#Snarl Backdraft

[born-in-ascalon]

Did I forget to post this here...? I did, didn't I...

The best charr OTP there is, Snarl Backdraft and Galina Edgecrusher. This is a bit of a precursor thought/piece to what eventually became a short comic.

Made for Wintersday Zine 2018.

[i-mybrunettelady]

Snarl and Galina are couple goals actually

[satancopilotsmytardis]

Drabble-A-Thon 2 Prompt #10

Pairing: Shigadabi

Rating: Explicit

Prompt: A job goes wrong and Dabi gets hurt. Tomura takes care of him. Caretaking, crying, mild pain play, milking. 

Contents: Caretaking, dacryphilia, mild pain play, prostate milking, anal fingering. 

He is snarling when he goes to lock himself in the bathroom after the job. It wasn't supposed to be hard. It was just light recruitment, which is always shit. It always ends up with him burning them out. But Toga, because she's a child, because she isn't a criminal down to her blood yet, had decided to sneak in and interrupt the conversation. Made him have to reign himself in so she wouldn't get hurt from his backdraft, and had landed him taking two hits that his staples are not happy about. She feels bad, sure, but it doesn't change the fact that she shouldn't have been there in the first place. 

Dabi tries to shove the staple in his cheek back into place, but it slips from his skin and tinkles into the drain. "God fucking damn it!" He snarls, his fist smashing against the cheap, stained sink because if he doesn't do that he might ignite. He is not in the mood for any company when there's a soft knock on the door. "Fuck off!"  The shitty, tiny apartment that they've got drained all of his backup funds now that AFO's people have completely cut them off. This is his apartment, and if he wants to take his sweet time in their one bathroom, then they can go find an alley to piss in. 

The doorknob turns and Dabi curses himself for not locking it on his way in. He's about to get rid of the intruder with a flashy, but mostly harmless ball of flames when Shigaraki comes into the room and gently shuts and locks the door behind him. Shigaraki has been so weird lately, that Dabi doesn't really want to deal with him either. But he did come bearing his medical bag, so he does get to live for at least a second. 

"Lean back, firefly." He says, not letting Dabi take the bag from him. He huffs and crosses his arms, but lets the other take out his antiseptic cream and move in close. He's not wearing his gloves, but Dabi isn't scared of him anymore. Never seen him slip. 

"She could have gotten herself killed. She could have gotten me killed." 

"She's fine. You kept her safe." He dabs at the wound and Dabi hisses slightly. "And you're right here. You don't have to be scared anymore." Dabi opens his mouth to snarl at the other man, tell him he's not the one who's hiding like a roach. At least he's going out there and doing something. Shigaraki digs his thumb into the wound to keep him quiet and when he flinches, Shig leans closer, resting their foreheads together. "You just have to let me take care of you, baby boy." 

It's disgusting how much that affects him. He's going to have to burn himself alive ahead of schedule for that. But those words are permission. Dabi has spent so much of his life fighting and scraping by. But when Tomura calls him that, when he has him like this, it means that he can let someone else take the burdens from his shoulders for a little while. He leans into the painful touch, the relief making it feel a little sweeter. 

"There." Tomura puts a new staple into his skin and then presses a kiss to his forehead. "I know it's hard. She wasn't raised into this life. She's just starting out. She'll learn. You'll teach her. She won’t get hurt the same ways we did when we failed." He promises. His hands move to Dabi's waist, and he helps to lift him, perching Dabi on the edge of the sink which creeks a bit as he puts his weight on it. "But you don't have to worry about that right now, precious. Right now, I just want to show you how happy I am that you came home safe." 

The release of the frustration and the fear that was in him through the job makes a few crimson tears well in his eyes, but Duster isn't disgusted by those. He coos at him so sweetly and kisses them away from his cheeks as he unthreads Dabi's belt from the loops of his pants. Tomura kisses his lips, along the side of his neck, murmuring words that are too soft for someone as twisted and gnarled as Dabi is, but he soaks each one up like they could fix everything broken inside of him. His cock is half hard by the time Tomura has him kicking his pants off, his boots having been removed so carefully like, even after the hurt he knows the other can put into his skin so easily, he wanted him to know that it will never be some flippant violence. Dabi will hurt when Tomura knows he can handle hurting. And when he can't handle it, when he needs someone to take care of him after being left to do everything on his own for years, then he can have this. 

They use some of the soap from the shower to open him up, deadly fingers slipping inside of his body and promising to make him feel good. Dabi hasn't accepted anyone's word at face value in years, but he takes what he's given. Even when he tries to reach for his cock to pump himself to his orgasm and a four-fingered grip catches his wrist and stops him as his other hand strokes his prostate again and again. 

"Not like that, baby boy. I know you're so tense. I don't want you to burn up right now. I just want you to melt for me, precious. Let me make you melt." 

Dabi would let Shigaraki do whatever he wanted to him if he promised to always take care of him so sweetly afterwards. He didn't realize that a kind touch could be more addicting than an orgasm. He doesn't resent the lack of one though as Tomura keeps moving his fingers inside of him until he is aching so sharply and his cock is so hard, but doesn't get to give him the explosive release of pleasure he is expecting. Instead he gets a softness of his warmth spilling and spilling out across the floor as his body hums much more gently. It leaves him crying a little more, tears trickling across his cheeks as Tomura kisses him and holds him tight, telling him that he can be this for a little while. He doesn't have to be anything more. He can just be his baby boy, just for a little while. He just needs this for a little while.

Maybe Tomura's readiness to give it to him is because he needs it too. 

Thanks for participating! If you'd like to join in, consider checking it out here!

[kurosakilchigo]

The sword-breaking should have been a thing of the past. Zangetsu had hoped it would be, but then he hears it-- that terrible splitting sound, like cracks forming in glass, spidering out uncontrollably from the first fracture. Then comes the pain, so blinding that Zangetsu almost loses his bearings and plummets down from consciousness. It's a pain he remembers well, the sensation of his Shikai breaking, and this time Ichigo can feel it too- if not the same sensations, then the agony that succeeds it.

He wants to scream, but he cuts himself off, the gestation strangled to death in its crib before it's been allowed to mature. No. This isn't the place or the time. They're still in the middle of combat.

"Keep fighting! Don't you dare stop for me!" Zangetsu snarls. "If the blade is useless now, then I'll lend you my horns!"

@killerinstincts || accepting

The crack splits the world open.

Ichigo hears it. Feels it inside his ribs.

A sound like glass under pressure, sickening, sudden, final, shattering inside his chest.

His fingers tighten reflexively around the broken blade. Suddenly lighter. Nothing but a sheared edge left of it now. The steady pulse of steel warmed by his hand, but the certainty of victory, the promise of salvation—gone. Torn from him again, and his gut drops with the realization like it's on a multistory plummet.

The pain is instant.

Zangetsu’s.

He’d had some measure of protection from it back when he was purposefully keeping distance between them. He doesn’t now. 

It tears through him like white fire, lancing from spine to sternum, flaring behind his eyes until he stumbles a half step. His knees buckle an inch. His breath stutters. The pain is not clean. It’s jagged, raw as an exposed nerve. And he feels Zangetsu, not fading, but reeling. A beast shot through the chest but refusing to go down. 

He can’t speak. Can’t breathe.

The war drum of his pulse slams against his ribs.

He breathes once, shallow. Then again, deeper. It barely helps.

Zangetsu’s voice hits him like a whip. Keep fighting! Don’t you dare stop for me!

There’s no softness in it, no space for grief. Just that terrible clarity Zangetsu wears like a second skin. 

Ichigo grits his teeth. His jaw aches from the force of it. Fight.

Don’t stop.

But fuck, he wants to stop. 

He wants to fold in on himself. Hands to his chest. To scream and scream until the pain stops. He wants to rip the air apart with it.

They were supposed to be done with this. They were whole. They were fixed. They were together.

And now—again—he’s standing in the pieces.

His fingers clench tighter on the hilt, grip slick with blood.

He refuses to let it go, watches their enemy gather for another attack, victory blazing in eyes that don’t smile. The attack builds until it fills his vision.

Zangetsu snarls. 

If the blade is useless now, then I'll lend you my horns!

Yes. 

It’s not so much a word as a feeling. 

The shift is instant. Inevitable. Like a wave swelling up from the center of the ocean. It must look like nothing. Seem so insignificant. But a tremor deep in the earth levels cities at the surface. A swell in the ocean is a tsunami on land.

The ground shudders under his feet with a dry crunch as reishi coils around him, the air thickening into a storm. Wind howls. Debris scatters. The enemy flinches as the pressure spikes, screaming higher and higher up the scale until the air itself seems to warp with it.

The change starts low in his spine and behind his eyes, surging up through his form like liquid fire. Molten. Consuming. A backdraft of power. His bones stretch. Fingers sharpening. Mask forming, horns lengthening to a razor’s edge. His vision sharpens as Zangetsu sears up through him, wedges so deep into the cavity behind his heart that their thoughts aren’t even thoughts anymore. They’re movement. Reflex. Will. 

Every breath Ichigo takes is a torrent. Every beat of his heart is an echo. 

His mouth parts, jaw aching under the pressure, the urge to consume everything.

There’s blood on his tongue, but it tastes like momentum. He swallows it down. The heat rolls through him. Better, he thinks. Or maybe Zangetsu does. It doesn’t matter. The line is too blurred to mark.

“Come on.” The words drop like thunder, a rumble without form, but when his teeth open it’s only a roar of sound.

The enemy stares. 

The world shudders around them.

And Zangetsu?

Zangetsu is everywhere.

In his teeth. His breath. His shadow. In every ragged, staggering heartbeat that wants only one thing now. To strike.

To win.

[brax-was-here]

End of Dragons Final Battle: A thought.

I just had a thought today.

The final battle in End of Dragons. The final battle of a 10 year epic story arc fighting the elder dragons.

You know who should have been there helping you protect the cannon from the Void?

The Pact NPCs that helped you during the original personal story if you completed it. Agent Zrii, Professor Gorr, Galina Edgecrusher, Snarl Backdraft, and others.

And if Arenanet had wanted to do something really special for that final battle? Have our mentors, Tyblat/Sieran/Forgal arrive from the Mists to help. Have Almorra Soulkeeper return to help. Even have Trahearne return to help.

How much more epic would that fight have been knowing they were there with you, helping you to fight the final battle to close a 10 year chapter in Tyria's history?

[etruatcaelum]

Caustic despair boils up in her throat when Arthur says of course he hears you, but for once—for once, the feeling drains away at the conclusion, and Salem lifts a trembling hand to pass across her face. “I–” a brittle exhalation. She mutters, to herself more than to Arthur, “I suppose it is only—semantic.”

Hearing, or listening. Perhaps she mistook the connotations, or the difference is vaguer than she thought, but it matters not: Arthur came to her meaning, in the end.

Still, it is a moment before she can gather herself to answer him; to wrench open the iron bars of her terror that he will not understand because no one ever does, and so few are willing to even try. Her lips part, quivering, and no sound escapes but a desolate creak. Salem takes a shuddering breath, and then another.

“You say,” she whispers at last, “that one must cultivate an environment which soothes his madness, to be close with him. I…”

Oh, it is a mistake to speak of this, a grave mistake to let it even breach the surface of conscious thought; her bitterness rises from the abyss with serpent-jaws gaping and drenched in venom. Salem halts, eyes fixed upon the floor, clasped hands pressing hard into the pit of her chest.

“I did not ask,” she snarls, “to be his goddess.”

She hisses it like a curse, all the years of hidden revulsion and scorn unchained and charring those two syllables black with hatred; for although she has enjoyed worship in the past, what Tyrian does to her is—not that. The vicious and violent storms of his fervor leave her with no safe harbor and no atlas, only a formless chaos unbounded by rite or tradition. It is veneration without regard, a pantomime lacking in prayer or ritual.

Obsession.

Eyes blazing with inner fire, Salem rounds on his partner and says in a low, tight voice: “He loves me—so he believes—and craves my approval with such desperation that even the smallest hint of my displeasure throws him into self-injurious fits of anguish; shall I tell him, then, that there is nothing I find more repulsive than sycophantic groveling? Would you have me impose strictures upon him that I do not ask of anyone else and deny him the natural expression of his feeling? Because–” a choked, bleak gasp of laughter. “—I do not like it?”

Stop.

Salem whirls away to press her face into her hands, breathing jagged and shallow, shoulders drawn high. “I am so,” she forces out, “selfish, Arthur. I try not to—I try. I do try. I try. I don’t like to hurt people. But I–”

(so lonely)

“—I do try,” she says again, voice small, and then: “Whatever kindness I offer him inflames his devotion. When I am am reserved, he becomes yet more desperate; if I acknowledge any disappointment, if I make even the gentlest criticism—if my tone is too curt for his liking, if I am preoccupied with other concerns, if I am tired, if I am—uncomfortable—if– if I do not—perfectly anticipate what he wants to hear, then he unravels—and should I remove myself because my presence clearly distresses him, then I am punishing him with isolation and he takes it upon himself to administer his own torture—it is– it is like—walking upon knives—I am nothing to him but an implement of his self-destruction. It is different for you—”

Her voice fractures.

“You,” Salem says heavily, “are a person.”

She is staring down at her hands, she finds, when the red haze clears from her sight: ashen skin threaded with crimson, tar-black claws crowning her trembling fingertips. These are not, she thinks as she clasps them together again and holds them tight against her midriff, safe hands.

The backdraft of her vituperative outburst is scorching. Not daring to face Arthur again, Salem offers him only a flinching glance before she resumes her course along the corridor. she wants to cry. She mutters, “I– I’m—I should have more patience. I know. It isn’t his fault.”

“He got some sleep after we left the garden, too,” Watts murmurs, “but despite what he’d say if asked, he’s far from well. I can count his ribs, he's cold, he can't eat too much or too quickly if he doesn't want to get sicker, his natural tail is in rough shape-"

A sigh.

"But he will recover. He's - recovered before, and from worse. And he knows to listen to me on matters of health."

(Indeed Tyrian had, and indeed Tyrian did.

And as Salem lapses into silence, so too does Watts - equally weary, equally reluctant to make this trip, now - the issue of Salem's seeming guilt, of Tyrian's belief in his own failure, of whether or not abandoning Tyrian to his grief in Vacuo had been intentionally done, of whether or not she meant to hurt, because he saw the burn marks on Tyrian's collar...

Watts can't address any of it, because he wonders if she is lying when she says she isn't trying to hurt Tyrian, or if she is merely oblivious.

Watts hadn't been told, right away, when Tyrian's tail was amputated. The gods only knew how long Tyrian had been left like that. And when Watts had come back to Evernight, he'd been shocked to find Tyrian bedraggled and hiding, afraid to approach him, babbling about how, "I can't have you, Doctor, hating me for my failures, too."

The poor Faunus incoherent with infection, the wound site not properly cared for, half-starved.

Arthur had never told Salem this, but he'd removed a bit more of Tyrian's tail himself, and then added the metal cap over top of it - to keep leaking venom contained, to help the chitin heal properly. Tyrian had sobbed, but understood. And Watts had run a course of antibiotics, had slowly introduced Tyrian to a normal diet and a meal schedule, had slept at Tyrian's side and coaxed him through breakdown after breakdown.

The man's physical resilience...To survive in such extreme conditions was as medically fascinating as it was deeply troublesome - as if these periods of neglect were something Tyrian was not just accustomed to, but built for.)

"Of course he hears you," Arthur finally says, carefully. "I understand he is - a challenge. Tyrian is sick in a way that I cannot fix. He enjoys what he does - killing, tormenting. He is unstable and gleeful in it. I am not blind to that. But part of being close with him is being able to create an environment where his symptoms are alleviated. He calls me his quiet."

A sigh.

"But he does hear you. The violence - outside of that, he is needy, desperate. He wants for approval. He is terrified of disdain. The devotion he feels is as strong as any other emotion he's ever felt - and I have never known him to feel in a small way. If he is hurt, it will gnaw at his soul. But- I think you shoulder more blame than he gives you."

How to - phrase this.

"Being left alone, feeling as if Cinder got away with what she did - undoubtedly, it played a part. Undoubtedly, he sees it as punishment. But you could have killed Cinder and brought Tyrian with you to Vale, and his deterioration would have still happened. Just- slower."

(I mourned you, Arthur.)

"In a way, it's grief, that does this to him. The amputation of his tail, my apparent death, the thought that you or - well, or I - will not be able to stomach the sight of him. He grieves, and the rest of him shuts down. I- have learned to navigate it, when he feels like this. So he will recover."

And then - "What is it that you worry he cannot hear? Because," and a sort of wry smile, "I wouldn't put it past him to fail to listen, if he's looking to hear a certain meaning. He is remarkably good at that, too."

[commander-coppercogg]

Hey Wynoc, does that mean Galina Edgecrusher is your step-mom?

[pact-valkyrie]

chill man ur gonna make me cry

[barid-bel-medar]

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up,” he snarls, and watches the ‘heroes’ freeze and the two teens' eyes go huge. Even though he’s got a reputation he very, very rarely swears where it can be heard on TV, and he can see the media had crept closer when he’d started over. 

    “You five do not get to say shit,” he says, eyes narrowing. “A literal child had to do your jobs for you, since all of you are so incompetent that you couldn’t think of a plan as basic as ‘go for the eyes’. You sat on your hands while a child was in danger. Kamui Woods and Backdraft are the only two who have a vague excuse, due to being made of wood and handling the fires, but you three,” he points to a newbie he vaguely recognizes and thinks is called Mt. Lady, and Slugger and Death Arms who he knows have been heroes for more than a decade, “don’t have that. And if the next words out of any of your mouths are, ‘we didn’t have the right Quirks’, I am going to the Commission and demanding your licenses be pulled, along with you getting the same remedial lessons the hero students who fail their probationary licensing exams get.”

[dear-mrs-otome]

WIP Wednesday 💕

In Bocca al Lupo

~~~~~~~~~~

“I was going to buy it.” The admission slipped free before she had time to snatch it back.

“You? You were going to buy the shop?"

Her cheeks stung pink at the slap of his incredulous laugh. “Yes, me.”

“You wouldn’t know the first thing about running a business like this,” he scoffed.

She shook her head fiercely. “No, you wouldn’t know the first thing about running a business like this. Could you recognize an incunable if you saw one? Do you have the faintest idea what an octavo is? Or who Madame Rochefort’s favorite author is? What genre you can sell Monsieur Martin on without fail when he comes by every Tuesday afternoon? All you see is coin to be made. Numbers in a ledger. Not people. And certainly not their stories.”

“This ain’t a library, lady. It’s right there in the name - bookstore.” He paused, as if considering something. “Although, if you’re so eager to make sure things are done in a certain way, I suppose I could let you keep your job.”

“Let me…” A logjam of words crowded her throat for a moment, indignities all clamoring for space at once until one finally jostled free. “You want me to work for you?”

A petty smile slanted his lips. “Ask me nicely and I’ll consider it.”

That expression of his was like a door being thrown open on a smoldering fire. Rage exploded through her in a backdraft, a mindless wave of fire and fury that vaporized the calm logic she prided herself on. “Listen to me, you tacky, tasteless, tawdry, tinsel-clad affront to the eyes. I wouldn’t work for you if you were the last thing standing between me and utter destitution.”

Answering sparks turned his blue gaze flinty, as the blood drained from his face. “That could be arranged. One word from me, and I could make it so that you never work in this city again.”

Her mouth fell open, eyes stinging slightly from the salt he had just rubbed into every last one of her open wounds. “And now you think you can threaten me into keeping the job that I already have? All while you buy the shop I already planned to?”

“Oh, I don’t think I can.” His grin was more a macabre baring of teeth than any thing of mirth. The triumphant snarl of a hound treeing its quarry. “I know I can.”

“Forget it. You can own this shop, you can own this city. You can own this whole damn country, which I suppose you kind of do. But you will never, ever own me.” The world had gone strange around her, red and wavering, like water spilled through wet paint. It took her three tries to see through it well enough to snatch up her book of poems from the top of the nearest pile. “I quit.”

It occurred to her, as she took her first wobbly step towards the door, that it might have hurt less to have simply driven her paper-knife into her own heart.

[ratasum]

Playing through the PS for the first time in forever and Galina Edgecrusher and Snarl Backdraft have the most phenomenal old divorced couple energy.

[born-in-ascalon]

PAIN RESPONSE; Trait: Major, Training: Acrobatics Gain regeneration and remove damaging conditions when struck while below the health threshold.

Full resolution: https://www.patreon.com/posts/30174802

I know the Almorra comic is officially the first one I showed to the world (both finished and in early preview), but this is the first one I conceived, all the way back some four years ago. Not much has changed on the comic side of things, really. I added a few panels here and there and tweaked about two more, but art-wise, it's pretty much exactly how I planned it (which is why the anatomy's much further on the human side).

Writing, however, changed a lot. And I have to say I quite like what I arrived at in the end at least in this department.

Snarl and Galina have always been my most favorite charr ever since I started the game and got to join the Vigil. I usually avoid couples that are based on the tired concept of "I hate you but then I love you", but this is one of the few exceptions. I think it's mostly due to how it's built over time and how it plays off well-established interlegion rivalry rather than some contrived personal slight, and that the characters themselves don't "change through the power of love", but rather learn to see past the attributes they despise in one another and later make it click not in spite of their differences, but embracing them.

When Heart of Thorns was released, I was relieved to find these two were confirmed to be alive. And even though the game outpaced me (again) and had them appear during the Drizzlewood campaign, the details of their Maguuma adventures went unexplained, giving me just the right wiggle room.

I hope you gain at least a sliver of joy I had when writing this.

This work was created under the banner of ArenaNet partner program and is considered sponsored content by ArenaNet. This comic is unofficial and therefore not part of the actual game’s canon.

Huge thanks to all my patrons; this is their success more than mine.

[yaimlight]

Chapter Four: A Hero’s Worth Is Measured By The Amount Of Blood On Their Hands

Rating: E 18+ (blood and injury ~graphic description of violence ~ depression ~ alcoholism)

Pairings: Bakugou Katsuki x fem!reader

Summary: Katsuki has made mistakes before, every hero has but never before has his actions had such devastating consequences. Guilt-ridden Katsuki struggles to deal with his emotions and things only get worse when he finds the villain responsible.

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It was a stupid mistake on his part.

The fight had been going on for over an hour, Katsuki exhausted and his arms feeling like they were on fire from the backlash of using his quirk so much. Somewhere amongst the rubble of the city block Deku and Uravity were helping get trapped civilians out, whilst IcyHot and Backdraft helped put out fires. The sound of sirens and helicopters filled the air, the sun beating down on Katsuki, his whole body slick with sweat as he breathed heavily.

Across from him the villain laughed, rubbing blood off his chin and spitting onto the ground as he pushed himself up and back onto his feet. He was thin and tall, Katsuki able to see his bones through his pale skin. The guy looked like something from a nightmare, head shaved and eyes completely black, his teeth rotten and half missing and a massive scar running round his skull that made it look like someone had tried to cut the top of his head off at one point. Just from looking at him Katsuki should have been able to take him down easily, shouldn’t have even needed to use that much force but the guy was fast, almost moving too quick for Katsuki to keep track of but he’d been keeping up with the fucker just fine.

Its his quirk that’s causing all the problems.

Katsuki had wrongly assumed that the speed was the guy’s quirk, getting in hit after hit whilst the creep didn’t even fight back. He had been confident, so sure he was going to win and in a matter of minutes as well. You would think he would know better by now. The guy had been on his knees, Katsuki stood over him and about ready to deliver a knockout blow when his fist had shot out, hitting Katsuki square in the stomach and he had gone flying backwards, his body slamming into the wall with a loud thud.

He cried out, pain shooting out across his body, crumbling to his knees and only just getting his hands in front of him so he didn’t go face first into the dirt. The other man laughed, pushing up onto his feet and dusting off his knees, looking so fucking happy with himself despite the black eye and split lip he was supporting. With a snarl Katsuki got up, palms facing out and crackling with his quirk, launching himself towards the still laughing asshole. It doesn’t take him long to figure out the fucker has some sort of duel aspect quirk, able to absorb Katsuki’s attacks and put all that power behind his own. Katsuki was having to measure all his attacks, cautious of the power he was using. It was frustrating, being on the defensive when he was normally all about the attack but Katsuki wouldn’t back down, determined to beat the low level villain and bring him to justice.

Katsuki had just been slammed back against that same wall for the third time, his head smacking against the stone and sending stars bursting across his vision when two other assholes showed up, coming to their comrades’ aid.

It had been a coordinated attack, a group of villains all descending at once on the city block, robbing banks, looting shops and just causing general destruction and chaos. Heroes had been scattered across the area, all of them trying to help contain the damage or apprehend the villains. Katsuki had been ten minutes from finishing his shift when the call had come in and he hadn’t even hesitated, coming across the bald guy on his way to the shopping district where the most damage was happening. He had thought he was far enough out to not attract the attention of any other wandering villains but the fight had gone on longer than he had anticipated and his luck had seemed to run out.

There were two of them, one guy dressed in an all white suit with white hair and eyes to match, the other a teenage girl that looked like a reject from some Goth band, her hair black and pink braids that were tied up in huge and heavy looking pigtails and her gunmetal eyes rimmed in black. The guy oozed bored confidence, the girl trailing after him and looking like a kicked puppy.

Katsuki hadn’t even had time to react, the guy in the white hands darted out towards Katsuki and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. He collapsed forward onto his knees, hands scrabbling at his neck as he tried to pull in one gasping breath after another. He could feel something pressing down on his throat, squeezing tightly but his gloved fingers found nothing, scratching at his own skin. His lungs burned, black spots forming in his vision as tears began to fall from his eyes. He could hear his blood rushing in his ears, his heart slamming away painfully in his chest and he could feel the panic starting to sink in as the seconds go by. They’re not even looking at him, the three shitty villains acting as if he isn’t even there, like he is already dead as they talk.

Fuck that.

Katsuki is strong and stubborn, he doesn’t give up that easily and it's their own mistake to think he would go down without a fight. It’s a struggle but he manages to get his arm up, palm facing out towards them and setting off an explosion that has the half collapsed building there in trembling. He’s too close, ears ringing with it and pain shooting up his arm from the aftershock but it does the trick, sending the three villains sprawling and as the guy in whites hand falls the pressure around Katsuki’s throat vanishes.

He sucks in a gasping breath, his lungs hurting with it but he doesn’t have time to stay half laying in the rubble and letting the stinging pain pass. He is quickly up on his feet again, stumbling but finding his footing quick enough and heading straight to the guy in white. He is Katsuki’s biggest threat, able to kill him from a distance so he has to be the first one to go. The bald guy is still groggily getting to his feet, blood darkening the side of his charred top and the Goth reject is whimpering off to the side, huddled on the floor and shaking. He only has a small window of opportunity and Katsuki grabs it with both hands. With a practiced ease Katsuki turns at the last moment, slamming his back into the man’s chest and grabbing his arm tightly.

He uses his own momentum to flip the man over his shoulder, slamming him down onto the concrete and knocking all the air out of him. His head hits a chunk of building with a dulled crack and his pathetic attempt at struggling stops suddenly. He rolled the guy over, yanking his arms behind his back as he sat down on the top of his legs, getting the cuffs on quickly before he had a chance to regain consciousness.

He needs help, Katsuki’s mature enough to know that, his hand going up to his com with every intention of demanding that Uravity get her ass over to him now but movement out the corner of his eyes has him stopping after getting just her name out. Katsuki only just moves in time, rolling to his side as the Goth girl makes a swipe at him, her sharpened nails slicing through his shirt and grazing him instead of ripping his side to shreds.

It still stings though and Katsuki snarls at her as she laughs maniacally, lifting her fingers to her mouth and licking the small traces of his blood off her nails. It's disgusting and he tells her so but she just laughs harder. Her nails glint in the midday light and he finally gets a good look at them. They look like razor blades, long and sharp, more like claws than actual nails. They look like they could slice through flesh easily and from the manic glee in her eyes Katsuki didn’t have to guess that she had done that many times before.

His coms crackle in his ear, his one word having been identified as a request and Uravity on her way but she was on the other side of the disaster area, probably ten minutes away from him and that was if she didn’t encounter anything on her way to slow her down. The bald guy was on his feet again, smiling just as creepily as the girl and coming to stand next to him, both of them looking at Katsuki with hunger and amusement. He took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders back and ignoring the twinge of pain that shot down his arm and back. He could do this, no problem, just had to hold them off for a little longer until Uravity got there. Katsuki didn’t wait for one of them to make the first move, roaring as he ran forward. He used his quirk to propel himself above and behind them, swinging round as he flies above them and slamming his boot down into the back of baldies head.

Its like a dance, Katsuki ducking and weaving as he tried to avoid the bald fucker and focus all his attacks on the goth girl but its two on one and his body is already aching. Katsuki presses on though, determined and filled with adrenaline, trading blows and setting off explosion after explosion, aiming at the ground beneath them to keep them unsteady on their feet. They’re both quick though, clearly had some kind of training and they land just as many hits as he does, nails slicing through his flesh and bones protesting the force of the other man's hits.

He loses track of time but it feels like hours before Ochaco’s voice comes over the coms to tell him that she is close.

Katsuki’s whole body hurts, every cut stinging as his sweat drips into his wounds. He is breathing heavily, arms aching with the strain he had been putting them through and his palms burning. Katsuki knows he is losing a lot of blood, can feel that he has at least a couple of broken ribs and what could possibly be muscle damage in his leg. He should have been at home hours ago but he was a hero and he wouldn’t abandon people when they needed help but he was exhausted, had been on his feet for almost fifteen hours at this point but help was coming and soon enough he would be able to sleep for a whole day.

The girl’s nails were dripping with his blood but she was breathing just as heavily as Katsuki was, her clothes and hair singed in multiple places, clutching at her arm and glaring at Katsuki. The bald guy was in a better state, Katsuki having hardly touched him but even he was starting to look tired now. Good, tired means mistakes. Katsuki shifted back, eyes darting between the two of them. Ochaco was close by, able to float the bald fucker out the way so that made the stabby little bitch his problem. That was fine, Katsuki just had to get in close enough to aim an explosion at her stomach and send her careening into a wall, hopefully knocking the bitch out.

It's then that he notices the kid, half hidden behind a partially collapsed wall and big blue eyes full of fear. Suddenly Katsuki’s priorities shift.

He didn’t know where she had come from, the stairs having collapsed ages ago and he felt the slight panic that she had been there the whole time and he hadn’t known, that he could have hurt her and not even realised. She doesn’t look older than four, maybe five at a push, clinging on to a dirty looking doll and clearly terrified. Katsuki has to get her out, get her to safety but they are twenty stories up and he isn’t sure he has the strength left to get them across to the next building over but he knows he has to try. He’s a hero dammit, he will not give up now when there is someone who needs his help.

The villains are between him and the girl, blocking his path and he knows he only has one real good shot left in him before he reaches his limits. Katsuki moves as quickly as his tired body allows him, ducking under the bald guys swinging arm and pressing his palm to the floor. His explosion rips through the concrete, collapsing half the floor and the man cries out. Katsuki doesn’t have time to look back and check that he’s actually fallen through, rolling to his feet and away from the crumbling floor. The Goth girl is angry, screaming as she slashed at the air but Katsuki manages to get in close, crying out as he gets a palm on her stomach, her nails digging into his shoulder. They rip through his flesh as he blasts her back against the wall, blood gushing to the surface and running down his arm, warm and wet.

Katsuki feels light headed but he can’t stop, stumbling over to the girl and collapsing to his knees in front of her. She’s crying and Katsuki knows he must be scaring her, the state he’s in is closer to something from a horror movie than a hero. He tries to sooth her as he checks her for injuries but he’s never been good at that kind of stuff and especially not with kids. That was Deku’s speciality and not once since becoming a pro had Katsuki had to deal with a scared kid on his own.

He didn’t have to deal with it for long.

There’s a loud bang, the building rumbling and then the floor starts to give out beneath them. Katsuki grabs the girl, pulling her tight against his chest as he uses an explosion to help propel them backwards and away from the side of the building as it collapses. His back hits something solid, Katsuki grunting as he holds her trembling body tight against his chest, one hand curling around her head and shielding her eyes from seeing how close they came to falling, to dying.

Katsuki pets her hair, shushing her even as his own body trembles, his limbs feeling heavy and mind foggy. His coms crackle, Uravity’s voice coming through the static to inform him she is only a couple of minutes out and Katsuki sighed, feeling some of his worry leave him. He lets his guard down for a second, informing the kid that she’s safe, everything’s okay now, he’s got her. It's an effort to keep his eyes open, the blood loss too much and for a second he forgets, his mind numb and for a blissful moment everything fades.

It’s a stupid mistake, letting his guard down like that. He knows better, was taught better yet still he lets it happen. Such a stupid fucking mistake and it costs him everything.

He knows something is wrong instantly, her sobs becoming choked off little gasps. Katsuki’s eyes snap open, not even having been aware they had closed and he pulls her away from him to get a good look at her. Her face is turning purple, eyes bulging and full of terror, her little hands scrambling at her neck. He recognises what’s happening but that’s impossible, he already took care of that asshole so how is this happening?

Katsuki scrambled to his feet, clutching the girl to him as his eyes darted around in a panic. He catches a glimpse of white before something barrels into him. He feels like he has been hit by a truck, crying out as he’s driven back into the wall, the girl slipping from his arms. Something cracks as his head knocks back against the brick, his vision going hazy and pain shooting down his neck.

It’s a struggle to open his eyes, eyelids heavy but he manages it, his blurry gaze falling to the small little girl who lay huddled on the floor, her face a bright purple and foam dripping from her mouth. The guy in white looms over her, blood matted in his hair and running down his face, his white suit now dirty and ripped with only one metal cuff left dangling on his wrist. It’s not what holds Katsuki’s attention though.

The kid isn’t moving, her wide and panicked eyes bloodshot and milky as they stare unseeingly back at him.

Katsuki sees red.

With a roar Katsuki’s palms crackle to life, sending the bald guy flying. He launches himself across the small distance, the guy in white not even able to get his arms up before Katsuki is on him. His hands scream in protest as he slammed his fists into him, not even bothering with his quirk as he hits him again and again, following him down when he stumbles back and sprawls across the dirt. Katsuki kneels over him, hovering over his stomach as he just lands blow after blow on the guy's face, screaming as he does so. His heart is pounding, his ears ringing, he can feel the tears running down his face, throat raw from screaming. The guy's face is bloody and swollen, no longer trying to force Katsuki off of him and for all he knows he’s passed out or even dead but Katsuki can’t stop.

Someone’s calling his name but it barely penetrates through the sound of his blood roaring in his ears.

He’s screaming and crying and trying not to think about the small dead body just feet away from him but he can’t get those empty eyes out of his head, still able to feel her gaze on him. He failed, how could he have failed like that? He’s supposed to be a hero, he was meant to protect the innocent and punish the wicked. He was supposed to save live’s, it was his god damned job, his purpose in fucking life and he had failed. She was so young, had been looking for someone to save her and he had failed. He hadn’t been good enough, fast enough, strong enough. How could he call himself a hero when he couldn’t even save one little girl?

Arms wrapped around his chest, yanking him back and Katsuki screamed in outrage. He tries to get free, get back to the bloody and limp body on the ground but whoever it is has a strong hold on him, dragging him away as others rush forward. Vaguely he is aware of Deku’s voice behind him, trying to calm him down but as he’s dragged further back he catches sight of the girl again and his rage rushes forward once more. His palms crackle as he surges forward, uncaring as he twists his arm round and gets a shot off against Deku. The man grunts, his hold loosening but it’s all Katsuki needs. He rips free of his hold, screaming as he lunges for the villain as they lift him up onto a stretcher.

Katsuki wants to ring his neck, choke the life out of him like he did the poor girl. He wants to see the moment he realises that his life is over as he struggles to pull in one breath after another. He doesn’t get far, green lightning flashing before him and then Deku is there again, forcing him back and wrapping his arms around Katsuki’s chest. He keeps Katsuki’s arms pinned to his sides, using one for all to keep him in place as they remove the villain, Katsuki screaming and swearing to be let free.

It’s when they come to take the little girl's body that he finally stills. Katsuki crumbles to the floor, knees hitting the dirt with a dull thud that sends pain shooting up his calves. He stares at the spot her body was for a long time after it’s been taken away, his body and mind numb to everything else going on around him. Vaguely he is aware of Deku talking to him, his voice low and hushed, his hands rubbing gently at Katsuki’s shoulders as he tries to ease some of his pain but he isn’t listening, the other man’s voice fading into the background.

Katsuki had failed.

He had failed and someone had died.

Katsuki allowed Deku to help him down from the ruined building, going to the hospital to be checked over and his injuries dealt with. He doesn’t say a word to anyone, not even the doctors, just sitting there in numbed silence and barely feeling the pain in his body as they rattle off what’s wrong with him.

Two of his ribs are broken, he’s littered in cuts and bruises, some of them worse than others and the gouges in his shoulder will need stitches. His left hand is fractured in several places, the doctor having to cut his glove off to get to the swollen and bloody appendage. There’s a large gash on the back of his head and his right arm had sustained a few hairline fractures from over use of his quirk. From the sounds of it his legs are probably the least damaged part of him but he still has a torn ligament in his right leg and a fracture on his left fibula.

Katsuki just sits there, letting the doctor’s work around him as they attempt to heal him. He moves when he’s told, taking off his ruined costume and not even caring as it pulls at already damaged skin and aching bones. The doctors yell at him for it and Deku tries to help, saying that stupid and childish nickname again and again like he hopes it will bring Katsuki back to the present. He can see the worry and pain in his green eyes, can see the tears clinging to his lashes but it doesn’t really register with Katsuki, his mind still stuck somewhere on that half collapsed building.

It goes on like this for hours, Katsuki allowing the doctors to heal his various injuries as best as they can. Deku pails as they start to stitch up his shoulder, his stupidly large eyes following the needle and thread as it goes in and out of his skin, pulling the jagged edges together but Katsuki just stairs out across the room. Its going to scar, he knows that. It’s going to be a constant reminder of his failure on his skin for all to see because his summer costume will not cover it, not all of it anyway.

Everything changes though when the police turn up.

He isn’t really listening to them as they prattle on and on about the villain in white and the bald guy, telling him names and quirks and about their part in the attack. He just sits in silence on the hospital bed, letting the words wash over him. Deku is stood by the door as silent as Katsuki and watching him intently. Katsuki hates it, wants to tell him to fuck off and just stop but he can’t seem to find his voice, can’t even bring himself to look away so he just stares back blankly. Then Katsuki actually hears something the detectives say.

He rages, everything coming crashing back down on him in one foul swoop. He’s shouting, palms popping and crackling as his quirk goes off. The detectives are scared, Katsuki can see it in their faces, the doctors too but he doesn’t care as he screams every profanity he knows at the top of his lungs, sending the hospital bed crashing through a window. Deku is there in an instant, pinning Katsuki down whilst a nurse tries to sedate him, the greenet trying to be mindful of his injuries. Katsuki thrashes around under him, snapping and snarling like a rabid animal, screaming to be let go but Deku ignores him, begging Katsuki to stop with tears in his eyes. His stitches rip open, fresh blood soaking through the hospital gown, his broken and bruised body burning with pain but he doesn’t care.

She got away.

That Goth reject bitch got away and it was all his fault.

The weeks following are bad. The agency refuses to allow Katsuki back on active duty unless a councillor signs him off as being fit for duty and they won’t do that unless he completes a six week course of therapy. Katsuki swears and rages, screaming that he is fine and doesn’t need that shit but it gets him nowhere apart from having to be escorted from the building by heroes that used to respect him and now look at him with pity and sadness. That makes him angrier and he lashes out, clocking the guy square in the jaw. He’s lucky the guy doesn’t press charges, lucky that all it gets him is a threat of police if he sets foot in the agency again before he is allowed back on active duty. He’s lucky, he knows that but all he feels is rage and anger and disgust, swirling around in his head and constantly reminding him of his failure and the life he failed to save.

He can’t sleep, stops eating properly and doesn’t leave his apartment, refusing to answer his phone and keeping his key in the lock so his meddling friends can’t get in. He curls up in the middle of his bed and doesn’t move for what feels like days apart to piss and drown himself in alcohol. He drinks until he passes out, until he is sick with it and emptying it all back out down the toilet. He shuts the world out, curtains drawn to keep the light away and windows firmly shut against the sounds of life outside. He doesn’t wash, only changes his clothes maybe once or twice and only if he gets vomit or piss on them. His hair grows out, messy and unruly and his stubble grows into a shaggy beard that is scratchy against his arms and darker than his hair.

He runs out of food after two weeks and alcohol three days after that.

Katsuki tries to sleep but every time he closes his eyes all he sees is that frail and motionless body lying in a crumpled heap amongst the rubble, that fucking high pitch and manic laughter ringing in his ears. He lasts two days before he can’t take it anymore. He barely gets dressed, pulling on his last pair of clean sweats, along with a faded white tee and a black hoodie. He shoves a pair of sunglasses on in an attempt to hide his red rimmed eyes and the massive black circles around them, the hood pulled up to hide his hair. He doesn’t want to be noticed, doesn’t want to deal with people more than he has to and he knows the beard will probably go a long way to keeping his identity hidden, the smell of him doing the rest by keeping people away from him.

It doesn’t take long to get down to his local store, loading a basket up with shit that he would never normally eat and enough whisky and vodka to last him a good couple of months normally. He gives it maybe six weeks before he is back buying more. The woman behind the counter looks at him with disgust, wrinkling her nose up and leaning away from him as she puts the items through the till, eyeing the amount of alcohol and hot chilli potato chips suspiciously. He pays with a grunt, snatching up the bags and glad to be out of there, his skin crawling from having so much attention on him. Katsuki just wants to go home and crawl back into bed with his massive bag of chips and a bottle of whiskey.

He’s maybe half a block from his apartment when he sees her.

He rounds the corner, having to look up to avoid walking into some woman and her kid. The sight has Katsuki’s chest tightening, the little girl looking up at him with wide and scared eyes. Her mother drags her away quickly, looking at Katsuki like he had meant to do her child harm and that hurts more than his still aching shoulder and tender hand. He feels sick, remembering those wide blue eyes staring back at him with that same look. His chest hurts, his hands shaking as his body goes cold. His heart races, bile rising up his throat as he gasps for breath. Katsuki feels like he’s losing control, like his body is acting out on its own and it terrifies him. He pushed his way through the crowd, ignoring the annoyed cries and angry shouts as he tries to get off the street. He slams into someone, stumbling into someone else and he looks up on instinct.

Gunmetal eyes look back at him, rimmed in black and as cold as steel. “You,” Katsuki breathes out, fingers going lax in his surprise, bags falling to the floor with a dulled thud and clatter. Her eyes narrow in confusion before going wide. She turns and runs, weaving in and out of people to make her escape. Katsuki doesn’t even think, abandoning his bags and chasing after her, shoving people out of his way in pursuit.

He follows her through the city, down back alleys and side streets, crashing and banging into things as he goes. His body protests the strenuous activity after weeks of doing nothing more than laying around and sluggishly moving from one room to another. His muscles ache, pain throbbing through his legs and chest as he pushed himself forward, breathing fast and shallow as he strains to keep up. In a distant part of his mind Katsuki knows he should call for help, knows that he’s ill equipped without his hero gear and that his physical and mental state isn’t right for this but all he can concentrate on is his anger, his pain and the desire to make sure everyone of those fuckers pay for what they did.

He follows her for what feels like hours but in reality was probably only a handful of minutes and when she disappears into a warehouse Katsuki’s lungs are screaming, his ribs aching and shoulder throbbing. He knows he’s not at his peak, his body not having felt this rundown since he first started training all those years ago. Despite that Katsuki follows her in, trying to calm his racing heart and heavy breathing.

The side door creaks as he opens it, the metal hinges old and rusted. Katsuki slips inside, pulling it closed behind him. He’s greeted with stacks of crates all the way from floor to ceiling and of various sizes. It’s a shit space to be in, a maze of narrow and towering isles, too many places to hide amongst the shadows. He moved cautiously, palms facing out and ready as he made his way through the stacks, ears straining for any sound other than his own footsteps. He’s sure he misses places, sure he doesn’t check every shadow as he gets further and further into the warehouse.

Laughter echoed across the space, carefree and taunting. “Show yourself!” Katsuki snarls, his angry cry echoing back at him and mixing with the girl’s wicked laugh. He can’t tell where her voice is coming from and it just makes him angrier, his body tense and jaw clenched. He wants her to shut up, wants to choke the noise out of her until she can’t make that awful sound again.

There’s movement out the corner of his eye, a shadow darting across a gap between stacks and Katsuki turns, explosions bursting out from his palms and sending splintering crates and their contents flying. The debris settles, a silence settling over the space apart from Katsuki’s laboured breathing. His hands hurt, his left more than the right and for a second he wonders if he’s fractured it all over again but then that fucking laugh comes again and he snaps.

Roaring Katsuki lunges forward, chasing her taunting laughter and letting off one explosion after another, ripping through the crates and sending chunks of wood flying, the shards raining down on him like confetti. He’s not thinking, his anger getting the better of him as he rages through the warehouse. His body hurts, his chest aching with his laboured breathing and throat raw with screaming.

He catches nothing but glimpses of her as she dances around his uncoordinated attacks easily, taunting him as she does so, “some hero you are. Couldn’t even save one poor little kid. She died and it’s all your fault”. Her voice is light, almost playful and Katsuki can’t take it any more. “Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP!” he screamed, pressing his hands over his ears and screwing his eyes shut. It doesn’t help though, doesn’t stop her words ringing in his ears as he sees that poor kid dead and cold amongst the dirt and rubble.

Dead. Dead. Dead and it was all Katsuki’s fault. He had blood on his hands as much as the shitty villains did, was as much to blame if not more so. How could he fail like that? He was Bakugou Katsuki, had trained with the best heroes and fought the worst villains imaginable. He had worked hard to become the hero he was, the very best he could possibly be. He had countless take downs and captures under his belt, and had saved countless lives in his career. He was a good hero, so how had he lost to three low level nobodies? How had he let someone die?

Stupid. He was so fucking stupid.

Something slammed into him, Katsuki’s eyes snapping open as he went crashing to the ground. The girl landed on top of him, razor sharp claws digging into his still healing shoulder and ripping through his stitches. Katsuki screamed, her gleeful laughter echoing in his ears as she digs her nails in more, wiggling her fingers and slicing through the muscle. It’s too much, his body going tense as it begins to shake, his heart beating fast and erratically. His whole body hurts, his head pounding from where it had hit the floor.

“Some hero you are,” she laughs in his ear and Katsuki screams, surging up to punch her in the jaw, his aching hand sparking. Her head snapped to the side, her surprised and pained cry ringing through the air. Her jaws already bruised, a burn marrying her pail skin and he can’t help but smirk, letting out a huff of laughter as blood drips from her split lip. Katsuki’s satisfaction is short-lived though, the girl ripping her claws out of his shoulder and reeling back, dragging another pained cry from Katsuki’s raw throat.

She looks down at him in anger and outrage, her blood covered hand curled and dripping down into his face. She’s practically snarling, gunmetal eyes full of such hatred. Katsuki snarls back, leaning up and flashing his teeth at her, all anger and hate and desperate to fucking brake something. His palms spark as he shoves his hand into her face the same time she brings her hand down. Her nails rip into his face, digging in above his left eye and dragging down over his eye and nose, slicing the skin across his cheek and all the way down to his chin. He raws at the pain, trying to jerk his head back but there is nowhere for him to go. His vision goes red, his own cry ringing in his ears as the blood fussed down his face.

It’s then that he hears it.

POP!

“KATSUKI!” He doesn’t even really feel it when the weight on top of him is gone, the darkness creeping in quickly as pain blossoms across his face. Someone’s calling his name, desperate and pleading him to stay with them, warm hands on his face and arms but he can’t keep it up any more, his body and mind giving into the pain and exhaustion.

Everything goes dark and numb but in the distance he thinks he hears someone crying. It’s muffled, like it’s coming through water and the last thing that crosses his mind is that he hopes they aren’t crying for him. He wasn’t worth it.

@tspice283 @emilymikado @txdosxmp @ms-winnie-mathews @lonelyheart-clubband @bakugous-trauma @prlan @saucysuazo @dwarfmari

[bibliocratic]

I was going to write this for the Aspec Archives week, but I got overexcited, so here we are. 

AU: Mythical creatures. OG Archive team. 

Some CWs apply, see tags. 

The sea is more than water, her elder brethren taught her, warned her, chided her. It is home and harm and hungry, and you should not face it alone. Her siblings were older, ever knowing better, boisterous and boasting braver, but even they worried, scolded and fretted when she swam out too far alone into deep waters.

It will love you, but it will not always be kind, her eldest sibling bit out, snapped to mask their anxiety. There can be no bearings, in the deep-deep down, no anchors to denote where the sky lies.

When her people sleep, they rest wedged into some secure rock or crevice, tails looped around tails so no one is lost while dreaming.

You cannot be a shoal of one, my dearest, my youngest and bravest, the oldest of their shoal had said, when she told her she was planning on taking the rising when the waters warmed. Ascending landward on the tide swell, letting the shimmering scales of her tail split into skin.

She had not used the name Sasha at that time because that was a landward name she chose with care. Her folk gather names like a garland of pearls, to be constantly strung longer through life as age advances them; names for qualities, for momentous events, for hopes and desires. Her first name, gifted by her shoal, was guttural. It starts at the back of her throat, trails off into a susurration through gills. Mer is a difficult language to learn, though not impossible.

Tim tried. There is no one singular language of those who skirt the deepwaters, so he attempts to mimic her dialect. His pronunciation stumbling, he makes tentative sentences with the butchered grammar of fry. Martin’s grammar is even worse, though he picks up the eddies and waves of the sounds easier.

Jon, like most things in life, takes it as a challenge. One day, almost stubborn with nerves, to perform his task to perfection, he pushes out a juvenile approximation of her first name. Clipped and textbook and the stress in the wrong places, but Sasha smiles, showing her sharpest teeth in delight. Instructs him where to hold the hum at the back of his throat, how to roll the third phoneme upwards like an air bubble. Jon repeats it and repeats it, quietly smug and pleased at his achievement, and the sea in her soul rocks fondly at the sight.

She broached landward in the rising two moons after her age of maturation. She was one of a handful to come to shore. A sibling in Brighton who she phones every week, another two in Holyhead. Her first shoal traverses to warmer waters when the season shifts, and she would feel the rock-hollow absence of them if it was not for Tim, inviting her to participate in a hundred-and-one inane activities that keep her from feeling swept out; Jon, with his libraries of questions and intrigues, his quick-silver tongue; Martin, who sometimes swims a little further out from them but who finds her small knick-knacks in charity shops and craft markets and leaves them on her desk for no reason other than he has thought of her.

She makes three necklaces, plain with a strong chain, a single pearl attached. And on a day where her folk traditionally string garlands of seaweed and mangrove roots and colourful plants from coral reefs in a celebration of family –  there is no one word in her language for this idea; it poorly translates into hierarchies like sibling and brethren and elders, but these are not concepts that fit it exactly – she gifts them to the shoal that will anchor her in the depths of the sea, and bestows upon them names. Most Mer names are wishes for quick fins, calm waters, safe shores, and so she wishes these for them in a language they are not quite proficient in yet.

Her landward shoal is smaller than is traditional. But she loves them as treasures of her heart, and thinks she understands what her siblings told her, about anchors.

--

His parents, both harpies from local nests, are perplexed when his wings start coming in.

Must be a colouring from your mum’s side, his dad hums thoughtfully when Tim’s primaries grow in long and shining like struck bronze. He runs a careful finger down the central line of the rachis, and the wing shudders and jumps, the feathers still sensitive, and Tim complains that it’s ticklish. His wings are too small to fly away as his dad dives in, captures him in careful arms, corkscrewing upwards a little off the ground with Tim squirming and squealing and squawking in play, but they flutter and flap nonetheless.

The wing span’s from your dad’s side, no-one from my nest ever went more than five foot, his mother says, rubbing at the dark brown of his downy secondaries. Tim stretches them out wide, eager to boast at their length, the tips of his longest feathers reaching past his arms held out wide.

Danny’s wings are smaller. Magpie like, bold lines of white broken up by blue and black, the same as his parents. Tim’s wings, broader, a colour like beaten brass that tips into gold at the ends, draws attention, but he’s never been embarrassed. His family never treated him differently, so he didn’t dwell on it.

He can fly, though he doesn’t often. After his parents died, and after… after Danny, he moved to London, where there’s tighter airspace regulations and permits involved, so he mostly doesn’t bother. This doesn’t mean never, however. He has learned, while working in the Archives, that from the ground, his wings have enough lift to pick up both Jon and Sasha by at least a foot. He thinks he could probably manage Martin as well, if it wasn’t for the unfortunate fact that Martin is mildly allergic to a whole host of things, including feather dander, meaning he gets a bit watery eyed whenever he gets too close to Tim’s wings, and he’s a sniffing, red-eyed mess come  moulting season.

Anyway, he can always fly when he leaves the city. When it’s been too long since Sasha’s scales touched seawater, she invites him out to the coast. Jon apparently has had enough of the coast to last a lifetime, and Martin gets funny about large bodies of water, so it’s often the two of them. She swims out, the greenish scales of her tail catching the sun-struck water, and he, above, feeling the breeze brush through his cramped wings, follows her wake. When she breaches the surface in a playful arc, he swoops down, trying to catch her at the same time as she tries to splash him.

“You never thought to look into it?” Jon asks. Always brewing with questions. Tim is obligingly holding out one of his wings, and Jon, who takes everything like a project, has books out and webpages up but with no further clue as to why his colouration and span differ so from his parents.

Tim shrugs. “Doesn’t matter really, does it?”

Jon hums, clearly not agreeing, and Sasha rolls her eyes fondly,  and that is the end of that.

-

Marysia had hoped her child would not take after her husband. She’d lit candles and attended masses during her pregnancy, worn the beads of her rosary smooth. Her child had been born on land, miles from shore, and her husband had been a grounded man, who had folded up his pelt on their wedding night for her and swore to wear no other soul than his human one.

But then her husband leaves, the box where he kept his second soul empty, and Martin is eight years old, and he wakes up one morning glassy-eyed and complaining of nausea, his lip bleeding from where his sharpening teeth have ripped the skin, and she knows her prayers were not answered.

It is not unknown, for the second soul of some folk to flourish later. But it is a rough awakening, to have one’s body grow a new skin out of itself, and Martin is off school for over a week, riddled with fever and fervour, constantly parched, crying and sweating out salt-water.

She watches his skin prickle with grey and black fur, blotching with white over his stomach as he coils up under his covers, throws them off only for his limbs to reduce to shivering. His brown eyes have gone black-shot, his cries a mix of language and barks, and Marysia fears she will lose her only child to the sea.

It will be hard for him to fit in, she tells herself. It would be best to choose one, and he has his friends and family and her on land, and who knows where his father is now, and surely it would be cruel, an unnecessary agony for him to endure some other foreign pull away from all he knows.

She does what she thinks is a kindness, though that is neither excuse nor forgiveness. After nine days, his fur has come through, sleek and soft, his whiskers twitching, and she helps him peel it off as one would do clothes, revealing sweat-sheened limbs, his eyes slipped back into brown again. His gaze still distant and feverish, he tries to cuddle into her, and she soothes him while she finishes stripping off his pelt and folding it neatly.

While he sleeps, she burns it in a fire in the back yard.

When he comes back to himself, she lies and tells him that he’s been sick with a bad fever. And he trusts her, and never questions it. He doesn’t understand that she’s burnt a part of him up, scattered the ashes to the winds, but it was for the right reasons. To keep him safe, and happy, and with her.

He grows up human-limbed and cloven-souled, and she never tells him the truth.

--

Sasha floats in an ever-dark, stolen away and hidden. There is a knot, a cage-trap around her legs, which have fused into her tail although there is no water. The sea, far away, like the wail in a conch shell, throbs in her soul as she strains and shouts and snarls in the wrapping of spider’s webs.

The sea is the only thing with her in the dark.

Sound has a particular quality, underwater. She hears it first, an echo that shivers through her, like being thrummed on the backdraft of some shallow wave. And then it is a wash of insistence. A command.

The compulsion uses her names, landward and seaward and it pulls and demands her attention, and she shrieks and cries back, struggling in the depths. She is being called home, up up up to breach the surface, and she cannot help but answer.

There is a crack and the sea splits, and she is choking on cold and dusty air.

“Sasha!” someone is saying. “God, is she – she’s not – ?”

“Get that stuff off her, come on. Sasha. Sash, love, can you hear us?”

A series of thuds as she splutters. A twisting, gnarling screech, and several swear words.

“Jesus!”

“Shit – shit, get her out of the way.”

“Boss, move, give me the – ”

The screech degrades into a glitching, warping scream. There is the multi-layered sound of compressed air, and crackling fire,the woosh and stench of something burning.

In time, she cracks her eyes open to the punch of light. Her tail flaps weakly. Someone is pulling great strands of silk that has clumped like poorly soldered iron around her limbs, making visceral noises of disgust. She’s cold-stream shivering, surrounded by broken wood and chippings.

“Hey, hey, we got you. We got you. You with us, Sash?”

The faint scratch of feathers against her cheek. Furnace-warm arms are holding her.

Jon is kneeling down in front of her. Holding an axe and stinking of smoke, and she knows, she knows, that it was his voice she heard, although she doesn’t yet understand why.

Martin throws a blanket over her as she shivers, her tail shrivelling and bisecting into legs. He has silk in his hair, and his fingers are trembling, but his face is broken with a look of such relief.

“It’s you,” he says, and his hand touches at his throat, at the necklace she made for him. “It’s you. It’s really you.”

It’s Martin in the end that carries her out of the tunnels, tucking the blanket completely around her. He is talking in the scatter-gun way he does when he is anxious, babbling, and she can’t bring herself to listen. He smells of soot and saltwater, and she’s never noticed that before.

She falls asleep, curled up into his hold, drained and shaken, but feeling utterly safe.  

--

Jon is human. Completely, one hundred percent, although Sasha had joked once that way way back there must have been some Spinx in the family. Tim’s long suspected that Martin’s not quite human, no matter how he presents, but that’s Martin’s business, not his. Some folks have lineages that are rare, or mistrusted, or misunderstood, and Tim’s not one to pry.

Jon, though. Human through and through. Which is why he’s so worried.

“I shouldn’t have been able to do that,” Jon says. Martin’s with Sasha, making sure there’s no nasty side effects to her imprisonment in the table. Jon’s had a face on him for a while which means he’s Worrying with a capital W, and it’s taken hours for him to untangle himself into a blustered declaration to the rest of the class, spiked with nerves. “That place, it had her. It shouldn’t have… I don’t know what I did, but I told her to leave, a-and she could. And she shouldn’t have been able to.”

“And you think that you did that?”

“I – I know I did that, Tim, I felt it, o-or. I mean, I felt something!”

“Ok, alright. Alright. Let’s, let’s calm down and look at this logically.”

Jon goes over what he said while they struggled to rescue Sasha from the deep. It was something he said, he’s sure of it, which is why he is sitting cross-legged on the floor of the main archive office space with Tim, his trousers getting dusty and his temper scraping frayed, getting increasingly frustrated when he tries recreating exactly what he did with his voice, going through questions and commands and instructions and inquiries. And while Tim answers, it’s clearly not what Jon’s looking for, and he’s rubbing the hair at the back of his head in the way he does when he’s getting increasingly frustrated and is too bull-headed to walk away.

Then Jon, rolling his eyes and seething in annoyance, asks him a throwaway question, one of many he’s been trying – what’s your favourite colour? (seriously, Jon, that’s what you’re going with?!); What did you do at the weekend? (you know what I did, you and Martin were with me!).

“Why did you join the Magnus Institute?”

They both sit, frozen and horrified as Tim’s mouth opens and his words trip over his tongue in their eagerness to leave his mouth. As his eyes grow wide and water with tears as he cannot stop speaking about Danny, about the Covent Garden circus and Joseph Grimaldi. As Jon sits, ramrod-backed and cannot stop listening, a muscle jumping in his jaw.  His expression wars between frantic and panicking and hungry.

Tim feels wrung out and hollow once he’s finished. Jon’s manic with apologies. It takes both of them a long time to calm down.

“Maybe… maybe you’re a siren or something?” Tim suggests, but Jon is shaking his head.

“It’s this place, Tim. It’s those statements, when I read them. It’s … I – I think they’re doing something to me.”

Tim looks at Jon and the light strikes off his eyes in a way that it shouldn’t on a human.

He touches Jon’s arm.

“We’ll sort this,” he promises. “We got Sasha out, didn’t we? The four of us, we can get to the bottom of this, yeah?”

Jon nods, and gives a small fragile thanks, and that’s human enough for Tim.

--

Marysia told herself she was not a bad mother. That her son was simply a hard child to love, that he had all the worst trappings of his father, his brown eyes perpetually caught with a far-away look that doesn’t know where to place its longing. But even as she sickened, and he sloughed off every facet of himself in a pathetic attempt to please her, she couldn’t find anything but sorrow in her heart to look upon the man grown over familiar in face, a growth that grew deep-set and fungal into contempt.

She almost spat the truth out to him. Once or twice, with the thought that confessing might bring them closer. She wished he’d chosen the sea instead, so she wouldn’t have to look upon her amputated, half-formed child who would always be lost.

But she never did.

And Martin finds out alone, cornered in an unlocked office, his hands dropping the lighter as a thousand eyes open and watch satisfied as they pour his mother’s choices down his throat to choke him.

--

It starts when Martin starts sleeping in archive storage. When Tim watches worms burrow into Jon’s skin at the same time as they latch and gnaw and wriggle under his own. When they get Sasha back, and find Gertrude’s corpse and Jon leaves and gets hurt and hurt and hurt again, and the world around them gets smaller and meaner and there is nothing Tim can do.

He takes to storing food in their desk drawers. Nothing that will go off, or won’t keep. Tins and dried goods and non-perishables. He lines the walls of Martin’s storage room with fire extinguishers of different types, fire blankets, and spare first aid kits bulging with plasters and bandages and antiseptic wipes. He buys blankets and pillows and rope and penknives. He stress-moults constantly, and tucks his feathers out of sight, irritated and embarrassed at the sight of them,  and it occurs to him that nesting is not a healthy way to deal with this.

He wants his family safe. He used to think it was such a small thing to ask for.

He thinks about that when the bomb goes off.

He burns, and he is dying.

His rage and fear burn off into a different fury. That it has come to this, his family so threatened, that all he has to his name is his sorrow and trauma and frustration and vengeance.

Tim wants nothing more than to live. To see them safe. To rail and rage against what seeks to harm them. So he burns and he burns and burns, his wings aflame and his mouth twisted in a scream, and does not die.

They dig him out breathing from the rubble. His skin stained grey with ash and soot.

His new wings stretch out red as the sunset.

[pi-cat000]

BNHA: something sad AU

Summary: The last time Katsuki sees Izuku alive the other boy is rushing to save him. 

Characters:  Katsuki Bakugo and Izuku Midoriya 

Fandom: My Hero Academia

WARNINGS! Major Character death, swearing, heavy angst, descriptions of violence 

Other parts in this AU:  (Anger),  (Grief) (implosion)

...

The Sludge Villain incident gone wrong aka: What if All Might couldn’t get it up in time and Izuku was a little bit lucky (or unlucky as it is in this case)?

Katsuki can’t breathe. He is choking. He can’t move. Something is wrapped tight around his arms and legs, compressing his chest and lungs. Fire crackles and the wail of distant sirens wash over him in a cacophony of noise. 

Katsuki cracks an eye open and he can just make out silhouettes of people standing off and away. He can see them watching. No one is approaching the crater of twisting Sludge, concrete, broken brick, metal and flaming wooden beams that he is trapped in. No one is coming to save him. Panicked, he focuses on his hands, willing his next blast to be enough to get him free.. 

It isn’t. 

“You little shit! Stop fighting” The Slime-thing holding him in place snarls as he frees one on his hands, trying to rip the slimy substance away. The next blast he lets off is pathetically weak in comparison.  He can’t breathe! He is going to die!

“Kacchan!”

Deku materialises from out of the smoke, his body ringed in a red haze as the fire catches in clothes and hair. Embers jump into the air, disturbed by his stumbling feet as he almost trips in his effort to reach Katsuki. The quirkless idiot is crying, eyes wide with uncontained fear. A textbook and school bag fly past Katsuki’s face, hitting somewhere above him.

“Ah!”  There is pained yell from the Slime-thing, and the grip on his chest and limbs loosens, “You again! Get lost brat!”

Katsuki rips at the slime over his mouth and takes a gasping breath. “Deku! What are you doing!” 

The world around him slows to a crawl, the sound of sirens and shouting falling away. Deku reaches towards him. 

“Saving you!”

For one slow second, it is just the two of them amidst the fire and chaos. 

Fingers tighten around his free wrist and pull. He stumbles forward tripping on the upturned road as Deku leverages his body weight to hurl Katsuki in the opposite direction in an act of unexpected strength. Before he can think to turn back, something wraps around his stomach and he is yanked back, pulled away from the fire, smoke and Deku

He lands hard, on his back, head hitting the curb at the side of the road. Disorientated, he blinks up at the tall, blown and blue figure leaning over him. Kamui Woods, his mind supplies him with the Hero’s name.

“I need a medic! I got one of them!” The man shouts. 

Around him, there is more yelling, screaming, screeching of police and ambulance sirens. All impossibly loud now he is free of the sludge. Head throbbing from the impact, vision blurry, Katsuki lurches into a seated position. His attention lands on the inferno of swirling fire, green sludge and grey smoke where he can barely see the familiar figure cocooned within. His eyes briefly connect with Deku’s and he can just make out the idiot as he gives him a watery, self-satisfied smile before disappearing completely.

 NO!

Ignoring the pain in his back and pounding head, he tries to lunch himself back towards the Slime-bastard.

“Whoa, kid!” The thing wrapped around his stomach, which he realises is a thick vine of wood, tightens, pulling him up short. “You can’t go back in there.”

“Get the fuck off me!” He snarls, struggling, trying to blast his way free.

Kamui Woods responds by adding another restraining vine, calling over his shoulder, “Backdraft! Get this kid out of here!”

Suddenly, his hands and legs are encased in swirling spheres of water, cold enough to stifle his blasts. An individual in red and yellow grips him around the chest to drag him further away.

“GET OFF ME!” He fumes, shouts and fights, trying to scratch his way free.

Several feet away, other colourfully dressed individuals watch, all the while Deku is still trapped. Still dying.

“SOMEBODY HELP HIM!”

No one moves.