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dashielldeveron · 1 year

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soulmate trope | shinsou

Shinsou’s route of soulmate trope.

this one is for the touch-starved girlies who are scared of intimacy and scared of people leaving warnings: female reader has a very specific view of sex and intimacy: that someone sleeping with her and then leaving her would fucking ruin her psyche forever. so she's a big-ass, kissless virgin for nasty evil plot reasons. sexual intimacy and abandonment/commitment are major themes. pseudo-sex work, with shinsou's hobby/side-job. shinsou and reader toss around the term bitch as a playful insult. this version of reader is fairly insecure and anxious about being loved and lovable—but so is shinsou.

~29k

Kirishima had his tongue in Mina’s mouth.

Well, more accurately, sometimes it was in her mouth. He was visibly licking at her lips and around her mouth fairly often, letting saliva drool down both of their faces—Mina’s shirt had a damp spot near the neck. Their kissing skills seemed sloppy at best and fucking disgusting at average, making loud squelches, splorches, and suction noises, overall sounding very wet and a bit like walking through ankle-deep, thick mud in rubber rainboots. Their moans, too, didn’t sound very sensual—more like there’s someone in the next room sampling someone haunted museum sound effects with some overlapping Yoko Ono texture.

Kirishima’s hands cupped Mina’s boobs, his fingers stiff and just, like, holding them. Not playing with her nipples through her shirt, or anything, but the way he occasionally squeezed them must have felt good, since Mina moaned more loudly when he did so. He’d moan the loudest when she pulled at his hair, knocking the back of his head against the refrigerator door.

You ducked back around the kitchen corner, grimacing as you sank to the floor to clutch your knees to your chest. This wasn’t the first time they were blocking the fridge, but you’d learnt there was nothing to do but kill time until they finished. Stealing some of Aoyama’s posh bubble-pop ice cream would have to wait.

***

“No, thank you,” you said to Monoma over your shoulder, pushing open the main door to Class A’s dorm, “You taught me stuff about my quirk today. I really value your fresh eyes on my old shit. Next time we train together, I’d like—Jesus fucking Christ.”

Yaoyorozu and Jirou were dry humping on the commons couch, with Yaoyorozu in Jirou’s lap with her hands in Jirou’s hair, tilting her head back enough to lick up her neck, right over the spot where her half of the soulmate tattoo lay.

Grimacing (you heard it in his voice and by his sucking in through his teeth; you’d covered your eyes and shied away), Monoma stooped to pick up Yaoyorozu’s shirt to slingshot it back towards them. “Get a room.”

***

All you’d wanted was to find the closet where they keep the lightbulbs.

Instead, you opened the door on Midoriya kneeling, Uraraka’s leg over his shoulder, audibly slurping, while she, skirt hiked up around her waist, ground against his face.

You shut the door again. Your dorm could stand being dark for a few more hours.

***

“I’m going to kill myself. I’m going to peel off my skin. No, actually, I’m going to eject my skellington from my body so that I can just be a lump of organs and skin. And then I can rest on the carpet in a pile,” you said, frowning into your ice cream, cheek propped on your fist, “Why can’t they all, like, give some sort of warning?”

“Not everyone carries a sock to put over every doorknob,” said a grinning Shinsou from across the table, licking around the side of his mint chocolate chip cone, “And c’mon, the U.A. dorm rooms are not sexy, and the walls are thin.”

Some sprinkles fell off of your ice cream when you gestured loosely. “Don’t I know it. I share a wall with Hagakure, and she and Ojiro are fucking constantly. He makes her get off on his tail a lot—I guess kind of like thigh riding?”

“You can’t do anything about it when they’re fucking in the privacy of their own dorms.” Shinsou bit directly into his ice cream and chewed, like a maniac.

“And apparently, she really like when he tickles her clit with the tip of his tail? I am burdened with knowledge,” you said, sighing, and you ate a mournful spoonful.

Shinsou swallowed thickly. “Does it lessen your opinion of them?”

“No. I’m glad they’re happy,” you said, “I’ve listened to their yearning over the years, so I know it’s such a relief for them for this quirk intervention to get feelings out, along with the assurance of permanent romance and stability. Hashtag get some, I guess. I’m just—the influx of soulmates and their PDA is highly inconvenient for navigating my everyday life.”

“You sound like you’ve put thought into it.” Shinsou smirked, tongue flattening as he licked over the top of his scoop (and turning slightly green). “Just inconvenient?”

You shot him a look and fished around in your paper cup for more sprinkles. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Are you sure you’re not jealous?” asked Shinsou, the shop’s A/C kicking in and blowing through his hair—he pursed his lips and scooted his metal chair out of the way of the vent. “Since, y’know, you don’t appear to have a soulmate. You ready to tell me yet? Why’re you so nervous?”

Yikes. You’d been avoiding that.

“Are you not marked physically? Or do you have one on your boobs—”

You sighed overdramatically and sank down in your chair until your ass practically hung off of it. “I have a soulmark, and it’s not in an embarrassing place. Relatively normal, actually. It’s on my back, so it took me a while to notice it.”

Shinsou bit into the cone and crunched loudly. He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“You’re not seeing it. No one’s ever gonna see it.”

“No one? You’re confident. You think your soulmate won’t ever want to take you from behind?” His tongue flicked out to swipe at a melted drop on his lips.

“Oh, my God.” You buried your face in your hands. “God, the thought of someone I don’t even know having sex with me—I don’t wanna think about it. But that’s not what I meant. I was being facetious; I meant that my words are pretty embarrassing.”

Shinsou slumped down in his seat at that, but nowhere near as far as you. “Oh? First words?”

“I assume. It’s a sentence, anyway.” You sat up, stabbing your spoon into your ice cream. “I—I’ll tell you, since I don’t want anyone—seeing me, and I know you’ll bug me about it, but it’s—”

“Just spit it out. Rip off the bandage.”

Cringing, you held up your hands in defence. “Don’t kill me, but I also don’t remember who said them to me?”

“Oh, you’re joking,” said Shinsou, his face lighting the fuck up, “That’s fucking hilarious, if it’s true. And how do you know they’ve already been said to you? How do you know they aren’t still to come?”

“I don’t know. I just…feel it in my heart of hearts that I have already heard these words, but I can’t for the life of me remember who said them,” you said, and you bent to riffle through your bag for your phone, “I keep a list of everyone who’s not paired off in my notes app, and I’m trying to remember the situations in which I first met them—”

“You’re stalling,” said Shinsou, grinning as he popped the last of the cone into his mouth, “Tell me what it says.”

Wincing, you set your bag aside. “Don’t make fun of me,” you said, biting your lip and scrunching your eyes shut, “but, uh. It reads, Looks like the ice princess finally decided to grace us with her presence.” At his silence, you cracked an eye open.

Shinsou’s eyes had glazed over, but he shook himself and spoke. “Don’t know why you’re embarrassed. That’s fucking hot.” He grabbed your used napkins to toss them in the garbage. “Think it’s an enemies-to-lovers type relationship? Just kidding,” he said at your pained expression, “But I see what you mean about those already being said to you. Weren’t you seen as sort of a cold, uptight bitch when we first started attending U.A.?”

“An easy misinterpretation,” you said, scraping at the bottom of your cup, “People thought my being shy and not talking to people was being a bitch, but I was just nervous that I was around so many people my age who seemed so much more in tune with their quirks that I was.”

“So, that gives you a time frame for when you met your soulmate. And,” he said, holding up a finger, “that lets you know that you met your soulmate in a group with other people, unless they speak in the royal we for some reason. It also sounds like you were late to a scheduled event. You remember doing anything like that freshman year?”

“Look, all I remember about the first three months of freshman year is being overwhelmed by how cool everyone was. That time is a blur to me, and before now, I’ve been grateful for that. Aizawa-sensei really put us through the wringer. I was meeting literally everyone I currently hang out with during that time, though, so that’s not helpful.” You gave your empty container to Shinsou when he held out his hand, and he threw it away for you. “How’s your search going? You gonna share your details?”

“I’ve got a name,” he said, cool as you please, chair clanking as he sat back down, “but I’m not sharing. It’s not yours, if you’re concerned.” His nose scrunched as he grinned, poking your arm. “It’s someone out of reach, and I’ve come to terms with that. I’m doing pretty well on my own. You ready to leave?”

Nodding, you slung your bag over your arm. “I envy you. You’re brave. Me—I’m dreading the thought of the pain we’ll feel if we don’t find our soulmates. Shouldn’t we be feeling it already?”

Shinsou held the shop door open for you. “It hasn’t been that long, and when it happens, I’ll manage. I’ll be more worried about you, you crybaby.”

“If it gets too excruciating, I’ll just have you brainwash me to not feel it, right?” you stuck out your tongue, walking backwards as he caught up to you.

His countenance darkened. “Stop that. You know I’m never gonna use my quirk on you. I don’t wanna do that to you.”

“But Hitoshi,” you said, dragging out the last syllable, “Imagine how productive I could be if you made me study, or how fucking relaxed I could be for once, if you told me to; my brain could be fucking calm for once—”

“Never. And that’s final,” said Shinsou, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets as he jogged to your side, “You keep trying to convince me, and y’know, the definition of insanity is—”

“Fudge off, you fuck,” you said, smiling, “I guess I can keep trying to empty my brain on my own. Gosh, it must be nice to be able to not freak out and overanalyse things constantly, and you’d think you’d want someone willing to train your quirk on. I mean, I’m here, and I want it.”

“Keep dreaming,” said Shinsou, gently shoulder-checking you, “So, got any ideas about how to get Hagakure and Ojiro to shut up?”

***

Since Midnight was working with Tainted Love at a women’s rehabilitation centre, she was able to confiscate some of Tainted Love’s team’s notes on her quirk. It had a lot to do with math and probability, but the nub and gist of what interested you was that while soulmates typically breathed in the same pink cloud, they didn’t have to.

Which brought a new factor to your soulmate search: maybe it was someone outside of U.A., someone who breathed in her quirk before she was captured.

But while you were at first reassured by more information, you were also now perpetually on edge. Though all of her victims had reported, what if someone didn’t even know they breathed it in? Plus, your request for the list of victims was still being processed and supposed to have around four thousand people on it, and you might not even get it due to privacy laws.

At least someone was finding all this funny: Shinsou laughed but listened to your frazzled thoughts, and he opened his dorm room to you whenever Hagakure’s moans became too pornographic.

***

Everybody’s fucking. Everybody.

Everywhere you went, you walked in on someone sucking face. You couldn’t drop a pen in class without noticing that someone’s getting fingered.

You bounced a tennis ball against Shinsou’s dorm room ceiling. “Why is everyone focused on the physical? Why isn’t anyone into the goddamn romance and intimacy of it all? If you’ve been fated to know and love someone for the rest of your life, living out the mundanities and revelling in the unfolding of a relationship, then why the hell is everyone focused on physical pleasure?”

Shinsou didn’t even look up from his phone. “Spoken like the world’s biggest virgin.”

“Hey!” The ball fell onto the floor. “So what. Just because I haven’t experienced that sort of thing doesn’t mean I can’t understand its value but still want something more.” You slinked your top half off his bed to grasp for the tennis ball, fingertips grazing it, not wanting to get up. “I get the appeal of sex. I get it. But I would be more interested in the intimacy of knowing someone and being known.”

Shinsou waved a dismissive hand. “I know. Zoom in on our friendship.” He locked his phone and set it on his bedside table. “But for someone who says she doesn’t want sex, you’re one touch-starved little bitch. You’re doing it to yourself, not letting anyone touch you casually. I hazard to guess you’re putting too much value on the physicality of a future relationship that might not even exist.”

Only your feet were still on the bed as you strained to catch the rolling ball. “I touch you.”

“You put your head on my shoulder. Sometimes,” he said, getting off the bed, “and you occasionally let me touch your arms for comedic effect and emphasis.” He picked up the tennis ball and took it back to the bed, and you scrambled back to get all the way on it.

“Listen, I don’t know where everyone’s been,” you said, taking the ball back after he tossed it against the ceiling himself once, “Especially now that everyone might have bodily fluids on their hands. You, I know you wash your hands. I know where you’ve been. You train with Aizawa-sensei and come back to this room. You should get a plant, or something, to keep you company. It might encourage you to raise the blinds for once.”

“Excuse you. I also spend time with a cat Kouda’s hooked up for me,” he said pointedly, “Her name’s Dango, and she loves me. You could say I’m drowning in pussy.”

“I could not say,” you said, rubbing the ball’s highlighter-yellow fuzz as you lay back in his bed, legs dangling off the edge, “Big sigh. I guess you’re right about my putting too much stock in being physical with my soulmate, instead of with someone now. I think—I don’t wanna be vulnerable in that way in front of someone who might leave? If someone saw me naked and then ghosted me, I think I’d strangle myself. Or him. There’d be someone walking around with that information on me, and he could tell anyone. I can’t have that. He’d have to die.”

“Well, you’ve already seen a bunch of our friends naked on accident—”

“Not up close. Besides, it wasn’t my goal to see them like that, and I wasn’t absorbing details. I can’t tell you who’s got moles in weird places.”

Shinsou hunched over, grinning toothily in your face. “You’re waiting to lose your virginity to your soulmate, aren’t you?”

Pouting, you flipped over to face away from him. “Shut uuuuup. I know I’m embarrassing, but I can’t talk myself out of it.”

“Wait, hey.” The bedding rustled as he got adjusted himself, getting closer to you. “If I’ve gone too far, I’m sorry. There is no fucking shame in waiting. It’s in character for you, how you’re scared about vulnerability and how you value being intimate and romantic. I can’t make fun of you for that, genuinely.” He sat next to you, back against the wall, and he nudged your shoulder. “I’m a bit lost, though. I get the part where you’re a virgin overwhelmed by the sudden sexual atmosphere at U.A., but I fail to see the problem when you’re planning to lose your virginity to your soulmate, and odds are, you’ll meet him soon.” He paused. “Or you’ve already met him.”

Glancing over your shoulder with a sour expression, you grabbed the blue-pineappled throw blanket folded at the end of his bed and hid under it.

Instead of yanking it off, Shinsou lifted the blanket’s edge to join you underneath it, his pale skin tinged with blue in the dampened light. “C’mon,” he said, leaning over you to get a look at your face (and you tugged at the blanket to cover you more), “I’ve heard you say worse. If you don’t wanna share, that’s cool, but I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s going through your head.”

Shinsou tilted his head to the side and grinned his stupid crooked grin that you were not immune to: it’s one of his expressions that made you feel at ease, like you could trust this idiot man with anything. (Which you could, but you didn’t like being reminded.)

Forcing yourself, you spoke in a small voice. “What if my soulmate wants sex immediately? I’m—I’m not ready for that. I’d have to work up to it, and what if he doesn’t have the patience?”

Shinsou laughed and brought his hand up to cover his mouth when he let out a snort. “Sounds like a shitty soulmate to me, then, if he doesn’t respect your boundaries. Any man can wait it out. We’ve don’t have two hands for nothing,” he said, wiggling his fingers.

“Thanks, I guess.” You pulled the blanket off of your heads and sat up slowly. “But I worry. What if I’m too much of a sick, touch-starved weirdo who freaks out over every single touch for my soulmate to like me?”

“Your soulmate will love you.”

“But what if he gets irritated at how much I freak out or flinch at everything?”

“You’re overthinking it. He’ll adjust, and you’ll learn, if that’s what you want.” Shinsou picked up the tennis ball and threw it against the ceiling again. “If he doesn’t, then he doesn’t deserve you, and I’ll destroy him.”

“Okay,” you said, deflating. You moved to rest your head on his shoulder, but the instant your temple grazed his sweater, you shot back up, eyes bulging. “What if he wants me to give him the most egregious head when I’m not—”

“All right. Fine,” he said, brow furrowed, and he shifted on the bed to kneel in front of you, staring right into your eyes. “Let’s entertain your fucking insane thoughts. Let’s say your soulmate does want to fuck you immediately. What do you want to do now about it? Can you do anything besides worry?”

You shrank back, biting the inside of your cheek. “I don’t know. I don’t know! I guess…somehow get…used to casual touching, but once again, 1) what if my tester person leaves, and 1a) it would be mean to ask someone to not feel things for me and touch me, and 2) I don’t want to burden anyone with—”

“Fuck.” The way he said it was crisp and full of reluctance, punctuated by the tennis ball hitting the ceiling. “Okay. I’ve kept something from you. Something pretty big. I can use it to help you.”

You blinked. “Are you saying you have a dildo to lend me? I think I have to refuse.”

“I haven’t been going on dates.” Shinsou shuffled about to lean back on his pillow, crossing his arms behind his head (huh, that Sailor Mercury t-shirt was really tight around his bicep. Has it always been?). “You’ve seen me go out to teach people how to dom.”

“What?” You caught the tennis ball when he threw it at an odd angle. “You’ve been—who’s asked you to—”

“A fair amount of people, actually.” He sucked in through his teeth. “Won’t tell you details, of course, because part of the payment and contract includes a non-disclosure agreement. But people you know have wanted to learn how to dom or just experience being dommed, and I happen to be the perfect person to ask.” He shrugged and gestured loosely. “All I’ll say is that some people—people you know and don’t—have come to me for help with stuff like shibari and dirty talk. Or how to do anything, really, because of, quotation from client, ‘being a useless lesbian,’ unquote.”

So that’s how he can afford all those video games and imported books. Sneak. “You’re telling me—”

“That I can help you get used to physical intimacy, professionally,” said Shinsou, propping one leg over the other, twirling his socked foot in the air, “However far you want to go. However you want.”

(So those jokes about perfect dom Shinsou during girls’ nights had an inkling of truth in them? You may have to throttle some of your friends.)

You hesitated. “Hitoshi, you are my best friend—”

“Therefore, we already have an established relationship based on trust and respect, and I’m not leaving you. Not ever. I value our friendship too much. I won’t screw you over. Tear out my fucking vocal cords if I ever do.” He ran his hand back through his hair, flattening it, but it fluffed back up anyway. “I’m already unbearably fond of you, so I’m not gonna be cruel about it. It just so happens that I have the resources and skills that you’re interested in, and we’re not gonna end our friendship anytime soon. I might be a good solution for your problem—though, I have to admit, I don’t really think you have one.”

“And,” you said quietly, tossing the ball back and forth between your hands, “you don’t think my soulmate would think less of me for being touched by someone else?”

Wincing, Shinsou said, “Purity culture has chewed you up and spat you out. I’m not telling you to compromise your morals and lose your virginity to someone who’s not your soulmate, but I am saying that even if you do, it’s okay, and—and I’m just not saying that because I wanna fuck you. I’m saying that it’s okay if you experiment for what you want later with other people now. It doesn’t devalue you.” He clicked his tongue. “And nobody’s dick is good enough to alter your worth fundamentally. Anyone who says otherwise can’t find the clitoris.”

You managed a laugh at that, and you crawled up to lie next to Shinsou. He flipped his onigiri-patterned pillow over so that the cool side would face up, and he scooted it over for you to rest on, too.

“Let me continue to entertain your overthinking: even in the slim chance that your soulmate is a fuckshit who thinks less of you because you’ve fooled around before,” said Shinsou, tilting his head on the pillow to face you, “that fact will hold less and less weight the more he gets to know you. You’d be so easy to fall in love with.”

Sighing, you bit your lip. “You really think so?”

“I know so,” said Shinsou, staring at the ceiling again and folding his hands on his chest, “Hell, I wish you were my soulmate. It’d make things easy, don’t you think?” He managed a quick glance towards you before returning upwards. “We already know each other so well, and you wouldn’t have to worry about being vulnerable around someone new. You’d just have me.”

“Please, Hitoshi, there’s nothing just about you. You’re so fucking lovely,” you said, imitating his position and laying your hands on your stomach, following his gaze to the lazy swing of the ceiling fan pull. “Would you—would you be grossed out by seeing me?”

“Never. I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want to do it.” Shinsou twiddled his thumbs and knocked his socked foot against yours. “If it makes you feel safer, I’ll do anything to help.”

“People pay you for sessions, right? How much would I pay you?”

“What?” Raising a brow, Shinsou flipped on his side to face you. “You wouldn’t. I’m offering. Other people came to me, but I’m the one approaching you. I’m not gonna make you give me money for this.”

“But,” you said, shaking your head, “what do you get out of this, besides endless dirt on me?”

“I get to see my best friend be comfortable in her own skin. I haven’t seen that much at all, in all the time we’ve known each other,” he said, and he reached for his phone on the bedside table. “Consider it, at least. I won’t mind in the slightest if you want to or not. It’s only a way I could help quell your anxiety.”

***

YOU

all right, you schmuck

YOU

i’ve slept on it

YOU

i think i want to do it. i can rescind that at any time though

HITOSHI 💜🍡

of course

HITOSHI 💜🍡

how much time do you need?

YOU

uh. guess i’m ready whenever you are.

YOU

my dorm or yours? or somewhere else????

HITOSHI 💜🍡

I bet you’ll feel the most comfortable in your own bed

HITOSHI 💜🍡

if you’ll allow me an hour to prepare, I’ll be over soon

***

What does one wear to get dommed?

Revealing clothing? Underwear? Anything at all?

A brisk knock on your door, way too quickly, but you braced yourself and opened the door on a serious Shinsou, clad in all black (jeans and a turtleneck), hair mussed up a bit more than usual, and carrying a duffel bag. He tilted his head as he looked up and down your body, the corner of his mouth twitching up in a smile at your loose, cat-patterned loungewear.

“May I come in?”

You stepped aside, and he strode inside, noting the lit candle (against dorm rules, but he’s no snitch) and cherry blossom lamp, and set his duffel on the desk. As you trudged in behind him, playing with your fingers idly, he pulled out your desk chair, spun it around, and straddled it, propping his folded arms across the back.

“Let’s talk,” he said, gesturing for you to sit on your bed, “I custom build my routine for each client. What I have in mind specifically for you is drastically different from anything I’ve ever done: it’s much gentler, slower—” He held your gaze, wide and serious, and wetted his lips. “—and intimate. I will walk you through every step, and you have the power to veto anything I propose. You have all the control here. I will never be disappointed in your decisions. You are not in danger.” He gripped his opposite elbow, knuckles whitening. “I want you to know that what we do does not have to be inherently sexual. Our goal is to increase your tolerance for physical contact, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” you said, your fists clenched in your lap, “To feel at ease when people I trust touch me…I’d like to have some shred of chill by the time my soulmate comes around.”

You hoped Shinsou wouldn’t start by making you suck his dick. Judging by the way he was sitting and the bulge in his jeans, he must have a huge fucking cock (weird to think about your best friend’s genitals). Opening your mouth that wide wouldn’t feel comfortable, and you’ve already been chewing gum today, soreness already imminent.

(What’s in his bag? Is it all condoms? [That’s a lot of condoms…])

“First off,” he said, raising a finger (but for some reason he’s raised his pinkie finger to indicate one instead of his index finger, and then you’re noticing the length of just his pinkie finger and imagining how far it could go down your throat), “I’m not gonna fuck you. That’s your soulmate’s job, as you’ve established. What else are you specifically saving for your soulmate?”

Shinsou’s mouth twitched into a smirk when he noticed your narrowed eyes followed the loose gesture of his pinkie finger, and with a roll of his eyes, he returned his pinkie to his fist and raised his index finger, which had your shoulders slackening as you slumped back onto your bed, leaning back against your hands with your neck tilted back, arched at the ceiling so that you didn’t have to look him in the face.

“I’ve got, uh, reservations about the…” You shifted your weight so that you could gesture vaguely with your hands. “Mouths and hands directly on my cunt sort of thing.”

Shinsou let out a low whistle, and at that you had to break from the ceiling to see his expression: he was fucking grinning and shaking his head, his eyes a bit glassy as he scanned your own expression. “Using some crude terms, aren’t we? For a virgin.”

“Oh, come on. I’m a virgin, not ignorant,” you said, crossing your arms over your stomach and hunching over a bit to hide, “Do you want me to be clinical? I can say vagina and vulva and stuff all the time if you want me to, but cunt, at least, blurs the specificity and makes it simpler—”

“No, no, you’re good. You can sit back up; no need to hide.” Shinsou flicked that index finger in a gesture that lifted from your knees to your head, and you unfurled, pissed that he’d picked up on your body language like that—but, you supposed, that’s what he’s here for. “I was simply surprised you didn’t go for pussy. Do you want me to avoid using that term?”

“Uh.” He’s being. Thorough. Thoughtful. Why didn’t anyone else ever treat you like this? Some of your friends have such an unholy combination of words in their vocabulary that barrage you with psychic damage, and no one’s ever asked or noticed if you’ve been uncomfortable. “I think—I think if you use it sporadically, it’ll be fine.”

“All right,” said Shinsou, nodding, “So, no direct contact of my mouth or hands on your cunt.”

God, he can’t turn off teasing you for one minute? “Yeah. Though I can rescind that. I’m hoping that I might be comfortable enough down the line, but right now, I’m not.”

“Of course. I’m proud of you for recognising a boundary, even if it’s temporary. We’ll only go there if you decide you’re ready.” He blinked slowly, like a cat in a sunbeam. “Anything else only for your soulmate?”

In a bunch of stories you’ve read about hook-ups or friends-with-benefits situations, the people don’t always allow kissing, because that implies romantic feelings. You didn’t know precisely due to your lack of experience, but maybe that holds a grain of truth?

“Okay. There’s another thing I’m not sure about at the moment but is subject to change,” you said, and there’s no fucking way you’re going to look at him while you said this, so you became very invested in pulling at a hangnail, “I don’t know about—how I feel about kissing. You. On the mouth. Because what if I’m the super susceptible kind of virgin who attaches herself to the first person who shows her affection, and I fall in fucking love with you?”

“Hm. That sounds less about kissing and more about this whole situation in general,” Shinsou said with a grunt, over the sounds of his pushing up from the chair and taking the two steps to stand in front of you. “Hey. Look at me?”

He’s got nice shoes. He didn’t take them off at the door, but considering they’re scuffed, black doc martens, they may be part of his getting into character as a dom. Huh, they made his feet look long and narrow; what kind of insane socks must he be wearing under—

“I’m gonna use one hand to touch your face. Is that okay? Nod, if—thank you,” said Shinsou, and his right palm cupped your cheek, his long fingers grazing wisps of your hair and thumb over your cheekbone, and he tilted your face up to look at him.

Wincing, you averted your eyes from his, but he tapped your cheek with his thumb. “Nuh-uh. Look at me, sweet—thank you,” he said, once you made yourself do it (and it was hard, harder than it had ever been whenever you’d shot him side-eye when he pulled a crap move in a co-op video game, harder than glancing towards him in class to see if he’d gotten your joke, and it left a stone sitting in your stomach, one whose full weight you didn’t care to discover). Part of not looking him in the eye was bracing yourself for his usual reprimand of you’re overthinking, but it never came. “Let’s entertain the thought of your falling in love with me,” said Shinsou with far too much ease, his lips remaining parted at the end of that heavy sentence, “Isn’t that good? Because it means that whatever part of me you fell for, you know that that’s something you want in your soulmate. It tells you more about yourself and what kind of love you want.”

Your jaw dropped on impulse, and his grin widened as he stroked your cheekbone.

“Think about your favourite characters in books and movies. Aren’t there patterns of traits in them that you’d want in your soulmate? Falling in love, in all of these frequent iterations, is just a way to learn about what you like in a partner. I know you like Prince Zuko—”

“Hitoshi,” you said, abruptly very aware of the warmth of his palm as you tried to move your face underneath it, “Are you telling me to treat you like that? Like someone disposable? Like someone who isn’t real?”

“The way you talk about Zuko does not indicate that you know he’s a goddamn cartoon,” said Shinsou, “Or, more specifically, his hands—”

“Hitoshi,” you said, screwing your face up in a pout while leaning into his hand (holy shit, leaning into his touch, a pseudo-depending on him to keep you upright—something about allowing the dependence mixed with the warmth of his scarred hands [very slight, calloused dents where he wound his capture weapon as default] had you feeling lightheaded—and then you felt stupid, because you were feeling lightheaded over a goddamn touch to your face that’s not even that delicate), “I’m not treating you like that. For you, that sounds—” You huffed, and you worked up the strength to look him in the eyes again. “—so lonely.”

Breaking the eye contact himself, Shinsou sighed, and he moved to slide his hand off of your face—but you clamped your own hand over it, first an actual clamping-type move, to get him to stay, and then lessening the pressure, to let him know he can take it off, if he really wants. “Sorry,” you said, tapping your finger on the back of his hand, “I like this. It’s easy. I can handle it, I think.”

Nodding, Shinsou kept his hand on your cheek as he grappled behind him for the chair again, and this time, he sat in it properly, with his knee grazing one of yours. “Listen. I’m used to people projecting feelings onto me. They get wrapped up in the heat of the moment, and once the scene is over, they know they don’t actually like me romantically. Post-nut clarity, y’know. So, if you want to,” said Shinsou, rubbing his thumb over your cheek and grasping one of your hands with his free one, “If you have any inclination to project feelings on me, if it does anything to make you feel more at ease, then please, do it. I want you to get to know you better.”

Project feelings. Not truly feeling them. And if you did happen to fall in love with him, then it’s only a passing thing to get to know what you want in your soulmate.

Shinsou seemed so certain that he was unlovable, and that stone in your gut burbled mournfully in stomach acid. You’d respect his decision to hide his soulmark’s name, but should he ever let it slip, you’re going to find his soulmate to prove him wrong as soon as possible.

“Okay,” you said, nodding firmly and looking him in the eyes.

“Okay? You sure? Right, then,” said Shinsou, and he sat back in his chair, relishing in how you visibly grieved at the loss of his touch, and crossed his arms loosely. “Any other boundaries, hard or otherwise?”

You took a moment. “The stomach-tummy area is personal.”

“You’re insecure about it?”

“Hey—”

He waved a dismissive hand at you. “I knew that already, but it’s good to have verbal confirmation. I’ve seen the rate at which you bare that part of you, even in the light of peer pressure. Just means I know an area to lavish affection upon, when or if we get there.”

Groaning, you fell back on your bed, the heels of your palms digging into your eyes. “You’re insane for noticing that. You’re insane for noticing that. How—”

“Being aware of my environment is part of what a stealth-route hero like me has to do, sweet—” Shinsou cut himself off and frowned. “How do you feel about terms of endearment?”

“Not Jack Nicholson’s best work.”

“You piece of shit,” said Shinsou with a laugh, yanking on your duvet to make your ass fall off the edge of the bed, “I meant. I meant if you were okay with pet names, like sweetheart or baby or anything.”

You scrambled to get your ass fully back on the bed, pulling the duvet with you. “I don’t know how I’d respond if you called me anything; it’s not really a sexy word—”

“You are in for a world of trouble one day,” Shinsou said, tossing the corner of the blanket over your head (you swatted at it), “Because now I can be honest about how you behave: you’re a goddamn brat, y’know?”

“Oh, come off of it, Hitoshi; with the way we tease each other, it’s like you’ve trained me to be this way,” you said, laughing a bit as you tucked your duvet in again, but when you caught Shinsou’s eye, for some reason, his expression had completely stiffened. It only lasted for a moment, though, and he recovered in a flash.

“Well,” he drawled out, “I figured that using terms of endearment would add another layer to teasing you, and judging by how hard you’re avoiding answering me seriously, you’d like that. Wouldn’t you, sweetness?”

“I’ll kill you,” you said, hating every fibre in your being as you’d, on reflex, tensed up, halting any movement, and flushed, heat flooding your face and neck, when he’d called you that. How old are you? Old enough not to get fucking flustered at being called—

“As if you could.” He clicked his tongue. “Are any terms off-limits?”

“You can probably think up something absurd or nasty that I wouldn’t consider,” you said, “Sticking to the classics would probably be the safest.”

“All right. Anything else you think of later, as a boundary, you let me know immediately. Now, listen: unless otherwise instructed, you’re free to touch me in any way you want. I may direct you away from something, should I think you’re not ready for it.” He raised his index finger again, and he made a big show of raising a second finger from his fist. “And finally, two. This is a hard, non-negotiable rule for you: I’m not going to use my quirk on you. Ever.”

You collapsed on your bed again with a disgruntled groan. “What else is new?”

Shinsou shook his head. “I don’t want you getting the impression that just because we’re in a session that I’m going to do that to you.”

You sat up and snapped your head towards him. “You said it’s a rule for me. Do you use your quirk on other people who get you to dom them? Because, if so, I call bitch.”

Biting the inside of his cheek, Shinsou hunched over to rest his elbows on his knees. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. They ask me to, and! And,” he said, holding up his hand to stop you from protesting, “It’s nothing but a session. They’re paying me for a good time, and that’s it. But you—you’re doing this as—as something akin to therapy, I guess. I’m just a step on your journey to being intimate with your soulmate—someone you’ll be with for the rest of your life. That’s a long time to be without my quirk, if you get too used to it, in the context of being intimate. If you end up needing to be brainwashed to be vulnerable, then it’ll only stunt the physical part of your relationship with your soulmate.”

“Fuck you for making sense,” you said, mirroring his hunched-over position and nudging his knee with yours, “And as for real-life reasons for not using it? Because you’re an ass?”

Shinsou’s eyes narrowed and glinted in the cherry-blossom light. “Because imagine,” he said, reaching towards your face again (pausing a moment to ensure you were okay with it, and after you nodded, he continued) to lift your chin with nothing but his curved index finger underneath it, “if I could finally control the biggest brat in my life, and what’s more, she wants me to? Much too addicting. I wouldn’t get anything done. I’ve got to become a hero after all this; I can’t spend all my time taking care of my prettiest little girl.”

When he dropped your chin, you stayed tilted up, in the same position he left you in, throat exposed and blinking profusely as you tried to process what he’d said. Your mouth was very, very dry.

Uh.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” said Shinsou, and you jolted from your stance to see his hand clapped over his mouth, brow furrowed with the tips of his ears reddening, shoulders curved in as he slumped.

It’s about time he showed he could get flustered, too, because you’ve already embarrassed yourself just with conversation and a few touches to your face. But what the hell was he getting like that over?

Shinsou dragged his hand down his chin and formed it into a fist in his lap. “Do you know if you’re into proper Dom/Sub dynamics? Do you know if that’s something you’d like to explore? Because with the way you stayed there for me,” said Shinsou, inching towards you, his chest heaving at his steadying breath, “you could be someone’s perfect little sub someday.”

“I think so. I think I am,” you said in a small voice, “I think that’s something I might want to be—hold the fuck up. Did I manage to turn you on?”

After the tiniest moment of shrinking under your smug smile, Shinsou puffed out his chest as he sat up, rolling his shoulders back. “It’s to be expected in a session, since it’s a sexual context.”

“Oh, my God, I did it. I turned someone on. Holy shit,” you said, running your fingers back through your hair, “I think I have to call Mina. I finally did it.”

Shinsou scoffed. “Please, it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve—”

“Oh?” You froze, your hand almost to your phone on your bedside table. “Say more right now? Who do you know who’s been—”

“We’ve discussed boundaries enough for this first session, since it’s not that invasive. Let’s get to the heart of the session,” said Shinsou, standing to reach around for his duffel bag, and, after unzipping it, he handed his laptop to you. “Pick out a movie.”

You tilted your head as Shinsou trudged back to your door to untie his doc martens. “Excuse me?”

“I should already be logged in. Check my bookmarks bar for streaming sites,” he called from your door.

Shrugging to yourself, you slipped his laptop from his Put Your Hands Up Radio sleeve (leftover merch that wouldn’t sell; you had one as well) and opened it to search for a movie, automatically shifting over on your bed to the spot where you sat when the two of you watched something and blindly reaching for your throw blanket.

“Now, did I tell you to do that?” asked Shinsou as he rounded the corner again to see you settling into the usual routine, and after retrieving some water bottles from his duffel, he stood by your bedside table, where he put the water while bouncing on the balls of his feet (plain black socks. He is taking this seriously). “I’m not your friend right now, sweetheart; I’m your dom.” The same hand cupped your same cheek as earlier, and he briefly ran his thumb over your cheekbone before returning his hand to behind his back. “All I did was tell you to pick out a movie, and while I’m pleased you can extrapolate from incomplete information, it’s not what I want you doing right now. Sit back where you were.”

Holding your breath, you scooted back to the middle of the bed, where you’d been sitting on the edge, computer in your lap. What have you gotten yourself into? Was this what your best friend was really like? Has he had some sort of issue with your movie nights up until now?

Shinsou sat at the head of the bed, but he took up the whole space instead of sitting in his normal spot. He held out his hand for the laptop, and he placed it, cracked open, on your bedside table, moving your phone out of the way.

And then he fucking spread his legs.

“C’mon, sweet girl, sit back against me,” he said, patting a thigh with one hand and extending the other towards you, “I know you can do it. Come here.”

I know you can do it felt condescending here. Of course you can do it. It’s nothing but sitting between his legs instead of next to him. Very simple. Mind-bogglingly simple. So, it felt patronising and unnecessary that he would pull out that line for something so easy, this early in the game.

That didn’t mean you didn’t like it.

This was his idea of a first session? You were so pathetic that he felt the need for you to practise sitting between a man’s legs? Shut the fuck up.

Penis. You might touch a rascally ol’ penis, even if it’s through layers and layers of fabric. Inch resting.

You’ve never been fucking held. What if you cry, or something?

Which, oh, yikes, oof, makes your second point make a bit of sense.

Steeling yourself, you crawled the two feet towards him, but you hesitated before turning around: he’d parted his legs ever wider while you’d crawled back, so none of him was touching you at the moment, giving you still a chance to back out before it began.

“If it helps,” he said, tired eyes half-lidded, “think of me as your soulmate.”

Swallowing, you managed to nod just barely, and you turned.

At first, you’d tried to have some space between you and Shinsou, but he’d helped position you, guiding you with his large hands on your hips to have your ass snug against his pelvis (and yeah, the penis was there), hips framed by his inner thighs (since when have his thighs been bigger than yours? And his were all muscle), and he slid his hands up to your waist and ribcage to keep your back pressed against his chest. Once he had you all pressed against him the way he liked, Shinsou set his chin on your shoulder, startling you, but he petted away your alarm at your waist, a gruntled huff of hot air at your ear while he grounded you.

“You can tell me at any time if you get too stiff or want to change to a different position, but you’re staying in my arms tonight,” said Shinsou, untangling one arm from around your waist to reach for the laptop, “I thought cuddling would be a good start for you—full-bodied vulnerability, but you don’t necessarily have to look me in the eyes for it, and you can feel safe knowing I’ve got you. You’re held; you’re not in any danger.”

He placed the laptop on your knees. “Now, knowing your sense of humour, you’ve picked out Terms of Endearment.” Instead, he opened it to the title screen for a Zuko-centric episode of The Last Airbender. “All right, that’s fair.” You heard him laughing through his nose behind you before returning his chin to your shoulder.

Initially, you couldn’t concentrate on Zuko’s rippling pectorals for once in your life, because there was a man holding you and his dick was right there. Not, like, hard or anything, but it was present, just something extra to press against your ass. Eventually, it became less about the cock and more about being held, which was fucking intoxicating and warm and made you feel so small and safe, and that was out of the ordinary for you. The small huffs of Shinsou’s laughter in your ear through his occasional commentary (really kind of him to talk through a movie, like he normally did, instead of staying in dom mode, you thought. Helped you relax).

But even the movie night had to be cut short. Five minutes into the third episode, you’d finally cosied into his arms—dare you say, feeling like you could handle this thing called cuddling—when Ojiro and Hagakure started going at it next door. Hardly a full minute had elapsed between their clamouring down the hallway, the slamming shut of her door, and what sounded like a kabedon and something immediately plunging into Hagakure, based on her moans. Probably fingers.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I hope they were fooling around in public beforehand, so she’s at least gotten some prep,” you said, as Shinsou shut the laptop.

“We’ll continue this another time,” said Shinsou, setting it aside, and he, moving to kneel, guided your hips forward to turn you around to face him. “Was this okay?”

You shot him a double thumbs-up. “Excellent first step. New but safe, facilitated by a variation of something we’re already used to.”

“Something we’re already used to,” he repeated under his breath, for some reason, barely audible over Ojiro’s tail thwacking the shared wall. He reached for both his laptop sleeve and a water bottle for you, and he started packing his stuff away.

You twisted off the cap to break the seal. “Are we gonna do something different next time?”

“I think we’re going to do this a couple more times so that being held is no longer a sort of event in your mind, adding some minor variety so that you don’t get overwhelmed, before we move onto something completely different.”

Wiping water off of your mouth with the back of your hand, you bit your lip. “You’re being so kind to me. So patient. Considerate.”

He shot you a look from where he was zipping up his duffel. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well,” you said, holding the bottle in both hands, “Don’t most of your clients, like, choke on your cock within fifteen minutes of starting?”

His back was to you as he fiddled with a side pocket, and it took him a beat to reply. “Believe it when I tell you that I am delighted you’re letting me walk at your own pace.”

***

You were completing the world’s most pathetic checklist.

Holding hands? Check.

Cuddling? Check.

Spooning cuddling? Check.

Being able to look a man in the eyes while he tenderly cupped your face with both hands and told you nice things about you? Check—though that one took a lot out of you.

Were you embarrassing? Maybe a bit, but you couldn’t talk yourself out of being who you were, and Shinsou didn’t seem to want to, either.

You allowed yourself to curl up into yourself in the café booth, hiding yourself in the back while you propped your forehead against the exposed brick of the back wall. Lately, Shinsou had been directing you away from hiding your body and making yourself smaller when you felt ashamed, and damn it, you understood how he was trying to be helpful, but sometimes you just didn’t want to be perceived.

This session was the first public outing—a practise date, he’d called it. Practise for showing small, safe gestures of affection out in public. He’d dressed up in another all-black outfit again, as usual, because he’d emphasised that he had to get in character, to get out of “Best Friend Shinsou” mode. He’d even made a hype playlist, but he refused to show it to you yet.

He’d picked a café that you’d never been to so that you wouldn’t have to worry about the staff at your regular places judging you, and once again, you’re struck by how kind Shinsou was. If he were this level of considerate with all of his clients, no wonder they kept coming back to him. To be able to stop worrying, to leave it all to someone who took such pains to ensure your comfort and safety, who made your decisions for you—it’s goddamn inebriating.

Huh, it’s taking him a while to get menus. You tapped your fingernails in a ripple on the table where he’d parked you. Where was he? Twisting around, you scanned the open café area but recognised no one. How do you lose someone with purple troll hair?

Oh, he was rounding the corner of the dessert case, coming out of the hallway with the bathrooms, and he…he was talking to someone you’d never seen before, way shorter than he was with pastel pink hair and enormously puffy, white earrings. Even from the back corner booth, the way her face lit up as she spoke to him charmed you.

Shinsou was smiling, too, a pensive sort of wryness crossing his face as he snatched two menus from the basket up front, his brow furrowing when he had to shake a sticky third one off. Her elegant face pinched up when Shinsou unstuck the remaining two, and he gestured towards the booth where you were sitting. Oh, the fabric on this chair was absolutely fascinating, all of a sudden, and you kept plucking at it until Shinsou’s doc martens appeared in your view.

“I apologise for taking so long,” said Shinsou, sliding in next to you instead of across from you like a normal person, and he offered a menu.

You took it, rubbing the tacky plastic film. “It’s fine. Why sit next to me? It’s a booth, not the Last Supper.”

“It’s so we can hold hands, you muppet,” said Shinsou, and he promptly laced his fingers between yours and rested your hands on the table between you. As he laid the menu flat on the table, he returned the pink-haired woman’s wave as she exited the café, squeezing your hand as he did so.

“Care to enlighten me?” You scanned the drinks section, honing in on the coffee.

He flipped over the menu. “I can tell you she went by Mawata, with me. Not giving you the family name, mind. Signed the contract.”

Who would pay that much for a café au lait? Bougie. Perhaps even pretentious. “I see.”

“She recognised the getup and assumed I was in a session. I didn’t want to betray your trust, so I told her I was on a date. Which isn’t far from the truth.”

“I see,” you said, this time more strangled.

“Do you know what you want to order yet?”

“Almost.”

“Good,” he said, releasing your hand and scooting closer to you, “because we’re going to try doing something a step further. I—”

“Fucking go for it,” you said, peeking at the other side of the menu.

Shinsou faltered. “Are you sure?”

“You’ve kept me safe so far,” you said, shooting him a smile, “I trust—”

Mawata was bursting back into the café, the bell on the door ringing rather violently, and rushing back to your booth, her puffy earrings swaying erratically. Shinsou turned himself towards you, taking up space and shielding you the best he could by the time she skidded to a stop at your table, her kitten heels leaving a scuff on the tile.

“When can I hire you again?” she asked, breathless, “I’m assuming she knows.” She didn’t even spare a glance towards you.

Bracing himself, Shinsou turned his head in her direction, still hovering over you. “Now’s not exactly the best time.”

Mawata fidgeted with her purse strap. “I know I’m being rude, but holy shit. I can’t stop thinking about you. I’ll be rude if it means I get to see you again. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I can’t let you go now that there’s a chance again. Even if I have to pay you, I have to have you in my life. There’s no consistent way to contact you, so it feels like fate that I met you today.”

While Mawata rambled, Shinsou turned towards you, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, and, wincing, he shot you an apologetic look, eyebrows raised. You didn’t know what was coming, but you nodded. Running his tongue over his lower lip, he mouthed thank you, and for a brief moment, as he turned back to her, you caught a hardened expression you’ve never seen on your best friend.

“Mawata,” he said, stone cold and callous and chilling, “It sounds like you’ve broken one of my rules.”

She flinched, the movement shuddering through her whole body and bobbling her earrings, and she dropped her gaze to the floor, her head bowed and fists tight on her purse strap. A choked whimper escaped her as she took a shaky, shallow breath.

The distressing, empty space in which Shinsou waited for her to answer caused you to tense up behind him, and without looking back, he fucking skimmed his fingers over your thigh, cool as you please, until he could place his spread palm across it. Lightly, at first, a barely-there touch, but—you had to give him some sort of signal, so you grazed your thumb over the back of his hand—after he had your approval, he let the full weight of his hand rest on your thigh, gently tapping his fingers on the fabric of your jeans.

Good. Considerate, attentive Shinsou was still there, underneath whoever the fuck he was being now.

Her choppy, straight bangs shielded her eyes as she kept her head down. “I—I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”

Sir?! Sir?!

That’s fucking Hitoshi. Hitoshi, who talks in a high-pitched voice to cats and encourages Eri to decorate his face with stickers. Hitoshi, who can’t always remember to take the tin foil off of his leftovers before putting them in the microwave. Hitoshi, your best friend, who’s got his goddamn hand on your thigh.

(Hand cover…so much…of thigh. Big hand. Big hand good. Big hand safe. Big hand hold you.)

([Good God, woman, pull yourself together. It’s just a hand on your thigh.])

(But there is nothing just about Shinsou, is there?)

Shaking his head, Shinsou clicked his tongue. “And I’m sure you do. I want you to say what rule you’ve broken—and I know which one you have; you can’t hide from me. I’ve been in your brain; I know how you think. I want you to admit it. And I want you to tell me what you’re doing wrong now because of it. If you can’t even say it, I no longer know you.” He lifted his chin as he stared her down, and even from behind, you can tell that he’s giving her that cold glare that made anyone shatter—you’ve only seen it in training, and it’s never been used against you. “You know what you signed. Say it.”

“I—I’ve developed feelings for you,” she managed to say.

“And?”

“And that means, by contract, I can’t see you again.”

“And?”

“And!” Mawata inhaled sharply, shifting her jaw as she raised her head to look him in the eye and chickened out, instead focusing on the table. “And by approaching you in public with another client, you’re gonna fucking blacklist me with the others across the fucking city. But sir, you said you were on a date, and I didn’t know you did that now, and I want that—”

“Not quite. I’m not out with a client,” Shinsou said evenly, squeezing your thigh under the table, “I’m out with my girlfriend. Which is a greater transgression on your part, wouldn’t you say? We’re done here.” Shinsou nodded once and gave a dismissive wave, and she bolted out of the shop.

Shinsou turned to you, expression soft, posture crumpling, and hands lifting to cup your face, and he babbled apologetically. “Baby, I’m so sorry you had to see that. Mawata’s violated contract before by badgering Kaminari for my personal number, but that doesn’t immediately blacklist her; it got her put on a probation list. I’m sorry. I tried to get rid of her the best I could at first, but it didn’t work, and I’m so fucking sorry you had to see me like that. I would never treat you like that, sweetheart; you mean too much to me. Please believe me when I say that what you saw was just a continuation of the dynamic established between Mawata and me and that I would never—” He cut himself off and rested his forehead against yours. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this.”

Hello! I would like to address girlfriend. Are we going to do that?

(Well, you figured, in the moment in which you cracked your eyes open to watch Shinsou’s unfairly long eyelashes flutter against his cheeks, that using girlfriend was a firm way to establish that Mawata was not wanted there.

Plus, he had said earlier that he hadn’t revealed you were a pseudo-client, so it may have been a confidentiality thing. Even though you never signed anything. That’s Shinsou for you, being a step ahead in caring for you.)

“Hitoshi, it’s fine,” you said, placing your hands over his and bringing them down into your lap, “I get it. You did what you had to. Yes, you scared me a bit, but some part of it was also hot. You let me know you were still there.”

Shinsou pulled back to garner your expression, and, after seeing something that he evidently liked, he bent to put his forehead on your shoulder. “So, the hand on your thigh was good?”

“Very. I appreciate that you did it through clothes for this first try. Not as startling.” Since Shinsou has been so good to you, you bolstered enough courage to comfort him back: you tentatively raised a hand to run it through his hair, scratching at the base of his skull, and the man fucking groaned, snuggling down into your shoulder and getting as close as he could to your neck without going past your collar (you hadn’t gotten to neck stuff yet, which, as you noted it, may be the dumbest fucking thing about yourself). “She mentioned others? I’m assuming other hired doms?”

“More or less,” said Shinsou, his voice grumbling, “I don’t really see much of them. Mostly at the start, when I was learning how to do BDSM stuff myself. Making sure what I was doing was safe. Helped me with legal stuff. I don’t wanna be sued or arrested for any of this, y’know.”

“Don’t tell me Aizawa-sensei’s involved. You can just look at that fucker and tell he’s into tying people up and brat-taming.”

“All right,” said Shinsou with a muffled laugh, “I won’t tell you.”

“Holy shit. That’s our professor—”

“No, c’mon, keep scratching. Go on. Let’s see what I can tell you,” said Shinsou, “He’s never been one of the employees proper, but he has provided some educational materials—yes, on shibari. Thank God someone else is now burdened with this information.”

“Think he was affected from the soulmate quirk?”

“If he does, his soulmate’s in for it,” said Shinsou, whining a bit when you moved away from the base of his skull, and he plopped your hand back there to keep scratching. “He fucking needs someone to take care of. And to take care of him. Fuck, he’s a mess.” He sighed into your shirt. “Speaking of, I’ve got an escort mission with him and the rest of the stealth-focused group in about a week, so we won’t be able to have a proper session. Odds are, I’ll be prepping with the rest of the students, so we won’t see much of each other at all.”

“Remind me who’s studying stealth?”

“Bakugou and Aoyama. Oh, and Todoroki’s been shoved in our group, since he’s hopeless at PR, according to Kayama-sensei. Don’t know how that’ll affect our current group dynamic, but I look forward to working with him. Midoriya can’t say enough good things about him.” Shinsou dragged himself away from your shoulder. “So, I’m sorry we won’t be seeing each other as much. I’ll text you when I can.”

“I’ve got stuff with Present Mic to work on. It’s fine. That just means I get to hang out with Dango instead of you, right?”

“Stop bragging,” he said, and he pointed at the menu as he stood. “Time to tell me your first and second choices for your order. I’ll get the second one, so you can try some of it.”

“Wow, someone’s a slave to routine,” you said, indicating what you wanted, “If I hadn’t seen your performance just then, I’d say that your dom persona is the same as typical Hitoshi.”

His eyes glinted strangely as he smirked and gathered the menus to put them away. “Is it?”

***

HITOSHI 💜🍡

bakugou is bitching about the quality of aoyama’s trail mix

HITOSHI 💜🍡

says it’s shit

HITOSHI 💜🍡

he’s made us trail mix that he considers good. we have spent a considerable amount of this mission prep meeting debating what qualifies good trail mix.

HITOSHI 💜🍡

bakugou, I mean

YOU

idk man i thought aoyama’s trail mix was pretty fucken tasty

HITOSHI 💜🍡

why am I not surprised you’re the one who ate most of it last night

HITOSHI 💜🍡

if they ask where it went, I won’t tell

***

The day of Shinsou’s escort mission, you were out shopping for a plant for him. “I mean, you’re extremely attentive with people and cats,” you were saying, your phone tucked between your ear and shoulder as you checked the price on the bottom of a zinnia starter, “but something tells me you will forget a plant is real.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, jackass,” came Shinsou’s voice over the phone, “I could keep up with something like a succulent. Or bamboo. I bet bamboo would fucking thrive in my dorm.”

“Bamboo requires frequent watering and heavy sunlight, actually,” you said, moving on to non-flowering plants, “So that thing would fucking die the instant it crosses your threshold.”

“Distressing things to hear,” said Shinsou, and you heard Aizawa’s voice and Shinsou’s distant response. “Gotcha. Listen, I’ve got to go. The plane’s scheduled to land in five minutes, so I’ve got to focus. Talk to you later?”

“Of course. Good luck!”

“Thanks. You, too, with the plant. Bye,” he said, but he didn’t hang up. You figured he meant to and just didn’t. Your thumb hovered the end call button, but when you strained to hear Aizawa’s and Bakugou’s voices and Shinsou’s closer replies through the phone, you elected to stay on the call.

Putting it on speaker and into your front pocket, you wandered through the garden section moving into the sheltered area as thunder rumbled, fingering at the textures of leaves, and admiring colours. Having him on speaker like this, even if it were just mission talk, felt like he was here with you, and you haven’t hung out with him in over a week—and now with the frequency of both friend hangouts and soulmate-prep sessions, his absence left you with an emptiness, an ache curling into your gut that pinched at your insides. This morning, you’d awoken feeling like you’d been kicked in the chest, so that’s why you risked calling him, even though he was out on a mission, and when you heard his voice, the ache disappeared.

None of these succulents were bitchy enough.

You covered your mouth as you laughed: what if you got him a fake plant and never told him?

You meandered inside as the rain picked up. Talk about radio signals scrambling came through as you debated the merits of a fake blossom on a fake cactus, and you turned the volume down in case you gave away confidential information to the few other losers in a home improvement store this early in the day. It’s a good thing you did, because otherwise, the sound of the airport explosion would’ve scared someone other than you out of your skin.

You ran back outside where you could yell, even though you might not be heard over the pouring rain. “Hitoshi?! ’Toshi, are you there? Say anything! Please!” He never responded to you, but you could hear yelling—not from him, but from Aizawa, from Bakugou, from Aoyama—and heavy cracking and crumbling you couldn’t tell if it were from a building collapsing or thunder rolling.

God, he’s not going to respond, is he? He didn’t know he’s still on a call—but you can track his location, right? Oh, my—fucking.

Staying on the call on your way back to U.A., you sent Shinsou’s location to Present Mic as soon as you could, saying you were headed back. Mic shot back a thumbs-up, since he couldn’t interrupt your call, said you should go give keep tracking with campus security, and that the location has been the biggest help so far in finding the team. They’re buried underneath airport rubble, and your connection with Shinsou’s phone is the only clue they have. Even if his phone isn’t buried—and it probably isn’t, since it has signal—it’s their best chance so far of being found.

The ride back to U.A. had you jolting at any little outside stimulus (and you had to keep apologising to people on the train for not having headphones), but all you could do once you reached security was keep listening. Ages and ages and ages of faint sirens, pelting rain, and shifting wreckage, with you crying so much that one of the security workers felt bad enough for you that they bought you a drink from a vending machine.

And then—as you’re screwing the lid onto your empty bottle—the crunching of footsteps. A distant, “Oh, sweet,” and the grappling of his leather glove around his phone. But something in your gut told you to keep silent. To keep this to yourself. Glancing over your shoulder to the final, straggling security worker at the far computer, you borrowed a pair of earbuds and hid your phone.

Shinsou must have put his phone in his pocket (the one on the side of his chest, based on how close his voice sounded) without looking at the screen, because the call kept going.

“No, say that again,” came Shinsou’s voice, exasperation prevalent, “What happened while they were underground?”

“Bakugou, Aoyama, and Todoroki were all affected by Serendipity’s quirk, but they’ve worked their way out of it,” said Aizawa, more gruffly than usual, or perhaps that was just the thunderstorm interfering with the sound coming through. “Listen. Don’t ask them for details and just be glad you’d been confined elsewhere. But we’ve got to peel Bakugou off Serendipity’s back before he breaks it and get her to Sakura Grove now.”

The relief at their voices triggered exhaustion, and you slumped in your seat, head down on the desk. God, you’ll take all this bullshit about travelling and escorting to this sakura place or whatever. It’s good to hear him talk. You’d listen in forever, so long as he was there. You couldn’t bring yourself to talk. Something in your gut screamed for you not to.

Actual, informative dialogue picked up when they’d apparently arrived at this Sakura Grove place, rushing through security to find Midnight and the team prepared to control Serendipity. You managed to smile at the sound of all of their boots clacking against tile. Lots of running, it seemed, even before they split up.

Shinsou was the one to find Midnight and frantically updated her, all out of breath. “—and Aizawa-sensei’s got her contained in the main waiting room, but he can’t keep her for much longer—”

“Listen,” Midnight interrupted, “I can’t have Ito and Serendipity be in the same room. Watch her while I take care of this. She can’t do anything more to you, so—” Her voice grew faint.

And at last, silence again.

Eventually, a woman’s voice came over the speaker. “Nice tits.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t stare at my chest,” said Shinsou, and you fucking laughed under your breath, shoulders heaving. You folded your arm to use as a pillow on the desk and smiled loosely as you listened in.

“Who are you? She said Ito, but that doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Yet what she said told me so much.”

Shinsou paused. “What d’you mean?”

“That I can’t do anything more to you. Tells me you’ve met me before. Inhaled my quirk.”

Shinsou took a deep breath, as if to remember. “You broke into U.A.” Heavy exhale. “You ruined my goddamn life.”

“Want to sit down and talk? They’ve set up a lovely sitting room here, really. Seems a shame not to put that great ass to use.”

“Please stop objectifying me,” said Shinsou, sighing (and you could picture him running his hand back through his hair, with it bouncing back instantly), “Fine. Fine, I’ll talk. I know someone who likes having information. I’ve got to kill time, anyway.”

Shuffling. The creak of a chair.

“Why don’t you start with how I’ve ruined your life?”

“Take a fucking look at this.” The sounds of velcro and thick fabric being adjusted, and then silence.

“Okay,” said Ito slowly, “It’s a name.”

“It’s my fucking name, jerkass. Do you have any idea how much sleep I’ve lost over it? How am I supposed to deal with this? Am I doomed to be alone? Am I supposed to cry while jerking off for the rest of my life? Is that what the love I have amounts to? Because—and not that I would fucking want this, but even if there were another Shinsou Hitoshi, it probably wouldn’t be spelled with the same kanji, so fuck with that, if you will.”

More fabric shuffling, as Ito spoke. “I bet it would be difficult to find another Shinsou written as chastity and honest.”

“Yeah, my parents are insane. Bet they’d be disappointed in me, if they knew what I was doing concerning chastity and honesty. Has your quirk created something like this before? Is there a way to fix me?” Shinsou’s voice cracked.

“Well, let’s backtrack. There may not be anything to fix.”

“So, you have seen this before?”

“No, but I’d like to cover all my bases,” said Ito, “How bad is the pain? Are you at the level where you pass out yet?”

A beat. “What pain?” Another. “Stop staring at my tits. Pecs.”

“This is funny. You’re funny.” You could hear the smile in Ito’s voice. “Good thing I like funny. I crave funny. Did you know I have no contact with the outside world except through letters?”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“They keep packets of cheese crackers somewhere in one of these drawers. Will you help me find some?”

Shuffling. Wooden drawers opening and shutting. Crinkling of plastic.

“You’re not feeling the pain because you’ve already met your soulmate,” said Ito through a mouthful of cheese cracker, “If you hadn’t met them, you’d be in fuckin’ agony. All achy, and shit.”

“I can hardly see how I could avoid meeting myself.”

“Okay, cut the bullshit, smartass. My quirk doesn’t work like that, unless you’re attracted to yourself.”

The sound of chewing, up close and personal. “God, no. I hate myself.”

“Then you have a soulmate, and you’ve met them. Easy as that.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” said Shinsou.

“Oh, get fucked. You’re a young hero affected by my quirk, who has associations with Midnight, and you haven’t read my team’s notes on my quirk? You’re not employing all your resources,” said Ito, crunching.

“Someone who read it told me pertinent details,” Shinsou protested.

“Not pertinent to you, it appears. Not that it matters how my quirk works, I suppose. Just be assured that you have a soulmate who’s not you, and you’ve met them. Since you’re not feeling any pain at all, it sounds like they’ve accepted you in some way. Acknowledged you with some sign of affection. Depending on how obvious they are, you may be an idiot.”

“Fuck,” came Shinsou’s whisper, “I’ve been in some…situations recently. There are a number of candidates.” Crinkling of plastic and chewing. “But I still don’t get how my own name as a soulmark works.”

“Bitch, you’re overthinking.”

And Shinsou laughed. Hard. Hearing it made up for all the distress you’ve been under today. His laugh always sounded a bit higher than his speaking voice, like it hasn’t been through as much or like it’s well-rested.

“Got a preference for who it is?” Ito asked.

Shinsou swallowed thickly. “Yeah.”

“Perfect. Then we can start from there. I can help you find out who it is, by process of elimination.”

“Hey, give me your trash.” Footsteps, there and back again, and the sinking back into the cushy chair. “Why would you help me? You’re a villain, and I’m a trainee-hero you just met.”

“Whatever is going on with you is pathetic and hilarious, and like I said, I like funny. What’s more, I like conclusions to stories,” she said, “and yours, I feel, is going to be marvellously, gloriously stupid. I wanna hear it when it happens.”

Shifting in his seat. “You can get letters? All right.” More shifting. “But what if my soulmark is broken, and I don’t have an ending?”

“Okay, then I’ll take payment now.”

“I think I want to back out—”

“Relax, asshole. I’ll help you,” said Ito, “All you have to do is describe what body part on a woman you prefer.”

“That’s all?”

A beat. “You look like a feet guy.”

“I do fucking not.”

“You’ve got the mouth for it.”

It sounded like Shinsou pushed himself up out of his chair. “Y’know, I think I can live without your help.”

“My dude, I have already established that I am desperate for humour in my life, and even from our brief interaction, you have revealed yourself to be wonderful to tease. Sorry for accusing you of being a foot fetishist. Didn’t mean it. Sit back down?”

A pause. He must have sat and chosen his words carefully. “You usually shield your chest or genitals when someone’s threatening you when you’re physically vulnerable, yeah? What’s left unprotected, though…I like to take advantage of the vulnerability of an exposed neck. Sensual and intimate. Satisfying. I’m betting—kissing the back of it, even when she expects is, is going to make her jump out of her skin. I can’t fucking wait. Hey, don’t look at me like that.”

“Something’s wrong with you. Really.”

“I happen to be—normal. Normal and well-adjusted.”

“You’re into necks and not into choking?” Ito tutted. “Even with your BDSM hero costume?”

“Choking is when something’s caught inside your throat. Technically, what people have taken to doing in bed is a type of strangulation.”

“Way to bring the conversation down, fusspot.”

“I did what you asked and answered honestly,” said Shinsou, “I think we should skip the rest of the part in which you make fun of me and proceed to where you actually help.”

“Sure. First, we’ll need an airtight container.” Another pause.

Shinsou made a frustrated noise. “If you’re really that desperate to stare at men’s tits, my friend Bakugou is in the lobby, and his are way bigger than mine.”

“No, it’s—I get that you’re all posh, since you’re a U.A. student, but I’m assuming even a hero’s BDSM costume isn’t supposed to glow in the chest area. Or at least, only one side of it.”

“What are you—oh, shit, that’s my—”

The call ended.

***

What were you supposed to do? Pretend you weren’t on the phone, obviously, but moreover, how could you possibly help Shinsou find his soulmate when his soulmark was his own name?

Monoma was no help solving anything, but at least he was good company when everyone else was making out (you missed when people played video games in public instead of dry-humping). He and you were caring for Eri that afternoon, since Aizawa, Shinsou, and the rest had to go in for documentation.

Eri pressed a pawprint sticker (from that cat café Aizawa frequented) onto your cheek. “They’re in love,” she said.

“Who?” Monoma asked from his place on the floor, lying down with his legs straight up to rest against the couch.

“Konpeito and Dango,” she said, pointing to the two cats cuddling together on the middle couch cushion, “See how they’re yin and yang?” From above, she was right, ish. Konpeito and Dango certainly had the swish-shapes fitting together in a circle, if not the entirely correct colourings.

“I’m glad they finally went to sleep,” you said, choosing a coffee mug sticker for Eri to put on you next.

Eri nodded gravely. “If Dad-sensei finds the pottery pieces in the trash, I’ll tell him a shark did it. I don’t want him to make Konpeito move out.”

Monoma caught your eye and stifled a laugh, but you didn’t know if it were for Dad-sensei or the shark. “Eri,” he said, checking his phone for the time, “Do you know what’s going on with the room at the end of the hall?”

Frowning, Eri pursed her lips. “Dad-sensei lives there. Is something wrong with it?”

“I should’ve been more specific; I apologise. I meant the empty that been used for storage so far, on the other side where no one goes,” said Monoma, stowing his phone in his pocket, “Room 310, I think. It’s okay if you don’t know, Eri.”

“Oh,” said Eri, peeling off the coffee mug sticker, “I don’t know much. Dad-sensei and All Might-sensei have been talking about it sometimes.” She smoothed it out across the inside of your forearm. “I think someone like me is going to move into that room, but not for a long, long time from now. I hope they like cats. Can I see your words again?”

Monoma shared a sympathetic look with you and became busy with bothering the cats, allowing you the space to stretch the neck of your shirt down far enough to the middle of your left shoulder blade for Eri to read your soulmark.

“Ice princess,” she said, bafflement creeping in, “That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I know, kiddo,” you said, “but I used to be a bit mean. It used to fit me.”

“When?”

“When I first started going to U.A.,” you said, “Before the first sports festival, especially. Even though I was shy, I remember being very protective of the few friends I’d made in 1-A at that point. Maybe I had a bad day and was mean about it. Mean about the way I was protecting my friends, or something. I don’t really know, Eri. I don’t know what my soulmark means.”

“Can I copy it? I want to practise writing ice princess.” At your consent, she told you to wait while she got some paper, and you waited more while she carefully copied down the kanji for that part of your soulmark. She presented the paper to you when she was done.

Cute. Adorable. Her basic penmanship made your confusing, harsh words into something endearing. Except. “Hey, Eri, I think you’ve written the kanji for forever here, instead of ice. See how you’ve put two little strokes at the top? Ice only has one.”

“Oh! Thank you very much. The handwriting on your back is all squished, so it’s hard to see all the strokes.” She corrected her kanji on the sheet at the same time that Monoma’s head snapped towards yours, both pairs of eyes bulging (clown to clown communication).

Handwriting.

Eri carefully copied the corrected kanji again and stopped to admire her writing. “Even if you don’t understand it, I still think it’s good.” She wrote her name at the bottom and turned the paper around to show the both of you. “Do I get a soulmate someday?”

You hid your sorrow, and Monoma answered for you. “I hope to God you don’t.”

***

Instead of breaking off towards Class B’s dormitory after dinner, like he normally did, Monoma followed you up the stairs of Class A’s dorm.

“Ah, ha, who are you going to see? Shinsou and I have a movie night,” you said, lying about the session you were going to his room for, “so you must have made a friend.”

“Hilarious. A lie and an attempt at a blow to my ego,” said Monoma, stuffing his hands in his pockets, as he trotted up the stairs behind you, “No, I’m attending Shinsou’s little session, the same as you are.”

“Fuck it all to hell,” you said, halting on the top step, “Did everyone know about that except for me?”

“Chill, I learnt about it two days ago when Shinsou asked for my help. Keep going; he’ll explain it when we get there,” said Monoma, passing you to hold the stairway door open.

Shinsou was waiting for the both of you. He opened his door before you could knock twice and ushered you in. You expected Monoma to make some comment about Shinsou’s clothes (you think he’s got outfits on rotation, but since a fair chunk of his wardrobe is black, anyway, it’s hard to tell) or his serious vibes, but Monoma didn’t say a word or make any condescending expressions. For once, it seemed, he was quiet and subdued, hands in his pockets and standing behind you, waiting.

“Monoma’s here to help,” said Shinsou, stepping forward to curl his long fingers into your hair, scratching gently at your scalp (your eyes fluttered shut, and you struggled to keep them from crossing and rolling back; you have definitely been denying yourself the simple pleasure of someone playing with your hair: safe but immensely satisfying), “If you don’t want him here, or if you don’t want him to see a thing you do, he’s out of here before anything can happen. Either way, he’s sworn to secrecy about this entire ordeal. He owes me, and I’m paying him. And I know you already feel fairly comfortable around him. He’s on his better-than-best behaviour.”

“I trust you,” you said, and Shinsou pulled this strange move where he lifted his hands just barely while he was still cupping your head to scratch it, and you rose to your tiptoes to follow him—the move, paired with his blunt nails on your scalp, had you feeling lightheaded, and you’ve only been here for about a minute (calm the fuck down, babe). “If you think Monoma will help me grow, then I’ll do it. Within reason.”

“All right. You can back out at any time, remember? Okay. Monoma, you first. On the bed.”

On the bed? Are you sure, Shinsou?

Monoma peeled off his TinTin socks and climbed onto Shinsou’s bed to sit at the head of it, and he contorted himself to pull his phone out of his back pocket to set it on the bedside table.

“Go on, then,” Shinsou said softly, prodding your lower back, “Sit between his legs. Just like you’ve done for me.”

Oof. Someone other than Shinsou? I mean. You guessed if it had to be someone other than Shinsou, you’d be the most comfortable around Monoma, but still. It’s as if there’s a heightened layer of friendship with you and Shinsou; it’s different than the relationship you have with Monoma and the relationships with other guys. Somehow, this felt weird.

“Okay, boss,” you said as a joke, and you watched Monoma for any of his many micro-expressions for a shred of disdain or judgment, as if he would tease you for calling Shinsou a title in a sensual/sexual context, even as a joke, but Monoma’s face was placid. No outward signs of malice. Instead, he made room for you between his legs, silent and languid all the way.

“Hee hoo ha,” you said instead of actually laughing, a knee on the mattress. “I suppose you’re aware that this is, like, second base for me. For the state I’m in. I’m fuckin’ calling you Neito from now on, now that you’re witnessing me being a slut.”

There’s no snide comment. Eyes-half lidded, Monoma calmly nodded, resting his hands on his thighs. “If that’s what you want.”

Oh, holy shit. Shinsou must have talked to him about how sensitive/delicate you were about this situation. Either that, or the pay is just that good.

Worried, you glanced back at Shinsou, but he just gestured with a loose flick of his fingers for you to keep going. So, you found yourself easing into a different man’s arms, and it’s instantly a list of comparisons: thighs still framing your pelvis but nowhere nearly as thick or long as Shinsou’s (and that tracked with what Monoma’s told you about how he wants a twink gymnast’s physique for his manoeuvrability in battle, along with Shinsou’s having seven centimetres on Monoma height-wise), somehow colder than Shinsou, not giving off as much body heat, his chin not fitting as well into the divot on your shoulder as Shinsou’s did—but his arms slid around your waist the same way Shinsou’s did, down to the positioning of what hand overlapped on top—Shinsou must have given specific instructions.

You figured that you don’t feel as safe as you feel when Shinsou’s holding you because Shinsou was bigger than you: bigger in presence, really, over physicality—though certain parts of him were objectively bigger, like how fucking long his fingers were and the overall size of his hands. Monoma, though, didn’t give as much of a large presence, but Monoma had said before that being unimposing and nimble worked better for him strategically. Either way.

Wow, yeah, Monoma really was holding you just like Shinsou did, without space between your legs and his, with his arms snugly around the upper curve of your waist, and his mouth pressed—but not puckered or kissing (a polite boy)—to your shoulder, on the shirt collar as close to the bare skin of your neck as possible without touching it.

“Fishy,” you said, glaring at Shinsou while tapping Monoma’s hand at your waist.

“I’m glad you noticed. Good detail work,” said Shinsou as he stowed away the Put Your Hands Up Radio laptop sleeve, and he crawled onto his bed.

As Shinsou pulled up a movie, you panicked and snapped your head back to look at Monoma. “Hey, are you okay with this? I don’t wanna impose on you if—”

“I’m fine,” said Monoma, blinking slowly, “I haven’t been told everything, because that’s your business, but I can garner that this is very important to you. And since you’re comfortable around me—though I don’t think anyone will ever lower your walls like Shinsou does—I knew I could do this for you. If it were anyone else besides me, you wouldn’t be as comfortable. Worry about me if you want, but it’ll be misplaced.”

You faced the front again and grimaced. “You two are acting fucking insane.”

Shinsou looked away from the screen for a moment. “No, baby,” he said, tapping the top of your foot, “We’re being careful. You deserve to be handled delicately.”

You didn’t know if it were his usage of baby or the skin-to-skin touch on your bare foot that made you jolt. Probably both.

(Because while you’ve been getting used to Shinsou touching you, it’s all been very face-waist-shoulders-arms. His hands haven’t gone below your stomach or to your boobs. So, yeah, while it was just your foot, he hasn’t been around that area yet. Startling.)

“If you say so,” you muttered, and you pressed back against Monoma, as if hiding from Shinsou’s comment—and, to be fair, the careful attention to you felt unusual, especially now that it was someone beyond Shinsou. “What are you going to do? Why have you got Monoma—”

You cut yourself off with a sharp inhale, chest tight and shoulders tense, when Shinsou placed his hands on your knees, and he said, “I want you to get used to a man between your legs.” Carefully watching your expression, Shinsou slowly parted your legs, keeping his hands near your knees and low on your thighs, and he crawled up to lie on his stomach between them, resting, for a moment, on his elbows, propping him upright on either side of your hips.

And you were fucking panicking. You’d steeled your expression the best you could, since Shinsou was watching, but you broke and couldn’t control it; your visible facial distress, you supposed, was hardly the giveaway when you were already stiff and tense, heart pounding, one hand gripping Monoma’s wrist so tightly his bones might grind together, pressing back into him while subtly backing away from Shinsou.

When Shinsou (pausing briefly but continuing, more cautiously, when you didn’t say anything) moved to wrap his arms around your hips and settled down against you to rest his head on your stomach, your breathing picked up, and your chest started heaving.

(C’mon, baby, it’s just a guy’s presence between your thighs. He’s not even touching you in a sexual way. He’s just there. You’ve even got the security of an extra friend, grounding you by touching you in a familiar way. Neither of these people [you weren’t even thinking of them as someone who might see you as a romantic or sexual target, but just as people] has ever done anything sincerely malevolent to you. By all accounts, you should be safe.

It shouldn’t be anything. It really shouldn’t be affecting you this much. Right?

[But when purity culture has been gnawing at you for a lifetime, it can be a lot just to spread your legs, let alone have someone between them.]

Damn Shinsou for being right.)

And Shinsou was peeling himself away from your stomach, reaching up to hold your face, to comfort you, to assure you it’s all right; he can move; you can do this another time or not at all, but it’s not really working. You kept squirming between both of them, unsure if you truly wanted to get away or be touched in a different way or anything at all: your brain had resorted to irrational anxiety.

In the back of your head, a reasonable voice noted that both of them were taking good care of you and that it made no sense for you to be writhing about like this (why weren’t you saying anything?!), but that voice never got loud enough for you to obey.

“Stay with me, sweetheart; stay here,” Shinsou was saying, moving back into a kneeling position to avoid physical contact with you where he could (but with the scant space, he could hardly avoid touching your thighs), shifting to hold only one of your hands, which he grasped desperately. “I’m gonna walk you through a grounding exercise, okay? And then when you’re ready, we can talk.”

Behind you, Monoma had been keeping a neutral presence, erasing himself when he couldn’t imitate Shinsou, and while he’d retracted his arms from around you so that you could escape, you were still trying to hide, almost, by retreating back against him. You caught it out of the corner of your eye but didn’t process the meaning until later: Monoma subtly manoeuvred his foot to graze Shinsou’s bare ankle.

And Monoma’s voice blended with Shinsou’s, warm breath ghosting over your ear. “Are you listening? You with us? Do you need us to go?”

You didn’t have any answers, and it was killing you. “I don’t know.”

It’d barely left your mouth before Monoma spoke. “Relax.”

Your brain emptied.

As if it unhinged itself from a latch and now hung loosely.

Into a comfortable, distant trance.

Body going limp. Muscles losing tension, as if you’d submerged yourself up to your chin in a hot bath. As if the tight spring that’s been coiled underneath your ribcage your whole life has now been reshaped by the touch of a forge you haven’t known, the hot, bright, molten metal oozing before it’s moulded into a gentler form. Your eyes fluttered closed, feeling a faint throbbing in the roof of your mouth.

You weren’t thinking, and it felt good.

You were barely able to hang onto even that observation, and therefore, you later had grace for yourself for not understanding what was happening between Shinsou and Monoma at the moment. In your floating, weightless distance, you absorbed the conversation but didn’t process it until much, much later.

You couldn’t be worried about their argument when you’d been told to relax, so the last hint of concern flew out of you before Shinsou ripped Monoma off of you and onto the floor. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Shinsou was whisper-shouting, his splayed hand pinning Monoma to the rug, “What the fuck? She’s never felt my quirk before; I’ve sworn I’d never use it on her, because it’d be—what the fuck is wrong with you, man? You said you’d fucking do what I said.”

Monoma was scrambling out from under Shinsou’s grip, and he let him go. “Fuck it, you never—you never told me that.”

“I didn’t think I’d have to? Jesus Christ, Monoma—”

“You saw her.” Monoma scowled and crossed his arms, plopping himself down in the desk chair. “I could feel her freaking out before you could see it, and it’s fucking heartbreaking, y’know? I didn’t—I felt fucking sorry for her and wanted her to be okay. That’s not a goddamn crime.”

“You forced her. You took away her agency and fucking forced—”

“Have you taken a look at her lately?” Monoma jerked his head in your direction. “Heard her talk about her soulmark? About her life recently? She’s only getting more stressed the longer this goes on. I want her to be able to relax, and I saw that I could give that to her.”

Shinsou paused, pinching his lower lip between his thumb and index finger.

Monoma went on. “Listen, I’m sorry. And I’ll apologise to her once she comes back down, but honestly, I think she deserves the time away from this. I know she’s your girl, but she’s my friend, too, and I want her to have some shred of peace.”

Shinsou frowned. “Don’t say that. She’s not—she can’t be my girl; she’s got a soulmate out there.”

Scoffing, Monoma waved a dismissive hand. “Shut up. You were fucking showing off earlier when you were scratching her head. How you made her follow your hands when you lifted them. That’s some infatuated shit right there.” He ran his tongue over his lower lip. “You teach her to do that?”

Shinsou tentatively sat next to you on the bed—and you, floating somewhere distant, still registered his weight sinking into the mattress and his hand near your face without touching it. “I hope not,” he said, brow furrowed, “I…I generally enjoy being a bad influence, but in her case, I’m terrified that I actually am.” He raised his hand to cup your face, but he withdrew, fingers hesitantly curling into his palm. “I don’t want her to change to please me or anyone else.”

At this point, your vision started to black out, spots creeping in at your periphery. You have no recollection of what you did next, but considering how both Monoma and Shinsou avoided your gaze when you asked about it later, you must’ve actually done what they said. You apparently took his hand in both of yours to play with his long fingers and said in a slightly slurred voice, “You sound nervous. Don’t be nervous.” And you promptly stuck his first two fingers in your mouth, taking them as far back as you could go and sucking.

An alarmed Shinsou, mindful of your teeth, removed them as quickly as he could, but neither he nor Monoma could erase their looks of shock before you dozed off.

***

You’d woken up nine hours later, with Shinsou asleep on the floor next to the bed and Monoma sleeping upright in the chair, arms crossed. They’d stumbled over each other in their apologies, but since you were feeling more well-rested than you have for the last ten years, you couldn’t bring yourself to be truly mad. Irritated, sure, but that’s inevitable.

You nibbled on the thumbprint cookies Monoma had made for you in the interim while they both empathically apologised, over and over and over. You still weren’t all the way there, but it was on purpose this time.

Because Shinsou’s quirk had felt absolutely fucking fantastic. And he’s been keeping it from you.

You’re confused, really, because if it’s got that mind-numbing pleasure tint to it, why’s he doling it out to others but not you? He’s said recently that he didn’t want you to get dependent on it, but that’s…that’s only an excuse he’s given since the soulmate incident. Otherwise, he just hasn’t, with no explanation. Has he leaked a clue somewhere along the way?

Nevertheless. His quirk had sponge-dabbed at your brain, washing and making it new while you were under its control. Your mind has felt cluttered and cramped for years, and his quirk ushered in spring cleaning, opening windows and letting in light.

Oh, no.

***

YOU

i found your so-called dom hype playlist. you didn’t even make it private!!!

YOU

why is it just the naruto soundtrack over and over again

HITOSHI 💜🍡

it makes me feel powerful :(

***

Though your gut was urging you to stay, you wanted nothing more than to go home.

Classes 3-A and 3-B had an undercover mission in four days, with all of you sectioned off into teams for quashing PLF bases spread across the country. One of the base locations was a high-end club, and those who were assigned there (Asui and Todoroki) had never been to a club before, a group of you were at a club tonight to help them get used to the environment.

Still early in the night, you had been among the few who hadn’t the courage to go dance first thing, so you had volunteered to guard bags and coats at the enormous table you’d commandeered towards the back, away from the music, close to the bar, and now with mismatched chairs shoved closely to make enough space.

Shinsou was only just now finally getting back from the crowded bar, his beer and your pink lemonade in hand, with Ojiro in tow, babbling and gesturing wildly.

You moved your bag so that Shinsou could sink into the blue leather loveseat next to you, and he nodded towards you, staying engaged in Ojiro’s conversation. Oh, yikes, Hagakure was there, too; you just didn’t see her—she’s strategically wearing something nearly translucent.

Thumbing at the condensation, you stared into your glass, cloud-shaped ice bobbing in pink, when Hagakure (presumably) grabbed Ojiro’s face to kiss him, and his tongue appeared to be inside her mouth. Shinsou glanced towards you, checking in, and when you made a mild, furtive look of oof, he leaned in towards you.

(“A club? We should go,” Shinsou had said, nudging your shoulder with his, “I want you to practise a greater level of casual touching while in public.”

“But we’ll be with our classmates this time,” you’d said, slumping down onto the picnic blanket you’d spread out on the roof of Class B’s dorm, “They’ll notice.”

Shinsou had flicked a straw wrapper into your hair. “Sure. And then it won’t be such an abrupt surprise when you do it with your soulmate.”

You’d rolled away from him, taking some of the picnic blanket with you. “But what if they see me be vulnerable?”

“I’ll keep that from happening. You have the perfect cop-out, too: you can always claim you were drunk.”

You’d peeled one of the heels of your palms from your eyes. “I…guess. I guess.”

“Anything you want to do to me is fine,” Shinsou had said, tearing the blanket away from you and smoothing it out again, “But I want you to start thinking about something else we’ll try soon. I’m giving you the choice of what to do, since it’ll be a bit more intense.”

“Intense?”

“Ah.” Giving up, Shinsou had shaken his head and had lain down next to you. “I misspoke. Intimate would’ve probably been better.”

You’d sighed and flipped towards him. “Lay it on me.”

Shinsou had counted off on his fingers, starting with his pinkie to irritate you. “Skinny dipping. I’d ensure no one could walk in on us, and I wouldn’t look at you, if you didn’t want me to. We could play strip poker or variations thereof—and once again, we could play it in some way that I wouldn’t be able to see you if you didn’t want, but you’d get used to being—being less clothed in the presence of a man.”

“That’s assuming I’d lose.”

Shinsou had cracked a smile. “So it is. Or I could undress you, and I—I could wear a blindfold, or something, if you didn’t—”

“Do you have one handy?”

Shinsou had propped his chin on his fist. “Do you even have to ask?”

“Any other options?”

Here Shinsou had looked away, instead staring into the night sky. “I—I was considering, if you’d let me, touching your boobs as an option, but that felt like a level more intense than the others. More personal. And I’ve concluded you aren’t there yet. Or at the point at which you could try sitting on my lap to get me hard.”

“Hitoshi, you’re insane. You’re going at it from too many angles.”

“Nah,” Shinsou had said, tilting his head towards you, “I want you to be comfortable, however we do this.”)

Shinsou’s hot breath unfurled down your neck as he whispered, “Use me. In any way you want.”

You smacked him in the chest, and he winced, clutching the spot as he grinned at you. “That’s fair,” he said.

For a while, the back table housed only Hagakure, probably grinding on Ojiro’s lap, Ojiro, whose tail shot straight up and stayed there, and you and Shinsou, smushed together on the leather loveseat, talking in hushed tones, starting with when he was going to return your copy of Fire and Hemlock and somehow ending up at which pokemon the top pro-heroes would eat.

When the others settled around the table in a break from dancing, you low-key mourned the loss of the privacy you’d had with Shinsou; it had been kind of cool that in this deafening, crowded place that you and Shinsou had had a moment alone, even with a couple actively making out beside you. No one else could fit on the loveseat, but even with enough space elsewhere, some soulmate-bound couples still overlapped, like how Mina and Kirishima were squished together in one chintz armchair and how Jirou had her legs splayed over Yaoyorozu’s lap in the next folding chair over.

You zoned out for a while—everyone else was talking at once, anyway, so that gave you leave to consider if Hawks would have a preferred evolution of Pigeot to deep-fry. But you were snapped back into reality when Aoyama suggested that the group should play truth or dare.

“Fuck no,” said Sero, slapping a hand over Kaminari’s mouth, “How old are we? Where are we? Get your head out of your ass.”

“And we’ve otherwise been working our asses off doing the boring prep for this mission, Sero, and we’re supposed to be having fun tonight, anyway,” said Mina, her tongue darting out to lick the salt around the rim of her glass, “I think we should.”

“I don’t want—look, it always goes the same way,” said Sero, and he let his hand fall from Kaminari’s mouth but still gripped his shoulder in a tight threat. “It’s either you get dared to perform some fuckin’ gross or sexual act, or you have to tell everyone who you like. We’ve moved past primary school, so I’m not—”

“Then we just change the base rules.” Kaminari didn’t bother dodging Sero’s thwack to his head. “We make it sort of reversed. Where truth is the more dangerous one to pick, and dare is extremely low stakes. There’s super personal shit that no one needs to know that I’m dying to know about some of you.” Kaminari lowered his heart-shaped glasses and stared pointedly across the table at Iida, Uraraka, you, and Shinsou in turn.

Kaminari’s proposal assuaged most issues the table had, so it came down to you and Shinsou as the ones still not wanting to play.

“Too dangerous,” said Shinsou, leaning back with his arms folded behind his head, “There are things that are my business only.”

“Yeah,” you said, sucking in through your teeth, “I’m not—I’m not into this. Plus, I’m really tired already, and, like, if we have to play something, can’t we think of a better game to play? This is—this is so fucking cliché.”

“Never mind,” Shinsou said quickly, giving you a strange look and letting his arms fall to his lap as he sat up straight, “I desperately want to play truth or dare. In fact, I demand it.”

Laughing, Kaminari reached over the table for Midoriya’s drained beer bottle (having to wrestle it from his grasp) and cleared out a space for it in the middle of the table, while you shrunk down in your seat, wishing you’d brought a book. Because—the bottle was spun—it could keep landing on the same person, meaning more focus could be on a single person than in a turn-based version of the game.

With the bottle landing first on Todoroki, Kaminari pulled no punches once truth was chosen: “Of your three closest friends, would you fuck any of them?”

Contrary to everyone else, Todoroki hardly reacted, instead his brow furrowing in thought. “I’m so fortunate to have so many friends,” he said carefully, “I’m not quite certain who would consider themselves closest to me.”

Uraraka grinned. “Well, who would you consider the closest?”

“Gracious,” said Todoroki, blinking, “I’m very lucky. My friends are so good to me. I—”

“Is he dodging the question or genuinely being weird about it?” Kirishima asked.

“Oh,” said Todoroki, “Well. My answer would be yes, I suppose. It would be wonderful that they’d believe themselves close enough to me to consider asking.”

“You fascinate me,” said Mina, reaching over to pat him on the head, “I want to study you like a bug in a jar.”

“You wouldn’t initiate?” Sero asked over Todoroki’s spinning the bottle, and Todoroki shook his head. “Valid.”

When it landed on Uraraka, she chose dare. “Hm,” said Todoroki, “Low stakes. I…You are dared to rest your head on Midoriya’s shoulder.”

Nearly in his lap, Uraraka was already almost doing that, anyway, so she complied.

From then on, you wanted to melt into the cracks in the floor and evaporate, even though the bottle hadn’t landed on you. All of the questions weren’t being phrased in a way that could fit someone like you—all questions assumed everyone’s had sex already, that everyone has some sort of sordid, sexual history, and good God, it sounded like everyone present did, to an extent (except for, perhaps, Todoroki, whose answers only spurred more questions). Even if their only sexual partner were their soulmate, the picture was painted that everyone was doing what you considered, to put it mildly, risky.

The most bizarre place Kaminari has jerked off was in a sewer, while he was staking out a suspect, with Pro-Hero Manual not far down the path. Midoriya’s favourite sex positions had to be looked up by the rest of the table, so for a delightful moment while Midoriya glowed beet red, everyone else hunched over their phones. Mina has given head in the recording booth for Put Your Hands Up Radio (“Everything was turned off, guys—except for Eijiro.”). Jirou would rather orgasm during oral rather than actual intercourse, and out of on a beach, a plane, or in the bathroom of a high-end restaurant, Yaoyorozu would prefer to have sex on a beach, because—she added unnecessarily—she’ll never have sex on a plane or bathroom again. After hearing that Kaminari would kill to muzzle someone, you concluded that you may be living in a different reality than the rest of your friends, and then the bottle pointed towards you.

You didn’t want to play. You didn’t want to admit anything. You didn’t even know what they’d get out of you—besides the fact that you’re a big-ass virgin, you supposed, and that would only open the floor to an awkward soulmate explanation. “Dare,” you said, sighing.

Narrowing his eyes, Kaminari tilted his head. The only other dares so far had been Uraraka’s head-resting and Sero to hold hands with Iida, which they were still doing, hands on the table between their drinks (Iida had made them swop seats so that his dominant hand could be free). “Riiiiight. I dare you to sit in Shinsou’s lap.”

Do what.

Shinsou turned towards you, brow furrowed with a quirk of the corner of his mouth to check if you were okay with it, if you were comfortable, and you sighed again, your shoulders heaving. “I guess,” you said, and you started to shift over but halted mid-movement. “Sit in lap how? Sideways? Straddling? Other way I don’t know?”

Eyes flicking around the table before settling back on you, Shinsou opened his arms and said, “Sideways is fine. I’ll help you—and don’t worry; you’re not bothering me.”

Holding your breath under everyone’s gaze, you climbed into his lap, crawling across his legs and then flipping, your ass mostly on one of his thighs while your legs draped across his other leg and into your old seat, and—holy fuck, Shinsou’s thighs were so thick that you sat a little taller than he did; you could put your chin on top of his head if you really wanted to, oh, my God. What the fuck. Shinsou must have seen the incredulity in your expression, because he guided one of your arms around his shoulders, to fit more comfortably in the space, while he wrapped an arm around your hips to stabilise you, fingers lightly pressing at a belt loop of your jeans, and with his other hand, he held yours in your own lap.

Jesus fucking Christ. You’re not going to make it out alive.

You needed time to process this, but you were denied it; you had to ask a question to Uraraka, since the bottle had landed on her again, and so you popped out what the table groaned to be the lamest question of the night: “Who’s in your ideal celebrity threesome?”

“Huh.” Uraraka steepled her fingers together. “Togashi Yoshihiro, in his prime…and Hawks.”

Kirishima screwed up his face. “Who the hell is Togashi—”

“He’s the mangaka for Hunter x Hunter,” said Todoroki pointedly, before closing his lips around the straw in his mostly drained strawberry daquiri and making a strident suction sound against the glass.

Kirishima screwed up his face more. “I get that writing a shounen manga can be manly, but why else would you choose specifically—”

“Because he pulled Takeuchi Naoko, the mangaka for Sailor Moon, even with his filthy apartment, poor fashion choices, bad posture, and questionable hygiene. The dick must be insane, in a rat-boy sort of way,” Uraraka was saying, running her hands through Midoriya’s hair, “Plus, he’ll feel insecure in comparison to perpetually charismatic Hawks, so there will be some sort of pathetic, competitive air to the sexual encounter.”

And then Uraraka was spinning the bottle, thank God, so any involvement with you ended. Shinsou—he could probably hear your fucking heartbeat going crazy from being paid attention from everyone else in a sexual context—rubbed his thumb over the back of your hand, softly smiling up at you to calm you down, and something inside you caved. You had the impulse to curl into him, to close your eyes and press your mouth to his hairline, to ignore the rest of the group until it was time to go (Shinsou would keep you safe), but you couldn’t obey it, because the bottle pointed towards…you and Shinsou.

Squeezing your hand, Shinsou steeled himself (thighs flexing underneath you) and said, “That’s me. I don’t believe I’m in any position to complete a dare at the moment, so. Truth.”

“Oh, fabulous,” said Uraraka, clapping her hands once, “There’s so much I’ve been waiting to get out of you. What’s the most pertinent…hm.”

“Want some help?” asked Mina, leaning over Kirishima’s bicep and the armrest, holding her drink at a hazardous angle (Kirishima lifted it out of her hand to set it on the table when Mina leant further away).

After Mina had whispered in Uraraka’s ear for a minute, Uraraka returned her attention to Shinsou, biting the inside of her cheek to conceal her delight but practically beaming regardless. “What’s the most you’ve ever made someone come in one night?”

Shinsou’s eyebrows shot upward, his tongue flicking over his lower lip (and you tensed up. The hand at your hip squeezed it gently). “One night? Fourteen.”

“What the fuck.”

“That can’t be true. You’re fucking making that up.”

“With toys? With your quirk, right?”

“No quirk. Not really,” said Shinsou, bowing his head slightly, and he bit his lower lip, his teeth showing for a second when his lip curled in. “I happen to be very, very, very good with my mouth.”

Silence. In it, Shinsou briefly released your hand to spin the bottle himself, and he took it again as the bottle turned, threading his fingers through yours. Blankly, he bumped his forehead against your shoulder, like a cat, before a tired, half-grin stretched across his face. You returned it, fighting the urge to play with his hair.

But then your luck ran out for the next year or so. Perhaps your whole lifetime. For some reason, the bottle kept landing on you and/or Shinsou, and he kept speaking up to save you from answering. The relief and gratitude that flooded you each time Shinsou covered for you only made you wish you could do something for him, too—you could rent his favourite Everest documentary from the library again, get those bizarre sour jawbreakers from the Mom ’n’ Pop gas station in his home district…lie with him in your bed…play with his hair before he puts the mousse in…

What was his favourite position to give oral?

“Kneeling,” Shinsou said so quickly it was a bit startling, and he shifted underneath you, sitting forward. “Kneeling, with them on the edge of their seat, legs spread a bit too widely than what they’re comfortable with for them so that they feel exposed. They can’t touch me unless I let them, and I won’t. They have to ask permission to look.”

Okay, bucko, a follow-up of how you like to receive oral?

“I don’t, generally,” said Shinsou, tilting his head, “because if it’s about me, then my partner isn’t getting as much pleasure as they should be getting. But if they insist, it’s however they want to.”

No, idiot, this isn’t about your partners. This is about you.

“Fuck you. I have to be lying down, or close to it, because my knees tend to buckle if I come from oral.”

If your partner were going to send you a video, what could they do to make it turn you on the most?

“Oh, huh.” Shinsou shifted so that he could scratch the back of his head, and you moved your arm out of the way for the gesture. “First of all, I wouldn’t want my partner to send me anything like that. No nudes, or anything. Because that’s private. That’s intimate. That could get leaked or hacked, and really, her body would be for my eyes only,” said Shinsou, his eyes half-lidded, “In addition, odds are that any video wouldn’t live up to the real thing, so I wouldn’t want it. Just makes the ache worse. Besides, I’m the only one allowed to tease.”

You’re ridiculous. Fine, if the video would never be shared with anyone else, guaranteed, and it lived up to seeing them in person, what would that look like?

“Just my partner saying that she loves me, preferably after she’s just woken up. Sorry to disappoint, if you were expecting something kinkier.”

Spit or swallow?

“Offended that you have to ask.”

You were growing antsy—antsy on the cusp of hyperaware and jittery. Something about the night had gone stale, like you were at a high altitude without enough oxygen. Something about the way some people were reacting—Jirou’s controlled, stone-cold expression (pinched brows and shifting jaw to hint that it took focus to stay that way) paired with Yaoyorozu’s letting her hair down to hide her red-tipped ears, Mina’s constant, excited whispers alternating between Kirishima and Uraraka, Midoriya’s seeming lack of surprise to Shinsou’s answers while he peeled the label off of his fresh bottle. Were they acting like this because they wanted to contain themselves hearing it for the first time, or have any of them—any of them witnessed any of it? Shinsou had said that people you knew had enlisted him to dom for them, and…you didn’t know. Something about it didn’t feel right. Yes, these were your friends, and you loved them, but something about their seeing a part of Shinsou that you haven’t got under your skin. Your friends may love Shinsou, but you love him more.

“Hey, babe,” Shinsou said under his breath, while the bottle spun again, “I need you to let up a little, okay? You’re getting a little too tight.”

You looked down at Shinsou and shook yourself; you’d unconsciously been constricting your arm around the back of his neck, pulling his face near your boobs. You relaxed your arm for him to lean back.

“I also—” He set his hand on your knee, stilling it (how long have you been jostling it?). “—need you to stop fidgeting, if you don’t mind.”

The bottle was slowing, but Kaminari missed it entirely to stare over his martini glass at Shinsou’s mouth. With a glint of pale pink club lighting flashing over Kaminari as his eyes dropped to Shinsou’s chest, you were pierced with an icicle-cold awareness of the bulge under your thigh you’ve been too nervous to acknowledge, and a full-bodied shiver swept through you.

You pulled away from Shinsou, frowning down at him. “I do mind, actually. Come with me somewhere?”

“Of course,” said Shinsou, and he helped you off of his lap, ignoring the bottle and the protests of your friends. You couldn’t look back at him, lest you lose your nerve, but you grabbed his hand and led him through the club, shoes sticking on the beer-soaked floor, weaving through dancers and bar patrons until you ended up in some empty, mildewed corridor with one flickering, fluorescent light.

You spun on your heel, grit grinding under your shoe. You had no plan, but what came out of your mouth, pulled from somewhere deep in your gut, sounded right. “I need you to bite me.”

Shinsou blinked in time with the light flickering. “I’m sorry?”

“A love bite. A hickey, or whatever,” you said, and, taking his hands, you placed them on your own shoulders and made him push you against the wall, with the crackly dust under peeling wallpaper shook onto your sleeve even from the slight impact. “The next step you wanted me to think about. I choose this.”

“Oh.” Glowering towards the floor, Shinsou stuck his hands in his pockets, his mind somewhere else, but he recovered, face softening, and took a step closer to you. “All right,” he said cautiously, fiddling with his jacket zipper, “Is there—where do you want it?”

You were about to say the top of your left boob, since the low cut of your shirt allowed it, but an intrusive thought struck you, bringing to the surface the memory of Shinsou’s voice over the phone: I like to take advantage of the vulnerability of an exposed neck.

When you raised a finger over the pulse point on your neck, Shinsou froze, stilling all movement. Even the rise and fall of his chest halted for a moment. After a long beat, he snapped out of his distant haze, his Adam’s apple dipping as he swallowed. “Got it. I can do that.”

When Shinsou put his hands on your waist, you understood why people fight wars over people like him. Light and hesitant at first, his hands fell into their full weight at your silent encouragement, encompassing so much more of you than you’d thought, steadying you against the wall and back in reality. Drumming his fingers on your waist, Shinsou ducked his head, shot you a sliver of a smile, and pressed his lips to your neck.

His lips were cold. But Shinsou always ran cold, you told yourself, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that this dry, close-mouthed kiss to your neck was—oh. His lips parted (smoothly and a bit stickily; you’d seen him re-apply his coconut-pear beeswax chapstick at the bar), pressing more fervently against your neck as his tongue made the first sweep over your skin. He curved the tip of his tongue for the second lap, spreading more saliva over the spot, and at his first suck, your hands flew up to grip his biceps. You felt his mouth curl into a smirk and his quiet hum, and you, mildly embarrassed, slid your hands from his arms up around his neck, one of them sliding into his hair to press him further into your neck—he broke off to laugh under his breath, a heated huff brushing over the wet spot on your neck.

“You okay?” he asked, adjusting hold on your waist, one hand easing down to the small of your back and inching upwards between your shirt and your coat, his whole, flattened hand weighing down and warming you.

“I’m fine,” you said, keeping his head tucked in your neck so that he couldn’t see whatever embarrassing face you were making, “Keep going?”

“I’m gonna have to use my teeth now. Just a warning,” said Shinsou, and at your tap on the back of his head, he returned his mouth to your neck and sucked.

You inhaled sharply and gripped the back of his collar, crumpling it, while his tongue laved over the spot between sucks, hot and cold, pressure and release, and Shinsou pulled you tightly against him, his jacket zipper cool through the fabric of your shirt. He was lightly nibbling, gentle and barely there, between harsh sucks, the spot aching and raw, and he bared more of his teeth, letting the length of a few brush against you as an alert—and he sank his teeth into your skin, sucking, lips smushed to the tenderer wet insides.

“Holy shit, Hitoshi.”

When he pulled back, Shinsou licked his lips, his eyes glued to the spot on your neck. He swiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb. “Looks good.”

“That fucking hurt.” Releasing him, you ran your fingers over the spot, unable to tell any different aside from moisture and the slightest swell.

Shinsou raised an eyebrow and stuffed his hands in his pockets again. “It is a bite. Bites tend to—”

“Oh, shut up.” You fussed with the collars of your shirt and coat, wanting to frame the bite. “Help me out?”

Shinsou’s crooked grin returned. “You want it on display?” He adjusted your lapels for you. “Someone’s cheeky. Don’t tell me you were—”

“Don’t say it, fucker,” you said, deliberately averting your gaze to stare at the fluorescent light.

It took you the whole process of Shinsou arranging your shirt and coat, the shared grins, the navigating back through the sweaty throng, leading him by the hand, his cool one in yours, beat to some bubble-pop song pulsing in your ears and chest, and plopping back onto the loveseat at the group table to realise two things: one, that he’d been himself throughout that whole thing. He’d been joking, reacting like your friend instead of your dom. Like Hitoshi instead of that Shinsou you didn’t know. The dom persona had slipped away in a flash, or it hadn’t even entered the equation. So quick a transition, from what he’d been showing to the group to how he behaved around you. Had he noticed? Was it intentional?

And two: you really wanted to mark him back.

***

You dangled your legs off of 3-B’s dormitory roof, full of self-loathing and nervous energy. Stressed enough to fight the urge to exfoliate with a cheese grater all the way down to the bone.

The hickey had worked. No one had said a word about you or Shinsou the rest of the game. In fact, as soon as you got back, the game ended within a turn. Kaminari had opened his mouth, probably to ask where you’d been, but his eyes fell to your neck, and he shut his mouth, turning his attention to Sero and clamping his hand over Sero’s and Iida’s. The rest of your friends had behaved similarly, acting like nothing was wrong. It’d given you immense satisfaction, and you’d grinned into your refill of pink lemonade; you hadn’t noticed until the end of the night that Shinsou’s arm had been around you, resting in a divot in the leather on the back of the loveseat, running behind your shoulders. Felt good to be special.

Gritting your teeth, you clenched the edge of the roof, knuckles showing. Why it felt so good—you didn’t want to put it into words. If you did, that made it real.

Instead, you’d recruited Monoma to help you in a last-ditch effort to find your soulmate. You’ve been going through your old shit from freshman year, trying to find any record of someone calling you an ice princess. Or a bitch, or something along those lines. Since Monoma’s better at tech stuff, he’s been combing through everyone’s social media dated from the first semester at U.A., searching for any pictures of you or anything that could be vague-posting. You’ve even bothered Aizawa for the old seating chart and records of some of the earliest group exercises, though those weren’t appearing fruitful, either.

Mirio was watching Eri today, so Monoma and you were camping out on B’s rooftop, spreading out the blanket you and Shinsou usually used, with your laptops and old notebooks strewn across it. Monoma was currently taking a short break to make popcorn, so he’d be back in a few minutes.

It wasn’t enough. But you’ve involved another person, so you might as well see it through—but you wanted to quit looking. Fuck it if your memory were faulty and that you couldn’t remember who said your words to you. They didn’t matter.

(Fuck, no, don’t allow yourself to put it into words.)

([You can’t stop what’s already happening. You can’t kill a thought once it’s made its home in your head.])

(Yeah, so shut the fuck up. Don’t think it. Distract yourself. Keep searching for your—)

([—soulmate, whom you didn’t care to meet, because you had feelings for somebody else.])

***

YOU

hey y’know that page where ua students can submit anonymous confessions???

YOU

i found me in a post. in freshman year and everything

YOU

says that i’m a “frigid bitch who needs to pull the column outta [my] ass”

MONOMA 🔇🎭

oh lolololol don’t worry about that one

YOU

???

MONOMA 🔇🎭

I submitted that lol

YOU

drop your location right now so that i can come rip you to shreds

***

Once you acknowledged them, your feelings peeled you like a grape. No, more like—more like someone’s scraping away the outside of a pineapple with their fingernails, juice occasionally getting through, but mostly just a mess of spikes and sticky fingers, with the conclusion that it would’ve been easier to smash the damn thing.

Bad. Bad feeling. Evil, even. Shinsou trusted you, as a friend, and you’ve gone and put him in the romance zone. You’ve put him in a category he wouldn’t want to be in. Bad and evil and diabolical. Life-ruining. Relationship-ruining. You might lose him, and that would snap you in half like a raw carrot.

“Baby, you’re just staring at the bell peppers,” said Shinsou, leaning on the shopping cart, jolting you out of your reverie, “Pick two and c’mon. Everyone else has left the produce section; they’re over towards seafood.”

“Th—thanks,” you said, shakily accepting the plastic bag Shinsou handed you, but you made no move towards the bell peppers. “Why don’t you catch up? I can finish here.” And maybe process your thoughts enough to make a decision.

Shinsou smiled, standing upright to stretch his arms above his head. “Nah. What else do we need over here? I can get it for you.” Good God. His shirt rode up just enough to reveal a dark, violet line of hair trailing upwards, a soft line suggesting abs framing it, a thick waistband of a popular brand of boxers peeking out of his plaid pants. Stomach as salvation. Your eyes bulged and glazed over, but you shook yourself out of it.

“Uh,” you said intelligently, “Potatoes. Those mad small ones.” You made a circle with your middle finger and thumb as a measure. “Around this size.”

“Gotcha,” said Shinsou, already spinning around to scan the produce, “They come in purple; is it cool if we use those?”

“Of course,” you said, miles away somewhere, freezing and back in bed underneath a nest of blankets, with Shinsou tucked in next to you, his arms around you with his mouth to the back of your neck.

Oh, you’re fucked fucked.

You normally took normal bell peppers and normally put them into the plastic bag, like a normal person, and twisted it normally to seal them in, setting the bag in the toddler seat of the cart in a normal way. You’re good. You’re fine.

(How do you act around him? Is this how you typically behave around Shinsou?)

You have questions about his behaviour, too. Because you’ve looked back on your sessions with him, and the further they’ve gone along, the less stern the dom act has been. He’s been more and more like how he normally behaves around you, just with the addition of physical contact. Have you been making him be a poor dom, because he’s so used to you? He might not even realise that he’s slipping. Subconsciously, his behaviour has made it feel real to you, instead of as a service he does professionally, because he’s just been…himself.

You’re breaking that rule he establishes with other clients, which was not to develop feelings. He didn’t have this rule with you, but he’ll probably stop the sessions if he finds out.

You wanted Shinsou, just as he was. Yes, the dom persona was hot, but it was essentially just a door into your true feelings and wanting to touch him for real. If his dom act were slipping in your sessions, you’ll take it—it’s probably the closest you’ll ever have to being truly intimate and romantic with him without ruining your friendship.

Your heart skittered at the sight of Shinsou returning to the cart, bag of tiny, purple potatoes large enough to share with the class heaved in both arms, and you joined in his laughter at the pathetic, tinny noise he’d made lugging the bag into the cart. Shinsou commandeered pushing the cart from you, edging you off of the handle, but when you wouldn’t let up, he kissed your cheek. Frozen, you let him take the cart from you, and he hastily proceeded towards seafood, not looking back.

To keep the sessions going, you’d have to pretend you’re still looking for your soulmate.

The sessions could occur more frequently if you pretended the game of truth or dare made you feel like you’re falling behind.

***

“You’re an idiot.”

“Thanks, Neito. Care to offer any solutions?”

“No,” Monoma said, bending back over his laptop, “but I’ll start searching for other Shinsou Hitoshis so that you can kick their asses.”

You gestured for him to keep it down, jerking your head in Eri’s direction. She was watching Monoma’s Japanese-dubbed, extended edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, holding her unicorn-kitten doll in her lap, sitting atop the booster seat cushion for her spot on Aizawa’s couch. “If Aizawa-sensei hears Eri swearing, he’ll blame us.”

“Not my—” He cut himself off, wincing. “You’re right. I’ll keep the cursing to a minimum. But if you murder any other Shinsou Hitoshis that exist, then, de facto, he’ll no longer have a soulmate, and you can get with him.”

You sighed, sinking into one of Aizawa’s worn armchairs. “I’m not gonna resort to violence.”

Pursing his lips, Monoma shut his laptop for dramatic effect. “But you’ll resort to compromising your morals and fucking him.”

“Keep quiet,” you said, swatting at Monoma and missing, “I’m not gonna—how else am I—”

“I just don’t think you should.”

“I’m not gonna have—have sex with…”

Monoma sucked in through his teeth, reaching into his bag of trail mix. “You’re not emotionally ready,” he said, shaking his head, “If you added sex to the stuff you’re going through right now, you’d explode.”

“I know that,” you said, slumping down in your seat. You shot a mournful look towards Monoma, and you held out your hand for trail mix. “I…I don’t wanna have sex at this point in my life. I just don’t think it’s—I want to do it eventually, yeah. But not right now. I’m tired.”

He tilted the bag into your hand, shaking some out. “I understand. Why don’t you say fuck the soulmate shit and be with Shinsou regardless?”

“I don’t wanna take any shred of happiness from him,” you said, crunching, “If he has a chance at happiness with his soulmate, he deserves it.” You swallowed thickly. “I’m guilty as hell for wasting his time like this, but I admit that I’m selfish. I want him all to myself.” You picked through the mix you had in your palm. “I feel horrible about it,” you said softly, “but if I want to keep his attention in these sessions, I think I have to up the ante, at least a little.”

Grimacing, Monoma shoved his hand in the bag of trail mix. “Who put that in your head?”

***

YOU

want to try sexting????

HITOSHI 💜🍡

no <3

***

Against Monoma’s advice, you were going to make a move on Shinsou under the false pretences of soulmate preparation. Which, you supposed, wasn’t too different from what you’d been doing, but now you were deceiving him.

Shinsou could always notice when you were nervous or insincere in person, so you resolved to do it over the phone. Building up the courage to call him took half an hour of staring at your phone, face down on your bedspread, the whole decision-making process taking longer than usual, because the person you’d usually consult for advice was the very person you were going to call.

When you finally unlocked your phone and pressed the call button on his contact, your fingers darted to turn on the speaker, and you tossed your phone towards the foot of your bed, skibbling backwards away from it as if it were a slippery lizard you’d found in your sheets.

Six trills of the dial tone later, Shinsou answered, fumbling his phone, by the sound of it, and out of breath. “Hello?”

God, his panting reverberating throughout your dorm room made your heart race, and you needed to be in control for what you’re about to say. You scrambled to pick up your phone to switch off the speaker and hold it to your ear. “Hi, Hitoshi.”

“Yeah, hi.” With his rumbly, winded voice low in your ear, it was as if he were standing next to you, instead of near a busy street, judging by the rush of cars passing in the background and the skid of tires. “What’s up?”

Okay. You are strong and brave, and you can do this. You can and will be this ridiculous man’s personal whore in the name of love. “Hitoshi,” you said, letting a whine creep into your voice, “When are you coming home? I need you.” Hopefully, he couldn’t hear your cringe when you said those things.

You could, however, hear his frown when he spoke. “I,” he said, pausing, and you could easily picture the crease between his eyebrows, “I’ll be home soon. I’m out on my bike. What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”

“A little. I don’t know quite what’s wrong with me, but I really, really miss you, so much, and I need you to come home now so that I—fuck.” You took a slow, controlled breath, and when you came back down, words that weren’t your own spilled out of your mouth, pulled from somewhere deep inside you—as if they were a surfacing whale carcass from the Mariana Trench of your stomach (the loose script Monoma had helped you draft lay forgotten). “’Toshi, I’ll be real with you. I need something in my mouth. I need your strong hands spreading my thighs. I need your mouth on my boobs, licking and sucking up until you can bite the side of my neck. I need to watch you touch yourself, to see how you make yourself feel good and learn how I can do the same. It’s a side of you I don’t know. It’s a side you haven’t let me in. I need to know what all you’re capable of, because I know you’re capable of teaching me, of corrupting me, and I’ve never wanted anything more.”

Three cars honked in quick succession in the background while Shinsou stayed silent. “Who put you up to this.”

“Nobody. No one can tell me what I want. And I want all of you.”

“Bullshit. That’s fucking bullshit. Tell me who’s been pressuring you to have sex. You wouldn’t want this with me otherwise.” Shinsou wasn’t panting anymore. His voice was stony and flat.

“Is it that hard to believe that I want you of my own volition?” you asked, and you covered yourself with your throw blanket, burrowing out of sight, even though he’s halfway across town. “Are you saying I’m not capable of making this decision?”

“No,” Shinsou said, “I simply don’t think you would. It’s—it doesn’t line up with what I know about you.”

That’s fine. That’s why you have a fake motive. “I’m tired of being so far behind the rest of our friends. It makes me feel so small and immature, hearing them talk about things I haven’t experienced, and the game we played at the club proved how far beyond me they are.” You swopped your phone to your other ear so that you could lie down on your preferred side, and you snuggled into one of your stuffed animals. “I—I don’t want my soulmate to be embarrassed by me or unsatisfied with what I can do. I just want to be good enough. You’re my lifeline, Hitoshi. You can give me what I can’t give myself.”

“Fuck off with that. Soulmates aren’t—hold on. My helmet’s getting in the way.” Rustling and the click of a strap, and Shinsou’s voice came in more clearly—and he overenunciated each syllable, signalling that he was growing livid. “Soulmates aren’t all about sex. Life isn’t all about sex. I’ve been holding back the entire time we’ve been dealing with this soulmate shit, because telling you what I really think only bounces the fuck off your stubborn ass: I honestly think what you’ve been doing with me in the name of your soulmate is fuckin’ psychotic. Everyone lives a different timeline; there’s no standard for when a so-called life event is supposed to happen, if it happens at all,” said Shinsou, “You can graduate university at 90 and have your first kiss at 45 and learn to ride a bike when you’re 23. It’s fine if you never check all the boxes. You’ve never been behind. You are your own, on your own path, at your own pace. So, please, don’t rush into love, baby.”

Baby. He called you baby. He’d done it before, but now, you craved it. You cherished it. You could pretend it was real. “If you really thought it was a bad idea,” you said, eyes fluttering shut, entertaining the thought of Shinsou being there with you, spooning you and calling you baby softly in your ear, “why—why did you go along with it? Why did you offer?”

Shinsou huffed into the phone, and the sound was familiar enough for you to picture his expression as he did it: pursed lips, scrunched nose, dark eyes. “Because otherwise, you might have gone to someone who might hurt you. Because when some people hear that there’s a virgin in a vulnerable position, depending on them, they can lose sight of the person in front of them, instead fetishizing the corruption of virginity, because—because do you know how much the idea of teaching a virgin how to love you and only you drips with sexuality? People go crazy, sweetheart. Virginity can—it can attract the wrong people, and it can repulse the wrong people. You shouldn’t be with anyone who sees something like that as a problem.”

God, he’s so nice. He’s so compassionate. You were arguing with Shinsou over, essentially, his decision to be kind to you. What a dependable fucker. Why can’t he be your soulmate? “So, you’ve been holding back from telling me all of this. Anything else you’ve been holding back? Any other information, or—or in how you’ve been touching me. Are you one of those virginity fetishists, Hitoshi? Have you wanted to touch more of me?”

“I’m not reducing you to a fetish, clearly, and—and you belong to someone else,” said Shinsou, sounding like he was gritting his teeth, “If I were your soulmate, then I would allow myself to want more from you. But I’d only do it if you wanted it—for real, not whatever you’re doing now—because I’m not a selfish bitch.” Each word sounded like it had to fished out of his stomach with a barbed hook. “I can fucking wait for you, because I wouldn’t ever want you to be fucking scared around me for any reason, and I’ll keep waiting. I don’t mind. You’ve got the rest of your goddamn life for all of this.”

Welp. Shinsou was more upset than you meant for him to be, but perhaps this conversation would frustrate him enough to kiss and suck at your neck during a movie when he returned. “Then come home and touch me, Hitoshi. Fucking do it. I want you to. Stop holding back.”

“No. No, I won’t. I—something’s up with you. You’re not acting like yourself, and—and it’s pissing me off. You don’t know what you’re asking for, and you can’t really mean it. You’d never want me. You’re being a goddamn brat,” he said, and you could picture him running a hand back through his hair, mouth twitching, scowling, “Is that what this is? Does my precious baby girl wanna be punished? Seems like you want something drastic. I can give you that. Listen up: I’m about halfway through my bike route. Go to my room. In my bedside table, there’s a toy I’ve chosen for you. Originally, it was gonna be used months down the line, but since someone can’t watch that bratty mouth of hers—when I get back to the school, I’d better find you fucking yourself with it.”

“Wait, what?” You snapped upright, the blanket pooling around your waist.

“You heard me, you lying little minx. I’m not going to lift a finger for this punishment. You’re doing it all by yourself.”

What the fuck. “Why are you being so mean?”

“Why? Are you getting wet?” Shinsou scoffed into the speaker. “Key’s in the usual place. Get to it,” Shinsou said, and he hung up.

Numbly, you lowered your phone to your lap, staring as the screen returned to your home wallpaper.

Uh. That’s. That’s a bit more extreme than kissing your neck. You supposed…you supposed that you should do what he said, lest he get even angrier.

You went to his dorm. The fake cactus you’d given him rested on the windowsill, bathed in sunlight, and after a quick check to the soil—moist—you permitted yourself a smile. You dropped it when you opened the top drawer of his bedside table, but you hid the toy under your shirt and dashed back to your room before you or anyone else could get a good look at it.

Locking the door behind you, you pulled the toy out from underneath your shirt. New in the package, so that alleviated any worries about sabotage. You cut it open, and silicone cock dropped into your lap. It’s a pale blue, almost translucent thing, and it’s five and a half inches, according to the packaging. For a moment, you were insulted at the size, because didn’t Shinsou think you could take something bigger? But then you remembered that you and what pussy would be taking it, so. That’s fair. There doesn’t seem to be anything special about it—no suction or vibration or anything. Just a fake dick.

How do you even prepare for this? You changed out of your pants into a semi-short skirt, deciding you still wanted to be somewhat covered, and you tossed your underwear to the foot of your bed. While you were laying down a towel, you briefly considered if you should put on that virgin English song by Madonna. Not English English, but—wait, was Madonna from England? Or another English-speaking country?

You’ve masturbated before, of course; you’re not an idiot, but you’ve never—you sighed, cringing at the five and a half inches—taken something this long or wide inside you (which aspect would be more trouble?). Lying on your bed atop the towel, you held the dildo up to the light, blue specks of glitter shining through. You parted your legs and rubbed the tip through your folds, completely bone-dry, feeling inadequate and ashamed that you couldn’t get turned on, worried about Shinsou and what was going through his mind, and Madonna was from America, from a place called Bay City in the state of Michigan but was raised around Detroit, and you couldn’t focus on getting aroused or anything, so though you were circling your clit, it wasn’t doing anything for you, and the tip of the dildo could barely make it inside you, not even passing the first ring of muscle. Using the head, you gathered what slickness you could, even teasing and prodding your clit with the rubbery material before trying to work the head past the first, tense ring, but the stretch of it burned, entrance strained and stinging, while your feet slid against the towel and blanket, trying to give you extra traction to get it in—and it slipped out of you entirely, the head bouncing as it flopped to lie flat on the towel between your legs. Jaw clenched and eyes watering, you were flooded with a hot rush of embarrassment. If you can’t take this, how would you ever take Shinsou’s cock?

Time passed without your noticing, but it felt like no time at all before you could feel yourself drying out, even though you were never that wet to begin with. Collapsing back and staring at the ceiling, you took a deep breath and smoothed down your skirt, wanting nothing more than to go back to before you made the phone call, but you’ve dug your own bed, so now you have to grave/lie in it.

But you couldn’t get it inside you.

You fished the dildo out from underneath you, and to your surprise, the cockhead had turned a light lilac at the wet heat between your legs, and it was slowly fading back into blue. Okay. You got it. Another phone call would further your cause. Dread building, you called him again, and he picked up after a single ring, quiet. “Hitoshi?”

“Yeah?”

A short reprieve of relief passed through you at his calm inflection, but it left when you braced yourself for what you had to say. “I—” Goddammit, steam would be coming out of your ears if you grew the tiniest iota more embarrassed. “I can’t get it in.”

Though only a few painful, prolonged seconds elapsed, the silence that followed felt long enough for you to have listened to Madonna’s entire discography. Eventually, a careful, resigned-sounding Shinsou said, “Would you like me to give you instructions over the phone, or do you want me to come over?”

You nodded, even though he couldn’t see, and said in a small voice, “I think you should come over.”

“Right,” he said, “Give me three minutes.”

Two minutes later, you were opening your door for him. Freshly showered with damp, partially fluffed hair (he must not have put in his mousse yet), Shinsou rushed to hug you before you could lift your hand off the doorknob, his muscular, still wet-warm arms wrapping around you with great fervent, pinning your own arms to your sides, and he tucked his chin into the crook of your neck, mouth half on your shirt and half on your skin.

“Oh, baby,” he said, his nose scrunching against you while he smushed you against him, getting your own shirt damp, “You don’t have to do any of this. I’m so, so sorry. I was inexcusably angry, and I didn’t—I leant into hard dom mode because I froze up and didn’t know how to react, and being a hard dom comes easily for me. You didn’t have to—I was terrified. I’m sorry.”

“No, I—I wanted to be good for you. I wanted to be so good,” you said, and Shinsou pulled back enough to look at you, his hands on your waist (!!!), and he gasped softly when he caught your drying tear lines. “Because I was being unfair to you. Being a brat. Pushing you.” You sniffed, closing your eyes as Shinsou cupped your face, his thumb brushing away a fresh tear. Two more ran down your face before you managed to get out, “Help me make it fit?”

Shinsou avoided your eyes by moving to your bed while retrieving the small, squeeze bottle of lube from his back pocket. You winced when he picked up the dildo, since the head was still slick and purple, and he twisted it around, looking it over, while he sat on your bed against the wall, legs outstretched across your bed. “I see you didn’t get very far.”

“Shut up; it’s dried off,” you said, one knee on your bed, wrinkling the towel, “And so what if I’ve got a tiny vagina. It means you can indulge in any size kink shit you have going on with your massive, monster dong.”

“Don’t fucking say it like that,” Shinsou said, laughing a bit but refusing to meet your eyes, and he patted his thigh for you to sit. “You probably didn’t warm yourself up well enough.”

Good. Good. So far, it had been unfolding comfortably, like an average hangout, ish, but when you swung your leg over Shinsou’s lap to straddle him, everything became much realer. Heavier. Both of you tensed up, with you hovering above his lap, really, instead of putting your weight on it, and when your skirt rose up a hair, you flattened it back down. “Warm me up, then.”

The shock in Shinsou’s widened eyes reflected your own. Where had that come from? “I don’t think I should,” he said, his fists bunched in your bedding.

“Hitoshi,” you said, shifting farther up his hips but still hovering, “I want you to be the one to stretch me out.” You did a very good impression of a completely calm, normal person as you held up the dildo. “Should I—should I lick it first, or something? To make it easier?”

Shinsou made a noise that sounded like a combination of coughing and choking. “No, uh. Natural—natural lubrication. Would be best. First,” he was saying as you guided his cold, trembling hands to your thighs, “Let’s. Let’s try that. First. If that’s okay.” His touch was so light that you barely felt it, so you pressed down on his hands, his fingertips indenting in your skin, and you nodded, letting him know it was okay. Watchful for your approval, he hesitantly smoothed long strokes down your thighs.

“That’s fine. It’s—it’s what I called you over for,” you said, losing brain cells when you noticed how much of your thighs Shinsou’s large hands could hold, “Touch me? I trust you.”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll.” He swallowed visibly, spit audible. “I’ll keep your skirt down so that you don’t have to show me anything; you’ll be safe. I won’t—I won’t take advantage of you. You’re safe with me. Why don’t you—” He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you put your hands on my shoulders to steady yourself?”

Going a step further, you wrapped your arms around his neck and leant in, holding him close, shoving your nose in his neck, getting struck with some sort of fruity scent (pears?), and arching up as an afterthought to give him better access, your skirt riding up to reveal just the slightest curve of your ass.

Shinsou rubbed your thighs twice more, the second time allowing his fingertips to dip under the edge of your skirt before running back down your thighs. He then slowly drew his shaking hands up in parallel all the way up to your hips, his fingertips pressing into the swell of your ass and his thumbs sliding into the line where your thighs met your—

“Holy shit,” said Shinsou, snapping his hands back as if he’d been scalded, “You’re—you’re not wearing anything.”

You clenched around nothing at the crack in his voice. You were about to ask him if he typically wore his underwear while masturbating, but you found that you couldn’t get your mouth to work.

“Hold on,” Shinsou was saying, and you leant back, dragging your arms from around his neck to rest on his shoulders, “I need a minute.” He closed his eyes, pressing his thumb and index fingers against them, biting his lip, clonking his head back against the wall.

Saliva building in your mouth and thighs about to give out, you eased your weight onto Shinsou’s lap—and his breath hitched the moment your bare cunt pushed against his cock, achingly hard and bulging in his sweats.

“Good Lord, have mercy,” said Shinsou, opening his eyes to half-lidded and dragging his hand down his face, a flash of alarm reaching his eyes when his hips involuntarily bucked up into yours (probably at the wet gush that had dripped onto him). The movement had shot arousal from your clit all the way up to the back of your throat, so you tried to roll your hips against him, mimicking his motions. Shinsou stopped you, his hands shooting to your thighs to still them. “No, you don’t—you don’t have to do that,” he said, breathing hard, “I am honoured you’d even let me touch you.”

Honoured? You scowled when Shinsou buried his face in his hands, because you’ve had enough of his casual comments here and there that he’s not worthwhile. That he’s not worth loving. That no one would ever want him. Ha, as if it were possible you couldn’t want him. Shinsou has always looked at you with a tenderness that ached. He knew you and valued you and saw you, just as you truly were, and didn’t ask for anything more. How could you ever love anyone else?

From this angle, the sag of his sleeve revealed the final syllable of his name written on his wrist.

So, you fucking did it. You grabbed his wrists to move his hands out of the way and kissed Shinsou. It was probably a bad, desperate kiss, since you didn’t know what you were doing (probably too firm?), but the way Shinsou sighed into it made up for the wave of insecurity. The moment when his shoulders slackened, you celebrated in your head, relishing how his cold, coconut-pear lips were just warming up, but Shinsou shuddered and pulled away, pushing at your shoulders.

“What are you doing? Weren’t you saving that for your soulmate?” asked Shinsou, spluttering and panicked, “It’s just me. You wasted it on me.”

“I didn’t waste it. There is nothing just about you, Hitoshi. Listen, I—I don’t want things to change, but at the same time, I do. I’ve decided I don’t fucking care about my stupid, fucking soulmate. I don’t fuck with him. I want you.” You removed his hands from your shoulders to grasp both of them, closing some of the distance he’d creating by scooting nearer to him—cracking a smile at the way his dick twitched when you inadvertently grinded on him. “I think I always have. You are lovable and witty and kind; you look at me and handle me with gentleness to the extreme. I will never connect with anyone like the way we do. No one is like you, Hitoshi.”

His hair was fluffing back up, and based on his expression, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was being electrocuted. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“My soulmate is probably a bastard, anyway,” you said, jerking your head to the side, “and your soulmate—I can’t stand the thought of losing you. I want to be the closest to you forever, or as long as you’ll have me. It terrifies me that someone else could get between us. I want you to take all my firsts; I want you to be the only one who ever touches me—”

“Fuckin’ hell,” Shinsou was saying, muffled behind the fist he’d brought to his mouth, the tips of his ears flaming red, “Baby, please don’t say things like that to me. You’ll give me hope.”

You shook your head. “I’m sorry for ruining our friendship like this, but I’m in love with you. I love you. I always have, without even knowing. And I always fucking will, even if some bastard soulmate shows up someday. I choose you. You’re what I want, every day for the rest of my life, and I wanna be yours.”

Shinsou sighed, shoulders heaving as he embraced you, holding you tightly. “Don’t worry about ruining our friendship; I did that already. I got caught in my own damn capture weapon the day Tainted Love attacked. I could’ve stopped her if I hadn’t. I could’ve prevented all of this. We could have kept going, keeping a tender distance, so neither of us would be…burdened.”

“Fuck you and your conception of being a burden—”

“And I have a hunch who your soulmate is,” said Shinsou, deflated as he pulled away.

You blinked. “You what?”

“I’m evil and sinister and foul for keeping it from you. But I—I talked to Tainted Love. Got some help. I think I know.”

“I don’t need to know,” you said, lifting your hand to hold his cheek, and his eyes fluttered shut, his light purple lashes contrasting against his skin.

Shinsou leant into your palm, looking like the world had been taken off his shoulders, but he furrowed his brow and opened his eyes, his jaw shifting. “I’m not going to tell you how I feel until you know who it is.”

“Hitoshi,” you said, grinning weakly, “I’m pretty sure I already know how you feel.”

Shinsou took your hand, sliding it off his face and held it palm up, and he traced over the lines with his middle and ring fingers. “I don’t think I should tell you until you know your soulmate.”

“Fine, then. Enlighten me.”

“You sure? I’m evil and sinister and foul,” Shinsou said again, dodging when you moved to flick his forehead for debasing himself, “and I’m about to get even worse.” He ran his tongue over his lower lip, eyes flicking to yours. “There’s one way to figure it out for certain. Do you trust me?”

“I tried to impale myself on a fake cock for you. What do you think?”

Shinsou laughed, finally, easing into his crooked grin, turning a sad sort of bittersweet at the last second. “Remember the first time we met.”

It’s as if a ghostly hand was penetrating your mind, tracing back and back and back, through filing cabinets of memories, farther back than you could’ve reached yourself, exhuming parts of your past you’d forgotten that flashed by in hazy slideshows of photographs as it thumbed through manilla folders. When the hand appeared to startle in revelation, it slithered a shoddy file from its misplaced location, shoved sideways along the drawer vaguely labelled to be first semester, freshman year. When the hand was joined by its pair, you realised they were your own, and when you opened the file, you were plunged into the memory, set to relive it exactly.

God, you’re going to be late. You’re never late, and this way, Aizawa was going to get a bad impression of you and your standards. It’s not your fault that this follow-up to the Sports Festival was scheduled at the ass-crack of dawn, but—and you sucked in the morning air through your teeth, pulling your collar up to protect you from the wind—it was, admittedly, your fault that you’d stayed up late with Asui and Jirou. It’d been like a sleepover, almost, and you were loving the people your classmates were turning out to be.

What was this meeting for, anyway? All of the Sports Festival participants were invited, so it must be some sort of practical evaluation of your performances. Maybe how you can improve. But why did it have to be before school? Aizawa was crazy.

You skidded to a stop in front of the gym and swung open the door, and it creaked so loudly that fucking everybody stopped what they were doing to stare at you. Smiling nervously, you took a step inside.

Yamada shot you finger guns from his place atop a lump in a yellow sleeping bag. “WAY TO MAKE AN ENTRANCE! YOU’RE SO LATE, AND WE COULDN’T START WITHOUT YOU, SINCE WE’RE REVIEWING THE EVENTS IN ORDER! WE HAD TO GO AROUND AND SHARE FUN FACTS ABOUT OURSELVES!”

“I’m so sorry.” Any excuse you would’ve made wouldn’t’ve made up for your classmates’ suffering, so you didn’t offer one.

You scrambled to the back of the group, hunching in on yourself, and as soon as you found a place, you heard a scoff.

“Looks like the ice princess finally decided to grace us with her presence.”

Your jaw dropped, and you turned to face some purple, troll-haired bitch with bags under his eyes. Ah. You knew this guy. He’d scoped out Class A before the Sports Festival and insulted your new friends to their faces. That sort of jackassery would not be tolerated by you, so you’d adopted a rather cold, defensive front to anyone outside of Class A for the time being, presuming they felt the same. Oh, yes, you remembered this guy, above all others shunning your class.

You scowled back, the corner of your mouth twitching, and you spoke with disdain. “Shinsou Hitoshi.”

He opened his mouth to retort, but both of you snapped towards the front when Yamada clapped and began yelling again.

You were ripped out of the memory by the softest orgasm you’ve ever had, gentle and washing through your body like a bathtub overflowing; you found yourself held snugly by Shinsou’s arms, clutching you to his chest, while your hips grinded against him, arousal seeping out of you and soaking the fabric over his pulsing cock.

Gasping, you kissed the side of his neck, and he shuddered. “Hitoshi.”

“You’re back?” Shinsou raised a hand from your lower back to stroke your hair, pulling away to smile at you. “You were under for a while,” he said, and he slowly, deliberately, rolled his hips into yours. “Seems like you had a good time. Started grinding on me all by yourself. I tried to stop you, but you—” He broke off, grinning and shaking his head. “You moved to suck at my neck, and I fucking shattered.” He tapped a spot, spit reflecting in the light.

“There’s no mark, if that’s what you’re wondering,” you said, and you slumped against him. “Thank fucking God. I’m so glad that it’s you. I wanted it to be you. I was ready for it to not be, but I’m so fucking relieved.”

“Excellent,” said Shinsou, lifting your chin by tapping the underside of it, “because I love you so fucking much.” Cradling the back of your head, Shinsou pulled you into a fervent kiss, desperate and firm as you’d been at first, but softening when you parted your lips a little, and the subsequent slide of his tongue against yours made your head buzz with pleasure, doubling when he let out a needy groan.

“Oh, my God, you’re fucking perfect,” you said, breaking off to breathe, and he chuckled, resting his head in the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply and pressing his lips to your bare skin there. “Wait. You used your quirk on me. I don’t know what you’re on about, Hitoshi; it felt incredible.”

“That would be the orgasm you just rode out on my thigh, sweetheart,” he said, nuzzling into you, cold and hot at the same time.

“No, it was something different, too, something I felt when Neito used your quirk on me. It feels—it felt like you were holding me, unbearably fond and full of compassion.”

Shinsou blinked, his eyelashes brushing against your neck. “Well. I’ve never heard my quirk described as something affectionate. If it’s like that way for you, then I’m glad.” He took a deep breath, the exhale fanning over you, and he pressed his lips to your neck, letting them linger, softly puckered, before speaking again.“I’m so fucking glad I don’t have to dance around my feelings anymore with the dumbass teaching sessions. I’m out of practise, anyway, since I stopped doing them for anyone else a long time ago; you caught me being evil, right? When I allowed myself to be me instead of the dom I moulded myself into.”

“I noticed,” you said, bringing a hand up to scratch the base of his scalp, and he fucking moaned. After a brief pause, you continued, feeling powerful and loved. “But good. Good. I was—I was scared of going further, but I didn’t know how else to keep you acting all romantical with me. I don’t wanna have sex with you. Yet. I’m not ready.”

“I know,” he said, and you felt his grin as he pressed a light kiss to your neck, once, twice. “I don’t wanna have sex with you, too.”

“How romantic.”

“You know what I meant,” he grumbled, blowing cold air over the slight wet spots he’d left, and you shivered with a laugh. “I will wait however long you need to. I’m in no rush.” He propped his head sideways on your shoulder, looking up at you. “To be honest, I know I wouldn’t last, even if we did. I’m pretty sure I’m gonna come the moment I touch your sweet cunt.”

“How romantic,” you deadpanned again, Shinsou’s huff tickling you, and your fingers curled into his soft hair. “But yeah. I love you. And now—now we can be sincere about it. Real. We don’t have to hold back anymore.” You gently guided Shinsou up so that you could cup his face and smile at him, lips close enough to suggest another kiss. “You can love me with everything you’ve got.”

Face framed by your hands, Shinsou looked like he was in the clouds. “That I can do.”

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

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

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starboy-acer · 4 months

Text

outlaw, traitor, exile [chapter three: the village of mornstead]

FINALLY UPDATING! this chapter is literally over 6k words long so i hope you all enjoy the update!

"I got some reports from other pirate crews that I've come across that this island up here has a pretty nasty curse on it." Chip says while looking at a map with Jay and Gillion. He pointed to a little island called Loffinlot. "We're only a few miles from it."

"Hmm, Loffinlot..." Jay tried to think if she had ever heard of this island, and she definitely had not. Loffinlot was a pretty small and out-of-the-way island compared to the other major areas in the Southern Sea. The people and creatures of Loffinlot prefer it to be that way. It's not that they hated strangers; their reasoning for not wanting strangers on the island was more related to the curse that befell the village on the island. At this moment, the Riptide Pirates don't know anything about the curse on the village, and they have no clue about the troubles that await them there. They don't even know that their arrival is planned by a dark, evil presence on the island. This force of nature can't even be perceived by Gillion Tidestrider and his divine sense until the very moment it wants to make itself known, which is incredibly rare. Speaking of, it doesn’t want to be known right now, the time isn’t quite right.

The crew looked out to the golden horizon as the sun rose and illuminated the sea in a warm amber hue. The contrast of the sun against the evergreen color of the trees on the approaching island made a smile creep across Chip’s face. This view, this feeling, is exactly why he began sailing, and he’s thankful that he can be reminded of that every morning. He felt the warmth of the morning sun hug his face and the soft splash of salt water from the ocean kissed his face as the body of the ship cut through the waves. He felt nothing but true bliss. He looked around to his crew that worked diligently to keep the boat afloat before his eyes laid on the most important people of his current crew. He looked at Jay Ferin as her fiery hair seemed to elegantly float on the wind and gusts seemed to just play with her hair instead of whipping it around aimlessly. He glanced over at Gillion who was leaning over the starboard side of the boat and letting his hand graze the top of the water. He seemed to be speaking to the fish below that were happily following his hand. Chip had never really met someone from the Undersea, and Gillion’s actions continued to intrigue him. Gillion was a strange man, but Chip knew that he was going to forever be useful to him and to the crew as a whole.

His thought processes were quietly interrupted by Marshall John tapping on his shoulder. “Captain, we’re about 30 yards from the shore. Just thought I’d let ya know.”

“Ah, ‘preciate it, John.” Chip gave John a firm pat on the shoulder and turned to the crew. “RAISE THE SAILS, LOWER ANCHORS! WE’RE DOCKING ON THE SHORE!” The crew quickly got to work at the sound of Chip’s command.

Jay began to approach Chip. “Navy can say whatever they want about you, but it’s clear you have a hand on your crew.”

Chip shrugged. “It’s easy to command a group of people that share your views and are willing to work towards your goals. The Navy wouldn’t understand that.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“From what I’ve seen,” He gestures to his crew that are mostly ex-Navy soldiers of all ranks except vice admiral and admiral. “The Navy isn’t all that united. Everybody there has a different idea of what they want and what the Navy is. None of them are working towards the same goals except for the bastards higher up that have all that secret intel and are barking the orders.” Chip looked back out at the shore as the ship began to turn to match the side with the shoreline, making it easier to board. “Pirate crews are different. Generally, we’re all working towards the same thing. That could be fucking shit up or trying to make the world a better place. This crew is kinda a mix of both, but we all know what we’re doin’ here.”

Jay nodded. She never saw pirates vs Navy in the light before. She always saw the world through a navy blue lens. There wasn’t much room for expression or differing ideas in the Navy for her, but it clearly wasn’t that way for lower ranks. People in the Navy could’ve been there for multitudes of reasons whether it’s power, they were born/forced into it, or they truly believed the Navy was the way to make the world a better place. Either way, they were all supposed to be working towards the same goal even with conflicting views. Pirate crews weren’t like that. If you didn’t have similar views, you weren’t generally part of the same crew because every crew worked towards something or did something specific. One thing that she would never mention to Chip is just how thankful she was to have the opportunity to breathe fresh air with him. Most other pirates might’ve killed her on the spot if she tried to show up to their ships, but Chip decided to try and change her views and then welcome her with open arms to his crew. Jay was incredibly thankful for that.

“Alright, Cap’n! Where do ya want us?” John asked Chip with the rest of the crew behind him.

“John, Gillion, Jay,” He pointed at each of them as their names left his mouth. “You’re with me. The rest of ya, you’re on the ship. Don’t let my shit get taken, don’t let our ship get taken. I know it’s a hunk of junk right now, but it’s all we got.”

Marshall John, Gillion Tidestrider, and Jay Ferin each went to quickly prepare themselves before heading into the dense forest on the island of Loffinlot. “Now remember,” Chip stated as he began to walk into the forest. “We’re here because we got word of some dangerous curse on the island. We aren’t here to cause trouble this time, we’re here to fix trouble.”

“Do we have any clue what this curse could be? What if we’re walking into some sort of trap?” Jay questioned.

“Hah!” John chuckled. “You’ve still got that Navy mindset on ya!”

Chip smirked. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, Jay. I heard about this island from some other pirate crews that came here, got freaked out, and left. If it was some sort of trap, I don’t think those crews would’ve survived.”

Jay simply nodded and kept walking.

“What is that DEVILISH noise…” Gillion stops dead in his tracks. At this point, the crew had only been walking for 20 minutes. The chirping and buzzing sound of the bugs around them is something that everyone else had tuned out completely, but Gillion was from the sea and had never really heard such things before. He’s heard the chirping of birds or the buzzing sound of a fly before, but never in this quantity.

Chip and Jay looked at each other before looking at Gillion’s shoulder to find a beetle calmly resting on the shoulder plate of his armor. A smirk tugs at the sides of Chip’s mouth before he speaks.

“Oh no… Gillion, thank the gods you caught that! That noise is the sound of some dangerous beetles that can only be avoided by crawling on the ground where they can’t see you!” Chip dramatically drops to his knees and tugs Jay and John down with him. Gillion quickly follows suit.

“What are these… beetles… that you speak of?” Gillion asks in a hushed tone.

“They’re a type of bug.” Jay speaks up, a smile forming on her face as well. “They’re incredibly dangerous. Watch out for them.”

“Dangerous…” Gillion looks around, still missing the beetle on his shoulder. “Would they be… evil?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Chip says. “Some of the most evil bugs in the world.”

Gillion remained low to the ground as he quickly looked around. He wanted to make sure that he didn’t spot any of these dastardly bugs. Due to his drastic shaking around, the beetle that was on his shoulder flew off and landed on a strand of grass in front of him. Chip and Jay watched, nearly spitting from trying to hold in their laughter, as Gillion spotted the bug. John was extremely confused about what was happening and tried to speak up to tell Gillion about Chip and Jay’s blatant lie, but Chip quickly motioned for him to stay silent.

“There you are…” Gillion whispered as he raised his blade above his head. “Do not worry, friends. I will purge this evil…” Gillion’s sword quickly fell upon the beetle, effectively chopping the poor bug in clean halves. Gillion then stood and raised his hands in a victorious vigor.

Chip and Jay stood with him and small giggles escaped their lips before high-fiving Gillion. “Good job, man! You did it!” Chip laughed as he threw an arm around the shorter man.

“IT IS MY DESTINY TO CLEAN THIS WORLD OF ALL EVILS, NO MATTER HOW SMALL!” Gillion yelled with a large grin on his face. He then held up the bowl at his side with his trusty companion, Pretzel, inside. “Pretzel, we have done it yet again!”

At this point, Chip was completely hunched over with his arm around his stomach and Jay had an arm over his back as she was hunched at his side. Both of them were laughing hysterically. John was still confused, but he was continuing to follow his captain’s orders to not reveal the lie.

Chip stood up and wiped sweat from his brow as he took a deep breath. “Phew, Gillion Tidestrider… You’re one hell of a guy.”

Gillion’s head turned in confusion, but before he could utter a word, the crew heard a rustling a few feet in front of them. Gillion’s head shot in the direction of the sound, Chip quickly gripped his shortsword, and Jay pulled out her bow with lightning speed and aimed it in the direction of the sound. They all crouched down in an attempt to hide in the tall grass. They had no idea what it could possibly be, but they hadn’t seen any creatures in the woods thus far and didn’t want to take their chances with anything that they haven’t seen yet. The crew held baited breath as they watched the bushes move as something tried to cut through them. Even Gillion was being generally cautious, but that wasn’t going to last long as Gillion began to stand.

Then they heard laughter.

Chip’s eyes widened as he looked at the bush to see an old halfling man walk out. He was bald, except for a singular hair at the top of his head, and he wore a tattered white tank top with some stained khaki shorts. Jay quickly noticed that he wasn’t wearing any shoes either. He was walking through the forest with absolutely no protection on his feet, and that seemed to baffle Jay.

Her baffled reaction caused her to loosen her grip on the arrow that was strategically aimed right as this man’s head. Luckily for the halfling, Jay just narrowly missed his head. Chip shot a glare at her as she tried to explain herself. Before Chip could even say anything, the man spoke up.

“Eh?” He laughed. “You must be a pretty bad shot, hahaha!” The halfling looked over at the group. Jay let out a nervous laugh as she waved at the man and his eyes narrowed. “Ain’t nothing funny about it, hahaha! You just tried to take my damn life!”

The crew all looked at each other with narrowed eyes and perplexed faces. The old man claimed that there was nothing funny about this situation and immediately laughed after. In fact, the man had been randomly laughing the entire time that he had been in their sights.

The man then began to approach the crew and they all seemed to somewhat relax at his slow attempt to get to them. They quickly noticed that he wasn’t a threat at all. He was barely even a threat to a bug on the ground. He walked up to them while laughing uncontrollably, which sent a slight chill up Jay’s spine.

“What are you kids doin’ out here! I ain’t never seen anyone by the looks of you here, hahaha!” His laughs weren’t accompanied by a smile. He laughed like it was just a basic sentence coming out of his mouth. He was right, there’s nothing funny. He just couldn’t stop laughing.

Jay tried to answer his question, but Chip took a step forward. “We heard that there’s somethin’ strange goin’ on here. You heard anything about that?”

The man’s eyes narrowed as his head seemed too look Chip up and down. “Eh, are you one of them pirate crews that keep comin’ over here? Hahaha, there’s been a bunch lately that keep washin’ up here.” He coughed and laughed again. He noticed Gillion about to try and laugh with him. The triton still had no real clue what social cues were, he just knew that there must be something to laugh about if this man was laughing. The halfling held a hand up to him. “Hahaha, ain’t nothin’ funny!”

Gillion’s mouth closed in a tight line as he looked at Chip for some sort of explanation, of which Chip had none. The old man continued to laugh and it seemed to irritate him more and more. “One of ya tell me somethin’ funny so I actually got somethin’ to laugh about!”

They all looked at each other. All of them were mostly unsettled just enough to not have anything funny to say. Except Gillion Tidestrider.

“I only know fish jokes. I don’t think they’re going to land.” He said with a completely straight face.

The old man looked at him and laughed, which caused Gillion to laugh as well. “That joke wasn’t funny! I said tell me somethin’ funny!”

Everyone just looked at each other before the man spoke up again. “Listen, I’m gonna tell ya what I told the other pirates that washed up here. Ya gotta leave! Ya can’t stay on this island, hahaha!”

Everyone looked at each other again before John spoke up. “Hey, why are ya laughin’ so much anyway? You keep tellin’ us that nothin’ is funny, but then you laugh right after! It’s confusing!”

“That ain’t important. What’s important is you kids leavin’! Ya can’t stay here! Get on your ship and get outta here, hahaha! In fact, take me with ya!”

“Why do you want us to leave so bad?” Chip asked. “What’s going on here?”

“Just leave! Take me with ya! I need to get outta here!” The old man sighed.

Jay shook her head. “We heard from those other pirates that some weird curse was on this island.”

“Eh? Hahaha, those pirates left after I talked to ‘em. Those damn pirates just fuckin’ scattered like mice, hahaha! I tried to get ‘em to take me with ‘em, but they just ran!”

“Maybe this little man needs help! We must help him, Chip.” Gillion looked over at Chip and Chip sighed.

“There has to be something wrong with him. I mean, why does he keep laughing?” Jay questioned.

“Don’t talk about that, hahaha!”

“Jay, you must be very funny for this small man to still be laughing.”

“Hey! Don’t call me a small man. Ya ain’t got nothin’ to say, fish bitch!”

Gillion looked completely shocked. “Did he just… Fish bitch?!”

“Okay, do you have a name?” Chip looked down at the old man.

“They call me Old Man Earl. I run an inn/bar thing in the town nearby.”

“So there is a town! Where is this town? We need to get there.”

“No! I wanna leave it all behind! Hahaha, leave and take me with ya!”

“No no no. We want to go to this town.”

Gillion steps in front of Chip. “I am Gillion Tidestrider. This is Chip, that one is Jay, and that one is Marshall John. He is very cool.”

“What-” Chip stutters.

“Gillion, don’t just tell him our names!” Jay sighs again.

“Gillion, you are very cool!” John smiles and lays a hand on his shoulder.

“Nice to meet you.” Earl says.

“Please, shake my slippery hand.” Gillion says as he raises his hand to shake Earl’s. Earl shakes his hand and his face contorts in disgust.

“Why is your hand all wet? Gross!”

“Why is your hand all wrinkly? Have you been swimming for too long? I heard that does that to land people.”

“Hahaha, what. That’s not funny, don’t laugh!”

Chip quickly interrupted. “Where is this town. Can you lead us there?”

“Ya already headin’ towards it! I was out here gettin’ some new fruit for the ol’ kitchen when I saw ya and… Well, ya have a way off the island, right? Ya have a ship?”

“I mean… Yeah, but we’re here for a reason. We need to get to that town.”

“Why do ya need to get to the town! There ain’t nothin’ nice there, hahaha!” Earl begins walking towards the town. The crew then follows close behind.

“Well, we heard there was a cur-” Gillion begins to speak up before Chip interrupts him. “Gillion, look! Another beetle!”

Gillion then darts towards the beetle.

“We just need a place to set up for now. We do have a ship, it’s just not gonna set sail tonight. Captain’s order, ya know.”

“Where is ya captain then! Let me talk to ‘im, I’ll convince ‘em to leave! And take me with ya!”

“Uhm… I don’t really know. He’s uh… He went off to do something else.”

“What’s wrong with ya friend?”

The crew looks over at Gillion, who is crouched in grass and frantically looking around for the beetle. “Chip! I am struggling to find the beetle! Where did you see it?”

“I think it’s gone now, Gillion! Don’t worry about it for now. I’ll tell you if I see it again!” Chip calls to Gillion and gestures for him to rejoin the group.

Gillion dejectedly goes back to the group and John gives him a comforting pat on the back.

Earl stops and turns back around to Chip. “Do ya got any coin for a stay at my inn? I ain’t gonna let ya stay there for free.”

Chip looks to Jay then back at Earl. “We’re paying you in travel! You let us stay at your inn, and we’ll let you off the island when our captain comes back.”

Earl seemed to stop and think for a moment. It wasn’t a very long moment, mind you. He knew exactly what his response was. “Fine! Deal! But ya also gotta do some errands for me. I need sum shit for my bar… Damn customers runnin’ the taps dry, hahaha! That ain’t funny.”

As the group approaches the town, the sounds from the village people seem to grow in volume. The crew follows Old Man Earl through the town to his inn and instead of getting stares from the villagers, they all seemed strangely cheery. While walking down the main– and only– road, Jay watched as all of the village people were laughing loudly and seemingly uncontrollably like Old Man Earl. They were all generally smiling and being incredibly friendly with each other. In fact, it seemed like Old Man Earl was the only one that wasn’t completely jolly. Only Chip and Jay seemed to fully notice this. Marshall John was enjoying the friendliness and interacting back and forth with the villagers while Gillion followed suit.

“Newcomers! Hello, hahaha!” One of the villagers stopped their conversation with another and waved at the group.

John smiled brightly and waved back. “Hello, joyful people! Hello! Hello!!” He continued to wave and smile at everyone who greeted him, making finger guns or hand hearts at random points. Gillion was attempting to copy John’s gestures, but John was moving his hands too quickly for Gillion to fully process it. He did manage to wave to some people.

Chip and Jay walked behind the rest of the group and reluctantly waved to some of the villagers. “This is weird right… Like, why are all of these people so… happy?” Chip whispered to Jay while looking at some children who were running around and playing.

“No, you’re right. This is so weird… And they’re all laughing uncontrollably. Old Man Earl would laugh and then say ‘nothing is funny’ right after. It completely freaked me out.” Jay whispered back. She noticed an elderly couple walking together and laughing. They weren’t even saying anything to each other, but they were laughing like someone had just told them the best joke they’ve ever heard. “I couldn’t tell if this was freaky to me because I’ve never met anyone this happy in my life or if this was actually weird.”

“This is fully weird. I’ve been to a lot of places in my 19 years of life, and I’ve never come across a place this happy before.” Chip looked at John and Gillion and noticed that they both were starting to get an unsettling look about them. He gathered that they were finally realizing how strange this all was.

John looked back at Chip and gave a nervous smile. Chip motioned for John and Gillion to move in closer. “We can’t stay here for long. This is seriously freaky. We need to just figure out what’s going on, fix it, and leave.”

Gillion wasn’t paying any attention. He was still trying to learn how to do finger guns at one of the villagers. The human man was trying to teach him and he eventually ends up putting up his middle finger and turning his hands horizontally as if he’s making a finger gun with his middle finger. Instead of getting offended, the man just does it back to him. He then goes up to another man and the rest of the group can’t quite hear what they’re saying, but Gillion raises his hand up like John had taught him on the ship to try and dap him up. It completely fails. Instead of the standard and steady dap up, Gillion’s arms seem to be sliding around in the man’s grip. Gillion says something to the man with his head down and then walks back to the group with a dejected sigh.

“What was that about?” Chip asked. He didn’t really care to know, but he figured he would ask anyway.

“I don’t wanna talk about it…” Gillion says as he walks up to right behind Old Man Earl. He is no longer greeting the other villagers and is instead walking with his head down and his arms limp at his sides. Chip decides to just shrug it off and keep walking.

Old Man Earl stops outside of his inn. “This is the place. The ol’ Orinnge. Hahaha.” He looks at the group. “See them bitches over there, the real lively ones? One of ya grab me some oranges. Two stalls, they both got oranges. Just get me some ‘n bring ‘em in, hahaha.” Earl hands Chip a few gold coins to purchase the oranges with.

“Alright, we’ll be right in. Just give us one minute.” Chip says to Earl. He simply lets out a grunt and mutters something under his breath before walking inside the Orinnge. Chip then turns to the group. “This place is insane.”

“This place is joyous!” Gillion smiles before looking at the inn. “What is an orange?”

Chip points over to the stalls selling the bright oranges. “They’re over there, man.”

“You just pointed at an entire stand. What exactly is an orange.”

“The orange fruit that they’re selling, Gillion.” Chip laughs. “It’s called an orange for a reason.”

“Right, yes.” Gillion’s eyes narrow at the stands. “Yes, the orange ones. I see them.”

Jay sighs and attention is diverted over to her. “Listen, why don’t we just leave. We can take the money he gave us and just leave!”

“We cannot just leave! This place is wonderful. This is the place for me.” Gillion argued.

“What? No, Gillion-”

Gillion interrupted Chip. “I can defend these people. I can fulfill my destiny here.”

Chip sighed and looked at the coins in his hand then looked at the stands. His eyes widened and he smiled before turning to Gillion. “You know what, this is the place for you, Gillion.” He placed the gold coins in Gillion’s moist hand. “Take this money. Your first task here is to go up to those stands and then buy oranges. Use this as a lesson on… on interacting with people! So take the money, go to the stands, and use the money to get oranges! You know, the big, round orange ones?”

“You are belittling me.”

“No, no. I am not. This is just a lesson for you. It’s training!”

“So…” Gillion looks at the coins in his hand. “I cannot just take the oranges? I have to use these things to go and get them… And the oranges are those… they’re the round things over there? Are those orange? Your colors are all so strange.”

“What? Do you not have colors in the Undersea?” Jay asked.

“We do. Not these ones.”

“What?” Jay looks blankly at Gillion who is avoiding her gaze. Gillion is completely focused on the oranges.

“The oranges are the round ones over there right. The red ones?” Gillion asked. Chip and Jay glanced at each other.

“No, they’re not red. They’re orange.”

“Those are red.” He pointed at the oranges.

“What…” Chip sighs. “Yes, those ones. The red ones. If you get confused then just hold them up and I’ll tell you if it’s the right ones. You got this, man.”

Gillion puffed out his chest and clutched the gold in his fist. “Okay… I got this.” He muttered to himself before he walked over to the fruit stands.

“Chip, what are you doing? Why are we actually getting this old man oranges?” Jay asked, still looking over at Gillion who now looked like a pufferfish with his chest and cheeks puffed out to try and exude confidence.

“If things go south, we’ll run. We might have to ditch him, but we’ll just have to get out.”

“WHAT?” John looked at Chip, who had forgotten that John was there because of how shockingly quiet he was being. John was too weirded out to actually have any commentary for this situation. “We can’t just leave ‘im! He’s my bro!”

“Fine, if things go south, we’ll try to get him too.” Chip rolled his eyes. As much as he liked Gillion, Chip knew that when things went wrong, he would have to make sure he gets out and to his crew. Everyone else be damned. Not to mention, Chip knew that Gillion was the biggest liability right now. The man barely had any comprehension on what things were like on land. Chip was sure that he had potential and that’s why he let him on the ship in the first place, but if he managed to mess things up when trying to get oranges, Chip knew he would have to ditch him.

Gillion begins to decompress as he approaches the two fruit stands. He looks to his left to see a humanoid fox behind the wooden stand showing off the orange fruits. Gillion tried to avoid eye contact with this fox, but his golden eyes seemed to be peering into his soul while his happy expression was attempting to charm him. Gillion looked the fox man up and down to fully take in his appearance. He quickly noticed that instead of having a singular tail like Gillion assumed he would, the man seemed to have two. Before Gillion could look to his right at the other stand, the fox spoke out.

He also laughed like the rest of the village did, but his was more like a fox’s call than a normal laugh. “Kekeke, you want to buy my tangerines, hmm? Tangerines?”

Gillion had absolutely no clue what tangerines were. He thought that the fruit in the stand were oranges, as per Chip’s description, but this fox was saying something else. “No… I uh-”

The woman on the right quickly cut Gillion off. “You don’t want his tangerines! You want some of my clementines, hahaha!”

This salesperson was a chubbier orc woman. She was paler than most orcs with a light fern green skin tone– not that Gillion would notice that– and she has beautiful, long blonde hair that was braided neatly and put over the front of her shoulder. Most orcs seem intimidating, but this lady seemed nothing but jolly with her rosy red cheeks and toothy smile.

“Hey, hey!” The fox person speaks up again, causing Gillion’s head to whip back around to face him. “You don’t want those! Kekeke, my tangerines are the best! They’re smaller-”

“Hahaha, you definitely don’t want those small things! You want these clementines!”

Gillion’s head snaps between the two so quickly that it might’ve completely snapped off if he went any faster. “Uh… which ones are oranges…?”

“What?” The fox person asks.

“Are tangerines oranges?”

“Well, kekeke, it’s a type of or–”

“Don’t listen to him! He knows nothing of the fruits he sells. Not like me! Hahaha, these clementines aren’t just mere oranges, they’re mandarins! They’re superior to–” The saleswoman interrupts the fox man just to be interrupted by him in return.

“No no no! Kekeke, you want to buy my tangerines!”

Gillion looks between the two of them. “So neither of you have oranges?”

Both of the salespeople look at each other and then at Gillion before jumping at the opportunity to convince him that their fruit is in fact an orange and is better than the other person’s orange. In unison, they say, “Yes, they’re oranges! But mine is better!” before they both laugh.

The salespeople both continue to argue over which fruit Gillion should purchase, but he’s tuning them out at this point. Their arguing is just continuing to confuse him, so he resorts to the only thing that he knows to do. Gillion looks down at his left hand, the one that isn’t hold the gold, as it begins to glow. “It is my destiny to find the orange…” He then casts a spell called Minor Prophecy on himself before closing his eyes and pressing his hand to his chest.

“Reveal yourself to me, orange…”

He takes a deep breath before looking to his left at the fox person. He feels a sense of joy and pride in this man’s soul. Staring into his eyes, Gillion learns that the fox does truly believe that he has picked the superior fruit. His passion for his trade overflows Gillion’s senses as he continues to laugh in the back of Gillion’s mind. Somewhere in the fox’s mind, Gillion can sense that these tangerines truly are oranges, and it is his destiny to pick these.

destiny to pick these.

Just to be sure, Gillion then looks over that the orc woman. That feeling of joy and pride for the orange trade begins to be siphoned from his mind as Gillion looks into this woman’s eyes. A feeling of what can only be described as greed and disinterest flows over Gillion’s body as he peers into her soul. This woman is trying to sell her fruits to Gillion with false promises and lackluster enthusiasm that Gillion couldn’t manage to sense before, but he is glad that he can now.

It has finally been revealed what fruits Gillion should pick.

Gillion’s senses come back to him and the light from his palm fades. He blinks and the sounds around him return to his ears as the two salespeople are still trying to convince him which fruit he should purchase. Without a word, Gillion turns to the fox and hands him the gold before picking up some of his tangerines to take back to Old Man Earl’s inn with him.

“Kekeke, pleasure doin’ business with you!” The fox smiles as he counts the coins and puts them in his coin purse.

Gillion then turns to the orc woman who is still smiling, but there is a sense of sadness about her. “Miss, do not let your spark fade.”

“W-what? Hahaha?” The orc woman’s laugh has a confused tone to it instead of the hearty, jolly laughter before.

“Do not let your spark fade. You may have the inferior orange now, but you still have time to ripen and let yourself continue the conquest for the superior orange. Continue your fight, and one day, you will succeed.”

Before the woman can speak a word, Gillion turns and walks towards his friends.

“Oh! Perfect timing, Gillion!” Chip says as Gillion approaches. He says this as if they had been talking about something of importance previously, but they were simply talking to each other about how strange this whole situation was. Well, Jay and John were talking. Chip was devising a special task for Gillion. “We were just talking about how we completely forgot to properly greet Old Man Earl!”

Jay and John both look over at Chip with a puzzled stare. Chip just smiles and nods, implying that they should go along with what he’s saying. “Well, you see how he’s bald, right? He doesn’t have any hair.”

“He has one hair. On the top of his head. I checked.” Gillion stares blankly at Chip and Chip’s smile drops.

“Wha- What, how do you… Okay, not important.” Chip shakes his head and finds his words before continuing. “He has basically no hair. Well, you don’t know this, but it’s a great honor– a sign of respect– to just slap the top of a bald person’s head.” At the word ‘slap’, Chip claps his hands together to make a slapping sound.

“What? No, it-” John tried to correct Chip, but Chip puts a finger to John’s mouth and smiles. “John, it’s a- It’s a pirate thing, you wouldn’t really know because you’re from the Navy. Neither would you, Jay. But promise, it’s a pirate thing.”

Gillion’s eyes narrow at Chip and then at Jay and then at John before going back to Chip again. Both Jay and John look confused. Jay can tell that Chip is absolutely lying. Not only has she spent ages studying pirates– especially him– but she also can tell from his tone that he’s just trying to trick Gillion. John, however, is not as bright as Jay.

John was starting to believe Chip.

“So, it’s a sign of respect to slap some bald guy over the head? Just ‘cause he’s bald?” John asks.

Chip smiles and nods. “Absolutely.”

“Hey, Chip… Hey- Uh, Chip? What- What are you doing?” Jay asks with a nervous tang to her voice. She wasn’t really nervous of the consequences as she knew that she had definitely seen worse than whatever is about to happen, she was more concerned with how well this lie was working with two people that she’s supposed to be part of a crew with.

“Jay. Listen, just- Just let me have this. Let me have this, Jay.” He whispered back to her and then held his finger to his lips.

Gillion and John both looked at each other for a moment before nodding. Gillion turned to the door to the inn.

“Get in line.” He clapped his hands together and they made a slight squelching sound from the wetness of his hands. “I’m first.”

“Of course, of course. You first, Gillion.” John ushered for Gillion to move in front of him. “I can’t believe we waited this long to do this. I hope he ain’t mad at us or nothin’.”

Chip stifled a laugh. “Oh, I’m sure he’s not mad. He’ll just be happy that you guys finally paid respects to his shiny bald head.”

Right after Chip ended his sentence, Gillion threw open the door to the inn. Chip’s eyes seemed to twinkle as they widened along with his smile. “Ohh, boy…” He whispered to himself.

The crew looked on in awe at the men in the room. Gillion’s jaw dropped and John rubbed his hands together as they scanned the room. Almost every single chair from the tables in the center of the room to the seats by the bar were filled with people. All of these people had one specific thing in common that might not be of any importance to anyone else, but was an incredibly noticeable trait to Jay, Chip, and especially Gillion, and John.

All of the men in the room were bald.

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knownangels · 7 months

Text

even

wc: 5.3k

Benji has never once thought oh good, it’s over. Never once had the first breath of fresh air after a skirmish — fumes and smoke and the tang of something metallic in the back of his mouth, like he’d dusted them between his molars instead of shot them from the barrel of a gun— and thought: ah, it’s done.

For some soldiers, the aftermath is the end. When the relief washes in and the adrenaline dies and the help arrives. Benji’s the help. It’s a crooked, evil phenomena: dreading the end of a fight. Crosses his wires all up in a tangle; it makes him twisted and selfish, doesn’t it, that he dreads the pause in gunfire?

But that doesn’t mean it’s ever silent, after a fight. The explosions and drumbeat of bullets and clinking of mags and spent rounds — it covered the rest of the noise.

He keeps his cool, of course. Part of the job. But if there was ever a portion that tested and stretched the limits of his composure, it was the after-noises.

He’s never thinking ah good, it’s over. He’s thinking: aw fuck, here we go.

Benji has the misfortune of taking something to the shoulder. Well. Relative misfortune. The other poor bastard taking cover behind an upturned stack of crates with him is a bit worse off.

“Patch me up.”

Benji winces when he turns his head. It pulls something, tugs some muscle connected to the injury. Blood bubbles up between his fingers, soaks through his glove.

Not so much as what soaks through the infantryman propped beside him. It’s a pool between them, spread out like some uncrossable, ruby-shined sea. Within it, the reflection of the noontime sun transfixes Benji. That, or he’s getting woozy.

He’s silent a beat too long; the other soldier begins to panic. He twitches all over, like he means to move. To grab Benji’s arm, his vest. Maybe he thinks he does move. Maybe, in his mind’s eye, he’s shaking Benji by the shoulders.

Maybe he really does think Benji can help. Because this is the part of the battle — the after — where Benji’s job starts. Where the little red cross on his uniform becomes a beacon, rather than a scrap of fabric with a few stitches loose.

(Benji’s only loose stitches, ever. He prides himself on that.)

But no amount of tight stitching is going to help the other injured man. Benji’s got a through and through, nice and clean. He can tell, the way the wound aches. You get enough of them, wounds that is…well, you start being able to differentiate pain. Being able to tell the difference in missing flesh, the way nerves throb a specific way for a tactical blade’s slash or shrapnel aching deep. The absences feel different. Voids, and all that.

“Patch me up!”

Benji glances up from the nasty, serrated combat knife buried handle-deep in his solar plexus. When the other soldier screams it, his whole torso shudders. That’s how Benji knows what it’s hit — getting winded after a blow to the center of the chest is shit enough. This is a bit worse. It’ll be about now that he realizes he can’t pull another breath: on cue, the soldier’s eyes pop wide. His face starts to lose color.

Benji winces as he props himself up to a kneeling position. He lets go of his own injury, gritting his teeth until he swears he feels one chip.

“Rough way of it,” Benji croaks. He’s not sure if it’s from overuse or not speaking at all; he never knows what happens, in the midst of the during. He goes someplace else. Checks out of the hotel, so to speak. Benji laughs.

“What do —you— mean—?” The infantryman wheezes. Benji wishes he knew the man’s name. But they’re all cannon fodder. Frontline first in bastards, he and this one. His name isn’t known either, or else the man would have used it.

“You’re going to die.” Benji says. With his good arm (not as bad arm, he supposes, because he can feel a nasty fucking bruise blossoming in the crook of his elbow) he reaches across to pinch the man’s eyelids wider. His pupils swim, catching Benji only for a moment before they slip away.

“I’m —no. You…medic.”

“Got a basic med kit, sure.” Benji’s focus drifts back to the wound in his chest. The man heaves a breath — one of his last few — and shudders. Another spot, one Benji hadn’t noticed until just now and one that rests unfairly close to his heart, spits a stream of crimson.

“Hurts—!”

Benji tips the man’s chin up. His head hangs back loose on his shoulders. He shivers again. Somehow, hemusters enough strength to give Benji’s wrist a claw-like grip. Benji welcomes it: the sting of nails into skin distracts from the throb in his shoulder.

“Got painkillers, yeah.” Benji pats his cheek awkwardly. No matter how many times he finds himself in this position, this gunpowder-scented bedside with none of the cool depressed indifference of a hospital room, he knows he’ll never get better at the manner. It’ll eat at him something fierce, sure. He’ll sit up and remember the exact shade of silvery flecks in this man’s eyes. But easing their final closure with kind words or comforting promises or sympathy —

Nah. He’s shit at it. Always will be.

“Got painkillers,” Benji repeats, patting the man’s cheek to stir him a bit. “But it’ll have stopped hurting by now, right? By the time I give ‘em to you, it’ll be done. It’s good to go quick, mate. Promise. You wouldn’t believe how long it takes, sometimes. ‘Sides, you got your brain intact, lucky you. All those nice chemicals of your own’ll be giving you the trip of a —”

The man’s panicked expression slips into something peacefully slack. Doped up. Benji huffs out a laugh that, were it his first time in this exact scenario, might strike him as morbid.

“Lifetime. Aw, ‘pologies. Poor choice on my part.”

Benji makes quick work of the chain around the man’s neck. The little blue tags they kit each of them out with are cheaply made. Transparent, light-catching material, maybe resin, with silver etched letters and numbers. Benji has seen them shatter when dropped. Benji has treated a man who ran chest-first into a wall on leave, crunched his tags against his chest, and needed them fished out with a pair of tweezers. He hadn’t much appreciated the Operation joke Benji’d made, during.

He leaves one of the rounded rectangles in the man’s fist, which needs to be manually closed — so he can be identified, once clean-up touches down.

The other tag he slips into his pocket. It’s the first of the afternoon, the first of this after (Benji’s beginning), but it won’t be the last. By the end of the next hour or so, a half dozen of them will clink together. He might even forget they’re there; he might only remember to take them to his lieutenant, to be transferred to records then shipping then family, the next morning when he’s tossing his trousers into the hamper to take them to the wash on base so the blood from this man’s gaping chest wound which stains his thigh and seeps warm onto his skin can be wrung out and tint the water pink —

Benji blinks. With a gentle hand cupping the back of the dying soldier’s head, he guides that fluttering, distanced gaze down to his own. He holds up the single tag on its chain.

“Rough way.” Benji repeats. He is at his usual, habitual loss for what else to say. “We’ll get it to —well, whoever. Family, or —y’know. Whoever.”

He hopes the man doesn’t slip away to his hapless fumbling. Would be a particularly shit end to his already shit day.

Once the body has gone fully limp, Benji pushes himself to his knees. He does a careful check of his surroundings. Other bodies lie amongst the rubble, some out in the open, some groaning —or dying — from their injuries just out of vision.

Benji slips the tag into his pocket. He bites his glove off, velcro strap ripping loudly but not loud enough to drown the after-noises. The etched letters of this first man are a soothing texture beneath his swiping thumb. But he can’t make out the word they spell. He never learns the man’s name.

He doesn’t want to.

When he discovers, after a thorough assessment of the remnants of the firefight, that he is the last of this particular squadron alive, his hands only set to shaking a little.

Benji has not been in this position before. Their leader for this mission, a stalwart and square-jawed woman by the name of Jamison— or maybe Jemison, or Jamesson — lies in a crumpled heap behind the warm exhaust of a generator. The production facility they had been tasked with protecting had come under predicted attack, but it seems as though despite all her experience she had not been able to predict the nasty, forceful blow to her skull.

Her tags get tucked alongside the others. Benji is all too aware of his own, now. They’re nestled against his chest, digging in beneath the strap of his vest. He’s the only survivor. He needs to get a working comms established; their commander’s radio has been crushed by the same weapon that had made jelly of everything above the shoulders.

He’s the only survivor. He needs to find a way to share that information. He needs to find someone to share that information with. He needs to get back to base. He needs a shower. He needs sleep. He needs—

To pay attention.

His gut moves him. He has no control of his muscles, so it must be instinct. Instinct: one single breath to his right, behind a corner. Instinct: the swivel of his hip. Instinct, the steadying placement of one boot back, braced to mitigate the momentum that pushes him back as he catches a swinging weapon by its handle.

It’s instinct that uses both arms to yank his assailant off their feet. But it’s Benji, his shoulder and the pain that comes with this life-saving motion, who screams.

He stumbles with the shock of it. Like lightning. His palm bruises and cramps. HIs whole arm goes limp as it sizzles white-hot up his forearm, wraps his bicep, and settles like a shard of pure electricity in the oozing hole in his shoulder.

“Fuck!” Benji gasps as he falls. Embarrassingly, right on his arse.

“Fuck you!” The weapon-wielder yells back.

It shivers him with déjà vu.

Benji has the sensation of someone looming over him, someone holding him to the ground with a fist in his vest; he has the sensation of instinct and adrenaline seeping from him hand-in-hand. His gut coils weak once more, no longer offering him any help in the face of danger. He’s lost more blood than he realizes. And with that realization comes another:

He’s the last left. There will be no one to deny him painkillers. No one to joke about his assigned method of departure, rough way. No one to tuck his tag in his fist. No one to take it back to base, to identify be identified, to be sent home.

“Benji.” Benji says. He says it. Not instinct. It’s written on his tag. But he wants them to know.

There’s a long pause where he imagines the graceful arc of the weapon he’d briefly caught. He imagines it cutting through the air. He imagines whatever it is burying itself in his skull. Imagines the mess.

Benji blinks his eyes open (when had he squeezed them shut?) and stares, for a moment, blankly.

“Oh shit.”

“Oh.” He breathes. And then, for some reason, he smiles. “Oh shit.”

“It’s still cute.”

Benji’s scowl turns into a proper wince; Xavier winds the bandage around his shoulder too tight. He’s not as practiced at this — maybe not at all. And Benji had refused to touch the little bottle of painkillers in his kit.

It felt wrong. He — it just was wrong.

So he bites his knuckle the whole time Xavier tends to him. While the wound is cleaned, while its packed (squeamishly, which is admittedly charming), while a firm hand pulls the strip of white cotton tight, tight, tight.

“Sorry?” He’s still delirious. Head swimming from the blood loss, the wind-down of medical trauma. Of endorphins running out. Of—

(the flash of the warehouse, bodies strewn, guns smoking, the after-noises, the man’s rolling eyes)

“Your name.” Xavier insists. "It's still cute."

He looks no worse for wear; almost as if he hasn’t been in the midst of it at all, aside ruffled hair and a sweat-slicked face. There are circles under his eyes, but then again, Benji hasn’t seen a set without them in quite some time. He just hasn’t been close enough to the enemy (which is what Xavier is, his mind insists) to see how they’d been faring.

Not as bad, if Xavier’s chipper, toothy grin and color-flushed face are anything to go by. They’re not, Benji knows. He is by definition an anomaly. Not of this place, this world, and certainly not the standard by which other battle-pallid faces and distanced eyes should be judged against.

I need a fucking nap, Benji thinks, because his thoughts are rapidly unspooling. He keeps his mouth shut to keep them from escaping that way.

But Xavier nudges him. Friendly like, an elbow to his undamaged shoulder. It jostles enough to hurt, but its numb enough now that he can grit his jaw to it.

“Remember? We ran into each other before.” Xavier snorts. “You threw a gun at me. Kind of stupid.”

“Out of ammo.” Benji defends. “What else am I s’posed to do, I see a big bastard like you comin' at me?”

He pretends not to notice how Xavier’s chest puffs at that, even though it wasn’t a compliment.

“Run, maybe. Although that doesn’t always help.”

“Didn’t.” Benji says. He gestures at the massive gore-slicked hammer propped against a crate adjacent to the position they’ve taken; Xavier had pulled him away from the open-air warehouse floor into a smaller room. Managerial, if he were to guess from the monitors and upended bullet-riddled file cabinets. There are probably useful documents in there he ought to go through and save, bring back for intel.

But Xavier’s smiling. There’s something off about it, a twist that isn’t charming or jovial that hints at a dark few future hours; Xavier had been the only survivor of his crew, too.

“Well, us either. A few of those guys were assholes, though, so —“

Benji laughs incredulously at the awful implication of that.”What, so they deserved it?”

Xavier’s laugh smears right off his face. His eyes do a funny thing: distance and blur.

“Some of them.” He intones quietly, voice dark and monotone. Benji hasn’t known him long enough (doesn’t know him at all!) to determine if that’s uncharacteristic. Given their last encounter, it might be.

And just as quickly it appeared, its gone. Xavier straightens up to his full height, which is fucking up there, and snaps the clasp of Benji’s now-empty med kit shut. He pats it twice, pauses, pats it again. Then tucks it carefully inside Benji’s pack before zipping that shut, too.

“There we go. You’re all set.” He kneels down again. He’s so tall their faces don’t nearly align, but when he tilts his head its just about there. “Are you going to tell people I kissed it better?”

His breath drifts over Benji’s face. It smells sweet, like fruit flavored candy. It also smells like blood; he has a cut on the inside of his mouth somewhere that still leaks, turns the delicate pink between his white teeth a fresh, deranged red.

“I’m not going to tell anybody anything.” Benji says. He doesn’t say it because he’s nervous there’s a threat underlying a smile that is, by all visual clues, absolutely threatening. He says it because —

He says it because he wants Xavier to know he can be trusted. That this isn’t just another good deed, another favor. It isn’t happenstance. A moment of weakness; of mercy. Two’s a pattern. He says it because telling Xavier: if we see each other again —

No. He can’t say that.

Something beeps on Xavier’s person. He pats his chest, then his breast pocket. From there, he pulls a tablet. Or what looks like one. Its transparent screen is peculiarly thin. With the blue glow and digital beeps, Benji gets the impression that its technology is incredibly advanced. Futuristic, even. Certainly nothing he’s ever seen.

And that too is something he should act on: he should pull his side piece from its thigh holster and level it at Xavier’s pale forehead (where a cluster of freckles thins in the center, from brown to nearly his skin tone). He should pull the trigger. He should take the tablet, he should find out if Xavier has tags of his own, he should take the documents, he should turn them all in —

Instead, Benji reaches up and taps his knuckle against the back of the tablet’s screen.

“Tell your mum ‘hullo’ for me, yeah?”

Xavier blinks. And then he laughs, wild and delirious — just how Benji feels.

He has no need for them and has never believed in the workings of the universe to as enchanted a level as they require, but the fact that Benji makes it back to base is nothing short of a miracle.

A narrow escape of two enemy patrols. Sliding down a muddy hill (because of course the rain started up) into a drainage ditch. The ambient temperature isn’t too low, but Benji’s injured. And the water is thigh-deep. And the shock of it is enough that he gasps and goes cold all over.

And it should be there they find him, blue in the lips and gray in the face and dead, tag tucked in his own fist and thumb pressed so hard to the name it etches into skin instead of cheap plastic.

It is there they find him. He just isn’t dead.

His lieutenant claps him hard on the back. It’s his injured side. The gauze has, again miraculously, avoided soaking through with the disgustingly muddy runoff that coats the rest of him.

Perhaps because it was wound too tight.

“At ease, mate.” Quinn barks. The rest of the pick-up squad gathers around them. Some start to ask questions — who’s with you, where are the rest, where’s the commander, how’d you bloody do it, private? — but the lieutenant creates a barrier between Benji’s listless, tired gaze and the rest of them.

“Now how have you managed this time, Benj?”

He doesn’t know Benji’s injured. But the squeeze he puts to that wound on his shoulder feels deliberately harsh. Any other time, the informal touch and it’s proximity to affection might stir something in his gut. But whatever heat that could be there has been eaten up to fuel its instinct, instead.

Instinct that had saved him. Instinct that had wandered him blindly through the warehouse and right into the path of —

Benji doesn’t pass out until they have him on the medical transport. But he comes awful close to it then.

“Miracle, sir.” He chirps.

It turns out he has a bit of internal bleeding near his spleen. And a concussion. Shoulder-shot is baby shit, so some of the others say. Plenty of them are duty served enough to be ninety percent scar tissue. Benji doesn’t want to go that way. He’d like to be mostly intact when he goes. But more and more, he’s realizing that is a privileged afforded to very few in this line of work.

He spends four days in recovery. A week in post, another on desk duty. He eats up as much of the free time as he can doing things he ought to enjoy. Puzzles. Shooting the shit with some of the other injured, still recovering from missions past. Going over strategy and intelligence with the lieutenant, even though its not information he should be privy to and only knows because its offered under less than professional circumstances.

Benji thinks of the dead man’s rolling eyes on both of those occasions, when they come up.

“Sorry.” He pulls away, feigning a wince. The lieutenant’s quarters are darkened with only the orange glow of a distant desk lamp to illuminate them. Benji faces away from it; there isn’t enough light to show the deceit twisting that expression. “Still sore. Thought I could —“

“Tough through it?” Quinn finishes for him, broad chest under his palm rumbling with a laugh that he finds pleasant. It feels good to touch. To be touched; that’s why he’s here. It’s always why he is. Benji gets too much of the after-noise. The clutching of his wrists, of his vest. The begging. Patch me up. Patch me up.

That’s the real reason he returns to his own quarters, gut icy with something he’s scared to name.

“No need, mate. Go get your shut eye. Need you functioning anyway.”

Before he slips under his own covers, in his own room, Benji takes his tags off. The chain tinks against the end table’s edge, and the last thought he has before sleep pulls him under is a fearful one:

Don’t shatter. Don’t shatter. I don’t have tweezers on me. I can’t pull the pieces out. What if it cracks right along my name? Who will know?

He’s cleared for the next mission. And just like the previous, things go south very quickly.

Patterns, he’s thinking, lip tucked between his teeth as he patches up a particularly nasty gash. It’s not serrated, or else the damage would be worse — this one had been unfortunate enough to take the blade between clavicle and armpit. It will be a slow heal. It will sting like a bitch. Itch like one, too. But the wound’s recipient seems no worse for this shared information, when Benji informs him of it.

Benji wonders if Xavier is ever worse for the wear. If he’s capable. Even carved up, exhausted. Both of them separated from their respective squads, hunkered up in the same rotted-wood cabin in the middle of nowhere; he should be wary, tired, exhausted, teeth pulled back defensive.

Except when Benji had stumbled into the decrepit old shed, he’d only —

He’d only smiled.

(“Knew it. We were totally due for another one.”)

That jolliness has faded only slightly the longer Benji spends, carefully disinfecting the edges before pinching the skin together to stitch. He takes his time. He takes time he hasn't got to spare.

“Hurt?” Benji asks, eyebrows pulling in when Xavier shakes his head. “Mate, fuck off. Looks like it does somethin’ fierce. I’ve got pills—?”

Xavier squeezes his eyes shut. The smile slips and then plasters back in place, more plastic-stiff than a moment before.

“You nursed me back to good health, doc.” Xavier somehow manages to purr, despite his obvious state and rough-edged voice. “I’m okay. I can get back. We’re not even, though. So next time—“

“No.” Benji says. He isn’t sure what he’s denying; that they’ll meet again, that they’ll tend to something open and raw and bleeding on the other, that there will be a next anything.

There shouldn’t.

“But we’re two-one. You have to get me back.” Xavier sticks his lower lip out, puppy-eyed and sweet. “Just one more favor?”

Benji winds the gauze too tight around his midsection and yanks the shirt back down over his torso. He’s very professional about it. His gaze does not wander. He does not linger, does not press firm to heaving ribs and note the jump of Xavier’s body beneath him. Not just the movement of breath, a pained gasp, but — but —

“Fuck you.” Benji says, but it doesn’t have the intended effect.

Xavier just smiles.

“What?”

Benji isn’t in his bed on base. He sits upright, and the sheets drift off him like water. There and then gone.

He feels his lungs move, his lips part.

There’s a laugh on the other side of the room. He’s suddenly feverish. Sweat sticks to him, his chest heaving with desperate breaths. When a hand flattens to the center of it, right above his solar plexus, it slips like he’s slicker with something other than sweat.

“You woke up, like, all panicked. And went ‘who will know?’. Fucking spooky.” A laugh. “Weird.”

Benji opens his eyes, then. Except — he’d noted the clock on the wall, the second pair of shoes kicked off by the door to his room, so his eyes had already been open…hadn’t they?

There are no windows in his room on base, just four bland gray walls. But he feels a breeze — a stirring of fabric, like curtains in the summer—-

Benji sits up again. His head swims and everything goes funny, colorful.

“What?”

He glances to the side. He’s not in his room. He’s not in his bed, on base. He leans over the side of the mattress. The sheets slip from him like water, and pool on the ground.

Benji realizes he rests on a shitty, thin futon. Right on the ground. It’s been nudged into the corner of the room — the room being a spare. Mostly empty, devoid fo decoration in a house that shares both those qualities. He hasn’t had the time to do much with it, other than agonize over the debt he now runs with his sister.

Debts, the thought drifts airily around him like a physical thing. Two-one. Patterns.

His head swims when he turns it the opposite direction, towards the window on the north side of the room. He’s not on base — there are no rooms. He’s in the house, and he’s with—

Xavier stands against the sunlight that pours in. He fades at the edges, wispy and gold, shimmering like a cartoon oasis. When he finally stands in front of Benji (head tilted and towering, like that high-noon triage in the warehouse weeks ago), he plots out the light. And as he drops to his knees, scooting so that Benji has no choice but to lie back against the mattress, the room is less bright than it was a moment before.

“You talk in your sleep.” Xavier says. He reaches towards the back of his neck, triceps flexing in a distracting enough manner that it draws Benji’s focus there. He pulls a black, sweat-slick shirt off himself slowly; Benji is incapable of doing anything but watch as each pale inch of skin is revealed.

“Do I?” He asks, throat dry.

“Yeah. Wasn’t expecting it.” Xavier smiles and leans over him, braced on stiff arms. He winces; the pull of his brow is cute. “It’s cute.”

Benji laughs. His hand is suddenly full of warm, smooth skin. Xavier doesn’t look pained this time, as he slides that hand up and down prominent ribs. The gnarly blade has barely left its mark; where it had torn him open, there’s barely a scar.

“We shouldn’t. We probably shouldn’t.” Benji says. It stirs a strange feeling in him, something close to familiarity.

“Not your type?” Xavier laughs. It’s that mad and unhinged thing. It doesn’t quite fit the moment. “Bullshit.”

Benji hasn’t the brain power to react to the ego-driven quip with anything but a gasp. Xavier flattens over top of him, a graceful roll of their bodies together. The sheets are back on him; Xavier pulls them off, the last barrier. He’s warm against Benji, pressed chest-to-chest. Smiling that quirked, strange smile. Not soft at all. Benji wonders if it ever softens — and then he wonders nothing at all.

They’re kissing — in the middle of it, suddenly. There’s no build up, but it feels languid as though they’ve been doing it for some time. Xavier’s broad hand, fist clenched like it had been around the handle of that hammer, rests on his chest. The other has wedged between their bodies, is nudging the sheets off, is pushing Benji’s sleep pants down his thighs, is —

Xavier stops kissing him, pulls back just enough to pant against his face. He smells sweet, like he’d just had his body weight in candy floss before they’d gotten to this point. Up until this point, he’s been kissing close-mouthed and shy. But when their cocks touch, squeezed sweetly in together Benji’s hand now, not his, the force of those kisses becomes something else entirely.

The more their hips rock together, skin dragging deliciously, the firmer Xavier’s mouth. He skates kisses across Benji’s jaw, leads teeth down his neck, and then stops to press his forehead to Benji’s chest. To watch.

“Guess I am, huh?” Xavier pants. His voice is soft and humored. Benji laughs about that, shaking his head — that’s something about the other man he’d noticed right away. The sweet, boyish hint of ego laced in every word.

It’s sticky and hot, sweat on his temples and dripping onto Benji’s chest, his cheek. He licks his lips and tastes salt. Tastes metal. When Xavier throws his head back and moans softly, his teeth are bloody.

The beginning of the orgasm tightens his stomach then, a warmth spreading in a swirl beneath his belly button. His thighs flex, calves squeezing enough that a cramp zips up his leg.

“Two-two.” Xavier sighs, face buried in his neck. His hand has wedged between them again, is pulling Benji just the way he likes, with the grip and rhythm he prefers when he’s close, he’s close—

Being pulled from the dream is a fist to the gut.

Benji jerks awake with a noise that startles him even more.

His shoulder is still tenderly healing, and now it’s properly sore: that arm is lifted at an uncomfortable angle, maybe has been for awhile. His fingers are tight in his hair, fisted in a clench so severe the joints ache. Benji has little to no warning as both consciousness and orgasm split him in separate, abruptly dizzying directions.

“Fuck,” he grunts, a soft whine slipping alongside the shocked expletive. It’s a longer one than he’s used to; it leaves his hips twitching and abdomen heaving for a good while after the last bit of release cools on his stomach.

He lays there, breathing hard, staring up at the perforated ceiling of his room on base.

Benji turns his head to the side. His tags rest in a tangled heap; he’ll have to pick the knot apart at first-call breakfast. In the dark, he can’t make out the letters of his name. He knows they’re there, etched into the rectangle.

He doesn’t drift off again for another hour. He’s too awake, once he’s pulled himself into the bathroom to wash off the mess, once he’s pulled the scratchy sheet off, once he lays there, shivering and staring up at the ceiling.

The lack of tiredness starts to frustrate him. Benji reaches up and squeezes his shoulder. To the healing divot of new, pink skin Benji presses his thumb, harder, harderharderharder. Until it hurts, until it’s electrifying, until he has to scowl and shut his eyes and think of something else to distract. Some way for his mind to wander around the pain, some distraction—

Benji relents his grip. He turns onto his uninjured side. He dreams of curling into a ball on his thin futon in an otherwise empty room.

He gets exactly four hours and eleven minutes of sleep. His eyes are red-rimmed and underscored with purple shadows the next morning, when he sits across from his lieutenant, when he is briefed on another mission

I need to pack extra in the kit this go around, Benji thinks, blinking sleepily. Just in case. Really. Just in case.

The lieutenant, perhaps mistaking his tired stare for something of secretive interest, smiles back at him. A second later, a slip of paper is passed beneath into his stiff fingers. Benji unfolds it across his lap to read:

functioning?

When his eyes lift, the lieutenant’s sear into him. Benji lifts a flat palm and wiggles it.

So-so.

#writing #bp #xw #bp x xw #val au #<- new core au we're reworking hehe #also mentions of violence/gore/brief and nonexplicit illusions to self harm behavior #you know. the benji special.

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