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dreaamerwrites · 1 year

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[ ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS ]

couple: son heungmin x female reader rating: PG-13 request: "Son Heung-Min imagine about spending Christmas with Sonny? Like decorating the house together, cooking and just holiday themed fluff" tags: established couple, kissing, Christmas festivities, mentions about being "naked" but no one is actually naked LOL, brief talks about "the future", just 5.3k of holiday fluff LOL enjoy! notes: please enjoy some fluff on christmas eve lol. also at one point in the story, i've included a little link to a funny surprise (marked by an asterisk). please click if you want to spread some more joy in your life! :) enjoy!

It was born three weeks ago. This tiny nugget of an idea – barely anything there; no weight, just sleepy thinking and a glimmer of hope.

Three weeks ago, you had been curled up on your couch with Heungmin, sleepy and soft in his arms as an old movie played on the TV screen. He had still been running on Qatar time then and the only thing playing at that hour was a claymation stop-motion Rudolph film. You had already tuned it out by then, focused only on the steady rise and fall of his chest as you dozed off when – suddenly –

“I’ve never really had a Christmas like that.”

You had blinked your eyes open blearily. His gaze was focused on the TV screen.

Claymation Rudolph was galloping throughout a fully dressed and decorated house, knocking over strings of tinsel and popcorn and cranberries. Through your sleep-drunk eyes, you could see a claymation tree. Stockings by the fireplace. Claymation presents wrapped in festive paper and bows.

You had bumped your nose under Heungmin’s chin.

(A tiny little nugget of an idea…)

“Never?” You had repeated after him, voice thick with sleep.

Heungmin had shifted in his seat, looking away from the movie to smile down at you instead, expression unbearably soft.

“Never,” he had laughed, giving you a tight squeeze that you could still feel if you thought about it hard enough now. He had laughed as he had straightened up afterwards that night too. “Now let’s get you to bed.”

(A tiny, teeny idea that was beginning to take shape, take root, blooming into a tiny, teeny snowflower…)

“Never ever?” You had asked again, sleepily allowing Heungmin to pull you to your feet. Never ever.

The rest of the night had been a sleepy haze after that – you’re sure he must’ve led you upstairs at some point – but one thing still stood out.

The idea was there. The idea had taken root.

Just sleepy thinking and a glimmer of hope.

“You’re gonna do what?”

Daniel’s voice is incredulous on the other end of the line; you can practically feel his disapproval and disbelief through your earbuds themselves.

You frown, grabbing another bag of gift bows from the shelf and tossing them into your shopping cart. You don’t appreciate his tone of voice.

“I’m going to give Heungmin a traditional Christmas!”

“...You’re gonna do what????”

“I’m not repeating myself AGAIN, Daniel,” you groan, wheeling your cart around to head back towards the decorations aisle. You would need another box of lights. “Can you please just tell me if you approve of the menu I sent you or not?”

Daniel sighs a deep, suffering kind of sigh.

You huff again.

“Love, you know I adore you,” Daniel finally replies, voice careful but firm. “But I, in good consciousness as one of Heungmin’s trained dieticians, cannot allow you to cook anything for him. List or no list.”

“Daniel!” You whine, stopping in your tracks – only to have three carts behind you nearly crash into one another at the abrupt halt. One woman knocks over a display of marshmallows. You grimace and offer her an apologetic smile before trying to wheel away once more.

“And you can try asking any of the nutritionists on the team, they will all agree,” Daniel continues as you flag a left into an abandoned paper towels aisle. “You are not allowed to cook him anything.”

“But I chose a menu that would fit his dietary restrictions,” you try again, unhappy.

Daniel does not budge.

“It’s not his dietary restrictions that I’m worried about, love,” Daniel tuts. “It’s you. You’re a fire hazard. You should be written into his insurance policy.”

“I take great offense to that, I hope you know,” you retort back.

“I know,” he replies dryly without missing a beat. “And you’re still not allowed to cook for him.”

There’s a finality in his voice that you know better than to argue with. That doesn’t mean you need to like it though.

You huff childishly. Daniel merely laughs.

“Look, I think it’s absolutely wonderful that you want to throw Heungmin a traditional Christmas. I am certain he will love it and have a blast,” Daniel says, voice much more encouraging now. “Why don’t you order food for him instead. There’s more to Christmas than just a homecooked meal, love!”

You stare down at your shopping cart, overflowing with Christmas decorations, cookie cutters, ornaments, and bows. You have no idea.

“I know, I know,” you finally concede with a sigh. “I just wanted to do everything with him.”

“Trust me, darling,” Daniel suddenly laughs on the other end of the line. “I’m sure you have plenty of activities planned for him. Focus your energy on those activities – not ones that will give him food poisoning. Or a second-degree burn. Or both–”

“HANGING UP ON YOU NOW, GOODBYE!”

You can hear his keys jangling at the front entrance and you rush to open the door before he can.

You open the door a crack, just wide enough to stick your head out.

“Welcome home!”

Heungmin stares at you in confusion, keys still in his hand. He’s dressed casually, fresh off of practice, hair still slightly damp from a recent shower, duffle bag slung over his shoulder. His brow furrows when you clearly make no further moves to open the door any wider.

“Thank… you?” he replies cautiously, eyeing you. You channel your inner Daniel and do not budge.

“So,” you begin awkwardly. “I did a thing.”

Heungmin’s furrowed brow only deepens.

“A thing,” he repeats after you. You nod energetically.

“It’s nothing bad. I promise.”

A pause, and then:

“...Are you naked?” Heungmin asks finally.

“Wh–what??” You nearly choke on your own tongue, coughing in surprise. Heungmin takes the moment when he sees it, immediately jamming one foot into the crack in the door and forcing it open with his leg in one fell swoop.

You’re still sputtering as you step back, allowing him to open the door as wide as it’ll go, fully revealing your flat inside:

The entire apartment is filled to the brim with boxes and bags of overflowing Christmas decorations and gifts. You had started to hang a few garlands but had given up – Heungmin’s height would help with that later – and you had positioned the tree already in the corner of the room. A fake fire was roaring to life on the TV screen. Glitter and tinsel covered nearly every surface. Boxes of every kind of cookie available to man covered your dining room table.

Heungmin stands in your doorway, confused expression morphing into one of complete surprise.

“What… is all of this?”

You shut the door behind him, finally recovering from the naked comment, your cheeks already flushed as you let him inside.

“Well, a few weeks ago you said you’d never had a… a real traditional Christmas,” you mumble, tucking your hair behind your ear defensively. Your hand comes away with glitter on it too. You hide it behind your back nervously. Heungmin is still looking at you expectantly. “I know you’ve devoted your whole life to football. Your childhood, your family, your life. All of your memories revolve around football.”

Heungmin’s gaze, which had been rapidly scanning the entire winter wonderland surrounding him, slowly stops and lands on you instead. You blush even deeper now with his eyes on you. You don’t look away though. You could never look away from him.

“I wanted to give you a new memory,” you explain quietly. Heungmin outstretches his arms to you and you fall into him immediately, like two magnets drawn together. You fit into his open arms easily, your own wrapping around his waist as you tilt your head up to look at him. He continues to look down at you with a strange, awestruck kind of softness. “I wanted to give you a traditional Christmas memory. That’s all.”

“This is all for me?” he asks softly, arms warm around you. He smells of his soap and cologne and you shiver as the scent wraps around you too.

“Yes,” you whisper. “This is all for you.”

The smile he gives you in return is so bright and so full of love that you feel beyond thankful to even be here to witness it.

Everything is for you.

“Now let’s go! We have a full night ahead of us!!”

You return his smile with one of your own, untangling from him only to grab his hand instead. He lets you, laughing as you drag him along.

“Lead the way!”

“First, we change.”

You push a pile of clothes into Heungmin’s arms. He doesn’t even bother looking at the clothes, merely smiling down at you instead.

“I’m guessing I have no say in this?”

“Smart man,” you grin widely, giving his butt a pat when he turns to shuffle towards your bedroom. This only makes him pause though, as he levels you with a look.

“You aren’t coming with me?”

“And miss the grand reveal?” you shake your head, giving his butt another purposeful pat. “Nope. No way. Now go!”

He wrinkles his nose at you but makes a move on without much complaint otherwise. As he changes, you quickly throw on your own outfit in the bathroom. You’re just tying the drawstring into a bow when you hear him calling from you just outside the door.

“Coming!” you yell, throwing the door open to pop out as well.

He stands in front of you and you stand in front of him.

The two of you stare at each other – in exact matching pajamas – red reindeer bottoms and a hideous red and green knit holiday sweater, complete with little bells sewn into the front.

To say that Heungmin falls over laughing* is an understatement.

He erupts with laughter at the sight of you – the volume only rising when you, very intentionally, flick one of the bells sewn over your middle. His face is pink with laughter as he clutches at his stomach and you let the happy, happy sound fuel you forward.

“Onto the next!!!”

“Now it’s time for the tree,” you say firmly.

Heungmin stares at the huge balsam fir that takes up nearly half of the living room.

“How did you even get this in here?” he asks, eyeing the tree up and down. It’s easily over 2 meters tall.

“I dragged it in here,” you shrug, opening a box of Christmas lights to begin unraveling. You hand Heungmin one end and gesture for him to begin dressing the tree. He awkwardly unravels the tangle of lights and begins to drape it around the tree with wide, uneven W’s. You hold back a laugh but let him continue, trying your best to mask it.

He doesn't buy it.

“Are you laughing at me!” he exclaims, giving you a pointed look as he makes another ugly loop around the tree with the lights.

“No!” you stifle a laugh, feigning nonchalance. Heungmin merely sniffs at you for a moment before continuing his merry way, resuming his ugly draping of lights around the tree.

“It’s not my fault if this comes out ugly,” he says matter-of-factly. “I’ve never done this before. I get a free pass.”

This stops your laughter. You look at him curiously.

You had known you were going to be giving him his first traditional Christmas – but… never done this before?

“You never decorated a tree before?” you ask curiously, reaching for a box of ornaments. “Your family had a Christmas tree before though, right?”

Heungmin shrugs, having reached the end of his line of Christmas lights. He reaches for another box – this time in a mismatched shade – blinking rainbow lights shining up at you when he plugs it into the end of where he had left off.

“You know my dad. He hates clutter. He always has,” he laughs wryly. “My family never had a Christmas tree.”

Oh. Heungmin’s father was one of the strictest humans you had ever come across. Razor sharp and unimaginably disciplined. The stony faced man had gone through hell and back to care for his son. You knew Heungmin had attributed almost all of his success to his father and you knew that they loved each other in the very fiercest way.

But, you realize, while he is the father who dragged Heungmin to the very top of Mount Everest with his bare hands – he is not the father who would allow Heungmin to have a Christmas mess in his living room or a crooked, ugly Christmas tree in the foyer.

You hold out a box of ornaments to Heungmin suddenly. It’s a box of varying plastic penguins dressed in Christmas sweaters.

“You get a free pass,” you say very seriously, in full agreement now.

Heungmin raises an amused brow at you. You nod down at the ornaments in your hands, motioning for him to take it once he’s finished with the lights.

“Thanks–”

“...You can make this tree as ugly as you want and I won’t say a word.”

“HEY!”

An hour later, your tree is finished. It tilts very heavily to the left, thanks to the copious amount of lights Heungmin has hung there, but besides that you think it’s pretty respectable! It’s covered in a myriad of ornaments, ranging from the Christmas penguins to classic red and green balls and pinecones.

For the hour following, Heungmin has also been stringing up all the garlands you had given up on before he came over, carefully fastening them to the ceilings, the doorways, the cabinets – anywhere you ask.

As the second hour comes to an end, Heungmin wipes the sweat from his brow and gives you a very pointed look.

“I’m starting to think that this is less for me and more for your decorating needs instead,” he teases.

“Oh no, you got me,” you tease right back, opening your arms to him. He makes a face as he falls forward, pretending to grumble as he presses a kiss into your glitter-strewn hair. You take a moment to stroke at his back, following the dip of his spine right down the middle, the muscles in his back shifting and moving at the touch.

“But look how pretty it is now,” you murmur, pressing your cheek to his chest. You stare at the handiwork that the two of you have put together.

The tree seems to glimmer even brighter, as if it knows you two are looking, and the mismatched lights and hodgepodge of ornaments all look perfect. They all look as if they belong.

“Not bad for my first tree, eh?” Heungmin gives your side a little nudge.

“Not bad at all,” you agree with a small smile, nuzzling closer. “I think we’re just about done with decorating actually.”

This causes him to pause. He pulls back to give you a wary look.

“Just about? I thought we were done! You said the popcorn tinsel was the last thing!”

You wave him off, slipping out of his arms to hunt down the box you had set aside earlier, before his arrival.

“It’s one teensy tiny thing. I promise it won’t be hard. I can even be the one who hangs it up!”

He looks unconvinced, waiting where you had left him, still aglow with the warm light of the Christmas tree. You roll your eyes as you walk back over, the last box in your hands.

“See, it’s so small that it fits in here,” you say reassuringly.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Heungmin continues to tease, crossing his arms over his chest. “Open it. Let’s see what’s inside.”

With a flourish, you open the gift lid – to reveal a sprig of mistletoe sitting in a bed of cotton. A small red bow is tied to the end. You lift it up by the hook hanging off the end of it and dangle it in front of Heungmin pointedly.

“See! Last thing!”

Heungmin’s expression transforms from teasing to curious immediately. He stares at the little sprig in confusion.

“Is this a part of the tree? Is this special?”

You tilt your head at him curiously.

“You don’t know what this is?”

He shakes his head.

Of course.

Suddenly, you feel slightly shy. With pink cheeks, you shuffle over to the hallway archway, reaching up on your tippy toes, trying to hook it onto the awning. Heungmin immediately steps forward, grabbing it and hooking it for you, one arm around your waist as he loops it easily right in the center of the archway.

“Is it something special? Is this another Christmas thing?”

You nod, chewing on your bottom lip absently. Once the mistletoe is hanging securely, he wraps both arms around you to hold you properly, clearly waiting for an explanation.

You flush under his expectant gaze.

“It’s a… very well-known tradition. It’s called – Christmas mistletoe,” you force yourself to keep his gaze, looking up into his curious, happy eyes. “When two people walk through a doorway and find mistletoe above them, they’re supposed to…”

“Supposed to…?” Heungmin prompts. “Say Merry Christmas?”

You don’t bother with an answer at first.

Instead, you stand back up on your tippy toes and lean forward, pressing one hand to his muscled chest for leverage and the other carefully cupping his cheek as you press a soft kiss to his lips. The kiss is chaste, barely there, sweet and innocent in its own way – as if you haven’t kissed a million times before.

When you pull back, you’re pink from head to toe and Heungmin’s eyes are closed, lips still pursed, as if waiting for another.

You lick your lips, stifling a laugh.

“They’re supposed to kiss.”

Heungmin’s eyes slowly open at this.

“Anytime… two people walk under the mistletoe, they’re supposed to kiss?” he confirms one more time, gaze more focused on your lips than your eyes now. You grow even pinker in the cheeks, if possible.

“Yes.”

Suddenly, Heungmin pulls you even closer, arms circling your waist, pulling you in so close until you’re flush against him. You shiver, full body, at the touch. This only makes him sigh, pleased, as he nudges his nose against yours, breath warm against your cheek.

“I think I prefer this over the tree,” Heungmin murmurs. “Next year can we just have a house full of mistletoe instead?”

“Are you saying you don’t appreciate all of our hard work here?” you tease, pressing another soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. His hands travel down from your waist to the band of your reindeer pajama bottoms, thumbing at the fabric with purpose.

He stops at your joke though and pulls back just enough so that you can see his face, open and honest and true.

“No, I appreciate all of this,” he replies seriously – so seriously that you aren’t sure if you should melt or laugh. “I appreciate all of this so much.”

“Oh sweetheart,” you can’t help but say, voice softening. “I know. I know you do.”

He wraps his arms around you once more, grip tight and secure.

“I’ve never had someone who wanted to give me a memory like this before. No friends who would think to do this. Not my family, either,” he murmurs. “I love them. So much. But they aren’t like this. They aren’t like you.”

“Like me?”

Heungmin nods, gaze never leaving yours.

“You’re full of light. So full of light. You make every moment bright.”

Something tugs at your heart, so pure and real. This is a precious, happy moment, a voice seems to say in the very back of your mind. Hold onto this. Remember this.

“I’m not always full of light. I’m human too, you know. With bad days and cranky moments, just like anyone else. But…” You burrow in closer, holding on tight. “You make it easy to feel bright again.”

You make it so easy to be happy.

It takes a very long time to drag Heungmin away from the mistletoe. You make a mental note to buy a few more to hang up – if he doesn’t beat you to it, that is.

Next, is time in the kitchen.

Heungmin stares down at the dining room table. Amidst all the cookie tins on the table is your entire holiday meal spread for him…

Printed out on paper, with bright color ink.

He stares at the pictures of food arranged neatly on the table.

He stares at you in confusion after.

“Daniel told me I’m not allowed to cook for you,” you sniff, crossing your arms over your chest. “So I ordered dinner. We’ll have steak. It should be here in an hour.”

Heungmin keeps a straight face.

For one second, and then another…

By the third, he’s erupted into laughter again, nearly laughing so hard that tears form in his eyes as he reaches for you with one hand and reaches for the picture of mashed potatoes you’d printed out haphazardly. He misses both and nearly falls over, grabbing onto the back of one of your dining room chairs for leverage.

“It’s not funny!” You whine, taking a purposeful swipe at his ankle with your slippered foot.

He nods, still hiccuping with laughter, as he reaches for you, attempting to give you a comforting hug that means very little when he’s laughing so incessantly.

“I know, I know, sweetheart,” he chokes out, rubbing his face into your hair, his laughter vibrating right down from your head to your fingers and toes. You try not to let your pout fall away with all your might. “It’s okay, you know I love steak. I’m excited.”

You finally relent, starting to raise your arms up to hug him back when he reaches into his pocket with one hand to grab his phone. You look at him curiously as he keeps one arm looped around your hips and the other tapping on his phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Texting Daniel to tell him thanks for saving my life.”

“SON HEUNGMIN–”

The two of you decorate cookies as you wait for the food to arrive.

You choose two gingerbread men while Heungmin works on an entire gingerbread house alone instead.

After drawing on frosting buttons for one, you add a dollop of frosting to your index finger to taste for yourself.

Heungmin pretends not to notice.

“I will not let you seduce me away from this house, I’m creating a masterpiece,” he says suddenly, voice firm.

“What did I do?” you ask as innocently as you can. You stare back at him, finger in your mouth, the frosting sweet on your tongue.

He clicks his tongue at you disapprovingly.

“First you greet the door naked and now–”

You sputter at this, choking on the icing.

“I was not naked!!”

“Well, you should’ve been!”

“What even IS this argument?” you shake your head, exasperated, reaching for a napkin to wipe your finger off. Heungmin merely grins, expertly tossing a gumdrop at you with infuriating precision. It hits you right in the cheek and you groan, brushing the sugar off your cheek with a huff.

“You love me,” he teases, grinning at you from behind his gingerbread house. You roll your eyes, standing up to walk over to his side of the dining table, bracing one arm over the back of his chair and pressing your side into his arm. One arm automatically reaches for you, as if on instinct. He pulls you into his lap and you slide in easily, perching on one muscled thigh as he presents his gingerbread house to you.

“Look,” he says proudly, gesturing to his confectionary masterpiece. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

He’s decorated the house to the fullest extent, using every packet and tube of icing you had and adding every kind of candy humanly possible. You’re not sure how the gingerbread house is still standing. It really should’ve collapsed from the weight of all the candies hanging off of it.

He points excitedly at the little garden he’s created out of marshmallows.

“Look, they’ll be able to grow treats too.”

You can’t help but laugh, resting your cheek against his shoulder as he points next to the huge chunks of blue cotton candy along the border of his cookieboard.

“I made a moat.”

He’s right, you really do love this man.

You wrap your arms around his shoulders, nuzzling in closer.

“It’s beautiful,” you agree, pressing a kiss onto his neck as you snuggle in. Heungmin’s arms are strong when they wrap around you.

“Are you done with your gingerbread people?”

“I am,” you nod, wishing you had brought over your tube of frosting. It would’ve been so sweet. Would’ve tasted nicer off of Heungmin’s neck too.

(Maybe he was right. Maybe you should’ve been naked. Oops.)

“Did you name them yet?” Heungmin asks, stroking your back soothingly.

“No, not yet,” you hum, licking the sugar off your lips thoughtfully. “Do you want to name the gingerbread kids?”

“Nope,” Heungmin responds immediately. “I have two names but I’m not giving them to the gingerbread people.”

You give his shoulders a squeeze.

“Why not?”

“Because,” you can’t see his expression from where you’re perched, face pressed into his warm neck instead, but you can practically picture his haughty expression. “I’m saving them.”

“For someone else’s gingerbread kids?” you wrinkle your nose, taking a purposeful bite at his neck, teeth grazing the junction right where his neck meets his shoulders, huffing.

“No! I’m saving them for our kids!”

If record scratches could play in real life, it’d be super loud right now.

You pull back suddenly, looking at Heungmin startled.

“What?”

“I have two names that I’ve always really liked and I’m going to save them until we have our own kids,” he repeats, expression unchanged. He continues to rub at your back absently, as if he hasn’t just said something huge and unexpected.

“You… think about things like that?” you ask carefully. Maybe it’s the sugar in your system – or maybe it’s Heungmin wrapped around you like this, sugary sweet, the entire apartment smelling of his cologne and pine and cinnamon.

He shrugs. Too casually.

Finally he ventures a glance at you. Meets your eyes with a well-rehearsed expression that’s been schooled into neutrality. Feigns nonchalance.

“You don’t?” he asks offhandedly.

“I…”

You blink, stunned, your brain short-circuiting.

Definitely too much sugar.

He saves you from yourself.

“It’s okay if you don’t,” he nods. “I know it’s not anytime soon for us. I know we have a long way to go. I just… I like thinking about my future. I like setting goals and envisioning where I want to end up. I like… I like thinking about you.”

Your brain slowly catches up. Your phone is buzzing on the table – food delivery is here, probably – and you know this isn’t the most romantic moment, and yet it seems incredibly romantic all the same.

You lean your weight into him, curled up in his lap as you trace the lines of his neck as you find the words, slowly but surely.

“I think about it too,” you whisper. “I like thinking about my future with you too.”

The smile he gifts you in return is unbearably soft, the relief clear in his face.

I want everything with you.

“So we did the matching jumpers, decorated a tree, decorated the entire flat, made gingerbread masterpieces, watched three Christmas movies…” Heungmin ticks off each item on his fingers in thought.

You both are sprawled out on the couch, incredibly full and warm, the last credits of Elf playing in the background. You know you ought to get up and clean up the plates from your takeaway dinner, but you can’t bring yourself to move just yet. You merely stay where you are, legs thrown over his lap, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles into your ankles.

“I think I’m so full I might die,” you murmur, curling in closer.

His hand drifts up from your ankle to your thigh and then to your stomach, his hand so big that it nearly covers your entire middle. He begins to rub soothing circles there instead. You try very hard not to melt right into the couch.

“Had an awesome Daniel-approved dinner. Baked cookies for my team,” Heungmin continues, humming. He’s running out of fingers to count on. It makes you feel so warm and happy inside. “Oh and can’t forget mistletoe – I learned what mistletoe was!”

You nod in agreement, smiling at him with a sleepy, sated smile.

“Did we miss anything?” you ask yourself absently, staring at his side profile, studying the slope of his nose and the shape of his mouth. You reach up to trace his bottom lip gently. He presses a kiss to your finger.

“I don’t think so,” he murmurs right back. “You did everything for me. You made all the memories for me.”

“Did you enjoy your first traditional Christmas?”

He reaches up to grab your hand, capturing it in his own. He pulls it towards him, pressing another kiss to your knuckles, then to your wrist. After, he simply holds your hand against his cheek and stares right back at you instead. His face is warm, probably from the food and the warmth of your apartment. You hope your skin is cool against his skin. You hope it brings him comfort, you hope it brings him peace.

You hope you can always do those things for him.

“I did,” he whispers, rubbing the back of your hand against his cheek. “This was a perfect Christmas.”

“I didn’t even give you your gift yet,” you whisper back, letting him hold your gaze for as long as he wants. The two of you cannot look away.

“I don’t need a gift anymore,” he says honestly, eyes so intent on yours. They’re filled with so much love that you think you might burst. You are the tilting Christmas tree, decked out to the fullest with all the love and light and warmth Heungmin could ever find and gather in the world. You are alight with his heart for you. “You’ve already given me so much. You always do.”

You pretend to huff but it’s not very convincing. It’s difficult to look unhappy when this man loves you so much.

“I’m still giving you one. You’ll get it tomorrow – on actual Christmas day.”

He merely shrugs at this.

(Maybe he feels as full and warm and satisfied as you do. Maybe he can see that same amount of love in your eyes, the way you feel them in his. Maybe he’s filled to the brim, a tilting Christmas tree too, bursting at the seams with the love you have for him. Maybe.)

“You can, but this has still been enough,” he replies simply. “I will never forget this Christmas.”

You pull your hand free from his so that you can press your hand to his cheek instead, cradling it in your hand gently.

“You could, you know. You could forget this one,” you say back.

He raises a brow.

Your smile back is meaningful.

“Because I’m going to be here for next Christmas too. And the one after that. And all the ones after that one,” you promise softly. He stills under your touch, eyes shining with laughter and warmth as he searches your face. You hope he finds your sincerity there. You hope he can feel just how true those words are. “I’ll be there each Christmas. We’ll make happy memories at each one.”

He pulls you flush against him at this and you aren’t even uncomfortable from your full stomach anymore. Instead, all you are is warm, comfortable, and loved. So, so loved.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs into your ear, nosing at your hair, your jaw. His lips graze your cheek and you want to engrave the feeling and the sound and the warmth into your memory forever. “You are my happiest memory.”

I don't want a lot for Christmas There is just one thing I need I don't care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree I just want you for my own More than you could ever know Make my wish come true All I want for Christmas is you

#son heung min x reader #son heung min imagines #son heungmin #soccer fanfic #please enjoyyyyy #also not proofread again PLEASE I'M SICK LOL i'll edit it later maybe.... lol

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crescencestudio · 1 year

Text

Devlog #25 | 11.28.22

Hi everyone!

How have you all been? We are slowly approaching holiday season, so hope the end of the year has been bringing some moments of rest and connection with loved ones <3 We are back with another devlog, so let’s get into it!

Writing

Writing has been where the bulk of my time has been spent this past month. I’ve been working closely with Wudgey, our developmental editor, to flesh out routes, endings, and information cohesion between everything. We’ve officially finished the route summaries for each character, and I’m quite happy with how the lore, endings, and character development has turned out! I think the magic, backstories, and characters have really come to life after talking with them, so I’m eternally grateful <3

Aside from that, my big, big focus has been Kayn’s route. I’ve begun writing the actual script for their route based on our outline and am currently sitting at ~25k words. At first, I was beating myself up a lot with the progress --- I felt like I wasn’t moving fast enough. But now that I’m actually seeing that number and realizing that’s from one month’s work, I’m pretty proud with myself, haha! This is just a rough draft, and it doesn’t include fleshed out choices, the fun characterization scenes where we get to just have fun with the LIs, etc., but I’ve written up most of the basic plot (I’d estimate about 80%). I anticipate this first draft without fleshed out choices and extra characterization scenes will end at around 30k-35k words, so almost there!!!

Art

Last time, I showed you all one of the BGs Vui had finished. And honestly, most of the art development process has been on Vui’s side since I haven’t been spending as much time on Alaris art (((you will see why below LOL))). Above is the most recent background I got back from them, and I’m honestly blown away by how it looks. I find it so unbelievably stunning and can’t believe it’s going to be featured in the game. Hope you all like it as much as I do and are just as excited for future BGs Vui cooks up!

I have been working on some CGs, but I’ll be keeping those a secret for now hehe ^^

Additional Features

Finally, the sound and music! I’ve already started receiving some of the voiced lines back from the VAs for the demo portion. I haven’t gotten a chance to review them yet since I’ve been preoccupied, and they’re not ~as~ time sensitive. But I’m hoping to start reviewing the lines next month and hope to have a better idea of how the characters are sounding! Regardless, I’m very excited to give them a listen <3

I’ve also been working with Peter for song composition for the soundtrack. We have three songs complete, specifically the main theme song, romantic/tender track, and the tense track. I’ll be previewing them in the near future, so be on the lookout!!

"Market Research”

I’m going to have to start unironically having a spot for fanart highlights, haha! Lately, I’ve been trying to improve my rendering and other aspects of my art that I don’t have as much comfort with. Because I don’t want to only draw Alaris all the time, I use other works as a way to practice my art, so that when I work on CGs and sprites, I’ll be able to use those new techniques to hopefully deliver a better visual product for you all!

I was quite proud with how all of these came out. This month, I took a dive into Mystic Messenger and Blooming Panic, two games I’ve heard so much about but have never gotten the chance to play. I felt so inspired with both of them since I have little exposure to chat-based games and fell in love with the GUI (the discord layout of Blooming Panic is especially creative!!), characterization, and voice dynamics between the cast.

While playing games doesn’t seem directly related to game development, it helps me see what’s out there and improve on things to bring to Alaris. I’ve already gotten a lot of ideas floating around that I hope to implement, so I hope you all look forward to it! Until next month, and I wish you all an early safe, warm, and happy holidays!!! <3

#devlog #alaris

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im-overstimulated-and-im-sad · 2 months

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For sleepover Saturday,

Top 3 movies (because you are the movie connoisseur)

Top 3 comfort meals

Fuck marry kill

Sydney Sweeney, Taylor Tomlinson, Nancy Gillian (let’s pretend she’s real lol)

Movies-

Clue- every single line of this movie is goddamn perfect- the characters, the costumes, the house, every single ending- like a movie about a board game had no right being this good. Perfection. No notes

Sleepless in Seattle- a movie I love so hard and cannot articulate why intelligently- it has the perfect amount of characters and I will admit- not the best example of romance- but it is really funny and because you can’t go wrong with a movie about people too invested in movies

Muppet Treasure Island- if I had 100 minutes left to live, I would throw this movie on and consider it time well spent- I would say I could recite this movie backwards and forwards but that is true for all of these- it is a fucking riot and Tim Curry ate that script and left no crumbs and it’s also really fucking sweet- like the song they sing about there’s gotta be something better- so many jobs that was my theme song

Comfort meals

(Does naming something that comes from a chain count lol) cause if so, Culvers butterburger with ketchup and pickles and their fries- I was so disappointed in my self yesterday that I had this in front of me and was unable to enjoy it

Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and green beans- it’s just so good. Also meatloaf is the one thing I can sort of cook

The little personal pizzas with the fake ass cheese- cause my mom and I still make those together lol

THIS CHOICE-

BESTIE WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME!!!!

Oh this is a tough one- I need to lie down on the couch and fan myself

(Jk, I’ve been lying down and been cold for most of the day lol)

I know which I want to pick but I feel SO BAD about it

Fuck- my god Sydney Sweeney- her hair, her eyes, her voice, her bosom that (respectfully) you could hold a whole parade in- this woman is a work of art I swear

Marry- Nancy Gillian- she’d make such a good partner - her hugs would be the stuff of legend

Kill- DONT LOOK AT ME IM SO SORRY TAYLOR 🫣🫣 But I feel we are too alike and that could be bad- oh this choice was so hard!!

Thank you for this very tumultuous ask 🫣🤤😁🥰🫶

#answered asks #sleepover saturday

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bunnygirl678 · 4 months

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I feel like doing a silly interview of myself so I'm just going to straight up answer these lmao

Fanfic Writer Emoji Ask

😅 What's a story or scene you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists?

i wrote mpreg, it's Red, it's bad, i mean the writing is great, lots of emotions but holy shit i don't even like mpreg but i did it for an omegaverse, it just fit, for the record he has twins

🥺 Is there a certain type of moment or common interaction between your characters that never fails to put you in your feels?

idk usually when green is upset about his parents, or when they finally work out their issues

🤡 What's a line, scene, or exchange you've written that made you laugh?

Anytime Green/Rai/Leon get together and drink

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

literally all the time, in ode to my soulmate, it was originally going to end after they got together, none of the angst (or the failed attempt at a cliffhanger lmao)

✍ Do you have a beta reader?

I typically don't have use one, but occasionally will ask my homies to take a look, there are a couple i'm working on that i'm worried are too technical so those will need betas to make sure it's understandable by a layman

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

Green is rich, Red can't cook, there are certain phrases i use a lot, almost always have some kind of star gazing trope (at least in the longer fics)

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

skfdhsdfhj blood bank or under the alolan sun, but the wild parts aren't published yet?? Or maybe the ones i haven't published idk

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

i have a nice ass, i'm great at world building, compliment for me and my writing ^_^

💋 First kiss fics. Love em or hate em?

Love them, but love first time fics more

🎶 Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

most of the time, christmas music,

🛠What tools/programs/apps do you use to write?

docs, i switch between my phone and computer a lot,

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

Only one, i was trying to do too much, my writing skills weren't back up to par yet, i think it helped me get to where i am now, the plot was too much, idk, i might steal a scene or two for other fics, but i'm not going to spend any time trying to improve the writing or plot. There are a bunch that i started a while ago and haven't touched in months, but i'll head back to them eventually, i have to be in the ~mood~ to work on a fic

🙋‍♀️ Do any irl people know you write fanfic?

Yeah, multiple people know, but they don't know my username

🍦 What's the sweetest fic you've created so far?

ummm that's published, under the alolan sun maybe? or maybe Lost, that's not published, single riders will be paired (coming sometime next year lmao it's a high school au super cute i'm really nice to green in it, red is a shy mute kid with no friends who ends up getting stuck on a roller coaster ride with green who is the most popular boy in school, green's actually super nice and the rest of the day kinda turns into a date, they go to school and red's like oh he's gonna be mean but he's not and it's really cute and sweet, and red gets accepted into the group and lajfdl;sjdf)

🍷 Do you drink and write?

yeah and then end up scrapping everything lol,

🍆 Do you write the spicy stuffs? If so, what's your most popular nsfw fic?

yes, i'm still working on improving my skills, but most hits/kudos ratio (let's be honest someone can do kudos once and read 15 times so not the best metric but what else do we have), is make you feel my love, but i'm working on one that will be published by valentines day where green gives red head in his neochamp outfit

🌞 Do you have a preferred time of day to write?

all day? When the adderall hits? idk it's really just when i have time, when i have my kid i really only get to at night when she goes to bed, but on her dad's weeks i write after work.

💖 What made you start writing?

i wanted to read stories that weren't written, i have lots of aus bouncing around in my head

💌 How do you feel about comments and feedback?

dopamine hit

❌ What's a trope you will never write?

ummmmm idk, used to be mpreg, but that ship sailed, i don't really love poly romance, i like the smut but am not really interested in writing it as a romance

💲 Would you ever open commissions?

no, i found that i do my best writing when i want to, which is why wips take forever for me to finish because i bounce from idea to idea as i feel like it

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

not really...I'll google a fact or two, i mean unless you count game time or reading the manga, but like googling little details not so much.

🏆 What's your most popular fic?

gonna do for reguri, when the wind stole my walls, i never felt less alone; it's my longest finished fic

🎃 Do you write fics for certain holidays? Which is your favorite holiday inspired fic?

yesh, i really liked Lost, and Auld Lang Syne, but also i threw in a couple Christmas themed chapters to Under the Alolan Sun, which was fun

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

ugh yes, lmao, blood bank, they didn't guess the exact details but the general idea, i was like oh shit i'm glad they picked up on the crumbs i threw lmao

🎨 How do you feel about fan art of your stories?

Always an honor! I might even make some one day, if my art ever improves enough for me to feel comfortable tagging it lmao

📈 How many fics do you have?

37 on ao3! I'm not going to include the ones on ff.net cause i can't remember my username, i have 50 open works (some as basic as an outline, some have 20k+ words) sitting in my docs that haven't been published

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

Depends, usually outline, i typically start writing then add an outline later,

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

This one i stared on a while ago, the actual writing needs a lot of edits but i'm obsessed with the plot, after Green loses he flees to Kalos, changes his name to Blue and becomes the champion there, everything is great until Red randomly shows up to learn how to mega evolve his charizard, Red obvs knows who he is, they deal with things, red can't mega evolve at first, it's fun orrrr my hs au that i mentioned earlier, or the ones where green becomes a coordinator, either after losing or instead of battling, in 2024 i'm releasing more pokespe works and branching out on some of the ship stuff, gonna publish a few silver/gold, lance/cynthia, and a few others,

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

Just keep writing, not everything will be amazing, but everything can be edited and rewriten

💞 Who's your comfort character?

Green oak i like to see him cry <3

🧠 Pick a character, and I'll tell you my favorite headcanon for them.

Red: He can't cook to save his life

🤩 Who is your favorite character to write?

Green, duh

🤲 Would you please share a snippet of a wip?

Green loses his memories after an accident during a battle

Red felt a tap on his shoulder, who would be bothering him this late? He turned to none other than the person he had been avoiding.

Green smiled up at Red. Red looked around for an exit.

“You’ve been avoiding me.” He stated flatly, a finger poking Red’s chest.

“Maybe.” Red said, looking away. He attempted to make eye contact with any of his pokemon to get them to create a distraction.

“It’s okay, I know why.” Green said, Red stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down at the ground.

Instead of retreating, Green got closer right inside of Red’s personal space. He placed his hands on Red’s chest. Red was suddenly worried Green was going to push him. Was he angry? He wouldn’t have had any memories of the championship would he? Maybe he read up on it? Red knew he was physically stronger than Green, but Green had been hurt recently, and he really didn’t want to have to get into a fight with him tonight.

“I may not remember all of the events that took place to get us here, but there’s no way I could forget these feelings.” And with that Green crossed the short distance and pressed his lips to Red’s.

Wait, what?!

Green pulled away and looked up at Red through his long eyelashes. He leaned up and pressed another chaste kiss to Red’s lips.

“Sorry Red, I don’t remember anything about you except for how much I love you. I look at you and I get the warmest most wonderful feeling in my chest. I feel like I’m flying on the clouds when I think about you. I love you Red.” Green wrapped his arms around Red’s waist and laid his head against his chest.

😬 Which of your fics would you be most horrified for friends, family, or coworkers to stumble upon?

My omegaverse mpreg red one, that's not even published lol (may not ever be published hahaa)

🎉 What leads you to consider a fic a success?

probably kudos and hits, but really it's if i go back and reread it over and over again, everything i write is self indulgent so

✅ What's something that appears in your fics over and over and over again, even if you don't mean to?

i can't think if it, but there's little phrases or hcs that pop up in a ton of them

📚 Would you ever want to turn writing into a career?

nope i do it for fun, if it became a job it wouldn't be fun anymore, although i am published it's technical accounting writing, and i do eventually plan on getting my phd once princess is older, so maybe? But that writing is research not fiction lol

⌛ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?

I'm a ridiculously fast typer, 34 words per minute is my average, 10k is a typical length, but my achilles heel is that i skip around a ton from fic to fic, so it may take months to get a fic done even though it's only 12k words

🤯 What's a genre you struggle with as a writer (ex. romance, action, etc.)?

I suck at writing battles, working on improving my smut skills though!

💔 Is there a fic of yours that broke your heart?

Yes, cried writing ode to my soulmate, Lost (cried a bunch on that one and ended up calling my cousin and we talked for a few hours because i miss him), then this one break up fic called RIP that i'm not sure how it's going to end, i usually write a happy ending but i might leave them broken up idk

💥 How do you feel about criticism?

I don't handle it well, i don't like it, it makes me not want to write even if it has good intentions, sometimes i'll read wips that stopped posting years ago, and i'll check out the comments on the last chapter and i'll see criticism and it pisses me off cause i think, 'hm did the author give up because of this shitty comment??'

🤭 Do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works?

I am so bad at tagging, like minimal tagging, i tag triggers but the rest i suck at, i don't do any of the cutesy ones

🥰 How do you feel about reader interaction? Are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

Friends, romans, countrymen, lend me your ear, please do this. i will happily write out a writers commentary of my fics, or maybe if my voice wasn't so annoying i'd make a video with a dramatic reading and a dvd style commentary

#bunny talks #fanfic writing #i like pretending this is a panel interview

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waitmyturtles · 2 years

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I managed to take in the newly translated film version of Kinou Nani Tabeta last night (in-between my continued sadness over Old Fashion Cupcake being over and my work on Keeping Up with KinnPorsche, which I am TREMENDOUSLY LATE TO because I wasn’t active on Tumblr until like three weeks ago, and holy shit, is it taking me for the ride of my life, I need to have hot cups of tea and water to calm myself down while watching it). ANYWAY.

KNT was my first BL drama when it came out, and one of the first Japanese dramas I got into, after Midnight Diner, which I consumed first a few years ago in a state of nursing-induced forever hunger. I had no idea who Nishijima Hidetoshi and Uchino Seiyou were, and had barely read the first volume of the original manga when I watched the first episode, and I realized that I needed to read the source material fast to really “get” the drama. Once I got into the manga (and actually started cooking from it! Ninben tsuyu is the best), I realized that the absolute magic of the manga series is in the quiet subtleties of intimacy and closeness that Shiro-san and Kenji exhibit. Food sustains them, but food and eating together is the conduit that Yoshinaga Fumi uses to help build up their quiet intimacy over the course of the series (at least, if you’re not reading the doujinshis. If you’re reading the DJs, then you know their intimacy is not always quiet.).

Over the course of the television series, the New Year’s special, and now the movie, I see that the television writer, Adachi Naoko, needs a bit more to go off on to demonstrate that intimacy, and I think she does an absolutely brilliant job of getting Nishijima and Uchino to do that without taking away from the quiet, everyday homelife spirit of the manga.

@kinounaniresource (the incredible subber of all the episodes and the movies, THANK YOU!) noted that one of the most impactful scenes in the movie was a close-up on Shiro-san as a homeless man explains that society doesn’t accept him for who he is -- a parable for Shiro-san himself as a gay man, which is a major theme for all four main gay characters in the movie (Shiro-san, Kenji, Kohinata-san, and Gilbert). Between that shot, and the conversations with his parents about putting Kenji first in his life as his family, that’s as close as we get to Shiro-san’s visceral thought process on the discrimination he’s faced as a gay man.

However, I think in other instances, Adachi Naoko pushes Shiro-san -- and Nishijima as an actor -- to go slightly beyond the lines of the manga for Shiro-san to demonstrate his love for Kenji. The scene in which they’re leaving the French restaurant, and Shiro-san looks deeply at Kenji and says, “I want to brag about you to everyone on the street” -- I’m not sure Yoshinaga’s Shiro-san would ever say that in the manga. But is it convincing for Nishijima’s and Adachi’s Shiro-san to say that? I think so. The movie needs that -- it’s almost as if the movie doesn’t have time for the really quiet subtleties of the manga, because the script packed SO MUCH in by way of stories.

The amazing thing about the movie is how, in this allowance to push Shiro-san to be less tsundere than his version in the manga, is how WELL Nishijima pulls it off, and how Uchino plays utterly perfectly to it. (And -- Uchino needs not to push himself for his Kenji. He IS Kenji, lol, through and through. He’s an incredible actor.) Between the manga and the movie, Nishijima’s Shiro-san does not dilute what Shiro-san ultimately stands for -- a conflicted gay man, somewhat still in the closet, always coming to terms with a previously unimaginable reality that he had found a life partner with whom he could call family. And all the while, he’s establishing that familial intimacy through the everyday cooking and eating of meals with the person he loves the most. What Nishijima can do, because he’s a ridiculously talented actor, is to take Shiro-san just far enough out of the manga to allow him to express his feelings verbally without discomfort or cringe -- and then bring him right back to the Shiro-san that shies away from PDA in public and at home. All in very cute, convincing, and loving ways.

The best part, for me, of KNT, is the lovingness and calmness of the environment it creates, in the face of the discrimination that they face. (I know the movie came out last fall, but I can’t help but think of the state of Japan’s politics now that the election is over, with the LDP gaining even more control and thus, less of a likelihood of any national movement towards legalizing gay marriage.) In the end, Shiro-san wants peace, and with Kenji, he has peace. Gilbert is the perfect character to slightly upend that peace when they’re together, but Shiro-san and Kenji aren’t rattled. What the movie showed me is how Shiro-san can continue to work on toeing the line of “letting go,” as he said in an early volume of the manga. Nurtured by Nishijima’s acting, we get to see Shiro-san literally get older and wiser, happily and peacefully, with Kenji by his side -- and that central nature of the show and the script is what keeps bringing me back to KNT as my favorite drama ever.

(I know I’ve said this a couple times, but KNT would not be the series it is without Nishijima and Uchino. I can’t help but compare Nishijma’s acting to his work in Drive My Car. The guy had an absolute banner year in 2021, and both film roles totally showcased his range. I think I actually like his Shiro-san MORE in the movie because of how brilliant he was as Kafuku in Drive My Car, coming to grips with Kafuku’s reality as a grieving husband and father. If I hadn’t known how well he’d play a character like Kafuku, I think I would appreciate his Shiro-san a little less. And Uchino -- forget about it. He brings Kenji totally to life. And he wears the blond well!)

So -- if you’re recovering from OFC, if you’re crying your eyes out over the end of KP, then watch KNT. We are totally spoilt for amazing writing and acting in this movie.

#kinou nani tabeta?#kinou nani tabeta #hidetoshi nishijima #seiyo uchino #what did you eat yesterday

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prettyboykatsuki · 3 years

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the liminal space between love and lonely | m. izuku

➳ tags ;; PLEASE READ! 18+ slow-burn, strangers to lovers, fem!reader, plot with porn, explorations of themes like loneliness, minor character death (oc character!), critique of the hero system and of deku, a character study of izuku midoriya, reader is a college student but no age specified!, cooking scene solo!male masturbation, emotional sex, praise kink, fingering, oral (f!recieving), unprotected sex, mostly very vanilla, multiple orgasms, creampies,

➳ wc ;; 26.2k

➳ a/n ;; well folks. we did it. a week of non-stop yelling and screaming, emotionally damaging myself, feeling weird and fucked up and finally.. finally we're here. after all this goddamn time. credits to @/rat-zuki for the izu on the corner and my most honest to god thank you to the bubblepop server who has been only kind to me as i made this thing. especially @cyancherub, @katonshoko and @a-shy-blueberry for betaing this goddamn monster (sorry i make. This many spelling errors lol)

check out the extended authors note here!

spotify playlist | pinterest board

➳ synopsis: pro-hero deku rarely breaks from routine - the one he'd been keeping up with damn near four years. he's meticulous and lonely. he finds he doesn't really have time to feel things like love or lust or anything inbetween. he only meets you circumstance and he finds himself unprepared for the chaos you set off in his heart. what is love but an escape from the loneliness of life?

He can hear the rain from inside.

He changes out of his costume in a little stall on the far east end of town. It’s empty. A single fluorescent light hangs over his head. An eerie clean on the inside, all black tiles on the floor and white doors. A white toilet with a manual flush on it. No toilet paper on the ground, astray. His bag hangs out in the corner as he shimmies out of his hero costume. It sticks and clings to his sweaty body, the thick kevlar material stitched together with steel.

His suit looks about as grimy as him. Sliding off of his torso is a task, he carefully peels himself out of it. His arms first, slowly over his abdomen and then a pause between to take off his belt and gloves. The rest gets tugged haphazardly over his thighs and ass and he steps out of it just before it hits the floor. He doesn’t take too much care to fold it, knowing it can handle the damage. He shoves it into the little duffel bag he has on him, then stacks the rest of his accessories over top. He zips it shut carefully - and stark naked, he takes a deep breath of stale bathroom air.

It hits his body first, the exhaustion. Right in his shoulders where he drops a little. Scratching the back of his neck, he sighs while no one is watching. His whole body droops as he unceremoniously relieves himself, the sound echoing especially loud in the tile bathroom with great acoustics

After that, he reaches into his bag for some babywipes. He keeps them on him to help him feel a little hygienic after long nights. The commute home is going to be long, two bus rides to his block. He uses one wipe to clean his dick off and another few to get the first layer of sweat off of his skin. He can’t help but feel uncomfortable, a leftover residue all over him. It’s better than nothing. The wipes get folded and rest on one of his bags and then he shuffles around in his backpack for clothes.

An all-white hoodie and some basketball shorts, the kind that hang to his knees with that mesh material. He changes into them immediately, soft fabric sliding over his body and making him shudder. The act of changing clothes doesn’t get enough credit for being an act of self-care, he thinks. The shorts come on next, slide just over his v-line, and hang at his hips loosely. There’s a cap and a mask at the very bottom, a white one and a black mask that he slips over the messy mop of green on his head. He snatches another wipe for his face, quick and easy, before sliding the black mask over his mouth and nose.

He makes sure everything is in order before he dips out of there. His duffel bag over one shoulder, his bookbag on his back - steady and secure. He rummages through his things and grabs a torn-up All-Might wallet, the one he’s had since 7th grade, before grabbing the used wet wipes and crumpling them in his hands.

With his freehand, he undoes the door. There’s not a single soul in here, not even a ghost. No leaky faucets or creaking doors to signal the fact that this place is alive. A big mirror stretches along one of the walls, all connected. He doesn’t give it more than one glance as he chucks the wipes in the trash and hurries outside.

When he gets there, it’s still raining. It’s an incredible, thundering rain now. It’s gonna soak him to the bone if he even steps foot in it, and he doesn’t have an umbrella. He could wait for it to pass, he thinks - staring out into the sea of night. Just a few streetlights and gusts of wind to keep him company, a flickering light at the station, and a vending machine between the male and female bathrooms. He’ll have to run through it anyways. To make it on the transport and get home so he can get some hours of well-needed rest, maybe eat and watch a documentary.

He thinks about it for a little, mouth open and brows furrowed. If Deku goes now, he could stop by 7/11. It’s the one that’s always open no matter how late it gets.. and if he goes there maybe he could warm a bento and get a gel pack of electrolytes. He should visit his mom soon, if not for anything else, for a homemade meal. He misses his mom a lot but tries not to think about it.

He should probably just go for it, so he does. With everything clutched to his body, Izuku Midoriya runs towards the first bus-stop that he’ll have to take. One more bus when he makes it and then he’ll be home. It’s not a far run, but running in the rain is always hard. For some reason, it feels like drowning, which is weird - shouldn’t you only be able to drown if you’re in a big body of water? He runs and inhales several gusts of air and water and it feels like he’s in the ocean. He makes it in the nick of time, still catching his breath when he stops.

He ducks into the plastic shelter for people who are going to ride the bus - some advertisements stuck to the wall. He got soaked like predicted. In his head, he’s practicing the way he’s gonna bow his head to the driver. He waits a while. Everything around here is closed now, all dark and dreary. There’s a hue of blue that sets over the whole place, he thinks the streetlights here are colored like that on purpose.

He thinks it’s 10 minutes before the bus gets there. The doors make a loud whoosh sound as they pry open and Deku slips himself between the cracks of the door. He bows at the driver extra deep, an apology whispered from chapped lips that gets waved off. He sits himself in the back, on the edge - just out of instinct. If anything were to happen on the bus, he would be able to see any suspicious passenger. He’s always vigilant, like a 6th sense, sometimes he forgets he’s doing it until it hits him, randomly. All out of nowhere, leaving him to sit in. It’s uncomfortable.

He decides to put on some music, just one headphone. His airpods are deep in his bag and he has to fish for them. He has a playlist that he defaults too, softer lofi sounds and some random acoustic - or whatever he feels like. He’ll listen to anything if he likes it enough.

Another habit, he takes account of everyone in the bus with him. He’s learned to do this everywhere he goes; it’s easier. If something happens - he’ll know what to tell the police and it gets done a lot faster. Late at night, there’s not many shady characters. A man in his late 50’s wearing a construction uniform, a drunk, brown-haired male college student, and a young woman with dyed hair who keeps staring at her ring finger. Other than all of them, it’s just the bus driver and Deku. He probably looks the most suspicious, with the hat and the mask on but he figures there isn’t anything for him to do about that.

The bus ride is smooth and quiet. Nothing happens. No signals to alert him to the threat of danger, just a shared sense of nothing-ness. When he gets closer to all the shopping centres, it’s a bit more lively. He listens to music and closes his eyes. It’s nice. There are so many more colors on every street and every sign, it’s a little easier to look at. He’s the first person to get dropped off among this crowd of people, and all of them watch as he idly passes.

When he leaves and steps off , the scent of petrichor invades his lungs - a hard hit to his chest. He breathes in so much of it he stumbles. The rain is soft now, like a kiss, but it still feels he’s drowning when he inhales. Short pants between each long breath. It’s cold and his clothes cling to him a little. He has 45 minutes till the next bus gets here, and there’s a 7/11 around the corner. He’s never been to that one specifically, he just knows it’s there. Today is the first day he’s going to try to look inside. He needs some more electrolytes, a protein bar, and probably something hot. A cup ramen with an egg, or something else that he can get down in under 15 minutes.

The rain made it look misty and far but the walk to the 7/11 was less than ten minutes. When he comes in, still soaking wet - he finds that no one is at the counter. He thinks whoever is working is probably inside of the break room so he doesn’t bother. He thinks anyone working this late should probably avoid strange customers, even him, so he grabs a basket instead. A little water squishies in his shoes as he walks around, a trail of wet steps following behind him

The bright lights makes his head ache, so he finds himself squinting as he walks around the store. It doesn’t stop him from getting what he needs. He finds some protein bars in one aisle, next to all of the electrolyte gel packages. He throws several of them in his basket and keeps moving through, examining each thing with care and patience. He doesn’t need a lot of the things in there, but he buys them anyways. Some jelly candy, a packet of biscuit sweets, some other junk. He normally eats well, healthy - but it’s been a long day.

He gets other things. Some baby wipes for his bag since he’s running out, gauze and bandages, a small two pack of headache medicine over the counter. A silly dog trinket to put on his keys that he buys a little more shyly. He’s so engrossed in it, he doesn’t hear your quiet footsteps as you meander back to the counter. You were on your bathroom break and when you came back, a shady dude in a hoodie and mask came in. Alarmed, you watch for a while.

But given all the things in his basket, he seems harmless. A squishy shiba-inu charm isn’t exactly something a villain would own.

You get engrossed in your reading again as he gets to the food in the back part of the store. Some warm street food, warmed in a rotisserie, cup ramen and a station for hot water, disposable chopsticks and a few left-over pre-packaged bentos. He decides on ramen, some eggs, and protein bars. When he gets home he’ll eat a proper meal, or at least try - but his stomach has been rumbling since he left the bathroom.

After 5 minutes of debating, he comes up to the counter - startled by your presence. You don’t stick out to him and he doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. He blinks down at you as you tuck your book away, a paper napkin being used to keep track. It goes somewhere under the counter as you yawn before greeting him.

“Welcome to 7/11. Did you find everything okay today?”

He goes blank for a second before registering what you’ve said.

“Oh, uhm - yes,” he replies awkwardly, putting his basket on the counter and slowly taking his things out.

You don’t look up as you start scanning his items one by one, punching something into the screen as you do. You talk on autopilot.

“Long night?” you ask, mindlessly. He gives you another surprised look before breaking out into a mostly genuine laugh.

“That obvious?”

His banter catches you off-guard. Before you know it, you’re cracking a smile at him. A little laugh leaves your mouth, heavy with the evening. Raspy from exhaustion, he imagines. You give him a once over, as if you’re thinking about it before nodding.

“A little, yeah.”

The pleasantry makes your mood lighter as you scan and bag his items. With rapport built, he feels comfortable asking.

“..Is it just you working tonight?”

Caught off guard, you lift your eyes to look at him. A little ribbon of fear pulls through you before relaxing. You nod a little.

“Yeah.. just me. I work the night-shift,”

He blinks at you like you’ve said something ridiculous. In a way you have, you know you have. It’s a little unheard for a woman your age to be working alone, late at night, in the middle of the city. It irritates him that your boss, whoever they are, would let you. The hero in him wants to ask if you have any weapons you know how to use, and if you know all the exists exits and how to signal for the police.

Nothing really comes out of his mouth, brow furrowed. Noticing his concern, you decide to give him a little more info.

“I live around the corner, maybe two blocks from here. The hours aren’t great but it works for my schedule. It’s a safe area. I’m pretty vigilant, so -,”

“Still.. a civilian should already be cautious but especially a woman your age -”

You pause, and so does he. A soft pink flush dusts his cheekbones. You blink.

“Civilian… are you a hero? That would explain why you're here so late,” ― you say aloud, ringing up the last of his belongings. You give him a good look, green hair peering out of cap and green eyes bright and blinking ― “...Pro-Hero Deku right?,”

Despite the fact he’s been a pro-hero for almost 4 years, he still isn’t sure how to handle being recognized. His face is plastered over the country yet he still finds the whole thing uncomfortable. Not knowing how to reply, he just nods.

“Y-yeah.. that’s me,”

Your eyes go wide for a moment, a little shock hitting you before giving him a smile.

“Oh..cool. Nice to meet you,”

After bracing himself for a slew of questions, his check back into reality feels weird. You tap at the screen a few times before going back to normal.

“That’ll be 2,950 yen” you tell him plainly. He’s stuck for a minute but manages to grope around from his wallet. He slides his card on the little machine, punching his pin in and hearing a little ding sound. Transaction complete rings on the machine and you print the receipt, tucking into one of the bags before pushing it lightly towards him.

He can’t describe it, the sudden need to stay here for a while, instead of rushing home like he’d planned. Maybe it’s because the hero in him couldn’t just leave, knowing you’d be alone this late at night. Maybe it’s something else. He doesn’t want to think about it.

“Can I eat this here?” comes out as a messy rush, hastily pulling out the ramen. You blink at him before smiling a little. He has a charm to him, a little awkward, that makes you laugh. Makes you feel better. It’s not so bad.

“Sure,” ― you tell him, leaning over the counter ― “Want me to keep you company?”

“So you’re a student here?”

Deku is less than halfway into his ramen, blowing on the hot noodles between each question before carefully sliding them into his mouth. You laugh a little, nodding your head with your chin resting on your palms.

“Yeah. I’m in what’s supposed to be my last year, but I don’t think I’ll graduate until next year,” you explain. You worry it’s too much information, you doubt a hero like him is all that interested.

But he looks engrossed in your conversation, even though one of his cheeks is swollen with hot ramen.

“I don’t really know anything about college,” he admits to you sheepishly.

“Oh yeah.. not a lot of pros go into college right?,”

He shakes his head, swallowing a bite and taking a breath.

“Not really. There’s some Hero Colleges and programs but most of us just join another agency as sidekicks or try to open our own,” ― he explains to you, raking his thoughts on who he can think of that went to one ― “I don’t think anyone from U.A’s graduating classes has gone to one. Some people at Shiketsu High, but not U.A,”

You give him a half-way smirk.

“I don’t see why a school of elites would need to go to a hero college either, yknow”

He chokes on his ramen, giving you a soft pout as you giggle. He wipes his mouth with a napkin, shaking his head as if to dispel any of the thoughts.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he insists. You smile at how genuine he’s being.

“I know, but isn’t it true? A school of such prestigious heroes.. I figure most of you went pro right away,”

“Me, Kacch- Dynamight, and Shouto opened our agencies as soon as we were 18. Most of our classmates went into being sidekicks but they almost all have their own agencies,”

“It’s cool that you have your own agency. I see you in the news all the time,” you tell him, comfortable complimenting him. His whole face always stops before it hits, a little blush delicate on his face.

It’s charming about him, you think. You have to admit, even you feel starstruck. A chance encounter with Pro-Hero Deku is nothing to sneeze at. Somehow, you think interviews don’t do him enough justice. In person, he’s much more charming. He’s awkward but he banters well and he’s handsome. He listens, too. Polite and respectable, you understand why he won Japan's Sweetheart last year.

“Ah.. thank you. It’s a dream come true for me, so I have to do my best,”

You give him a little smile.

“My little cousin loves you, so I’d say you’re doing pretty good,”

His eyes go wide, big and green and full of life.

“Really?”

“Really really. I was pretty starstruck when I realized and I’m not that big into hero stuff. I learn second hand from him,”

He gives you a laugh this time, loud and bright.

“Starstruck? Really? I’m surprised… you didn’t seem fazed at all,”

You shrug.

“I’m good at hiding my reactions. Working this late, it’s part of the gig,”

He gives you a deep laugh at that, straight from his chest. It sends a little chill up your spine.

“I bet..probably see a lot of.. interesting people here, huh?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Mostly just me though, gets kinda lonely,”

You don’t mean for the words to come off so heavy when you say them. You’re going to make a joke but you stop, stagnant - his green eyes are unusually somber. The most you’ve seen them the entire night.

“Yeah..” ― he replies back, voice distant and eyes far off― “I get what you mean,”

It’s hard to explain the feeling. It’s not like anything else you’ve ever felt. Maybe it’s just the adrenaline of good company, or the absence of light that has you feeling like this. It’s odd, all of it. You take an inhale and it’s quiet, and you think for a while.

“It was nice,” ― you say first, breaking the silence ― “Having company, I mean. It was nice to have someone here. My shifts are always super boring,”

He lifts his head to look at you. He’s probably just tired, just sleepy. The plausible reason for all that can only be his exhaustion. He’s compelled anyway. With a little laugh, he throws his things away and packs up his other belongings.

“It was, wasn’t it?,”

You’re the only person he’s spoken to in weeks. Just this small talk, so far removed from everything in his life.

“I’m here at the same time, everyday so,” ― you feel shy saying it, flush reaching your neck ― “If you’re ever in the area.. wanna kill some time. It’d be nice to see you again. I’m sure you’re super busy so no -”

“I’ll be back soon,” he says with finality, a little breathy at the end of your sentence. He smiles at you and you smile at him. It’s dizzying

You laugh back, and your shoulders relax. A grin makes itself permanent, cheeks aching.

“I’ll look forward to it, Mr. Deku,”

It’s his turn to look shy.

“Ah.. Midoriya. You can just call me Midoriya,”

“I’ll look forward to it... Midoriya,”

He gives you one last goodbye, watching as you wave from the window towards him. He can’t help but laugh. When he turns around, he checks the time and his eyes go wide. An exasperated chuckle leaves his mouth. The bus he was supposed to take left more than an hour ago but the next one is close by. He’s still kind of wet from the rain, and his shoes are soaked.

But he feels full, and not at all uncomfortable . When he walks to the station, he has a permeating warmth in him. He catches the next bus with all of his things intact and makes it home in around fifteen minutes. The suns just about to rise when he stumbles into his empty apartment.

Normally, he’d feel like he’s dragging his feet. But when he gets home, he has all this energy he’s not sure what to do with. He showers first, hot water washing off the grime of the day, and when he gets out he changes into new clothes.

But when he gets out, he finds he’s not hungry. He doesn’t really want anything other than to sleep and for it to be tomorrow again. He goes home and thinks of you the whole day. He doesn’t remember the last time he slept so easily until his head hits the pillow.

Deku’s daily routine for the last two years has been very consistent.

It took some time for him to get it all in order, a lot of planning and replanning. He’s the head of his own agency - in the first place, he feels like he’s always on the clock. The biggest of the big three, All Might's successor, he has a lot of responsibility. When people need advice about running an agency, he’s normally the first person they’d ask. These days some of the responsibility gets passed onto Kacchan and Todoroki, but Deku has always been the friendly one, the helpful one.

He really doesn’t have it in him to say no, so when Kirishima calls him at odd hours with his most sincere “Midoriya!” it’s hard for him to ignore. A routine is less of want and more of necessity. To keep his sanity intact, he has to know exactly when and how something is going to happen. He’s more disorganized than Kacchan, and more lenient than Todoroki. And it took a long time - almost two years - to get a good schedule that he could follow every single day without getting too exhausted or overworked.

Everythings worked out, down to the most devilish detail. During the weekday, he patrols the night shift about 5 days a week. He wakes up around 12pm after going to sleep at around 6am each night. On Mondays and Fridays, he does cardio first thing in the morning and the rest of the week is weight-training. Half a gallon of water before and after each workout. He eats for the first time at 2pm and logs his macros, almost 200g of protein a day. More water and then he showers at 3pm. He’s always in the shower for 27 minutes exactly and out of the bathroom at 3:30.

After his shower, he meanders around his house and takes care of little tasks before he leaves the house in another hour. He dries his hair and puts product in it, puts on lotion and deodorant, waters whatever plant he manages to keep alive. It’s nice, the domesticity. In that time, he normally checks up on chats and replies to old friends. Always shallow, little conversations when he has the time. He calls his mom and she gives him a lecture about taking care of himself.

It’s all routine, and at 4:30 he gets dressed. The commute to his agency is about an hour, most of it just waiting for the next bus and on a good day - he makes it around 5:30, half-an hour before he’s supposed to be there. Most days though he’s lucky to be in around 5:45. When he steps foot in the agency, he’s normally swarmed immediately.

His assistant fills him on what paperwork needs approval and what’s going on in the day, within the week. What meetings, what dates, what information needs to be sent to the data analysts on the bottom floor. He’s in the office for about two hours doing housekeeping, and delegating tasks to the rest of his team. He normally eats again, right before patrols. At 8, he knows it’s time to change into his costume.

He patrols from 8:30pm to 3am, sometimes later if there’s more crime than usual. He’s the last person at the agency, and at 3am he picks up his stuff from the office. Sometimes he changes in there but most of the time - he’s rushing to get it completely closed down. He normally grabs his bags and walks to the little restroom station in the middle of nowhere.

He changes and takes two buses just like before. It’s better for the environment to commute, but he thinks maybe he should invest in a car, or a bike. The commute is much shorter at night than during the day, when there’s traffic. He’s normally home sometime around 5. He eats one big meal again and goes to sleep. He thinks he should eat a little less at night but patrols leave him starving. He showers before bed and does it all again the next day.

He has one day off a week, on Sundays he doesn’t work at all. He’s mostly unreachable except for the emergency phone he has. He disconnects other than the news on TV. He only really started taking a day off because of his mom, anyway. He spends it in the house, watching documentaries, or sleeping, or getting some more weight training in. He can deadlift a few tons by now.

His week is routine, and he keeps busy wherever he can. It’s hard to see friends when everyone is scheduled at different times, doing different things. Sometimes he gets lucky enough to see Todoroki or Kacchan during the week - and even if his childhood friend is hard pressed to admit it, it’s nice to see each other. Most Sundays, he visits his mom and hangs around her house. He thinks most people would find it weird, but it’s comforting. Laying on the couch and watching romance movies with her, passing her tissues when she cries.

He’s gotten good at laughing off her comments about when he’ll find someone. They’re lighthearted by nature, but he knows there’s an edge of truth to them. Deku doesn’t remember the last time he thought seriously about love, or the last time he changed his routine. Some things, he just doesn’t think about. He can’t, realy.

He’s had the same routine for almost 2 years and he doesn’t normally deviate from it.

But it’s been a few months, and everyday after work - Deku pushes back his plans to go home by about an hour. He catches the latest bus there and gets about an hour less of sleep than normal. It’s not enough to stop him. He doesn’t eat as much at night like he used to, not as hungry as before. He just goes home and sleeps. And lately on Sundays, he still visits his mom but he can’t wait for the weekdays to come again.

He’s been journaling since he was young, too, accustomed to jotting his day down. Just to keep track of heroic stuff. Important details. His habitual note-taking never really went away, notes of notorious villains and cases line his walls edge to edge. In his personal journal, he normally jots down whatever comes to mind. Nothing interesting. Nothing special, by nature. Deku doesn’t really have much going on.

These last few months though, each page has more than a few paragraphs. Sometimes the entries fill to the edge of the page. They’re long and detailed. Sometimes beautiful, maybe even poetic. These days, they’re filled with the words of a person. A someone. Not a classmate, or a new sidekick. Just someone, who works the nightshift of 7/11 and likes to sleep.

He’s started to keep his pen and paper in the bag instead of waiting to get home, words buzzing around in his head. He writes down the details of your conversation on the bus ride back, a playlist in his ears. On each page, there’s little bumps and blips from where the bus hits a pothole. It’s dated, and organized. You can see where little notes become full pages.

And it’s filled edge to edge with new facts about you. Next to words about what beautiful things he’d seen that day. The sun and how it rose, the dog walking on the street. It’s different for him, to sit down and think of beautiful things. He doesn’t remember the last time he found anything beautiful, at least not like this.

Deku learns these things about you, in order. He learns your name - your full name. The country you're from and where your parents are from. Where you go to school and what you major in. Your best friend's name. He learns what your tattoos mean, and how many piercings you have and which ones you want. Why you part your hair the way you do or why it’s styled the way it is, and what your favorite colors are. One week, he learns in detail your analysis of your favorite anime franchise. He learns what colors you like to paint your nails and why your manicures are always chipped.

Some details you don’t express to him, some he just catalogs. You always have your right hand over your left. Your smile is a little lopsided and you don’t rest your face often. You always look sleepy, even when you’re wide awake. You like to laugh and you like making stupid jokes. You like complimenting him. You don’t mind when he stutters in conversation. You like to eat those little jelly packets when you’re feeling antsy. Your physics class is exhausting because it’s the only book you study when you’re not reading a fiction book or manga.

You’re exhausted. You’re pretty to look at. When he looks at you, he thinks he should know more about you. He’s starting to feel something for you. It’s weird. He doesn’t mind your company. He wants to see you again.

He wants to see you again.

He starts bringing face wash in his bag to look decent for you.

It works. Yesterday, when he saw you, you told him he looks refreshed. He did today again, but he knows you might not notice. Still, it felt like the right thing to do.

He ducks his head a little when he enters after his long shift. The bright lights are still blinding and it’s raining again - knee deep into storm season. He should buy an umbrella soon. When he walks in, he immediately looks at the counter. When he finds you're not there, he’s more disappointed than he should be. He gets over it fast, busying himself with grabbing his to-go choices of dinner. It’s quiet, just him and his thoughts. His back aches a little so he buys a little muscle relief pad to put on it when he gets home.

It was a busier day than normal. There was a shoot-out earlier, a couple miles from his agency. Him and Kacchan ended up taking care of it, and about a group of 7 villains were arrested at the scene. There’s three more on the loose. After everything, Uraraka came by to help take care of the aftermath but those villains were tough to fight. All long range fighters, not Deku’s speciality even with blackwhip. A small criminal organization trying to gain some notoriety in the public, Deku’s been watching their case for months now.

Nothing they can’t handle but exhausting all the same. His body is sore all over, covered in bruises. He got patched up in the agency, in the medical unit but he can’t help but feel tired.

Still, he ended up coming here. He decides to eat a bento today, instead of ramen.

When you wander back behind the counter, you smile. You watch him mutter to himself for a minute or two before calling out for him.

“Look what the cat dragged in,”

His whole body gets warm when you talk. He stands up and turns around, a grin on his cheeks. Sheepishly, he walks over to you with a basket on hand. He walks over to the counter and places the little basket on top of it. You go to scan his things with your usual autopilot on.

“Oh! A bento today?,”

He smiles and laughs, resting his forearms on the counter. Your eyes are drawn to them. Instead of the usual hoodie, it’s a white v-neck that sticks to all the most muscular parts of his body. You shiver as you look and then look away. He yawns.

“Yeah.. felt like I should eat something more proper,”

You snort a laugh at that.

“For being a pro-hero, your diet is kinda shit, isn’t it?”

He blushes at you.

“What gave it away?”

“Ramen, I can forgive. But the protein bars and electrolyte packs are dead give-aways. You don’t cook..?”

He flusters a little bit more, shaking his head when he winces.

“Never picked it up, to be honest,”

You give him a smug smile before laughing as you ring up the last of his things.

“You’re such a mamas boy,” ― you tease, and he laughs and lets you ― “Lemme guess, you didn’t learn how to do a bunch of stuff until you moved out,”

He chuckles, paying for his items in between exchanges. He nods.

“When we moved into the dorms, Kacchan had to show me how to use the washer and dryer. I was also super clumsy about washing dishes. Too much soap, not enough time under the water. Little stuff like that,”

“And now…?”

He crinkles his nose and gives you a faux-pointed look.

“And now.. I use the dishwasher. I’m clean though, I swear,”

“Uh-huh. Sure,”

He rolls his eyes and the look sends your stomach fluttering. It’s a little more snarky, more comfortable. Your cheeks ache from smiling.

“What about you?”

You hand him some wooden chopsticks, putting his basket under the table as he settles into the seat closest to your counter next to the window. You give it a thought, as if deciding on what to say.

“My place is mostly spotless, other than my bedroom. My bedroom is a complete nightmare. Clothes and books and stuff everywhere. I can cook though, had to learn since college made me super broke,” you muse. He gives you a soft smile.

You pause, tugging your lower lip between your teeth.

“I could cook for you sometime,” ― you suggest, treading especially careful, heart in the back of your throat ― “Whatever gets you to stop eating out like this.. for the greater good, y’know,”

He stares at you, gaping. For a split second he thinks he’s gonna be sick, but before you can retract - he scrambles. Chewing and swallowing his rice with impatience, he lifts a hand and nods his hand.

“No, I’d - uhm, I’d love that. I miss.. eating home cooked meals, honestly. Maybe you could.. you could teach me something?”

Your turn to be surprised. Your eyes go wide before relaxing and grinning, dropping your head down.

“Yeah. I can teach you to make curry. It’s really easy, but if I’m gonna take time out of my precious schedule to teach you, you have to promise to be a good student. No half-assing,”

Everything is so relaxed. So pleasant. He laughs, so loudly and so openly it makes your heart race. That feeling in your gut triples in size and you think to yourself, only briefly, what the odds were of meeting someone like him.

“If there’s one thing I’m good at is trying my best,” ― he tells you confidently, a little smugness tied to the end of his words. It flushes you instantly ― “I’m a fast learner too. I’ll make you proud,”

You can’t stop smiling. You think if a car came through the other window, all of your attention would still be right at him. Something about him is homely, familiar. He’s so easy to talk to, you forget that you haven’t known him long. You forget all the work you have to do still, all your worries.

“You better,” you try to say with authority. The both of you fall into laughter and it goes quiet for a moment. It’s not uncomfortable, a soft thrumming heartbeat and two people and nothing else.

“By the way,” ― you lean forward, examining him a little more closely ― “what happened today that’s got you so beat up?”

He widens his eyes and shakes his head.

“Nothing to worry about,” he assures you. The response immediately makes you frown.

“I know I’m a civilian Mr. Deku, but c'mon,” you urge “You look tired and you bought those little muscle patches - what’s up?”

He strains his face, frowning. His brow furrows.

“Are you sure you wanna know?”

You roll your eyes a little.

“Yes I’m sure. I’m always sure. If I didn’t wanna know, I wouldn’t ask,”

He supposed he can’t argue with that. He thinks on it, for a moment like he doesn’t know what to say. Your face softens watching his back and forth.

“You don’t have to sugarcoat it,” ― you say cautiously ― “Just say what,s on your mind. Don’t think about it too hard,”

He gives you a quick run-down of the day. All of the information is public, in the news. He sprinkles in some details about who he fought but doesn’t go into detail. He watches as your face strings up in concern, smiling softly at you.

“You don’t have to worry about it,” ― he tells you, his best hero look on ― “I got patched up, just sore. In a days’ work,”

“Of course I’m gonna worry,” ― your mouth curls into a pout, sighing a little ― “I know it’s your job and everything. It’s just like.. I don’t know - I still worry. I care,”

He laughs, and smiles. He doesn’t like making people worry, but from you.. it doesn’t feel so bad.

“Are you okay?” ― you ask, as if trying to figure out what you can do ― “Mentally or physically. Are you… is everything okay? Do you need anything,”

His heart feels heavy, just a little. He doesn’t remember the last time someone asked him that. He doesn’t know how to reply to it, mouth going cotton dry. His chest feels tight and his eyes are itchy.

“I uhm.. I’m really okay. Sore, like I said. But today’s job wasn’t so bad. Nobody got hurt, and everyone got out safely. It went well, all things considered,” ― he pauses like he doesn’t know how to finish his sentence ― “I’m.. today it was okay. I’m okay. Tired though, I even showered at the agency,”

You’re still frowning. Maybe you’re pushing it, the boundaries between the two of you.

“When it doesn’t go okay,” ― you say through a bated breath ― “Even when it doesn’t go okay, you can tell me. I don’t mind,”

But it sounds a lot like a please, like an “I want to know when something bad happens” and it’s enough to choke him up a little. He simply nods.

You give him a tight smile, before sighing.

“You said you were sore right? Do you… I could uhm.. help you put on your muscle patches. So you can just go home and sleep,” ― you say awkwardly ― “Th-the break room doesn’t have c-cameras so you wouldn’t have to worry about anything. I just.. I think you should rest as soon as you get home,”

There’s that funny feeling again, deep in his gut. It curls all over him, a sticky feeling so syrupy, it burns. A pink hue brushes against the nape of neck, wrapping around his ears, dancing on his nose and freckled face. He’s really not used to it. Not a moment of it.

But without thinking, he nods. Something comes over him, and he says sure.

“Yeah.. uhm. If you want too.. sure. That’d be.. nice,”

___

When he finishes his food, he throws it away in a grey trash can with a round opening. You tell him he leaves his stuff behind the counter instead of where he sits, and he obliges without hesitation. He leaves it right next to your stool where your book sits. You put a little sign up - that the employee is on a break and will be with you shortly and gesture for him.

Carefully, you guide him through a narrow hallway into the breakroom. It’s a big and windowless room. Inside of it there’s some lockers along the walls and a little rack to keep jackets and bags - separating the place into two. A TV sits against one of the walls and then a bunch of poster boards. You have employee of the month, an awkward photo of you put up. He smiles at it and you flush.

“I’ve had it for 4 months now, so the pictures are kinda old,” you explain self-consciously. He chuckles. He can’t help but feel that’s so very typical of you.

There’s a table in the center of the room. You tell him to give you a minute as you go back behind the wall. While you do, he examines the rest of the room. A machine for clocking in and out, a sink and a trash can, some chairs and some random pins for putting on your employee lanyard. Some coloring books, some crayons and other random stuff.

You return with a wooden stool you think he’ll fit on.

You take the little bag out of his hand and place it on the counter. He’s taller than you so you have to reach up to guide him to the stool. He plops himself down on it and flushes.

“Where do you need them?,”

“Uhm.. a lot of them are on my back. Upper and lower, and a few on my shoulders. Wh-when I do it alone, I just stick them on and hope for the best,” he explains to you. You shake your head.

“I figured,” ― you brush something touching your skin out of your face ― “I can press around and then you can tell me where you need one. Does that sound okay?”

His whole body goes stiff.

“I used to do this for a friend in highschool. So.. don’t worry about it too much,” ― you explain, trying your best to swallow the abashed feeling ― “Y-you might wanna take your shirt off though,”

“Oh! U-uhm.. yeah. One sec,”

You step back and try to avert your gaze. He takes his hat and mask off first and pauses. After, he gives a shaky exhale as he grabs the bottom of his v-neck in his hands, scarred hands crossing as he tugs it over his torso, above his head, and eventually all the way off of his body. All of his clothes get dropped on the table next to him, and he runs a hair through curly green hairs. Just to push back most of it, away from his face. He sits there, straightening up his back and you see it for the first time.

You’ve heard all sorts of stories about Deku and his scars. Your younger cousin has told you about it, how cool they are. It’s rumored that he has over a hundred, all kinds of battles lingering on his body. You know he has a lot, and have known ever since you saw his hands. It’s more scar tissue than skin.

It’s.. so different up close. Mixed emotions well up inside of you, and your hands tremble when you reach out and touch it. A little jolt of electricity goes up his spine and he twitches, but you don’t move your hand. Like you can’t. Your eyes are making him nervous.

“I know it’s kind of.. ugly to look at,”

You shake your head, but you realize he can’t see. You place your whole hand on his back, the muscle between his spine and shoulder. A delicate thumb brushes on the skin. You can’t seem to pull back, can’t look away at all, even when you try. Your eyes are big and they feel unusually tearful.

“No.. I don’t think they’re ugly at all. I just wasn’t expecting so many scars,”

He laughs unsteadily. It’s so intimate. His heart is in his ears. His body feels somewhere far away.

“Yeah. I hear that a lot,” ― he replies, nervous, and playing with hands like he doesn’t know what else to do ― “It doesn’t bother you..?”

It’s the softest touch. So gentle, and so.. caring. He shakes a little as you run them up, on his shoulder. You squeeze it.

“Not at all.. I like them,”

His eyes widen. He turns to look at you over his shoulder and you don’t look disgusted. You look fascinated. You look at his scars, then briefly at him. Your eyes meet and he stares at you.

“You.. like them?”

You nod, and don’t break eye-contact.

“I like them,” ― you confirm with finality, like there’s not more to be said ― “They’re unique. I don’t know.. I don’t think they’re ugly,”

He feels it, when you say it. He knows it’s nothing to ride home about, but he can’t remember. When was the last time someone touched him like this? When was the last time he let someone.. look at him so close? He can’t remember. He isn't sure he cares but he can feel your hands.. all over his skin. He breathes out.

“Thank you.. for thinking that,”

You really don’t mean to touch him. You weren’t planning on it. But your hands move freely across his skin and before you can think. You pull back.

“Is this okay?” but there’s an addendum unspoken, is it okay if i touch you like this?

He nods a little, voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah.. it’s okay,” but it sounds like yes, yes please

You reach out again, like a ghost on his body. Your hands are gentle at first, you press them against the muscles of his back. He takes a breath. You don’t feel like your voice is in its place. The words come out quiet, hushed.

“If I press somewhere and it hurts.. tell me and I’ll put a patch on,”

You don’t mean to touch him like this. Yet you can’t stop yourself either, your hands roam over the free parts of his skin, thumbs pressing down. You watch his body carefully, listening to his deep sighs or when he winces. He lets out a sharp inhale when you're closer to his lower back, so you stop and feel around. Your fingers knead the tense muscles and he lets out a soft sound, like a whimper. It’s halfway between pathetic and exhausting. Your core tightens a little.

“You’re so tense,” ― your voice is halfway above a whisper, electric ― “Relax a little,”

He wants to say he’s trying. He swears with everything he has he’s trying. But all he can think of is the pressure of your nimble hands, this skin on skin feeling - intimacy. The word feels like swallowing swords, so sharp and so deep. He can feel it in his chest, so suffocating. Overwhelming. He wants to relax but all he can think is how long it’s been.. to be touched. He hasn’t even had time to think about it. To wrap his head around something like that.

“Sorry,” comes out his mouth and you shake your head.

“It’s okay,” ― you press and he winces, then you pause and put one on ― “This is for you. I don’t want you to stress about it,”

It shocks him a little. It’s for him.. He feels feverish. He feels lightheaded and like he can’t breathe and your hands are hot they feel like steel rods. Molten against the skin of his back, you dance over every bump. He’s jagged from how often he’s been torn apart but you’re so unfazed. You touch every part, up his spine over his shoulders, down his arms.

It’s blistering to experience so much all at once. Like a flood, a natural disaster in the crevices of his heart. It’s overwhelming. The presence of your body, how the heat radiates. Your soft breaths, concentrated. The shuffle of your feet and the sounds of plastic being torn and placed. There’s nothing he can focus on other than you and how your hands are feeling his body. How small they are compared to his muscular form. How soft they are, scarless and warm. So inviting he can feel it stir in his stomach. He’s barely holding himself together, clenching his muscles so the blood stays in place.

“Is there anywhere I missed?”

No, not from what he can feel. His whole body has heat on the sorest parts of him.

“My shoulders.. the right one,” he rasps. You massage the muscle underneath until you hit his shoulders. His whole body is like stone, both stiff and muscular. You wince a little as you touch it, press on it. His whole body convulses at the feeling.

“There?”

He breathes in.

“Y-yeah, there,”

His normal numbness is replaced with oversensitivity. Every movement, or gust of wind, or touch makes him feel like his stomach is binded in knots. You don’t stop until every muscle that’s sore is covered in a soft white bandage. He tries his best to adjust to it, but he never does. When you’re all done, you smooth another hand over his skin, patting his back. He urges his disappointment down. Tries his best to leave it behind. His gut sinks.

“I think I got everything,” ― you whisper, almost noiseless, as you step away from him ― “If there’s anything else I can do for you, Midoriya - just let me know,”

He slips his shirt over his body and gathers his things. He watches you as you throw the little packets away and rearrange his bag. There’s a lingering feeling all over him, each nerve bristled. More awake than they’ve been in years. When you turn back around, his heart races even faster than before. Your eyes are unchanging, half-moons and delicate. Little rings of exhaustion and heavy lashes. He wants to do something for you, but he can’t think of anything.

“Can I have your number?”

You stumble a little at the question. You press your lips together and nod.

“Yeah,” ― you look down at your feet, shuffling nervously ― “My phones by the counter,”

The tension is so thick, he can feel it web in his lungs. Every breath he breathes smells like you, sweet. His whole body feels like it pulsates, the blood rushing in his skin. His ears pound and his footsteps feel heavy and the idea he has to leave and just go home after this makes him antsy.

You guide him back through the narrow halls after he puts his mask and hat on. He takes his bag from behind the counter and exits to the other side. No one’s come by and it doesn’t look like anyone will. You immediately grab your phone, and your hands feel like they’re buzzing.

“I’m not free this Sunday. I promised my mom I would help her with her tomato beds” ― he scratches the back of his neck, staring at the counter before braving face to meet your eyes ― “But next Sunday, if you still wanna teach me how to.. uhm, cook,”

You survey his expression, corners of your lips upturned.

“.. Yeah. Give me your phone and I can give you a time that works for me,”

He reaches for it, unlocking with a quick swipe, pulling his mask down for face ID. He hands it to you carelessly and you give him a little side-eye laughing. A pro-hero like him should be more careful. He watches as you type some words, scrolling through a sea of emoji and making sure your contact is all set up. You hand it back to him and he tucks it in his pocket.

“Text me that you made it home safe Mr. Deku,”

He shakes his head, laughing.

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be saying to you?”

You shrug.

“Maybe. But I said it first, so you gotta do it okay? Otherwise how will I know my dame made it home safe,”

He laughs then blushes at being called a dame, shaking his head. At how ridiculous you make him feel at ease. He nods his head.

“Of course. You too, be safe getting home,”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Midoriya,”

“See you tomorrow,”

He doesn’t remember the last time he’s been so high strung

After his bus ride home, he finds himself alone with his thoughts for the very first time in a long time. Normally, after seeing you, his body doses itself on whatever sleepy chemical and he falls asleep promptly. But today, no matter what he does, he can’t seem to fall asleep. One hundred jumping jacks, a warm shower and warm glass of milk, counting to almost one thousand. He’s been at it for what feels like hours, trying his very best to sleep.

But he can’t turn his thoughts off. They’re especially loud and they seep themselves into every crevice of his mind, no stone unturned. He just wants to sleep. He wants it desperately but every time he reaches for it, eyelids heavy, his desire pulls him right out.

Deku’s relationship to sex is.. complicated. The older he got, the less he got off. Not because he didn’t want to, or that he didn’t have any desires but mostly because he was so swamped he didn’t have it in him to do it. He was drained enough, and if he wanted stress relief or to get the hormones out of his system - a couple hours of powerlifting seemed to do the trick. He’s had plenty of offers for sexual favors but he doesn’t really have any strings attached. The last time he had anyone.. touch him was in highschool when he lost his virginity to Uravity in his third year.

Those feelings washed out and he was left an adult with no practical experience in sex or dating. He has his fair share of fantasies, stuff that goes in his bank of materials when he finds the time for it. But he works now, so much and so often, he can only really get a quick one in when he’s in the shower. In the same way you might scratch an itch, it’s quick and easy. Not fulfilling but it gets the job done and settles his want for intimacy.

He hasn’t thought about it really at all in almost a year. There’s always so much to do, no time to think about anything but hero work. In the prime of his career, it’s even less than an afterthought.

But now it’s almost 7am and Izuku Midoriya is tossing and turning in his bed with a desire so raw and so hungry it makes his whole body burn up. He feels guilty to make you the object of his desires. It’s already hard enough for him to admit to himself what this all means. He still hasn’t and he isn’t sure when it’ll happen.

But the sun is rising and birds are chirping, and Deku has one hand pulling his shirt over his abdomen and another tugging at his cock, hard and thick and heavy. He hasn’t touched himself in so long and this yearning feeling doesn’t do anything to settle it. He spits into his palm and drips it on before setting a pace. His own hand runs carefully up his torso as he remembers your touch. So intimate and so patient. He doesn’t remember a time in his life where anyones touched him like that. You’re the first to ever treat him so gently. Your hands are so small compared to his, compared to him. He towers over you.

He knows all the little expressions you make - happy, sad, excited. He can almost see it when he squeezes his eyes shut hard enough, what you’d look like with your hands wrapped around his cock. How’d you stroke it so patiently, how soft they’d feel - it makes him fuck into his fist. Like if he goes at it hard enough it’ll start to feel like you. He wants to be sated so he holds off on cumming so quickly. He lets himself get impossibly hard and tugs his cock, edges himself till the tip of its stark red.

All he can think of is you. If he got lucky, maybe he could touch you in return. The thought sends him reeling, how your body would feel locked between his palms, massaging your skin. He wants you so bad and he wants to cum, fuck he wants to cum more than he wants anything else. He wants to cum with you, or on you, or inside of you.

“Oh fuck,” ― something guttural leaves his chest as he fantasizes about you calling his name. Not Deku or Midoriya but Izuku ― “Fuck, fuck,”

Izuku, Izuku, Izuku - it’s all he thinks of. Bouncing you so pretty on his lap while you call for him. Touching you in the same way you touched him, burning all over your skin. He wants it so bad he’s drooling. His whole body tightens and he spasms and his fist goes sloppy. He cums so hard he thinks he might see light, and it shoots so thick - all the way up to his chest. It comes out in ropes, hits his chin and keeps spurting until there’s nothing left. His body shakes, little tremors in between each breath. His breath is ragged like he’s been running a marathon. He’s sticky and he has to get up to wash his hands and clean himself off - feeling just slightly ashamed at what just occurred. He’s sure when he wakes up he’ll feel the full force of his embarrassment, and the thought alone makes his heart almost fall out of his ass.

More than anything else though, in the cool fluorescent lights of his bathroom - he examines himself. He hasn’t done that in a long time either, examine his state of being.

The nature of loneliness is that it seeps into you slowly. So slowly you don’t feel it at first. You become so isolated that you forget what it’s like to be in the company of someone. Something happens, and you don’t feel it for a brief moment, and it’s like you can breathe all over again. Someone welcomes you to themselves and you want to stay. When they smile, you want to share in their joy and when hardship troubles you, they carry their burdens on your shoulders. You meet someone, someday, and it clicks that they understand you and you are reminded of how lonely you are and have always been.

It’s nearing 8am and Deku stares at himself in the mirror for the very first time in weeks. The sun peers in through the side windows, yellow golden light making shadows all over his body. He looks at his eyes, his hands, his scars - the muscle patches and he thinks of you. And how the dreadful feeling he’s been avoiding this whole time finds him again. He knows what it’s like to be knocked on your ass, but this feels worse. Heavier, somehow.

Everything he’d been avoiding till now falls into his lap with a sudden force. It’s gut-wrenching but not agonizing. The sort of stomachache you get from knowing instead of not. He wants to go back to right before this, when he didn’t have a word. When he was ignorant to his own needs that he’d been putting off.

Japan’s Sweetheart, All-Mights Successor, Number One Hero - Izuku Midoriya is lonely.

Next Sunday comes so quickly he almost misses it.

It was a busy week, more so than usual. The beginning of the fall season means an increase in organized crime and a decrease in violent crimes. It’s less strenuous physically but an uprise in gang-related or villain organization killings tends to put him under an unusual amount of stress. The whole he was in and out of the agency, tracking evidence with the police and generally working longer hours. Sleeping in and napping at this desk, his assistant putting a jacket on his shoulders as he plants himself face down on his desk.

It’s more of an issue since Deku is... meticulous. He likes to be through in a way a lot of his peers just aren’t and it means he’s double, triple checking every single thing before it goes out in the reports. Tracing and retracing steps - generally stewing over hero work even when he’s asleep. Twice that week he had to jump out of his shower, naked and covered in soap, to jot down some leftover thoughts. No stone unturned and not a single path untaken.

In between all of that, he spends most of his time texting you. Or the other way around, where you give Deku silly updates about your life and he checks them like it’s what's pumping air in his lungs. What you ate and where, your commute to campus, the cat you saw on the street and thought about bringing home. He thinks you’ve caught onto the fact he doesn’t like talking too much about his job. He doesn’t mind it, hearing about things like that. It’s nice that he can reach you. That he doesn’t have to think twice about it and can message you silly little things.

You wonder if it bothers him but he always replies so enthusiastically - prompts the conversation further so he can keep it going. He fills you in on the details of his life much more sparsely, always ends his texts with a sweet little emoji and a polite “thanks for asking ☺” that sends you reeling. He’s cute. It’s a weird way to describe him but that's how you feel. He texts you dawn till dusk, each night sending a short text about everything he did that day. You start to get accustomed to his morning messages and late night texts. It’s the same for him, that soft feeling when he sees your messages.

Sunday shows up on Deku’s door much more quickly than he’s ready for. It’s the first time you’re spending official time together, and he tosses and turns the night before all night. He spends it staring at the ceiling, heart in his stomach - covering his face with his hands and rolling around his sheets. He’s inconsolable until exhaustion takes him out.

He wakes early to work-out and shower - going through his full and most thorough routine. He scrubs his whole body spotless, washes his hair with his expensive co-wash conditioner, and comes out soaking wet. He does the whole nine-yards, a nice and clean lotion, deodorant, his curl cream that he spends a whole scrunching until all the moisture is soaked in. He examines his whole body in the mirror with too much scrutiny before exiting.

He eats breakfast and tries to calm himself down all morning but to no avail, there’s no way to get around the fact he’s incredibly nervous. And now, he’s staring at his closet with regret because of how.. sparse it is. He’s never taken time to purchase anything.. nice unless it’s for a hero gala. His closet is split evenly between formal wear and athleisure but nothing casual really.

He sighs a little as he digs through the back of his closet. He manages to find an old pair of jeans - a light-washed pair that he fits a little tightly over his figure. He probably shouldn’t dress too nice, he doesn’t wanna look like a try-hard. But he also wants you to know he cares about being presentable.

He ends up with a white v-neck and a grey windbreaker overtop, snatching a headband to secure his hair so it stays out of his face. He wears a different pair of shoes, grey to match his jacket. He feels like he looks stupid, really. He takes the jacket on and off, switches shirts, but keeps the jeans and always ends up with the same outfit. He decides he’s being stupid about it at the very end, and leaves.

It’d be a lie to say that Deku hadn’t thought about today at all.

He has thought about it. Just a little. When he packs up to leave his house for the day, he grabs his bag of groceries for curry-making, his facemask and a hat, his water bottle and his keys. Including a set of keys for a brand new car, specially purchased by his assistant after he very awkwardly asked him about cars and how to go about buying one.

Deku has no experience with car stuff, and it was too embarrassing to ask Kacchan. And his assistant wouldn’t ask any questions about why his boss, who’d been commuting for almost 4 years, decided to buy a car. He also wouldn’t question why he wanted one that made him seem.. put together. And why he didn’t put a limit on the spending.

If Deku is anything these days, it’s well off. A car is only a mild dent in his expenses but the only thing he spends money on is his mom and sometimes some hero merch that goes on sale. If he finds a surplus, he writes off some donations and calls it a day.

He has to admit, it’s a bit much. Maybe more than a bit and it’s been a while since he’s driven. He normally ends up being designated driver when he goes out with his friends, and one too many times - he’s dragged out drunk employees from bars when they’ve had a little too much during company dinners.

He leaves the house in something of a hurry. It’s cloudy above, all grey and dreary. Clouds stick to each other in big clumps as he walks into his garage. Over the years, it’s just been a collection of old knick-knacks and tools. It’s the first time he’s used it for its purpose.

He slides in the front seat and turns the ignition, listening to the revv. He does a little laugh at how truly ridiculous it is - the briefest moment of self-awareness passing by in a flash. He uses his phone to open his garage door and close it before backing out and heading down the road.

Your apartment complex is exactly two blocks from the convenience store, like you’d promise. He parks on the side of the road, punching in his time on the parking meter before grabbing his things from the front seat. He goes through everything, including a small welcoming gift from his mom in the form of some pickled radish.

He jogs to your complex and heads into the lobby - finding the machine and pressing the little button on the door. He leans forward, clearing his throat.

“Hey, I’m here,”

A beat passes before he hears your reply.

“I’ll let you up now,”

There’s a loud buzz and unlocking sound. Deku steps inside and is greeted with an elevator. Third floor, 4th door on the right. He repeats it to himself as he steps onto the elevator, a soft yellow light illuminating him as he feels his weight press down. He presses number three and waits - listening to elevator music for what feels like ages. It stops at the second floor and an old lady enters. He bows immediately, out of habit. She’s small and frail, carrying just one bag in her hands.

“Oh.. my. What a handsome young man,” ― she comments, give him a once over ― “You must be visiting on the third floor,”

His eyes go wide.

“Oh! Thank you and yes, I’m here to see a.. friend,” he trails off. She gives him a warm smile, laughing.

“A friend, is it? Well. Tell her I say hello. All that young lady does is go to work and go to school. It’s nice to see her.. friend visiting her,”

He blushes a little at the implication. His skin grows a little hot as she laughs again.

“Ah.. yes ma’am,”

By the time the conversation is over, the elevator doors open to the third floor. Apartment doors lined up stretch across the way, and he turns around to give the old lady another bow. She gives him a wave before the doors close again and with that she’s gone. He’s still a little flustered by the interaction so he gathers himself before finding your door. Fourth door down, he walks towards it.

He stares at the wood, painted a dark blue with a little decoration on it. Another lungful of air and with a shaking hand, he gives three meek knocks. He waits a moment, and hears some rustling on the other side and in another few, it swings open.

When he finds you in the doorway, he feels his lungs go short of air. It almost feels like something out of a movie. You’re wearing an apron and casual clothes - and he realizes this is the first time he’s ever seen all of you out of uniform. A cotton t-shirt and half-way nice sweatpants on your hips - you greet him a little out of breath. A sheen of sweat, your chest heaving, you still smile when you see him.

“Hey, sorry,” ― you wheeze, brushing something out of your eyes ― “Was trying to get my fitted sheet on before you came in. It didn’t agree with me,”

There is something about seeing you that makes Deku’s heart feel like it’s taking a seat at the dinner table. He really can’t describe it, doesn’t know how to word it poetically or pace it in a way that makes sense. He’s always been good at controlling himself. He’s seldom anything but idle. His feelings are absorptions, the world around him shapes the clay of his very nature. Without rhyme or reason or anything in between - he’s always thought to trust it. To let it happen. To let things happen to him, just so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

His everything can be traced back to a sense of justice ingrained in him so deeply, there is no way to know himself without it. His feelings aren’t his, he knows this. He is simply an amalgam - the corkboard in which the hero world pins their travesties on. In his whole life, all the years he’s been alive, he’s known this much about himself. From the inside out and back again, he knows he is wholly a reflection. His sense of self is fragile at best.

Seeing you ignites in him the strangest feelings. His feelings - so uniquely his that he doesn’t even know how to feel them. How to navigate these emotions that fester in his heart, and how just your presence has this guiding hand. How his heart takes a seat at the dinner table, the kind of meal where there is only a single light and another person. In a moment so brief, he zones out and looks at you and there is this ache. A reminder that he is so real and so human it rubs him raw. He stares at you dazed and you smile, unknowingly, and chat to him about everything you like.

How strange is love but a reminder that you exist.

“I’m rambling aren’t I?” ― you shake your head a little, before stepping aside ― “Welcome to my humble abode! I bought some slippers this weekend that should fit you,”

He smiles at you, and it’s warm and inviting.

“Yeah.. thanks,”

He takes his shoes off and puts them on the rack before slipping his feet into the house slippers you’ve set out. They’re a bright green, covered in little frogs. He laughs a little at them, as you step beside him. He gives it a look around - the place looks just like you. It’s well-lived in, like a home and not just a place to live in. There’s random knick-knacks everywhere, a consistent color scheme, and other little decorations. A stack of books in one place, an open card-game.

“You might wanna take your jacket off,” ― you say amused, watching as he slides it over his shoulders ― “Today you’re my student,”

He laughs at that and takes his jacket off, where you let it rest on the arm of one couch. He picks up the bags you’d asked him for.

“My mom told me I should bring something so she packed up some pickled radish for you,” ― he says sheepishly, handing you the bag ― “She was excited to hear that I was spending my weekend with someone who isn’t her,”

You grab the bag and peer inside, a jar of pickled radishes - purple in hue, waiting for you. You look between it and him, smiling a little.

“You.. told your mom you were coming to see me?”

He realizes a moment too late what it sounds like. His green eyes go wide as he stutters over his next sentence.

“I tell my mom everything,”

You snort a laugh at him, grabbing the rest of his bags. He gives you a little pout, nose wrinkling in embarrassment.

“Well.. tell your mom I said thank you. Maybe take her some curry home and show off your new skills,” ― you tease, easy and effortless, but you’re staring at him a little longer than you need too ― “I appreciate it,”

He gives you a lopsided smile.

“C’mere, the kitchens this way. I’m gonna worry you’re not gonna fit,” you confess. He has to duck underneath, just a little bit - and he doesn’t have to do much to touch the ceiling. He fits just fine, much to your relief. He looks in your kitchen, quaint. There’s a window above the sink filled with fresh herbs in a nice little planter with a light above. A cat timer.

“How skilled are you at cooking, would you say? Like.. none at all? Or just not very much?”

He scratches the back of his neck, trying to remember the last time he made something.

“Uhm.. we made curry during a training camp in highschool, but I think that’s the last time,”

You give wide eyes before shaking your head.

“You’re hopeless.. but that’s why I’m here,”

He watches as you roll your sleeves up as if you’re getting into gear. He’s glad he wore short sleeves.

“Wash your hands first,” you tell him. He immediately steps the sink and washes his hands as he hears some clatter in the background. You’re looking through your oven. He watches as you grab a cutting board and a small knife.

“All clean?”

He nods. You smile at him.

“I got everything ready before you got here because I had.. a feeling you would be very clumsy. But I will whip you into shape,” you scold, stern. He blushes a little.

“Yes ma’am,”

You giggle a little bit. On the kitchen island is a bunch of ingredients lined up on the table.

“We’re gonna make Japanese curry - it’s a little sweeter and milder than Thai or Indian kinds. It’s a lot easier since the roux is premade. And it’ll last you some days in the fridge. Today we’ll make it with chicken since I assume you need protein,” ― you explain to him pointedly. When you look over at him, he looks so concentrated, you almost laugh ― “We’ll cut the vegetables first, and then the meat. After everything is prepped, we’ll work on the sauce and cook everything. Sound doable?”

“I’ll try my best,”

You frown at him.

“Come on Mr. Deku, where’s the confidence?”

He laughs aloud when you call him that, straightening up a little bit. He gives you a one hand salute and you fall out. It’s so warm.. so welcoming.

“We’re not gonna do anything really complicated because it’s your first time. I’ll cut an onion and then you’ll do the next one. If you do a good job.. I’ll give you a pack of electrolyte gels,” you grin.

“Wow.. what a prize. Sure wouldn’t wanna miss on that,”

“Exactly,” ― you take an onion and steady it on the cutting board ― “Now watch me okay? First you wanna cut it half and place the flat edge down on the board,”

He follows along, making mental notes in his head.

“Now you see this part? This is the root end. We’re gonna do a large dice, so make sure you don’t cut it off. We can cut off this paper bit at the end though.. then we’re just gonna go through the middle. See that?”

Another nod, he watches as the knife slices through the middle part. You don’t cut the ends.

“Now it’s in half, so you’re gonna cut in the middle of those. 3 cuts vertically, 3 horizontally. You got it?”

“I.. think so. It doesn’t look too bad so far,”

“Good. I’m gonna show you the speed I normally do this at but you can go slow. We have all day,”

Warmth spreads through his whole body at the words “We have all day,” so soothing to his heart. His stomach fills with butterflies, loud and desperate but he nods.

“Yeah.. right,”

You show him this time, the normal speed at which you cut through your vegetables. His eyes go wide at the speedy sound of the cutting board. He wants to tell you to be careful but he doesn’t think he has the right.

“Okay. I’m gonna put these in the bowl over here and now it’s your turn,”

You switch sides, carefully moving the first half of the onion into a small bowl before placing the next one. For a man.. a hero, so tall and powerful - he looks unusually nervous. He goes for the knife, but picks it up so unsafely, you gasp aloud.

“Woah there.. getting a little eager, are we?”

He puts the knife down like it’s evil and steps away, and you breathe a laugh through your nose.

“Here.. hold your hand out,”

He does and you carefully take the knife and place it in his palms. You use your hand to curl his fingers around him, then gently guide his hands. He stutters a little and grips the butt of the knife more tight than he needs.

“Look.. see. You have to handle it like this so you don’t cut yourself. Go slowly,”

“Oh.. that feels a lot better,”

You laugh again and he gets to cutting.

He goes slow.. very slow. It feels awkward at first but he gets through it. He manages to cut the first onion into all of it’s pieces with all of his fingers together. It takes at least 10 minutes, yes - but your cheerleading makes him feel good about it.

You hold your hand to high-five him when it’s all over and he laughs and high-fives you back. He’s so pretty when he laughs, all crinkled eyes and summery - you stumble when you hear him, flushing.

“Onto the next,”

You guide him through how to cut potatoes, then carrots. After your demonstrations on the cutting board, Deku takes at least double the time you do to cut each thing. But you cheer him on each time, floating around him and never leaving him too long to his own devices. You show him how to cut everything, even garlic (which he likes because he just has to smash at it to get it small) and eventually all the veggies are chopped.

You don’t have him touch the chicken, say it’s probably too much for the first time - but you demonstrate it. He takes note of every step, hearing words he’s never heard in his entire life. You have to let the fond build, the veggies sweat, and all sorts of other things. He learns you normally don’t measure, so every measurement out of your mouth is more a guess than anything. You promise to write down a recipe for him, anyways.

It starts smelling good after you add the onions - like his mothers kitchen. He hasn’t had a proper homemade meal in a week and his stomach growls with intensity. He watches as you build a sauce out of thin air. A curry roux cube, 4 cups of water, some sugar, some soy-sauce and ketchup. It fascinated him.. seemingly random things all coming together and making something so familiar. It looks good. He feels good that he helped even a little.

It’s taken a while, maybe 2 hours and some change, though he’s sure if he did it alone - it’d be even longer. For you, it’s probably the longest it’s ever taken, but if that’s the case, it doesn’t show on your face.

In the last leg of the curry making, you direct him to wear all the cutlery in your little apartment.

“There’s some beer in the fridge too, if you want. Other stuff too, but I thought a drink would be good for relaxing,”

“A beer would be great. Do you want one too?”

“Hm.. yeah, actually. That’d be awesome,, thank you Midoriya,”

He waves of your thank you and goes off to rummage your kitchen. He knows how to set a table at least. He grabs the beers first, placing them on coasters, before going to get the rest. Two plates and two spoons, and a bowl to keep some sides in. He sets everything up all nice, clearing the space out.

He hears the stove click off, getting out of your way as you put on some oven mitts. You take a deep breath as you lift, the savory smell filling the small kitchen.

“Woo, it’s hot,” ― you huff, setting it down on a mat on the counter ― “It’s still burbling so I’ll give it a second before I serve it,”

Next, you bring the white rice that's been sitting on the counter since before he got here, on warm for who knows how long. You pick it up out of the rice cooker and set it next to the curry, hurrying to get another bowl. You portion out some pickled radishes in the smaller bowl. and then spoon rice into the bigger one. You put one portion on Dekus and one on yours.

“Don’t be shy about getting more,”

You pour it out evenly, a stream of hot curry surrounding pristine white rice. It looks and smells good, unexpectedly. He’s so surprised it’s not a disaster, he laughs as he watches you do it. Piece of chicken thigh, potatoes, and onions float in the sauce and he can barely stop himself from eating.

“It’s been so long since I’ve had something someone else made,”

“Aw c’mon, you made this!”

He gives you a look and you laugh as you spoon yourself a portion.

“Okay.. we made it. But you helped! And you learned a lot, right?”

He chuckles, shaking his head.

“I definitely learned a lot but you’re the teacher,” ― he leans forward, palm on his cheek as he stares at you. Straight out of a daydream, painfully handsome ― “How’d I do teach?”

You mimic him teasingly, legs crossed, tapping your foot in the air.

“Hm.. I’d give you a solid 8/10 for your first time. No cuts, and your chopping was actually pretty good,”

He brightens at the praise.

“Really? Good enough for electrolyte gel packs?”

You laugh so hard you bend over yourself.

“Yeah.. yeah definitely.”

“Nice job, Midoriya.”

“All thanks to my teacher, super wise.”

You bow your head a little and he claps for you.

Wordlessly, he cracks both of your bottles open with seamless strength, returning them to their spot on the table.

“It should be cool enough to eat now,”

He bows his head and so do you.

“Itadakimasu,”

___

He feels warm.

After your meal in the afternoon, you and Deku continue to drink into the late night. He makes sure to watch himself - knowing he’ll have to drive himself home. You drink just a little more, not enough that you’re a mess. But your defences are lowered, and you’re sleepy. Maybe even a little giggly too. Beer bottle sit on the coffee table that separates the two of you

You sit adjacent to each other. He has his legs crossed, table pushed back so he can get all of him comfortably between the couch and table. You have your knees up, chin resting against one of them as your arms wrap around your legs. You’re all smiles, all warmth.

“I had fun today,” you muse, voice softer than a whisper. He glances at you, nodding.

“Me too,” ― he admits, voice barely above a whisper ― “It’s been a long time since I’ve spent time without someone.”

“Aw, what, your mom doesn’t count?”

He laughs a little.

“Just teasin’. Me too.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. It’s just work, then school, then work. All on a loop. I don’t get much time off.”

“...Is there a particular reason for it?”

“Tryna get to know me, Midoriya?” you tease. He chuckles.

“Caught red-handed.”

It makes your heart flutter. To hear him tell him to your face that he’s interested in you. You rub your feet together nervously.

“I don’t see a lot of my parents. I’ve always taken care of things on my own. It’s hard, but..” ― you confess to him voice, weary, and worn out ― “‘s not all bad. Stressful. It gets lonely, but I think it’ll be okay in the end”

“What about you, Pro-Hero Deku?,”

He laughs uncomfortably, a tight lipped smile on his mouth.

“What about me?”

“D’you get lonely a lot..?”

His gut reaction is almost violent, a spear through his chest. The blood is already in his mouth, the bitterness of heroism deep in his gut. He shakes his head at the panic and how it stirs inside of him.

“No.. I.. well -.”

“You must, right?” ― you let out a soft yawn, face so squished it’s hard to hear you talk. You struggle to get the words out ― “You’re the number one hero, All Might successor. Must be busy, right?”

“You should sleep soon,” ― his voice is strained.. it aches in his throat. He can’t tell you to stop, but he can’t bear to listen either so he gets ready to appease you ― “You’ve had a lot to drink,”

“I’m sober, Midoriya. Mostly, anyway. Just sleepy.. I’m just sayin.”

“I notice it in you sometimes,” ― you hum, lifting your head to look at him ― “You always hesitate to say things. But.. ‘sokay to admit things are hard. Life is hard for your average schmuck like me.”

He laughs a little.

“You’re not a schmuck.”

“Maybe not but I’m no hero, either. It’s hard for me and I bet it’s hard for you too. That’s okay, you know? You’re still.. still a person. And to me, you’re just Midoriya. A guy with a hard job. And cool scars.”

He stares down at the beer bottle he’s been nursing in his lap for god knows how long and feels something shift inside of him. It’s tectonic, the way his whole body shifts its weight. A steady build, like a geyser - everything coming to a head inside of him. It’s so heavy, this burden that makes his shoulders slump. He really doesn’t mean to get choked up like this. He’ll blame the alcohol but there’s more to it than that. Much more about why he’s splitting apart at the seams.

It must be that you are nothing like anyone he knows. And it breaks him, tears him apart like how people crack eggs - he feels soft and yellow like a yolk, any moment and he’ll break. He doesn’t know how it happens, but he cries. Quiet and steady at first but slowly he can’t keep holding it. It’s a crescendo, a cacophony of all of his misery. He cries then sobs. So loudly it’s almost violent. It cracks and thunders, and suddenly he’s an open wound on your living room floor. He finds himself sobbing so pathetically he doesn’t know what to do. The backs of his palms are rubbing his eyes and in between each choked breath, he’s trying to tell you he’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine.

But suddenly, your body is pressed around him. You’ve slotted yourself next to him on your knees and you pull his whole body onto you. The weight of his torso ends up in your arms. You hold him and you run your hands over your back and he cries and it’s so ugly. It’s ugly and loud.

He’s so raw from emotions and all he can hear is you and your voice, shushing him quietly. He clings to you for life. It’s so unusual for him.. to cry like this. Over something like this. Maybe because it’s the first time in four years he’s admitted to himself something so small.

It’s so hard. God.. it’s all so hard.

He sobs into your neck, uncontrollable and you don’t say a word. You melt your body into his.

Before he knows it, your body is shaking too. You’re crying and clinging to each other and everything in the world is blind with your tears. You hold each other desperately, your loneliness stuck together like it can’t be pulled apart.

On the floor of your living room, the rain outside pours in heavy sheets. And Izuku Midoriya cries into your shoulder, tipsy and tender from the force of your words. His stomach is tied and eventually he can’t help but cling to you. He wants to hold you in his arms but he doesn’t know how to ask. How does he approach you? Why can't he take the hand you’ve put out for him?

“Midoriya,” ― you whisper hoarsely, stroking his hair ― “You can trust me.”

He sobs a little harder at that. You almost don’t hear him at first, the way his voice falls apart as you listen to it.

“I’m sorry for crying.”

You can’t help but laugh. You keep holding him, just a little tighter.

“It’s okay,” you hum “It’s gonna be okay,”

He believes you when you say it. He believes you when you hold him. He believes you when you say he can trust you, and with every part of him - he wants to love you. He wants to give it all back tenfold. This selfish feeling that festers in the cracks of his heart, this yearning - he doesn’t have any choice but to call it love.

If he were more sober, and less tired - he’d probably be losing his mind at the thought. To call something love, to call this love. It makes him feel like he’s losing his mind but right now all he can focus on is you and the way your heart rests. He’s thinking of your hands and how gentle they feel on his skin and how he’s holding you. How relieving it is to hold someone.

“It’s hard sometimes,” ― he confesses, all jagged edges ― “I don’t regret it.. not ever. But it’s hard sometimes.”

You run your fingers through his curls just a little, soft and gentle.

“Yeah.. I bet it is.”

___

Izuku Midoriya believes firmly in one thing.

He believes love, above all else, must be a choice.

At the very least, you must have some choice in love. If you intend to love someone, or love anything for a long time - you have to choose it everytime. He thinks loving people is like that. A series of decisions we make in order to show or prove it. We choose love. It finds us and then we get to choose how we harbor it. He thinks he’s something of a hopeless idealist, in every aspect of his life. About everything in the world, he wants to do it in the most poetic way. He wants his whole life to be shrouded in the feeling that he’s doing something beautiful.

He could call justice something of a first love. In that way he does everything for it. That he chooses to fight for it, to contribute to it everyday he’s alive.

He thinks love itself is a choice but he thinks falling in love is the only decision in your life you have no control over. He thinks loving you, in particular, is something that happened to him rather than something he looked for. Falling for you the first time he saw you, he had no part in it.

But hopelessly and endlessly searching for you - just maybe that had something to do with him.

After the night in your apartment, you make him comfortable and send him home with some curry and warm regards. Of all the nights he’d gone home feeling lonely, that night had been the hardest. There was this desire out of his control that he’d been ignoring for so long but it all came to a tide that night. The longing was borderline unbearable and since then, he’s had to take a long hard look at himself and at this.. all of this.

Izuku Midoriya can admit to himself after all of this that he’s a little helplessly in love with you. He hasn’t stopped seeing you, either. On Sundays, every other Sunday, he drops by your place for little cooking lessons. He misses when he was ignoring it and he could just enjoy your company but now your every movement has something feeling hot under his skin. He finds himself daydreaming about you on the job and his heart feels like it’s gonna burst out of his chest.

But, this is the first time he’s ever been..in love. It’s the first time he’s ever felt something so strongly and it’s more terrifying than it is romantic. He feels like he’s been blindsided by something and he stays up into the late hours of the night, counting off all the reasons it won’t work out.

It’s what he’s best at, thinking of every possible outcome. You could always find someone who could be with you more and move on, and maybe you’re not even interested in Deku. It’s always possible you just think you are. He thinks a lot of things are possible and he focuses on the worst case scenario each time. It’s easier not to set up expectations that way. If anything happens, he’ll be ready for it.

But with you, the worst case scenario is that he confesses and you reject him - and you disappear out of his life. He knows rationally that it’s unlikely, but he thinks about it and something in him breaks profoundly. There’s another situation where you remain friends but you fall for someone else and it makes him almost sick.

All of it is gut-wrenching. For so long, he’s had any number of defenses up. A busy schedule, the burden of work, short answers and the redirection of those prying questions - he’s gotten so good at making sure no one gets past them. It’s rare that anyone has even noticed. His heart is so many layers deep. Only a few people know, namely Kacchan and his mom and All Might.

And then there’s you, with soft hands, tearing through all the ground and rooting him up from Earth. You who digs his heart from the ground and holds it up to the warmth of your love.

It burns so hot he feels like he can’t get close to it. When he thinks of you, he thinks of all of his short-comings. He thinks of all the things he can’t be for you.

But he can’t get himself to let go either, and when your hands reach into his ribs and take his heart, he doesn’t shake you off to stop it. He lets it happen, lets you consume his every breath. All over his body are the sensations of you and your touches - ghostly in his memory.

Izuku Midoriya thinks love is a choice and he knows he can’t take back the one to love you.

He just.. doesn’t know what to do with all of it.

___

The day is so long it bleeds.

That’s the best way he knows how to describe it, really. It’s longer than ever because daylights all soaked up before 8pm, and it’s so dark it webs across the city without patience. After a day like today, it’s all he can see for miles. Darkness for miles and miles - the path of it sunken and terrible.

He’s had a lot of days like this in his life, as a hero - there are always lives you can’t save. People who don’t make it out of the disaster, people you miss, people who get trapped. Dekus sees things so gruesome it makes his skin crawl, seeping into him while he’s awake. He has nightmares and he takes medication to manage all of it. Goes to therapy when he can. No amount of conversation could really make it go away but it’s nice to tell someone his feelings.

Deku still doesn’t know how to deal with something so inevitable such as loss. As a hero it’s never easy.

After months of stagnation in the villain case, the one that he had to solve with Kacchan, there was finally word of activity. Normally in situations like that - groups will simply disband or dissolve because of the lack of members and it goes cold before anything else can happen. It’s rare that anything ever comes out of it later, it just sort of disappears after the first big arrest.

He figures that would be the case today too. After getting on his shift, about an hour into it, he gets pings from every direction. A villain attacks on the east side, only a few blocks from his route. It’s an emergency, CODE E - meaning it was a big mass of destruction and that other heroes were on the way.

He was on it before he could think twice, feet moving faster than his head as he activates a steady 8% for speed, jumping over buildings and skipping traffic until he ends up on the overhead of the scene. From the view above he can practically taste the chaos. It’s a big build-up of cop-cars around the scene. There’s people everywhere, first responders, evacuating all nearby residents. There’s already been some explosions and destruction but no serious injuries.

When he finally gets down, he meets with the police chief, Kacchan, and Todoroki - all of them breaking down the situation carefully to him. He comes to learn that the leader of the organization is holed up in one of those buildings and that he’s hysterical.

Human beings are incredibly fragile. They crack and shatter and splinter like glass under the pressure of life. Every person in the world is capable of bad things. The unimaginable becomes possible when you remember how briefly we bask in goodness. It’s not that humanity is evil but it’s fragile.

He learns about the boy inside - he’s young, just 18. He’s a highschool student. He learns about his whole life, abusive family and suffering. His list of traumas make his gut wrench just to listen too and Kacchan has that solemn look in his eyes that he only gets when he knows things will end badly. He details to Deku all of his miseries and Deku listens like his heart is made of lead.

“So where are we?”

Kacchan tells Deku that he’s inconsolable and his name is Yamato and doesn’t say a word more. Deku gives him that pleading look that he always has when it gets to be like this, but Todoroki is quick to put a hand on his shoulder and shake his head. It’s not in them to give up on anyone, hero or villain - so it makes his stomach clench.

Deku gets told to help the other heroes clear the area out and take care of civilians and with that he’s sent away. It tears him apart, the knowing and the dread. The dread of it all is so, so heavy.

At 7pm, the sun is set completely, and he gets word that he’s dead. It’s over, just like that. In a moment another person - gone , and his name was Yamato and he was 18. Just like that. Human life is so fragile. We only live briefly and we do it so delicately it’s impossible to know the outcome. Deku thinks of all the things he could’ve been and he finds himself on a bench in front of his agency, crying his eyes out for a kid he doesn’t know.

Loss is always a part of the job. There will always be someone, something that you can’t change. He knows it’s important to remember the good things but today, the world is dark at 7pm and Deku is wiping his tears with the back of his gloved hands. He’s sad about all of it. He’s sad he couldn’t change anything. The helpless feeling about this job and the loneliness. It will never be enough no matter how much he fights. There will always be a life he can’t save.

He’s told to go home that day, a little earlier than normal. It’s ironic, on a day he knows you don’t have work. After everything happens, he takes their advice and goes back to his agency. All he hears when he’s there is condolences. They know how it is.. how he is on days like today.

The day is so long it bleeds. When darkness hits, it still feels like time is stuck in the same place. It dries and scabs and itches.

He’s planning on going home today and resting. The most you know is that he has a day off, he got sent home earlier because of a case but he hasn’t told you the details.

He gets a text from you not long after he tells you.

from 7/11 girl ; oh! do you wanna come over for dinner then?

He stares at the message for a long while. It’s a moment in which his body moves before he can think

to 7/11 girl ; i’d love too.

He ends up at your doorstep with all of his belongings still in his arms.

Shifting his weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other, a shaky breath enters his lungs. His heart rate is rapid and the feeling of regret is tying his hands to his sides, finding it impossible to reach his hand up and knock. His head is going a million miles an hour, racing with the thoughts of remorse. Reprimanding himself for being selfish, trying to see you in this state. He should just go home and call it a night, there’s still time for that.

Another text pings his phone, startling him out of his thoughts.

from 7/11 girl ; i’m glad you’re coming over. i was getting a little lonely today.

He takes a deep breath, just trying to gather himself, and raises his trembling hand to knock on the door. He winces at the meekness of the sound, unconfident. Each second that passes by is another of him contemplating leaving. He could leave it all here, he could leave, he could leave, he could leave.

The door swings open, and there you are in a big comfortable hoodie and shorts that hit your knee and mismatched socks. Deku stares at you with wide emerald eyes and you look back at him, smiling with your teeth.

He can’t leave.

Your eyes widen at the sight of him. He trembles like a telephone wire in a storm, uncentered and shaking desperately. You catch it, that despair in his eyes before he can blink it away and it has you stopping dead in your tracks. All of his things are still in his arms and he’s covered in grime. His hand quivers as it clutches his bags to his body. He racks his eyes over you, no words coming. Just a gaping mouth, gasping like a fish out of water, struggling to speak,

“Midoriya,” ― you press forward, brows furrowed together ― “Are you okay?”

Is he okay? No, not particularly. His mouth opens, then closes, then opens again and he stares at you for a long while. Slowly at the seams is where it always starts, falling into nothingness.

Love is an abyss, he thinks to himself. That must be where the phrase falling in love comes from. He is on the cliff as he looks at you, rock crumbling and breaking beneath his feet the longer he stands in your doorway. The uncertainty that comes from that darkness, looming and inviting. It calls to him with the voice loud enough to sweep nations to dust. He sees you, and you look like a clump of stars - burning hotly in the stark obsidian night. You are the silver lining, the muse, the answer. To Izuku Midoriya, you are everything and some change. You’re the girl he meets at 7/11, the one who puts muscle patches on his back, and teaches him to cook and makes him feel like he exists. So alive it almost makes him sick. He is nauseous at the way love has him acting.

There is a brief moment before you jump into open waters, or darkness, or anything that requires you to fall with no promise of land - that your head is completely clear. Only after you’ve leaped, the action set in motion, do you know what the right choice was.

Deku understands it briefly, the cost of his actions. The consequence of choosing love, taking it - the hand held out. He understands, for just one moment, that love is one step in the door. That love is right there but he has to reach for it, to feel it. He won’t know unless he jumps.

“Midoriya..?”

He reaches for you. He steps one foot in the door and drops his bags to the side of him and he shuts the door and he reaches for love.. for you. Just this one time.

His arms wrap around your shoulders like vines and he clings to you for dear life. His face is buried in the nape of your neck and his body feels like it’s submerging in the darkness. He feels like he’s falling, so far he can’t see what was before this. He holds you tight and your hands snake around his waist.

“Midoriya,”

“Izuku” he corrects hoarsely.

“Izuku..”

You decide that the first thing he should do is bathe.

“You can take a shower in my..”

His eyes are round and worrisome. Gruesomely exhausted. You don’t think you could tell him to be in there alone in good conscience - no matter how willingly he would accept. He hasn’t stopped touching you in some way, something silently inside of him aching to hold you. You can feel all the places he holds back, a violent force. With Midoriya.. with Izuku - you find sometimes you have to force yourself inside of his boundaries.

He’s holding your hand and staring at it, dark rounds underneath his lower lash line. You reach your hand out a little further as he sits, and press your palm against his cheek. Your thumb brushes underneath his eyes and he smiles a little.

“We can take a bath together,”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,”

“You won’t,”

It takes a little convincing and you worry he’s too tender for it but he just nods and closes his eyes. Leaning into your touch, he moves his mouth to kiss your wrist and then looks at you as you flush. Still uncomfortable with this touch - the intimacy of his hold has your breath shaking in your lungs.

“C’mon with your clothes. My bathroom is pretty big so you should fit in it just fine but it might be a bit tight,”

He nods, absent and soft. You watch as he takes his things from his bag and stands - eyes immediately searching for you like a small animal. He takes your hands in his but nudges you to guide him and gives you a soft smile as you flush. Just moments ago he was clinging to you but it feels different somehow.

You lead him to your bathroom and it’s a nice size. It’s a little bit wider, with a small closet and a tub that he thinks you could both fit in. There’s a big, wide mirror on the wall and on the counter there’s skincare and makeup. He smiles at it, only frowning when you let go of his hand. He watches as you run the bathwater hot and go into your closet for towels and soaps of all kinds. He stands awkwardly, his own nerves just starting to catch up to him. It’s mostly overshadowed with desire.. with yearning that stretches across the sun at least 3 times.

You’re still turned around as you speak.

“You should.. uhm.. undress,” you say, stiff as a board. His eyes go wide and he flushes a bit.

“Oh! Uhm.. yeah, right,” ― he coughs, heart in his throat ― “Are you…?”

You nod, meek.

“Yeah..”

He can’t mask his shock, nor the immediate twitch in his jeans that he spends a few minutes managing before carefully undressing. His shirt first comes off, slides over his shoulder blades and comes completely off.

After that, it’s his pants and socks, until he’s left with nothing but boxers hanging on his hips. He hesitates a little to take them off, so he does it with a deep breath. He’s self-conscious of it, his physique so bare. He doesn’t remember the last time anyones seen him completely naked and it makes his heart stammer uncomfortably.

You turn to him, shyly grazing over at him before closing your own eyes and taking your clothes off. Deku watches you with a bated breath, mouth catch flies as you slide your hoodie off to reveal nothing underneath - same as your basketball shorts. They simply fall to the floor and you’re naked. Your whole body is under his eyes with scrutiny and you find yourself covering your body with your hands almost inadvertently.

It comes out as a clumsy and confused gasp - with more vigor than he means.

“You’re beautiful,” and you can tell he means it with the way he blinks and just looks, over again. You flush a little, wanting the Earth to swallow you up. But he’s so.. gentle. So easy.

“...You should get in the water,” ― you tell him, reaching for something ― “I picked a bathbomb out so..”

He stops, lips turned in the corner before nodding. The water is hot and full and Deku steps inside of it, bending down and securing himself to the wall with the showerhead and faucet. The water relaxes the tenseness out of his muscles almost immediately, eyes going heavy. He looks at you, and watches you prepare yourself. You drop your hands and steel your nerves, softly walking towards him.

“D’you want me to sit on the other side…?”

He shakes his head, feeling hesitant.

“No uhm.. if it’s okay. I thought you could sit.. y’know. So I can.. hold you,” he explains sheepishly. You nod.

“That’s okay. I’d.. I think I’d like that,”

So you do. He widens the space between his legs as much as possible and lets you step inside the warm water. It sloshes around the tub, just a little as you adjust but eventually, you end up right between his legs bare naked. He has to shake any inappropriate thoughts away, especially with you so close in his reach. He watches idly as you reach over the side of the tub for a bath caddy you placed on the floor, just before getting in. You take the bath bomb from the middle compartment, and drag it to the water.

You hold it as it fizzes, still a big gap between you and him. He stares at you for a while. It’s tense, steamy air clouding your air and inhibitions.

“You can come closer,” he assures you, voice barely there. You freeze, looking over at him from one of your shoulders and you nod. Your lips are tucked between your teeth but you scoot back and you can feel.. him a little more. More than anything, you can feel the way his arms lock around your middle. Your back is on his chest, his arms circled tight around your waist. He tucks his chin over one of your shoulders and leans you back into him - just enough. Just so it’s comfortable and close.

It’s more intimate than everything you’ve ever felt in your life. The touch of his naked body, scarred skin - your hands are still holding the bath bomb. He presses his cheek to your shoulder as he watches. He’s amused by how the colors turn indefinitely. It smells a little bit like vanilla, a soft sugary scent permeating through the water. It’s green. He wonders if that was on purpose.

The weight of you rests in the crooks of him. You reside in this space in his arms, intimately. Your skin is soft to the touch and the water is warm - with two bodies it never gets too cold. For a while, all he does is hold you. He holds you indiscriminately, nothing extra to his actions. Not lust nor tragedy but just something pure and basic, the need to feel love through someone else's hands. Skin to skin, soft and gentle. It’s quiet and wordless.

With your body resting on his, you lift your head to look up at him briefly. You watch him with interest.

“What happened today, Izuku?”

He lets out a deep sigh, his voice scratchy and worn.

“On the job today.. one of the villains. Uhm.. he was really young. No one could talk him out of it no matter what he tried,” ― he tells you wearily ― “He.. didn’t make it. It just happened and then everything just kept happening. Loss and stuff like that is normal for hero work, but I can never.. get used to it.”

“...That’s good, that you can’t” you reply. He looks confused.

“That’s good..?”

“It means you have your humanity still intact inside of you. If you still get sad over people, no matter how mundane, then it means you still haven’t been.. desensitized from all of it. Means that you still care,” you explain to him gently “It was hard wasn’it?”

His voice trembles as he holds you closer, so impossibly close to him. The world is dark but you are like sunlight, brilliant. He mumbles something under his breath, rubbing his face into your skin like a cat might. You find it endearing.

“Yeah it was.. It was hard,” ― his voice is a breeze, feathery ― “It was a really hard day today and I was just gonna… I was gonna go home and then you texted me.”

You smile a little at that. It goes quiet again.

“Can I.. tell you something?”

“Yeah.. what is it?”

He shifts, and his voice becomes slow - it’s like the moment right before a fan's blades swirl. That moment where everything feels like it’s being set in motion, the drag of it. The inertia that builds - this is the very start of something so beautiful it spins.

“I love you,” ― he whispers, right into your shoulder blade with the weight of a million lives - and his too, right in the crook of your neck ― “I love you..”

The weight of the world, of heroism, or selfless acts and martyrdom - all of it falls onto the water below. He’s so tired, worn out. You think this is his way of asking you, if it’s alright to share this part of myself.

I’ve cut myself into so many parts, can you take this one? he says, without words but with hands Will you take the heart I’ve kept locked away and hold it? Will you take the only part of me that is still whole?

You find something deep inside of you. It’s unruliness. Everything in the world that is ugly has stopped, falling in front of your feet and the loneliness that itches inside of you suddenly melts. Like a popsicle in the summer sun, it fades away into pure sugar, sticky. What is love but hands that hold?

“I love you too, Izuku,”

His eyes shut and he breathes a breath, shaky and unsure. He squeezes you as if you might disappear, closer and closer.

“Can I ask.. is it okay if I ask why?”

“Why I love you?”

“What you see in me.. I just… I want to be sure,” ― he laughs a little soft, insecure ― “I guess it’s hard for me to understand it all the way. I only know all of this from my side.”

You wrap your hands, small over his. You hold and stretch it out, staring at his scarred palms under the sea green water. You sigh, and collapse a little as if you’re letting something out.

“I’ve always liked you,” ― you explain absently, squeezing his fingers and leaning into his touch, eyes closed ― “You’re awkward and sometimes shy, but you’re charming. You’re kind. It’s always been easy to like you.”

You take a deep breath, and your eyes open as you lean your head back, you look up at him and he looks like sunlight. A home in a person.

“But, then you would ask about me. You would worry for me and remember me. You listened to everything I had to say, even when you were somewhere busy and far away. I wondered if maybe you treated everyone like that,” you admit to him. He shakes his head and you laugh, reaching your hand back to hold his cheek.

“I didn’t know if I was special to you or if maybe.. I don’t know. Maybe you were like this to everyone, but you always made an effort for me - it made me feel special. When you tell me to do things and carve your time out for me,” ― you close your eyes again and they rest just against your cheek ― “The more I got to know you, the more I realized that you went out of your way for me. I like you, as is, but I liked feeling special to you. I wanted to be closer to you. I wanted to be the one who knows you best like how you know me”

“What about you, Izuku?” you ask, gently “What was it about me?”

He hums a little, shyly and awkwardly.

“It felt like you saw right through me, instead of looking at me. It was scary, but you just.. you make it so easy. It makes me feel selfish to pull anyone into my life, but the more I saw you, the more I didn’t feel like myself. It was scary.. and I didn’t understand,” ― he said with a laugh, eyes pressed completely shut ― “You were the first person… the first thing I’ve wanted so badly. It almost hurt,”

He realizes what he said and his eyes go wide and yours go wide too.

“You.. wanted me?”

The air becomes thick. Warm water suddenly feels hot and something feels awake inside of him the way you look up at him and he looks down at you. It makes him feel dizzy.

“I want you.. still. Want you, always,” with the double meaning sitting heavy on the end.

You flush, look away and stiffen.

“You weren’t uhm.. y’know.. down there. Didn’t think you were.. attracted to me,”

“I’ve been holding back. Didn’t wanna make you uncomfortable,” he strains, deep in his throat.

“You won’t,” you assure, shaky.

“Are you sure? We don’t have too… and I mean! I’ve never really - I don’t have much experience so I don’t wanna.. disappoint,”

“Izuku,”

He squeaks.

“Y-yes,”

Your lashes look heavy when you blink, lips tugged in your teeth.

“I’ve wanted you too.”

His eyes grow the size of the moon and you laugh, just a little.

“Y-you have?!”

Wordlessly, you take your hand, the one around your waist, and guide it so gently between your thighs. He feels frozen behind you as you maneuver his hand to be touching just against your sex. It’s burning, sticky on his fingers. He lets out gasp, soft under his breath as you guide him to touch you shivering. All the blood in his head rushes straight to his dick, and it grows so stiff it almost aches.

“Holy shit” he gasps and then groans, a little guttural “Holy.. holy shit,”

“Are you.. shit - I don’t have any. I don’t have much e-experience with this stuff,”

You hum at the way his hands keep moving anyways, still rubbing softly against your folds.

“S’okay. I’m a good teacher right?,” ― you say through a breathy sigh ― “You’re a quick learner, too,”

“Haah, holy shit. I really might die.”

You laugh at this fully, smiling at him.

“I want you really bad,” you say with a squirm “I’m on the pill, too.”

His eyes go wide and you laugh again, a little - feeling mischievous. Enjoying the effect you have on him, as he looks at you with eyes wide. Blown out with lust.

“Don’t regret it, okay?”

“I won’t. Not if it’s you.”

He takes a deep breath like he’s trying to wrap his head around all of it. It makes you laugh a little.

“We should get out of the bath first,” you say amused.

Before you can think about it, Deku is standing up. You scoot away, planning on doing the same. But after he stands up, he grabs a towel and immediately lifts you. He carries you on one arm like you weigh less than a paperclip and you yelp as he draws you to his chest.

“I-Izuku, let me down, I’m -,”

This time he laughs at you, almost knowing what you’re gonna say.

“Sorry, I’ll warn you next time but if you think you’re heavy, you’re sorely mistaken” ― he tells you with amusement ― “I did curls with double your weight by the time I was a first year.”

You squeak, feeling incredibly shy as you cling to him.

“My bedroom is on the left.. don’t drop me.”

He laughs at you again, a little more teasing.

“I won’t baby.”

He carries you all the way to your bedroom, where you find yourself more grateful than ever that you cleaned before he came. He drops you onto his bed with a soft thud, towel underneath you as your back lands on it. It’s different like this, the lighting a little dimmer but with him still so perfectly in view. Your eyes go wide at the sight of him as you scoot yourself towards the headboard.

He follows you in hot pursuit, body hovering over yours. Your head hits the pillow and Deku is right above you, with his hands on either side of your head. You smile at him and he looks down at you with big eyes.

“You’re so handsome.”

“I’m already hard.”

This makes you laugh and makes him grin, and you reach your arms out. Wrapping them around his neck - you drag him down to you. His mouth ghosts over yours, full and pretty. This is the first time you’ve really looked at him and god - he’s gorgeous to look at. His mouth is full and his eyes are so round - full of this pretty dark green that turns just seafoam in the middle. You feel like you’re going to drown inside of them, already yearning.

“You’re pretty,” he groans, and looks up at you through thick lashes “So pretty, think it every time I look at you.”

“Izuku, kiss me,” ― you demand.

He chuckles against your mouth, soft.

“Your wish is my command.”

He presses his mouth to yours, feather light at first. It’s been so long since you’ve kissed someone, you can’t help but feel it. Something about his lips makes you feel weak, the heat is of his body melting together with yours. It starts with one, soft and gentle - but it goes quickly to another one. Slowly he pulls away and then kisses you again, makes you open your mouth a little wider as he presses a little further. You can’t wrap your brain around how it’s making you feel. Your whole body feels like it’s sinking into your mattress, his mouth soft and full. His tongue invites itself inside, sliding against yours with the embers of flame.

What starts as kisses turn into hot pants, deep into his mouth. You can feel saliva run down your cheek as desire burns through, molten in your core. Your clit throbs with want, and you feel Deku before you see him. It makes you gasp - how big it feels, heavy too, against the meat of your thigh. You grind against it without meaning too. Deku moans in your mouth right as it happens

It feels like you're breathing each other's air - months and months of lust, pure and unadulterated, slipping out from beneath you. It’s overwhelming to be touching him, finally. Your fingers thread through his hairs and you tug, another pretty sound coming from him. . He’s so vocal with you, every moan or breath like fuel to the fire.

His hands find you soon after, exploratory - they start at your side, slowly moving up to cup your tits. His hands are firm, albeit shaky - and he touches them like he couldn’t wait a moment longer to get his hands on you. They’re so big. He dwarfs you right on top like this, and you fit perfectly in his cupped hands. His groping incessant, just like his kissing - invasive. You can feel how he can’t seem to get enough, each motion heavy with the want of many months prior.

Everything about how he touches you sends your whole body leaping, you feel weightless - the way your heart raises. It ends up all the way in your throat, in your mouth. It’s a stuttering and blind desire, all white. All you can think about is how much it aches. How much you want him, wanting and wanting and wanting.

“Izuku,” ― it comes out as a gasp when you pull away, a string of saliva as evidence when you reel back and look at him, his lidded eyes gazing down at you ― “Izuku..”

“What is it, baby? You okay?”

You squirm at the sound of his voice, gone deep like he’s been holding back all this time. It’s denser, coming from his stomach instead of his chest.

You kiss him again, and then pull back, brushing your nose to his.

“I like when you call me baby.”

“My baby,” ― he adds, kissing your nose, then the corners of your mouth ― “You’re so pretty. Don’t know anyone who looks as pretty as you.”

“Stop, I can’t fall for you anymore than I have.”

He giggles at that, kissing you again, and again and again until you’re laughing. A mess in his arms, he presses kisses all over your face.

“Just trying to make sure it stays that way.”

You frown a little.

“What happened to you being nervous?”

“I’m still nervous,” he insists, squeezing your tits in his hands with a breath, thumb brushing over your nipples. You gasp a little, shaking, as he gives you a troublesome grin - he’s bad for your heart “But I just.. I want you so bad. I’ve been thinking about you for months.”

“Months?”

“Maybe longer.”

“What were you thinking about…?”

His eyes go wide, mind racing with detailed fantasies that he gave into so long ago. He swallows a lump in his throat.

“Thought you would taste.. wanted to uhm - put my mouth on you. Still want too,”

“And..?”

He groans, burying his face in your neck. You laugh, granting him a little mercy

“Fucked myself wishing’ it was you,” you tell him, whispering like a secret.

He snaps his head up immediately, just to stare as if he were worried you were bluffing. You look at him sheepishly and he groans. Everything about you makes him feel drunk, unkempt. His hands are back on your skin and he presses an opened mouth kiss to your jaw, down your neck. He’s thankful for all the perving he’s done in his life, at this moment. The way your throat bobs and you sigh as his tongue slides over the sharp edge. He trails them, stamping them across your skin and all the way to your neck.

You feel his teeth, flat but sharp, as he sucks the flesh into his mouth. A gasp rises out of you.

“Oh,” you whimper, hands around his shoulders, trying to steady yourself as he sucks marks into your neck. “Izuku,”

“Wanna take my time tonight,” ― he sounds like he’s pleading with you, an edge to his voice as fingers draw circles in your waist ― “Wanna make you feel so good,”

“Can I…? Please..?”

You blink at him and then nod, watching as his lips turn into a soft grin. He slides his hands over every inch of your body, placing his lips at your neck first and trailing kisses all over it - over the marks he’s already left, the base of his throat. His tongue is summer along the new bruises, a trail of hot saliva sticking to your skin as he goes lower and lower. His mouth feels like a bunch of tiny pricks, how deeply the craving sets in. Kisses against your collar bones, down your chest, until his mouth ends up at your tits.

He bites and licks with care and precision - careful not to be too hard but not soft either. His hunger for you seems almost insatiable, and he’s learning with practicality. Every pleasant sound from your lips garners him trying it again, going a little harder like he wants to pull it right from your throat. His free hand squeezes the soft flesh and his mouth sucks on your nipples, pebbled and hard under your tongue. You feel impossibly wet, boneless in your bed at the way he pays so much attention to you. All need, all lust.

There’s a vulgarity to it, how he licks and then bites soft, tugs until you cry out with your head thrown back. He learns where to touch you once and runs it to the ground. It feels like time is moving at a snail pace as he disarms your hesitance. Even when it feels clumsy, it never stays that way for long. You can’t keep up with how often you're moaning his name. Over and over like an incantation. Izuku, Izuku, Izuku - god how you want him.

You want to beg him to touch you but all he does is unravel you, for so long you almost feel teary. He wants to make you feel good, massages your whole body with his mouth - hot as sin. You feel like a falling star falling into the atmosphere and burning up. What feels like millenia of being torn apart is only minutes. Down to the devilish detail, he learns how to make you feel so good with nothing but your tits and his mouth.

“Izuku, please,”

His voice is soft against your skin and the view is nothing but call for misdeed, eyes lidded and mouth swollen from where he runs it over your skin. The room has to be at least a few hundred degrees - sweating and clenched.

“Can’t get enougha’ you,” ― he whispers against your stomach, cheek pressed to it ― “I wanna make you feel good.. wanna see you touch yourself,”

Your eyes grow wide as you look at him, and he gives you a soft smile.

“You’re a good teacher,” ― he teases, a devilish laugh attached ― “I’m asking as your favorite student.. show me how.”

“You’re really too much,”

But you oblige, and Deku knows by how you shift. He scoots back until the view is perfect, spreading your legs wider. He kisses up your thighs as your hand shifts, soft and nervous between your legs. He’s so close - you can feel his breath on you. It makes your spine tingle.

“Don’t be shy.. you’re beautiful.”

You want to tell him that that only makes you more shy but he’s got his eyes glued onto you, anticipatory, and you can’t believe yourself but god it makes you wet. How he stares, how he longs for it.

You go slow, shifting your fingers to be at the right angle. You know yourself well, so many nights alone in your bedroom, thinking of him. The visual of him wide-eyed and slick mouthed, makes it easy to do again. You put the pressure slowly, just to fingers so he can see - and relieve yourself. Touch yourself in front of his very eyes, slowly forgetting the humiliation. You’re not sure how long he wants you to go, but it feels so good to get the pressure off. Your toes curl and Deku speaks under his breath.

“So pretty.. all of you,” ― his hands are at your navel, spreading you further ― “I love looking at you.”

You feel like you could cum from nothing at all. The pleasure for now is a frazzle crescendo. It’s not enough - like even if you came from it, you would still be chasing after another one. You need more, so much more - need him. You keep asking for him, after each little pant you call for him. He murmurs, voice soft as sand, almost breaking apart after each word.

“‘zuku, Izuku,”

“I’m here, I’m here baby.”

Again and again, making your orgasm stir. The knot inside of you slowly comes undone, piece by piece, but it’s not what you want. It frustrates you, annoyance welling up inside of you until you can’t take it anymore. Your brows are furrowed and it almost feels itchy. All it is is need, an insufferable amount of need.

“N-need you so bad,” ― you manage, words caught like they’re stuck in your chest ― “Please, please.. touch me,”

“Okay.. shh, shh - it’s okay.”

He moves your hands by your wrist, mouth curling around your fingers. He shivers, eyes curious and eager. You look at him hazy, drunk off of a sense of lust you can’t shake.

He takes a few more kisses up your skin, down your navel, then with one hot stroke - runs his tongue against your entire sex before resting right at your clit. Your eyes go wide with a gasp. The reaction from you is immediate, hands going to tangle themselves in the mess of green hairs. His sturdy hands are quick to clasp your thighs. They go underneath your thighs, dragging you towards him with an inexplicable strength. His face is practically buried in it, bumping his nose against your clit until he settled himself. He brushes your pubes back a little with a hum.

“Aaah, fuck - hnggh,”

The noise is so obscene, scorching hot tongue sliding against your folds. It’s so fucking overwhelming, all-consuming - what you’ve wanted for so long. He shifts around and watches for your reaction each time he tries something new. Flattens the muscle against the throbbing little bundle of nerves, pointing it and flicking. He watches and waits until he finds a good pace - learning as he goes. It doesn’t feel as clumsy as it should. As you wish it would. It just feels pleasurable, too much and not enough.

He sucks your clit between his lips until it’s on his tongue, and flattens against it at a maddening pace. The kind of natural ability he has makes your toes curl, mind lost to something. A far out, funny feeling holds you down to the sheets as his arms tight around the back of your thighs. He’s so deep, tongue buried in your cunt and it’s filthy. Shamelessly loud as he licks and licks and licks like it’s his only reason to be alive. His hands feel around till they find yours and he locks fingers as he does it, and everything in the room is spinning.

“Ooh, I-Izuku,”

He hums against your clit and looks up at you through his lashes, and you feel your whole body go slack from the visuals. All you can think to yourself is that you want to cum, over and over, you want to cum. You want to cum all over his face, down his chin. You wanna be all over his everything

“I’m gonna..! I’m gonna c-cum, I’m gonna cum, Izuku.”

He doesn’t stop, doesn’t stutter, doesn’t slow - like he knows if he shifts even a little, he’ll lose his chance. You can hardly think, mind completely blank as you reach your peak - the climax. You can feel it. It’s so unbearably there that every word out of your mouth becomes mish-mash and gibberish.

“Ohmyg’d, oh, oh please.”

Your whole body locks up and you cum - you cum so hard you can barely breath. A gasp gets webbed inside of your lungs and all you can do is spasm unbearably. You grind your clit into his tongue, your orgasm making everything inside of you tremble. Your walls clench harshly around nothing at all and he still hasn’t moved or slowed. You try to move, overstimulated but he doesn’t budge - he just changes the pace and angle.

It doesn’t settle you much, the syrupy lustful feeling, only stronger with the passing seconds. Deku groans as he breaks to lap up as much of your cum as he possibly can. You can feel his saliva dribbling down your sex. He lets go of your hands only so he can spread your thighs as wide as they can go - looking at your swollen clit with almost affection. He stares at it for a few minutes, another hand resting on your navel as his thumb brushes over it. You shake as he touches it.

“You take it so good.. good girl,” ― he praises naturally, easily ― “Such a good girl. Wanna make you give you one more.. before I fuck you.”

Your voice is so rough by now, you cough a little as you look at him.

“W-what about you? W..wanna touch you too.”

He smiles, a soft and pretty smile - it makes you dizzy to even look at. Everything about him makes you so damn dizzy. You give into him unintentionally when he grins, kissing the hood of your clit.

“Some other time, maybe,” ― he announces to you softly, sweetly ― “Just wanna take care of you today.”

You nod for him, absently and without another warning - he tongues your clit again. This time wraps around, sucking on it soft but not doing much else. You question him, briefly, until you feel his fingers.

Izuku’s hands have always been of interest. They’re big, thick, and strong. Everything is sturdy but his hands especially make you desperate. All scar tissue, gnarled from years of use, and so bulky. You’ve always found them attractive - many daydreams surrounding them. You can almost feel the ridges of them even in your fantasy but now he’s right in front of you. His middle finger is so much thicker than yours. Clean and pretty hands, he presses to your hole. You’re so soft inside, it makes his chest tight. He can’t imagine he’ll be able to fuck you long if you feel like this.

“You’re soaking wet, huh?” ― he laughs a little, smiling ― “Cute.”

You don’t have it in you to get upset with him. With the way his finger slowly slips inside of you and prods around, all you can do is whimper a little. You feel strange, pliable in a way you’ve never been in your life. Terribly vulnerable.

“F-feels different,”

“Different?”

You cover your face with your hands, shivering.

“Your hands are so much bigger than mine.. so it feels.. yknow,”

“Does it feel good, baby?”

There it is again, baby. You clench unintentionally, and he has to hide his laughter so as not to embarrass you any further.

“Feels really good. I want more.. please,”

“You’re so cute. You sure you’re ready..? Don’t wanna hurt you,”

You nod a little but he still seems unsure, so he fucks it in and out of you first. His fingers prod inside and he finds it, that little spongy part a few inches deep, pressing onto it without intent. It makes your whole body freeze and tremble, and he stares at you wide-eyed. You’ve got a hand clasped over your mouth, unsure of what it was until he does it again.

“Hnggh, Izuku,”

He hears you loud and clear so he laughs, this time his pointer finger. He’s quick about it this time, granting you the most bare minimum mercies. His fingers stretch you out good, but you’re so wet from cumming once and his saliva, slick on everything. It’s enough to burn just a little but not so much it hurts. You just feel a little full, a little pleased. Deku slides them into you slowly, deeply - and curls them up press against your g-spot. This time, you have a full body reaction - back arching up off the bed. Fingering yourself rarely feels like much of anything but when it’s him, it makes you ache and drip with pure need. This pleasure is a little more hazy to start, but when he fucks them in and out of you, something shifts.

He finds a rhythm that has you breathing heavy, panting between long breaths like there’s not enough air in your lungs. It’s electrifying, sending little sparks through you every time he finds it. This pleasure is deeper, like you can feel it in a place you didn’t know it existed. It carves something out of you. You whimper as he takes your clit into his mouth one more time and the added layer makes your throat constrict.

You really don’t know how to proceed. Your whole body looks like it’s in a state of shock, the dull pressure of his fingers on your sweet spot with the current of your clit buzzing on his tongue. Warm mouth, humming a little just to see you twitch. He’s knuckle deep inside of you, reaching almost into your throat.

“It feel so good, feel so good, Izu.”

He goes a little harder when you call his name, thinking about how he can barely hold himself up. He spares you a little, stretching you out and holding it. He manages to fit all of it inside, rubbing against your walls with precision.

You look so damn good falling apart, all swollen lips and round mouth and pretty blinking lashes. Your eyes go soft, hooded with desire as he fucks into you with two fingers. He adds another when he knows it feels good for you - the little mewl because it’s not enough, another one, so slowly entering inside of you. You feel stuffed to the brim, a never ending fullness. You can’t help yourself but imagine his thick cock inside of you and how that’ll stretch you so nice.

You weren’t sure if it was possible to feel more pleasure but he proves you wrong instantly. His mouth descends on you and he sets his fast pace, consistent. Pleasure again and again and again in little intervals. Your mouth is dropped open in an open scream, this orgasm so much more deep. You can feel how much it will rock you, the sheer force of it has you drooling. You’re his pretty girl, and he can’t help but stare at your blurry expression.

It’s a tremor, unsteady. The first waves of it having your mouth going slack - it’s the kind of orgasm that sort of just creeps on you. It’s brief but strong, an impossible impact like the splitting of atom. It’s one moment, just a little bit longer. Suddenly your mouth is open so wide, unhinged jaw aching and your head thrown violently on the sheets.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, ohfuck, ohfuck,”

It’s more brief but you cum and you cum hard. You can barely understand how it happens, the rapid shaking as you blink tears away from your eyes. Entirely overwhelmed, you swallow your shock.

“Holy shit,” you gasp, staring at him. “Holy shit!”

You watch as he takes his fingers out and sticks them into his mouth, not a lick of hesitation. It makes you flush how he tastes it, a soft moan from his mouth. His tongue drives over all the edges and then he wipes them on his thigh. He leans up, just to kiss you right after and you can taste yourself in his mouth.

“You taste nice,” he tells you, so earnestly it makes your whole body rise with heat. You ignore replying, just kissing him harder and making him laugh. After everything, you find some strength in your hands and reach down, peering at his cock. He’s big. The only way you can describe it is thick, like a coke can. You reach out for, small hands wrapped around it and he moans, especially loud. It makes your eyes go wide.

“It’s so big, Izuku,” you say, breathless. He gives you a sheepish smile.

“Ah.. you think so?”

You frown a little, tugging at it. He drops his head a little as you jerk him off, precum making your hands slick.

“It is big. I wanna.. wanna feel it,”

He gives you a shaky smile, hands reaching towards the other side of the bed.

“Ah.. do you have any condoms?”

You give him a little laugh, releasing your hands from his cock and wrapping them around neck, pulling him down towards you again.

“Did you think I was kidding earlier?”

He doesn’t remember at first, confused - but as soon as he does, his mouth goes agape. His eyes almost seem like they hit the top of his hairline. A shiver runs through him as you give him another kis, grinding your hips up just a little. He groans into your mouth.

“Fuck.. are you sure?” he asks, hot at just the thought of not using a condom. He can barely imagine it, how it’ll feel to take you all the way raw on his cock. You nod at him, smiling as he pulls away.

“I wanna feel it in me raw, ‘s so big. It’s a waste otherwise,” ― you let go and he sits back, watching as you use your fingers to spread your pussy out for him, chuckling ― “It’s a reward for all your hard work,”

Izuku feels like he might lose his mind, staring as he strokes his cock with one hand. If he can last more than three thrusts, he’ll be impressed with himself. Maybe all of his years edging himself will finally prove to be worth his effort. A molten heat starts in his stomach, all the blood rushing to his cock with infallible force. He stares at your cunt, pretty and open for him- all pulsing and hot. He shivers again, and drags you to him. He lets the heavy weight of his cock sit right against your cunt, pressing down a little. You blink at him before whimpering, the heavy head of his dick pulsing against your clit with need.

He drags it, grinds it in and watches through lidded eyes as cum and saliva mix all over it. A little shiver evades him, throwing his head back as he grinds steadily into your pussy. His head is thrown back, mouth dropped open and moaning your name. You watch as his hips stutter, just grinding against your pussy, eagerly but agonizingly slow. It feels so fucking good. It’s an excruciatingly slow buildup of pleasure, how he just feels you.

“Izuku, please,” you plead, hands reaching for him. He grabs them and pins them to the bed with a soft smile, humming.

“Told you I’d take care of you.. be patient.. I wanna feel you,”

You aren’t sure how much more you can take but then it happens. He leans, tell you to take a deep breath, and then you feel it. The head of his cock, curved and weighted, pressing against your hole. It makes you whine, makes your mouth drop into a shocked gasp. You want to squirm or cling but your hands are still pinned so you can’t thrash. You can’t do anything but lay there and take it.

You feel every single inch as it slides so miserably slow inside of you. He’s being sweet with you, his voice in your ear with adoring praise - little whimpering sounds “fuck you feel good, so good,” over and over. It makes you wet, clenching further on his cock as your whole body pulses like a beating hard. You feel ravenous, starving to be so full of him you can’t breathe. He’s just so fucking thick, no matter how you take it. It stabs your lungs, thick. So, so big - it makes you stretch impossibly wide. It’s not like anything you’ve ever felt in your life. He swallows some saliva in his mouth.

“Half-way, baby. J-just a little more”

You can’t think.. only half? You brace yourself, snivelling. You feel a mess, are a mess - listening to the loud shlick sounds. Your brain feels static, whole body giving into the feeling of being fucked full. You want him so bad you don’t know what to do, every word you’ve learned is lost to coveting him. You want him so blindly.

“Iz-Izuku, please fuck me, please,”

Without another word, he lets his hips rut - a sharp thrust that makes you scream, silent. He’s so deep inside it makes you scramble, and he leans down to kiss you. You feel his cock inside your stomach, it’s so big. It feels incredible, so hot and heavy and big. All you can think about is how it feels inside, mind free from anything other than him. Izuku Midoriya, so big and handsome and sweet. He groans into your mouth.

“Can I move, baby?”

“Please. Please move,”

He lets go of your hands, grabbing your legs and sliding them over his shoulders. He looks so fucking pretty, all green-haired and freckled skin and his dick inside of you. So deep it aches, he presses a kiss to the back of your calf - your legs pressed together giving you perfect pressure on your clit. You don’t know how to do anything but brace yourself, fingers buried in the sheets as he pulls his hips back. He’s clearly going slow for you, at least for now - the pace he sets is steady.

His cock feels nothing short of fucking incredible. This rolling pleasure inside of you on your spot and the steady pressure on your clit from where his hands rest on your navel. You can see how hard he focuses to get you to cum agains, how he rolls his hips with all the strength and finesse he can. Izuku fucks you with dancer's hips, so steady and worked out. He doesn’t look tired, his core tightening so he can get the angle just right. It feels like you’re being torn apart, uprooted like grass from the ground. The pleasure is particularly mind-numbing. So terribly desperate. Sweat dripping down the side of his forehead, he goes soft on you. You’re boneless and he gives you a soft smile.

“You take it so well,” ― he praises, kissing up the back of your leg, bending you ― “Such a pretty girl. You’re beautiful.. wanna see the face you make when you cum again. Please? Can you do that for me?”

The praise has you reeling, nodding with pouty lips and too fucked out to respond proper. This orgasm hits you like a natural disaster, this brilliant and overwhelming force of nature that has everything inside of you feeling ruined beyond repair. He ruins you so gracefully, until you are warm and tight around his cock and all your troubles reduce into nothing. It makes him preen, his pretty baby - so fucking sweet around his cock. He wants to cum but he wants you to cum again, just one more time, just for him.

“Izuku, hngg, Izuku,” it comes out hazardous, a warning for what's next. All the lust and need and everything, all at fucking once. It’s an earthquake, the entire hurricane of everything crashing into you. Your whole body seizes, as you cum on his cock - wearily.

“Oh.. oh my fucking god,” and you cum, hard, right on his cock. He groans as he feels it, finally - the way it pulsates and holds onto him like it would hate to let go. He groans as he fucks into you with no will to stop, a little sloppier now.

“Fuck, fuck - you’re so tight. I’m gonna cum soon, wh-where do you,”

You clench down on him this time on purpose and he groans, falling forward and folding you completely in half. You blink at him, still feeling the waves of your own climax but egging him on anyway. You smile at him.

“Cum inside me, Izuku,” ― you whisper, voice hoarse with exhaustion ― “I’m gonna drain you for all your worth,”

The sound of your sultry voice sends him reeling, and in the last few minutes - he lets himself go. Fucking you so hard your headboard digs into your wall and cumming inside of you in what feels like seconds. He cums and cums and it fills you up so deeply. It makes your whole body shiver as you feel him unload - thick white hot streams pouring until there’s nothing left to give.

He collapses on top of you, completely breathless and half-way out of his mind. You feel his cock soften inside of you as you wrap your arms around his back and relax your legs. The two of you kiss like that for a long while, sharing soft glances in the dimness of your room. You’re exhausted but he seems fine, kissing all over your face and cheeks. You let him pamper you, giggling a little.

“It’s raining out.. can you hear it?,”

He nods, smiling at you.

“Yeah,”

“Do you like the rain?” he asks you. You shrug a little, smiling at him.

“I’ve always wanted to spend a day inside with someone I love, that’s all,” ― you hum ― “Kinda romantic right?”

His whole body feels weightless. This burden, this love, everything inside of him. All the parts of him he so slowly gives to you - there’s no way it wouldn’t feel romantic. He chuckles a little, staring at the window.

“Yeah… I think it’s romantic too,”

#deku x reader #bnha x reader #bnha smut #deku smut #deku x you #deku x y/n #bnha x you #bnha x y/n #midoriya x reader #izuku x reader #writing tag #formal #this fucking. absolute monstrosity #prettyboy.thirsts

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heyyyharry · 3 years

Text

Deep End - Chapter 5: Master of the House

…in which Ezi is home alone with Harry’s assistant.

Word count: 4.8k

AU: famous!harry, siren!mc, adult modern retelling of the little mermaid? lol, fake dating, enemies to lovers.

WARNING: MATURE THEMES

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A/N: PLEASEEEEEE LEMME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK! I'll write faster when I get a lot of comments 😩

Harry pulled Ezi down the hallway to find the nearest bathroom. His head started to hurt as he thought about how his mother would react if she found out what Ezi had done. What he had done. He didn’t expect his cousin to run and tell anyone that he’d been attacked by a helpless girl and that Harry had beat the shit out of him afterwards. But someone might have seen that, and words could spread like a virus at these kinds of events. It’d be wiser to just walk away quietly.

When he had found a bathroom, an old lady stepped out, saw them and made a face, probably assuming the worst when she caught sight of the blood on Ezi’s face.

“I didn’t hit her,” Harry told the lady, only to receive a disgusted look in return.

She ignored him and turned to Ezi. “Honey, are you alright?”

Ezi offered a grin, showing her blood-stained teeth. “Yeah. It’s not my blood.”

The lady’s eyes widened in shock. Slowly, she took a step back, then ran off without another word.

Harry immediately shut the door behind them. “Wash your mouth,” he told Ezi, turned on the water, and as she washed her mouth in the sink, he took off his jacket, put it on the marble counter, and rolled up his sleeves.

Ezi hopped onto the counter and watched Harry soak the handkerchief he’d been carrying in his pocket.

“Face,” he ordered, and she lifted her chin so he could gently wipe off the blood around her mouth.

“I was defending myself,” she said once he’d finished and tossed the handkerchief into the bin at his feet.

“I know.” He shifted his eyes back to her. He didn’t mean to sound like a dick, but it seemed like he’d come off as one. He leaned to the side with his hand on the cool surface of the sink. “It’s not your fault. I know my cousin. His family is in debt because of his gambling addiction. I keep telling my mother to ban him from the manor, but she has too much respect for the fucker’s parents to do it.”

“So why did he call you trash?”

At that, Harry couldn’t help but cackle. “He did? Well, I think most people would think so. I haven’t done much to make my mother proud. She wanted her only son to take over our family’s business, but I wanted to become a singer, and yeah…”

Ezi blinked at him. She probably didn’t understand most of what he’d said, so he let it go and worked up a smile. “Sorry for oversharing. You okay?”

She nodded. “I’m not hurt. I was the one that bit him.”

“Are you feeling sorry for him now?”

“No. I would’ve eaten him if you hadn’t shown up.” The way she;d said with a straight face amused and scared Harry at the same time. “Although he didn’t taste as good now that I’m human and need my food cooked.”

“I’ll just assume that you weren’t serious.”

Harry picked up his jacket from the sink. Ezi hopped to her feet and reached for the doorknob, but he pulled her back to him by her wrist and swept his eyes over her body once again. “Where did he touch you?”

She pointed to her waist and showed him the red fingerprints around her forearm.

“Nowhere else?”

“Nowhere else.” She shook her head. “I don’t like being touched.”

A sense of discomfort filled Harry as he recalled how she’d said those same words after he’d yelled at her earlier. She must have been so scared. Tonight he deserved a trophy for being the biggest asshole alive.

“Nobody should touch you. Not even me.”

“You are touching me.”

Harry looked down at his fingers around her wrist and immediately let go. “From now on, nobody,” he said. “Only when you give them permission to touch you, okay?”

“What about handshakes?”

“Handshakes are fine. Wouldn’t recommend shaking hands with everyone, though. Germs and all that.” He stepped in closer and pretended to put his arms around her without touching her, just to demonstrate. “So hugs like this are for friends. You don’t usually do this to people you’ve just met. Unless they’re the ones on the street with the sign that says FREE HUGS. You’re allowed to hug those.”

“Got it.”

“And,” breathed Harry as he grabbed his nonexistent boobs. “This area is forbidden. Nobody is allowed to touch you here...unless you want them too, of course.”

“Why would I want them to?”

Harry ignored the question and went on, grabbing his bum. “Also this and the front area.” He gestured to his crotch. “Forbidden.”

“But I don’t have a tail.”

“You have something else that’s just as important as my tail.” He felt silly to say it, but it would have felt weird to say dick or penis to her face.

She put a finger to her lips; a line appeared between her brows as she pondered. “Speaking of something else, the hole--”

“Okay, not here! Save your questions for when we’re home.”

Harry grabbed her shoulders to spin her around, and she immediately smacked his hands and shot him a glare. “I didn’t give you permission to touch me.”

“Good. Love that attitude. But really, we need to leave before my mother finds out I almost killed someone in her home.”

He reached around Ezi and opened the door, bobbed his chin for her to go first, but she stood still, her face serious. “That wasn’t like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Back there. You became someone else. You were...violent.”

“Well, yeah. Only because he deserved that.”

Ezi cocked her head to the side, her clear blue eyes squinted. “But he was one of your kind. And I’m not. So why were you protecting me?”

“Because he assaulted you. I don’t care if he was the Queen of England. I would’ve beat his ass still.” Seeing her perplexed expression, Harry let out a soft laugh. “Why’s it surprising? Didn’t you save me twice?”

Ezi averted her eyes and gave a small nod. “Yeah.”

“And you lost your tail for it, so it wasn’t a fair trade anyway.”

He waited for her to say something, but she didn’t, so he wrapped his jacket around her shoulders and told her to go.

They didn’t speak on the ride home. Harry wanted to lighten up the mood with his stupid jokes, but he was too agitated to say anything. They had left without saying goodbye to his mother or anyone, so he would probably be in so much trouble tomorrow. He had put his phone on airplane mode; his mother’s harsh words would have to wait. He also couldn’t help but think that if he hadn’t shown up, something worse could have happened to Ezi. Or his cousin. Or both. And it would’ve been his fault as well.

“Next time we go out, don’t do the opposite of what I tell you to do,” he told Ezi when they’d arrived home and gone upstairs to her room. “You’re even more stubborn than my cat. At least she’d stay put when I tell her to.”

“I was looking for you! I thought you’d left me.”

Harry tossed his keys onto a table and turned to look at Ezi. He put both hands on his hips. She was giving him those puppy dog’s eyes while fidgeting with her own fingers as if she hadn’t nearly torn open his cousin’s throat with her human teeth. He could not imagine what she could do with her siren fangs.

He let go a sigh and scratched his forehead. “You thought I’d left you?” His voice was lower now that he’d calmed down a bit. “So you don’t trust me?”

She said nothing, just staring back at him.

Calmly, he went on, “I brought you all the way here to London and risked it all to keep you in my house, Ezi. I had to speak to some of my relatives at the event, but I was going to come back for you. I told you to stay--”

“You lied to me.”

Frozen to the spot, Harry blinked. “About?”

“Dawson,” Ezi said. “I talked to Dawson.”

“You talked to Dawson?!”

“And he was a nice person.” Then, she had to reassure him, “Don’t worry. It was a short conversation, and I didn’t tell him much about myself.”

“Then how do you know he was a nice person?” Harry scoffed. “I mean, you barely know the lad.”

“He told me about manga, and he called me beautiful, and he doesn’t act friendly to his enemy.”

“Enemy?” Harry asked, but Ezi didn’t bother to explain.

“Why do you hate him?” she asked.

Harry snorted and rolled his eyes. “He’s a try-hard. I hate try-hards. My mother loves him, so of course you’d love him, too.”

“I wouldn’t call it love--”

“Good. Because he’s lame.”

Ezi tilted her head, looking puzzled. “What’s lame?”

“Boring. Not interesting.”

“Oh.” She gave an understanding nod. “Then you’re the lamest.”

“Okay, you know what?” Harry exhaled and pointed to her bedroom door. He had never felt more like a dad than he was now. “You’re grounded for a day. That means you’re not allowed to leave your room tomorrow.”

“How will I eat?”

“The food will be brought to your room.”

Ezi’s face turned red as she crossed her arms and stomped her foot. “You cannot imprison me!”

“It’s not imprisoning if you still get to play games and watch videos on your iPad.”

Harry knew Ezi loved the iPad. Her furrowed brows relaxed as soon as she heard that she got to keep it. “Fine.” She breathed. “I don’t want to see your face anyway. I’ll just be in my room with Chilli.”

“Good.”

“Good!”

Ezi shoved Harry aside as she stormed into her room and kicked the door shut. Harry stared at it for a moment. Then, he smiled, shook his head and went back to his room.

Ezili had a nightmare again.

This time, she’d returned to the ocean after failing her mission, and as punishment, her mother had turned her into a shrimp, while her sister had watched with a satisfied sneer.

A few moments after she’d woken up screaming, she heard Harry’s footsteps pounding down the hallway before he burst into her room, panting as he asked if she was alright. She almost said that she was now that he was here, but she didn’t and only answered with a nod.

“Okay,” Harry gave a crooked smile. “Just...wake me up if you need anything.”

“Wait.” The word slipped out before Ezili could stop herself.

Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Yeah?”

She rubbed her hands onto her thighs, feeling the smoothness of the fabric of her nightgown, which brought her a sense of comfort. In the semi-darkness of her room, Harry looked strangely handsome with his messy hair and sleepiness in his heavy hooded eyes. She wondered why he had to be all groomed most of the time when he already looked good without trying.

For a second, she forgot what she was about to say then flinched when he called her name.

“Can you sleep here with me tonight?” she asked.

Harry looked stiff, his lips slightly parted.

“If you want to,” she quickly added. When she was living under the sea, she had hated sharing her space with the other sirens, so she could imagine how uncomfortable Harry must feel about her request. Still, she knew if he was around, she wouldn’t have nightmares. If she focused on his presence, then she wouldn’t think about her mother and sister and the task that seemed impossible to complete. Besides, she wanted to be as close to him as possible, learn his behaviours, and slowly slip into his mind and then his heart.

“I mean…” He scratched the back of his head and awkwardly looked around the room. “I guess I could sleep on the sofa over there.”

“There’s plenty of space on this bed,” she said, patting the spot beside her.

His mouth curled. “I know. I just don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. After what happened tonight, I thought you wouldn’t want to be near a man anymore.”

Ezili shrugged. “Well, I’ll try not to hate you tonight.”

Harry rested a shoulder against the doorframe and rubbed his chin. “Well, well, well, are you saying that I chase your bad dreams away?”

“Yes, because you’re already a living nightmare.”

Her response made him laugh. At this point, she could conclude that he enjoyed being degraded.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “How’s your English so good? I thought you must speak a language for sirens, no?”

“We speak Séren back home.”

“Oh, cool. Say something in your language.”

“T’ko thikc mei vie mei zua zi.”

“Damn. What does it mean?”

“I don’t like you because you’re ugly.”

Harry’s smile vanished, making Ezili explode in laughter. When she saw the way he was gawking at her, probably because she had never laughed like that before, she forced herself to stop and cleared her throat. “Yeah, so that’s Séren.”

“How do you speak English so well then?”

“Not just English. I also speak French, Danish, and German.”

“Wow. Your fish schools teach human languages?”

Ezili made a disgusted face. “No. I learn them from hearing the conversations of the sailors on the boats.”

“Makes sense.” Harry nodded slowly. “You seem like a fast learner. Way too fast; it’s scary. Maybe your brain is even more developed than mine.”

“Thank you.”

“Now that I’ve entertained you--”

“You’ve done nothing. I did all the talking.”

“I gave you a topic to talk about. Don’t be mean.” Harry rolled his eyes. “Anyway, now that you’re entertained, do you still want me to stay?”

Ezili thought for a second and nodded.

“Alright,” Harry breathed and shut the door behind him. “I’ll stay. Scoot over.”

“You’re permitted to touch me tonight,” Ezili said.

Harry froze when he’d sat down on the edge of the bed. “What?”

Was there something wrong with his hearing? He’d asked her to repeat a lot of things tonight.

“You’re permitted to touch me tonight,” she told him again in annoyance. “You might touch my hand or arm when you sleep. I can’t hold you accountable for that.”

“That’s not--” He exhaled and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. “You know what? Good for you. Keep that attitude when you’re with any man. I’m a man myself, but most of us are pigs.”

“You mean all of you.”

“I literally just lay down and you’re already insulting me.”

“Fine. I’ll stop,” Ezili said, smiling as she watched Harry adjust the covers to make himself comfortable.

“I can’t sleep with you staring at me like that,” he said with one eye shut and the other half-opened.

Pouting, Ezili turned over with her back to him. Harry’s throaty laugh made her stomach clench, but in a good way. “Ezi,” he whispered. “I was only joking.”

She completely ignored him, pretending she was asleep. He was quiet for the next few moments, and when she looked back to check, he was already sleeping. She thought he was playing, so she called his name and lightly pulled a strand of his hair, but he didn’t react. He was lying on his back, his mouth slightly open as he breathed, chest rising and falling in a calming rhythm. She pushed up on one elbow and peered down at his face. She hadn’t observed him this close before. Well, not since their first encounter on the beach. The last time, however, had been in a different situation, and she hadn’t got time to properly study him. Humans were exquisite-looking creatures. She would never admit aloud, but she had always envied them for it.

She started counting his eyelashes and connecting the freckles on his face. The more she looked, the more fascinating he became. It had amazed her how he’d rescued her instead of another human. And not just any human, but his family. She would never betray her kind for a human. Her rescuing him twice had been an act to gain his trust, when the whole purpose of this mission was to have him dead at the end.

Slowly and carefully, she moved closer and gently pressed her ear to his chest. She could hear it. The thumping of his heart, pumping blood through his veins, keeping him alive. He would be dead without that heart. Sadly, so would she.

“Good morning?” Harry said in a tone of a question when he woke up and found Ezi standing in front of the window with her back straight and arms to her sides, like one of those guards in front of Buckingham Palace. “Helloooo?”

“Shhhh. I’m meditating.”

“Who meditates standing up?” He snorted. “Man, you’ve been watching too much YouTube.”

“TikTok. And I’m not a man.”

“Wait, you’re on TikTok now?”

Ezi released a long breath and turned around to face him, hands on her hips. Sunlight filtered through the thin material of her blue nightgown, and Harry looked away as fast as he could before he got hard over a nipple or something. He wasn’t a bad guy. It was only--

“Seven in the morning,” he groaned into the pillow and fell back to the bed. “Fucking hell.”

“It’s morning, so you’re not welcome in my bed anymore.”

He removed the pillow to glare at her. “Ungrateful little minx. Said that after I’d chased away all the nightmares.”

“Go before I send Chilli to take you out.”

As if she heard her name, Chilli appeared in the doorway and licked her little paw while sending Harry a death look.

“You’re siding with the enemy now, huh?” he asked the cat.

“Why not?” Ezi said. “She’s a smart girl.”

Harry groaned loudly as he pushed himself out of bed and started doing some stretches. “Remember,” he told Ezi, who was watching him with her arms crossed and a judgy look on her face. How did she manage to look this good at seven in the morning? Totally unfair. “Remember,” he repeated as he almost forgot what he was trying to say. “You’re grounded. So you can’t leave your room today, but the food will be brought to you. You’re allowed to use the bathroom down the hall.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.” He ruffled his hair and gestured at her. “Now continue doing...that...thing that you were doing.”

“Meditating.”

“Whatever,” he chuckled. “Weirdo.”

“Good morning, Mr Boss!” said Amy, Harry’s assistant, as he went downstairs. She’d just arrived with the flowers for his living room.

“Morning, Ames. Any updates?”

“All in the email I sent you, Boss. Also, your mother called...52 times.”

“Yeah, I’ll deal with her,” Harry gave the girl a tight smile as he fixed his hair in the giant mirror by the stairs. “Thank you so much.”

“Did you watch the season finale of Master of the House?” Amy asked, smiling at his reflection in the mirror.

He turned around, grinning back at her. He liked how Amy was always so enthusiastic, but at the same time, found it difficult to match her energy. “No, been too busy. What happened?”

“I won’t spoil.” She giggled and started replacing the flowers in the vase in the centre of the living room with the new ones. “You should watch it this week and we’ll discuss.”

“I will.” When he got to the door, Harry did a spin as he remembered what he almost forgot. “Amy, can you stay here and wait for Niall to come? Also, there’s a girl sleeping upstairs. Don’t wake her.”

Amy’s usual grin had never disappeared so fast. Her hand that was holding a rose froze midair when she asked, “Was it the girl I saw the other day?”

“Yeah.”

“Your new girlfriend?”

“Just a friend.” Harry knew Amy had a little crush on him. It was harmless, so he didn’t really care. “I gotta go,” he told her, pretending he couldn’t see through her frown. “Wait for Niall.”

“Okay.” She forced a toothy grin and waved. “Have a great day, Boss!”

This shirt was too big for Ezili. She shook her head, tongue stuck out at the corner of her lips as she reached further into the closet to get the dark blue t-shirt at the back.

As she pulled the pink shirt she was wearing over her head and put on the blue one. She heard the door to the closet creak open. Her chest nearly exploded. It was just Chilli.

She gave the cat a look. “What?”

The cat meowed at her.

“Yeah, I know he said I couldn’t leave my room and was only allowed to use the bathroom, but I’m bored.” She slipped on a white tennis skirt and sat down on the floor to put on a pair of white shoes. She struggled with the strings, but somehow still managed to tie them into two nice bows like she’d seen on those tutorials.

Twirling in front of the mirror, she asked Chilli, “Do you think I look good?”

Chilli responded by rubbing her tiny head against Ezili’s ankle. Ezili took it as a yes.

Their moment was interrupted by a loud thump from downstairs. Speaking of which, Ezili hadn’t heard from Harry all morning. He’d left breakfast for her at the door and disappeared to who knew where. She probably should go check on him.

Chilli followed her to the living room, both forgetting that Ezili wasn’t supposed to go downstairs. But it didn’t matter anymore, because instead of Harry, she found the green-haired girl lying on her stomach on the white cushioned sofa with her feet in the air and a half-finished bag of chips on the coffee table.. The sound Ezili had heard was the result of the chair this girl had knocked over yet didn’t bother to pick up.

Ezili hesitated for a moment behind the bookcase behind the girl. Before she decided to speak up, the girl did. She was on the phone with someone.

“So the master of the house was taken care of.”

Master of the house?

Harry?

“Nah, I think that girl is dead, too,” the green-haired girl giggled. What was so funny about death? “No, I don’t mean like dead now. But if she attacks, then the team will take her out.”

Ezili shivered. Could she be talking about Ezili? The master of the house was Harry. This green-haired monster had murdered Harry, and Ezili was the next target.

“What do you mean I don’t know that? I’m the expert. I’ve watched stuff like this all the time. Believe me. There’s no way she’s not getting caught. I can’t wait for the world to find out who she really is.”

Ezili went numb until she felt Chilli around her ankle. She put a finger to her lips to order the cat to stay quiet otherwise they’d both die. Picking up the cat, she walked quietly to the front door and slipped out before the green-haired girl found out she’d left her room. She must run away. She’d rather die by her mother’s hands than become a prisoner to humans.

The problem was: she didn’t know where she was.

How far was the ocean from here? She remembered having flown across the sky inside the iron bird, so this land must be very far from home.

“Watch where you’re going, crazy bitch!”

Ezili screamed when a car made a loud noise that almost blew up her ears. She stumbled backwards to the side of the road as the man inside the car gave her a look of contempt and drove off.

She hugged Chilli tighter to her chest. Relax, the voice inside her head said. I know you’ll figure out what to do.

She inhaled deeply and--

“Ezili?”

The sound of her name felt like a splash of water on a hot day. She shot her focus to the white car with the window rolled down and saw a familiar handsome face with glasses.

“Dawson!”

Dawson poked his head out of the window. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt and blue jeans -- the opposite image of the person she’d met last night. “Hey, where are you going?” he asked, looking concerned. “With the cat. Where’s Harry?”

“He’s dead,” Ezili told him quietly. She couldn’t let them find out that she’d escaped.

To her surprise, Dawson laughed. Could it be that he was one of them?

“Sooo dead. His mum sent me to check on him because she’s raging and he doesn’t answer his phone. But don’t worry. This happens all the time. He’s like a cat. Got nine lives.”

Ezili rapidly shook her head. “There was a girl in there. Green hair—”

“Harry’s assistant?”

“Yeah, that girl!” She continued nodding. “She was talking on the phone with someone. She said that the m-master of the house i-is dead.”

“Shit.” Dawson’s face grew dim. Maybe he’d finally understood. “She spoiled you the season finale?”

What?

“That sucks. But don’t worry, there’s still more.”

“What?”

“Master of the House. The Netflix show.”

It took Ezili’s brain a few moments to process, then she realised she had made a fool out of herself for nothing. Of course the green-haired girl wasn’t talking about killing Harry. It was a Netflix show!

Sighing in relief, she threw on a smile. “Oh, right. Yeah, that really shocked me. Harry’s not home, by the way.”

Dawson grimaced. “You okay? Where were you running off to?”

“Uhhh.” Ezili straightened her back. “W-Where were you running off to? I mean, driving.”

Dawson chuckled. He also had dimples like Harry’s, just not as prominent. “I came to see Harry but since he’s not home.” He peered around her to the front gate of Harry’s house. “I guess I’ll go to the bookstore today.” Another smile at Ezili. Unlike Harry, this one smiled a lot. And Ezili was keen on it. “Wanna come?”

Go with him?

Yes, yes she absolutely wanted that.

Harry wasn’t going to let her explore this new land anyway. And after the incident this morning, it was for the best if she knew her way around here, to escape when she must. Still, she remembered how angry he’d been last night about her not doing what he’d told her to do and putting herself in danger. She was about to turn down the offer when Chilli jumped out of her arms and into the car with Dawson. She sat casually on Dawson’s lap, gazing up at Ezili.

Dawson beamed. “Looks like the cat’s made up its mind.”

Ezili rolled her eyes, threw her head back and groaned. “Her name’s Chilli,” she said. “But, fine. I’ll go with you.”

Niall felt like the main character today as he skipped up the steps to Harry’s door. Harry had asked him for a favour again. Because where else would his best friend turn to when things got rough? Niall knew that he was helpful and the best friend Harry could ask for. Still, he tried to stay humble about it.

“Sup, Ames.” He waved at Harry’s assistant, who opened the door for him. “Did you like my new TikTok?”

“With all five of my accounts. I got you, Nialler,” Amy said as she leaned against the staircase while chewing gum in her mouth.

Niall shrugged off his coat and hung it up. “Thanks, love. Sorry I’m late. Mikasa was wild this morning. I’m literally exhausted.”

“Uh, TMI?”

“What do you mean? It’s just yoga. She and her ‘I’m a therapist. Yoga will be good for your mental health’. She thinks I’m in love with her and would do anything for her. And you know what? She’s absolutely correct. Now where’s the girl?”

Amy looked confused for a second before she realised who he was referring to. “Oh, the pale girl? I saw her leave with Dawson Styles.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, she got into his car with Chilli. Is she really Harry’s girlfriend? I don’t like her. She didn’t say hello to me the first time and not this morning, either.”

“Shit, shit, shit.” Niall grabbed his head. “Sick girl on the loose. Sick girl on the loose. Thanks Ames.” Ignoring Amy looking baffled, he pulled out his phone and called Harry. The endless ringing only got him more frustrated. “Pick up, you motherfucker. It’s always the Nialler who has to save the day.”

Harry picked up after what seemed like a million beeps. “Don’t tell me someone’s injured. It’s only been an hour.”

“Worse!” Niall almost yelled. “Dawson kidnapped the girl!”

#harry styles #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfics #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #harry styles smut #harry smut #harry styles fic #harry styles fics #harry styles x mc #deep end

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bonvoyage-boncourage · 2 years

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Jour 28: My first time in a hostel... I’m so impressed!

I ran into Golsa on the tram to class this morning, which I suppose isn’t too surprising considering we’re in the same class and live in the same place, lol. We managed to make it on time, woohoo!

Fridays are always fun because we only have one class. I was still starving by the end of it, though, (consequence of no breakfast) so I was glad when the group decided to head for the university dining hall. It was Emilee, Golsa, and me.

We encountered some other students from the other levels in line with us at the dining hall. Notably I talked a while to Yerim, a Korean student I’ve interacted with before and who has always been super super nice. I was talking about my weekend plans because I’m excited and she was too! I asked her what she was doing over the weekend and she went down a list: “homework, cleaning my room, cooking...” Yup. I get it. That’s gonna be me next weekend.

A minor panic ensued when Golsa realized she didn’t have her bank card and thought she’d lost it! While she was searching, I paid for her lunch. I’m finally even for her paying for me last week! We had a nice lunch, despite the looming threat of Golsa’s card being gone. I told her to check her room when we got back and text me when she found it, because I was worried, too.

On the way back, we actually talked a lot about Iran’s relationship to English. She wanted to hear me pronounce certain words because she had trouble distinguishing them. Persian apparently doesn’t have the same /æ/ sound like in English, so it’s hard for her to pronounce the difference between “snack” and “snake.” She was also telling me about how Iranians generally like Hollywood movies better than ones produced in Iran. I just thought it was interesting; I wouldn’t have expected that second part.

We got back, and I had a while before my train was set to depart. Soon enough, Golsa texted me that she found her card! Woohoo! And then I packed up and left!

I bought some cookies for dinner. Dinner of champions, I know, but this train was from 17h-20h so there really wasn’t any time to get actual dinner. I love listening to people in the train station playing music on the piano; I heard such hits as “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem in D minor K.626, Giorno’s Theme, the Mario Bros Theme, and more. Very entertaining.

So I was assigned a seat number in the train, but while I was boarding, I could not for the life of me find the seat numbers. It was terrifying, honestly, so I just decided to choose a seat next to a nice-looking lady in the car I was supposed to be in. I picked the window seat for the view, but it quickly got dark and so I couldn’t see anything. I was also horrified that I’d somehow gotten on the wrong train! Every train I’ve taken in the past has been a regional TER train instead of the more well-known TGV trains. And the TER trains (At least the Bourgogne-Franche-Compté ones) tell you every stop on the line on the SNCF app/on the overhead display! This train was not doing that; it wasn’t until we stopped in nearby Besançon that I put together that it was the right train.

See, Besançon is pretty much due east of Dijon, and close to the eastern border of France. Strasbourg is also on the eastern border, but much further north. The final destination of the train was Metz, a city that’s north and west. So by stopping in Besançon, I figured out that it meant we’d be travelling up the eastern border, stopping in Strasbourg along the way, and then finally going back west to get to Metz. French geography knowledge has a use!! Woo!

The ride was uneventful; nobody even checked my ticket. Which was a good thing, because I didn’t figure out where the seat numbers were until I was getting off! Yup, a tiny little display on the post between the seats. I was looking above like on an airplane. Ugh.

I quickly oriented myself and bought a 3 day tramway pass. I’m only here for twoish days, but I didn’t want to have to buy another one. But when I got on the tram... there just... wasn’t anywhere to use the pass. Nowhere, no machines to use it at or anything. Okay, so why did I buy that...?

I liked the weird music they’d play on the trams when announcing each station. It really felt like I was here and it was 1999. Very charming.

I got off of the tram and walked a couple blocks to my hostel. While checking in I of course had to spell my last name, and since I have a pretty long and complicated last name, I had practiced a ton of times on the train... but it hadn’t seemed to matter. I still messed it up. Curse French “e” for sounding like English “a.” The receptionist still understood me, though.

For never staying at a hostel, this place was super. Duper. Nice. So clean and modern with a full bar/kitchen in the lobby? Wow. And for less than $25 USD a night! It even has a place I can lock up some stuff with my room key!! It’s not big enough to hold my laptop, though, so I’ll have to carry that with me.

After a little break, I went down to the restaurant/bar while they were still open... turns out I could get a real dinner after all! Apparently Strasbourg is known for their tartes, so I had a vegetable tarte. It was warm and filling and just what I needed. I also got a Moscow Mule, which is something I tend to order if it’s on the menu just because I like the drink a lot.

I sat at the bar for a while but didn’t really get a chance to talk to anyone, which was sad. I kept making eye contact with the guy next to me, and he eventually waved as he left. I left shortly after, then gathered my stuff to settle in for the night.

The hostel has communal showers which was completely fine, especially since they were way cleaner than the communal showers in my dorm from sophomore year at OSU. However, the shower had 2 notable problems:

1. The water would turn off seemingly randomly every 3-10 seconds (And it wasn’t because it was a water saving shower; my shower in my room in Dijon is water-saving and this was not that)

2. The bathroom lights were activated by motion sensors... and the showers were not in the range of the motion sensors.

So, after about 3 minute in the shower, I had to continue my shower in complete darkness and with random spurts of water. Lol.

But it was ok! I didn’t mind much. I don’t get very easily annoyed by stuff like that. I eventually turned in for the night!

Wherever your solo travels may take you,

Bon voyage, bon courage !

#travel #travel stories #france #french #langblr #language learning #study abroad #bvbc-daily

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jawnkeets · 3 years

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probably a strange question but: how did you develop your style when it comes to poetry? I really appreciate how you write and how it's vague and specific at the same time? don't know how to express what I mean exactly, but it's like phrases that you feel more than you really understand them sometimes, and that don't look like they should make sense at a glance but when you really read them they do. maybe you'll know what quality I mean 🙈 I feel like I'm way too literal when I write and I want to be a little more abstract in a say less, convey more kind of a way?

hey anon, thank you! not a strange question at all - it’s actually a very good question, and one that i was asking until recently as well (and to be honest am still asking!). i totally know what you mean.

i guess the shortest answer i can give you is that i think ‘poetic feeling’ is best felt full-on, but expressed to the side. it’s also something that genuinely does get easier the more you try to do it, i.e., is a skill that can be sharpened; to start with, everything feels like nonsense, or not quite right, and i felt like a bit of a fake initially, but as i did it more and more i had more and more tiny breakthroughs and gained confidence (which is a genuinely such a large part of any creative endeavour), and this can happen surprisingly fast and snowball; i switched up my style in maybe 1-3 months, just trying a little bit - maybe 15 lines - every couple of days or so. and i didn’t put pressure on myself, deciding if i hated it i’d delete it and reminding myself that no one had to see. i find writing short poems also really helps with practising: they can help you focus more intensely on each choice.

it’s also not a solo thing, or at least doesn’t have to be - i use random word generators, to different degrees depending on the poem, and also it’s surprising how much even just picking words off wikipedia can help, especially with themed poetry. recently i wrote a poem about the medieval period, and threw in words that came to me with terms from wiki pages about the medieval period (history, art, medicine, etc), to make noun phrases like ‘kaleidoscopic altar vision noise’, ‘law texture’, etc etc. the thing that’s helped me most, though, is reading other poems which i think have this quality, which tends especially to be image-heavy poetry: will stone’s translation of trakl completely changed the direction of my poetry, and lorca, rilke and seferis have also been invaluable. i also find authors that do weird things with syntax interesting, like e. e. cummings and j. h. prynne, but don’t go quite as far as them. i have a list of favourite poems which might help, and which i re-read regularly ❤️

something else i enjoy doing is practising reading and misremembering, which sounds like cheating but is actually an excellent way of generating new material. i remember reading (i think it’s this article) alexandra cook’s 'creative memory and visual image in chaucer’s house of fame' and it was a breakthrough for me. from memory (ironic - wish i still had access so i could properly quote from it/check stuff) it talked about how one dimension to medieval creativity was misremembering - that new ideas and originality came from the gap between what the work actually was and how another writer remembered it. trying to deliberately misremember is a lot of fun; a poem is then borne out of an interesting intersection of skill and contingency, which gives it an energy, i think.

on a kind of separate but related note, the classical ars memoriae, or ‘art of memory’, might be quite an interesting thing to play with in relation to writing poetry. what it is, for anyone that’s not familiar with it, is basically the notion that the way to remember things is by having some kind of system in your head - like spatialising the material (so you think about the room you first encountered it in and all the details to help you better remember it), imagining it in a sequence, breaking it up into sets - there are absolutely loads of ways. if this seems weird or alien, we still use mind maps all the time, which is a great example! to deliberately twist, literalise and tbh actually invert the art of memory stuff (i know this is a bit abstract eek), i’ve been thinking recently that it might be fun to distort ideas (themes, an image you like, a line you like) by running them through various ancient memory systems, because i think medieval thought had a point that these systems subtly distort things even as and precisely because their function is get us to remember them accurately (paradoxically, we bend them to our chosen way of thinking/remembering stuff, which alters the material). using ways of memorising we wouldn’t normally use, and forcing them to interact with material much more literally, can yield quite interesting results. in any case, it introduces different ‘head spaces’ which can be quite useful to take in a very loose way when trying to ‘think to the side’: here’s a starting list. to give quite a crude and simplified example, let’s say i’m obsessed with homer’s wine dark sea and want to write something based on it, but also different and original. what if i try to think of ‘wine dark sea’ as sequential (thinking of material in a sequence being one way of remembering things listed on the above wikipedia link)? i’m honestly not sure what that means, and i can’t envision that. it doesn’t even make sense, and is a deliberate perversion of what memorising things in a sequence would actually look like - ‘wine dark sea’ would be one chain in a sequence if the sequence was, e.g., ‘favourite quotes’. ‘wine dark sea’ itself can’t be a sequence; this would turn ‘wine dark sea’ into something logical, mathematical even. but then the phrase ‘mathematical wine dark sea’ is interesting and unexpected. and you can then play with that or variations of it - ‘wine sea: dark, mathematical’ would make a great opening line, and ‘wine sea mathematics’ and ‘wine dark mathematics’ are really interesting phrases (you know actually i quite like this - might go and write a poem about it now... lol).

that last bit is very speculative and i’m kind of thinking out loud, so feel free to ignore haha. i wrote a post on writing poetry a couple of years ago, too, which might have a couple of useful tidbits. i hope some of this is helpful!!

#asks #my guides

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fenristheorem · 3 years

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Hi! First of all... You are a LEGEND🤩! Your head cons are sooooooo good. When I read theme I really get into the story and can feel the emotion you put on the characters, 💖its amazing! Not that long ago you did a head con of Erika being ok with Leiftan being a Demon. So I was wondering... Could you do a head con of Lance accepting to take Erika with him, were she becomes a demon and enters the plot with Lance against the guard🤔? It would be very interesting to se that.😊 Hope u have a good day, evening or night!

Oh thank you so much! 😄 That’s so kind of you to say, I don’t think you truly know how much I value your compliment! You’re so kind! 😊

I originally considered nearly completely re-writing the plot from episode 15 (I believe that’s when she asks him to take her) for this ask, but then realized I would be re-writing half the plot of Origins lol. That would take way too long to write (while including different emotions and perspectives and requiring knowledge that’s too hard to hunt down or doesn’t exist) so I decided to write this with a very broad spectrum of headcanons, including some major alternative events (usually not including the guard since she’ll be holed up in a secret place so Lance doesn’t need to watch out for her every second of every day) and Lance and Guardienne’s overall compatibility.

This is probably my most bizarre ask yet, in the manner of how I’ve responded, so brace yourself because there’s a few crazy moments in this lol. Also, there’s a bit of swearing in this - I have a tendency to write stories / headcanons in a pretty crude style sometimes.

~Under the cut~

Guardienne joins Lance against the guard:

To start off with, when Guardienne asked Lance to take her with him, she didn’t know his identity. He was still Ashkore to her. That changed somewhat quickly.

I theorize Lance did actually have some sort of “home base” deep within a forest or the mountains somewhat near the guard. He did have to sleep and eat after all. And where do you think he was taking all those supplies on the night Guardienne asked him to take her with him? Where do you think he stored that frying pan so dear to him? Buried it in the ground? Hung it on a tree branch for a Sabali to find later? Sure, he moved around a lot, but he had to keep his stolen resources somewhere, so he must have had a main cabin or cave or something that no one knew about that he made a temporary home of sorts.

Assuming that; that’s probably where he kept Guardienne most of the time after she came with him. Of course, he would be sure to restrict her movements for a while - after all, she could have asked to come merely to find out what a day in the life of Ashkore is like and then tell that to the guard - but once he realizes that she truly was compliant and happy to be there, even helping him by providing information he didn’t know already and taking care of basic chores like cooking and such so he can spend more time screwing with the guard, he loosened up and let her roam around his domain.

He kept personal things well hidden; any old drawings, weapons, and clothing. Basically anything he didn’t want her to touch... which was most of his stuff... but he was reasonable and didn’t restrain her too much. Just as long as she didn’t bother him and continued to help he didn’t mind her presence... too much anyways.

But again, it wasn’t too long before Guardienne found out his true identity. In reference to the existing plot-line, I imagine her finding out his identity in this AU long before she found out in the existing plot-line. After all - they’re living together now, and he needs to take off his mask and armor sometimes. Do you think he always sleeps in his mask? And armor for that case? What about when he eats or bathes? Certainly he can do most of those things in private, but I don’t see Lance demanding she turn her back every time he removes his mask and armor. I can see him doing that to begin with - when she’s restricted - but once he realizes she truly wants to help, he’ll find it to be inconvenient to always hide himself whenever he wants to do anything without his mask and armor. He’ll probably still want her to call him Ashkore, though... and that’ll be the case until she realizes his identity and refuses to call him anything but Lance.

Now I forget if she knew about Lance’s existence at the time of asking to leave with him (I believe she did), but since she never got a description I imagine it would take her a small while to connect the dots once she's living with him. She would certainly have theories that Ashkore is Lance, and she would certainly irritate the utter crap out of him with countless questions regarding possible confirmation or hints to back up her theory, but she wouldn’t get many answers. Either he would ignore her, or turn to level his icy stare on her. She would quickly understand that he’s not interested in answering questions about his identity and past. He eventually threatened to cut her tongue out a few times if she kept asking nonsensical questions, but she didn't seem to care much and he eventually let it be; perhaps he realized that she would be even more irritating then. She wouldn't be able to speak easily without her tongue, but her resolve is steady, so she'd still try to find some way to speak with him - and then he'd still need to deal with her questions in whatever way she deemed fit, which included investing time to learn this new way of communication. Threatening her friends wouldn't work as she doesn't consider the guard her friends, so Lance came to recognize that's it better to just deal with her questions and ignore her.

However, he would answer general questions that couldn’t be used heavily against him if she were captured and questioned; why is he trying to destroy the crystal, what’s with his grudge against Eldarya, what does he know about the Blue Sacrifice? From his answers she can put a few logical pieces together. The Eldaryans don’t deserve to live? They’re disrespecting the kind gift of life the dragons gave them? They were apparently forced to sacrifice? Then hunted down after the sacrifice despite their generous gesture? Well he must be a dragon, since angels didn’t end up sacrificing and he speaks so passionately about them. And Valk said he was faelien, so either he lied and does know or Ashkore (being Lance in her theory) somehow found out their genetics while Valk remained clueless to it. And they look so similar, they would have to be brothers. Ashkore’s story started around the same time that Lance apparently died? Lance apparently fought valiantly and passionately for the things he believed in, like what she’s seen with Ashkore? Goodness are the pieces adding up now.

Guardienne would eventually approach him about her theory and he would respond with a cold hiss.

“What, you want a reward? A pat on the back and a ‘well done’? Why does my identity matter to you?”

He never said a direct yes - he was basically incapable of responding calmly or reasonably with touchy subjects - but she would know she has it right.

You would think them being on different sides of the war would mean they’d be more likely to try and kill each other, right? Wrong. Them being around each other all the time, I believe, leads them to be more likely to kill each other. Why? Recall episode 26 - their overall chemistry. Regardless of if choices made increased the LOM or decreased it, bizarre, entertaining conversation between the two still ensued. The main thing with that episode was that Lance became emotionally vulnerable as time went on, so actual tender...-ish moments came about where both of them were taken seriously but gently. Now imagine both of them - neither of them in vulnerable moments - being around the other constantly, both working together but still stepping on each other’s toes. Guardienne wants to make a meal; where’s this ingredient? What’s the ingredient compatibility? What do these things taste like? That’s not a food, that’s an alchemy ingredient? AND WHERE IS THE GODDAMN FRYING PAN!? (*cue Lance in the background clutching the pan and hissing at Guardienne*). Now Lance - who’s holed himself up in a private room - needs to plan his next attack on the guard; he needs this map of the layout, and this item to help him plan. He can use this pathway to- “Hey Lance?” ... Silence - if he pretends he’s not in there she’ll surely leave... Anyways, this pathway will probably be the safest, and his destination is there. Leiftan can- “Lance, I know you’re there, don’t ignore me!” ... Leiftan can- “Where’s the corn!?” Oh by the Oracle! But what the hell is corn? He’ll go to the door and crack it open only enough to give her an odd look. “Small, yellow, hard grain but smooth? About the size of a fingernail?” ... “Back right, lower pantry.” He’ll slam the door and hover over the map again. Ok, Leiftan... yes, that’s what he was going to do. Then he’ll have access to- “Oh - where’s the big pot?” *SLAM* Pain will shoot up his arm from his fist as the table shakes and he turns his head to seethe at the woman through the door. “You’ve lived here for weeks, you know where it is!” “Well you seem to have an obsession with hiding things, so actually I don’t because everything is always moved around!” He’ll rush to the door and fling it open to glare down at her. The door and it’s frame creak unsteadily at his tight grip as he looms over her. “Find. It. Yourself.” He’ll go to recede back into the room but she’ll grab his shirt and pull him into the room she’s in - he’ll snarl at her in response. “I’ve tried looking for it, it’s impossible to find.” She’ll hiss back at him with folded arms. “I’m busy planning.” He growls at her. “Well take a break then.” She snaps as they stare each other down... Silence again... “You make me want to kill myself.” “Don’t. You need to destroy the guard first.” He throws his hand back towards the door he was stolen from with a wild look in his scathing eyes; what did she think he was planning for in there!? “You gonna help me or what?” She speaks as if this is completely alright. He nearly shouts in rage as he slams his fist against the wall - pain shooting up his arm a second time - before pacing and clutching his head, eventually resigning to stomping towards the makeshift kitchen - not caring about whether she follows - and tearing through his stores to find the pot. He’ll throw it on the counter and cast a livid glare at her as he passes to head back to planning. “Well goodness, you didn’t need to throw a tantrum over it.” He whirls around and nearly leaps on her - she’s helping to destroy the crystal, she’s helping to destroy the crystal, she’s helping to destroy the crystal, WHY DOES A POT MATTER RIGHT NOW!?

So yes, they’re more likely to attempt to kill each other when on the same side; only because they’re alone and around each other more so they can chew on each other's nerves more.

However, as time carries on and they spend more time together, they actually begin to... enjoy each other's presence sometimes - not even sometimes; a good portion of the time. Sure they have moments where they argue and are a breath away from stabbing each other, but there are also moments where they aren’t treading on the other, by accident or purposeful. In these moments, they see a different side of each other - a good side of each other.

Guardienne quickly picks up on how passionate, resolute, and intelligent Lance is, noting that he’ll spend hours on end studying texts he’s found and maps of the areas the guard will be around next. He’ll carry these texts and maps around with him as he ghosts around their make-shift home, spending most of his days off curled up next to a small indoor fireplace and moving only for a few moments to take a quick break. Ironically, Guardienne leaves him alone to study more when he studies within her presence rather than when he locks himself alone in a separate area for hours, so in time Lance realizes he’s less likely to be interrupted if he studies in their living room/common area. As he begins to study more within her sight, Guardienne begins to see what he studies - and many of those things provide great insight for her regarding knowing Lance better. These things can range from different languages, histories and cultures, maps, geography, alchemy, mission reports (stolen from the guard of course) and even a few books touching on warfare, philosophy and psychology - what little of those latter texts exists in their world, at least. Guardienne begins to realize that, while Lance is very set on destroying the guard and the crystal, he’s also much more than just a man who wishes to exact revenge. He studies these texts to learn how to use it to his advantage, sure, but he also seems to have a genuine interest in these subjects. She even interrupted him one day - finding that he was oddly patient with answering this specific question - to ask if he perhaps ever grows bored of learning about these things, stressing that it’s a good idea to take a break from working constantly all the time - only for him to respond that he doesn’t view all of it as work. Some subjects he’s less interested in but are necessary to know for his agenda of revenge, but in the case where he’s feeling drained from that he’ll turn to reading another subject that he’s more interested in and go back to it later. She sometimes resigns to observing him as he studies - and she knows that Lance knows she watches him by the way his gaze will flick over to her every once and a while - but eventually she’ll begin to ask exactly what’s written in the books or what he’s thinking regarding the maps, asking to try to get to know his thought process better or just having nothing better to do at the moment. This is how Guardienne learns to grow closer to him; he doesn’t snap at her half as much when he explains what he’s studying, and he explains things in such a way that she doesn’t need to interrupt him to ask him to explain it better. In turn, she also begins to learn a bit about what he’s studying and can provide a bit of her own interesting input. Occasionally they debate these topics with one another, and Lance is actually very temperate when debating these things - he can speak in beautiful, grand tones about certain subjects, clearly showing just how much he’s interested in it. His eyes will glow with a warmth and passion that seems to dull even the indoor fire that burns with an eternal energy. These moments of enthusiasm actually entertain her greatly, and she begins to realize that she truly enjoys being around him in these moments. However, this also leads to minor conversations about his past, usually sparked from conversing about past experiences in these fields, and Guardienne witnesses firsthand the icing over of his personality from the reminder of his past. She’ll mention anything about his past; the village he lived in, his brother, his time in the guard, any memories he has, and the lively shimmer in his eyes will dull. His shoulders will drop and gaze will be cast to the floor as he bows his head slightly, a weight seeming to settle on him as he stares into a void for just a few mere moments. Then his facial features will harden, a stone cold look will invade his eyes and he’ll straighten again despite the clear effort it takes for him to stand tall. His formerly lively, sonorous tone will harden into cold, scathing words that are nearly spat out as he closes himself off, snapping and growling at her if she attempts to connect with him again. It’s from these continuous experiences that she recognizes something important; he's not truly as evil as he seems - he's wounded and aches for his reality to not be what it is now, and he seeks every day to ease that torturous pain, believing that that pain can only be eased by hurting others, by showing them just how much he’s hurt from his knowledge. Nobody is born evil, she realizes - he’s cruel only because he feels this is the only way he can deal with the pain of reality.

In turn, she tries her best to be understanding and comforting when she can. She understands, in some ways, his pain of knowing about the guard and sacrifice - she’s against the guard as well for her own reasons not too different than his - and seeing just how much Lance has broken because of the guard - just like her - only makes her want to burn it to the ground more. Lance notices this in time; where she once always pushed him to tell her more about his past and identity and reasoning, she’s now willing to drop the subject for a while or ask in a manner that’s more... considerate or empathetic. She begins to overlook his snapping and huffing at her, and instead focuses more on what he says and his reaction to those words instead of his irritation at her persistence. As Guardienne comes to understand Lance more, she realizes that he actually enjoys her company as well, even if he won’t admit it. He’ll jump at the chance to explain and debate his studies with her, and when she backs off of a sensitive topic she accidentally tread on for a while, he’ll be more temperate if she returns in a few hours and touches at the topic again, provided she approaches it in a neutral, tactful way. After all, the topic she wishes to speak about is a reminder of or is the exact reason he went from honorable and righteous to cruel and destructive - in his perception, if she doesn’t know how to approach it in a cautious, gentle manner then she doesn’t deserve to know exactly what happened and why it bothers him so much. However, she does learn this in in time, and he eventually allows her to listen to his most personal thoughts on... well, nearly everything. As they grow to understand each other better, she begins to provide a bit of support for him. He’s been alone for so long that sometimes he wonders if he’s truly losing his mind, but her presence reminds him that he’s not as lost as he thinks sometimes. Guardienne becomes a grounding force for him. She willingly - happily - listens to his rants and stories of his past if he agrees to talk about it, even if he’s fuming and raging the whole time, and eventually she can actually calm him down a bit. As much as he wishes to maintain a distance between them, in time he can’t help but grow a bit protective over her for personal reasons; her perspectives agree with his, she readily and willingly - even humorously, sometimes - puts up with his temperamental outbursts, eagerly speaks with him about basically anything, and wants to do something about what she feels is right or wrong. He refuses to fully acknowledge the hold she has on him - he’s not supposed to be attached to anyone in any way if his mission is to succeed- but when he stares at her as she nestles next to a stream, eyes bright and curious with innocence as she watches shimmering native fish glide by and turns to him to ask why they’re swimming up-stream instead of down, he can’t help but forget his past and feel normal with her.

She’ll eventually be made aware of Leiftan and Chrome as well. Not at first, but when Lance drags her half-way across Eldarya with him because he needs to fuck with the guard in foreign lands she’ll be dragged into their late-night-hang-out-meetings.

Leiftan quickly takes to her, Lance notices, and this is also how - in this version of the story - Guardienne finds out about her genetics. They need her strength in the war, so Leiftan will enlighten her and encourage her to train her abilities, even helping her in the few moments he can.

Lance quickly snaps at him, making sure he knows he can’t jeopardize his fake role within the guard to train her late in the night. He comes up with all sorts of excuses and aggressively reminds Leif that he can’t spend too much time around her. She’s supposed to not exist anymore and Leiftan needs to pretend like nothing is going on.

Really, though, Lance is just feeling threatened. He doesn’t want his personal source of information, good food, and entertainment to be wooed and stolen away. Good luck getting him to admit that, though.

Lance believes she’s safest with him; he’s the one outside the guard and his location and activities are unknown most of the time. All he needs to do is keep her veiled in that shroud of mysterious unknown to the guard and she’ll be impossible to find. Of course, she won’t want to just sit around forever. She’ll eventually want to be more proactive in helping him destroy the guard, and he’ll argue it at first until she becomes just so annoying that he can’t possibly stand it anymore! It’s either she helps or he kills her because she won’t shut up, so he trains her; hard and brutally. He’ll train her in how to master her demon abilities, how to gain the upper hand in any fight with any enemy, the most lethal points of different creatures, the most lethal tactics she could use, how to improve her strength, stamina, speed and stealth. He was once Chief of the Obsidian Guard; he knows how to turn a weak, scraggly runt into a masterful, fearsome warrior. When he finally sees fit, he’ll gift her with personalized equipment - bought or made specifically by him - so she can slink around the guard late at night with him. Of course, he’ll demand that she call him Ashkore on premises - or anywhere except home, really - but she’ll follow his lead in that case; she knows how important it is to remain unknown.

So how exactly do these restock or attack missions go? Well, she’s usually brought along for restock missions - where no one is supposed to know they were there in the first place - in which case her role is to stay quiet and help him throw stuff into the bag. She’ll typically be left to carrying the bags unless there’s one that’s too heavy for her to remain quiet - he’ll take the heavier bags. Lance will usually be busy designing their path out and planning their timing correctly while she focuses on following him. He doesn’t really take her on attack missions, though. He wants her to remain unknown. If a feminine figure is suddenly working with him not too long after Guardienne’s disappearance, especially since it was clear there was a rift between her and the guard, then suspicions will rise, and unfortunately those questions could then begin trace further back to reflect on Lance’s death and Ashkore’s appearance due to the similar time-frame of events. Basically, their stories and disappearance/death to villain appearance time-frame would begin to mirror each other. If she was to remain unknown then she can’t directly fight the guard, so no attack missions for her. However, Lance isn’t against turning a restock mission into a restock-attack mission if he sees the chance - he’ll just make sure she’s basically safe the rest of the way back home before enacting on it, even going as far as retracing his steps back to the guard to cause trouble.

In the original plot-line, it seems that most of the time when Lance, Leiftan and Guardienne are fighting each other it’s due mainly to the fact that Leiftan abandons the plans against the guard because he's in love with Guardienne, Lance wants Leiftan to continue against the guard, and then he realizes he needs Guardienne out of the picture so Leiftan forgets about her and so he can gain some other information he needs/use her as leverage against the guard. Since in this AU, she's happily on their side (so Leiftan isn't abandoning his plans against the guard and Lance has all access to her power/information) I can see a bit less of a rift among their team as their plans harmonize together. Instead of Leiftan and Lance fighting, Lance kidnapping Guardienne, Lance becoming reckless by putting off breaking the crystal, and many other things happening caused by the rift between them, they’d most likely collaborate and work together better, and they’d be more coordinated in attacks and better at getting to the crystal. Of course, it’s possible that Leiftan may have wanted Eldarya to be saved at some point so he could spend his life with Guardienne, but seeing how Leiftan would do nearly anything for her throughout the original plot-line, I wouldn’t be surprised if he continued his efforts against the guard knowing that she’d want him to in this AU. It would also help knowing that the guard hurt her many times in many ways, so he’d be seeking revenge for that as well.

Dragging Guardienne around Eldarya with Lance, however, has risks and consequences that could come down on top of them if not careful. One such issue is the fact that, while Lance is very good at evading the guard, occasionally he’s caught and is sent on a wild-goose chase trying to flee from them. This occasionally can put Guardienne at risk of being found out, as she’s nearly always close to him, but Lance has considered this possibility a long time ago and has already devised a plan during these times to avoid from any heavy repercussions falling back on them. He’s just fine with fleeing with her - he knows how to keep her out of sight and her equipment is lightweight enough so that she has no trouble moving swiftly and flexibly if needed - but he’s realized that it may not be the smartest idea to have her fleeing with him while clearly seeming to be working with him. Instead, Lance realized, it would be a good idea for her to act as though she’s a hostage if she’s about to be revealed. That way, if she’s captured at any point in the future, she can play the innocent victim who knows nothing, and the guard - while persistent in finding out anything she may know, no matter how little the information may be- certainly won’t hurt their precious Guardienne who has already been through so much while in the clutches of the evil Ashkore. If she’s seen as a hostage, she can use excuses like “I’m sorry, it just so hard to talk about so soon... can we continue this later”, “I honestly don’t remember much, I was so busy focusing on a possible way of escaping that I didn’t pay much attention to that detail”, and “He kept me locked away in a certain area, I don’t know if there were any landmarks around that could point to his location” to deter their questioning and buy time before she needs to reveal anything actually important, else she look like she’s protecting him. Acting as a hostage will also assure that she won’t be thrown in the prison and guarded the whole time; so being free to roam around the guard while buying time to keep important information a secret will allow Lance the time to plan a rescue mission - disguised as another easy kidnapping since she won’t be guarded - to return her to their side. This is merely a backup plan if they know she’ll likely be captured at some point, and it will only work if the guard is unaware of a female figure helping him out, but provided that everything goes smoothly it should be a solid plan with little negative effects. However, this can’t happen more than once or twice; the first time will be easily accepted by the guard, the second time she plays the innocent, panicking fool she’ll be walking the line between seeming suspicious or if she’s truly that foolish, and for her sake the second time she will need to reveal some important information. A third time and the guard would know that something is up.

These hostage situations can get quite amusing for Guardienne - despite how fragile the situation is - and, frankly, Lance would snap at her every time she snickers about this, except he finds these situations absolutely hilarious as well. They’ll be running around Eldarya, the guard occasionally cornering them before they flee, and Guardienne will do her best to attack Lance in ways that are weak enough to not actually effect anything, but are strong enough to make it look like she’s truly trying to escape. Is the guard within ear-shot and they know they’ll be found out eventually? Great, Lance has an escape plan to get out of there already, so Guardienne can throw a screeching hissy-fit at him to make it seem like she’s trying to escape. Sometimes this can aid them as well, as they can set up a maze that the guard will certainly come running through to find Guardienne, following the sound of her struggle, only to then be trapped somewhere because Lance has traps set up that Guardienne certainly couldn’t have known about since she’s a hostage. Other times she’ll do her best to attack Lance - but let’s face it, even if he did train her she would still have a hard time bringing him down if their fight was serious - and he’ll quickly disarm her in front of the guard before finding a way to gain distance from them again. This is all just to reconfirm the illusion that she’s a hostage to the guard, and of course they panic every time and believe it, but it’s knowing that they’re running circles around the guard - bringing them here and having her bait them to this location so Lance can attack them, or leading them to discover a certain fact at some point so they think they have a useful piece of information on Lance when in fact Lance is using that to draw them out in confidence so he can crush them - that they find truly amusing. The guard is being played this whole time and they keep falling for it. Even Lance can’t help but laugh at a few moments of running the guard around with Guardienne later, when they’re no longer in danger.

Of course, this all leads up to the grand finale; the final shattering of the crystal. I imagine this happening much sooner than in the original plot-line because Guardienne isn’t a hindering factor anymore, and I can see it happening with much more ease than how it originally played out. Perhaps they’ll lure the important members of the guard to another land - letting them think that they’ve caught Guardienne’s trail over there - and launch their final attack when no one who can stop them is around. They might decide to fuck with the guard one last time, running them around within the guard while Lance infiltrates the crystal room. Perhaps they decide to go out with a bang and capture the important members of the guard, binding them and closing off the crystal room so they can reveal their identities and the guard can watch as the people that were once held dear to them destroy their world while they’re helpless to do anything. It doesn’t matter much how it happens, though, at this point - with an angered dragon and two powerful demons - there’s nothing that the guard can do to stop them. In some ways it will hurt, knowing that this is the end of their beautiful story of revenge, but - no matter what happens after this - they’ll know they succeeded, and that will be the last truth Eldarya will ever know.

I think this may be one of the longer headcanons that I’ve written so far, and I’m very pleased with how it turned out! Also, Tumblr ate this ask while it was a draft once or twice (it was in the 3-draft radius of asks that were at risk of being eaten so it disappeared a few times) so it did take a bit longer to write than I’d hoped, but fortunately no progress had been deleted so I’m just fine with that.

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