#systems and perceptions in my head

[imogenkol]

TRISTAN & ANDREA THATCHER — original works

tag list (ask to be added or removed!): @adelaidedrubman @florbelles @marivenah @simonxriley @shegetsburned @voidika @kyber-infinitygems @v0idbuggy @inafieldofdaisies @statichvm @socially-awkward-skeleton @aceghosts @carlosoliveiraa @risingsh0t @unholymilf @thedeadthree @cassietrn @jackiesarch @gwynbleidd @shellibisshe @loriane-elmuerto @katsigian @captastra

#oc insp: Andrea Thatcher #oc insp: Tristan Thatcher #beloved dead parents who did the best they could and haunt the narrative 💔 #just had to make something for them after that wip #they honestly mean so much to me #the fact that I have a whole history for them in my head and not a word of it written down outside of Jayde's idealized perception #they were ridiculously in love with each other and had a really long hard road to build the life they had #and Jayde is just like her father (affectionate) #they taught their daughters to say fuck the system and be their authentic selves

[anantaru]

DAY 17 — VIRGINITY LOSS

kinktober 2023. — masterlist | ao3

𖧡 — including — neuvillette, heizou, wriothesley

𖧡 — warnings — fem! reader, first time, virgin! reader, taking your v card, soft & passionate, pussy drunk genshin men

𖧡 — NEUVILLETTE

neuvillette was always tender-hearted and caring with you— nonetheless, this specific night, he was burning up through his entire nervous system— only a minimal glance of your body was able to drag him into such brimming state with sweat spouting down his back while only inches away from feeling your skin on his hands— just the whisper of your soft words scurrying at the head of his sinful imaginations.

at the present moment in time, there were no thoughts other than doing this correctly, no focus other than the one centered on your angelic frame— a crucial need, as much as air and water, sewed up within the pain of anticipation simmering over his psyche.

you can feel how his fingers silently curve over the flesh of your thighs before he inches you closer to his bare body, "voice any discomfort to me—," he pauses before coughing out, barely breathing as his heart thuds hard against his chest from how tight your legs were wrapped around his hips, "—immediately."

you nod in compliance, and you rest your head against his broad shoulder before feeling neuvillette's complete weight shift, soon after caging you beneath him as he towers on top with a new perception prodding at your wet core, his cock gently resting between your silken pussy lips— it's unique to any other feeling you have ever experienced before and your thighs instantly clamp around his hips harder, your ragged breathing tottering over his neck and shoulder.

you try to relax yourself, letting your hips fall into the mattress before suddenly trembling at an increasing pressure on your cunt— you hear a whimper as neuvillette rests his forehead on yours, holding his gaze on your eyes, the force of the increasing press precise and cautious as your hole parts around the intrusion.

it seems to be everywhere, all at once trapping your body and you suddenly feel so hot inside, then cold, then hot again, the way it manifested so quickly in you like a spumming inferno that imprisoned your body before your mind floats in the air, above clouds— again, it's hot and cold, hot and cold, the pressure in your lower area penetrant and heavy, and you're becoming dizzy by just focusing on how his shaft was stretching you out as neuvillette fills your cunt to the hilt.

neuvillette notices an immediate reaction from his elevated senses, in the way a strong current of oversensitivity stung along his thick, sheathed shaft like a bee stinging their victims— nullifying his pace as his hips stutter before coming to a hold, reveling himself into the warm hug of a wet, gushing pussy enveloping him.

it's just too much right now, for the both of you— or how your body was beginning to smell just like him, your pussy shaping over his length and casted all around it— as if the both of you, had claimed each other entirely.

𖧡 — HEIZOU

"squeeze my hand if it's too much or uncomfortable,"

regardless of heizou's confident and soothing sentences towards you, before smirking down and giving you the feeling that he had it all figured out a long time ago— was in reality, a helpless attempt to hide his genuine panic deafening his inner spirit, and even though the detective believed he did a good job at concealing it from you, the way he'd awkwardly scrunch his brows together or stumble over his own words aired his self parading nervousness spotless for you to see.

despite that, it's a heavenly sight to have you splayed underneath him, bare and exposed— untouched, so hot that it has you clench around his waist as he first slips himself in, his cock immediately showering your warm walls with love. your heart was racing and so was his, yet it was impressive, his self control, slowly pushing in and out of your little hole and leaning his head down to plant a soft, tender kiss on your lips.

"you're so beautiful," heizou praises as you part your lips, "you're mine," and wait for heizou to slip his eager tongue deep into the warm cavern of your mouth, your mind lost in a swirl of senselessness by his gradually fastening thrusts and the mild pain accompanying them— yet such, didn't matter in this moment, because your thoughts travelled up the soul-deep river over emotions unlocking deep inside that bonded your bodies in a new sense of awareness.

𖧡 — WRIOTHESLEY

watching you smile filled wriothesley with a love he never thought he was capable of feeling— and it's warm, as he believed love should always be perceived as, with your bodies moving unitedly, ugh, archons, he was obsessed with this intoxicating feeling.

“f-fuck, fuck, princess, fuck," he stumbles over his wet trembles, his mouth parted and forehead bedding a film of sweat as wriothesley persistently grinds into your sensitivity, his voice raspier than usual and for once he wasn't cracking occasional jokes, instead he hold your gaze forevermore, groaning out a shaky heave as you mewl out from the deep-rooted press on your core— it's a little uncomfortable you won't lie, and wriothesley being above average wasn't aiding you in that particular battle.

despite that you welcome him completely, no matter the circumstances you keep your legs pressed around his thighs when he tirelessly embeds himself so far inside your cunt that you're nothing but a babbling mess, hardly capable to breathe nor voice your pleasure due to the lingering compression on your slit being penetrated for the first time by a large, thick length, so perfectly shaped and harboring a soft pink on the bulbous tip.

he didn't believe he'd ever become so devoted towards another human being and utterly revel inside pleasing you for the first time, through your body and your soul and ugh— that you wanted him to be your first and no one else, how such reason alone was growing the addiction inside of him, his hips grinding inside your warm hole as his lower abs constrict at the pleasure.

wriothesley licks into your mouth in desperation, and each moment he pulls his hips back only to slip inside again, it’s so much better and it seemed like there wasn't a chance for it to subside, the sensation was growing between both your bodies rubbing over each other, his hips twitching with the sudden thud of vibrations due to your creamy walls clamping down on him.

your soft frame squeezes underneath his rough one, hot walls and wet taste, your slit gripping him just the right way and swallowing him till overcrowded with his heavy length, stimulating the veins sloped over his shaft like you were made to do this with him and only him.

truly, there was no comparison to this, nothing would make him get bored of doing this with you.

©2023 anantaru's kinktober do not repost, copy, translate, modify

#genshin impact x reader #genshin smut #genshin impact smut #genshin x reader #wriothesley x reader #wriothesley smut #heizou smut #heizou x reader #neuvillette x reader #neuvillette smut #kinktober #genshin x you #wriothesley x you #genshin impact x you #neuvillette x you #heizou x you

[katsumiiii]

hobie x fem! reader

thinking of hobie brown rn…!

hobie who knows you love the height difference between you two and uses it to his advantage. is constantly angling his head upwards, which causes him to purposely peer down at you through his thick eyelashes. you always get flustered each time he narrows his eyes and tilts his chin, and him being the ever so perceptive spider he is, takes notice of your heated cheeks and continues to do so.

whenever he’s near a doorway or a thick frame he lovesss to lay a palm on the top of it, trapping your body beneath his as you ramble on about whatever it is you’re rambling about. he makes sure to nod along while effectively moving a hand towards your plush waist, bringing your figure flush against his own. he plays with the seam of your shirt, and urges you to keep going when you stutter from the sudden change in position.

hobie who loves to annoy you with his British slang. it’s not necessarily because he uses it often that irks you, it’s the fact that you have no idea what he’s saying and he never makes an effort to help you understand. (he actually finds it amusing each time you attempt to guess what he means and is completely off base every single time).

“babe, I’d love ta get ya that shirt you’ve been beggin’ for, but I’m skint right now. try me next week, yeah?” he hummed, kicking his feet up on the railing next to your bed.

“skint? I feel like you’ve used that one before..” you muttered, huffing in irritation by the smug look on hobie’s face, his lips quirked in amusement.

“told ya what it meant last week. thought ya said you could ‘se context clues?”

“whatever bee, maybe you should speak english.”

“‘aint that what ‘m doin’?”

hobie who always has a blunt neatly rolled on his dresser, his ash tray placed gently to the left of it. he often smoked before running off to whatever it is he did when he wasn’t home (he was very unpredictable as he switched it up weekly to “fuck up consistency” whatever the hell that meant).

hobie inhaled gingerly before tilting his head towards his peeling painted ceiling, his fingers lingered tightly on the wood before lifting it to your lips, “want a go?”

you shook your head, nuzzling further into his shoulder, “mhm no, too tired.” hobie chuckled before greedily puffing the joint, shuttering at the burning feeling it left.

“suit yourself love, more for me.”

hobie who you introduce differently to your friends each time you bring him up. one day he’s your boyfriend, the next he’s your significant other, and the next he’s your ‘close friend’. they always question the constant switch ups, but you don’t ever seem to mind. you know where you stand with the man, and to him that’s all that matters.

“so what’s up with you and…..” your friend trailed off, stirring the ice in her drink.

“hobie?” you questioned.

“yeah him, so is he your boyfriend or what?”

“it’s complicated, he hates labels, makes him feel confined.” you replied, shrugging your shoulders as you lay your head on your palm.

“that doesn’t bother you? is he like scared of commitment or something?”

you scoff, lightly shaking your head, “no, he just doesn’t want to contribute to the system.” you answered bluntly, taking another sip of your lemonade.

“the system?” your friend asked, eyebrow raised at the quip.

“nevermind, don’t worry about it.”

hobie who subtly brags about you to his people. loves to show you off, and has no problem admitting he does.

“yeah bruv, my girl jus’ got into her dream fuckin’ college. been workin’ hard for that shit all year, man.” hobie boasted, pushing his hands out in order to bounce off the wall next to him.

“oh my goodness how wonderful! when do we get to meet this companion of yours?” pavitr questioned, flinging his body upwards to keep up with the male to his right.

“eh, don’t know yet, when I feel like it, yeah?”

all in all hobie is so cute and I literally am in love with him!!

#hobie brown x reader #spider punk x reader #hobie x reader #atsv x reader #atsv hobie #literally loml #also obsessed with smoker hobie #don’t mind if I got the British slang a little wrong #I literally looked up popular British slang and ran with it 💀 #so bare with me there 🤞🏾 #hobie brainrot ! #fem reader !!!!

[mo0nfairy]

ᥫ᭡ . # ۫ , ⸺ LET YOU BREAK MY HEART AGAIN !

summary :: together in blissful matrimony, miguel o'hara has never felt true happiness until he was by your side. when you're unexpectedly taken from him, he'll do anything in his power to avenge your death. what he doesn't expect is to find you during that process. or, at least, one version of you.

word count :: 2.9k

content warnings :: obsessive!miguel, yandere!miguel, death, deafness (reader is deaf & mute in one reality), spiders, marriage, gore, grief, noncon touching, drugging (venom is put into readers system).

authors note :: Y/H/N = your hero name.

miguel o'hara's yandere traits are . . .

smothering, territorial, & paranoid

──── The gentle melody of piano and harp paint the room in an array of romantic hues. Snow drifts through the Winter air from outside the frozen windows of the venue. Family and friends stand around and admire the beautiful scene before them. You're adorned head-to-toe in white, like an angel who had just descended from the clouds. Miguel is dressed in the finest suit he searched high and low for to ensure it was perfect for this day. However, he knows no one is paying attention to him when you look as breathtaking as you do. His rough-skinned, yet gentle-mannered hand rests on your lower back, the other interlocking your hands together. With your head resting against his shoulder, he sways your body along to the gentle hum of music pervading the air.

Your first dance.

The golden light from the chandelier above serves as a spotlight for you and Miguel. Feeling his chest begin to shake, you move your head to look him in the eye. Tears of sheer happiness were cascading down his cheeks and a weak smile is plastered on his face. You swear that if you were to look up 'devotion' in a dictionary, the way he is looking at you would take up the entire page.

Miguel briefly disentangles his constricted hold on your hand to express his current, overwhelming feelings. He points his middle and ring finger down, the rest of the digits left pointing up. "I love you," that is what he is telling you. When he had first learned you were deaf, he spent his nights studying ASL and SSL in order to communicate with you. However, that single symbol is the one he always finds himself reverting to when all other signs and words fail him. I love you, I love you, I love you. Although Miguel won't express it verbally, he will express the three words through his hands for as long as he lives.

And Miguel remembers the best day of his life just as much as the worst day.

Just one month after you had both gleefully tied the knot, the two of you had gone on a stroll through Nueva York. The moon hangs heavy in the sky and darkness settles against the faint streetlights. Miguel made the vow to always protect you and you've found it to be comforting, relaxing. After a whole lifetime of being deaf and mute, you knew that you were far more vulnerable than others. Knowing you have the Spiderman as your husband causes your concern of any potential assailants to fade away. It's evident in the way his grip on your waist tightens when passerbys walk by and the perceptible shift in his eye when someone stares at you for a little too long.

You've always known he wouldn't let anything happen to you.

The following events all happen quicker than either of you can think. Just as you're crossing the bridge that overlooks the entire city in all its glory, a sudden black hole forms, framed with iridescent hues and overwhelming force. The power of the portals sudden appearance causes the bridge to vibrate beneath your feet. Screams of terror from pedestrians falling to their death goes unbeknownst to you as Miguel holds you against him with constricted tension and hides your face in his chest. The man you have chosen to spend the rest of your life ignores his duty of being the city’s superhero. All in favor of your life.

The remnants of the platform you stood on soon crumble. The red glare of Miguel’s web shoots from his wrist, to where it wraps itself around one of the numerous pillars spread upon the bridge to ensnare you further. But it was so quick, the way you slip from his tenacious grasp. Almost as if someone had forcefully snatched you from him. Innocent civilians shout and plead for Spiderman to save them, but Miguel can't hear them over the thumping of his own heartbeat. Even if he were to hear them, it would not stop him from tearing this entire city asunder in order to get to you.

He forms his hand into the same sign he uses to say 'I love you' and another blaring-red web, the same hue as his panic, springs from him and down to wrap itself around your body. He's done this a million times for others and saved the lives of practically everyone in the city. But, this is you. Miguel is digging his claws into crumbled pieces of the wreckage and shoving them through the air as if they were merely nothing, all in favor of saving you. However, you're both picking up speed and accelerating closer and closer and closer to the unforgiving ground. He latches his talons into a protruding pipe caused by the chaos and clings tight to the web connecting you with him, watching in trepidation as you continue to fall. Attempting to pull the web towards him and bring you back into his arms, where you belong, his efforts were futile.

A loud crack! permeates and his world falls apart.

Practically faster than light, Miguel is pummeling to the ground and to where you now lay. Your chest is flat with no breath and your body is lifeless. Blood is caked on your skull and it cascades onto the pavement beneath you. He rushes to your side, a mantra of ‘no’’s invading the dead, silent air. His heart is paralyzed in his chest as reality sinks into his bones. Desperate pleads escape through loud, violent sobs, begging for you to just open your eyes, hold your hand up, and tell him 'I love you, too'. He knows you cannot hear him, he knows this. But, this does not stop him from begging you, begging God, begging the universe, begging anyone to not do this to him, to not take away the only thing that has ever mattered to him. The only thing that has ever made him happy.

He'll never forget how he had stayed there for hours, ensnaring your lifeless body in his arms as the night faded into dawn. He'll never forget when he left you through brute force and was sent back to the desolate building he could only call home when you were in it. He'll never forget how he had spent days upon days studying the sudden black hole that formed and declared to destroy whoever caused it. The person responsible had taken you from him and if every soul in the galaxy has to pay in order for him to avenge the only one he loves, then so be it.

A year had gone by and every second without you become more tortuous than the last. Things that made him once glisten with joy only make his empty heart lurch with grief. Miguel is now present in the Spider-Society, desperate to manipulate any and all sources to eradicate who had so selfishly taken you from him. He'll just have to endure the yapping teenage-spiders that push at his buttons for the time being. All for you, he reminds himself.

At times, unbeknownst to Miguel, he'll start mumbling your wedding vows under his breath in front of the other spider-people to ease his mind. He knows it by heart; he will never forget it. They may all stare in disturbed confusion, but to mention your name to a man like him would be nothing short of a death sentence. "It's a soft spot, don’t poke it" Jess informs the others.

When the day is finally over and his everlasting efforts were brought to no avail, Miguel will return to the house you had planned on spending the rest of your lives in. Together. All life has been sucked out of the property. The wedding photos scattered about the premise have been derelict with shattered glass after enraged fits. The 'Just Married!' paint still sits on his car and decays with age, but he refuses to ever scrub it off. Your wedding ring, wedding dress/suit, and flower bouquet sit in indestructible cages he operated to preserve them. He fidgets with the wedding ring he vowed to never take off as he wallows in the despair of his silent home. If only he had been quicker; if only he hadn't been so weak.

The video of you dancing in matrimonial bliss ends and the monitor shuts off faster than Miguel could even blink.

The hefty, metal doors to the headquarters open to where several spider-people enter, pantomiming dramatically about the success of their previous missions. Their sudden appearance startles him, to where he demands to know why Lyla hadn't informed him of the spiders' incoming. Jess then enlightens him on his strict rule he set to not disturb him whenever your face is on screen. He exhales with a sigh of defeat and prepares himself for the onslaught of mayhem that would soon come his way. This time, however, a new recruit has joined the group.

Full-body suit hiding any form of physical identity and a soft voice that rarely comes out, Y/H/N from Earth-555 was requested to join the team by Jessica Drew herself. And Miguel couldn't care less if he tried. He'll let another spider on the team if it means keeping the multiverse stable and fueling his progress to one day finally kill the one responsible for your demise. Still, something allures him about this new recruit. Their real name and face are left a mystery to him, but there are certain moments with this stranger where he can't but be reminded of you. That soft voice and heedful hearing prevent him from fully indulging in your memory, but there are certain tics and habits they possess that catch him off guard.

The way you tap your feet when you’re focused, the way you scratch your wrists when you’re anxious, and the way you fidget with the hem of your clothes when you’re bored. And this is what life had been like for a while. Staring at the countless monitors that display a myriad of different information until his brain rots and returning hole to bathe in his misery until the next day repeats.

Several months into Y/H/N's time here is when the doors to the headquarters slam open and several spider-people all clamor in. All were breathless and bruised from a mission that ended messily. The new hero is in the mayhem, as well, exasperated as they rest against the wall. Miguel rolls his eyes at the sudden intrusion and leaves his spot at his desk to find out what these idiots had done now. They all scramble to defend themselves and point their finger at one another, while that new recruit is still trying to catch their breath in the corner. Pathetic. They should know by now that the sake of the multiverse can't afford even a minor mistake. Seeing them left so weak after a fight causes a dry laugh to escape his throat.

Their gloved fingers then grasp hold of the hem of their mask, before forcefully yanking it from their head. And it is like a miracle had materialized right before Miguel's eyes.

His stomach drops at the sudden intrusion of emotions. Shock, elation, disbelief, infatuation. Y/H/N, Earth-555's Spiderman, is his Y/N. You stand before him as you did all those years ago. Despite the dirt and blood smothered into your exposed skin, Miguel thinks you look almost as beautiful as you did when you walked down the aisle.

All you do is clench your eyes shut and try to wait for the pain in your abdomen to ease. The clattering arguments of the others only add fuel to the flame that is your suffering. Soon, there is a sudden wave of silence that washes over. Even with the agony coursing through your body, you were still able to catch the abrupt shift in the atmosphere. You open your eyes to find the man you had feared most, Miguel O'Hara, treading towards you and towering over you with his large figure. Paralyzed with fear, you had jumped to the conclusion that you had enranged him in some way. The terror is so overwhelming, you completely miss the sheer look of love in his eyes and how his pupils had morphed into the shape of a heart.

Eventually, you gain control of your numb body and make a break for it. Pain pumps like a drug through your damaged body, but you persevere and use every sliver of strength left in you to run from him. You're running through the city, dodging past all the numerous spider-people, and webbing through different buildings to escape this maniac of a man. During this, your name and demands for your return are shouted profusely. You don't have time to acknowledge how on Earth he had found out what your actual name was.

Mistakenly, you take a quick glance over your shoulder and almost shiver with fear at the sight alone. Miguel is barrelling after you on all fours like some sort of fucking animal, with fangs and claws out and all. Broken glass protrudes into his limbs from the numerous windows and walls he barreled through. Blood seeps through the torn cuts of his suit, exposing his bruised skin. The excess of vermillion webs clutters the complex from his frivolous attempts at retrieving you. It is utterly terrifying.

Somehow in the midst of chaos, you had found yourself back in the headquarters. The 'Go-Home Machine' practically calls out for you with its luminescent hues. You hear the muffled shouts of your name and the thumping of racing footsteps. In an attempt to use your webs for faster travel, you realize that during your chase, you had entirely run out of web fuel. Shit. From here, you resort to using your legs for once and practically throw yourself into the machine. The translucent spider above uses its limbs to piece together bits of the portals' walls as if it were merely stacking legos. Hope pokes at your brain, but you don't dare let yourself think the storm had washed over just yet. A deafening crash then permeates through the headquarters.

"STOP THEM! NOW!" The echo sends a chill straight into your bones. You watch the machine sputter with increased energy and hope that with enough time, this predator on your tail will find something else for dinner.

Miguel springs into the air as if he were weightless, before landing above you on the thick facade while it buzzes from heightened energy. You have nothing but this wall to protect you from this absolute rabid dog. Sheer trepidation caresses your skin with it's ice-cold touch as he attempts to claw through the membrane of space and time protecting you.

He is bone-chillingly terrifying as he slams all the strength in his body against the barrier. It becomes increasingly difficult for him to keep his grasp on the machine as it continues to charge with intensifying energy. This does not halt his efforts, though. If anything, Miguel has now become increasingly aggressive as the prospect of you leaving him again becomes more profound. The technology whirs from every punch and thrash Miguel gives in order to get to you. Static bolts of energy protrude the air like lightning bolts when he is finally able to tear a hole through the surface, eyes wide and crazed like some sort of beast.

In an attempt to stop him, you try and piece together the chunks of radiation that had been discarded from his unwanted entry. Upon doing so, Miguel is finally able to reach through the opening and dig his talons into your wrist. Your escape was right at the edge of your fingertips, but now you have been flung straight into the jaws of this monster. You splat harshly against the ground and with the state your body was now in, you knew for certain you could not fight anymore.

However, you don't even have a mere second to think of leaving anymore. Not when this vampire-spider has you pinned to the floor with ease faster than you could produce a single thought. He begins to shush you like a baby while you fight and thrash at his chest. His large hand cups your cheek with the same softness you would use to handle a kitten, while the other utilizes his strength to restrain your body.

"I got you! I got you back with me!" The pitch in his voice had raised as he pours his heart out to you. "I never thought I would see you again, but you’re here. My Y/N, you’ve come back to me…” Red eyes are blown wide and they practically stare daggers into you. All as if you were some sort of prey.

The only thing his words do justice in is confusing you further. What you had perceived before as anger was actually... Desperation? Relief? Love? This man has never spoken a single word to you for the entirety of your several months spent in the complex. You are perplexed as you try to think of what had triggered him to suddenly act this way towards you.

"I will never let anything happen to you again... Just let me under your skin..." Miguel's lips find their way down to your ear as he whispers to you the same way a lover would. The entire moment is so deranged, it makes you shudder with horror.

His teeth then sink into the nape of your neck as if his fangs were two needles. With a yelp, you feel warm blood escape and seep down your flesh. Something new swims through your bloodstream that was induced by his bite. Your body begins to fail you and lethargy envelops you like a warm blanket. And this man is like goddamn Dracula, slurping and drinking every last drop of your delicious essence. His calloused hands savor the feel of your body against his and he indulges in how much he had missed this, missed you. With a final, feeble attempt to defend yourself against your assailant, you're soon enveloped into a deep slumber within Miguel's embrace.

⁺ 🎧 , 🪷 ۫ you are currently listening to . . . ⁺ 🪺 , 🎵 ꪆ

❝ ONE DAY, I WILL STOP

FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU . . . ❞

i wrote this all in one sitting after an all-nighter please bare with me lmao.

did you guys also know that the pupils of his eyes canonically turn into hearts?

#moonfairy #miguel o'hara #spiderman #spiderverse #across the spiderverse #atsv #masterlist #yandere #yandere miguel o'hara #yandere spiderman #yandere spiderverse #yandere across the spiderverse #yandere atsv #miguel o’hara imagine #spiderman imagine #spiderverse imagine #across the spiderverse imagine #atsv imagines #miguel o’hara x reader #spiderman x reader #spiderverse x reader #across the spiderverse x reader #atsv x reader #Spotify

[lumsel]

I don't strictly "like" taking ADHD meds, the comedown is awful and they play havoc on my appetite. But I kinda need them. I write software for a living. Software requires a great deal of focus that I simply cannot muster up off my meds. If I didn't have my meds, I would lose my job.

Part of this can be blamed on the cruelties of our modern capitalistic system. If the world understood my condition better, maybe I would not need to take stimulants to survive. I read an article once that really went all in on the idea that ADHD's negative perception is a symptom of perception, not an objective truth. Maybe people with ADHD are just as capable, but they do things in a different way to neurotypicals. Maybe all we need is better support, and social solutions, and more understanding of the different way that ADHDers think.

Which is all very compelling. Except.

I often find myself procrastinating activities that I want to do. My apartment has been accumulating dust because I keep forgetting to vacuum. One time I let the dishes in my sink stack too high and it was months before I could get myself to clean the mould off them. The demands of capitalism mean I need to software to pay rent, but sometimes I just want to do software, and no amount of narrative reframing or social support will clear the noise in my head long enough to let me focus on the code.

The notion that ADHD isn't a deficiency, just a different way of thinking, is something I find condescending. The implication here is I shouldn't have to write software, I should be given a different job, and I shouldn't have to maintain my own apartment, I should have the support of my community coming into my room and cleaning my things. But what if I want to do those things? What if I like software, or the privacy of an atomised existence? Maybe society has no right to decide what the correct way to live my life is, but surely I do!

The reason it sucks that it's hard for me to keep my dishes clean is not because the world says so, it is because I say so. It is because sometimes I want to be able to remember to do things and it sucks that I cannot live my life in the way that I want.

#head hurts right now #txt

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Hi! Big fan :) You're an environmental lecturer, right? I recently got into a debate with someone about rewilding in the UK, and the clash with farmers and agriculture. To me, this is a no-brainer - I absolutely do feel for farmers losing their livelihoods, and I think there needs to be a system to help them transition to something else, but also, the planet is dying. But you explain things well, so I wondered if you have thoughts? Particularly on the Welsh side of things. Thank you in advance!

Hah. I literally have a lecture on this. Or, well, a chunk of a lecture, anyway; so yes! I have thoughts. I'll use those notes, and stick a big reference at the end in case you want to read more

I'll talk about this specifically from the Welsh perspective, okay so:

The rewilding project in Wales is the Cambrian Wildwood, launched in 2004ish by a guy who bought an abandoned farm in the northern end of Mid Wales with the express intention of rewilding it. The aim is to convert some 7000 acres, and the initial mission statement said they'd reintroduce wolves and lynx. That's the project I'm going to talk about, because it's a great case study for how to spectacularly fuck something up (and eventually realise you've spectacularly fucked up, and do something about it.)

These are the Cambrian Mountains:

When looking at that, there are two competing viewpoints that are relevant here:

The Cambrians are ecologically depleted. Their biodiversity has crashed since the Second World War, when modern farming methods were introduced. Environmentally, there is a perception of emptiness and degradation.

The landscape is a glorious one that has been shaped by the human actions taken on it for generations, as we are a shepherding culture – culture and land are inextricably intertwined.

That's a big fundamental difference! Two people can look at that same photo, and see something diametrically opposed. But there's more lying on it, so you also need to understand the socio-political background.

Socio-Political Background

(I know! Headings! So professional)

A lot of rewilding – Cambrian Wildwood included – is taking place in areas where farming is declining for various political/socio-economic reasons, so this can be ENTIRELY FAIRLY seen as yet another threat. This goes hand in hand with rural migration and community decline, too.

In Wales, we’re mostly rural, and characterised by extensive upland livestock farming (sheep in particular). Most farms are small to medium family-run setups. ON TOP OF THAT, the vast majority of Welsh farmers are Welsh-speaking, and the right to operate a farm the ‘traditional’ way without UK government oversight is seen by Welsh Nationalists as an important post-colonial act.

Many of them didn’t even like the National Parks being set up, as they were seen as an English outsider imposition that ignored the working nature and cultural history of the land. Remember: the farmed uplands are often seen as a heartland of Welsh identity, and those have historically been intentionally destroyed by UK central government land management decisions (e.g. Tryweryn, Elan, Claerwen, etc)

“Over the past half century we have witnessed the arrival of countless environmental fundamentalists… seemingly oblivious to the fact that their new-found paradise is already occupied by people whose connection with the land is deep rooted, dates back thousands of years, and is embedded in their language and culture.” (Nick Fenwick [Farmers’ Union of Wales] 2013)

SO IT’S CULTURALLY DICEY

(And in my opinion an incredibly stupid idea to go and give it a primarily English name with a Welsh translation as an afterthought but that is Elanor’s Opinion and not Scientific Fact)

(But fr fr if you ever have to get involved in these sorts of projects you will go a long way if you have the basic respect of learning the Welsh names and pronouncing them right rather than lazily expecting everything to be in English sorry sorry I digress)

From the Cambrian Wildwood’s Mission Statement on their website, their objective is:

“To rewild or restore land to a wilder state to create a functioning ecosystem where natural processes dominate by carrying out habitat restoration, removing domestic livestock, and introducing missing native species as far as feasible.”

Can you see the controversial bit of the statement

Can you see the bit where they directly say they want to remove domestic livestock

Jesus Christ

Cultural Differences

AND THEN HERE'S THE BIGGER PROBLEM

‘Culture’ in Welsh is diwylliant – literally, a ‘lack of wildness’. There is no direct translation into Welsh for the term ‘rewilding’ – the closest you can get is anialwch or diffeithwch, which mean ‘wilderness’ in the sense of ‘desert’ or ‘wasteland’. So right off the bat, if you tell a Welsh-speaking farmer that you want to rewild the place, what they hear is "We want to make it dangerous and empty and degraded."

A related concept is cynefin - knowing one’s ‘patch’ and the feeling of belonging associated. The term has its roots as a description of the way grazing animals know their area of mountain land, but it is also used to describe how people come to form an intimate experiential knowledge of place - and specifically, a Welsh farmer's cultural attitude.

Basically, Welsh literature and oral traditions speak of a relationship with the land, not a separation and longing for an untouched wilderness. Farmers feel this especially keenly. Culturally, this is a big part of why they do it – they’re rooted to the land, and therefore to their identities.

“Interviewees conveyed this by referring to areas proposed for rewilding as being comprised of “a quilt of cynefinoedd: interwoven stories, the layered and collective place-making of families and individuals over-generations, co-constituted with the physical landscape” (Wynne-Jones, Holmes and Strouts, 2018)

So, to them, rewilding is erasing and disregarding these stories. To them, this is not just a land-use change, but the latest colonial attack. They've known the family who lived on that farm for generations - every birth, marriage, death, joy, triumph, loss, everything. You are saying that you are going to strip that family, all those stories, all those people out of that land, to be forgotten.

…

However. There is a counterpoint to this.

Many farmers taking this view have therefore identified themselves as the only “truly Welsh” people in the debate, accusing environmentalists as being outsiders. The problem with this being, most of the environmentalists involved with the project are also Welsh; so who the fuck are they to say who is or is not Truly Welsh? It's what we on the internet would recognise as gatekeeping, with a big side order of No True Scotsman fallacy.

Also this quote sums it up well:

“Sheep farming in this country goes back a few hundred years. I think if you go deep enough into our culture and ancestry, we have a really deep native relationship with wild forest areas and with the wild animals that are native to this country…I just don’t agree that sheep farming is really part of our traditional culture.” (WWLF Interview [15] 2016) (Wynne-Jones, Holmes and Strouts, 2018)

This is also a fair point. It is true that upland sheep farming, the way we now practice it, is only a few hundred years old, and at the current intensity only a few decades (since WW2).

On top of which, there has been plenty of exploration over the years of farmers as being a government-subsidised landed gentry, which I won't go into here, but it also contains some fair points.

In truth, all of it and none of it is true. It’s far more complex and nuanced than either side might want to believe.

Solutions So Far

This is an ongoing project and they're still learning and changing new things and stuff, but a big thing they did was get someone in to basically be a mediator and listen to both sides, because Jesus, those sides were not listening to each other.

But to date:

They actually worked with a first-language Welsh speaker (WHY DID THEY NOT DO THIS FIRST I'm sorry I'm fine). Originally the Welsh translation of the project was Tir Gwyllt – wild land. But given that Welsh connotations with gwyllt are something out of control or dangerous, Coetir Anian has been chosen – anian refers to a sense of natural order and creation, a sense of health and vitality. Similarly, ‘rewilding’ is being translated as ‘di-ddofi’ – ‘de-taming’. This acknowledges the labour and culture taken to tame it, and just suggests an avenue for discussing some relaxation of farming practice in appropriate locations rather than, you know, releasing packs of wolves directly into sheep pens

In online materials and in community engagement events where traditional storytellers and musicians have performed to celebrate the Wildwood, the trustees have drawn heavily from Welsh myth in the form of the Mabinogion. Enormous amounts of the Mab lovingly and respectfully feature wild woods and wild animals. The emphasis is therefore on how wilderness is also part of Welsh identity – and arguably a much older part, going back to the Celts. (This is clever, in my view, but something to approach with care - it's rarely a good idea to play the game of "What's the most Welsh". But so far it's been done sensitively)

Land purchased for the project has so far been wholly limited to that available in the public domain. The main site, Bwlch Corog, was empty and unfarmed for six years before purchase, which has been stressed in all media interviews and releases; this is important, because farmers do have a sense of "Productive land is being stolen by environmentalists".

Large predator reintroductions have largely been abandoned. Lynx and wolves are no longer on the agenda. It’s possible they’ll be included in the future, but it is acknowledged as currently impractical (both from clashes with farmers and lack of habitat).

Instead, they’ve supported smaller species reintroductions, such as the Vincent Wildlife Trust’s pine marten translocations, and some proposed red squirrel ones.

Bwlch Corog is to be managed as an experimental plot that farmers are encouraged to engage with.

Assessing the potential for new income streams (from improved tourism and educational activities) rather than just the ecological benefits – this has become central to the project, and the emphasis is on how this might benefit farming communities and keep them together. This has been huge, and has also been successful in rewilding schemes in Europe.

Tensions are a lot lower now than they were ten years ago, but ultimately the problem was a bunch of outsiders came in and decided they knew best without listening to anyone else's point of view, and that meant both sides really dug their heels in. Much better now.

Ultimately... yes, I am in favour of rewilding, in a general sense. But I think it needs to go hand in hand with supplying farmers with the necessary subsidies to transition back to more traditional and sustainable farming methods, and the two elements run side by side. You can't do one without the other, not if you want them to succeed. The Pontbren Project is a great case study for how a farmer-led scheme can successfully aid them economically while also improving environmental outcomes, and we need to learn and incorporate more lessons from it when discussing this kind of landscape-level management.

Also, with land management in general, I think you're a fucking idiot and dangerously arrogant if you think you can get anything done without all stakeholders being on board. And potentially wandering down the ecofascism path, circumstances dependent.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Source:

Wynne-Jones, S, Holmes, G & Strouts, G (2018), 'Abandoning or Reimagining a Cultural Heartland? Understanding and Responding to Rewilding Conflicts in Wales - the case of the Cambrian Wildwood.' Environmental Values, vol. 27, no. 4.

#asks #environment! #long post

[kryovene]

astro notes

let me know if you have these placements whether or not they resonate, i'm always trying to improve. these are based off my personal experiences :) NOT MENTIONED: virgo, gemini,

fire mars (aries, leo, sagittarius) are good at dealing with confrontation that is sudden and head on, but not conflict that brews over time. water mars (cancer, scorpio, pisces) on the other hand, can become very perceptive and can pick up on the coming tension much easier. capricorn mars is good at both.

an aquarius sun with no other aquarius placements can struggle a lot to express themselves. this is due to the sun being detriment in aquarius - their individuality and authenticity is being compromised by a weak sun.

an aquarius mercury trying to communicate is similar to a famous celebrity trying to relate to normal people.. there is definitely a disconnect. i don't mean this in a bad way!! they just have a different way of thinking and it takes time and patience for the rest of us to catch up.

11h venus doesn’t always date someone in their friend group, but it’s typically very important for them to have a best friend built into their relationship. companionship is majorly important!!

4h moons are soooo sweet, even if the moon is detriment or at fall. they know how to make others feel safe even if they struggle to make themselves feel safe. very warm people <3

most pisces placements want to be organized like their sister virgo, but it takes a long time for them to find a system that works for them because of how vivid their mind is. big picture (jupiter) vs details (mercury)

taurus mars are veryyy argumentative due to their stubbornness. if you challenge or question what they're saying at all they will be very defensive. taurus mars/scorpio moon will defend themselves even if the statement wasn't aggressive or coming at them any sort of way. i've also met a lot of taurus mars who will counter your point even if they don't believe in it, just so they can argue with you.

12h placements, i hear you, i understand you, i feel for you lmfaooo

capricorn venus typically embraces aging

aries sun/moon are very sensitive to rejection because of their competitive nature. they really want to be the best and they take that shit seriously

the sun in libra is at fall, so these natives need to learn to separate their wants and needs from everyone else's. it's good to be cooperative but it's more important to find and establish your values

pisces mercury can come up with the best ideas, it's just that others might not be able to understand them fully. they think more in the abstract but if you can see their vision they can be very innovative

#astro #astrology #astro notes #aries #taurus #cancer #leo #libra #scorpio #capricorn #aquarius #pisces #sagittarius

[catboybiologist]

About to fall asleep ramble time, this has been kicking around in my brain for a bit and I need to get some form of this thought out

I was diagnosed with ADHD and gender dysphoria one day after the other back in August. Extremely stereotypically zillenial of me, I know. Handling both of these has dramatically improved my quality of life. yes yes insert discourse about how much you need to have dysphoria as a diagnosis, it's just a tool for the medical system that's ultimately meaningless, that's not what this is about.

There's one thing that was really, really weird about the experience of getting care for both of these.

Most treatment and public talk of transition and motivations to transition are about misery. How much despair your birth sex gives you and how gender affirming care is the only stopgap against suicide (oftentimes, used as a barrier to entry that it should only be given when it's at the suicidal point). How crushing dysphoria is.

In contrast, most of the public perception of ADHD is this cutesy, "omg look I'm so quirky" kind of thing. People talk of ADHD "superpowers" and how neat it is to have hyperfixations (I'm low key starting to dislike that word, even though it's an accurate description of many things- it's very overused).

My actual experience has been almost exactly the opposite.

I absolutely had gender dysphoria, and still do, and misery associated with being AMAB. But is that what defines my trans experience? No, and in fact, it feels like a more incidental blip in it. My trans experience has mostly been defined by joy, by feeling my mind and body slowly make me more and more content with my default existence day after day. And the exploration of it all! The social roles, the romantic dynamics, the friendship dynamics, even small aesthetics like clothes and makeup, and again, the body and mood changes. It's incredible and it brings me joy so much of the time. That, more than anything, has defined my trans experience.

In contrast.... ADHD has objectively made nearly every aspect of my life more miserable. Working with my therapist and my pysch, as well as feeling what it's like to be properly medicated, have shown me extremely well how much the constant feelings of misery I always seemed to have were caused by ADHD. ADHD means being unable to receive a baseline level of dopamine to function under normal circumstances, so your brain starts looking for any way it can get new sources. And wouldn't ya know it, novel stimuli are a perfect way to do that. Keep in mind that dopamine isn't just "the pleasure molecule" it's a neurotransmitter with a broad range of functions. If you don't have ADHD, or even if you do, I want you to think about how miserable of an existence that is. Your default state is depression and inability to do things. It has been for me for most of my life. Additionally, anxieties creep into your head and distract you far more easily. You're less functional. You can't do simple things most of the time. You're distracted and have anxiety spikes easily. Continuous tasks are hard. And day in, day out... You are miserable. Almost constantly.

Oh also, you're easily addicted to extreme novel stimuli. For me, it was self harm. And when that stopped working... Well, I was in a state of mostly background depression that was only punctuated by spikes of massive, overwhelming anxiety that my brain hooked itself on. At a certain point, I just wanted it to end, by any means necessary.

It's been almost ten years since that day, and at this point I can genuinely say that I'm glad I'm still here.

But it wasn't dysphoria that did that (it contributed a bit, but still wasn't the biggest factor). Or a depressive disorder. Or bipolar. Or whatever the big, more "scary" mental illnesses or neurodivergencies are. They tried to treat me for some of them, and it ended horribly. My symptoms fit mixed presentation ADHD perfectly, including my physiological response to stimulants. They don't fit anything else. I likely don't have any strong comorbidities, unless you count the symptom-level anxiety and depression. ADHD did all of that to me. The "cute and quirky" one.

By the time I got around to a diagnosis, my pysch was astounded that I made it as far as I did with symptoms as severe as mine. Tackling ADHD has removed so much misery from my life, it's indescribable. Adderall has been the only thing that has ever actually gotten rid of my constant anxiety.

It's not fucking cute. Keeping with this being the flip side to my dysphoria, I do try to keep it light most of the time, and I join in on all of the classic "whoopsie doopsie my ADHD" trains and jokes. You don't have to stop making those, hell, they're fun. There are cute and funny parts to having ADHD, and ways it's made my personality what it is. But don't forget that this is also something that makes people genuinely suffer well beyond the "oopsie I'm such a procrastinator!!!" Type thing.

Idk where this thought is going. It's just kind of an observation that's been kicking around in my head for a bit. So uh. Hope it at least generates discussion? Feel free to add your experiences if you think it'll help you. But fuck I need to sleep lol

#trans #adhd #cw self harm #cw suicide

[turrondeluxe]

I've always been a true believer of medic mikey and I've been thinking a lot of 2012 medic mikey today

so here's a bunch of thoughts about it from my twt if it feels weirdly paced and chopped it's because i just copy and pasted from different posts

Mikey probably started with the want of learning more about medicine after leo ends up in a coma.

Kind of like a brutal awakening that his older brothers are not invincible

until that point he probably helped both donnie and leo with basic first aid, since in 2012, the brothers all seem to know some sort of basic medical knowledge to a certain point (raph carries a first aid with him in half shell heroes meaning they all probably have their own).

Mikey probably sees leo burdened with his father's shadow and the weight of being the leader and letting everyone down, raph so worried about them at all times and so angry at himself for not being able to protect his family better, donnie mostly always stressed out. with no sleep. always having to FIX something and all this probably make mikey realize that putting being a medic on top of any of his brothers would just be for the worst so he decides to take it into himself to specialize in that part.

Mikey would ask help for getting more information to study about medicine and turtle health veterinary from both donnie and april (april would love to help +she can get more physical aid like books from libraries and such while donnie is the one brother who doesn't actually mind what mikey asks him and also actually answers his questions with facts). While studying he most probably would forget a lot about the scientific or actual names for different things so he would just make up his own designations because that way it makes sense to him (his brothers would all learn later on about mikey's own system perhaps because it's just them and it's not like mikey is going to go work at a hospital so it doesn't really affect them much).

Being the group medic just would fit him so well because hes very smart and not squeamish about A LOT of things in comparison to his brothers (throwback to when donnie did said he was actually squeamish in the show) so donnie probably would also encourage him in his studies and even try to help him to retain info with different methods that actually work with Mikey (because of adhd brain) like making references to his favorite show or comics while learning medical info to make it easier for him to focus.

The fact that mikey is the most perceptive of his brothers and also the one to keep a cool head when all of the other ones are losing it, would be factors that help him while being the medic as well.

Mikey being the smallest one and fastest of his brothers so hes probably the only one who could make it to any of them in record time if needed be.

I feel like, since 2012 mikey is the one brother who uses his skateboard the most, he probably would start bringing his skate strapped to his shell everywhere because he can use it as an emergency medical stretcher to move his brothers around in the case he was not able to carry them around physically

maybe even begging leo for a longboard later on because they are bigger which, again, could help him in emergency situations.

Thinking also on how leo probably didn't really talk much about the healing hands technique with his brothers so mikey probably unlocked the healing hands in his own way and in a really high stress situation where the sheer willing force was just wanting to help his family.

Mikey would definitely sing staying alive while giving cpr: muttering the lyrics along in a frenetic way while punching his brother's chest, because of their plastrons, and trying to get him to breath again all while listening his other brothers yells be deafened by the sound of lasers pass by over their heads.

And after being home and safe, he'd give everyone those lollipops right after quickly making sure none of them are dealing with a concussion (he is but hes fine, he promises).

Extra: some replies in twt that i also wanted to share here

#MANY THOUGHTS BRAIN FULL. #i think that's all and i didnt miss anything from the big ass thread i wrote but i might be wrong.... #everyone is so lucky im not a writer. #tmnt 2012 #tmnt mikey #tmnt michelangelo #fer silly twt rambling

[hxney-lemcn]

Should I? — Bryon (AFK Journey) x gn! reader

summery: Bryon saves you after you get into a bit of trouble, and you find yourself unable to hold back your feelings.

tw: none

a/n: this isn't the best but I had to get it out of my system. This is for all my Bryon lovers.

wc: 1.6k

Master List

You watched on in awe as a dark colored falcon swooped down and attacked the enemy in front of you. You knew the forest was getting more dangerous, but you refused to let that hinder your research. At least that’s what you wanted to believe as you had been researching the animals in the dark forest for years, yet you were quickly proven wrong. 

You had tried to walk around the hypo-fiend who had managed to get into the forest, yet it had caught on to your presence quickly and went to attack you, which led to your current situation. Your heart jumped for more than one reason as Bryon stepped up and stood in front of you, sending an array of sharpened leaves towards the enemy. 

He had managed to quickly down the enemy, sustaining some small scratches. Elona flew over to us, landing on his shoulder. It was hard to understand how Bryon felt (that is if he didn’t outright state it), his blindfold blocked the view to his eyes, and his face would tend to remain stoic. That was the only reason you’d ever feel anxious in his presence, as otherwise he was a sense of comfort for you. 

You had met Bryon the first day you arrived in the Dark Forest. You had been incredibly anxious as it was your first big step on your own, thankfully, the wilder’s had been extremely kind. You first met Lyca, debriefing her on your situation and she quickly brought you to Bryon. She explained how as a Windwhisperer, he could help you find the perfect spot for the animals you wanted to observe. At first you were intimidated, he was stoic and looked no-nonsense. Not to mention he was the most beautiful man you had laid eyes on. 

Quickly, you learned that he wasn’t as scary as he looked. Both him, and his falcon, you learned to be called Elona, were quite sweet. When he brought you to a river clearing where all kinds of animals stopped by for a drink, he had offered you an abandoned cottage just a few meters away. You were flabbergasted to say the least, as you hadn’t expected such an offer. You had fumbled, offering money or some form of way to pay for the place, but Bryon had merely shook his head. He simply stated, “No one is currently using it, no reason not to let you stay there for the time being.”

That had been three years ago, and you found yourself running into Bryon more often than not. He had checked in on you after a few weeks of your move, stating that “You are my responsibility.” You weren’t sure what he meant by that, as other lightbearer refugees hadn’t spoken of having wilder companions. Of course the wilder’s would help them if needed, but otherwise the two factions would just let the other be. Of course you weren’t opposed to making friends, but you weren’t sure how to react to such a statement. 

Over time, you realized that Bryon seemed a bit lonely, and you had started to go out of your way to give him things. Whether it would be making a pie or giving him a sketch of an animal you thought he’d like (you only started doing this when he revealed he could actually see things). You both had quickly become friends, as when Bryon had free time, he would join you in your watch party and point out facts of the animals that you might’ve missed. 

You found yourself quickly falling for the reclusive man. You caught yourself thinking things you’d never thought of before, wanting things you hadn’t cared about before. It felt embarrassing, wanting such things with someone who showed no interest. He had been kind to you, he had cared for you, he didn’t judge you, and when prompted, he gave good advice. It felt wrong to care for him in such a way. He was a pillar of perception, someone who would listen to emotions and the facts to make correct judgements. Yet you couldn’t help yourself. The wish to tuck his hair behind his ears, the wish to hold his hand and hold him. It all felt wrong.

So the moment he stepped in to save you, you felt a mix of emotions. He had warned you of the dangers a few days ago, but you had foolishly ignored them. You felt ashamed, embarrassed, but also happy and lovesick. Bryon had gone out of his way to save you, even if you were being dumb. Does that mean he listens for you? Does he check in on you even if he’s not around? You felt yourself swooning at the thought.

“Haven’t I warned you to be careful?” Bryon asked, turning around to face you. Even though he had only lightly scolded you, you felt like you had done the worst possible crime.

“Yes,” You replied, looking down to avoid facing him. Once again you felt intimidated as his lips curved down into a slight frown.

“You could’ve been seriously hurt,” He continued to lightly chastise you. “You’re lucky I was coming to visit you today.”

You pouted, wanting to stand up for yourself slightly, “I thought I could sneak around it.”

“You’re louder than you think,” Bryon muttered.

“It’s not my fault you have such good hearing,” You replied back, crossing your arms. “Besides, I still need to do research, I’m close to a breakthrough!”

“Then I’ll be your guard,” Bryon concluded. “Lead the way.”

It wasn’t fair how easily he managed to fluster you. You weren’t sure if he did it on purpose or if he even realized the effect he had on you, but you hated it. You stumbled forward as his words kept repeating in your head. He’ll be your guard…that felt like such an intimate position. You weren’t a noble, you weren’t someone important, but Bryon had deemed you important enough to protect. Dura above you just wanted to kiss him to get these feelings out. 

“Are you alright?” Bryon asked as you both had walked a little. “Your breathing is rapid.”

How you wished the ground could just swallow you whole. One thing you found out rather quickly is that Bryon caught on to things quickly, but he knew when to back down thankfully.

“I’m fine,” You replied, feeling your face warm. Imagine him finding out your feelings now of all times…

“...” Bryon paused, contemplating his next words carefully. “Do not be afraid to come to me with anything. I’ll be by your side no matter what.”

He just won’t stop. The more honeyed words he spoke, the more you felt yourself wanting to confess. You had kept these feelings to yourself for so long, you were close to bursting. It didn’t help that the way he spoke towards you gave you an inkling of hope that he may reciprocate. You hadn’t ever heard him utter such things to Lyca or Solise. Of course he was friendly with them, but he was a bit more quiet with them.

“I know,” You replied softly, glancing at him as you neared the river bed. Dura, how did he manage to look at you so softly with cloth covering his eyes? You paused as the blue river came into view. The gentle tinkling of water was heard along with the cries of birds. A rabbit froze, before continuing to eat the leafy greens in front of it. A sudden longing filled you. The need to get these stupid feelings off your chest. To free your heart from the cage you entrapped it in. As always, Bryon seemed to read you perfectly, keeping his attention on you as you fully faced him.

“Bryon,” You called out, causing him to tilt his head cutely. “I hold romantic feelings towards you.” Not exactly the most romantic confession, but you didn’t want to say love so soon, as you needed more time to process your feelings. You had managed to catch Bryon off guard, as he wasn’t expecting a confession from you. He knew that people found him attractive, but they always ended up being put off by him somehow. No one really stuck around long enough. Yet you were different, you stuck by his side, you gave him your friendship, and now you were giving him your heart? 

Yes, he found himself liking you more than most. He liked the sound of your laughter (it sounded even better when he was the cause), he liked the warmth of your touch, he liked the smell of the berries you always carried on you. He liked your compassion, he liked your passion, he liked your stubbornness. Most of all, he liked you. Bryon isn’t completely sure when his feelings had shifted from friendly to more, perhaps it had always been more and he was just now realizing, but the fact remained the same. He felt the same way, and he was more than relieved to hear you felt for him in such a way. 

You, on the other hand, had become a nervous wreck the longer the white haired man stayed silent. His face gave away nothing as he faced you, Elona made it all the more intimidating. Perhaps you shouldn’t have said anything. He probably couldn’t even have a relationship due to his role as Windwhisperer. He was probably thinking of a nice way of rejecting yo-

“I feel the same way,” Bryon said softly. Oh what you would give to see the look in his eyes. 

“You know,” You started, shifting back and forth on your feet. “I could use a break from research, maybe we could go on a date instead.” You couldn’t see it, but Bryon felt like he was on fire. He was still wrapping his head around the fact that you liked him, and now you two were going on a date? He wasn’t prepared at all, but he couldn’t let this opportunity go to waste. 

“Okay,” He agreed, a small smile taking over his features. “Lead the way, I’ll be right by your side.”

#bryon afk journey x reader #bryon x reader #afk arena x reader #afk journey x reader #bryon afk journey #afk arena #afk journey #afk journey bryon x reader #afk journey bryon #x reader

[icanhearcolors]

Close Encounter

Summary: A conversation between my Tav and Astarion inspired me to write a short one-shot (I lied it's a series) reader insert about what I think would happen if they met before they were taken by the mind flayers

pt 2 | pt 3

This is pretty much my first attempt at reader insert so be nice to me pls ;-;

Lemme know if I made any grammar or spelling errors

Word count: 2.9k

---------------

“I’ll take the most you can give me of whatever has the most alcohol in it” 

You announce, slapping some gold coins down on the scuffed wooden bar. The barkeep who probably hasn’t had any business for the past hour startles out of his daydream and glances at you in surprise. He’s a dwarf, with a braided beard and kind eyes, and if it weren’t for the creaky wooden step stool he climbs up on to take orders he would barely be able to see over the bar top.

“Bit early in the night for that wouldn’t you say?” He asks as he climbs a ladder to retrieve a glass from the shelf above his head. You glance out the window as the last few rays of the setting sun color the night a deep reddish purple before it fades into a comforting black. 

You slide another gold coin across the bar. The barkeep smiles,

“Perfect time for some chultun fireswill if I say so myself miss.” He winks, slides the hefty glass full of orange liquid your way, and swipes up the coins before turning to another customer making their way into the tavern. You hold the glass up to your nose and sniff its contents. The fumes coming off the heavily spiced spirit has your nose burning and your eyes watering- perfect. 

You tap the glass on the counter and knock it back. You manage to get a few swallows in before your brain catches up to you and the fireswill burns a searing path from your throat into your stomach, settling there and warming you from the inside out. You slam the glass down and cover your mouth with your hand, trying and failing to hold in a fit of coughs. 

“Easy now.”

A cold hand lands on your shoulder, cooling your heated skin, and you turn, bleary eyed, unprepared for what you find.

He’s an elf, a very very pale elf- but not sickly pale. He just looks like he hasn’t seen the sun in a century or two. His hair catches your eye, a shocking shade of pure white that makes his skin seem tan in comparison. It’s shorter than most elves keep their hair, and it curls in every direction, framing his face beautifully. Once you recover from your initial dazed attraction to him you attempt to level him with your meanest glare that you hope says piss off. He raises his hands in playful surrender and smiles disarmingly at you.

“Rough day?” He asks in a drawling voice. You take him in. He’s wearing a clean white shirt under a set of padded leather armor, and spotless black leather boots. He looks every bit a spoiled noble that has never seen a day of work in his life, but his hands are calloused, and his eyes look haunted. Speaking of his eyes, they’re quite an alluring shade of red. What an odd color for an elf-

His eyes narrow perceptively, as if he’s reading your thoughts as they flit across your face. He turns away, gesturing at your drink and turning your gaze away from his unique appearance.

“Most Baldurians don’t even touch that stuff until well past midnight, are we celebrating or forgetting?”

You turn your body away from the charming elf and stare into the last few sips of your drink. 

“We aren’t doing anything. I’m here to drink, not to talk.”

“Forgetting it is then. Excellent.”

From the corner of his eye you see him grin roguishly, the flash of his white teeth sending a curious spark of adrenaline through your system. Before you can discern why you suddenly went from warm and buzzed to fight or flight, he turns away, tossing a blue coin purse onto the bar and calling for the barkeep, allowing the alcohol to calm your frazzled nerves once more.

“Excuse me Lydon, I’d like to buy our grumpy friend here a drink that won’t burn a hole through her stomach,” He leans over the bar and drops his voice to a low murmur as if he were sharing a secret, “got anything good for me?” he practically purrs.

The dwarf, Lydon, flushes a deep red and grins coyly at the mysterious patron, “Maybe. But I don’t have enough for everyone Astarion, what if someone comes asking me how she got the good stuff and all I’m willing to sell them is stale ale and swill?”

Astarion’s answering grin is downright lethal. 

“It’ll be our little secret,” He winks. “I’ll take it to my grave.”

Lydon blushes even darker if that were possible and mumbles something about having a type before trodding off toward the old wooden door behind the bar. You’d never related to anything more. Astarion turns toward you and raises an expectant eyebrow.

“Waiting for a thank you?” You ask, wrestling with the instinct ingrained in you to be polite. Your tendency to people please is what landed you in this run down tavern in the first place. You don’t know this elf, and you don’t owe him anything.

“Well I wouldn’t say no to a little gratitude darling- especially not from you” his eyes trace a path from the top of your head to your scuffed leather boots and back up again, stopping at the blush on your cheeks, he smirks, and meets your eyes again. He steps closer to bump your shoulder with his teasingly, and stays there, close enough that your arm brushes his.

“But no my dear, I’m not waiting for a thank you. I’m waiting for a story.” 

“Oh yeah? Keep waiting.” You growl, and he tosses his head back, a genuine laugh bursting out of him. The sound of it is contagious, and you fight the urge to grin yourself. You nearly manage it, save for a slight twitch of your lips that he of course notices.

He tsks, shaking his head at you “I saw that. No use hiding that smile from me, love. The damage is already done.” 

You glare, this time with much less hostility. 

“Who are you? I’m morose and drunk on purpose, elf, and I will not let you wrestle me from it.”

“My name is Astarion” he says with a wink and a mock bow before he leans in, so close you can feel his breath on your skin, “and I’ll wager you’ll let me do a lot worse than that before the end of the night.”

Your breath catches, your pulse picks up, and you’re about to lose yourself in those strange eyes of his when a loud creeeeeaaak and a crash causes both of you to leap away from one another. The dwarven barkeep’s old step stool seems to have finally given in. He lay sprawled on the floor behind the bar, his foot caught in between the split wood.

“GODS DAMMIT” He howls, kicking off the stool. He sighs and hobbles up to you and your new… companion. You can see nothing but his angry eyes and the flushed red tips of his ears as he pours your drink and reaches up to hand it to you. When you grab for it he pulls it out of your grasp and stares at you with a threat in his eyes.

“You didn’t see that.” He snarls at both of you.

“See what?” Astarion feigns ignorance, looking around the room dramatically for whatever the dwarf could possibly be talking about. The barkeep rolls his eyes and hands the drink to you before limping off to find a chair to stand on.

You breathe slowly through your nose.

In.

Out.

In.

You will not laugh.

You have self control.

You take one glance at the pinched “I’m trying not to laugh” look on Astarions face, one that probably mirrors your own, and you explode in a fit of giggles so intense they make your stomach ache.

Astarion can’t hold it in either and slaps the table in his silent gasping laughter, the two of you making quite a scene, but somehow you really don’t care. 

You wipe tears from your eyes and sigh once your laughing fit subsides, your sour mood a distant memory despite your best efforts to cling to it.

“How dare you,” You whine half-heartedly. “I was so committed to my bad mood and you had to go and ruin it.”

Astarion’s eyebrows lower in confused amusement.

“Awww you poor sad little thing. I’d apologize, really I would, but unfortunately for you I’m not sorry.”

You take a swig of the drink he bought for you. It tastes of cherry and currant, and you have never had something so delicious from such a tiny little tavern.

“You should be” you murmur, hanging your head, the humor fading as you’re reminded of why you’re here in the first place.

Astarion notices your shift in demeanor and reaches down, lifting your chin with a cool finger and bringing your gaze to his.

“About that story,” He smiles encouragingly, and you give in.

The alcohol must really be getting to you now, there was no other explanation for the warm, safe feeling that hummed under your skin. Astarion was sweet, and attractive. His attention felt good, and before you could even make the decision to trust him you were already talking. You told him how you were a magistrate in the lower city, complained how the court system was broken and corrupt, and how the judge only appoints magistrates that unthinkingly obey his preferences, never allowing them to make their own judgements. You had tried for months to get on his good side but you think all you did was obliterate any meager scrap of respect he did have for you, and now every interaction you have with him he barks orders at you like you’re his dog and then dismisses you. You were thinking of finding a new profession altogether, but the lower city was plagued with crime, good people died every day because of it, and you had the power to help at least a little if only your boss wasn’t such an asshole. To your embarrassment you began to tear up as you finished your story.

Astarion for his part never interrupts you. He listens with rapt attention to your woeful tale, an indiscernible look on his handsome face. You try to turn your head away as a tear escapes your eye but his grip on your chin tightens, forcing you to stay right where you are. He wipes it away with his other hand and stares at you for a moment, seemingly deciding something.

He reaches up and drags a hand through his hair, releases a held breath, and plucks the glass from your hand, drinking what was left of its contents in two gulps. He brings the glass back down to the counter, a drop of the crimson wine dripping down his chin. The image gives you an odd feeling, like you’re missing a revelation that is only just out of your grasp. He glances behind you, and you turn and follow his gaze to another rather pale looking elf, this one with darker hair but similarly colored eyes watching the two of you with rapt attention. Goosebumps rise on your skin and that fight or flight instinct is back in full force. Your heart begins to pound against your chest, understanding the danger that you’re in even if you do not. 

“Smart girl” Astarion murmurs, and you whip back around to face him.

He wipes his face with his sleeve and grabs you by the hand, pulling you off the bar stool.

“W-what are you-” He places a hand on your lower back and begins deftly guiding you through the raucous crowd of drunk Baldurians. One stumbling wizard in the crowd pats his pockets down and cries,

“Has anyone seen my coin purse? It’s blue!”

“Walk faster” Astarion says into your ear, his warm breath whispering across your neck. You do as he says.

After what feels like a lifetime of dodging drunk elbows and slipping through temporary openings in the crowd you reach the exit, and Astarion rushes you soberingly into the cold night air. 

“You stole that guy's money didn’t you?” You accuse.

He doesn’t even have the decency to deny it,

“What are you going to do darling? Arrest me?” is his reply.

He doesn’t slow down for a single second, ushering you into a dark alley near the tavern.

“Astarion what are we doing? You can’t just wander into abandoned alleyways at night! This is how people get kidnapped.”

His startled gaze clashes with yours in the dim light for a moment before he laughs. Not an amused genuine laugh, but a pained, choked sound that claws its way out of his throat involuntarily. He runs a hand through his hair once again and then turns away from you, shaking his head in disbelief. 

“It is indeed, darling,” He whispers so quietly you have to lean towards him to hear it. 

“You have no idea.”

You don’t have time to react, the alcohol slowing your reflexes, before his hand is around your throat and your back is against the brick wall of whatever building is behind you. You reach up and grab his wrist, eyes widening in panic. For a flash you see in your mind your body lying asphyxiated in the revealing light of morning, another victim to the merciless city of Baldur’s gate, and you prepare to fight like hell, when Astarion lunges for you and…

Kisses you?

Your brain short circuits, all thoughts drifting away with the sensation of Astarion’s mouth on yours. His hand around your throat gentles, his long fingers drifting over your skin until they press into your pulse point, feeling your racing heartbeat. 

You fist his shirt sleeve in your hand. Maybe it's because you’re smashed, maybe it’s because you can’t remember the last time someone kissed you, maybe it’s because you know no one that’s ever kissed you has been as good at it as this man- whatever the reason may be, you kiss him back. 

He tilts his head and deepens the kiss, stepping closer until his body is pressed against yours. You reach up to do what you’ve been dying to do since you first saw him and feel the soft strands of his hair.

He leans into your touch and it emboldens you to kiss him deeper, your tongue scraping against something… sharp?

He gasps and pulls back, just a few inches, staring into your eyes. He seems to be searching for something, almost desperately.

You stare back, equal parts terrified of and enraptured by this beautiful stranger.

Finally, he drops his hand from your neck and steps back, the cold air assaulting you once more as you crash back down to reality. You gaze at Astarion, confusion written all over your features.

“I can’t do this” He laughs. It sounds just as pained as the last one.

“Can’t do what?”

“I can’t bring you to him”

His head snaps up to the sky, studying the stars.

“I still have time to find another. Petras saw me with you, he’ll tell Cazador if I come back with someone else. But I can lie. I can say you knew what I was, escaped before I could lure you back. Maybe he won't question it. I’d spend a few weeks in the kennels but it could be worse. I can’t tell him I changed my mind, I can’t spend another year in that tomb.” He’s rambling now, not to you but to himself. 

He rubs his face in his hands and takes another stumbling step back.

“Go” Is all he says.

“Go? Go where?” You mumble, feeling cold and strangely a little hurt by his retreat into the shadows.

You don’t have dark vision, in the dim torch light much of his face is now hidden from you, but his eerily red eyes seem to glow like a cat’s now in the dark. The sight fills you with dread. Pieces begin to connect, the hundreds of unsolved missing person cases, the handful of eyewitness accounts claiming they saw the missing leave with someone. The descriptions varied, but a few details remained constant. The unknown person was always charming, flirtatious even, they tried to get their victims intoxicated in some way, and they always had a pallid complexion, red eyes, and sharp canines. Sifting sluggishly through your muddled memories you can even recall a couple of accounts of victims leaving taverns on the arm of a white haired pale elven man.

Astarion was a vampire.

“Go back to the courts,” He begins, “and never apologize to Judge Eruien. Stand up to him when he’s being an ass, he’ll never respect you otherwise. Go back home and lock your doors safely behind you. Never invite anyone in unless you trust them implicitly. Go back to your life in the sun, make Baldur’s gate a little better just by being in it, and if you ever-” He leans toward you, his face inches from yours once more. Now that you know what to look for, you catch glimpses of his uncomfortably long canines with every word that he speaks. 

“See anyone with eyes like mine again… run.”

With that he steps back into the shadows. They seem to swallow him whole, and you do run, a small voice in the back of your mind reminding you that you never told Astarion the name of that judge you were lamenting about.

In the years that follow you take his advice, and your work life drastically improves. Enough so that you feel comfortable asking the old elven judge about his former magistrates, a tear dripping down your cheek as he tells you what he can recall about a white haired elf with golden eyes and a promising future that was ripped away when he was murdered almost two centuries ago by a gang of Gur that didn’t appreciate his final ruling.

A month later you wake up in a nautiloid.

#baldur's gate 3 #astarion #astarion x reader #angst #oneshot #baldurs gate astarion

[theresattrpgforthat]

System Overview - LUMEN

This week has been a break from my regular recommendations to cover a few popular game systems and talk about what makes them tick. This week, we're covering the fast-paced combat-friendly LUMEN system. This is all the systems I'll be covering this week, but I hope to do some more system overviews in the future!

LUMEN is a game system originating from Spencer Campbell of GilaRPGs, for use in his game LIGHT. It has gained popularity over the past few years due to its ability to replicate fast, powerful combat, and a simple set of rules.

As a disclaimer, I haven’t played any LUMEN games yet (although I really really want to give NOVA a go). What I have seen is a consistent amount of high-quality, exciting games being released over the past few years using the LUMEN system. The SRD is only 13 pages long, and the pieces are simple enough to pick up, re-mix, and turn into something engaging, which makes LUMEN a great option for new game designers - especially since the designer really wants to see what people are making with this toolkit.

So, let’s talk about some of the pieces that make up this game.

Attributes as Approaches

LUMEN gives your characters 3 stats that define how they approach an obstacle, rather than defining a specific skill. You’ll have something for raw power, one for quickness and speed, and one for precision and details. Your characters are expected to be professionals, the best of the best. Of course they know how to fight - this a power fantasy, after all. By focusing on an approach rather than a list of skills, these stats are also flexible: if you are using your raw power, you could open a door, swing a sword, or pull someone back from a ledge.

Depending on the game you’re using, the names for your approaches may differ. In Hedge, your approaches include Might, Sleight and Bright. In LOOM, these are re-tooled into Passion, Fleetness and Serenity.

This way of building a character is very good for players who may not want to juggle a number of different values in their head, and keeps the table focused on what the battle looks like more than anything else. It also makes a statement on what kinds of actions your characters don’t need to bother rolling for. No perception checks, minimal social obstacles, and don’t bother doing a memory check in this system. In LUMEN, you’re here to kick ass.

Dice Pools & Staggered Success

The number attached to your selected approach determines how many dice you roll to do an action. The highest number rolled is the only result you need to focus on.

Similar to Blades in the Dark and Powered by the Apocalypse, LUMEN uses a series of staggered successes. However, unlike the previous two games, success is a little more likely - 2/3 of the time, you’ll succeed. On a 1-2, the action failed with a consequence. On a 3-4, the action succeeds with a complication. On a 5-6, the action succeeds, no problems in sight. The difference in probability compared to Blades is one decision that indicates how powerful your characters are; they’re less likely to fail on any given roll.

To add a layer of complexity, you can include specific scenarios that determine how many dice you roll. For example, in Apocalypse Frame, there is a difference between rolling while inside or outside of your mech. When outside of your mech, a character subtracts 1 dice from their dice pool, and when attacking with your mech, you use a number attached to your Armament, rather than your Attributes. There are also character class abilities that may give you extra dice, such as the Ancient Technique ability attached to the Ancient class in Deathless. These abilities will only give you extra dice in very specific situations.

Character Classes

One thing is common among all three of the systems that I’ve talked about this week and that’s pre-packaged character abilities. LUMEN doesn’t use playbooks though, possibly because the characters are so lightweight that they wouldn’t take up that much space on a piece of paper.

Your class will come with special moves, abilities or gear that sets you apart, and will likely also define your play style. In Black Hole Era, for example, you are spaceships with system arrays and weapon bays. A Warlord ship has powerful long-range particle beams, while an Inquisitor ship has the ability to teleport or turn invisible.

That being said, you don’t have to use character classes with this system. In Wild Duelist, the game presents the character options as either a static stat build, from which you choose a few different options, or a character life path, in which you roll randomly to determine your heritage, weapons, approach scores and special powers.

Your character powers will usually come with a few important pieces of information: how they affect the field of play, what their range is, and how much it will cost you to use them. You do not roll to use your powers: you are powerful characters, and when you choose to do something cool, it works. In some games, your powers can be get more powerful as your character advances, or have tags added to increase range or damage dealt. Because LUMEN is meant to replicate combat-heavy video games, it also is designed to replicate the ability to customize your character to match the combat style that you prefer.

Room to Add Complexity

The LUMEN system is quick and only has a few core pieces, but there’s plenty of room to add more complexity in order to incorporate factions, long campaigns, and special details.

In Emblems of Their Dying Breaths, characters dig into dungeons that are procedurally-generated using a deck of playing cards. .brawl centres its combat on a map, using miniatures to help your players strategize as they fight in a cyberpunk arena. Clean-Up Crew diversifies the resources needed to pay for special powers, making enemy drops more interesting - and more necessary, if you’re going to find the specific resource you need.

The original designer is also updating and re-designing LUMEN, with the plans to release a LUMEN 2.0 SRD that does away with dice, health, and a few other pieces. You can check out some of his design thoughts on his YouTube channel, and take a peek at how this new version of LUMEN will play out in his game DUSK.

Meanwhile, let’s talk about some more games in the LUMEN series that I have yet to highlight on this blog.

Brawl City is a Street-Fighter game, still in development.

Dust is a game about surviving in a post-apocalyptic world, inspired by works such as The Book of Eli, and 9.

Photon is a two-player game about fighting a Singularity trying to consume the world.

paktbound is inspired by Dishonored and shackles your characters to a Stranger who sends them on heists in a rotten world.

If you want to check out more LUMEN games, there's a compiled list of games kept by Spencer Campbell, as well as a LUMEN collection that I'm adding games to as I find them.

Do you have any favourite LUMEN games? What kind of video game do you think would work well for this system? Share them in the comments and tags!

#tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #system overview #game recommendations #LUMEN #mint speaks

[ferida-kahlo]

I can read it in your eyes

Mikey Berzatto x F!Reader

Summary: Hanging out with your boyfriend at your apartment, you sense he needs something special from you, tonight. Something to lighten the load on his shoulders... so you provide.

Or: the one where Mikey has a praise k!nk 🥰

Warnings: 18+, SMUT, praise k!nk, Oral (m receiving), BJ, dom/sub undertones, light dom/sub dynamics, light soft!dom, established relationship, PWP, p*rn with feelings, aftercare, c!m eating (blink-and-you-miss-it). Minors DNI.

Word count: 2.7k

Notes: I'm sorry in advance, this is pure filth that I needed to purge out of my system.

Read below the cut OR on AO3

‘Sweetheart, what the hell are you doing over there?’

You peeked at him from the kitchen doorframe to the couch, where he was slumping. You grinned. ‘Is that early onset dementia, babe? I told you I was getting us some popcorn.’

‘Yeah, and it’s been a thousand years. Come here already’. He patted the cushion next to him and made a face that reminded you of a small, abandoned puppy being kicked to the curb.

You stared right back with cold, narrowed eyes. ‘Michael. Are you fucking pouting at me?’

He tilted his head. ‘Is it working?’

‘Nope’, you said sweetly, blowing him a kiss and returning to the microwave, where the sporadic sounds of corn popping inside the bag let you know it was almost done.

A half-hearted grumble could be heard from the living room. You smiled. To be honest, you’d been spending most days anticipating these moments. Getting home after work, taking a shower, cooking some quick dinner, and eating it lazily whilst watching random stuff on TV… until the text notification came through. Be there in 10. The rush of excitement you got after that never got old.

You returned to the living room, triumphantly holding a giant bowl full of popcorn, and giving your boyfriend the most doe-eyed look you could muster. ‘Are you proud of me?’

He laughed at your attempt to be sexy – which if Mike was being honest… was kind of working. He loved seeing you like this, relaxed in your lounge wear – especially if that lounge wear consisted of tiny shorts and even tinier tops. He knew for a fact you weren’t wearing any underwear. You never did when he came around the house. And that was more than fine by him.

‘No offense, baby’, he reached over to the bowl, took it, and settled it on the floor, gently holding your hands in his big, rough ones. ‘But right now, I just need you to bring your beautiful ass over here’. He pointed to his lap and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

‘Wow. So subtle, Mikey.’ You laughed, making no move to resist his pull. You sat across his lap with your arms around his shoulders. ‘You’re lucky you’re cute. And sweet. And funny. And hot. And caring. And oh my god, so perceptive. And…’. With each compliment you feel an irresistible urge to kiss his nose, so you do.

He smiled weakly. ‘You’re too much. I ain’t none of t…’.

You shushed him with a finger on his lips and a hard stare. ‘Mike, honey’, your voice was sweet, but lower than usual, ‘you need to shut up and listen more. I was talking to you, saying all these nice things, and you go and interrupt me like that?’. With a feigned hurt look down at his chest, where your hands started softly rubbing, you tsk-tsk, disapprovingly.

‘You know I…’, he begins, but stops as soon as you lift your eyes, staring hardly at him, and your previously soothing hand suddenly rests still on top of his heart. He holds his breath for a bit, caught in your gaze like a deer in headlights. Oh. It’s going to be one of those nights, then, you think, with a mix of trepidation and excitement deep in your belly.

Finally, he closes his eyes and releases a deep sigh. You feel his entire upper body go limp beneath your hands – shoulders slump forward, the hands gripping your waist drop to the couch, and his forehead slams between the valley of your breasts. It’s like the whole week is melting off him. In nights like these, he needs you to take care of him, but seldom has the courage to ask for it. You gotta work it out of him.

‘That’s right, sweetheart. God, that’s okay. I know you’re tired. But you are so good. So good for me. So good for everyone.’ You coo at him, holding his face close to your chest, fingers threading between his thick locks of raven hair and lips slowly kissing all over his nose, cheeks, beard, temples...

‘Babe…’ he whispers meekly, looking at you through half-lidded eyes.

You halt your caresses, concerned. ‘Sorry, honey. Is this okay? Do you need to stop?’

‘No, please. Absolutely not. Please… don’t stop.’

‘Okay, then.’ You smile, stroking his cheek gently with one hand while the other moves tentatively lower, moving through his chest, reaching his belly. ‘… Mikey?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Are you gonna shut your beautiful mouth and let me take care of you tonight?’, you whisper against his lips.

He scoffs, defeated, looking at you like you hung the moon and all the stars in the sky. Like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. ‘Yeah, I guess I am.’

The pillow is soft against your skin. Mike never lets you kneel directly on the floor – even in nights such as this, when he’s so pent up with desire and longing that he turns speechless and melts into the couch, vulnerable to your every whim. Even though you’ve told him several times before that you like it – the stark contrast between the cold, hard floor and the warmness that seeps out of him, where he holds your cheek so softly. As if you were going to break.

His cock always feels really nice, too. Heavy against your tongue, a slightly tangy taste, a perfect girth stretching your lips. Right now, you’re looking up from under fluttering eyelashes, to check on him (sometimes, when his hand tightens in your hair, you notice he’s frowning with tightly shut eyes – something pulled him out of the moment and plunged him right back into the world, outside of the little bubble of love and bliss you created for him).

Thankfully, he looks fine. More than. He is staring right back at you, mouth agape, hair disheveled, chest heaving. It’s embarrassing how wet that sight leaves you.

You release his cock with a wet pop, giving the tip a kitten lick as you continue to stroke him, slowly. ‘Okay, baby?’

‘Yeah, honey… very okay. God, your mouth… can I fuck it? Please’, he pleads.

You smile sweetly, suddenly becoming aware of the silence that permeates the flat, and how both of you seem to be in tandem with it. You’ve been quietly delighting in each other’s touch for almost an hour now, speaking only once or twice, in whispers.

‘Of course you can, Bear. Can you be a good boy for me and hold my hair up, please?’

‘Fuck, yeah, baby, I can... Thank you, so much’. He sounds out of it, in the best of ways. Like he’s on autopilot, waiting for your instructions, the script of your dance engraved on the tip of his tongue, completely surrendered to the pleasure you allow him to take from you. It takes all your self-control not to lose it and pounce on him. But tonight isn’t about you – so you take a breath and recenter. Mike. Mikey. Michael.

Ever so helpful, he moves his hands to smoothly hold your lose hair in a makeshift ponytail. He never stops looking at you through glazed, fucked out eyes. ‘Too tight?’, his voice raspy.

‘No, Mikey, it’s perfect. Thank you’. You close your eyes and allow yourself a moment to revel in the grounding feel of his hands. You know he likes seeing you are enjoying this as well. When you lazily reopen your eyes, you realize both of you are smiling stupidly at each other.

‘You’re being so good for me, tonight… you know that, right?’. You rub his thick, trembling thighs, up and down. ‘So good at following instructions… trusting me to take care of you… Do you know what I’m thinking, baby?’. You can’t resist punctuating your speech by licking all around his shaft, red and throbbing and drooling with pre-cum at this point. A low moan rips out of him when you suddenly envelop almost the entirety of his cock with your mouth, lightly sucking…

His grip on your hair tightens and inadvertently lifts your mouth away from him, startling you. He gives you a regretful look. ‘Sorry, sweetheart… you gotta give me a few seconds, or I’m gonna shoot my load all over your face, like… now’. He chuckles dejectedly.

You pause to consider this. ‘Hm… okay, baby. But you didn’t let me finish what I was saying…’ You tilt your head to the side, a suggestive smile dancing on your face.

He frowns suspiciously, and you want to grab his face and cover it in smooches. ‘What?’

Slowly, never looking away from him, you slide your body between his legs, your arms gliding over the sculpted planes of his belly and chest, covering them in kisses, until you reach his neck, and with your arms around it, stroking his hair, your forehead against his, you sigh into his mouth.

‘I think… good, well-behaved, and polite boys should get rewarded’. You look up at him. ‘I think they should be allowed to cum wherever they want… as a treat.’

He sits there, immobile, lips parted – suspended in the exhilarating expectation of what he knew you were going to say.

‘Mikey… I want you to fuck my mouth and cum on my face… now. Can you do that, baby?’, you whisper against his lips.

You think you hear ‘fuck’ right before he roughly grabs the back of your head and smashes your mouths together in a searing kiss. You whimper, surprised, but allow yourself to relish this loss of control. After all, you did say he deserved a reward.

For a few seconds, you let him maneuver your head freely, fucking your mouth with his tongue – like he’s saying ‘here, sweetheart, take this appetizer, the main course will fucking reck you’. His hands paw at your breasts, thighs, waist, and ass, like he’s a starving man presented with a seven-course meal, not knowing where to start or finish. You desperately press your thighs together for some relief to your neglected core.

When he starts thrusting up his pelvis, unconsciously trying to fuck your tits, you decide it’s time to take back control. With a bite to his lower lip, you steal a startled noise out of him and push him firmly back against the couch.

You school your face into a stern, disappointed expression. ‘That’s enough, honey’. You are proud of how smooth your voice sounds, considering how horny you are.

He looks absolutely defeated – his hair all messed up from your hands, chest heaving, panting for air. You want to eat him whole.

‘God, baby… that must hurt’. You say in mock pity, looking sadly down at his fully hard cock, an angry red, shiny from spit and semen. You look back up at him. ‘Are you gonna be a good boy, and do what I told you to do, Mikey?’

‘Fuck, yes, please, sweetheart, please, just… fuck, I can’t take it anymore. I need your mouth, please…’. He’s babbling, overwhelmed, his eyes watery with unshed tears. By this point, you know the teasing is over – he needs release, and you need to give it to him.

You cup his face gently. ‘It’s alright, baby… you’re alright. Okay? Hm?’ he nods frantically. You kiss his nose sweetly and get back down on your knees, never taking your eyes away from his.

‘I’m gonna take care of you now, baby… my big, soft, sweet Bear’, you whisper, sliding down his chest until you reach his cock. His hands are immediately back to their native place, holding the hair away from your face.

You open your mouth and begin enveloping his cock, slowly. He watches you intently, thighs trembling and mouth quivering, new tears ready to burst from his eyes. Waiting for permission.

A slow blink and small nod of your head are enough for him. Go ahead, Mikey. Take what’s yours. He releases a broken moan, a dam of want bursting open with his first thrust into your mouth. He bottoms out, because he knows you can take it. He knows that, right now, all you want is for him to let go.

You never stop looking at him. Even as his thrusts lose rhythm, and his hands start slipping from your hair down to grip your jaw, and his cock his constantly hitting the back of your throat, cutting off the air supply.

Your eyes water and tears run down your cheeks with abandon, as your mind enters that stage of pure bliss. No thoughts but a loop of keep mouth open, tongue out, breathe out of nose in time with thrusts, check if he’s OK, keep mouth open, tongue out, …

‘Baby, baby, baby, I can’t, I can’t anymore… I’m gonna cum, please, g – fuck’. Shaking, he takes his length in hand for the first time tonight, pulling it out and stroking it with abandon over your face.

You nod frantically, closing your eyes and crying out as soon as his cock is out of your mouth, a desperate string of yes, yes, yes, yes, baby, please –. Tongue out and mouth wide open, you feel a smile forming on your face as the first strings of cum hit your chin and cheeks. You lap up every drop that falls near your mouth.

Everything goes very still, suddenly – like time stops. Your body is frozen, but so is your mind. Light as a feather. A hand swiping your cheek gently brings you back to the present – you look up, fucked out of your mind, to see Mikey looking down at you, equally exhausted, but smiling so sincerely, he reminds you of a prophet. Maybe it’s the beard. That makes you laugh.

‘What’s so funny, lady?’ he asks softly, joining you on the floor, your face between both his giant hands, kissing it all over, taking his time to wipe off the cum with his tongue, then bringing it to your mouth in a long, languid kiss. Griping his strong arms, you try to pull him in as close to you as possible, eager for his touch. He chuckles.

Then, one of his hands cups your entire pussy roughly through your soaked shorts.

You moan into his mouth and, like a lightning bolt, you’re coming so hard it knocks the air out of your lungs. You’re shocked, but Mike doesn’t stop the kiss for a fraction of a second, managing to blabber out a string of filth at the same time.

‘Oh, fuck yeah, baby, that’s it, let go… holy shit, you can come just from getting your mouth fucked and a little kiss? Jesus Christ… go ahead, sweetheart. What the hell did I do to deserve such a sweet, beautiful thing in my life…’

‘God, Mikey, shut the fuck up’. You don’t know when you started crying, or why you are also laughing like a maniac – nothing makes sense, and yet everything is so right.

‘How do you feel, baby?’, you ask, sniffling and stroking his face.

He laughs. ‘I feel so good, sweetheart. You took care of me, and I didn’t even know how bad I needed it. But you always do. And you put me in my place… fuck… you break me into pieces and put me back together. Thank you’. He whispers that last part, his mouth hovering over yours as his fingers wipe away the tears from your barely open, reddened eyes.

You smile, contented. ‘You are a good boy, Mikey’.

‘And you are an amazing girl, who needs to go to bed now’.

You let him lift you up like a sack of potatoes and throw you over his shoulder, barely complaining. ‘You’re lucky I’m exhausted, or you would regret this’, you mumble.

He slaps your ass, and you yelp. ‘Wanna square it up in the morning?'

‘I’ll kick your ass in 30 minutes, asshole’.

He arrives in your bedroom and puts you down on the bed with a chuckle, following right after. ‘I’m sure you would, sweetheart’.

After he cleans you up with a warm, wet towel, you snuggle against him beneath the sheets. You feel yourself drifting off, but before that, you pull yourself up, grab his face, and kiss him sweetly.

‘I love you, Mikey’.

He smiles. ‘I love you, baby’.

#the bear #the bear fx #michael berzatto #mikey berzatto #michael berzatto x reader #mikey berzatto x reader #mike berzatto #mike berzatto x reader #fic #smut

[bridgetoesoteria]

😡#@! Who is scared of you and why?😰

Honestly, I'm pretty curious to see what the piles hold. Any energy could come through. Professional, romantic, friends/family, etc. 😬

Lets find out! Piles are left to right! (idk why it's so small sorry)

HOPE IT RESONATES. PAY ATTN TO YOUR INTUITION AND HOW THE MESSAGES RESONATE FOR YOU PERSONALLY!!

Pile 1

4 card spread: 6 of wands, 5 of cups, 10 of wands, 5 of swords. BOTD: 8 of swords

Damn Pile 1. Remind me not to mess with you... For some of you, this is a person that perceives you as playing dirty. So you could have "one against them in some "won," in some way. Some examples that are immediately coming to mind would beating a romantic rival or winning some kind of sports tournament.

For others, this could have to deal with the legal system. For the Urban Tarot Deck, the 10 of wands is represented as a man in jail. So this person could be in trouble with the legal system or some kind of institution or authority. For some reason, I do not think you are talking, but maybe its because you can't? Like if they are overseas and its hard to get reliable service, if they are in jail and have limited access to a device, or you have decided to stop speaking. Some of you could be testifying against this person or you could be breaking up/divorcing.

So I used my Bold Perceptions deck and asked how you perceive this person. These are the cards that came out, make of them what you will: "How would you describe or label your style?"// "If you could bring back one fashion from throughout history, which would it be?" (Pile 1, is their fashion sense kinda unique??) If you could see a statistic or number floating above people's heads like in a video game, what would you most want to see and why? (could be a gamer, or someone who you wish you could read better) "What do you think the opposite sex notices about you first?" // "What do you notice first about the opposite sex?" (there could be mutual attraction, one or both of you could be jealous about the attention the other receives)

Why??

Oop! Okay, I see now. I think this person is afraid of you spilling the beans. Interesting that I got a message about the legal system. This does not have to necessarily pertain to the law though. I am also seeing that if you are part of an affair, they could be scared you are going to move on, or that you could expose them.

For some of you this person is scared that you are pregnant. Or there could be something to do with hiding a pregnancy. Some of you it is not that dramatic. This person could be too intimidated to approach you and get communication going again. This will be especially true for situations where you cut this person off over cheating or something. They are trying to keep you from leaving.

There are also a lot of pentacles out. The only cup card is the knight of cups, which is on the bottom of the deck after I pulled clarifiers. So this person could be really focused on stability. Whatever they are scared about ties into their stability and keeping things "under wraps", is what I am specifically hear. But what if you don't want to hear them out?

TL;DR: This is someone that is known to you, but you probably aren't speaking often. There could be an issue with the legal system, a break up, divorce, or secret being exposed. This person could be attractive and have a unique sense of style. You could wish you were able to read their mind. They are scared of you because they do not want to lose their stability or you. They are scared to reach out and get rejected but they are trying to keep everything together.

Pile 2

4 card spread: 6 of swords, 8 of swords, King of Cups, Temperance. BOTD: 10 of swords

This could be family for some of you. A masculine or male figure in your family, so a brother, dad, husband, etc. Or possibly a woman who is more masculine, but I do think for most it is an actual man. I don't think you are in contact with this person. They could have experienced an ending recently or they are under an extreme amount of stress. For some of you, this person could be depressed or struggling with something else mental health related.

There is a sense of trying to find balance with the 6 of swords and temperance. They could also have relocated. I am getting some workaholic vibes. This is starting to remind me of Pile 1... They feel like they lost something and I am getting a lot of "she left and took the kids," type of vibe. Regardless, they certainly feel alone and regretful. For some of you this person has experienced an actual loss and they are trying to find balance again after that.

I used my Bold Perceptions deck and asked how you perceive this person. These are the cards that came out, make of them what you will: "What do you think your best physical feature is?" // "What you think my best physical feature is?" (you and this person may share certain features or look alike or have feature that the other likes) "If you had to rename me, what name would suit me best?" // "What is the worst nickname you can think of for me?" (do they have a cringe nickname? or maybe you call them something else behind their back, like captain poop face lol) "Who would you invite if you threw a party and could bring any three celebrities?" // "What three would least want to come?" (you could perceive this person as being cool, uncool, or well-connected)

Why??

Some of you could be really spicy. Maybe you cussed this person out. If you cut them off they are scared this is a permanent decision. For some of you, they could be scared that you will explore other options. Like maybe you will entire your selfish era and just go where ever your heart tells you. Maybe they pushed you too far this time.

This person could have tried to sell you a dream and you are realizing you can do bad all by yourself. You could be very content on your own, investing in yourself, going out, having a good time. If you aren't in that energy already, they are afraid that you are headed there. For whatever reason, this scares them.

TL;DR: This is a masculine energy, could be a family member for some of you. For example, a brother, husband, or father. They can be someone who is struggling mentally/emotionally right now. They could tend to overwork themselves. You may have left this person. I don't think you have much respect for them anymore. They are scared of you being happier single and realizing that you do not need them. They are scared they have lost you for good. If you haven't entered this energy yet, they are terrified that you will.

Pile 3

**this energy was by far, the most difficult to tap into today!! Some of you might resonate with Pile 2, because I keep mixing them up.

4 card spread: Death, The Tower, Queen of Cups, Ace of Pentacles. BOTD: 5 of wands

So this pile does not have any strong romantic energies like the last pile, but take it however it resonates. I feel more of a friendship that might have gone sour. This could be someone that you fight with or have fought with in the past. They could be a person that is argumentative. You could be the complete opposite of them; Softer, more feminine, gentle... This person could gossip a lot. They could get a lot of attention from suitors but none of the relationships are particularly meaningful or long-lasting. They could like to compete for attention.

Wow, I would not expect a person with this energy to be scared of anyone. But I guess the loudest people are sometimes overcompensating. This could be family or someone you are very close to. They could be used to having control over you or your life in some way. This could be someone that is sad to see you leaving. I think life has definitely started to guide you to different paths.

I don't think you like this person. They could be an asshole fr! The king of swords just came out and that is my "asshole" card. Someone that is pretty selfish. They could also be a liar and harsh with their words. They could be emotionless. You could really dislike them right now. You probably want your space and to learn how to be okay on your own.

Next, I'm pulling from my Bold Perceptions deck. We are asking how you perceive this person. These are the cards that came out, make of them what you will: "In what ways do you think social media has changed dating" // "If you could be in a one-sided open relationship would you?" (this person could be some who cheats, or flirts a lot online. You know, the type of person that stays in people's likes & DMs. You could have met online. They could have tried to play you in some way) "Which emojis remind you the most of me?" // "What are your pet peeves, and what do you think mine are?" (you could text a lot, maybe never went past the talking phase, you could have been roommates) "Ask a Bold question that you have always wanted to." (is there something you want to know about them, or is this someone who you are waiting on to ask you out?)

Why??

They could worry that you are going to find something on their phone. Maybe you already have found out they are flirting with people online or maybe following pages or consuming media you aren't okay with. You could be really defensive toward this person right now. They are scared of your words.

They don't want to lose you. They may have always pictured their future with you in it. They don't want you to make any rash decisions. This person is scared of what happens if you do not accept their apology or offer. They don't want to "start all over," that probably means something different for each situation. But with the 7 of cups being clarified by the 2 of wands and 6 of cups, I think they would rather smooth things over with you. But they are aware it is possible they may have to move on.

TL;DR: Very tough energy to read so maybe this person does not show much emotion. This could be someone you consider an asshole. They could be a big flirt and could use social media to meet people. That could even be how you met. Or this could be the traits of a female friend you fell out with. This person could also be a gossip. They are scared of losing you. They are scared of having to start over if you do not forgive them or accept an offer.

I am trying to stay consistent with posting at least once a week. Kept this one a little shorter cause I have hella assignments 😬🥴

The next reading will be any one of the polls that are left from the poll. What will it be? Mwahaha

👛Tips are muy appreciated.

Ttys 😎😘

~ K

#tarotcommunity #pick a card #tarot reading #intuitive readings #oracle reading #tarot #pick a pile #oracle cards #pick a card reading #pick a photo #free tarot #free tarot reading #tarot readings #tarotblr #tarot reader #tarot community #spirituality #channeled message #intuitive #divination #psychic readings #witchblr #witch community

[platrom]

One Last Chance.

Midoriya x F! Reader, Bakugou x F! Reader (partially/eventually)

WORD COUNT: 20.7k words

NOTE: Here is the ending to OLT. What do you all think? Please leave me some comments!!

If you guys would like to see side stories to this or have some questions, please send some asks! My inbox is always open. And if you have any other story ideas, please request as well.

TW: DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT, flashback scenes, hospital setting, mentions of prior and current injuries, death, talk about perceptions of death, mentions of suicide attempt/suicide, fluff, therapy, Bakugou has undergone therapy, childhood best friends, toxic friendships, unrequited love, happy ending, the voice leaves, a new voice appears (is personified), reader has a panic attack in a fancy restaurant, reader and Shoto are friends, Bakugou has genuine friends, the reader is loved, kind of ambiguous parts in the ending (must read first part to understand it), reader confronts Midoriya, reader kisses Bakugou

THIS STORY MUST BE READ WITH THE FIRST PART— IT IS NOT A STAND ALONE.

PART 1 / PART 2 (HERE)/IMPORTANT ASK

BAKUGOU OBSERVED your shaken figure as it faded into the distance, head hung low and fists clenched in agony. When you first pulled away from him and continued onward, your feet tapped lightly against every slab of concrete you trekked on, until after a few yards your brisk walk bursted into a hurried sprint. Nobody nor anything was spared a second glance as you fled from his presence.

Candidly, he couldn’t blame you. Bakugou had overstepped your boundaries and attempted to plow through the brick walls you had built around yourself for the sake of your welfare. He understood how you felt and how overwhelming such an invasion of privacy was, notably with his straightforward approach. Bakugou was notorious for diving headfirst into situations, but that didn’t mean it was invariably appropriate.

For instance, now.

Howbeit, he didn’t know what else to do. Bakugou may have gone through years of therapy and anger management courses (thanks to that spiky-haired idiot), but that didn’t mean he knew how to confront everyone about their personal endeavors.

Tackling his own issues differed from helping others address theirs. He had friends, family, and a therapist to talk him through his problems and conjure solutions with. Even his fellow colleagues wouldn’t mind lending a comforting shoulder for Bakugou to lean on; the people around him had read countless books on how to support loved ones who were struggling.

Bakugou had a support system that took years to discover, expand, and wholeheartedly trust. With thousands of hours of therapy under his belt, he was blessed with tools to aid him in the gloomiest and sunniest of days, with or without his therapist by his side.

In comparison, you were not armed with the same lessons and techniques as he was.

Not yet, at least.

Bakugou wanted to change that.

For all of his years of friendship with you, he analyzed your growth and development as a person: how you went from an adorable and frivolous child who was insouciant to the prying eyes of others into a beauteous, percipient young lady who shied away from any unforgiving glares. He remembered how decades ago you, him, and Deku would tussle around in your childhood playground’s decrepit sandbox playing Heroes.

Bakugou had invented the game when you and Deku had been laying against one of the thick blue poles that held up a patent yellow slide incised by impetuous teenagers that lurked around the park at the perturbing time of midnight. To his dismay, despite being in front of you both, none of you batted an eyelash at him. He wasn’t even aware of what you two were discussing, but all he cognized was that the ongoing chatter between you and the freckled nerd was irritating him and he wanted your attention instanter.

Looking back, Bakugou could admit that it was an impulsive suggestion and injudicious decision. In contrast to what any other sensible child or person would have done, as soon as the words ‘Let’s play heroes, Deku and (Name)!’ escaped Bakugou’s lips, the green-haired idiot accepted the request instantly, so eager to please Katsuki. On the other hand, you simply watched in silence as Bakugou beamed in pride with his hands on his hips and Deku enthusiastically pumped his arms in the air, jumping and squealing in both anticipation and delight.

Years after, Bakugou eventually understood why you sat quietly that day and made no move to even consider rejecting the idea. Exactly like Midoriya, you shadowed Bakugou’s footsteps and obliged to his every whim. Yet, unlike Deku, you didn’t quite concur with his exclamations even inside your head and heart. Cleverly, you chose to keep your mouth shut and follow in step because it caused you less trouble than if you voiced your opinion.

That didn’t exactly mean you always emulated that similar action and thought process. There were at times you spoke against Bakugou when you knew you would be reprimanded the least or experience little to no consequences.

Bakugou couldn’t deny that he didn’t enjoy those quirks of yours: your fight, your spunk— your tactical and logical thinking. They all were your qualities that Bakugou internally commended you for.

As children, whenever you three played Heroes, Bakugou forced you to take the role of the damsel in distress. Due to your bestowed position as a distressed maiden, the ash blond referred to you as “Princess” often, both during and outside the game. With every fictional mission the two boys conjured, they intended to save you from villains (which happened to be figurines of heroes with a small piece of dark cloth draped over it).

When Bakugou wanted to impress you (and spite the green-haired bastard), after he and the nerd rescued you, he would hoist you off your feet and carry you bridal style, your head tucked into the crook of his neck. Boastfully and vaingloriously, he would exclaim to the other boy with a smug grin, “This is how a real princess should be treated, Deku!”

The young boy would stare in awe, analyzing how Bakugou kept a firm grip on you and refused to let you take a step on your own, despite your occasional protests.

And the times when a small giggle would be heard near Katsuki’s chest, widened vermillion eyes would snap to your face and watch as you grinned up at him, eyes sparkling, glowing, and filled with adoration. Your ridiculously sweet and unfaltering smile never failed to make his chest puff out in pride, cheeks warm in fluster, and heart pound faster.

Katsuki craved to see that expression on your face again.

He yearned to be the one who flipped your entire world upside down and set you anew. Like a festering disease, that ardent desire plagued his heart. It urged Bakugou to be the hero in your life and pillar of strength- the one you were able to lean on for stability when your walls of welfare began to crumble and crash.

When you were merely arm’s reach away, at times in that freckled-dork’s arms, an unremitting voice rung remorselessly in his ears, imploring for him to pull you into his chest and conceal you from the world, to cradle your supple face between his callused palms and tenderly stroke your cheek in hopes his actions could describe an ounce of his perennial love for you. The vexatious voice begged Bakugou to press his lips against yours to convey all the unspoken emotions he could not fathom formulating into lucid and complete sentences.

Katsuki wanted all of the pieces of you: brain, body, and soul.

In bed, during the hours of dusk until dawn, Bakugou’s mind conjured vivid imaginations of a domestic life with you. In many of the scenarios, Katsuki would already be at home in the spacious kitchen, preparing dinner for you both before you returned after a strenuous day at work. Whatever meal he was cooking didn’t matter; you would love his cooking anyway.

He would be so absorbed with cooking that he wouldn’t hear the sound of the door lock clicking open, or the rustling of your clothes as you stripped off your coat. Your lethargic steps would fall on deaf ears as you snuck behind Katsuki, the corner of your lips curling in satisfaction and glee at the aromatic fragrance wafting throughout the house and at the sight of him cooking, no less in the apron you had gifted him for Christmas at the start of his hero career. The apron was black and had the words “THE BOMB” splayed across his chest in thick, white cursive.

Without hesitation, you would pounce onto Bakugou and smush your face into his back, wrapping your arms around his waist. He would quietly hum as you sighed and relaxed into his cozy warmth, mumbling a word of greeting.

After, small bits of chatter would be exchanged between you two until your voices died down and a comforting silence would permeate your shared home.

Eventually, when Bakugou would feel your eyelashes flutter shut as you fruitlessly essayed to stay awake and on your toes, he would lightly smack the top of your head with a wooden spoon and chide you to get your oil-stained arms off his apron and shower before he finished dinner.

The dopey grin that would spread across your adorable face would leave butterflies flittering in his stomach and blood rushing to the tips of his ears. When you noticed his bashful expression, you would raise your calves and wrap your arms around Bakugou’s neck to press a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth, before escaping his clutches as he processed your actions.

Irritatingly, he would wave a wooden spoon in the air menacingly at your retreating figure, screaming, “You shitty woman, if you’re going to kiss me, do it properly!”

Katsuki Bakugou was a selfish man; he knew that just as well as anybody else. All of his life, he took everything he could and prospered with whatever resources he had. Everything he did was done in his favor, to his advantage. The cost of his actions and behavior was never significant to him. Even presently, as a hero, he didn‘t bat an eye to his brash language on television or crass attitude. He never spared a second thought about what he did or was going to do.

Until now, when your life, your fate, was placed directly into the palm of his destructive, blood-shedding hands.

If he pursued the direction of which you ran and found you, what would happen to the two of you? To him? To you?

What were the rewards and the risks? Would possibly risking your life be worth it? If push came to shove and you threatened your life, could he save you?

His quirk wasn’t built for the typical rescue training; Bakugou was trained to ward off villains and allow the official rescue heroes do their work. He could handle the battle— the blood, the deafening blasts and shards of glass and slabs of concrete that would fly at him, the blazing ache in his muscles, the adrenaline from fighting and the reality of his eventual, impeding death.

Yet, he wasn’t created to dive into the murky and freezing cold water of the ocean and pull civilians from the bottom. Bakugou Katsuki, Dynamight, wasn’t the one who was meant to lift fissured buildings off of civilians to allow them to escape.

Of course, Bakugou could blow things up. Though, was it really the smartest for him to possibly detonate an already ticking time bomb?

Perhaps, he wasn’t the man for this rescue. But there was somebody else who he knew was.

Bakugou whipped out his phone, scrolling past hundreds of unobtrusive contacts, most lacking a personalized profile picture. Swipe after swipe, blurs of gray passed his vision before his eyes caught the name of a man he would never willingly speak to, not even for work.

You were an exception.

Always and forever.

Tapping the telephone icon with hasty fingers, Katsuki lifted the device up to his ear and began to trace your footsteps.

In his wildest dreams, never did he picture himself dialing one of his biggest rivals over a girl he loved for decades— over a girl they loved for decades— since as long as he could remember.

A confused voice answered on the other end. “Kacchan?”

“Deku,” Bakugou sighed, teeth gritting and fists clenched.

Hopefully, the world would reward him for not being selfish this once.

“I need your damn help.”

For the first time.

Contrary to popular belief, there were countless disparate ideas and thoughts of what death was like. For numerous individuals, it was foreseen as a riveting and transfixing experience. On the other hand, many voiced death to be an ongoing horror that terrorized them in the back of their minds. The twisted thoughts would trickle past the cracks of the mind, seeping into the limelight of their thoughts.

Certainly, there were opinions that fell between the lines and even strayed far from the common and classic perceptions of such an inevitable fate all would face.

Though, you had a rather specific conclusion about death.

Your declaration was that it was quite dull; banal even, considering everything to your vision (more so lack of it) was pitch black, akin to as if you had your eyelids shut— just permanently.

To be fair, you were dead. What did you expect? No one wanted to see the eyes of a rotting corpse, so it made sense that they would shut them.

You prayed your body was being prepared for your funeral. If they even found it, deep down below the surface of the ocean’s beguiling, glossy droplets of liquid transparency that lured innocent strangers to explore what was another’s liquid death.

Your death would also explain why you were frozen like a corpse. Your mouth remained clamp shut, your limbs stayed in place no matter how much you fruitlessly shrieked at your brain to move the lifeless limbs, and every inch of your body felt stone cold despite that if you were alive, warm blood would be flowing through your veins to keep you functioning.

However, there was one minor issue that made you question your predicament and if you were truly dead— you could still hear. What you were able to hear in the oblivion of black that surrounded you was debatable, but it vaguely reminded you of muffled chatter, similar to if cotton stuffed your ears.

Perhaps, if you focused enough you could distinguish the words, possibly even the syllables in hopes of discovering whether or not you had truly met death face-to-face.

All you had to do was listen- stay silent. Just like a dead person. You were dead. You could do just that with ease.

So, you let your conscious fade into the abyss of surrounding black, let the hold you had on the remnants of your soul slide lower and lower, the tight grip of your finger slipping so only the tips of them could reach the sole part of you that held you inside your body— your prison. You let the comfort of your humanity rest and the blaring silence of death deafen your ears.

Unexpectedly, the small, high-pitched voice of a child is what you hear first whose words die at the end of their sentence.

“If you need help, you can just ask for it.”

You want to ask who they are and what they’re talking about, and you try— you pull your dangling humanity closer and repeat the questions like a mantra until you’re screaming them, but they never exit your throat.

When your soul slips from your fingers again, the child remains quiet. Light footsteps begin to echo in the abyss of darkness, faintly reminding you of the days you used to spend in your room listening to rain splattering against your window, the atoms of hydrogen and oxygen splitting as they made contact with the clear surface.

This all seems like a sick, cruel joke from the universe.

Was this the voice messing with you?

Was the voice that haunted you still here with you, even in the after life?

But it didn’t sound the same.

That ominous voice in your head was your own voice. It had the exact same pitch, the same quirky pronunciations you had, even down to the accent. Possibly at first, it had been the voice of others and the words that were spat at you were theirs.

To begin, they were theirs; their crude thoughts, their deleterious words, their abhorrent statements and opinions.

Not yours, not at all.

Those noxious words laced with the deadliest of poisonous toxins gradually infiltrated your mind, the traces of their presence faint. As time passed, the once small stains became vast and covered the expanse of your once kind thoughts, turning each present one bitterer from the last. Once upon a time, the voice in your head was the voice of others.

Until it became yours.

In contrast, the speaker in the pit of eternal darkness had a voice of a naive young girl whose heart was just as pure and innocent as it was when the day she was born. It was filled with glee and utmost care, one that most lost to their greed for coin and success. Genuine people— those who constantly gave back and assisted others out of the goodness of their heart had long gone extinct, or were an endangered species. Those who got ahold of these rare beings either sunk their canines into their flesh for a finishing blow or kept them safe under their thumb, a primordial part of them vocalizing their need to keep someone so precious in the safety of their arms.

The girl moved closer to you.

“The attempt to escape pain is what creates more pain. At least, that’s what my parents tell me.”

That voice . . . It was once yours. The little girl who was speaking to you was you, or the shell of who you once were.

Although the memories of your childhood had lost their precision of detail overtime and existence as the years trudged by, you had always considered them the apex of the years you spent alive. The naivety of being a child and the blanket of being sheltered protected you from the corruption of the real world was a sensation you missed dearly.

“Instead of trying to avoid your troubles and problems, they say to resolve them so nobody gets hurt anymore!”

Your recollection of this particular encounter as a child was not the most prominent, as the once vivid and animated details of that day slowly evanesced from your brain with time.

The interaction had occurred nearly two decades ago in the commonly favored season of saccharine spring in Japan, when the sun’s rays gently kissed your skin and the soft gusts of wind weaved through your hair and brushed it back. You were there solely because the mothers in the city of Musutafu always met up during the spring to gossip about their husbands and children and revel in the scenery of blossoming Sakura flowers that swayed gingerly in the wind from their delicate stems that connected to the branches.

It hadn’t been the first time your mother had dragged you to an event like this with the enticing promise that you would be able to make new friends; that had been the deal-breaker for you. Hence, it had led you to the park funded by the richest of the local heroes and civilians.

The place could only be described in one word: perfect. Gossip from the mothers of the town declared it was kept in pristine condition by countless gardeners who would sweat over every blade of grass they sliced. The shrubbery was luscious, vibrant, and full of life. One would say it was just as youthful as the children that roamed every acre of the greenery.

The mothers had stationed themself near the entrance of the park, where the benches that were bolted into the ground to set down the dishes, snacks, and desserts they brought for everyone to snack on. Further in was the actual playground, which contained the children of the many attending mothers.

After kindly asking your mother for permission to go to the playground by yourself, you waltzed your way over.

That was where the interaction began.

You weren’t sure how you even noticed this peculiar person— nothing about them stood out. Not their hair, not their eyes, not their face.

Absolutely nothing differentiated from the rest.

That much you remembered.

Maybe it was a stroke of luck that brought you to them, that fate decided to pull your strings together and wrap a knot around you both for a moment.

They had been sobbing uncontrollably, their arms hugging their knees and small hiccups of desperate gulps of fresh air had reached your unsuspecting ears.

It was odd how out of all the children there, you were the only one who could hear their muffled cries of pain.

The background, your surroundings, the calls of the other children to return to their side as they watched you step towards the outcast was all a haze to you. You couldn’t recognize or process anything other than the child that sat alone in tears.

It was a complete blur from there.

“Forever doesn’t exist, that’s why you should apologize before it’s too late!”

Why am I remembering this now?

Tears fell that day.

When have they not?

Unspoken words lingered in the air, thick and heavy on your tongue.

How many days have been like that? How many days have I lived like them?

Your mind answers for itself.

In the past, you had labeled them minor inconveniences. They didn’t matter to you.

They were minor inconveniences, you tried to convince yourself like so many times before.

Were the tears you shed over so many lost ones just minor?

Would you just toss them away?

Would you belittle the memories of one of your former closest elementary friends, years of friendship washed away in the downpour due to a nasty little rumor spread about you? Erase the little drawings and cards they made for you, each one describing how you would be by each other’s side forever?

Would you forget about the best friend that got away, the one that was forced to move away at the end of your primary years? The walk around the field, the stories you both wrote together, the secrets you entrusted with one another— were you going to toss that all away?

Would you forget about the one who you worked vigorously to build a friendship with when everyone was forced to split ways in junior high? Did you really think so little of the late night conversations, the occasional but rather spontaneous (and sometimes one-sided) heart-to-hearts, the long hours spent chatting away, learning about a love that stemmed deeper than the plants whose roots dipped beneath the soil under your feet? What about when they had chosen to push you out of their lives— manipulating you to keep you attached?

Would you be willing to forget when the empire you had fought endlessly to build and protect collapsed on you after quakes so powerful the once granite walls fissured and crumbled right above your head when you were at your weakest?

Would the scars that remained from the knives that were stabbed into your back, your chest, your heart, finally heal? Would the nasty and discolored marks fade from your skin like water slipping down a drain?

Would you forget about your family? The ones who raised you, who were by your side, near your side, even when it felt like they were miles away?

Would you forget about those who loved you unconditionally— for every one of your flaws, mistakes, and imperfections? The loyal ones who stood close enough to catch you if you fell, even when you didn’t deserve it. Even when you took them for granted.

What about Izuku and Katsuki? The ones that at one point in your life or another, meant the world to you?

Could you erase the memory of Katsuki’s passionate carmine eyes, irises the colors of the ripest of strawberries in the patch, filled with unspoken emotions that only the most observant and attentive of people could detect? The number of fingers on your hands could not come close to totaling the indefinite amount of days you spent staring into his eyes, (e/c) piercing through the thin panes of glass behind his eyes that sheltered his heart and soul, learning lessons that words could not formulate, that he would never dare let leave his mouth.

Would those minuscule yet intimate moments with the blond escape you at last?

Ironically, your calmest and most content moments resided with the boy from your childhood who always claimed one day he would be the greatest hero in the world. These tranquil times didn’t stem from your days as kids in primary school or pre-teens in middle school, but rather when you both were studying at UA.

Unbeknownst to Midoriya and nearly the entirety of Class A, Bakugou would constantly sneak you into his room late at night when neither of you could sleep or only wanted to bask in the the other’s presence. He always grumbled and complained about the unruly times you chose to sneak out of your room and how dangerous it was for you to risk injuring yourself just to see him, but every time you countered his argument with a simple smile and a “I missed you” before proceeding to hug him tightly.

The first few times you told Bakugou this, audible explosions began to crackle from his palms and immediately he shoved you off of him (after wiping his sweaty hands on his pants) and barked curses at you. Eventually, he welcomed you silently with open arms.

During those quiet nights, you both would lay on his bed, limbs intertwined. At first, you and Katsuki sat at a distance, until he began to lay down on his bed and hissed at you to follow suit. Then, you made the first move to cuddle Bakugou after he called you over because of a nightmare— the rest was history from there.

Brushing fingertips was your first taste of intimacy with Bakugou, until he gained the courage to hold your hand. Afterwards came the long hugs. Then, those hugs transformed into Bakugou pulling your head to rest on his bicep. Next came intertwined legs and gentle caresses. And the cherry on top was when his walls finally came down and he allowed you to be his rock, the shoulder he cried on when his studies and hero work caught up to him and left him doubled over in hopelessness, desperate to put himself back together.

But what about Izuku?

What about the boy you spent practically every year of your life with, the man that plagued your mind in the early hours of dawn and the late hours of dusk?

Were you ready to remove him forever? Were you truly ready to give up on the one you loved fearlessly for all those years, even in the face of adversity?

For ages, Midoriya was your beacon of hope. When the world felt like it was caving in, when you shoved everyone out and suffered in solitude, he stood unwavering and unrelenting to listen to your command; he defied your expectations and exceeded them.

Though, good things cannot survive for eternities.

At one point Izuku Midoriya, the one who claimed your heart long ago, slowly began to fade right in front of your eyes. He prioritized his work— he made saving others the reason why he breathed.

When that realization dawned upon you and you understood that he would never fawn at you the same way you did with him, you drowned yourself.

It felt like death.

You didn’t want to think about this anymore.

I want the pain to finally end.

It was pointless to clutch onto the minuscule semblance of mortality you had left before you completely rested in the grave. If you accepted the hand the reaper held out to you, sleep would be eternal.

That’s what I always wanted, right? So take it. It’s not like I ever had anything to lose. Whatever I once owned will never be mine again.

Succumbing was always easy. Succumbing to desires always rewarded you, albeit only temporarily. It was simpler that way— to fall under the umbrella of constantly accepting demands.

“Let go.”

You did; you drank every night until you were blackout drunk.

“Hide.”

You did. You pushed everyone away and isolated yourself.

“Suffer.”

You did. You never sought out help when your thoughts became too grim and dreary to bare alone.

“End it.”

You did. You jumped off the cliff and into the ocean.

“Accept it.”

Slowly, you were.

Slowly, you let your thoughts disintegrate into the dark, emptying your mind of coherency. Of rationality, of humanity.

That lifeless feeling of iciness within you traveled across the expanse of your body until you wholeheartedly believed you had always been a glacier of ice and not once a living being.

Like a sinking boulder, you slipped from consciousness to never resurface.

And like a gentle kiss, a speck of warmth formed on your skin before disappearing.

“Please don’t leave me, (Name). I love you.”

“Don’t do that again, idiot.”

The voice is warm like apple cider on a winter day, mixed with a twinge of sweet, sugary cinnamon that permeates the expanse of your tongue. It feels so welcoming, so safe despite the harshness lingering in the undertones of the voice— akin to if a thick and heavy spoonful of honey coated your tongue like syrup flowing off a stack of fluffy and golden-brown pancakes. You craved to have the sugary sap reach the back of your mouth and slide down your throat before it saturated your system with the sticky sweetness.

A tepid and sweaty hand enveloped yours, coarse callouses sheltering the dry and peeling skin of your knuckles from the bitter cold breeze blown from the air conditioning.

More words fall deaf on your ears as the strings of consciousness tie themselves back together in effort to push you out of your drowning slumber. The soothing and homely voice continues to repeat broken and fractured phrases that you try to reach, pushing yourself out of the sinister hold of the tendrils.

Enraged by your defiant behavior, the obsidian tentacles wrap themselves around the tied strings and tug harshly in an attempt to tear you apart, to send you back to where the worst of your melancholy and despondent thoughts resided.

“Come back, don’t leave me here!” the voice cried. “You and I, we’re both the same. Wherever I go, you come with. We are one.”

Were you the same as that evil voice that had plagued your mind like a virus, worming its way into your bloodstream in hopes of controlling your body and fatally killing you?

Would you ever do that to someone?

You’d like to think not.

“You better not leave me behind. You need to be there when I become number one.”

There was that familiar voice again— it was so warm. It felt like hugging a toasty bag of freshly baked bread in the chilly morning, or sitting down on your couch with a steaming cup of hot cocoa on a rainy day, slowly sipping at the aromatic and creamy chocolate that made your stomach squeal in pleasure and delight.

You craved to feel like this forever.

With the threat of betrayal, the tendrils furiously tightened their bruising grip on your limbs, unwilling to part ways with you.

“I was there for you when nobody ever was! I stuck by your side when you isolated yourself and had nobody— when everyone ignored you!” the voice reminded you, enraged by your defiance.

Why couldn’t you just submit to it?

But weren’t you the one that caused it? If it wasn’t for you, would I really be here now?

The idea is a sudden one that sends you reeling, heart pumping and sweat beading at the top of your head. The once cozy heat that flooded your body boils, burning hotter than the fiery and explosive stars above. An audible sizzling sound can be heard where the tendrils meet your skin.

“You better fight back, damn nerd. Everyone’s been waiting for you out here— they dropped everything to come see you.”

Everyone? Your classmates and friends?

But weren’t they the ones who knew of your suffering and still refused to extend a helping hand to you?

“They all come and go, you know that. Why would you go back to them? Don’t go back on the promise you made. Just for Midoriya, remember?”

Promise? Midoriya?

Your mind was too muddled to comprehend the voice’s words.

“That dumb Deku is here too. He’s worried sick about you, wouldn’t stop blubbering like an idiot the minute he saw me.”

The sight of emerald eyes filled with tears flashes through the darkness of your mind, a blur of a murky white, lifeless black, and a faded green.

You should react— you should feel something. Anything.

But you don’t.

The imagery fades as fast as it arrives, leaving you to reside with the black of your mind. There’s no fluttering of butterflies or red rose petals swirling in the air out of the corner of your eyes. The thought of Midoriya doesn’t warm you further— it only leaves you colder than before.

In the pit of death, it’s just you and the last of your humanity.

“He never liked you anyway. You never mattered. You knew that, didn’t you?”

A meek part of you wants to disagree, argue that he had to have appreciated you at least in the slightest to have stuck around you for as long as he did. But the majority of you solemnly nods in agreement, aware of the countless times where you blindly reached out to Izuku Midoriya.

He simply tolerated you because you constantly suffocated him with your presence. Midoriya never had a mean bone in his body, he would never speak up if someone was a nuisance to him.

“Yes!” the voice hissed, delighted. Slowly but surely, you were falling prey to its hold; to the negativity it had spread wide throughout your mind.

It was only a matter of time before you succumbed.

“Wake up, (Name). Please.”

It isn’t worth it, is it?

“I know I haven’t been the best, but I’ll make it up to you. Promise. Just please, please don’t leave me.”

The warm voice cracks, its words quivering, and there’s a shaky intake of breath. It sounds pained.

“You caused that pain.”

You did, didn’t you?

“Just let it all go,” the voice sung. “Come with me and it’ll all go away. Everyone will be okay. You will be okay.”

You should.

You know you should.

You know you should finally let go. You’d lost everything. You’d lost your life and were trapped in this bottomless pit of black.

If you just let go, you could be free.

“Then do it. Stop listening. Ignore it all. Let me take over.”

There’s words that are being spoken to you from the voice beside you, some louder and intenser than the last, but you block them out. You ignore and let the ferocious tendrils wrap around you and pull you down.

The thin string that holds you together snaps.

And finally, finally, it all stops. The noise, the voices, the thoughts, the feelings, the aches and pains.

At last, it’s all over, you tell yourself.

But do you really believe it?

You would never know.

You don’t think you’ve seen this many people crowded into a single hospital room.

For you, no less.

All of the former Class A students from your years in high school have flooded your room, some of them even stuck in the doorway. From Grape Juice to Creati, the space is absolutely cramped.

Beside your bed are mountain-high piles of gifts and letters from your friends as well as others who could not attend in time for the visiting hours. Without a doubt, some of those presents contained articles of lavish and luxurious gifts you could only afford in the wildest of your dreams if you had the money of a top pro-hero. (Money that these heroes had, considering some had been born into wealthy families while others had become filthy rich after making bold headlines as heroes in the media.)

Not to mention, all their attention had been focused entirely on you since the moment you awoke.

Uraraka had been the first to pounce on you, spewing words that flew past her mouth with such vigor and rush that you could not keep up. Like a koala, she clung to you— arms wrapped around your neck in a vice and warm grip as she sobbed uncontrollably into your shoulder. Tsuyu had pried her off apologetically, but you merely continued to stare in a daze, the countless medications that they had pumped through your blood still in effect.

One by one, each visitor came up to your bedside and sat down beside you to speak while the others watched. Each interaction differed from the last.

Mina had buried your head into the crook of her necks as she brokenly whispered words of endearment and utmost adoration into your ear, rubbing your back softly as salty tears spilled from her eyes and onto the pillow behind you. Eventually, Mina clasped your face between her hands and grinned through tears at the sight of your face between her hands, further cementing the fact that you were alive and still with her.

After a couple more shared moments with some of the others, Todoroki had stepped up to you with an indecipherable expression painted onto his features before sitting down and opening his arms in a silent offer of a hug. You lifted yourself up and leaned into his hold and he held you delicately like glass, murmuring a gentle “I’m so sorry” and “Thank you for not leaving us.”

Once Todoroki left your side, Momo immediately took his place and buried your head into her chest. At that point, your eyes had begun to sting in response to the endless tears your friends had shed and you were sure they were just as red as Momo’s bloodshot ones.

After Yaomomo came Eijiro Kirishima, your personal golden retriever.

He had lunged at you, scooping you into his arms. Squeezing you tightly, Kirishima could not help but sob into the crook of your neck, shaking while doing so. Apologetic words were whispered brokenly, his voice cracking and changing pitch every syllable.

For someone so sturdy, so stable, you never thought the unbreakable Red Riot could crumble quite so easily.

At the hands of your own, no less.

Finally, the tears began to flow from your eyes, overpowering the dam that stubbornly refused to budge whenever it splintered. Wrapping your arms around Kirishima’s back, you clutch on for dear life, crying into his shoulder.

You almost died.

You did die.

The horror of your situation finally settles.

Your behavior and actions, it really did matter. It affected others, not only yourself. If these people were barely holding it together from seeing you now, alive and safe in a hospital, how would they have reacted if you did indeed die?

If the voice had truly beaten the odds, what would have happened to those around you?

You’re glad, you conclude, that you’ll never know and they’ll never really experience it either.

Death may conclude your story, but it doesn’t end theirs. You just close the book of their life and stop reading their story.

Glancing up from Kirishima’s quivering shoulders, you inspect the body language of everyone there. Some are hunched over, hands clasped over their mouths with tears staining their face. Others comfort each other, tenderly rubbing their backs.

However, there’s one person in particular that catches your eye.

He broods alone in the back, carmine eyes staring daggers into the ground. Dressed in his infamous black skull t-shirt and black sweatpants, his ash-blond hair stands out like a sore thumb.

You know that hunched figure like the back of your hand, even despite his immense growth over the years.

“Bakugou?”

It’s a quiet croak, a frightened whisper. But like the hawk he is, his head whips up, eyes widened in surprise.

And it is then, you see the true damage you’ve caused.

The rims of his eyes are a soft red, like the powdery light red of blush. Below his eyelashes lay streaks of fallen tears, their traces as evident as a bear’s footprints in still snow. His eyebrows are pulled together, wrinkling the space between his glassy eyes. It’s uncanny seeing Bakugou showing an emotion besides anger or neutrality, especially one akin to despair.

You’ve never seen such a hopeless expression visible on his face before.

You’re a monster.

For doing that to someone like him, you know you are.

Kirishima raises his head up and gives a small grin, glancing back at his companion. “Bakugou’s been here since you arrived at the hospital. He was the first person to contact us all about . . . this.”

You wince, pursing your lips at his not-so-subtle tiptoeing around your attempt. He means no harm, but the sting is just as intense at the reminder of your breakdown.

He moves off you and motions Katsuki to move towards your side, patting the blond on the back as he trudged over.

His steps are hesitant and slow— like a zookeeper approaching a wounded, rabid animal. Vermillion eyes inspect the tears that cling onto your eyelashes, the trembling at the corner of your lips, and the shallow intakes and exhales of breath from your throat.

The air between you is thick, but no matter how tense, you open your arms for Bakugou, staring at him teary eyed. He hovers above you, unsure of closing the distance between you both.

“Please?” Your arms tremble mid-air, and the tears on your face stream down faster. You don’t look decent— no one would look their best in such a weak, raw, and vulnerable moment, but you don’t care.

You don’t care because you know surviving is worth so much more than a presentable exterior.

Bakugou swallows thickly before moving into your embrace. His warmth contrasts the iciness in your bones and brings the blood rushing to the rest of your body. Your heart pounds rapidly and your lungs expand further and further, desperate to inhale all of Bakugou Katsuki in.

You stay like that for a few moments before he breaks the silence. “You idiot.”

Your breath hitches in your throat.

“If you need help, you better ask for it next time.”

And then, a small bit of warmth blossoms in your cheeks.

“Yeah, I know.”

MIDORIYA IS FRAGILE.

Midoriya is weak.

No matter how much time had passed and no matter how strong he became, he would always be that same helpless kid he once was. It was an innate part of him— Defenseless Deku would always be the child that existed in the corners of the Number One, Symbol of Peace Pro-Hero Deku’s mind.

Those thin, shaking arms and glassy, red-rimmed eyes all sewn onto a young boy would always be the reflection of Midoriya whenever he stared at the mirror.

Years of scars, fractured bones, and matured features would always fail at hiding the truth about the soul that lived within the body of the greatest hero in all of Japan’s history.

It’s something that lingered in his mind at the late hours of dusk and early hours of dawn— the harrowing truth about the Symbol of Peace.

How could one man be so strong, so powerful, yet be so weak, helpless, and vulnerable?

The thought bounced in his mind as he sat tiredly in the rickety chair of the hospital after receiving a panicked, cryptic worried message from Kacchan.

“‘She was tired. Bleak— dull. She wasn’t herself. She needs our help.’”

His words floated in Midoriya’s head, crashing into the sides of his mind once they resurfaced ashore, only to slip from the sandy outskirts of the beach and back into the rippling waves of the ocean.

“‘She needs you, Izuku.’”

(Name), his (Name), was in danger. You needed help- his help.

He wondered why Kacchan hadn’t just followed you himself. He had always loved you, long before Midoriya even did (or knew he did, for that matter). Midoriya had always known that.

Why didn’t he just play hero as he always would (just like when they were kids and Bakugou always wanted to be the one to only rescue you), and take all the glory for himself? It would end as it always did in those Hollywood films— the hero would save the girl and get her, and they would live happily ever after.

Isn’t that what Kacchan wanted? To live happily ever after with you?

At least, that’s what Midoriya had always concluded whenever his thoughts would trail back to the rather confusing relationship between you and his biggest rival.

Kacchan had always held a soft spot for you. Although the brashness of his actions and pointed words would’ve pierced anyone (like they soon did with him), those icicles simply melted before they could touch the surface of your skin.

And at first, that love was platonic (he believes, but Midoriya is unsure. He may have been able to read Kacchan like a book after years of knowing him, but he could never grasp his concept of romantic and platonic love. He didn’t know him like that.)

Gradually, however, it blossomed into something deeper than just a friendship. In the soil of his greatest rival’s heart, the roots of that love penetrated the layers of dirt before it overtook his heart and became something much stronger than either of them could have fathomed.

Kacchan would deny it all, though. Even to Midoriya.

Distinctly, Midoriya recalled watching Bakugou walk off to your dorm when you both were in your second year at U.A. He hadn’t thought much of it then (as it wasn’t until months afterwards did he begin to suspect Bakugou’s true feelings for you), but it became a frequent sight as the weeks passed.

In due time, Midoriya realized that Bakugou had been meeting up with you more than just those moments he saw Kacchan heading to your dorm room.

A polite voice snapped Midoriya from his spiraling thoughts.

“Mr. Midoriya, you are free to see (Last Name) (First Name).”

He gave a kind smile, bowing his head before he rose. Mindlessly, he walked down the hall until he found your room number the nurse gave.

Your room is secluded off into the end of the hall, beside nothing but a sterile white wall. It’s lonely out here— there are no people or gifts waiting outside the patient’s doors; just sterile, white walls and tiles.

You don’t belong here.

When Midoriya entered your room, the sight of your still body laying unceremoniously on the thin white bedding of the hospital greeted him. Not even a paper blanket had been thrown on you.

An IV drip is lodged into one of your arms, with wires of other sorts filling out the rest of the space on your forearms. Your hair is tangled and matted together by the salty water that once absorbed your body whole. There are fresh, pink cuts laying all over your body, no doubt sterilized by alcohol.

The scene reminded Midoriya of the many times he had landed himself in the hospital critically injured and on the verge of death.

You shouldn’t be in his place.

Never should you be in his place.

He loved you too much to stand seeing you so injured. You were a support hero— you stayed in the background to make the heroes of the public stronger. You belonged in an office where you would be safe and protected. Midoriya made sure of that when he requested you work for him.

But he let this happen.

It’s an unfortunate truth he doesn’t want to accept.

Midoriya knew about your feelings the whole time. He had seen the lovesick, dazed expressions you gave him. He saw the way you would grin happily after each passing interaction with him, how your eyes would light up whenever he stepped in the same room as you.

He knew because he would do all the same for you.

Every time he stepped into the office, his eyes would search for any semblance of you. It had always been like that.

He had always sought out for you, even as kids.

That’s why as he got older and realized the grasp you had on him, Midoriya attempted to flee his emotions. The longer he was around you, the deeper he spiraled in his endless pit of love for you. Butterflies would erupt every second he thought of you— they covered every inch of his being until he became a colorful mess of emotions.

And as he neared the number one spot, he realized the danger that came with such feelings. He would place a target on both your backs. Any villain looking for revenge against him would find you first as a means to get to him. And if they did— if they hurt you— he would have shattered

He would shatter.

That’s why he fled from your life: to protect you.

And himself.

Selfish Izuku.

But he failed to realize the affect it had on you. He never cared to look back and see how you took his sudden disappearance.

Look where that got you both, he tells himself.

You, in a hospital bed barely alive and him, guilty and torn apart at the seams.

Izuku Midoriya may be a hero, but he is a villain all the same.

Whether or not you’re aware of it, he is the villain in your story.

But he is— and that is enough to send the strongest man alive sprinting out of your hospital room and into the night, far away from you, his emotions, and the reality of your lives. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes, blurring his vision as he soars in the air, pouncing from rooftop to rooftop.

The world will always remind Izuku Midoriya that while your worlds were meant to meet, they were meant to collide together and cause destruction.

He just never meant to damage yours as much as he did.

But Midoriya is weak. He is as fragile and helpless as they come, even if he is trapped in the body of the most powerful and capable being known to man.

The cruel universe continued to laugh at him, bathing gloriously in his misery.

Dumb little boy, it condescendingly cooed.

Helpless Izuku, it reminded him.

And he let it torment him, as he always had. Because while he may be the closest thing to God, even he cannot defy fate.

The world doesn’t welcome you with open arms after you’re discharged from the hospital.

When you step outside of the hospital doors, the weather isn’t warm and sunny with a gentle breeze that kisses your skin in those Hollywood movies. The ends of your clothes and hair don’t flutter majestically in the wind. Birds don’t swoop down and tweet enthusiastically at you, hopping to inch near you. There aren’t people happily chattering as they trek down the sidewalks and kids squealing as they sprint freely across the street.

Instead, it’s a sweltering kind of heat that causes sweat to form in every crevice of your body; it’s the kind that burns your skin the moment you step outside, tearing apart your dry, AC-adapted skin. Hair sticks to your face at unflattering angles and your wrinkled clothes are impossibly uncomfortable with every step you take. The polyester of your shirt rubs uncomfortably against the cuts and bruises located all around your body, making you wince. Animals and critters skitter away into the shade in hopes of cooling down. There are no pedestrians on the street or giddy kids. All you can see and hear are cars honking at each other, angry drivers, and speeding motorcycles.

Life is hideous, unfortunate, and cruel. Life is reality. Life is the truth and the truth was never meant to be kind or forgiving. It was meant to kick you off your high horse and humble yourself. It was meant to remind you no matter the strength you possessed, no matter how perfect you were perceived, you would always have to bow your head to the hand above. It was meant to teach you to never bite the hand that feeds you, or else dire consequences will come from those who are disobedient.

And you disobeyed it. You defied fate. You chose your own death, against the death the world had planned for you. You sunk your canines into the hand of life and tore its fingers off, letting the blood spurt over your face.

Now, you are paying for it by living through misery.

Before and after death.

Always and forever.

“Pathetic,” the voice whispered. “How pathetic, (Name). You can’t do anything right, can you?”

A sleek black cars rolls to the curb and a tinted window is rolled down. Ash-blond spikes stick out of the window and you are met with Bakugou’s gleaming eyes.

“You getting in, Princess?”

He sticks a thumb behind him, signaling for you to go to the back. Nodding your head, you step into the back of the vehicle and shut the door behind you, buckling your seatbelt.

You’re right, you agreed with the voice, I can’t do anything right.

Beside Bakugou in the driver’s seat is Todoroki, who sends you a charming smile when he looks back at you. Bakugou turns over as well.

“Hello, (Name).”

You softened at the sight of his body’s tension melting under your gaze. “Hi, Shoto. How are you?”

“Better now that you’re here.”

A bright laugh escapes you— it’s abrupt and loud— the kind that makes you roll around in your bed rethinking your every choice at the crack of dawn.

Yet, somehow for the first time in months, nearly years, you feel a little bit lighter.

The world seems a little brighter.

The voice boils in rage.

“Aren’t you just a charmer, Todoroki?” your hand waves teasingly as you press your head to the glass, swooning to the side. “I always knew your were my Prince Charming waiting to sweep me off my feet!”

Bakugou sucks air through his teeth, huffing loudly. Shoto’s eyes twinkle in amusement as he peers over at Katsuki, his eyes crinkling as his smile grows wider and the pearls of his teeth begin to show.

“If you have something to say Bakugou, you should communicate with us,” Todoroki stated matter-of-factly, glancing behind him before reversing out of his spot. “We’re friends, after all.”

Bakugou scowls, rolling his eyes before turning back and staring at you from the dash mirror. “You got all your stuff, (Name)?”

You nodded, watching as he turned to look off into the distance.

Bakugou had changed drastically from the teenager he once was in UA and even though you saw his development each year, never did you focus on each of his features as he matured.

Your mind wanders to the memories stored of the nights you continuously spent with Bakugou, drinking in his features. The images of the moonlight glowing on his skin like a gentle kiss from a loving mother. The slight curl of his eyelashes, always so long and full that the girls in middle school would jealously whisper over how pretty he was. The deep carmine of his eyes that resembled the reddest of apples, so shiny and perfectly polished that even the fruit trees strewn across Japan enviously would turn away, swaying their branches in the opposite direction just to look away from his breathtaking features.

Those features remained as an adult. Though, the only difference between younger Bakugou and your current one were their builds. Katsuki was taller, bulkier, and somehow even leaner to the point every angle of him appeared sharp. His jawline, the outline of his shoulders, his calf muscles, and everything inbetween. You had gotten accustomed to hearing the fangirls and fanboys of Dynamight ramble about his striking appearance, but you never noticed it properly until this moment.

He’s healthier.

Happier, too.

The once permanent scowl on his face has toned down to a stoic expression and his eyes seem purer than they ever had been before. His soul is kinder, his intentions are gentler. It’s evident with the way he interacts with the world around him, how his touch is less sudden and rough.

You’re glad to see him flourishing in life.

He deserves nothing but the best.

“You don’t,” the voice sneered.

A catchy tune permeates the air and you snap back to the present to find Shoto fiddling with the radio. Slender fingers twisted the black knob back and forth, lingering on each different station for only a moment before moving onto the next.

Shoto cleared his throat. “Are there any radio stations you both like?”

Bakugou shook his head. “I only listen to music from my phone.” He tilts his head back to look at you, cocking an eyebrow.

“Not really,” you tugged at your shirt, trying to distract yourself. “I’m kinda like Bakugou.”

Todoroki lets go of the knob and returns both hands to the steering wheel. “Well, I suggest one of you pull out your phone because we have a long way to go.”

His head bobs in Katsuki’s direction and Bakugou whips out his phone.

Quizzically, you peer at the two. Raising an eyebrow, you reiterate, “. . . A long way to go? My home isn’t that far from the general hospital. It’s not more than 10 minutes driving.”

Immediately, you look outside, reading the names of the streets that pass by. Street names you’ve never heard before pass by and you are met with unfamiliar roads and scenery. Instead of the usual shrubs you’re used to walking by, there are blossoming trees on every corner. This part of the city is far nicer than what you’re used to.

They aren’t taking you home.

“Hope you like animals, princess,” Bakugou chuckled, patting Shoto on the shoulder.

“Road-trip,” Shoto said in the most monotone voice possible.

You gulp.

Geez, maybe I shouldn’t have gotten in this car in the first place.

You grumble, pulling your legs to your chest.

Bakugou cackles loudly and Todoroki emits a small chuckle.

You crack a grin and close your eyes. The voice fumes.

Your smile brightens.

Life gradually begins to slow down as the months pass.

Time doesn’t go as fast, memories don’t escape your mind as much, and moments seem to last long enough to engrave themselves into you. No longer do you live life through your eyes as a spectator in your own body, but as an actual human being present in the moment.

In short, you’re recovering.

At least, that’s what your therapist says. Your friends too.

Not everyday is perfect. You’re not productive every morning, afternoon, or night. Sometimes, you can get out of bed with ease and settle into the little routine you’ve built for yourself. You can wake up, make your bed, change your clothes, wash your face, perform a skincare routine, make breakfast and commence with the day. You might be productive the whole days and run errands, make phone calls, book appointments, and catch up with friends and family. In other instances, your day is much more mundane. You lounge on the couch, hangout with friends, or treat yourself to some nice takeout or a nice walk to that local cafe or bakery. You end the day with a nice movie and popcorn, and even desert if you’re feeling something sweet. Then, you go to bed and the process repeats.

Other times, it feels impossible to even crack your eyes open. You can’t bring yourself to break through the state of slumber. All you can pray for are for those black tendrils to pull you back under into a dreamless world to distract you from reality. Getting out of bed is nearly impossible; it requires hours of coaxing yourself, frustrated tears, frantic thoughts, and maybe a pair of helping hands. The distance from your bed to your bathroom is infinite and the idea of even picking up your toothbrush has you collapsing on the spot. The tears bleed from your eyes and pile onto the sink and your pained sobs echo throughout the halls. The water of the shower is too much and you have to just sit there and wallow until a nagging feeling, a sliver of an authoritative voice reminds you there are bills to pay and there is a life to live. The day is filled with long hours of work and unrest and agony, but it only takes one text to guarantee a pair of warm arms will pick up the pieces of your pain when you get home.

Those days are the hardest, but you’ve survived each one. That in its own is a feat that you’re reminded of everyday you stare in the mirror. You imagine the faces of those who remain with you today whenever the thought dwells and you continue on.

Guilt sparks in your chest when you think of all of those who had suffered in the way you had but received no support and were left to suffer. Your heart cracks, but you know you must do this.

If not for you, for them. For those who were not as fortunate. You will live to tell the tale they could not.

You will remember them in life while they are remembered in death.

Your therapist says trial and error is how you succeed in life. Learning from mistakes is how you grow into someone greater than you were before.

To conclude each session, she reminds you consistency is key. Each time you tell her, “‘Frankly, that’s the hardest part about recovery.’”

It’s hard to be consistent because nothing is consistent in your life. Nothing is consistent in life. The world is ever-changing. Everyday, the Earth spins and something changes around you. A child grows a year older. A baby is born. A loved one is lost. Life dies. Life is reborn. Love blossoms and love dies. A new creation is discovered while another is destroyed. A heart is broken while another is mended.

Someone changes. And at one point in time, you were that person who changed.

Without a beat, she sends you that wistful smile of hers and that one sentence that leads you snorting out of her office.

“‘You like to surprise the world, (Name).’”

For the longest time you had thought she was going mad listening to you, but you eat your words now.

“Did you love him?”

A voice snaps you out of your thoughts.

Slender fingers wrap around the end of the teaspoon, digging the head into the cup of sugar. Another few reach for the China teacup placed in the middle of the table, gently moving it forward to meet the now full spoon of sugar. The grains of white tumble out of the rounded metal and into the warm water, sinking to the bottom until the same spoon hits the water and stirs them around, dissolving them.

The fresh cup of tea is handed to you.

“Who?” The ceramic’s temperature is a favorable kind of warm— the type that spreads from your fingertips into the rest of your body until you’ve melted in a comfortable pile of goo that brings a content feeling swelling in your chest.

The tea is even warmer, steam hitting your face as you go to sip it. The liquid slips past your lips and over your tongue, coating every crevice of your mouth. The hints of mint and Jasmine blend perfectly with each other, the sweet floral balances out the spice of the mentha.

It reminds you of him.

“Don’t be coy, (Name). You know who I’m talking about.” You want to decline her assertion— to argue that her generality is misleading and she should specify who the man she suspects you have fallen in love with is. But this lady is one you have known for your whole life, one who you believe may just know better than all the rest despite your drastic differences. She was always there to keep you in check between reality and fiction.

Finally, you look up.

Astute and inquisitive eyes the color of carmine align with yours. Mitsuki grins slyly, her eyes twinkling in amusement. “There’s those pretty eyes. Glad to see you’re still in tact, sweetheart.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m not fragile, Mitsuki. And you’re starting to sound like Katsuki.”

The woman’s eyes soften at the sound of her son’s name and crinkle at the edges in thought. “He got his language from me, y’know. I was the one who called you all those sweet things when you were young. I mean, you were just the cutest little girl!” She wears an adoring smile on her face as she gazes at you with so much motherly love that you can only fidget under her gaze, lowering your eyes in embarrassment.

You never got used to the fireball known as Mitsuki Bakugou, nor her affections. From your earliest days, you could recall the way she would just coddle you. Whenever her son seemed to be talking your ear off or you were overwhelmed, she would simply pluck you out of Bakugou’s reach and walk away from his vicinity, cradling you in her arms cooing quietly at you. No matter how much he would protest, Mitsuki would be your getaway from any situation you couldn’t seem to defuse yourself.

On the weekends, she would take you out shopping with her as if you were her own kin, doting on you like a second mother. She would buy you clothes, books, get you icecream and take you out to eat. Your parents liked to joke that she was their own free babysitter, to which she would always exclaim that you would always be the daughter she never had.

As you got older, that powerful kind of love Mitsuki possessed was one you saw less and less of. That growing rift between you and her son was greater than ever, and the chances you had of seeing her was minimal, minus the outings she would frequently invite your folks to. Even then, she would always be mingling with the crowd.

Sometimes, you wondered if she was there with you through your hardest years would your life have turned out differently. It’s a thought to entertain, but the consequences of misery and despair flare at the idea.

You push the concept down whenever it pops up.

She continues.

“Katsuki simply followed suit. He’s my boy, after all.”

“Your own personal carbon copy,” you agree, stroking the intricately painted patterns of the fine China. The thought of Mitsuki’s question lingers in your head, prodding at a hidden part of your mind you had tucked away for ages now.

The topic of Izuku Midoriya was one you stopped entertaining after the night at the cliff. You had ripped it from the forefront of your mind, shoved it deep inside a metal vault, locked it shut, and tossed the key away.

The relationship between you both was messy— it was a lack of communication, a tangled mess of emotions and one-sided care. The bubble of your affections was filled with mistreatment, betrayal, selfishness, and greed. It was take, take, take from Midoriya and give, give, give from you. It wasn’t healthy for you nor Midoriya.

After you had opened the can of worms that was the man you once loved with your therapist, it wasn’t possible for you to ever see him in the same light. You could never stare at Midoriya with that blindly lovestruck gaze through those rose-tinted lenses. All that flashed before your eyes at the mere mention of him was the horror, sympathy, and guilt that swirled in her eyes as she listened to you. The shaky hug she had given you made you quiver in your shoes and the tears that fell from her eyes made your own slip past your hold.

That was the first time you had seen her professional facade break.

The thought that even the most experienced and knowledgeable of people in the world breaking at the seams from your supposed love story sickened you to your core.

“Was it that obvious?” Truthfully, you’re curious. Did everyone around you know how you used to feel about him? Were your affections for him that palpable?

“Very,” she nods, bringing the cup to her lips once again. “None of us saw it at first when you were kids. Not Inko, myself, or your family.”

Mitsuki sets the cup down, leaning her head on her hand. “But as you all grew up, we all realized that whenever you were with Izuku, you lit up in a way none of us had ever seen before. It was puppy love in our eyes, so we didn’t think much of it at first.”

A noncommittal hum leaves your throat and you inspect Mitsuki as she speaks.

“I mean, you were obvious. It was sweet,” Mitsuki laughs, the vermillion irises of her eyes shining in glee. Suddenly, she placed a finger to her cheek in thought. “Have you spoken to him as of late, (Name)?”

“Midoriya?” you blink, surprised. She doesn’t know, (Name). Stay calm.

You shake your head before going to down the rest of your tea. Mitsuki waved her hand in the air, her face morphing into an indecipherable expression.

“The brat told me about how worried the both of them were over you when you were still in the hospital,” she begins, and she looks down, lowering her voice. “He . . . He was scared.”

You still.

“Scared?” you parrot. “Why? He’s seen worse, hasn’t he?”

The eyebrows of Mitsuki’s face furrow and she sets her teacup down, clasping her hands together. It’s as if the air around you stills and time begins to freeze, pausing the orbiting of Earth itself.

Mitsuki hesitates. “He called me in tears when he was waiting for you to wake up— he was terrified. And when your heartbeat flatlined?” Mitsuki shakes her head. “He couldn’t hold himself together anymore. That Todoroki kid and Kirishima had to take him outside to console him.”

She stares at you, smiling sadly. “The last time he was that petrified was when he was a child, (Name).” A small exhale leaves her lips. “If he lost you that day, he would have lost everything.”

“Huh?” you sweat-drop. “Katsuki has a lot going for him in life, Mitsuki. I don’t think my . . . disappearance would be the end of him.”

Mitsuki shakes her head with a solemn smile, the low curl of her lips hinting at a secret unbeknownst to you. “You just don’t know how much you mean to my boy, (Name).”

She sighs. “I wish he would just tell you already. But I suppose now isn’t this time, is it?”

Mitsuki stands from her position, moving over to pat your head affectionally before leaving the kitchen.

A small part of you claws at your throat, screeching at you to stop her fading figure. It itches at you, desperate to scratch at the surface of your curiosity.

What does Katsuki need to tell me? And why won’t he?

“Curiosity killed the cat, (Name),” the voice giggles in glee. “You don’t want to meet that same end again, do you?”

A booming voice cuts through the clouds in the sky, sending you falling back to the ground.

“You ready to go?”

Leaning against the frame of the hall in all his glory is Katsuki Bakugou, dressed nicer than you’ve ever seen him. He’s wearing a fitted black polo from a brand far too expensive for you to name off the top of your head and a pair of tailored khaki pants. Placed on his right wrist is a black Vacheron Constantin watch with intricate carvings and stones within the clock that looks far too expensive for you to even fathom purchasing or even browsing through.

Like a moth to a flame, Mitsuki steps over to her son, fussing over him like a mother bird with her chick. She huffs as she adjusts the collar of his shirt accordingly, and he groans as his mother who was nearly a foot shorter than him pranced around and fixed his appearance.

The sight was heartwarming, sending a wave of nostalgia through you.

“You expect to go out with (Name) looking like that? I raised you better than this, Katsuki! You’re the son of a fashion designer!” Mitsuki scolds, combing out his hair.

He grumbles, swatting her hand away. “You hag—! I look fine!”

The bickering between the two continues, both of them going back and forth. She swats at his shoulder, even going as far to beat him with her slipper.

Bakugou takes each hit, not moving to fight back. You know he could stop her if he wanted. After all, he was the second strongest hero of Japan and pure muscle. No woman or man stood a chance against him.

Though, when you see Bakugou wince as his mom smacks him for the nth time, you’re left thinking that maybe Mitsuki might be the exception to the rule.

The thought bubbles a giggle in your throat that leaves you chortling to the point of tears. It’s a sound that hasn’t escaped you in ages.

Your chest feels full. Your body feels warm— not the restricting kind, but the comforting one.

They both turn to the sound, their expressions softening as you doubled over in joy. You look up and find Bakugou’s eyes swirling with an emotion that sends your heart fluttering and a brighter grin growing on your face against your will.

The expression reminds you of one you always stared at Midoriya with.

Could it be . . . ?

Heat spreads across your body and your heart skips a beat.

“No one could ever love you, (Name). No one ever will. You’re unlovable,” the voice smirked. “Foolish little (Name). Lovestruck already for another man you’ll never get? How humiliating.”

You recoil back into your timid shell, causing Mitsuki to give Katsuki a look.

The look.

It shouts at him, “Go comfort (Name)! How else are you going to win her heart?”

The one Katsuki returns barks, “What do you think I was going to do?! You’re bothering me, hag!”

Mitsuki rolls her eyes before slapping his shoulder with a huff. “Well, you better go now Romeo, or else I’ll whisk her away from you first!”

He breaks eye contact first, rolling his eyes as he nears towards your hunched figure. From the lowering of your head, he suspects your eyes are trained on the table in front of you. Though, his vision is obscured by the hair that falls in front of your eyes that he so desperately desires to tuck behind your ear.

Be selfish, his mind screamed. Take what you want the most.

But for you, he swore to never bite the hand you fed him from. He would always be grateful for the attention, affection, and care you gave him. You were always so generous with him and the twerp.

Perhaps this time, he would become the hand that did not feed you, but pampered you. Loved you. Took care of you. He would prove that he was not a man greater than the world when he was on his knees beside you. You were his equal, his other half.

He would treat you better than Midoriya ever did. While the Symbol of Peace was blessed with countless chances to end as yours, to take off running with you into a never-ending fairytale, he always left you to eat dust and dirt. Even when Bakugou sacrificed the one chance he had for Midoriya, he refused to atone for his sins. Instead, he only ran further.

This time, Bakugou would not wait for the world to give him a chance. He would create his one last chance with you.

He would love you right. Properly, fully, and unconditionally.

Unlike Midoriya.

A calloused hand gently pushes a few strands behind your ear before cupping the side of your face, bringing your eyes back into focus. Rough palms lovingly caress the apple of your cheeks and instinctively you lean into their hold.

From their touch alone, you know who this is.

Kneeling beside you is Katsuki Bakugou in all his glory, vermillion eyes and all trained on your face. Delicately, you move your hand to wrap around his wrist, giving him a small grin at his delicate behavior. It reminded you of the nights you spent back at UA together.

The syrupy feeling in your chest swirls faster.

A sudden flick smacks your forehead and instinctively you grab your head, face morphing into a glare. “You done prancing with your head in the clouds? We got a reservation to meet.”

You playfully scoff, standing up. “You can’t be nice for once, can you Katsuki?”

He laughed. “Never, Princess.”

The two of you head towards the front door, hugging Mitsuki as you leave. As you both enter Bakugou’s car, she waves you off with a “stay safe name! And protect her Katsuki!”

“We will, Mitsuki!” you shouted, waving. Bakugou grumbles and affectionately, you ruffle his hair. “He says he will, too!”

Mitsuki emits a hearty laugh as she walks back inside the comforts of her own home.

“So where are we headed to eat?” you trace the end of your dress, twirling the loose fabric. “You said to dress nicer than normal, but I’m not too sure what to expect with you pro-heroes.“

Bakugou snorts. “What makes you say that, sweetheart?”

You side-eye Bakugou, cocking an eyebrow. “Take a wild guess.”

“Half-N’-Half took you to one of those rich restaurants in Tokyo?” Bakugou doesn’t even glance over. He’s right and he knows it.

As always.

You grimace, melting into your seat. “I wish I could have evaporated into thin air the moment I stepped inside.”

The occurrence had happened not even a week ago. Only hours before you were meant to hangout with Todoroki, he had sent you an ominous text to simply dress well. When he picked you up, all he would tell you was that you both were attending somewhere nice to dine for the night. And as clueless as ever, you assumed it would be a slightly more upscale restaurant than you both typically frequented.

But boy, were you wrong.

The restaurant was at least fifteen stories tall with clear panes of glass covering every inch of each wall. Chandeliers covered each foot of the high rise ceilings and the floors were glassy, gargantuan tiles that were a pale color of hessonite. The furniture in the establishment were expensive— mulberry silk, plush cushions, bocote wood and all.

The patrons appeared to be just as wealthy, if not more. Dressed in the finest of suits and dresses, adorned with flashy and gauzy jewelry, each and every one of them burned brighter than last.

Shoto too, fit right in. Elegant and classy, they all gawked at the Number Three Pro-Hero.

And you, in comparison to them, stood out like a sore thumb. Meek, humble, and intimidated. You could hear their whispers about you, that night. But you chose to suck down your raging emotions to enjoy the night and tasty dishes.

Well, for as long as you could.

“Was the food good? Shit like that is either hit or miss,” Bakugou commented as he took a right turn, peeking at the GPS set up in the car. “We’re almost there.”

You nod, watching as the once filled roads of the highway cleared into empty streets of residential neighborhoods. “The food was fantastic, but the portions wouldn’t have even fed an infant. I don’t think I’d ever go back, though.”

“Why not?”

You blink, scratching at the skin of your arm to distract yourself from Bakugou’s question. Maybe, just maybe he would ignore your silence—

He repeats his question, opting to now stare at you. You shrink further back into your seat.

There’s no point in lying now, is there?

“I kind of freaked out,” you admit, leaning against the window. The glass is cool against your skin and you let your eyes close momentarily. “I was thrown into an unknown environment and I could feel all their eyes on me. They weren’t trying to hide the fact that they were talking about me.”

You kicked off your heels, sitting your legs up on the seat. “Halfway through, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I told Shoto I had a call to take and nearly sprinted outside to get some fresh air.” You open your eyes, looking at the dashboard in front of you. “It’s humiliating to think about it now, but I left for nearly an hour trying to calm myself down. I must’ve looked insane to anyone walking by.”

The imagery of you sitting on your bottom in front of a Michelin star restaurant with your head in your hands breathing erratically and on the verge of tears made you cringe at the idea. You definitely got some dirty looks, even if no one approached you.

Timidly, you peered at Bakugou. His expression was blank and his lips formed no response.

Your heart constricts itself in your chest.

I should’ve kept my mouth shut, you chastise, curling deeper into yourself. Dread filled your stomach. Why did I even open my mouth?

“Why did you?” the voice taunts. “Everything is easier when you just stay quiet.”

Tears bud at the corner of your eyes and you curl deeper into yourself, focusing on the scenery flying by outside.

Despite the two of you entering residential roads, the area looks familiar. The quiet streets eventually delve into a busy intersection filled with grocery stores and small businesses. The scene looks familiar, but you can’t quite place your finger on it.

“Stupid, little (Name),” the voice coos patronizingly. You grit your teeth. The dread that once resided in your stomach transforms into a festering anger that dribbles into your bloodstream, spreading like pure poison.

The voice beams, spinning circles around your mind eagerly. “Didn’t we go over this last time, (Name)? I’m always right. You’re always wrong. That’s just how it is. That’s life.”

That’s not true— you’re nothing but a filthy liar! you seeth, digging your nails into your skin. I believed you and look where I am—

The thought freezes you. As soon as it comes, it dies. You can hear the voice giggling in delight. Horror creeps into your chest. You tremble in return.

I thought I was getting better. That hopelessness you thought left your system months ago seeps into your bones, attempting to crack the wall of sanity you had spent months building. I thought I was supposed to be healing.

The mantra that rung repeatedly in your head that evening at your office plays again, mimicking that dull little tune. I can’t, I can’t, I—

“We’re here,” Bakugou turns off the ignition of the car. Swiveling your head, you are met with carmine irises and narrowed eyes inspecting your features.

You gulp.

Choke it down, (Name). You’re ruining it for him. Don’t cry, don’t cry. You’re okay. You’re fine. You’ll be okay. Just get out. Just leave. It’s only a few more hours and then you can kiss the bed goodnight and never wake up again.

Finally, when you turn to see where you arrived, your heart plummets.

To your side lay swaying blades of grass, swinging to the current of the evening breeze. They dance in the wind, luring the unknown to enter their arcane kingdom. In between the luscious planes of evergreen grass is a dirt road, soiled with muddy tracks from those who had come before you two.

The idea that some of those tracks could have been yours sends you reeling.

I can’t do this. This has to be some sick joke the universe is playing on me. A nightmare.

Suddenly, Bakugou is in front of your door, unlocking it for you. No words are said, except for the calloused hand he has laid out for you. You can’t see his eyes, but you’re sure he must think you’re insane.

If he didn’t before, he surely did now.

Just get the night over with, (Name). It can’t be that bad, right? You’re just overthinking it. It’s not that big of a deal.

“You’re too naive,” the voice sings. Slowly, the inky tendrils of despair emerged from the crevices of your mind, circling your brain. Latching onto any expanse of mind, they pulled and pushed. “You’re hopeless. Why do you even try? You failed once. You’re nothing. You’re worthless.”

I’m not worthless, you argue back, taking Bakugou’s hand. He’s saying something that you can’t pick up, but you don’t care enough to. Rage bubbled beneath your skin. I’ve made it this far. I survived. I can do this.

Storming off, you walk on the trail. Each step you take is filled with fury and steam, gallons upon gallons of boiling emotions that you can’t wait to scream into the night.

When you walk along the curves, twists, and turns of the trail, you don’t picture the nights you spent running up the path with Midoriya. You don’t envision locks of green rooted with black bouncing with each step, galaxies of freckles or the craters you call dimples. Those stupidly bright red shoes the color of maraschino cherries aren’t what form in your mind as you stare at the ground, watching one foot go in front of the other.

Instead, those memories are replaced with the days you spent drinking yourself into oblivion, desperate to drown your sorrows. Flashes and flickers of empty beer bottles strewn across patches of damp, crushed and curled grass play in your head. The sight of filthy and grimy white tiles and a pair of shoes dragging themselves repeat in your head like a broken tape, the beep of a scanner continuously breaks each train of coherent thought that attempts to enter your head.

“‘Would that be all?’”

Thousands of voices ask, some more feminine, some more masculine, some exactly in-between or strewn off into the left or right. Their faces are blurs and unrecognizable blends, obtuse and acute shapes. Their noses are thin, thick, long, short, stout, round, curved up or down, broken or centered perfectly. Their faces are long, round, slender, puffy, soft, rough, bony, or chubby. It’s angles and curves, proportions and disproportions. There’s marks— dots, lines, squiggles, blobs— imperfections in their eyes, but they’re just shapes in yours. Their strands of hair are slicked back, falling forward, parted down the middle, sides, sticking up, down, left and right, or to the side. Their eyes come in different shapes— circles, ovals, diamonds, almonds, pistachios. The outlines are round, big, small, sharp, soft, thin, delicate, tough.

There’s billions of them.

But you never cared enough to truly study their features, instead opting to let a hum and snatch the alcohol from the counter, disappearing in the night.

Now, you wonder if you had cared to stare them in the eyes for a moment longer, to peer past the veil of darkness before your eyes, would you have been saved? Would you have been stopped in your tracks, staring at glistening eyes filled with life, youth, and humanity, disturbed at your disgusting, reckless behavior?

“No one could have saved you,” the voice reminds. “No one can save you. No one will save you.”

Your blood boils and the sense of reconciliation shatters, leaving you sourer than before. Frustrated, you stomp faster, ignoring Bakugou.

The only thing audible is the blood pumping in your veins, the angered huffs from your mouths, and the stomping of your heels against the trail. Each step causes the ends of your shoes to stick further into the soil, making each motion more exerting than last. At the rate you storm up the path, sooner or later fate will bring you down on your knees to kiss the dirt.

With every few feet, the soil beneath your feet hardens. The layers become dryer, returning every step with enough abrupt force to keep you resurfaced. No longer do the pebbles littering the ground sink in; instead, they slide with the specks of dirt, tumbling up and down with the breeze of the wind. You ascend further and further, rise higher and higher. No longer do you fall to your surroundings.

Instead, you rise above them.

“Just like the waves,” the voice beams. “But this time, will you fall below them?”

Time seems to slow to a stop, and you are brought back to reality, frozen in your tracks.

The sea sings its song, the one it always has— the lullaby that sailors fall asleep to and creatures far below the surface awaken for. Each wave crashes against the rocks littered around the cliff wall, the impact of every hit resonating in the air. The droplets of salty water fly high into the air, dropping as fast as they bounced from the cold stone.

The once comforting noises of the deep blue haunt you, seeping into your ears and drowning your heart.

“Don’t step too close to the edge, or you’ll fall off, Princess.”

A sudden warmth blooms on your wrist and when you turn your head, your gaze meets Bakugou’s. Carmine meets (e/c), the two melting into the other.

He wears a cocky grin, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. It looks forced, dare you say, nothing like the bright and deadly grin that adorns his face on the battlefield or when he jokes with friends.

You want to ask, “Are you okay?” But your mouth is glued shut and your body is too heavy to move, so you opt to stand in silence with your wrist in his rough palms, allowing the heat of him to bleed into the coldness of you.

“You’re missing the main attraction, sweetheart,” Bakugou nods his head to the side and your gaze follows suit.

Laying a few feet away from you is a picturesque picnic, straight out of any girl’s Pinterest board. There’s a large black blanket laid out with fairy lights spread all around it, lighting up a pathway for you to enter its soft kingdom. Plates of pastries, fruits, and different foods rest around each inch, goading you to come and take a bite. There’s a wooden basket woven to create the finest pattern, a heart, centered in the middle filled with ice and two bottles of what you believe are champagne and wine.

Your stomach lurches and the tea you had earlier churns in delight to make a reappearance from your gut. You swallow thickly.

“Wow,” is all you manage, but you see the corners of Bakugou’s lips turn just a little bit higher at the words. He doesn’t seem to notice your inner turmoil.

“Did you really think he would? After he hid the fact that he knew you were suffering all this time?”

You answer with memories of going out with friends, with him distracting you from your crumbling life after you escaped the hospital. The voice scoffs at each one and with every noise of disappointment, you hole yourself further and further into your mind.

Bakugou gently tugs you forward, leading you to the picnic. Moving to the side, he guides you to sit down, to which you curl your legs into your side. Carefully walking around the fairy lights, he takes a seat, crossing his legs.

The air between the two of you is tense, awkward. None of you make the first move to speak or eat. You just sit in silence with your hands in your lap, fiddling with your fingers. Never once do you dare to peer up and see how Bakugou reacts to the feel of the room.

Selfish.

He makes the move to pick up a piece of food, and you follow suit by grabbing some mochi. At least that would keep you busy.

Bits of conversation fall between you two, but no sparks fly. It’s lifeless and dull— the fireworks that once blew up beside you two now blew up between the two of you, creating a rift greater than the Nile River.

The mochi is soft as it is sticky, refusing to tear from its body. Though, when it finally breaks, it resists your teeth as you chew it slowly, fighting to keep itself whole. The doughy inside burst into your mouth, sweetening your tastebuds.

Though, the saccharine goodness does little to cancel out the bitterness in your heart and the sourness on your tongue.

“You should see the water. Looks gorgeous when you’re up close,” Bakugou sets down a piece of strawberry cake he had bitten through, nearly halfway done. Rising from his position, he extends a hand to you, goading you to follow in his steps. You mindlessly take the bait, allowing him to drag you like a little girl with her dolls.

Each step closer is painstaking. A nasty feeling latches itself onto your mind, eating through the walls of your sanity. Long, thick, silver drills press into the cement, chomping with all its might to destroy the structure.

“Isn’t it just nostalgic?” the voice prances, jumping back and forth in ecstasy. “You and me, just like from day one.”

You wonder if the glass shards from the broken beer bottles remained spread across the plains of grass, nestled deep between each patch of blades. Had others whom trekked these hills let the glass crunch beneath their feet, shattering the sticky, translucent material? Did they ever consider the story behind the pile of broken bottles, wondering if a soul was suffering the way you were? Or did they merely scoff at the sight, commenting about how reckless others were at the sight of haphazardly tossed glasses with the image of a group of teenagers drinking and giggling into the night?

Did they treat it kindly, lifting each individual piece and storing it to toss away? Or did they kick it to the side with a huff, stepping around any other messes nearby?

Would they have believed a soul if they told the story about a woman drowning in her own agony, her own lovesick foolery? Would they have empathized with the lost soul tethered together by a vile voice, haunting her every living moment?

Would they have listened to the soul beneath their shoes and the sky above their heads sing the tale of misery?

“Would you believe them?”

No, you answer, now peering at the water that soared to the edge of the cliff. I wouldn’t have even listened.

The salty liquid crashes against the boulders, flooding every crevice until the dips overflowed, spilling back into the ocean. Algae resurfaces with every wave, creeping further upon the cliff. Different creatures slip from the holes, desperate to escape the vicious cycle of life and Mother Nature.

Some drown, some drift off into the abyss of black, and others survive. It’s as beautiful as it’s painful and horrific.

Life is cruel. Life is unfair. Life is unforgiving.

Life is a rose— deceptively gorgeous with its bright lights, warm skies, cool breezes and pretty organisms. But with every creation comes its thorns— its threats and consequences for such beauty.

Life is you. You are life.

You are living.

Your throat constricts and your fists clench.

The sky is no longer a melting pot of warmth. There are no hues of burgundy, honey, or marmalade. All that lingers in its tracks are the sinister obsidian, with streaks of berry blue and a deep indigo that looks nearly the same as the vantablack that permeates the entirety of the atmosphere surrounding you. It is freezing cold and frigid.

The twinkles of fluorescence in the air are the only symbol of warmth left, but they are just as cold as the world around you is. They never lit up in the cozy tones of color. They were overshadowed, for they thawed under that gentle glow it emitted.

Static trickles into your ears, blocking out the noise of your surroundings. The control of your own body slips from between your fingertips, tipping into the ocean below. The sight of the world around you blurs and finally, you are rendered helpless.

Bile comes up instantly.

The world seems to nearly tip over as you hurl, coughing up all the liquids and food that had once churned within your stomach. Thick, corded arms wrap around your waist, stabilizing you and soothing your pained body.

Choked coughs escape your throat as you are forced to expel all the contents of your stomach, burning your throat. A tang of bitterness is heavy on your tongue and your mouth is impossibly dry. Grabbing at your throat, you perform a poor hand motion of drinking and instantly Bakugou hands you a glass.

It’s clear— it looks close enough to water. You down it.

It’s sweet, bubbly, and nothing like water. Once again, you vomit. It rushes back through your nose and out of your mouth, leaving you shuddering in place. A surprised “Shit!” leaves Bakugou’s mouth and he tugs you to him, rubbing your back with those large calloused palms of his.

You cough, inhaling every bit of air. “You— god— you gave me champagne?”

Bakugou hissed. “I didn’t realize that we didn’t have water— I was trying to help!”

It burns, stings. Your throat is on fire, your chest is constricting on itself and your heart is pounding. The heat of Bakugou only adds to the coldness of your skin, the iciness that seeped from your insides to your skin. Your eyes demand to fall shut, the lids drooping with every breath. The world feels dead around you, your head is heavy, and you are limp.

You are dead. You are a dead man trapped in a living body.

Bakugou shifts. “Are you . . . okay? Fuck— that’s a dumb question but—”

The thumping of Bakugou’s heart brings your eyes to shut. “I thought I was. Yanno, I thought I was recovering and all that. I was making progress. That’s what everyone said.”

A warm finger slides under your eye, brushing the puffy skin gently. “But?”

“I guess I didn’t. Or I did and I fell backwards. Took one step forward and six steps back.” You push your head further into his chest in a poor attempt to allow the exhaustion of your body to seep into the heat and disappear. “Lately, it feels like I’m back to before the hospital. I don’t reach for the beer like I did before, but that misery and hopelessness still lingers within me.”

Does it ever go away? you want to ask. Do I ever heal?

Nobody can answer. Time can only tell. Life can only smile.

You glance up at Bakugou and watch as his face contorts into a confused expression, lost at your words. A sad smile graces your lips. “You know, it was here where it all happened. I don’t think you even knew— I don’t even know how you knew about this spot— but I guess that’s what I get. I mean, it’s what I get for not telling you the entire truth, I guess. The world likes to make people pay for their actions, huh?”

Bakugou remains silent.

“I hate this place. It reminds me of him.” You both are aware of who you’re referring to. “We found it together. When we were kids in UA. Maybe even before, I don’t really remember.”

Bakugou shifts the two of you so you’re both laying down, inching away from the cliff and back to the cloth. He brings his hand to your back, rubbing soft circles and figure eights. You bury your head into his chest, words muffled by his shirt.

“There’s so many memories here. Good and bad. And I kept coming back all this time to relieve them because of him. But he never cared. It’s stupid now— I can’t believe I never saw it. I was holding onto something that had died long ago and I was dying because of it. I think I’m dead now, anyway. I don’t feel alive.”

You choke on your words. “I want it to all go away, Katsuki,” you say plaintively like a child, clutching his shirt. “Please.”

The waves smash against the cliff and you curl closer to him. He’s warm, so impossibly warm, but you can’t seem to seek equilibrium and match temperatures.

The noise won’t be drowned out.

Stop, please. Stop, stop, stop.

“I can’t save you,” he begins.

Your heart falters in your chest. The dam in your eyes splinters, the wood that held the water behind your eyes begging to flood.

“‘M a hero, but some battles aren’t meant to be fought by all.”

You whimper.

“I can try to help you, (Name), but no one can save you. You have to want to get better to heal. It’s not going to be easy and you won’t be alone, but you have to be willing to hold yourself together. We can only support you, but you have to be the change you want to happen.”

He tilts your head to him, pointer finger under your chin. The soft carmine bleeds into the blurry (e/c). “I know you can do it. You’re strong and you flourish even when everyone around you tells you you can’t. You’ve outdone the best of the best in your fields.”

You sniffle. “That was once. Hatsume just made a dumb mistake.”

He rolls his eyes. “You’re capable, (Name). But you need to trust and believe in yourself. It’s hard; I know. But you’ve gotta if you want to move on.”

Your lip quivers. “Did— did you know?”

His eyebrow raises.

“About Midoriya?”

His face falls into a neutral expression and you swallow thickly. He nods.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“If I did, would you have listened? I think you knew but refused to accept it.”

You sigh, wiping your eyes. “I guess that’s true.”

Silence settles before he breaks it.

“(Name).”

You look at him and watch as he hesitates, looking away from your eyes before speaking.

“I—”

The words fade into the steady sloshing of the water, drowning into the night.

“Don’t give me that look.”

Kind, cerulean eyes follow the twitch of your fingers as you twirl the ends of your hair between your fingertips, until you let it fall back to its original spot.

She lets out an amused hum, spinning her machina fountain pen between the area where her thumb and pointer finger connected. The expensive pen had a pointed tip with edges sharper than the tip of a freshly-shaven knife, curving beautifully into a fine line. The body of it was a gooey, deep decadent chocolate brown mixed with a tint of crimson and carmine that left a particular shine when placed into the light. Thin strips of white and a blush, baby pink spilled onto the body, twisting and curving until it wrapped around the top of the pen.

Wealthy people, you shiver.

“If you continue to burn holes into the pen, it might as well explode.” She tosses the pen up for good measure, showcasing a number of spins before it slips right between her middle and index finger, securely settling it in a perfect pencil hold. “My late husband bought it for me.“

Your heart twists. “Oh.”

She chuckles, lowering her gaze to the pen held in her right hand. “He always spoiled me with lavish gifts. I was so frugal and stingy when I was younger, but he wanted nothing but the greatest for me. Everything I own now is all from him.”

A thin glaze coats her eyes, the pale sapphire flooding into a deep, engulfing azul. The flecks of silver seem to brighten against the cerulean tint, the blacks of her pupils tracing the intricate lines carefully. Long sections of white hair fall around her face, covering nothing more than the corners of her eyes and the highest end of her cheekbones.

“Is that your quirk?” The question jolts her out of her mind, eyebrows furrowing at your directness. You swallow, peeking at the window to protect your mind from her piercing eyes. “You’re young— or at least you look like it. Your husband passed away. Your quirk must stop you from aging, right? Because you don’t look older than 26 at most.”

There’s shifting in front of you, but your eyes refuse to look back ahead. Embarrassment burns in your cheeks and the fear of overstepping swirls within your gut.

“You should have stayed quiet,” the voice reprimands. “You’re so dumb, (Name).”

I was so dumb, why did I say that? She probably hates me now. She’s going to kick me out and I’m going to be stuck here forever and it won’t stop and—

“You’re more observant than you let on. But you also like to avoid confrontation, don’t you?” It’s not condescending or patronizing; it’s a factual statement— the truth. There’s no tone other than neutrality and genuinity. “That’s why you’re here today. A bit earlier than I expected you to come around, but you did nevertheless.”

Your lips purse. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She picks up the clipboard, flipping through some pages. “You weren’t completely honest about your past when we first began chatting, were you?”

The silence that lingers answers her question.

“Why not?”

You sigh. She smiles.

“I just . . . didn’t want to.”

“You’re not a burden, (Name),” her hand grabs the delicate pen and begins to trace unintelligible shapes onto the paper. “I understand why you closed yourself off. I read your file, you know. Spoke to Dynamight and Deku about you.”

You still.

What?

The knife of dread, fear, and panic slices it’s way into your heart, carefully tracing the outline of your aorta, atriums, and ventricles. The pointed tips glides over each ridge, caressing the soft tissue and flirting with the idea of piercing its way inside, only to send blood spurting everywhere and leave you cold inside out, once again.

She continues. “They both care for you a lot, in their own ways of course. Deku is much more vocal about his concern, but Dynamight is the silent, brooding type. He expresses his concern through his actions and behavior.”

She spoke to them? To him? Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?

Why didn’t Bakugou tell me?

“Yeah,” you breathe out, averting your eyes to the window outside. Your heart palpitates inside your chest. “That, uhm, really sounds like them.”

The sky is a bright blue today, with not a single cloud in sight. Buildings decorate the slopes of blue, with light shades of gray and dark shades of a hybrid of obsidian black and white.

“What a shame,” the voice pouts. “The view is obstructed. Wasn’t it just so lovely?”

The collar of your shirt is suddenly a tad bit too high, too tight, and suffocating. It clings to your throat, wrapping its fuzzy tendrils around the base, before slowly gliding across the expanse of your skin.

“Doesn’t it just remind you of those beautiful waters? The one near the cliffs, you know. Don’t you just want to go for a swim?” the voice purrs. “I, for one, think it sounds refreshing.”

The tentacles speed their movements, rushing their efforts to close their tendrils around your throat. The inky black swallows your throat, leaking into your lungs. Faster, they move. Tighter, they squeeze. Together, they suffocate you.

“It’s not fun when you’ve gone right back, y’know. Takes the fun out of your misery. Now, you’re all lifeless like a doll. You have no hero to save you. Just what will you do, (Name)?”

The sight in front of your eyes fades from a lovely sky and high rise buildings to a murky, endless bank of water screaming at you to fall below. Like a siren’s call, the kelp sings to you by teasingly waving its green body, luring you down below.

Sweat pools on your forehead, threatening to drip down your neck and onto your shirt. You can see it all now.

You remember it all now— vividly.

The beer. The cliff. The staff worker. The evening sky, the water, the spray of the salty sea, the stabs of the grass. The incessant nagging of the voice— the reminder of him, everything about him and how little you meant to him.

It all washes over you like a tide, overflowing with the means of drowning you to snap you back to reality.

“‘Wake up!’” it screams.

“—(Name)?”

Virdescent eyes bore into yours, pupils dilating as they continue to hold your gaze. The flecks of obsidian and rim of a deep, mysterious amethyst capture your attention.

The kelp twirls.

“(Name)?” A gentle, unnatural hand places itself upon your shoulder. The aroma of distilled rose water permeates your nostrils. “(Name), are you okay?”

The toxic green melts, burning through to reveal a set of pure, bright ruby red eyes.

The sky glimmers.

You blink.

She grins.

He doesn’t react.

You don’t know if that’s good or bad, really.

But the words continue to tumble.

“I— I loved him. That’s what hurts, Katsuki. I loved this man who returned an unobtainable love and I was too blind to see it.”

How foolish am I? How stupid do I have to be to not have seen this further?

“How stupid are you, (Name)?” the voice parrots.

It hurts. You’re tired. Everything is dark. The sky, the grass, your vision, your mind, your thoughts.

The stars in the sky are so faint, so dull. You miss their shine.

You miss the bright lens that were placed above your eyes, lighting up the sky.

Slowly, your world crumbled. Now, it was tumbling, shattering into millions of pieces.

Your chest tightens, and it feels as if you are back in the office, curled into a ball on the verge of suffocation.

You can remember the warm traces of tears spilling from your eyes, trickling down your cheeks. If you close your eyes, it feels as if you’re there, in those stuffy office clothes with the haphazardly thrown stacks of papers and splayed out tools, shattered pieces of glass, and a throbbing heart.

You’re dying. Lifeless. Hopeless.

I just want it all to end, please, please, please—

Warm hands snap you out of your thoughts. Large, calloused hands cup your face, tracing the dull tips of its fingers along the outline of your jaw, thumbs circling comfortingly under the bags of your eyes.

It’s cozy and loving, like warm cider on a chilly autumn day. Your heart pounds in your chest in excitement. Goosebumps erupt on your skin, and an older, kinder voice whispers at you to simply open your eyes.

When you feel the tickling of hair against your head, your eyes flutter open. A warm head bumps against yours, resting itself in the very center of your forehead, as if it fit there. The remedial hands of warmth continue their trek of tracing the outline of your features, encapturing your face in their hold.

Boring into your eyes are Katsuki’s, in all their cherry red glory.

“Bakugou . . . ?”

A hint of doubt flickers across his features. The corners of his eyes crease, and the middle of his brows furrow.

“You’re a cruel monster, (Name).”

“Always hated when you called me that, y’know,” is all he replies with.

He’s close.

“Too close,” the voice reiterates.

Despite the warmth radiating from Katsuki, goosebumps erupt on your skin like a volcano’s molten lava bursting through the surface to cover the earth’s surface in its flames.

Is it from the cold?

“No,” a foreign voice answers.

Red eyes flit to your lips and a shaky exhale leaves your nose.

Is it anticipation?

“Yes,” it responds again.

“Lean in,” it goads. “Give in. Don’t hold back.”

“You’ll hurt him, just like you hurt yourself,” the voice chimes. Your heart plunges into your stomach

The quiet lull of the other voice drowns out the terrors of the voice. “Be his. Just for tonight, let him have you.”

“Okay,” you breathe. The doubt and hesistance leaves you.

He press his lips against yours.

The kiss is a warm caress, one that lets warmth blossom on your own. It’s soft but so sweet, so gooey like maple syrup dripping down your throat. A tinge of cinnamon bleeds into your mouth and the smell of caramel floods your nose.

You pull away first, but Bakugou’s hand keeps your head touching his, staring into the other’s eyes.

Am I going to hurt him? Is this fair to him? Am I using him?

“You’re a horrible person, (Name),” the voice says. You want to agree.

The foreign voice speaks up. “Listen, (Name). Stay quiet and listen, please.”

“I know you still love him.”

His voice breaks and you feel your heart follow.

No, I don’t. You want to answer.

“But how much of that is true?”

You’re not sure.

“I know how much he matters to you. Izuku matters to me too.”

You want to cry.

“But I won’t give up on you. I never have and never will. Not— not unles you want me to. I won’t chase you if you don’t want me to. But if you’re willing to have me, even just for a bit to let me love you whole, I’ll stay.”

“Katsuki,” your voice breaks. The tears flow. Calloused fingers rub off the tears.

“He may have been your first love, but I intend to be your last.”

You panic. “But what if it takes too long? What if I take too long to lose feelings and you have to try again to make me fall in love with you?”

A warmth envelops you. “As long as you want me, I’ll work as hard for as long as I have in this life to be your final love.”

The heat is familiar and gentle; it doesn’t set your skin aflame, but instead adds a slight increase with every second, adjusting you.

It’s accommodating and loving.

It feels like home.

“It’s him, isn’t it? It always was.”

I was just too blind to see it.

The new voice whispers, “He could never hold it against you; he would always forgive you. All he wants and needs is you. Remember what Mitsuki said? You’re his everything.”

And he is the same to me.

——————————-——————————————

Midoriya is kind.

“Are you sure that’s all you want to order?” A large, scarred hand settles itself upon your smaller one, rubbing the area of your wrist with slow, gentle strokes.

Midoriya is kind in the way that he would help an elderly lady cross the street with her hand wrapped around his arm, guiding her safely to the other side. He is kind that when a child cried in the middle of the sidewalk all alone, he would approach them with nothing but a gentle smile on his face and kneel down to their height, offering his help.

Midoriya Izuku is a good man with a big heart and a bright smile. He is the sickly saccharine type of person— a man who despite being made of hard muscle, is truly all marshmallow and gumdrops.

He is a glorious man who chose to devote his life to saving the world— but that in itself is what made him so utterly selfish.

“He loves you, (Name).” the soft voice whispers. “Do you know that?”

His love is not enough for me to stay any longer.

“I ordered a whole bowl of pasta, Midoriya. I think that’s more than enough,” you grin, sliding your arm out of his grasp. He pouts like a kicked puppy who was just scolded by their own for eating one too many dog treats.

Maybe long ago, your heart would have squeezed at the expression. Now, no butterflies erupt in your stomach. No heat spreads to your neck and to the tips of your cheeks. All that churns in your stomach is the acidic sips of a mocktail you had and the glass of water you downed before going to meet Midoriya.

“You know, you can still call me Izuku,” Midoriya begins, retracting his hand from your side of the table. You dig your fork into the pasta, swirling it around in the plate. “I’m still your Izuku, right?”

What am I supposed to say to that?

You peer up, watching as his emerald irises swim with a fondness and intimacy you could only picture thousands of women would die to see Izuku Midoriya, Japan’s greatest hero, to gaze at them with.

But to you, it is meaningless.

“Do you pity him?” the gentle voice asks. “Do you pity yourself for how blindly you behaved as him, too?”

In front of you, you hear a group of girls squeal, “Oh my gosh, it’s Pro-Hero Deku!”

A big bite of pasta with a pointed smile is all you offer Midoriya as he turns to face the approaching group of gals murmuring in excitement, asking to take photos.

At least the pasta is good.

——————————-——————————————

“Say it,” the voice utters.

The city lights at the ripe time of midnight are a beautiful sight, filling the world with a plethora of icy and earthy tones. Giggly couples stumble down the street, hand in hand, high off of joy and young love. Teenagers skate down the sidewalks, hollering profanities and excited cheers into the night sky.

The whole world is bright and alive around you, despite the pit of black surrounding it.

“Will you let this moment slip? After all you’ve gone through?”

Midoriya’s hand once again reaches for yours, scarred fingers entangling themselves with yours. The pupils in the greens of his eyes seem to shrink as your palms make contact, and a faint blush sprouts on his cheeks.

In the moonlight, Midoriya Izuku is alive.

He is glowing brightly in the light of the city, with his unruly mess of curls draping over the tops of his eyes.

But beside him, you stand in the darkness of his shadows. In the presence of the Symbol of Peace, Izuku Midoriya, you are nothing more than the spirit that he is championed to destroy.

Once again, you are nothing more than a lost soul falling into the hands of death.

“Is that all you will ever be? Will you let all of your hard work dwindle to waste? Will you fall back into his arms only to repeat this same miserable cycle?”

Tips of blurry blonde spikes materialize in the depths of your mind. The crashing of waves against rocks bleeds into your ears and the pricks of blades of grass send tingles exploding across your skin.

“How much will it take until you truly break, (Name)?”

A pair of loving carmine eyes stare back at you, a bright twinkle in the corners of its pupils. They are a reminder of the gentle kiss and the tender love you had experienced only days before.

‘I want you, Katsuki.’

He had cried, when he heard those words.

‘Please, will you let me love you the way you loved me?’

You never thought you could reduce a man as powerful as Bakugou into a mess of joyous tears. But life has a habit of surprising people in the most unexpected ways.

I’m sorry, Midoriya, you long to say. I’m sorry you are slipping down the path you forced me to tumble down. But I’ll save you in the way you failed to save me in before. I’ll right your wrongs.

Not for you, but for me.

“I can’t do this,” you rip your hand out of his grasp, stepping back. “I can’t do this to you, Midoriya.”

He jumps, startled by your abrupt movements. He opens his mouth to speak, but you interrupt.

“I can’t live with you in my life— not anymore.”

“(Name), what? What are you saying right now?” Midoriya reaches his hand out to anchor you— or himself— but you widen the gap between you two.

“I’m talking about you— I’m talking about us,” you gasp. The waves slosh in the bottomless pit of the sea. “You can’t tell me you didn’t see it like everyone else did. You can’t lie to me and say what you did wasn’t purposeful!”

Boots smush into the wet mud, slipping off the bottom of your foot. “_____________!” Midoriya exclaims.

The beating of your heart smashes against your ribcage and blood rushes to your face. “You were given so many chances, Izuku,” you cry as the tears finally slip. The bottle fissures and the dam explodes; the beast is unleashed. “You gave up. You gave up on yourself, you gave up on me, you gave up on us. You always have— you always will. You never took a single chance because you never cared enough!”

There are tears streaming down his own face, distorting the sight of those freckles you once adored so much. You had once believed them to be kisses from the gods themselves. Now, they seemed nothing more than a painter’s deception of beauty.

Midoriya weeps. “________________!”

No longer do you crumble under the weight of Midoriya’s tears. You stand proudly under the pour of your own.

“You’re forgetting someone, aren’t you, (Name)?” the voice curls around you, peering at you gleefully. She giggles. “You should go and surprise him, (Name).”

Katsuki. Your heart shines, despite the pain of the tears.

You turn away from Midoriya, sparing nothing more than a turn if your head. “Thank you for giving me the story of a lifetime, but this is the end of us. Our chapter closes today, Izuku.”

Around you, the city blurs. “The story of us wasn’t meant to last a lifetime. It was meant to be for only a moment.“

And slowly, so does Midoriya. You laugh, “But it is one I’ll never forget.”

Stuffing your hands into your coat, you move away, preparing to cross the street. But you pause before your foot meets the pavement.

“Midoriya,” you murmur, glancing side-to-side as the cars fly by, before looking back at him.

He stares at you, petrified, as if you were a ghost of his past.

Maybe, you are.

Maybe, you have truly become another ghost in his world.

“Do you remember me?”

The Symbol of Peace stares at you like a deer in headlights, frozen and lost. For the first of many times, Izuku Midoriya is clueless.

A smile plays on your lips.

“Who knew you could bring the most powerful man to his knees?” she pinches your cheek affectionately.

Fractured excuses and phrases of rambles slip past his lips, sending circles spinning upon circles.

You know the truth.

So does he.

“Don’t think about it too hard, Izuku.”

As you step onto the street, the moonlight falls upon you, covering Midoriya in its pit of dark.

Finally, you burn brighter than the stars above.

——————————-——————————————

The clock reads 2:37 AM.

You remember this road and the corner where Bakugou caught your arm.

You remember running and running until you got to the convenience store, pouring liquor while sitting on the hill. Downing bottle after bottle, bleeding away into a pool of water.

You remember the lights flashing, the salty spray of sea against your skin.

But you don’t remember the feeling or the pain of your broken heart.

It’s all gone.

It’s over.

The memories remain, the sleepless nights, the sober-less dreams.

But the pain does not.

For the first time, it’s gone; the wound has healed. The rift in your heart has shut.

“Call him.”

Frozen fingers reach into the depths of your purse, unlatching the metal clip to reach your phone as you trek down the street. With a few swipes, you press the call button.

Two rings pass before you hear a click and a groggy, gruff voice. A warm grin plays upon your lips.

“Hi, Katsuki.”

You chatter into the night, walking with a pep in your step. Muffled groans can be heard on the other side.

The voice sighs wistfully, resting her head on your shoulder. “Young love,” she twirls her hair around her finger, lips curling into a pleased smile. “How romantic it is, to be so young and utterly in love.”

Unwrapping her limbs from yours, she slips away into the dark, melting into the shadows of the moon. The wisps of her hair fade into a glimmer that twinkles in the streams of light and her body blows away with the breeze of the night.

You check the time in your phone.

2:37 AM, the clock reads.

The edges of your eyes crinkle.

He knew.

——————————-——————————————

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#izuku midoriya x reader #x reader #bnha x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #deku x reader #bnha angst #bnha reader insert #katsuki x reader #bakugou x reader #midoriya x y/n #bakugou x y/n #bakugou katuski x reader #mha x reader #mha x female reader #bakugou fluff #izuku x reader #izuku midoriya x you #bnha x you #deku x fem!reader #deku x you

[twst-drabbles]

Azul, Idia and Malleus 1

Summary: Azul and Idia are dragged for singing practice with Malleus. You too were dragged in, but not to sing. Malleus wanted you to be his audience and critic.

(I think it would be funny for the Janitor to just be in a chair, watching it all. I know the event is over, but it still lives in my head for whatever reason. Also this is over 1000 words, so have fun.)

While you're not going to the social that'll be happening in the Nobel Bell College, you are still a dear friend of Malleus. And because you have such privileges, you were allowed to be the judging audience for Malleus's singing practices.

"His initiative is mind-boggling… I didn't think Malleus would be so motivated." Azul said, clearly out of his element but refusing to show as such.

You leaned your head against your fist.

"You've never attended a fae party have you?" You picked at the lint on your uniform and flicked it towards the practicing pair. "This much enthusiasm is pretty common to see. And expected, actually."

Azul's smile twitched as he turned towards you, "Ah well, excuse my inexperience with not attending any fae parties. Running a business doesn't exactly allow me much free time. Though, I suppose quality standards would be different across species, wouldn't they? I just never expected them to be this high."

"That's what happens when you live for hundreds of years," you sighed, "the medium standard rises."

Malleus clapped his hands to gather everyone's attention.

"Now now, Ashengrotto," Malleus chided Azul, "Keep from looking at the Child of Man and start again. You must be sure to practice so that you can perform perfectly for them."

It's nice that you at least get a free show before they all go. Now if only you had snacks. It's been a while since you last ate.

Lilia, ever the perceptive one, floated over dropped an unopened bag of snacks right on your head. "Seeing a performance on an empty stomach is no way to enjoy it."

You grabbed it and nodded to him. "Nice, I like this brand."

Idia, having just the tiniest bit of respite, chewed on his nail and grumbled out, "I never expected our precision security system to get literally brute-forced. I gotta upgrade that ASAP, like tonight."

You chuckled, now in a better mood with a tasty snack on your tongue, "Idia, you're dealing with an enemy that scales to your level, it's never going to work."

Lilia laughed with you, "Exactly. You shouldn't underestimate our sheer tenacity. Especially when we're under strict orders."

Malleus had a hand to his mouth, smiling right down at Idia, clearly amused that Idia thought he could avoid all of this. "As such, I and this entire dorm are dedicating our time to craft this song into perfection. Your participation is crucial for that, I'm afraid."

Poor Idia. You're enjoying this too much.

"You can't escape," you muffled through your snacks.

Idia shrunk further into himself, but resigned to his practicing fate alongside Azul.

They started from the top and Malleus began singing that song you now know forwards and backwards. He kept diligent to his nightly visits over to your dorm, alongside of working in his hours of practice. It's difficult not to memorize it.

"He really is way too good at singing…" Azul and Idia murmured like you couldn't hear them at all.

"Yeah. Anything having to do with festivities and performances, they have it down pat. Did you know it's an insult to have a party last less than three days in fae etiquette?" You said while keeping a careful ear for any mistakes in Malleus's singing.

You really only said this just to get the thought out. You weren't expecting any sort of reply. And you certainly weren't expecting Azul and Idia to slowly turn towards you in dual horror.

Azul pushed up his glasses, "… while the social will last a while, the party itself will only last a day at the end… Could it be that Malleus does not know?"

And Idia is clutching at his hair. "Oh no, oh no, oh no…"

Wow they really just swallowed your words without question, huh?

"… obviously the rules are different if the host is a human, on their human owned land." You said with a lazy grin. The both of them are so easy to mess with.

Idia deflated into a defeated puddle on the floor while Azul perked right back up as though he too wasn't on the verge of a breakdown.

"Ah, well of course! If such rules applied the minute any guest is a faerie, we'd all be cursed in one manner or another."

Azul's ability to suddenly collect himself always amuses you. The sweat upon his brow hasn't even dried up yet. No wonder Malleus likes to put him on edge.

Malleus reached the end. He breathed in, out, then turned towards you. Azul and Idia flinched, being in his line of sight.

"Well? How was that?" Malleus asked.

And you gave your critic, "You might want to tone down the intensity in the first verse. Otherwise the climb to the finale won't hit as hard like that opera performance we saw on that video."

Of course you had to gather references regarding that song. You and your thirst for historical knowledge had you scaling down an interesting rabbit hole until you ended up stumbling upon an online archive filled with recorded performances. One of them simply wowed you and you had to show Malleus.

Malleus looked down, thoughtful. "I suppose you're right. Then, I'll make some adjustments as needed. I will reward you for the sound advice later, Child of Man. Let me try again. Lilia, if you will."

And another round he went, making sure to keep the full intensity of his voice under his control.

You couldn't help but sing along with him, under your breath of course. This was his practicing performance, not yours. You tapped to the rhythm, enjoying this early taste, living in the moment.

"Huh?" Azul and Idia both turned to you.

Your voice faded out before the end, as that verse is Malleus and Malleus's alone.

Idia, during that moment, scuttled up to your face like a bug. He grabbed your shirt by the collar. "You could sing?!" He hissed out.

"Uh, yeah?" It's a skill you had to practice with. The little pixies are all about songs and dances whenever they're helping you out with your work.

"So why don't you convince him. To let me go?!" Idia shook you back and forth. "Clearly this BBEG would love to sing with you over a loser like me! Do you want me to experience an IRL game over?!"

It… is amazing how weak Idia is. There is so little strength in those arms of his that you can't even be angry that he's wrinkling your shirt.

All you had to do was grab his face and push him down.

Idia did not stand a chance. He let go.

"Because I'm not invited, so I can't replace you. Besides, this is fun for me, watching you fumble like this." You grinned at this kneeling Idia. "When you've been around the pixies long enough, you just pick up their inner rhythm eventually. That, and singing keeps their energy high while I'm working."

"Well," Azul said, "That would explain why Malleus would want your critic over mine. How… frustrating."

Malleus didn't so much as spare a glance at Idia, only asked, "Shroud. What are you doing over there? It's time for you to practice the basics again."

"Ah!" Idia shot himself out of your grasp and zipped over to Lilia, "Coming!"

"If you'll excuse me, Janitor and Judge." Azul nodded to you, "I would want to make Malleus angry."

"Have fun." You waved them both off, settling in your plush chair once more until you were called for.

This is fun. You like this.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst-drabbles #twst-drabbles exclusive #drabble #octavinelle #azul #azul ashengrotto #ignihyde #idia #idia shroud #diasomnia #malleus #malleus draconia #reader insert #janitor au