hitting the accelerator and rushing out of the way. he has another tank full of NOS, that donghyuck simply swaps out, for mark to use at any moment.

“jeno and yves have made it back alright,” donghyuck tells him, while mark drives at an inhumane pace.

mark nods and takes the exit 12, driving to glendale. and after almost 25 minutes, they arrive at their warehouse. he parks his car next to jeno’s and they make their way inside.

“dude! that was fucking awesome!” jeno approaches him. “now i understand why the streets wouldn't shut up about her.”

yves rolls his eyes. “it was just lucky. she’s not that good.”

“then you wouldn't mind racing against her,” donghyuck hums.

“please, she’s nothing to me,” yves smirks.

“she got you mad,” mark walks to the kitchen. “she is something to you.”

“anyway,” jeno locks the door. “who sent those policemen? it’s weird, we have been using the same location for months,” jeno asks.

“someone was there. someone who’s purpose wasn’t to spectate or race, but to infliritrate,” mark sighs, adjusting his belt from his jeans.

“i’m wondering if suh is single,” donghyuck sits, ignoring the talk his friends are having.

“johnny or y/n?” mark mocks him.

“she doesn’t date,” yves sits next to him. “or that’s what i’ve heard.”

“since when you’re a fan of gossip?” jeno frowns.

“you don’t need to gossip, everyone talks about her and her tragic love life,” yves shrugs.

“so she wasn’t in jail?” donghyuck inquiries.

“i already told you she wasn’t in jail, smartass,” mark tosses him a beer.

“then where was she?” jeno sits in front of donghyuck.

yves slides a little on the couch. “you ever heard about nakamoto yuta?”

the three men shake their heads. yves rolls her eyes. “he used to work for the korean mafia and the yakuza doing what? i don’t know, but he was well known before we arrived here.”

“and what happened to him?” jeno asks.

“he messed with the wrong people, and he paid for his mistakes,” yves says. “they got him and killed him.”

“and how is he related to y/n?” mark rubs his chin with his index finger.

“they were together,” yves pulls out a box of cigarettes. “and days after his murder, she went away.”

jeno grimaces. “i would’ve done the same. it’s sad.”

“well, he’s dead and we can’t do shit to help her,” donghyuck stretches out his arms. “she’s hot.”

“dude,” jeno chuckles. “we were just talking about his dead boyfriend and you’re saying she’s hot?”

“donghyuck only uses his lower head,” yves mocks. “why are you even surprised?”

mark laughs and donghyuck rolls his eyes. “i’m gonna race against her again.”

“dude, you want to lose again?” jeno stares at him.

mark frowns. “a little bit of support?”

(...)

a few days later, you are working at your peace in call, the mechanic shop. you work with jungwoo, jaehyun, and johnny. jaehyun is an incredibly talented racer, that’s for sure, he was the one who taught you everything you know. johnny and jaehyun are practically always together.

they have been friends since high school, and he’s close with you as well, despite you going to a different school.

so, there you are currently stocking up the shelves and displays with certain kinds of replacements and NOS, to whoever needs them. you wear leather pants, along with a white turtleneck shirt. your hair is down.

“do you have everything locked? storage room too, jungwoo?” you ask the blond.

“yep! johnny is currently working on the new car by the way. he said the client wanted something old school, and because of this, he got inspiration from somewhere,” he informs.

you raise an eyebrow, handing jungwoo the remaining products form the shelves, and making your way inside the shop. you see a black haired man glancing at the shelves with NOS.

you approach him. “hi, welcome. can i help you?”

the man turns and he smiles at you.

mark lee.

you stop the urge of rolling your eyes. “and we see each other.”

“you told me i could pass by whenever i wanted to,” he shrugs. “

“that was me being nice because i beat you,” you smirk.

mark grins. “then i suppose i should go to the Fascinare’s shop? i heard they’re nicer.”

if you and johnny didn’t hate the Facinare you probably would’ve told him to go, but since they are your competition you couldn't afford losing a customer.

you sigh. “of course we can help you.” you fake a smile.

“that’s what i thought,” mark says. “how many days will it take?”

you take a look at his car. “up to 1 to 3 days.”

he nods. “fantastic. i’ll be looking forward to racing against you again then.”

you scoff, crossing your arms on your chest. “i can give your car all the NOS in this world and yet, you won’t beat me.”

“you were just lucky the other night, gorgeous,” he winks at you.

“maybe if you focus on racing instead of flirting you might beat me,” you grin.

mark chuckles and nods. “right. i’ll leave you my phone so you can give me a call when my baby is ready.”

“my god,” you hum. “be right back.”

you go behind the counter and grab a small notebook and a pen. you hand it to mark and write his number down. “i’ll be looking forward for that call.”

“hopefully it won't be me making it,” you smile falsely.

“alright. see you then,” marks says, exiting the shop. “don’t miss me much, gorgeous.”

you roll your eyes again, and smile lowering your head.

you then frown and shake your head.

#yuta x reader #yuta smut #yuta imagine #yuta nct #mark lee smut #mark lee imagine #mark lee x reader #mark lee nct #nct smut #nct 127 smut #nct 127 x reader #mark lee #yuta nakamoto #nakamoto yuta

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autumnsart22 · 3 years

Text

Suna x reader: Final part (smut)

Here’s the final part to my Suna series! I wasn’t satisfied with my fluff version of the ending (which you can read here if you’re interested) so I decided to write a more smutty version.

Warning: degradation, angry sex, light choking, mostly just a lot of degrading lol

I genuinely think this is the hottest fanart I’ve ever seen of him I can barely look at it without ✨butterflies✨.

Art creds go to @minghuaa_art on twitter!

Despite Kita seeing you that day in the car, Suna still asked to keep whatever was between you a secret. That was fine with you--you didn’t particularly want a boyfriend, especially with the second semester of college work picking up. You still got to see him pretty often, hooking up in his car or your dorm at least three nights a week or more. Never the frat house; apparently his roommates were annoying.

It was nice. Easy. Far easier than you ever expected friends with benefits to be. And beyond the sex, you loved talking to Suna; laying together on your tiny bed, legs tangled, while he explained the new music he was listening to, or walking together to the cafeteria as he made you laugh so hard that water came out of your nose.

The good parts were enough to overlook the bad parts. At first.

Suna was an abnormally horrific texter, barely ever responding within the day, if at all. If you ever wanted to get in contact with him, you’d have to call directly. And honestly even then he didn’t have the best track record.

What was more frustrating was that it was always on his time. He would text you asking to hang out that night, and you would say yes, and then he wouldn’t respond until the following afternoon with some vague excuse about being busy. The first few times it happened, you got so mad that you didn’t respond to his calls, until he showed up at your dorm with panda express and forced you to watch Tokyo Ghoul with him.

He had apologized...but it didn’t stop happening. It made you feel like you were some sort of side whore, who he called when he was bored and had nothing better to do. Like you were second best to everything else he had going on in his life.

You had promised yourself from the beginning that you wouldn’t allow yourself to get close enough to get hurt, but it was hard. You really, really liked him.

You liked the way he would stare at you while you talked, actually listening and curious as to what you had to say. You liked the way he hugged you after a few days of not seeing each other, burying his face in your hair like he couldn’t get close enough to you. You liked the way he laughed, both the usual, quiet chuckles and the rare snorting wheezes. You liked the way his mouth looked when he smoked, the way he moaned your name when he came, the way he could make you laugh at anything at any time.

You didn’t want to get the “I told you so” talk from Kiyoko, so you avoided the topic all together: with her, and yourself.

After one month of hanging out with Suna, you were planning on meeting up and going to see a movie. Both of you were more homebodies, preferring to stay in rather than party, but you had decided that you wanted to try and expand your horizons once again. The movies seemed like a happy compromise.

The film was something Suna had been talking about for a while, an action thriller that honestly looked like shit but got good audience reviews because of all the flashy fight scenes. He had been so excited when it came out that you hadn’t been able to say no to going, especially not after he pried you with food.

He was coming to get you at 6 pm, and your last class ended at 3pm, which gave you plenty of time to get ready. You stared at the face of your teacher on the screen within your zoom class, zoning out as he explained the flood system around the school. You glanced over as your phone buzzed, a message from Suna popping up on the screen.

Suna

Wha u doying rit now?

You

What?

Suna

Sorr little drynk

You

You’re drunk?

Suna

im at psrty

You

Are we still seeing a movie tonight?

There was no response, and you felt your stomach drop. You didn’t even notice as your teacher ended class and logged you off the meeting. Suna was at a party at 3 in the afternoon, drunk, and didn’t seem to remember you had plans. You swallowed, shoving your phone aside as you ground your teeth. Why was he so frustrating?

You stood up, angry at yourself for caring, furious at Suna for making you feel this way, for being such a piece of shit. You knew what party he was probably at--Kiyoko had said she was going at some point--and suddenly you were moving before you could think about it.

You dressed nice, but casual enough that it wasn’t out of place at a frat party. Sexy enough to make him want you though, of course.

You didn’t give yourself time for nerves as you strode from your dorm and headed in the direction of the frat house, following a steady stream of people already going in that direction. You knew it was Friday, but how the fuck were so many people already getting ready to party when it was literally 3:30????

It wasn’t overly crowded in the house when you entered, but enough where it was confusing as you wandered through the crowd. You snatched two drinks from the counter, downing them as fast as possible as you searched for Suna in the crowd. You’d need to be at least tipsy before having this confrontation.

You found him in the living room, sprawled out on the couch next to who you recognized to be Akaashi, Kuroo, Kita, and Iwaizumi--all who you knew through Kiyoko. There were a few others you didn’t know, and they were all clearly drunk out of their minds.

As you entered the room, Suna met your eyes for a brief moment, but then they moved on without a reaction. He didn’t care at all that you had come to find him, or that he had never responded to your text.

The drink in your hand trembled, and you walked out of the room without looking back.

Instead of talking to Suna, you decided to get wasted. An hour after first coming to the party, you were deep in a game of beer pong and you had a pleasant warmth in your gut, the world a little hazy. You felt braver, more angry, and suddenly all you wanted to do was track down that yellow eyed idiot and slap him.

“Where’s Suna?” You slurred, turning to look at your partner at beer pong. You knew him vaguely as one of the frat boys, Suna’s friend Atsumu.

Atsumu grinned, raising his eyebrows as he stared down at you. “Suna? Why?”

You weren’t drunk enough to tell him of your “friendship” with Suna, so you just shrugged.

“He’s over there,” Atsumu pointed towards the kitchen, and you felt all the blood drain from your face as you followed his gaze. Sitting in a chair, his back to you, was Suna...and on his lap was a beautiful blonde girl with her hands in his hair as she kissed him fiercely.

You must have made some sort of sound, because Atsuma looked back at you. “You good?”

You forced yourself to nod. “I��m...going to go get some fresh air.”

“I’ll come,” he said, and you decided not to argue.

Seeing Suna had sobered you up considerably, but your emotions were still a complete mess. All you could feel was a deep, unending hurt.

As you headed down the hall, Atsumu grabbed your wrist and spun you around to face him. “So...you and Suna huh?” He said, a strange smile on his face.

“What are you--?”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to keep it a secret.” He took a step towards you, and you raised your eyebrows.

“We aren’t together.”

“Really? Then you wouldn’t mind,” He gently took your chin, lifting your face. “If I did this?”

“I--”

“What the fuck.”

All the breath wooshed out of you at the familiar voice, which was now laced with anger. Suna stood a few feet away, his hands in his pockets as he watched you and Atsumu. He was smiling, but it was icy with rage and...jealousy?

“Suna,” Atsumu grinned, releasing your face but not stepping back. “What do you want?”

Suna jerked his chin in your direction. “How about you get away from her, and then we’ll talk?”

“Dude,” Atsumu rolled his eyes. “She just told me she was single. I don’t get what the problem is.”

Suna’s face tightened. “If you don’t get the fuck out of here in the next three seconds, I swear I will break your--”

“Chill, ok!” Atsumu stepped back from you, given you a frustrated look before heading away down the hall.

When he was out of sight, Suna’s head slowly turned to face you, his eyes dark. “Single?” His voice was a low snarl.

You swallowed, feeling your anger return full force. How dare he. “Yes!” You snapped, “Since you clearly don’t view this as any sort of relationship.”

“What are you talking about?”

“So you can go off kissing other girls, but I can’t flirt with Atsumu?”

“Looked like a bit more than flirting,” he said, teeth bared, before the other part of what you said caught up to him. “And how drunk are you? I wasn’t kissing shit!”

“Are you seriously lying to my face right now? I saw you!”

“I didn’t kiss anyone! Do you really think that little of me?”

You clenched your fists. “Atsumu said--”

Suna was in your face in a second, towering over you as he backed you against the wall. “What did he say?” He growled.

You clenched your jaw, glaring at him in silence.

Suna gave a dark chuckle. “So that’s how it’s going to be, huh?”

You barely had time to react before he gripped your chin, kissing you roughly and shoving his tongue in your mouth. You moaned, and the sound snapped whatever restraints Suna had. His hands ran down the back of your thighs, lifting you up so you could wrap your legs around his waist as he carried you through the nearest door into a random bedroom. He kissed down your neck as he kicked the door shut, and you gasped as he tossed you on the bed.

Your eyes slid down his chest and across his toned stomach as he pulled his shirt over his head, completely at a loss for what to do. You could feel the heat pulsing between your legs, making your heart race and your body tremble. But this was wrong. Right?

You didn’t have anymore time to think about it as Suna gripped your ankles, dragging you to the end of the bed.

“Why do you still have clothes on?” He snarled, yanking your leggings off and leaving them in a tangled mess on the floor. His eyes darkened as they swept over the pair of lacy underwear you had worn, sliding towards your center where you kept your thighs clenched tightly together.

He didn’t say a word as he forced your legs apart, dropping to his knees at the end of the bed, yanking down your underwear, and positioning one of your legs over his shoulder. You shuddered as his hot breath caressed you, and he ran lazy circles along the inside of your thighs with his long fingers.

“Fuck…” He murmured under his breath before looking up at you. “Do you want me to--”

“Stop teasing me Suna,” you groaned, shifting your hips, and he laughed darkly.

“Fine.”

You practically screamed at the first sweep of his tongue, managing to turn your face into a pillow to muffle your noises as he worked around your clit and used his fingers in your core. You bucked your hips up into his face, and his laughter vibrating through your body almost had you coming within the first minute.

You let out a low cry of protest as he pulled away, raising his head to glare at you. His mouth was covered in your juices, his hair rumpled and eyes glassy. He leaned over you, yanking away the pillow you had been using to cover your mouth and throwing it across the room.

“What are you--”

“I want to hear you begging for it,” he snapped, and you managed to roll your eyes before he shoved his fingers back into you.

“You’re so--ah!” You shuddered.

Over the course of a month of fucking each other, Suna had figured out exactly how to make you fall apart under his tongue and fingers, so it didn’t take long for him to work you into an early climax. Your legs shook, and you let out a series of moans as you came all over his mouth.

He got to his feet after making sure he had licked you completely clean, gazing down at you with possessive smugness.

“Why do you look so fucked out already? We’ve barely gotten started.”

You didn’t even argue as you got onto your knees on the bed, hands sliding into his hair as you kissed him angrily, unsaid words erupting. He allowed you to shove him onto the bed, and you focused on unzipping his pants and throwing them aside, ditching your shirt and bra along with it. His boxers went next, and then you had his dick in your hands, stroking it while Suna groaned.

“Here,” he panted, tossing you a condom, and you slid it over his cock just like he taught you. You positioned yourself over him, impatient, your knees on either side of his hips as you thrust yourself down on him in one go. You both moaned at the feeling of finally having him inside you.

“F-fuck,” you gasped, slowly rolling your hips as you rested your hands lightly on Suna’s chest. You went slow, taking the time to feel how deep he reached inside you, the movement on your clit enough to send tingles up the rest of your body.

Suna watched you ride him lazily, his yellow eyes half closed as he took in the way your naked body shifted to move on top of him.

“Ha, you’re doing so good...god--you’re so fucking sexy,” he groaned, and you glared down at him.

“You make me so...mad…” You managed between pants of pleasure, and Suna raised his eyebrows.

“You can still talk? I guess I’m not doing enough…”

Before you could protest, he flipped you over so that you were lying on your back with him hovering over you, his dark hair falling around his face as he gripped your throat lightly.

“You’re such a little cumslut aren’t you?” He murmured in your ear, and you arched slightly. “Don’t you ever try and fuck someone else again, got it? You’re only allowed to come around my cock.”

You moaned in agreement, and Suna rolled you over onto your stomach, dragging your hips up so your ass was high in the air. He gave you no warning as he thrust back in, practically fucking you into the mattress.

Your eyes rolled back in your head as he used his fingers to reach around and rub your clit, his other hand running along your breast. You could barely think through the pleasure, and the only coherent word you were managing to say was his name.

Suna leaned over you, yanking your head back to murmur in your ear. “You’re mine, got it?” His words were rough, and you clenched hard around his cock. You could feel your second orgasm approaching, and he could tell too by the way you shuddered around him. He paused in his motion, and you wiggled your hips in protest, trying to get him going again.

“Why’d you stop?” You snapped, glancing over your shoulder when he didn’t continue.

Suna grinned. “Beg for it, bitch.”

He moved slightly, letting you feel the friction, and you gasped in anger and pleasure. This bastard wanted to tease you, make you submit to him…

Despite knowing this, you broke almost immediately. “Please, Suna, please please, I need you so bad--”

Immediately, he picked up his pace once again, adding more pressure to your clit, and you jerked. “That’s a good girl.”

“Ah, ah, Suna, fuck, I love-- you, ahhh…” You cried, feeling moisture spill down your thighs as your stomach erupted for the second time that night.

For a moment he stilled, and you bit your lip in tired confusion. Did he want you to beg again? You weren’t sure you had another round in you.

You looked over to see him with a shocked expression on his face, but it quickly melted into smugness again once he caught you staring at him. “Of course you love me while I’m fucking you like this,” he growled finally. “It’s because you’re such a slut for it, right?”

Your mouth dropped open, but you didn’t have time to say anything as he started moving once again, making you yelp at the overstimulation. Had you said you loved him? Out loud? Oh my god…

“Have I fucked you stupid already?” he purred in your ear, pulling out of your dripping cunt before slamming back in and picking up his pace. You moaned loudly, thrusting your hips back to meet his as all thoughts flew from your head.

“S-Suna I--” You could barely speak, it felt so good, despite the fact that you had already come. Twice.

He began to pant in your ear, groaning as his grip on your hips tightened.“F-fuck--” He grunted, arms sliding around your waist as he jerked and came.

You both collapsed on the bed, sweaty and exhausted, and Suna easily pulled the condom from his dick before tying it and tossing it in the trash. After a long moment, you rolled to your feet to padded over to where your clothes lay--until you realized that your leggings had a massive rip in them.

“Suna!” You cried, holding up the fabric. He raised his eyebrows, and had the decency to at least look vaguely guilty.

“Sorry.”

“What do I wear?!”

“Here.” He threw the shirt he had been wearing earlier at you, and you gave him a glare.

He had already wiped himself down with the tissues on the counter, and had pulled on his sweatpants once again, leaving him shirtless. His eyes swept lazily down your still naked body, his tongue coming out to wet his lips, and you crossed your arms in annoyance.

“Suna,” You snapped, but finally pulled his shirt over your head, not seeing another option. “I’m going to go get cleaned up,” you said, before heading out the door without waiting for a response.

The bathroom was thankfully right down the hall, and thankfully empty. You didn’t feel very guilty about fucking Suna when you should have been communicating in a healthy way, but you definitely still felt mad.

After you had wiped all the fluids from your inner thighs and core, you headed back to the room to grab the rest of your stuff.

You found Suna on his phone lying on the bed, but he looked up as you came in.

“Where are you going?” He said as you gathered your stuff, and you huffed.

“Back to my dorm.”

“Wait,” he lunged out of the bed and grabbed your arm. “Don’t go.”

“Now you want to spend time with me?”

“Just...stay. Please.”

You swallowed, taking a deep breath. “Fine.”

His expression relaxed into a happy smile, and he dragged you onto the bed with him before flicking out the lights. You weren’t sure what time it was exactly, but you were sure it was far past two in the morning. Your eyelids drooped as Suna wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you back against his chest.

You were right on the edge of sleep when he murmured, “Did you mean it?”

Immediately you were awake; you knew exactly what he meant. “U-um--” You hadn’t worked out any of the problems between you two, and you were sure he didn’t feel the same way. How were you supposed to admit to loving him like this?

“It’s fine,” he finally muttered. “We can talk about it tomorrow.”

You swallowed. “Yes. I did mean it.” Your voice was barely above a whisper, but you felt Suna tense around you.

“Really?”

You closed your eyes, forcing yourself to say it. “Yes... I love you.”

You felt his sigh against your air, ticking the little hair on the back of your neck. His hand slid across your stomach while the other gently began to stroke your hair, and the movement had you relaxing despite the tears that had built up at his lack of response.

You closed your eyes and set it aside; you would deal with it tomorrow. Now, it was time for sleep.

“I love you too.” You heard, so soft that it was almost just a breath of air.

It was probably just a dream.

#suna #suna x reader #suna rintaro x y/n #suna rintarō #haikyuu suna #haikyuu!!#haikyū!!#haikyu x reader #fanfiction #fandom #fanfic #smut

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gotnofucks · 3 years

Text

Prometheus

Pairing: August Walker x Reader

Summary: You disappoint August and must make up for it.

Words: 2.3k

Warnings: Smut, dom/sub themes, language, 18+ ONLY

A/N: This is my entry for the Happy Hoelidays Challenge by @donutloverxo @stargazingfangirl18 and @navybrat817 . You guys are all fucking amazing and I adore you! I chose the prompt “Kissing under the mistletoe” but with a twist. And honestly, this whole fic is a mess. But I hope you’ll find something worthwhile here.

Masterlist

Our love story will not be found in romance books. People like him and I, we don’t exist in rose tinted pages with flowery scents. We are found within the darker pages of horror books, where our love is written with blood and pain, where it’s ghastly stunning in its dangerous beauty. But I promise you, it’s no less beautiful than the walks in a meadow or cuddles in the bed.

We bleed and cry, from eyes and heart. We drown each other deep and deeper still, only to pull back above the surface as we’re about to die. That gulp of air, that’s sweeter than any other, if simply because it’s the one that has us clinging to life.

I like to think that I am Prometheus, and he is my Eagle, sent by the gods to devour me day after day, letting me writhe under him. It’s pain beyond anything, but what most don’t understand is that I need that pain to feel alive. But what if one day Prometheus was left hanging alone, liver intact and no eagle to eat him out?

That would be torture.

I am being tortured.

The whip in his hand cracked on skin and I choked on a sob. The sharp swish of the whip parted the air again and crashed on the skin with precise intervals, creating a crisscross of welts like a painter does his design. The blue in his eyes was clouded by the deep, boiling waves of anger and disappointment.

I could take his anger, but never his disappointment.

His anger meant punishment, it meant retribution. His disappointment meant distance, it meant betrayal. And here I was, Prometheus who disappointed his eagle and now watched that beak bite on someone else’s liver.

She took his hits gracefully, only small whimpers escaping her as his whip landed on her bottom. They left marks on her skin, but they seared my heart. People say nothing hurts more than being punished this brutally. They know nothing. Nothing of the pain of watching someone else take your pain, your punishment. People don’t know the torture of being tied down and being made to watch your master pour his anger into someone else.

I closed my eyes at the scene, incapable of watching more. It was more than my heart could take. I had promised to take his love and his hate, his sweetness and his poison. And to have someone else cry under him, wear marks on her body that should have decorated me left me more broken than any of his toys would have done.

“Please sir” I begged, “No more.”

His eyes were on me the entire time, even as he had someone else at his mercy. He cocked his head to the side, looking at me naked and tied up, balancing on my knees. He came closer and lifted his booted leg to part my thighs with it, an unreadable look in his eyes.

“Melly, leave.” He ordered the other girl. She swiftly got up and left without a word, just happy to be of service when required. I raised my eyes to his, pleading, begging. His large hand traced the curve of my cheek before dropping to the collar on my neck, playing with the charm that dangled on the front.

AW’s Princess

“I should take this away” August said, and I jerked as if I had been electrocuted. I shook my head, hair falling away from the elastic that secured them. He couldn’t take away my collar. No, he simply couldn’t.

“Please, no sir. I am sorry.” I sobbed.

To me, this collar was a symbol of ownership. Of being claimed by August Walker, being his. I would never trade this for a wedding ring, for this was more sacred to me. It sat on my neck, over my pulse, beating with the blood that pumped under it and reminded me that every breath I take belongs to him. That I chose to surrender my life living at his feet.

“What are you sorry about, Princess?” He asked me. Before I could answer, he was walking away to pull from his drawer a bowl and his trusted vibrator, and the sight of it made my thighs tremble.

“I am sorry for lying to you sir.” I replied. He hummed, coming to kneel before me, placing the bowl between my parted thighs and opening me wide with two fingers. I gasped, mouth parted as he touched me most intimately, his fingers that easily pulled the trigger of a gun running gently along my spongy walls to create an explosion no less than a gun shot.

He followed every pant that fell from my mouth, observed every twitch that showed on my face and drank in the fluttering of my lashes. Whenever I would turn my face he would tut, forcing me to look at him.

“How did it feel when I hit Melly instead of you?” He asked me, and slowly started to insert the vibrator inside me. I sucked in a breath, wincing at the stretch before answering.

“It hurt sir, it hurt so much.” I whimpered, tears shining in my eyes before dropping to my cheeks.

August leans back once the vibrator is completely in me, my juices dripping out from around it. Cupping my face gently, he brushed a soft kiss on my forehead, like the brush of angel wings and the slightest nip of Death’s scythe at once.

“You hurt me too.” He whispered. The darkness in his eyes had me shivering, both from fear and arousal. Being with August felt like standing on a cliff, every moment terrified that a strong gust of wind would have me pummeling to the ground. But when one wants to fly, even falling becomes a kink. How long does the fall last, and when you do hit the ground, how good does it hurt?

It hurts like heaven.

“You will fill this bowl with your cream” He ordered, “You will drip into it, and as you do, you’ll tell me where you went wrong. Apologize to me like you mean it, give me a reason to have you at my feet.”

He started unbuttoning himself and with every new inch of him revealed to my hungry eyes, I dripped. I clenched around the vibrating toy inside me, moaning softly. This is how completely he owned me. The eagle was going away, and it was up to Prometheus to seduce him to come back, to convince him to eat that liver one more time, that the taste it worth it.

“I am sorry sir, I lied to you. I didn’t tell you where I was going.” I started. He continued undressing, languidly tossing aside his clothes to unveil the scarred flesh underneath. I could tell every battle he’d ever fought by tracing the hardened marks over his body. Sometimes when he would let me, I’d trace the scars of his heart too, feeling the hurt and loss that lingered in their ridges.

“Where did you tell me you were going, Princess?” He asked me, sitting naked in front of me on a chair. Easy, confident.

“To the movies with my friends.” I lowered my eyes, ashamed of myself for lying to a man who can see through anyone and anything.

“And where did you actually go?”

I bit my lip, knowing I had disappointed him. He required nothing from me but trust and honesty.

“To see my family.” I whispered.

He shook his head, a sneer curling under his mustache. His gaze bore into me with a force that had me gushing in the bowl and he scoffed. The control he had on my body without even touching it was almost embarrassing. He got up to stand in front of me, his hard length so near to my face if I poke my tongue out, I’d be able to lick him.

“Your family” He spat the word like it was poison. “Why don’t I like it when you go meet with them Princess?”

“Because only you’re allowed to hurt me sir.” I answered.

August was not a nice man, he was not someone you mess with. He got off on pain and terror, on instigating fear in those around him. But when it came to me, only he is allowed to hurt me. He will whip me and spank me, tie me and choke me, but woe betide anyone who so much as hurt a hair on my head. Which is why I didn’t tell him I was meeting my family.

Every meeting with them came out the same way. Me in tears after a shouting match. For someone who had never managed to quite fit in anywhere, my only solace was August’s arms. And those arms would pound anyone to pulp if I cried tears that were put in my eyes by anyone but him. Fucked up? Maybe.

“Why did you go?” He asked, brushing the tip of his cock on my face, smearing his cum and marking me. The natural musk of him filled my nose and I leaned forward to have a taste when he moved away, wagging a finger in warning.

“It was Christmas.” I pathetically said.

August smirks, his eyes falling on the bowl between my legs that had collected my slick. He exhaled, kneeling before me and pulling out the vibrator with a pop, instead replacing it with his fingers that had me struggling in my restraints.

“And you thought I wouldn’t celebrate Christmas with you?” He asked me and flicked his fingers on my hardened nub that had me cumming into the bowl. His name was like a chant on my lips and I begged him to set me free, to hold me again.

He took away the bowl and put it on the bedside table, coming back to finally release me from the ropes that bound me. Carefully picking me, he dropped me on the bed and smirked nastily.

“I even got us mistletoe. I was going to hang it on the door and surprise you with it, but since you’ve chosen to be a bitch today, I’ve found another place for it.” Saying this he pulled out a bundle of mistletoe and held it over his cock, looking expectantly at me.

“W-what?” I sputtered.

“You’re supposed to kiss it sweetheart” He mocked and came closer, slapping me across the face with his dick. I blinked at him before licking my lips and taking him in my mouth. His familiar taste and thickness made me feel at home, and I sucked and slurped, trying to show him how sorry I truly was.

His hand tangled in my hair and pulled me along, bobbing me up and down his length, one hand still dangling the mistletoe over my head. I relaxed my body, letting him guide me as he wanted. My love was my apology, and this was my repentance.

“I had planned a fun night with you” He snarked, sitting deep inside my throat, “I got you a fucking tree and presents. Thought we’d watch a movie. But all that romantic bullshit doesn’t work for us, does it?”

His pace increased as did my moans. I held onto his thick thighs that had more than once choked me. He may have all the power over me, but I reveled in that just the same.

“We don’t make love beside the fireplace darling, we burn ourselves in the fireplace, surrounded by the flames of passion and lust that run in you and me.”

His words heated me up and I doubled my efforts, taking him deeper and looking into his eyes, letting him speak to my soul as he owned my body. He tensed and twitched, warmth pooling in my mouth and down my throat and I smiled when he pulled away. My jaw ached a little, but pain was an old friend.

“That was quite a kiss” I said, and he chuckled, pushing me down to lie on my back.

“It’s not over by a long shot.” He said and taking the bowl with my cum he dripped my essence over my bare chest and belly. My skin broke out into gooseflesh as the cold liquid hit me but just as soon it was followed by the warmth of his tongue, sucking me, tasting me.

This is what being worshiped felt like. In chains and in pain, and yet the object of desire and love. When one slap meets your cheek, the following caress feels just that much softer.

August rolled on his back, smearing the rest of my cum over his own chest. I leaned over him, tongue gliding through his hair and veins, dipping into deep scars and damaged tissues. His voice rose in a crescendo, cock hardening again and as I licked, I climbed over him, aligning myself and bringing him home with one thrust.

“Fuck” He whispered, mouth meeting mine in a kiss, sinful and dirty. He kissed me like the Angel of Death serving me the elixir of life. I bounced on him, rode him like he was the stairwell that would take me to heaven. His smell, his taste, the feeling of his rippling flesh and the dominance in his eyes set fire to my veins. I clamped hard on him, sliding my damp body over his as I crashed and fell apart.

His hips kept pushing up, going hard enough as if trying to come out of the other end. Nails dug into the flesh of my thighs as he kept me steady over him, pumping into me until I felt him release inside. We fell into a tangle of limbs, a sheet lazily pulled over my bruised body. That was the thing with August, when he hurt me it left a mark on the outside, but never inside.

“I love you” He softly panted in the crook of my neck. I turned over and clung to him, pulling him close in my embrace. Prometheus needed his Eagle to feel alive, and the Eagle needed Prometheus to sustain. Neither is complete without the other.

“I love you too”

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Henry : @agniavateira

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