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morgana-ren · 8 months

Note

i love angst, and i love your writing, but please, PLEASE, i beg you, could you write some hope of tav ever returning now that the imbecile, has realised the error of his ways 🥺😭 (either way, thank you so much, for all your astarion writtings, it has made me feel things, the angst is real and my masochistic heart loves it🥲)

First part of the story HERE

Common complaint I got on that one! So I fixed it just for y'all. This ending is much less sad and much more sappy, so here is the comfort you need after all that angst!

"Darling, will you smile for me? Just once more. Please--"

He feels her cheeks in his palms, the soft skin against his battle-hardened callouses. Desperation cradles his unbeating heart, and for a moment, the emotion is far too much. A searing flame after centuries of frost. A bonfire in a blizzard. It hurts-- it burns--

"My love, I just need you to--"

"Anything my lord, anything at all for you. Simply command me and I will do anything you ask."

"No, I can't-- I-- I won't do it. I won't. I won't!"

"My lord?"

Her head cocks, turning slowly to look upon him, but her eyes-- they are empty; beetle-black and hollow. Her smile is uncanny as a painted doll, her movements disjointed and inhuman. Her teeth are stained crimson with blood, dripping, dripping, ever dripping down, never swallowed, only pooling.

She is light as a feather as she slips away from him, her skin marbling into a sickly gray before ash spreads across her body as a disease, smearing her form into nothingness. Only her face is left untouched, pretty as porcelain, unflinching and unfalling save a small crack that splinters down from her forehead down to her eyes, revealing inky black abyss beneath.

"My lord-- Oh, my tender, vicious lord. I can feel your anguish-- your hunger. Devour me to be whole once more--"

Her blood smells of rot and she--

She is too far gone to save. Too far gone to ever be saved.

"I won't!"

Whirlwind. Pain. Confusion and dread and seeping anguish. A maelstrom of rage and all-consuming despair swelling from within his soul—

—his soul?

The world around him falls away, a wicked tornado thrashing him about, his mind howling in the eternal winds--

And suddenly he is in a chair.

Not a throne. A chair— and a rather uncomfortable one at that.

"What in the hells—"

His vision spins, nausea curling his gut into a wicked tide of sickness barely restrained by his teeth. He tastes stale blood crawling up his throat, threatening to overturn onto the faded rug beneath him.

"Did you see what you wished for, little spawn?"

The voice takes him by surprise. It is not hers, but another, less familiar voice. The wailing animal in his head retreats to a dull roar as his memory creeps back. A brightly colored tent assaults his vision, piecemeal rugs and odd, foreign trinkets abound on makeshift shelves, and before him sits a strange old woman, hood pulled heavy over her straggling gray hair.

"I-- What was that?"

He sees her cracked, aging lips upturn, gnarled hands placed protectively over a strange orb on the table touching his knees. "I have shown you your future, vampling. Was it to your liking?" Panic rises within his stomach again, and though he does not breathe, he clutches his chest. The smell of incense clogs his nostrils and again, the wave of sick threatens to spill forth. Wretched taste of metallic, aged blood sits heavy on his tongue, all sensation too much-- all of it too much.

"No-- No, that cannot be it!"

"This is your path, Pale Elf. The road you walk. The power you seek is well within your grasp, but as I told you before, it will cost you everything."

He vehemently shakes his head, denying it. Denying it before her and all the Gods.

"You told me upon entry that no price was too great for your reward. Do you still agree with this sentiment?"

"No! Not-- not her. Not her. Not that! I couldn't--"

"You can and you shall, sure as the moon follows the sun. You will have everything you ever wanted, but cost of this ritual is plain before you. You cared not for the many souls left to your mercy that are crushed beneath your tyrannical fist in your ascension, but what of the sole one that resides in your heart?"

Her. The light of his life. The air he breathes. The sun on his frigid flesh, the warmth that melts his icy heart.

"No," He hisses, trying to stand, but ultimately unable to muster the strength. "I won't! There-- There must be another way. Show me!"

"There is no other way," She says, solemnly. "It is inevitable."

He swallows down the information like a boulder lodged in his gullet. Her words echo endlessly in his mind, bouncing off the walls and lodging shards of ice directly in his soul.

"What if I-- What if I don't ascend? Tell me, what if I don't?"

She smiles again, teeth flashing through her thin lips. "That is another path, little elf." "I need to know. I-- I need certainty. I won't do this to her, but I--" He pauses, grappling with everything in his mind, desperately flitting about to absorb it all. "If I am going to forgo this, I need to be certain. I need to know that I can protect her, that she will be safe--"

But the woman simply shakes her head.

"Everyone must choose. For some, the path is dark, but for you, you see more than most will ever have the comfort of knowing. I can offer you nothing more. Should you initiate the Rite, you know this will come to pass. I can tell you nothing more if you choose to not. The future is yet unwritten, and the quill resides in your hands." "Then why can I not have both!" He slams a fist on the table, clawing at the soft wood. For the first time in ages, tears prick at his pale lashes and frustration wells a knot in his throat. "Why--" "Because one path is wholly your own, while the other is a tangled web, such is the nature of deals with the Hells. You will get everything you ever wanted and lose everything that made it worth having."

His head slumps, defeated and miserable. Silvery tears slide down the curves of his cheeks, even as he attempts to bite them back. He thought he would find comfort in knowing the future, but all it has given him is utter horror.

"Despair not," She continues. "Yes, you will wither under the sun, an eternally cursed dweller of the night, but all is not lost, is it? The one you love, will she stray from your side?" "I wanted her to have better than that," He sniffles, needling his lip with a fang. "I cannot brave the sun, but her-- She deserves better than that-- better than me."

"And what of what she feels?"

His brows furrow, and he peers up at the woman from tear-beaded lashes.

"You are a night walker; it is in your nature to be selfish. But love is not selfish, little vampling. You must fight your nature, your inherent self-loathing, or your love will always find the fire. What of what she desires?"

"She loves me," He says with absolute certainty. "And I--" "Do you love her?"

"Yes," He hisses, almost insulted that she would ask. "More than anything. I'm here, aren't I?"

"Then the rest matters naught. If you love her, you will allow her the agency to choose-- something you deny her as an ascendent. You must grow past your own follies. To love is to be vulnerable, and you must allow both yourself and her this freedom."

They are hard words to swallow, and yet, he feels the truth resound in them. She would not leave his side, even as he tried to force her to understand. Even as an instrument of his manipulation and schemes came to light, she stood steadfast with him, hand entwined in his, ready to face the fire together.

"I-- I need to know she will be safe."

Again, the woman shakes her head. "You cannot. You must fight fate if you wish to overturn it. You face dire odds, though throwing the dice in your favor now will doom you later should this outcome be the confirmation of your fears."

He sighs, face crinkling as he sniffs once more, summoning the willpower to swallow down the agony of his choice. He finds the strength in his legs to push himself upward from the chair, weak and shaking as a newborn fawn as he does so. "I will do whatever I need to. Anything."

"Then you may yet see this through."

He can hear the fanfare of the circus outside, the bawdy bards strumming away on their lutes and banging on drums, the elated screams of the children and their parents. Facing the light now seems impossible, but he must find his way home to her-- he has to be with her now now now--

"The coin first, boy."

He snaps out of his delirium only long enough to fish his hands into one of his pockets, bringing out a coin. Aged and neglected, the sinister engraving of a skull peers up at him from his palm, ruby eyes gleaming in the light as he tosses it into the woman's knobbily-jointed hands.

"Best of luck to you, night-child," She tucks it away. "We may yet meet again." "No offense, but I hope not."

"Me too, Little Star."

He pays little mind to the bustling streets and bursting taverns of Baldur's Gate, his feet carrying him back to camp as swiftly as his body will allow. It takes him until sundown even as he damn near jobs, ripping through the tree line and into the ruins with the intensity of a man starved.

"Astarion!" Karlach greets him, trying to wave him over. "I've got a bet with Gale about--" "Where is she?" Astarion immediately cuts her off, looking around frantically.

"Who?" Karlach raises a brow.

"Who else?" Wyll crosses his arms, looking intrigued at Astarion's intensity.

"Oh! In her tent, I think. Why? Gotcha a special something' in town for her, eh?" Karlach tries to rib at him, but he pushes past her without a second glance.

"Bet it's a fancy new dress he needs to tear off of her immediately," Karlach rolls her eyes before returning to her business.

He bursts into her tent to find her hunched over a book, tongue poking from between her teeth, as she scans over the page. This only lasts a few seconds before he scrambles onto the bed, squeezing her as tightly as he can manage, burying his nose into her hair, tears brimming in his eyes once more.

"Woah, hey!" She laughs, carefully setting her book aside, trying to discern what in the hells he is mumbling endlessly into her neck.

Need you-- need you-- love you-- can't lose you-- don't ever--

She hushes him, realizing something has gone terribly, terribly wrong, kissing his head and tugging him close. "Hey, what's wrong?"

She tries to cup his cheeks and bring his face up but he adamantly refuses, hard-swallowing the urge to bawl into her shoulder with every ounce of willpower he has. All he can manage is to cling to her, half sobbing, visions of that terrible future swimming in his head. He cannot let it come to pass, he will not--

And she holds him, cradling him in her arms, hushing him gently. Her face creases with worry, running her hands through his silvery hair as he pulls him into her lap.

"Little Star, what's wrong? You seem so upset. What can I do to make you happy, my love?"

"Is it done?" Ulma leans down as she enters the tent, carefully dodging the intricate tassels of the blanket strewn over the entryway.

"It is," The strange old woman replies, still rubbing the coin with her worn thumb.

"And?"

"I showed him nothing but truth," She says quietly. "I did not manipulate his vision. Only channeled it."

"That tells me nothing. I need to know if our children are safe."

"I cannot tell you this, Ulma. You know of the ways of our tribe; our relationship with these magics." Ulma's lips purse, her exasperation evident in her humorless expression. "I need to know--"

"His reaction was genuine. That was not my doing. He knows the price of power. I cannot tell you if he will pay it regardless," The old woman's head lifts, a slight mischievous smile playing on her lips. "But I can tell you what I think."

"And what do you think?"

"I have seen his soul-- the heart of it. I believe you will see our children yet. He will spare our heart to spare his own in kind. It beats in that woman," Her eyes twinkle in the low candlelight, a genuine smile widening across her cheeks. "I believe he can find redemption yet."

#morgana and friends #astarion #astarion spoilers #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #heh that last one messed yall up huh #heres a fix for it #SUPER sappy FYI #SO ENJOY!#I don't usually write sap (or angst) so I am bad at this #sorry its bad fellas #I GENUINELY could not think of a way for him to fix him becoming her cazador so uh #have a retconn #call this a fast fixer upper lmao

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legobiwan · 1 year

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I was rolling around this post in my brain, considering the manhole cover-shield scene and I had this...thought about a fun, semi-angsty off-screen scenario after the general hullabaloo from Bowser's incursion into Brooklyn has calmed down.

We know from the movie that Mario is injured during the final fight with Bowser, that he had a plethora of cuts and nasty bruises that would need attention. We also know from the movie that Luigi, our unhinged king, picked up a metal manhole cover to block fire.

Basic science would tell us that this manhole cover likely reached some excruciating temperatures rather quickly, and that Luigi's gloves/outfit (which, considering their junked-up van), were probably not the highest quality. Meaning, I have a feeling our green hero might have accumulated a few burn injuries and, given what we know about his character, might have neglected to say anything about this.

Anyway, cue Mario and Luigi getting ready for bed after the whole crazy day, and Luigi, who is so tired he isn't even thinking about what he's doing at this point, absently changing into his sleeping shirt. That's when Mario notices the burn marks. That's when Mario freaks out like the highly protective older brother he is.

#hello there #super mario brothers movie spoilers #luigi #mario #i would write this but i have two other projects right now that i NEED to finish #so enjoy this little headcanon #(yes yes i know the superstar would probably cure many ills but let me have my angst)#(super angst level: burn marks make another appearance in spm as that's how dimentio offed the whole cast - luigi twice. There is...)#(...fertile angst soil to till here)#luigi brain rot

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lyoneve · 1 year

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“Lover, where do you live? In the sky, in the clouds, in the ocean?”

#our flag means death #ofmd fanart #edward teach #stede x ed #i started this painting a month ago but january was a shitshow so it took a while to finish #it was pretty therapeutic to work on tho #i especially enjoyed drawing the tentacles #i sure hope this doesn’t awaken anything in me👀#my art #blackbeard #ofmd #gentlebeard #blackbonnet #who said i was finished with the stede/ed angst??#oh right it was buttons #well he lied!!

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inkykeiji · 3 months

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what now?

character: dabi | todoroki touya

genre: smut + angst

notes: eeeee happy birthday dabi!!! sorry i’m a day late, and sorry i keep writing angst for your birthday. this piece is set directly after dabi’s touya reveal, in that dingy little safe house he seems to love so much! please heed the warnings below and stay safe!

warnings: 18+ minors do not interact, rough sex, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, dom/sub dynamics, use of master/owner/sir, fem!reader, minimal prep, biting, branding, blood, the piece switches between both dabi and touya as names, size kink + size difference, spanking, objectification, degradation + dumbification, a lil bit of praise, dabi’s pretty mean when he’s fucking, dabi carries reader, toxic relationship, dacryphilia, choking

words: 8.8k

It’s dark by the time he returns, reeking of charred flesh and ash. He had stashed you away in a decaying little safe house—a place no one else knew about, a place that was his and his alone—and had told you to wait for him. He had promised he’d return to you, no matter how long it took, no matter what happened, he’d be back, pinky swear.

Touya never breaks his pinky swears. Dabi might, though.

You had seen his video. You had been watching the news just like he told you to, anxious, waiting for any sign or indication of trouble, of terror, but the heat and the dust had been too much for the news cameras to penetrate, and there had been no reports of casualties on either side.

Yet.

It’s astonishing to think that the whole world knows his name now—his true name, the one buried in his blood and his bones, the one staining his soul, the one he can’t snuff out, no matter how hard he tries. You remember the first time he told it to you.

“Touya.”

He had said suddenly, randomly, while laying in bed with you one night back at the League’s hideout—back before all of this was set in motion, back when there was just the gentle clink of glass sounding beneath the floorboards, followed by a muddled curse and the rapid mashing of plastic buttons.

It was muttered out in the dead of the night, when the wind was stagnant and the moonlight shimmered through grimy windows, brilliance of the beams diffused by the dirt, turning everything a hazy silver, glinting off his stitches.

“Hmm?”

“That’s my real name. Touya.”

“Touya,” you had murmured to yourself, rolling the letters around on your tongue, allowing them to seep into your flesh. “It’s beautiful.”

“Todoroki Touya.”

Oh.

“It’s still beautiful,” you said softly, after several moments of silence, feeling Dabi melt beneath your words, tender yet resolute. “Even if the man who gave it to you isn’t.”

“Yeah,” he had responded, though his voice had sounded weird to his ears; odd, off, broken. “Fuck that guy.”

And that had been it. You hadn’t made a big deal about it, or pushed him to tell you more, or badgered him with questions and curiosities about his past. You had just accepted it and continued on.

He had offered up shards of information over the next few months, always murmured out in the dead of night, always a piece and never a whole, always something too jagged to fit with any of the other pieces of his jigsaw he had gifted you.

But it didn’t matter. Who he was, his past, the name he carries around and DNA twined inside his body—none of it mattered. He was, and will always be, the man you love, irregardless of the name he was born into, and the curse it bears.

The harsh unlatching of that decrepit painting startles you from your stewing thoughts, your gaze snapping toward the noise just in time to catch Dabi crawling through the trick window, entrance hidden behind the heavy gilded frame.

Your legs toss themselves off the fraying couch the instant his gaze meets yours, heart kickstarting thick bouts of adrenaline to rush through your veins, footsteps keeping time with the tattered exhales each bang of your heart sends barrelling up your throat, body colliding into his only a moment later.

He catches you with ease, laughing loudly as he sweeps you from the floor, strong arms locked at the wrists around your lower back. Instinctively, your ankles hook together at the base of his spine, fingers immediately wandering into the dirty hair at the nape of his neck, whole body wound around his own.

He’s still laughing, bright and breathless and so, so beautiful, even as he crushes his lips to yours, even as your tongue pries past his teeth and slams against his own. It spills down your throat in warm vibrations and you swallow it readily, greedily, hands sinking further into tufts of ink-tinged ivory and twining the strands around your knuckles, desperate to tug him closer.

The tang of death stings your tongue, earth and copper and smoke, so poignant you swear you can taste their screams, those who lost their lives to his flames and Machia’s feet and the rubble left in their wake, but you don’t care.

You don’t care, because he’s here, he’s home, he’s safe and back in your arms, with his teeth clacking against yours and his spit flooding your mouth and his unruly little giggles consistently breaking the flow of your lips.

“Did you see it? Huh? Did you see it?” he hurls the words into your mouth, lips still mashed against your own but spread in a smile, sapphire eyes twinkling.

“I did,” you confirm with a nod, tips of your noses nudging. “I did, it was brilliant; you were brilliant, baby.”

“I know,” he snickers, foreheads knocking together, breath wafting in small, ragged pants across your face as his feet begin to move, unable to stand still. “It couldn’t have gone more perfect, I swear to fuckin’ Christ. It was—It was better than I could’ve ever imagined. I can’t even believe it.”

Words continue to tumble from his lips in excited gasps as he twirls in wide lopsided circles slow and careless around the decaying little safe house, his boots conjuring small puffs of dust beneath their soles.

“I wish you could’ve been there, baby, honest. I wish you could’ve seen that fucker’s face, it was fuckin’ priceless, and—Oh! Fuck, how could I forget the best part!”

Halting his whirling, he pulls back to look at you more resolutely, as if he has to see the whole picture, sapphire darting around your face all wild and erratic, his smile spreading impossibly wider; uncanny, inhuman, eyes glowing with the thrill of the secret he’s about to spill.

“Shouto was there, too! How much happier could a coincidence get!”

“Shouto?”

“I wasn’t expecting him to be there, but seriously, it was the cherry on top.”

His feet begin to move again, resuming his impromptu dance number, adrenaline thrumming in his veins, overflowing from his orifices—smile stretching, chest swelling.

“His presence is what really made it spectacular, you know? Sure, dad was broken, but Shouto…” Dabi shakes his head. “Little baby Shouto was knocked off his fucking feet.”

“Oh, I can only imagine…”

…How horrifying of a realization it must’ve been; how terrifying it must’ve felt to encounter your father’s worst mistake in the breathing, bloodied flesh.

“I doubt he even remembers me—” Dabi continues, “he was only five or so when I died; he barely knew me at all.” He laughs, but it sounds tangled, caught on something buried in his throat. “Imagine that! Your big brother, only ever a ghost haunting your life, back from the grave!”

“I’m sure he was very shocked,” you giggle, pressing your forehead to his again, fingers combing through the hair at the back of his skull.

“Shocked? Baby, he was beyond shocked. He was—He was—I don’t even have a word for it!”

Another laugh spills from his lips, jagged and squeaky and full of razors.

And, oh, how breathtakingly beautiful genuine happiness looks on him, even if it’s tinted with derangement—the edges of his smile a little too sharp, the glint in his eye a little too vicious.

“The whole thing sounds magnificent,” you admit, soft and genuine, lips brushing his own. “I’m so happy it went so well.”

“It was perfect,” he gushes in a sigh. “The only way it could’ve been any more perfect is if mom, Yumi, and Natsu were there—but I’m sure they all caught the broadcast.”

You’re sure they did, too. That news programme had been playing on every major screen across the entirety of Japan; you’d have to be buried beneath a rock to have missed it.

He’s still babbling, feet still hopping and skipping around with you cradled tightly to his chest as the anticipation of his return finally wears off, clears from your system, and you take a real, good look at him.

And your heart sinks.

New burns have bubbled up on his cheeks, leaving only a sliver of skin between them and the scars below his eyes. Staples have snapped in half, hanging precariously from chunks of dead flayed flesh, their broken edges tinged an ugly black, burnt by Todoroki flames. Speckles of crimson are splattered artfully across his hair—though whether they belong to him or someone else, it’s hard to tell—the small remaining patches of healthy skin marred by dried black dye.

“Baby,” you breathe, struggling to keep your smile from trembling, struggling to keep concern from seeping into your voice. “You’re filthy.”

“Yeah, you should’a saw the other guy!” he giggles at his own joke, strident and sticky in his throat, but his smile is still so bright.

“And you’re hurt.”

He blows a dismissive breath from between his lips. “Can barely feel a thing, though—and I’m not even rolling right now!”

“Still,” you say, a frown beginning to weight the corners of your grin. “You should let me clean you up.”

“But it isn’t even painful.”

“Still,” you repeat, tender fingers brushing strands of white back from his forehead. “I want to clean you up.”

Begrudgingly, he allows it, sat on the closed toilet lid and continuing to chatter on as you tend to his wounds, words bubbling up on breathless excitement, massive smile still slapped, almost uncomfortably so, across his face.

Oxygen keeps escaping him before he finishes his sentences, everything bouncy and enthusiastic, and it’s such a stark contrast to the Dabi you’re used to, with his languid apathetic drawl and unhurried, uninterested speech.

And despite the subject matter, it’s nice, it’s cute.

He tells you about his father’s paralyzation and the tears in Shouto’s eyes and the horrified panic coating their faces as careful fingers dab and wipe and smear, meticulous in their task, devoted to their cause, your head nodding along with his endless recounter, emitting the perfectly placed ooh’s and mhmm’s, asking questions when the opportunities present themselves.

And even though you love seeing him this way, full of pure joy and exhilaration, you can’t quite kill the question sprouting in the depths of your mind, chewing on the back of your brain.

What now?

It’s on the tip of your tongue, searing your tastebuds, begging to be spoken. You try to swallow it down, but it claws at the back of your tongue, clinging, curling up in your throat and refusing to be forgotten.

What now? What’s going to happen now that Enji knows of his existence? What’s going to happen the next time he encounters his eldest child, swathed in the flames he once cherished so dearly, praised so hopefully, eating away at his boy as his hatred burns higher, blazes brighter, consumes his blood and flesh and bones and hopefully swallows down the monster that bred him in the process?

Will there even be anything left at all? Of either of them?

Does Dabi even care? Does Touya?

You know he’s still in there, despite the fact that his heart’s been corroded by the bitterness that’s been festering inside of him for eleven years—you’ve seen him.

You’ve seen him, trailing along with Toga, causticity eating at his teeth as he spits that she’s fucking stupid, this is so fucking stupid, but allowing himself to be led anyway, zero resistance as her tiny hands tug him along behind her bouncing form, feet following willingly.

You’ve seen him, meticulously picking through the glass bowls at the League’s small Halloween get together, checking and then double checking that everyone’s favourite candy is there, growling that he really doesn’t give a fuck, actually, he’s just looking for his own all the while, despite the fact that his fingers have skipped over that particular chocolate bar several times.

You’ve seen him, on those nights where Tomura just can’t get to sleep, sprawled out on the couch in the early hours of the morning, dirty boots an inch from Tomura’s crossed legs, staring blankly at his phone and waving Kurogiri off with a go to bed already, old man.

So what now?

“He tried to cool me down.”

The sudden switch to a quiet, monotonous voice snaps you from your tangle of thoughts, eyes refocusing on Dabi’s face, realizing you’ve rubbed a streak of his cheek near raw.

“What?”

“Shouto. He tried to cool me down. With his ice.” A pause, a drop of blood, balancing precariously on his lash line. “Like…Like how mom used to.”

His Adams apple bobs with the heft of a thick swallow, his eyes blank and unblinking, staring at your shoulder.

The blood in your veins runs frigid, hand held rigid and hovering over his wounds.

“During the fight?”

His gaze stays fixed on that spot as he nods, slowly, just once.

“I was overheating, and he…”

Another beat of silence passes, the sound of your own breathing echoing in your ears, harsh and fast with the rapid beating of your heart. The blood collecting along his lashes finally overflows, escaping their confines to pool in the crinkles of dead skin and coat gold in crimson.

“Hey,” you murmur, so gentle, so soft it inspires a second wave of blood, dainty hands cupping his jaw and tilting his face to yours.

Thumbs swipe through the thick streams of scarlet trickling down his cheeks, smearing bright strokes across healthy skin. His eyes, red and glazed but tearless, hold yours for a moment, his nostrils twitching twice.

Beneath your palms, the hinges of his jaw flex with another dense swallow, warped smile wobbling a little.

“Whatever,” he says, voice less than an octave off from normal. “Doesn’t matter, not important.”

It does, you want to say. It is, you want to insist—

“All I want to do now is celebrate the best day of my life with the love of my life.”

Saliva pools beneath your tongue, the threat of tears thick in your throat.

“Touya…” your eyes search his face, worry woven into the wrinkles between your furrowed brow. “It—”

“Please,” he whispers, so quiet it’s barely more than a wisp of air, his eyes closing briefly for a moment as he gathers himself, lids lifting a second later. “Let me have this.”

You want to, you so desperately want to—want to allow him this space to be happy, unfiltered and unadulterated, even in all of it’s unhinged, brainsick fervour. You don’t want to ruin this for him, the self-proclaimed Best Day of His Life, but…

What now?

It’s nipping at your lips, leaving them tingling and twitching, but you press your tongue to the roof of your mouth and suck, melting the question in the smothering heat.

Now is not the time to ask. You will save this question, will fold it into a neat little shape and stash it away in your stomach, where it will rage and roar and demand to be spoken, where you will shove it down and stomp it into submission until it is time to be released.

You refuse to steal this moment from him.

“Okay,” you finally murmur, stroking his blood-slicked cheeks. “Okay.”

It’s hard to ignore the concern scraping at the walls of your skull, to disregard the talons tearing at your heart, to snuff out the flames licking at your lungs, but you’ll do it for him.

Always for him.

And for the first time tonight, his smile softens, sharp edges gone melty with love.

Large hands, hardened by blue fire and the ends of Marlboros, skim up your bare thighs, the callouses adorning his palms scraping roughly against sensitive skin, inspiring trails of chills in their wake. The hem of your dress pools around his wrists as his touch climbs higher, filthy fingers, with dirt caked beneath their nails and grime lining their cuticles, wiggling their way beneath a frilly pink waistband, curling almost protectively around your hips, tips digging into supple flesh just shy of too hard.

“A perfect day deserves a perfect end, don’t you think?”

The question drips from his lips in a sultry murmur, stare heavily lidded as he tugs you down into his lap, a leering smirk smeared across his face.

“Oh, yeah?” your arms wind around his neck, nose bumping against his own. “And what’s that?”

“Stuffing my favourite girl full of my cum.”

Lips trace along the edge of your jaw as he speaks, words leaving sloppy strokes of saliva as his mouth moves against you skin.

“Over,” kiss, “And over,” kiss, “And over again, until it’s leaking out of her pretty little pussy, all over her pretty thighs, all over my pretty cock.”

“I think that—ah—I think that’s a great way to end the day.”

“Mm,” he hums, painting a flat, wide stroke of saliva up the column of your neck, the tip of his tongue tracing your cupids bow, nose bumping against your own. “It’s my favourite way to end the day.”

His lips press to yours, tongues finding each other instantly, dragging across one another in crude, sloppy caresses, heavy and slow and firm as they grind, massaging together in little circles. It’s almost as if you’re trying to soak up his taste, to permanently imbue your tastebuds with it, to keep a little reminder of him—a single piece—with you forever.

It’s messy, thick drool oozing from the seams of your conjoined mouths, but you don’t care, licking excess saliva from the corners of his mouth, sucking the dribble steadily collecting on his bottom lip, lapping up the foamy spit coating his chin staples, leaving them gleaming with you.

Lips clash again, teeth gnawing their way into the warm, wet heat of mouths, desperate to devour any part of each another you possibly can, sucking gasps and mewls and laughs from one throat into another, inhaling shards of your souls and swallowing them down, burying them in pits of stomachs and depths of guts—keepsakes, kept safe.

You can taste his blood in your mouth, salty with the tears that can’t fall, trickling from the edges of his eyes. Unfurling from your mouth, the tip of your tongue licks a thin strip up his ragged cheeks, over dead skin and warm bumpy metal, sopping up crimson sadness and consuming it.

You hold it for him, extract it from him, bear it with him, letting it soak into your heart where it can stay, for as long as he needs it to.

But that isn’t enough for him, because he wants something in return; he wants your blood, too.

Sharp teeth sink into your bottom lip, sucked taut and pressed tight to his tongue, a muted chuckle vibrating in his chest at your responding yelp. The strong hinges of his jaw flex, burrowing ivory deep, deep, deeper into your flesh, until the barrier snaps and copper explodes on his tongue, sticky and potent and so, so much.

He refuses to release you, ribs rattling with a growl when you try in vain to tug your lip free from its captors, a sob hitching in your throat, followed by a wheezy whine.

“Stay put, goddamn it,” he mumbles the words through his occupied teeth, tongue stroking your lip in the process. “M’not finished.”

Your squirming stops almost instantly, body deflating into his own, and he huffs out a snort, hot against your face.

The grip of his teeth loosens marginally, the tip of his tongue laving over the steadily weeping wound in firm, thorough strokes, tracing every indent his teeth left behind, dips rapidly swelling and filling with watered down blood, a mold of six teeth carved into your flesh.

The strength of his suction increases, siphoning fresh blood from the tiny gashes, and he moans a little, eyes rolling back in his skull as fluttery lashes frame the whites, his hips twitching up.

Sicko.

His cock is already hard, rutting into your core in irregular little movements, the lace of your panties so delicate you swear you can feel it throbbing, his motions molding the dainty fabric to your soaking folds with every slight jerk upward.

Slim fingers flex, grip on your hips tightening and further burying his nails in your flesh as he forces you to begin rocking in his lap, grinding down to meet each roll up.

His lips have left your own again, his mouth streaked with your blood, a pretty pink shimmer glazing the bottom half of his face. Blood is still trickling from the six tiny slashes his teeth left, overflowing from the seam of your mouth and flowing down your chin in unbroken streams.

Swiping a thumb through the thin floods, he smears sticky crimson across your skin, collecting a healthy swap of the substance on the pad of his finger—so much so it begins dripping down the curve to settle in the lines of his knuckle and his palm.

“Beautiful,” he whispers, repeating the action, painting you in messy shades of yourself. “Just beautiful.”

A whimper slips through your lips, eager tongue catching his thumb and curling around the appendage—protective, possessive—drawing it into the heat of your mouth.

He lets you guide him willingly, watches with lust-blown pupils as your lips pucker around the second knuckle, slick tongue cradling his thumb as it sucks it to the roof of your mouth, pools of saliva washing your blood from his skin.

His breath is coming out in hot, hard huffs, exhaled through parted lips as your mouth tightens, swallows his thumb down further. His pupils pulse, gnawing away at his irises as they try to devour you whole, blue so thin it’s scarcely an outline tracing gaping orbs of black.

Your hips are still gyrating against his in erratic little circles, a single palm still clasped around your waist guiding you, encouraging you as he bucks in response, straining cock rubbing along your cunt.

It’s just barely catching your clit, nothing more than teasing little grazes, dense heat simmering in the pit of your tummy.

You need more.

“Dabi,” you whine a little, wriggling in his grasp, a desperate attempt to garner more friction.

“Uh-huh?”

“Touya.”

“Yeah, baby,” he answers, the nonchalance in his tone contradicting the mischief glinting in his eye. “What is it?”

Chrome chips your nails as you claw at the heavy buckle of his belt, leather squeaking against metal. His free hand captures your wrists easily, holding them together in one palm, hard enough that the bones grind together.

“You want something? Huh?”

Brows knitting, you glare at him, bottom lip quivering a little, fighting the urge to jut into a full-blown pout, fighting the urge to spit out what do you think?

“You know.”

He does, of course he does.

But that doesn’t mean he’s just going to give it to you.

“C’mon, I wanna hear you say it,” he purrs as your chin puckers, your whole face scrunched up in a scowl. “C’mon, baby, c’mon, be a good little girl and ask for it.”

Sapphire scathes your skin, almost as bright and burning as his flames, his unadulterated attention nearly too much to bear, confidence and brattiness withering beneath his scorching stare.

Lashes fluttering, your eyes flee his, tears forming to shield you from his heat, shoulders caving inward in an attempt to protect you from his unyielding scrutiny.

“W-Want your cock.”

His tongue clicks in disapproval, a mocking frown slapped across his face barely suppressing his amusement, eyes shining, power flaring.

“That’s not asking, sweetheart.”

Swallowing thickly, you force your gaze to his, lids squinting a little beneath his brilliance.

“Can I please have your cock? Please?”

“Please what?”

And although he’s acting unaffected, he can’t quite quell the spasming of his hips, jerking up in minuscule movements and grinding his cock into your sopping hole, panties clinging uncomfortably to your folds.

An eyebrow raises, a question of Well? I’m waiting… imbued in the subtle action.

He isn’t going to give it to you unless you ask properly, like a good little girl is supposed to.

As expected.

“Please, Master,” you mewl, fingers curling over the edges of his belt and tugging, sharp leather biting into soft hands. “Please, please, let me ride your cock, Sir.”

Cavernous eyes observe you for a moment, scanning for dishonesty, grin growing when a whine vibrates in your throat, low and needy.

“Please?” you whimper, the leather of his belt creasing beneath your grip, squealing as it rubs together, a plead hitching in your chest. “Pl—Please, Sir.”

“Alright, alright,” he’s pacifying, acting as if he’s doing you some sort of favour, as if his cock isn’t jumping eagerly with each drool of pre-cum leaking from its slit. “Go on, then. Get it out.”

Words of thanks are pouring from your lips as your hands hastily undo his pants, yanking at the buckle, tugging at the zipper, shoving at the waistband, messy and urgent until his cock is finally released.

The stretch is nothing short of incredible, as it always is with him, little hole trembling as it swallows around his girth, drawing him in further and further, deeper and deeper, slow and steady until the head nudges your cervix, his hips twitching up twice, ensuring he’s hit the end, buried to the hilt with nowhere else to go, completely stuffing your cunt full.

And despite the trademark ache, delicate flesh stinging as it splits into little fissures to accommodate him, your hips begin moving immediately, starved and raring, whimpering a little into his shoulder as you cling to him, every rotation of your hips radiating pricks of pain through your gut.

“God, you’re pathetic,” he snorts, but the insult is soft, edges dulled by love. “So fucking desperate for my cock, aren’t you?”

“Can’t help it,” you murmur, rubbing your cheek along the curve of his neck, then his jaw, streaking your face with his sweat. “Missed you so much.”

“I know, baby,” the tip of his tongue swipes through the blood still staining your chin. “Bet you missed my cock just as much, if not more.”

“Yes, yes, Sir,” you’re nodding in messy little motions, hips still rocking languidly against his own, clit gliding against his slick pubic bone in rhythmic strokes. “I did, I missed it s’much—”

A gasp slices through your slurred words, sharp air shoved from your chest as his hips begin snapping upward, rough and ruthless and without warning, the hands grasping your hips tightening around your flesh as he forces you to stay in place.

“Of course you did,” he grunts out, as if it’s preposterous to think otherwise. “I’m not at all surprised; my sweet lil slut can’t live without my cock, can she?”

“Never, never, ne-never,” you babble out in confirmation, words stuttered harshly with the piston of his hips.

Another laugh spills from his lips, airy and malicious in melody.

“No, never,” he rasps, ever-so-slightly breathless with the effort, dewdrops of sweat beginning to adorn his hairline. “Fuck, how would you ever get off without me, huh?”

The question sends a pang searing through your heart, echoing a question you’ve been asking yourself often as of late—how would you ever survive without him?

The thought stings your eyes, thick tears rushing to cloud your vision and rendering him nothing more than a watery blur of ivory and violet.

“I—I wouldn’t, Sir, I wouldn’t!” you cry out, rapid fluttering of your lids dislodging teardrops, streaming down your cheeks in glistening pairs. “I n-need you, I need you, always, always, al-always!”

Your fingers curl against his shoulders, nails catching on staples, a hiss spit from the gaps of his teeth. They sink into grafted skin, dead and weathered and dusted in ash, and cling, knuckles locked and stiff as you try to pull yourself impossibly closer to him.

Gnarled flesh collects beneath the edges of your nails as your grip strengthens, chewing on his body and gathering it in your grasp, consuming whatever tiny slivers you can, a silent plead to stay.

“It’s okay, precious,” he hushes you, lips pushed into a mocking pout, contradicted by the smothering affection exuding from his eyes. “M’here, m’not going anywhere.”

God, you hope not.

“Please, please—”

And you drown yourself in it, drown yourself in him; his taste, spicy hickory and warm smoke, exhaled onto your hungry tongue, soaked up and swallowed down; his gaze, overflowing with adoration and intense attention, tying itself in a thick braided noose around your neck and tightening; his touch, stamping his prints into your flesh in blotchy bursts of blue, singeing his name with licks of sapphire that welt and wound, that crust and crater and scar.

Your ribs squeeze, sucked inward by the voracious black hole your heart has morphed into—never sated, never filled, always vying for more—whole body curling beneath the strain.

But he’s right there to hold you, to steady you, to keep you intact, his hands the stitches you need to keep from unraveling.

“I know, I know,” he’s cooing as you choke on sobs, still scraping weakly at his back, “your Master’s gonna give you what you need.”

Slim fingers flex, soot-stuffed nails latching onto your flesh like tiny leeches, dug in nice and deep, using his grasp as leverage to control the speed and angle of your hips.

Your feet skid against the chipped bathroom tile, the muscles in your legs tensing as you attempt to find stable purchase on the floor trying to aid in his movements, to fuck yourself on him.

It’s no use, though—it’s not like it matters, anyway, not when Dabi’s got complete domination over your body, over all of its movements and positions, manhandling you into whatever arrangement he pleases, reduced to nothing more than his favourite little plaything.

“It’s real cute,” he’s telling you in that sugared condescension you’ve come to love so much, “that you’re trying so hard to help me.”

A whine escapes your lips, caught somewhere between apologetic and petulant, hips stammering as they begin to slow, and he laughs.

“Aw, no, don’t stop,” his tongue clicks against his teeth. “Keep trying, it’s so precious.”

And although his tone is taunting, full of characteristic derisive glee, his eyes are encouraging, begging you to keep going, for him.

And so, you do, desperate to please him, the muscles in your thighs beginning to burn as you work in vain to pathetically hump away at him, hips knocking together irregularly as your footing continues to slip.

It doesn’t do much to assist him, but he’s happy anyway, a certain type of pride saturating his features, dulling the points of his wide smile, dimming the harsh brilliance in his eyes, turning his face into something a little softer, something a little sweeter.

Dabi keeps an iron grip on the pace—not that you’d ever expect anything different—forcing you to ride him hard and fast, bouncing you on his cock as his hips buck up in expert rhythm, completing your movements every time. The head drags over that engorged spot with each pound into you, sending a judder of scorching sparks to rush through your blood, each bout more intense than the last.

“God, look at you, you’re such a little slut for me, huh?” he pants out, rapacious eyes sweeping across your face, keen to soak up your expression. “Taking my cock like you were fuckin’ made for it.”

He’s really fucking into you now, jerking you on his cock like a toy, because you are—something that’s his to use whenever, wherever, and however he sees fit, something that’s his to own, to care for and splinter to bits and painstakingly piece back together, over and over and over again.

Tears of ecstasy are pouring from your eyes, cascading down your face in twin streams, excess dewdrops embedded in spiked lashes glittering with every rough pump of his hips.

It all hurts—always does, with Dabi, incapable of treating anything with any degree of gentleness; not a flaw, just a fact, oblivious to his own strength—but the pain only works to elevate the pleasure, pushing it higher and higher and higher until it’s choking you, smothering your lungs and stuffing your throat and spilling out your mouth in the form of messy, stringy sobs.

“S’been so long, Sir, so long,” you weep, nails burrowing further into his body, almost as if they’re desperate to reach his core—to pry past his ribs and claw into his heart and curl up in his soul.

Because it has been so long, too long, most of Dabi’s attention soaked up by Paranormal Liberation duties and his own extensive planning as Shigaraki’s due date drew closer and closer, any scraps of time thrown your way whenever he had a spare moment to sneak off to this dilapidated safe house where he’d stashed you away, his visits sporadic and unpredictable.

“You’re right,” he says, and there’s a tinge of melancholy to his breath. “It’s been way too long since your sweet cunt has been filled with your Owner’s cock, hasn’t it?”

“It has, it has,” you’re nodding sloppily, tongue tangled in threads of spit.

“My poor lil pussy,” he pouts, and it’s so derisive. “Must be starving, it hasn’t been stuffed nice and full with my cum in forever.”

“No, no, no,” you’re chanting in agreement, “feels so empty without you, Sir, feels s-so wrong.”

“Aw, don’t worry, sweetheart,” he crudely laps at the steady stream of tears, vicious bouncing causing his teeth to nick your cheek. “I’m gonna change that.”

Chapped lips find your ear, slicked with saliva, his voice dropping an octave as he continues.

“Because tonight,” he breathes, sweltering against your ear, his tongue darting from between wet lips to trace along the curve. “I am going to stuff you so full of my cum that—ah, fu-fuck—that it’s going to flood your cute lil tummy, that it’s gonna seep into your organs, into your fucking blood, that it’s gonna be leaking out all over the fucking place.”

“Oh, oh, please, Sir, please!”

The pleads come out as a single string, melded together with drool and garbled on your tongue. Little jolts of fire shoot through your body with the constant ramming of his hips, flames licking at your veins as they sear through them, the sharp slap of your ass against his thighs complementing his harsh pants and your broken moans.

“Yeah, I know, my little cumslut wants that so badly, doesn’t she?”

Your brain struggles to stitch together a sentence longer than his name, your mind gone delirious for his seed—and it’s an aching, it’s an addiction, sick and depraved and downright uncontrollable—little uh-huh!’s mercilessly fucked from your throat, head bobbling along with the affirmations.

You can feel it, a taut pleasure building within your body, a fluttering that furls into a tight ball of sapphire flame in the pit of your belly, pulsing a little faster, a little harder, a little more with every drive of his cock.

“Oh, Touya, Tou—Touya!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, say my name.”

A growl rattles against his ribs, whole chest vibrating with the force of it, and his head dips down, slick tongue painting strokes of thick, shimmering saliva across your skin, an artist priming his favourite canvas.

“C’mon, tell me who’s making you feel this good—” and although it’s supposed to be a command, it comes out as a plead, voice tapering off into a low whine, muffled against your shoulder. “Tell me, tell me.”

“You, Touya,” you choke out, the name mangling itself in your throat. “You, you, you!”

“You’re goddamn right, it’s me.”

Sharp teeth bury themselves in your flesh, mouth clamped over the junction of your neck, harder and harder and harder until the barrier of your skin finally splits, syrupy copper erupting on his tongue.

His name shatters on your lips, a dark chuckle soaking into the wound when you arch your neck, stretched and strained and offering him more room to work despite the squeal of pain sticking in your throat

It’s all so much, too much, his teeth in your flesh and his cock filling your cunt and—and—!

“Gonna—gonna—!”

A large palm collides with your ass, sick slap echoing off the cracked walls.

“Is that any way to ask your Master for permission?” Dabi spits, voice dripping with disappointment. “God,” he huffs out a laugh, incredulous, but the mirth shining in his eyes is so bright, so blazing it almost hurts to look at. “My cock must’ve really made you go fucking stupid, huh? Don’t you know this body belongs to me?”

Another spank lands against your bottom, a yelp hitching in your chest with the ruthless jackhammer of his hips, his fingers sinking into the burning flesh in a bruising grip, amplifying the sting of the slap, digging it deep into your tissues.

“This body is not allowed to cum unless I say so—so ask nicely, you little bitch.”

“M’sorry!” you cry out, a fresh torrent of tears flooding your eyes. “M’sorry, m’so sorry, Master—”

“Yeah? Yeah?”

His other hand snakes between your heaving, sweat-drenched bodies, thumb and forefinger clamping down on your clit and tweaking, hard enough to force a scream from your tongue, sending spikes of pain rushing through your veins. His fingers flatten against the engorged little nub a moment later, rubbing hard, quick circles into it, a malicious little giggle squeaking in his throat because it’s so swollen, baby and Christ, you must wanna cream all over his cock so badly!

Sounds of affirmation spill uncontrollably from your lips, head nodding in frenetic little motions, whole face shimmering and sticky with salt, snot, sweat.

“Uh-huh? Uh-huh?”

He’s mocking you, chin tilted up in superiority, staring down the bridge of his nose to regard you in patronizing pity, eyebrows raised and imploring you to continue.

“Apologies are not asking, baby,” his grip catches your slippery clit again, twisting it harder this time, your eyes scrunching shut as a cry shatters on your tongue, fingers scrabbling against his shoulders, tearing out staples.

He’s right, you know he is, but he’s making it difficult to speak, difficult to ask, difficult to stitch together a single word at all, let alone a full thought, when he’s playing with your clit like that, alternating between pulsing pinches and gentle caresses, the calloused pads of his fingertips providing just the right amount of friction.

Your whole body quivers with the effort of holding your orgasm back, muscles pulled tight and taut with the strain, and he laughs—beautiful, breathless, bona-fide—cock twitching inside of you.

“Pl—Please, Sir,” you manage to gasp out, entreatment forced from your tongue in a single thin breath. “Please, let me cum, please, please, please!”

The pleads melt into one gooey stream as they flow from your lips, slathered in drool and dripping from the corners of your mouth in thick cords.

“Yeah? You want it? You wanna cum all over your Owner’s cock?”

“Yes, yes!” you practically wail, pawing urgently at him. “Please, sir, let me cum, make me cum, I wanna—I wanna—”

“Alright, alright,” Dabi’s pacifying, but his actions don’t slow, hips merciless with their assault on your body. “Go ahead, sweetheart, make a pretty mess on me.”

Never one to disobey a direct order from your Master, you do, almost instantly, entire body convulsing as your cunt pulses around his shaft, gushing so much slick that it floods his thighs and soaks the waistband of his pants.

The constant circles ground into your sensitive clit as you spasm around him only work to heighten the pleasure, brain gone numb with the shocks of ecstasy coursing through your body, another flurry of jolts sent through your veins with every run through the routine, skin rippling with the impact.

He doesn’t stop his assault even after you cum, vehemently refusing to let up even as the clenching of your cunt fades into something faint and erratic, even as violent tremors loop through your veins, entire body quivering in his tight grasp, even as your fingers claw weakly at his wrist, crooking staples and scraping scarred flesh, blood rushing to fill the gouges left by your nails.

No, he doesn’t stop until you’re teetering on the brink of passing out, wandering in and out of consciousness, his name leaving your lips in a near incomprehensible jumble, slurred and heavy with spit.

Only then does he scoop you up in his arms, your legs dangling limply from his elbows as his palms firmly clutch your ass, hard cock still aching and buried deep inside of you, and carry your pliant body to that worn, fraying couch, with the puffs of white cotton leaking through the polyester and the exposed springs groaning beneath your weight.

You barely notice the change in scenery, though, still blissfully fucked out, nerves gnawed raw by his overstimulation, a soft hiss slipping from between your teeth as the scratchy cushion rubs against your bare bottom, a raised imprint of Dabi’s palm and all five fingers still rapidly swelling.

“It’s my turn now, angel,” Dabi’s words drift over your body in an indistinct haze, vision fuzzing at the edges, your head nodding instinctively.

“Gonna—Gonna make good on your promise, Master?”

“I always do, don’t I?”

And then his hips are thrusting, cockhead repeatedly ramming your cervix with every harsh plunge forward, leaning down to catch fresh tears with his lips. The tip of his tongue traces their salty trajectory all the way to your bottom lashes, matted into wet little spikes, before sucking a hickey into your cheek, tiny capillaries bursting beneath his tongue, staining the thin skin with swiftly developing violet.

Tufts of ivory cling to his temples in damp clumps, dried black dye liquifying beneath his heat and running down his cheeks, leaving streaks along the line of his jaw and the curve of his neck. Sweat collects in the dips of his collarbones, shimmering gently in the flickering light spilling from the television set, a wavering news reporter recounting the tragic events of today, stuttered by static.

“God,” he nearly whines, voracious eyes sweeping across your face, desperate to soak up your twisted expression of pleasure-tinged pain—the way your lids keep drooping as you struggle to keep them pried open, eyes speckled with stars, lashes encrusted with tears; the way your tongue keeps lolling out to draw your slick lip back between your teeth, muffling your whimpers and mewls, and oh, no, he can’t have that, a gentle tut of his tongue clicking against his teeth as his thumb tugs it free from your mouth, drawing out a stringy whine in the process.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous when you go dumb from my cock.”

The words leave his lips in an airy gasp, as if he can hardly believe you’re real beneath him, as if he can hardly believe it’s his cock making you look this way, a hand leaving your waist to slide along your torso, taking the hem of your dress with it, rough palm tracing every curve and dip and bulge as it crawls to your collarbone.

He takes his time to admire you—to appreciate the sensation of your skin beneath his touch, fingers gripping, kneading, scraping, gathering palmfuls of you in his grasp before letting go again in a stunned sort of marvel—hips slowing to an uneven rutting, unable to fully halt his fucking.

Keeping a firm, steady grasp on your body and pinning you in place, his free hand continues to roam, hardened fingertips sinking into the pretty blue lace of your bra hard with enough force to elicit a yelp from your lips, amusement tugging at his lips.

“So, so beautiful,” he pants, eyes skimming your now exposed body, his fiery gaze outlining every edge, dedicated in committing every contour to memory. “Fucking look at you.”

In all the time you’ve been with him, your body has become a scrapbook of Dabi. It tells stories of him—what he’s done, how he’s felt, where he’s been, why he did it—stamped permanently into your flesh using his teeth and his tongue and his flames, in raised flesh and puckered craters and glittering scabs.

You can’t tear your stare from his face, though, too busy worshipping him, sapphire eyes gaping and glazed as they travel along your body, soft huffs of breath escaping his lips, pushed from his throat with the tender heaving of his chest, saliva glistening on his lips, smeared so prettily across the staples climbing his chin.

Dainty fingers grope at the air, pathetic and yearning, clawing at nothing, and he laughs a little, nothing more than a smooth, deep vibration at the back of his tongue.

His touch finds the apex of your thighs again, nails dimpling flesh as he spreads your legs wide—so wide your muscles begin to burn, taut beneath the strain—a quiet groan rumbling in his chest as he stares at your stretched cunt.

Two fingers press into your clit, still slick and swollen, grazing over it in slow caresses—back and forth, back and forth, gliding easily over the puffy nub and snorting a little at the way your hole flutters, eager and aching, squeezing his cock, sucking him in, begging for more.

So cute.

Eyes wide and unblinking, he plays with you in a trance, slowly but surely building up pleasure in you, pressure in you, fascinated by the way your body so readily reacts to his simple motions, grinding circles and rubbing strokes and pulsing fingertips.

It enraptures him, puffs of hot air exhaled through slightly parted lips as he watches just his touch bring you to orgasm for the second time tonight, obsessed with the way your cunt trembles around his cock, a surge of your essence streaming from your hole, embracing him in a thick, wet heat.

Your cunt gorges on him—so fuckin’ greedy, even after cumming twice—fluttering a little around the base of his shaft, still oozing so much slick that it’s glazing your ass and his balls, steadily seeping past the tight seam of your hole.

It’s so pretty, it’s so fuckin’ pretty, baby, he’s breathing, eyes hazy with awe, hips drawing back just a little to watch the way your body clings to his girth, sheathing his cock in a shimmering layer of arousal.

A palm wraps around the base of his shaft, the head of his cock still buried an inch or two in your straining cunt, and he jerks himself hard and quick, sick wet slaps echoing out among the room as his hand slams between your cunt and his pelvis.

“Fuck, f-fuck—”

His hips start moving on their own accord, too impatient, his hand nothing compared to the sweltering ecstasy of your cunt, and he releases his cock, sticky hand collaring your throat, pinioning you to the couch, his thrusts so vicious they’re jostling your body up the cushions, the palm crushing your airway keeping you in place.

Lithe fingers flex as their grip on your neck tightens, coarse pads of his fingertips beginning to heat up, blood in your veins bubbling beneath his touch.

Your flesh melts beneath his hold, melds itself to his grasp, desperate to stay in his hands forever.

The sting is unlike anything you’ve ever felt before, his palm and all five of his fingers singed into your skin in the prettiest, most precious permanent necklace. You can barely breathe, exhales coming as weak little wheezes, and you swear his flames must be licking into your throat, down to your lungs and straight through your veins, incinerating your blood as your body goes numb, cunt clenching around his cock for the third time, wailing out shards of his name.

But you don’t allow his hold to let up, to loosen at all, both of your hands placed firmly over his, holding it there harder, a loud moan escaping his lips, his hips stammering out of rhythm.

“Brand me, Master, brand me, brand me,” you’re gasping out, voice wrecked and raw. “Make me yours, mark me as yours, forever!”

“Jesus Christ,” he nearly sobs, his thrusts turned brutal, primal, losing any semblance of finesse as he relentlessly fucks you, motions stuttering as he finally cums, a violent shudder coursing through his body before he collapses on top of you, drenched in sweat as his cock throbs, filling you to the brim with hot, thick cum.

“More, Touya, more, more!” you’re crying out, scrabbling at his shoulders as you try to pull him closer, shivering legs latching around his waist as tight as you can manage as your hips roll up to meet his own, crudely humping him. “Gimme more!”

A groan, dense and heavy, spills from his lips, his entire body rippling with hiccups as he ruts into you—automatic, instinctual, desperate to give his sweet girl what she wants, even if it hurts.

“Yeah, yeah, ye-yeah, Touya, Touya, fill me with y’r cum!”

And so, he does, using your cunt to milk himself even as his form quivers with every rock of his hips, chills skidding across his flesh with every bump of his cockhead against your abused cervix.

He keeps going, just like you begged him to, just like he promised he would, until your tummy is stuffed full and your cunt is leaking with his seed, until neither of you can take it anymore, bodies shuddering with every hump and drag and grind, deliquescing into one another, a puddle of limbs.

You stay like that for a while, his body blanketing yours, breathing as one, being as one. Gentle fingertips trail up and down the column of his spine as his bones begin to fuse and harden again, tiptoeing over the trails of staples stitching dead skin to healthy flesh and evoking a mild shudder, pads of your fingers pressing into each golden suture, counting them lovingly, kissing every one.

Eventually, after your fingers have traversed across all thirty-one, he shifts, manhandling you onto his chest as he shuffles himself beneath you, cradled between his thighs.

“What now?”

You don’t mean to say it, don’t mean to shatter that delicate, post-orgasmic, precarious peace with two simple words, but they claw up your throat and pry past your teeth and gnaw on your lips, desperate to be vocalized, immortalized, heard.

What now?

They’re uttered out softly enough, lips moving against his heart, warm breath seeping into his chest, the question worming its way beneath his skin.

His muscles go rigid, his breath stalling in his lungs.

What happens now that his goal has been reached, Part One in his plan succeeded? What’s the next step, now that the world knows Todoroki Touya is alive and simmering in his hatred, fuelled by spite and ravenous with revenge?

What happens when he goes to face his father for the final time? And what happens if he never returns?

“Oh, I dunno,” he sighs out, but his voice trembles. “We could fix this place up, all nice and swanky, have a couple’a kids, get a golden retriever—y’know, real nuclear family type shit.”

You laugh, but it comes out strangled, sounding strange to your ears, a distorted sob.

“The dream, huh?”

“Yeah,” he says, quiet, nostalgia for a time that has never happened, that will never come, aching in his words. “The dream.”

A silence settles over the two of you, as tender as the edges of a festering wound.

“I have to do it,” he says after several moments have passed, and his voice is soft—softer than you’ve ever heard it before, softer than you ever thought him capable of—infused with apology.

He does.

You know he does. You understand why. That’s how the story ends, the final chapter he’s been drafting—you were never meant to be a part of this tale, written in between lines and margins, stuffed between words, twined throughout the pages nonetheless. But ultimately, this is his story—to write, to tell, to edit, to revise, to create, to conclude.

You know.

But the acceptance sticks in your throat, furled into a tight, hard lump, so you nod instead, punctuating your affirmative with a kiss pressed to his chest, planted right over his heart. It soaks into his skin, burrows itself into pulsating muscle and finds salvation there, finds home there, a puzzle piece that snaps into perfect place—something that’s always been missing, now complete. Something he’ll take with him, when his pen leaves the page, when his book snaps shut.

You don’t dare look at him. You don’t need to. You can feel the stutter of his chest, hear the hitch of his breath tangling on hard truths to swallow, smell the copper streaming down his cheeks again.

And you hug him tighter.

You know. And no matter how badly you wish to, you won’t stop him.

#dabi smut #dabi x reader #dabi x you #todoroki touya smut #todoroki touya x reader #todoroki touya x you #dabi angst #bnha smut #bnha x reader #happy belated birthdaaaay dabi i love you so much #eeeeee feel free to let me know what u think!!! i hope u enjoy it!!!

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linderosse · 9 months

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Based on a scene from Ch2 of The Secrets We Keep.

(Note: This takes place in the same universe as Wielders of Wisdom. Certain characters’ arcs are intertwined, but you should be able to read one without reading the other.)

#linked universe #lu legend #lu warriors #loz marin #fanart #lin draws #I drew this so long ago #almost a year maybe #comic practice #hope u enjoy #same universe as wielders of wisdom #but you can read one without the other #angst #lu the secrets we keep #lu wielders of wisdom #the secrets we keep #wielders of wisdom

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mobius-m-mobius · 3 months

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#ep 2 is for their very particular form of dating 😉

Loki 1x02 // 2x02

#mobius #loki #lokius #mcuedit #lokiedit #marveledit #owen wilson #tom hiddleston #the agents of chaos that they are #once again i ask who's doing it like them 😘✌️#now with that said the struggle is real not to go full on angst with my giffing but i'm trying to keep it light for the month of romance lo #and there's something so hilariously lovely about how they don't even hesitate to show excitement about enjoying this stuff together??#'this stuff' being. y'know. total destruction and all but let them have their moment 🥺#marvel #owenwilsonedit #dianagifs

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sun-snatcher · 2 months

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hello! i love ur work and i was wondering if u could do some live action zuko angst (that makes ur heart sink) and then it progresses to fluff (that makes ur heart swell) please? HAHA idk if it makes sense but i rlly love ur work!! hope ure doing well n no pressure!!!

🐉・ HEARTBURN

summ. Fresh from his banishment, Zuko faces the aftermath of his punishment in both his dreams and his waking hours. pairing. Zuko x f!reader (established relationship) w.count. 1k. a/n. A bit abstract on this one, but just typical dream logic. A glimpse at Zuko’s descent into madness, almost? Sorry anon if this is mostly angst than fluff! 🧎🏻‍♀️

Zuko’s dreams manifest at the scent of burnt flesh and the sound of his own screaming.

He feels the molten sting of a melting crown upon his skin and the fantastical beast that is his father; something monstrous— something scaled, fanged, clawed, and too large an appetite, with a touch and breath of fire that lights the skies in a blaze.

( He wakes up with his voice hoarse from screaming. The 41st Division will eventually learn early on not to mention it. They just leave a hot pot of tea ready for him come the mornings, by General Iroh's orders. )

Sometimes, it transgresses. Sometimes, it’s his mother who burns while he watches from the sidelines of the Agni Kai; Or Azula. Their shrieks mix with his when he wakes.

Sometimes, it’s Iroh who scalds him. Great Dragon of the West, jasmine-white with razor teeth and a flame that burns as hot as the sun; serpent eyes a shining gold and a sharper tongue that spoke of his disappointment for his nephew.

Sometimes, it begins with you.

Please, you beg, at the foot of a winged beast. It speaks in the voice of his father; damning, all-encompassing. It warns the Prince the price of compassion, of mercies, and of weaknesses. Eliminate her, or I will.

Rarely does Zuko ever move. He’d plead in your name, to spare your life. It never happens; he just wakes to the smell of smoke and the sound of your screaming.

( There are dreams he doesn’t speak at all to defend you. The shame devours him whole. )

“I’ve killed you over a hundred times, in my sleep.”

In the aftermath of another nightmare, you turn to face Zuko. You’re not quite sure what to say.

“Other nights, it’s the 41st, or Uncle,” he says, quietly. “Even mom, or Azula.”

You turn back to the small medical chest on the desk. The infirmary is quieter at times like these; the soldiers of the 41st know not to visit the usual haunts of their Prince. Tonight, Zuko will have to replace the bandages of his scar, and there are only two people on this ship he’d ever trust in his life to lay a hand on it.

You’re shifting towards where he’s sitting on one of the cots. “May I?”

( You ask. You always ask. Even when you’ve done this nearly fifty times, you ask. Zuko is glad; there’s a comfort in agency, especially when he’s gotten so used to losing it every time he sleeps. )

He nods, and you make quick work to unravel the bandages. When the layers come away, you observe the way his left eye shuts and opens as he blinks, remaining half-closed into a permanent expression of pain. He looks away, downcast.

The skin around is stretched taut, some areas rawer than others, marred with growing scar tissue that knots in twisting valleys. ( Zuko has only seen the scar once. He’s covered the mirrors in his room ever since; avoids glancing at his own passing reflections. )

The wound is still fresh; the memories fresher.

You don’t flinch at the sight or recoil like the other soldiers or dignitaries.

He finds… solace in that.

( Something roils in his mind. It uncurls and hisses and growls. )

“Tilt your head for me,” you say, ready to replace the cotton on his eye with a new one.

He stops your wrist just as you do.

Your heart jumps at the contact. His hands are warm.

“Why?” he blurts.

You blink in confusion.

“Why’d you come with me?”

The reply is instant, and unintentionally drowned in affection. “Where else would I have belonged?”

Zuko almost answers instinctively: With me. By my side. He shakes his head.

“You should have never come,” he says, instead. He’d grown fond of you over the years. Too fond; over some Firenation colonel’s daughter, a force to be reckoned with and yet a childhood friend who he’d played and studied and fought with countless times. Fond enough that he’d been foolish to let you step foot into the ship of the 41st Division the day he’d been banished; fond enough to be foolish enough to allow you to put yourself in harm’s way. “You could’ve had a better future back home.”

“But a miserable one,” you counter.

His nostrils flare as he sighs. You watch the way his brows weave to a frown, the way they always did whenever he’s tamping down his frustration. "Nothing is more miserable than being banished from home. Yet here you are walking away from it.”

“You and I both know the palace was never a home for me,” you say. “I’ve been by your side my entire life. I’m not about to break that streak over some punishment. You matter to me.”

Zuko’s heart stifles.

( Compassion, he hears the wings of the blood-red dragon in his dreams unfurl. Compassion is a sign of weakness. )

“It was a stupid move,” he blurts, letting go of you. He had wanted it to be emotionless, but it comes out as distinctively bitter: “Sooner or later you’ll come to regret your decision. Then, you’ll see I was right all along.”

“Maybe,” you say, just to appease him. “But I doubt it.”

( Lies, jeers the serpent. You have only yourself to rely on in this world, Zuko. )

For the sake of conversation, you don’t provoke him further. You continue, instead, with replacing the dressings around his eye. He’s angry enough as is with the world— with you. For being stubborn. And strong. And steadfast. And loyal. And—

Zuko glances at your face in focus, your hands so careful in binding the gauze it’s nearly featherlight. “Tell me if it hurts,” you say, with gentle authority.

The ire leaves his body. Zuko’s gaze softens at a realisation:

“Not once have you ever hurt me. Not even in my dreams.”

It’s a statement so frighteningly vulnerable that it has you stilling. Your breath staggers. Something swells in your chest. You let your hand rest on his cheek, thumb below his scar. The touch is reassuring. Zuko wants to lean into it.

“I don’t think I ever could,” you answer, honestly.

( She can, sings the beast. She will. And once she does, know that it will burn tenfold than what I've done. )

Zuko's hand settles on top of yours.

“You can hurt me,” he concedes, solemn, voice barely above a whisper. “You can if you must. I command it.”

( The dragon in his head hisses. For now, it retreats. )

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metalhoops · 1 year

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The Five Times Eddie Wondered Who His Soulmate Was and the One Time He Didn’t Have To

The worst thing about knowing your soulmate was in trouble was understanding there was nothing you could do about it.

As a whole, Eddie thought the concept of soulmates was bullshit. He thought all that fate and destiny crap was a scam to sell the idea of monogamy or co-dependence. If people were too busy fretting over when they’d meet ‘their person’, they’d forget that actual shit was going on in the world. Who had the time to care about systemic oppression when they were busy trying to work out if the cute girl across the corridor was their one true love?

That being said, sometimes Eddie got curious about who they were. Not many people found their soulmates. It wasn’t as obvious as you’d think. When they were in pain, you would feel it. Two people could live across the world from one another, feeling each scraped knee and broken wrist but never meet. Hell, you could live across the street from someone and unless you were there to watch them get hurt and feel the same old pang of shared pain, you’d never know.

It wasn’t like Eddie had never felt his soulmate before that day. They’d twisted an ankle when Eddie was twelve and sprained a wrist when he was fourteen, but he’d felt no pain from them so strong as when he was sitting in detention during his junior year.

He was counting down the minutes left until he could get out of the high school, hell hole when a sharp and sudden pain flooded his jaw. He gritted his teeth and cradled it with his palm, feeling as though the wind was knocked out of his body. Eddie knew what being punched in the face felt like, and that was it. Just when the ache started to fade, another thud of pain to his cheek made his vision swim. From there, Eddie held his breath, waiting for the pain to end. He rested his head on his desk and felt his heart in his throat as the blows kept coming.

He missed Mrs Click telling him to go home, too busy gripping the desk for dear life, his fingernails digging into the poorly carved desk graffiti, slicing a line through ‘RB 4 TT.’ He was elated when the pain finally stopped.

Eddie kept his head down the whole walk home, trying to tell himself soulmates were bullshit, and that he didn’t care about his, but his thoughts kept returning to visions of them. He hoped they were okay.

Eddie never wanted to know who his soulmate was until that moment. They’d had a hell of a day and Eddie wanted to be there with them, tell them he knew what it was like. He wanted to hold their head in his lap and tell them everything was going to be okay, that if it were up to him, no one would hurt them like that again, but he couldn’t. For all he knew, they could be a hundred miles away.

The next time it happened, Eddie was at home alone in the trailer. Uncle Wayne was working a night shift, and he was watching a horror movie marathon on the T.V. It was shaping up to be a good night, with him curled up on the couch watching a schlocky creature feature when he felt all the air knocked out of his lungs.

For a moment, he was worried something horrible was happening to him. When Jeff had appendicitis, he’d reported the same kind of pain. Eddie rolled up the hem of his shirt, watching a black-blue bruise bloom and fade in the span of a second. Sometimes, if the pain was great enough, you’d get what they called an ‘echo’ of the injury. It only lasted a moment, invisible ink fading on pale paper.

The pain had been so strong that Eddie hadn’t been able to tell if it was theirs or his. From there, it got worse. He felt a sharp pang crash over his head, then another series of blows to the face. It was always the goddamn face.

When it was over, Eddie was left feeling lightheaded. The sensation faded quickly, but he knew his other half would be stuck with the ache for the rest of the night, if not longer.

There was a lot of conjecture when it came to soulmates. It was hard to conduct scientific studies on something based entirely on sensation, and any research that had been done was less than ethical. All the same, for the rest of the night, Eddie curled his arms around himself, holding his body in the hopes his person could feel it, that he could give them some comfort.

“I hope you’re okay,” he whispered, burrowing his face into the crook of his elbow.

Back at school, Eddie floated through the halls feeling less than himself as thoughts of his person swirled. The school was abuzz with rumours of a fight between Billy Hargrove and the former king of Hawkins High, Steve Harrington. Eddie couldn’t care less about some pissing contest for the highest rung on the social ladder, as he still felt the echoed ache of his soulmate’s pain throughout the day.

He ditched gym, opting to hide beneath the bleachers and smoke. To his surprise, he wasn’t the only one with the idea. When he arrived, he found the overthrown king sitting cross-legged, cradling his still-bruised jaw. Eddie wasn’t a fan of the jocks, but they were the biggest contributor to his wallet, so he tried to play civil with them. Plus, Eddie wasn’t one to kick someone when they were down, and boy was Steve down. He sat beside the man, examined his face, and thought for a fleeting second. Maybe he was the one, but that was crazy talk. The Freak and the King. In what world?

“You look like you’ve had better days,” Eddie noted.

“I’ve had worse,” Steve replied. Eddie had a pit in his stomach.

The two lapsed into silence, hiding out until the bell sounded for the end of gym. Eddie gave the boy a half-hearted salute as he stood.

“Hey, Steve?” Eddie spoke before he left.

“You okay?”

Steve gave Eddie the ghost of a smile, all charm drowned out by Steve’s two black eyes.

“I will be.”

Eddie had been worried about his soulmate before, but he’d never thought he’d lose them until the summer vacation after his failed attempt at senior year. He and the rest of Corroded Coffin had just finished their set at The Hideout. Eddie and the boys were carrying their instruments back to the van when the feeling hit.

He fell to the asphalt. The whole scene sounded all the more dramatic as the hi-hat he’d been holding fell with him. He really wished his soulmate would learn to keep their head down and stay out of trouble because this was getting ridiculous. He got ready to hunker down and wait it out, having gotten morbidly used to their annual beatings. Only this time the pain didn’t stop.

He was hit with wave after wave of agony. This time, it wasn’t just the face. He felt blows to his jaw, his stomach, and his side. He also felt a sharp spike of pain in his hand, as though someone was trying to peel his nails from his skin.

He could hear his friends around him, desperately trying to get something coherent out of Eddie, trying to work out if it was soulmate bullshit or if the guy was having an aneurysm. By the way he was acting, either seemed possible. When the pain subsided, Eddie felt foggy, like he was going through the worst goddamn high of his life. The neon signs of The Hideout and the street lamps danced before his eyes. Hundreds of little halos clouded his vision. He couldn’t think straight.

He managed to prop himself up against the wheel of the van and pulled his knees to his chest. He knotted his hands in his long hair and tugged, trying to remind himself what his own pain felt like, though stopped when he realised he’d also be hurting them. That was the last thing they needed.

“You okay?” He heard Gareth ask when the world came swimming back into focus. Eddie shook his head. Far from it.

“Are they okay? Are they... alive?” Eddie hadn’t let himself entertain that idea until it was brought up.

He felt the last flush of colour drain from his face. He could still feel them, but there was something wrong with the connection. Maybe he was dying. Eddie couldn’t help but think of his soulmate as ‘he’. He just knew.

Eddie kept trying to tell himself he didn’t care about them, but the fact that he could die without Eddie ever having met him made his heart ache. People thought the reason you felt your person’s pain was to protect them, to know when something was wrong. Eddie had done a bang-up job at that.

“For now, but it’s weird. I don’t... I don’t know how much longer-,” Eddie didn’t let himself finish.

The rest of the band suddenly took on a sombre mood. Jeff and Grant finished packing up the van while Gareth offered to drive. The boys stayed at Eddie’s trailer for the rest of the night, holding their breaths and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Eventually, Eddie dropped off to sleep and when he awoke hours later, he was relieved to realise he hurt all over. He was still alive, still waiting for Eddie to find him and god did Eddie want to.

His uncle came home at the crack of dawn and let out an elongated sigh of relief at seeing Eddie and his band of merry men curled up together on the living room carpet. Wayne greeted Eddie with a tight hug that still hurt like hell.

“I was worried something happened to you,” His uncle stated in his gravelled tone.

“Why would something have happened to me?” Eddie asked, perplexed.

“The mall burnt down last night. I was worried you were close by.”

Eddie shook his head and let his uncle hold him as his mind ticked away. He wondered if it was possible his soulmate was in Hawkins. Eddie wasn’t sure he believed in coincidence.

Eddie started seeing spots during his lunchtime speech. By the end of his rant, the room had started to tilt. He felt unsure on his feet as he clambered from the top of the jock table to scamper back to the hellfire group. He must look worse for wear because he noticed one of his new recruits watching him.

“Eddie, you good?” Dustin questioned, sounding further away than he should. The lights in the cafeteria were too bright and his head was killing him.

He felt close to throwing up and wondered where the pain had come from before realising the familiar distance from the sensation. It wasn’t his pain. Eddie didn’t want Henderson to butt into his love life any more than he already did, so he gave the kid a tight-lipped smile that more closely resembled a grimace. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt this sensation from his soulmate, but they were growing more frequent.

Again, sweetheart? Eddie thought, knowing it was the second migraine that week.

“Migraine,” Eddie hissed through gritted teeth. He could feel his band members' eyes on him. They knew exactly who the ache belonged to.

To Eddie’s surprise, Dustin passed him a cool glass of water and barked orders at Mike, getting the kid to remove the ugly Hawaiian over shirt, before throwing it over Eddie’s head, blocking out the light. It wasn’t Eddie’s pain, so it didn’t help but he could appreciate the sentiment.

“Did they teach you first aid at science camp, Henderson?” Eddie guessed offhandedly.

“Nah. Steve gets migraines all the time. Helps to know how to deal with them.”

Eddie would never understand how a kid like Dustin came to know Steve Harrington, let alone worship the ground the guy walked on. Usually, Dustin had such good taste.

“Eddie’s soulmate gets them too,” Gareth spoke unhelpfully.

Even without looking, Eddie knew he was shooting him a shit-eating grin, knowing the rest of the afternoon Henderson would ask him about his soulmate. Just because the kid found Suzie, he thought the whole world deserved to find their one true love. Instead, Dustin came out with the most bullshit statement Eddie had ever heard.

“Maybe Steve’s your soulmate.”

Yeah, right. On what planet would that happen?

With everything that had happened to Eddie in the past few days, he hadn’t had time to think about his soulmate. He’d watched Chrissy die before his eyes, learnt the existence of another dimension and was walking through said dimension after witnessing Steve Harrington take a bite out of a demon bat’s tail. It’d been a weird ass day.

He wished he’d been like Robin and Nancy, able to jump in and rescue Steve on a whim, but as Steve disappeared beneath the black water of Lover’s Lake, he’d felt his throat close and his lungs ache for air. It wasn’t a good time for a panic attack. Nevertheless, he’d managed to get his ass in gear and follow the rest of the group down into Watergate.

He’d dropped back to walk with Steve and found himself complimenting the man. Steve was nothing like he imagined. He was not only kind, but as Dustin had put it, a total badass.

Once the adrenaline faded, Eddie found himself lifting the hem of his shirt, examining his side. He felt a dull throb of pain. It’d be his luck to bleed out without noticing, but he found there was nothing there.

“You good?” Steve asked.

Eddie couldn’t help but let his gaze settle on Steve’s bleeding side. He held his breath. He thought about pushing his hand against Steve’s wound, hurting him more just to check, but Eddie couldn’t hurt Steve. Not now. Especially if he was who Eddie thought he might be.

“Yeah, I’m fine. You okay?” Eddie asked, gesturing to Steve’s side. The boy nodded.

“I’m fine, just a scratch. Can hardly feel a thing.”

If Steve was his soulmate, he was full of shit. If Steve was his soulmate when everything blew over, they had a few things to talk about.

Something was very wrong. Vecna was going down in a blaze of flame when Steve’s body started to ache. He felt the familiar sting of interdimensional bat fangs digging into dermis flesh. Robin and Nancy were cheering, wrapping their arms around Steve, whooping, hollering and panting while Steve was busy feeling like he was being torn apart.

He was pulling away from the girls and turning on his heels before he had the chance to explain, running from the Creel House to the trailer park as fast as his feet could carry him. There was only one person this pain could belong to.

Steve had spent his whole life searching for his soulmate, desperate to know who they were, and he’d been under his nose the whole time. The fact that Steve’s soulmate was a boy hadn’t surprised him as much as it should. That’d been a crisis bubbling away in the background of his brain since he’d gone to his first swim meet. He’d seen a boy in tight swim trunks, with tan skin and felt the familiar heart-pounding, crush he’d experienced on pretty girls he’d passed in the school hallways.

By the time he got to Eddie, he’d hardly been able to fight through the pain surging through their connection. Dustin was wailing, holding Eddie in the wake of a bat graveyard. He looked up in alarm at Steve’s figure, noticing his pale skin and sweat-slicked brow.

“Harrington?” Eddie’s weak voice came from Dustin’s lap.

Steve was busy removing his clothes, trying to stop the bleeding. Dustin didn’t need to show him where the man was hurt, he could feel it.

“I really must have got some brownie points in the end,” Eddie murmured.

Both boys hissed as Steve shoved his shirt into a wound at Eddie’s side. That was when Dustin appeared to catch on, his eyes swelling wide as they darted between the two boys.

“What’re you talking about, Munson?” Steve asked, trying to keep the guy talking.

“Must’ve got into heaven after all,” He hummed, his deep brown eyes gazing beyond Steve at the distant red sky.

“Hey. No. None of that. You aren’t in heaven because you’re not dying,” Steve hissed, using what little strength he had left to lift Eddie’s body.

“Gotta be in heaven, if you’re here,” Eddie spoke, giving Steve a lopsided grin. Steve felt Eddie’s pain beginning to fade and panicked, not ready to let things end before they’d even had the chance to begin.

He hoisted Eddie up through the portal and waited to do the same with Dustin. It wasn’t long before the distant sound of sirens once more surrounded the Munson trailer and Steve found himself passing out from the pain as red-blue lights swallowed the world whole.

Eddie woke in pain, his whole body humming with a familiar dull ache that was unarguably his. It took time for him to make sense of the scene. He was in the hospital. Steve was slumped over at the far edge of the room, sleeping in an uncomfortable plastic chair, his head thrown back and his mouth agape. Eddie’s eyes trailed to his bedside, where he met Dustin’s.

“Holy shit, you’re awake,” the boy gasped, pulling him into a bone-crushing hug.

Eddie cringed as he felt a rush of pain swarm through his body. He must have gasped, because Steve sprung to life, waking with a start as his eyes trailed from Dustin to Eddie. Steve’s eyes were a storm of quiet conflict, punctuated by deep purple bruises.

“Eddie,” Steve breathed, standing to hover beside the bed, unsure of what to do next.

He was surprised Steve was there at all. He wouldn’t say the two were close. Though Steve had probably found some way of twisting Eddie getting hurt into some fault of his, ever the damn hero.

“Thought I was a goner for a second there,” Eddie admitted, trying to shake some of the strange tension from the room.

“If Steve hadn’t gotten there in time, you would’ve been,” Dustin spoke. Eddie watched as the boy’s hands trembled. He leaned over, fighting through the pain to ruffle the kid’s hair. Steve’s shoulders hunched over, doubling into himself.

“I’ll get the nurse. Your uncle left for his nightshift, but he should be back in a few,” Dustin muttered as he made a beeline for the exit. It seemed strange the boy was extracting himself from the scene.

Henderson called over his shoulder. “I told you so.”

And just like that, Eddie knew.

He looked up at Steve with wide-eyed alarm, only to find his look mirrored.

“How’d you know we were in trouble?” Eddie asked, though thought he knew the answer.

“After we killed Vecna, I felt... I could feel you. I knew you were hurt,” Steve explained.

“How’d you know it was me?” Eddie pushed.

“Thought it was too much of a coincidence that it felt like my soulmate was getting eaten alive by giant bats. I’d call it an educated guess.”

Eddie gritted his teeth and nodded. Surely, as far as soulmates went, he hadn’t been what Steve imagined.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, surprising Eddie.

“For what?”

“Not being the person you wanted me to be, I guess,” Steve spoke so candidly, it made pain and panic swell in his throat. How could Steve think Eddie was disappointed that he was his soulmate?

“I’m not disappointed, Stevie. Why would I be disappointed?”

“You had to have known,” Steve reasoned.

Eddie didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious, but it sounded like Steve had been overthinking every second of it.

“You give me more credit than I deserve. I didn’t know it was you, sweetheart. Cross my heart,” Eddie admitted, surprised at how quickly the term of endearment he’d used for his soulmate slipped off his tongue when talking to Steve.

He hadn’t worked out shit. He’d had hunches, as though his heart knew, but the logical part of his brain kept overriding it. In what world were he and Steve perfect for each other?

Eddie threw caution to the wind as he saw the genuine look of affection and excitement painting its way across Steve’s face. He looked hopeful. Eddie cringed, sitting up and trying to lean closer to Steve.

“Come here before I hurt the both of us,” Eddie grumbled.

Steve shuffled closer to Eddie’s bed, crouching down, so the two were at eye level. Eddie wanted to kiss the boy so damn bad, and Steve was sending him all the signs that he should, but there was something he had to do first. He took Steve’s face between his hands, running a thumb over the purple bruises beneath his eyes.

“No more playing hero, okay?”

Steve nudged his face into the palm of Eddie’s hand and nodded, letting out a weak chuckle.

“I think I can agree to that.”

Eddie crushed their lips together and despite the pain, it felt like everything was right in the world.

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