COIN TOSS– PART II
(18+ MINORS DNI)
PART I
PAIRINGS: Tomura Shigaraki x Reader, a little Shouta Aizawa x Reader
SUMMARY: As you fall asleep, you wonder faintly, almost sadly, if you’re the first thing he’s fully touched without losing in a long time.
You are Eraserhead’s troubled protege with a Quirk that cancels out others the moment they touch you. Tomura Shigaraki takes great interest in you.
(Enemies to lovers, a lot of angst, some hurt/comfort)
WARNINGS: Unhealthy/complicated relationships, age gap/power struggle, violence, gore, Tomura’s trauma specifically, (in later chapters) murder, heroes’ abuse of power, smut, some blurred lines, rough sex, a smidge of a spit kink, a smidge of somnophilia (let me know if I’ve missed anything!)
If you are under the age of 18, you should not be reading or interacting with this!
A/N: again, thank you @randomrosewrites for beta-ing!! and thank you guys for the support and comments on the first part! here is your part two!! it's tomura heavy, but for those who love shouta, there's a lot of him in the final part! i hope you enjoy! let me know what you thought!
i also am obsessed with making playlists for when i write and i spend far too much time organizing it all and making sure the songs blend together so if you'd like to take a look at the playlist i made for this fic, it's here!
Read on Ao3
***
Shouta, like the responsible adult he is, soothes things out with you. Well, it doesn’t feel very soothed to you, but Shouta’s made his position clear and you’ve both returned to some semblance of normalcy.
He keeps his distance.
You try not to overstep, but you’re aching and furious.
(You’re holding a secret, too, letting it tear apart your insides, letting it turn circles in your mind until all you can think about is the chill of rain, the bite of a desperate kiss).
You hate that Shouta has retreated from you now. You hate that he’ll stop his hand before reaching out to touch you, like he always has to make sure, like he has to decide if that will be good for you. If you can handle it.
You feel shockingly alone.
You lash out at him more, bicker and argue over things you never used to. You don’t even know why you do it, can’t stop yourself from trying to dig into him. You regret it every time when all he gives you is impassiveness, levelheaded coolness. An adult speaking with an unruly child. He’s good at that, unfortunately.
Some days you want to beg him for answers. Why can’t you love me the way I love you? Is it me? How would you have me? If I was older? I can be more mature, I can be better and better and better–
His undercover work grows greater, draws him away from both you and Shinsou more. Shouta seems to ghost around your life now, drawn away from you, keeping a very careful space between you both.
But there are nights where he tells you to train with Shinsou alone now. You feel responsible. Mature. You glow with pride that he can trust you with one of his students, that you could be a mentor to Shinsou, too.
You grow closer to Shinsou because of this, too, when it’s just the two of you in the gym.
There is one evening in particular, when you’re both sprawled out on the floor taking a too-long water break because Shouta isn’t around when he admits that he used to be– still is sometimes– feared for his Quirk.
He tells you everyone expected him to be a villain.
“I used to be a thief,” you admit, “I was a petty villain, I guess.”
Shinsou looks at you and if he’s surprised, he doesn’t entirely show it, except for the lifting of his brows. You don’t sense judgement from him, though, when he asks, “Really?”
You take another swig of water, humming in affirmation. You swallow, “I was homeless, had no money, nothing. I was stealing from a supermarket when Shouta caught me.”
“You were just trying to survive,” Shinsou adds, like he’s trying to justify the crime, like it soothes him to know there was a good reason for a misdeed.
“Sure,” you reply, fiddling with your water bottle, “But I stole things I didn’t need, too. Just things I wanted.”
“But you’ve changed,” Shinsou says and you can’t tell if he’s trying to reassure himself or you more. “You’re a hero now.”
“Only because my circumstances changed. I was given a roof over my head, food to fill me. Clothes of my own that fit and weren’t torn. I was accepted.” You explain, “If it hadn’t been for Shouta, I would never have become a hero.”
Shinsou is silent, watching you.
“I’d probably be in jail. Or still a thief, in the least, if any other hero would’ve caught me.”
You don’t know why, but you think of Shigaraki suddenly. You think of how young some of the League of Villains are. You wonder if it had been them who offered you food and a home, if you’d be with them now, and not here, sitting on the floor of a nice, sparkling gym attached to U.A.’s dorms.
Something strange grows inside you, something a little bitter. It simmers with sympathy for them, for their lives. For kids like Shinsou with their villainous quirks. You wonder if he’d been poor, if he’d been alone, would he be here, too? Or somewhere else?
“But you were good before,” he says, and it almost feels naive, “I know you’re good.”
You shrug, “Good is relative, you know? I thought I was good because I didn’t kill people, I didn’t steal from other poor people, but society didn’t think I was good. I was still a thief.”
“But you were only a thief because you needed to survive.” he says again, “When given the chance, you changed and became a hero.”
“Exactly.” you say, “How many villains do you think just needed a chance?”
Shinsou goes silent now. His brows furrow in thought, pinching together in a way that makes him look a little too old for his age. You think all of the kids at U.A. grow up too quickly, all of them with too much on their small shoulders.
They’re only kids.
You’re barely older.
Shigaraki is barely older than you.
You push him out of your mind, toss your water bottle aside, and rise to your feet again. “C’mon,” you offer Shinsou your hand to help him up, too, “Shouta would kill me to know I let you lay around so much.”
This seems to pull him from his thoughts and he snorts, taking your hand.
You pull him up. And you both stare at each other a moment. You think he looks at you in a different light now and it isn’t bad, no, he seems to be pondering you more.
(And you’ll realize later that he’s become more sympathetic, that he sees you in villains now, reminds himself they’re people, too, with lives and needs and wants–)
It gives you a strange hope, as you begin to train with him again, to know that he’s the future of hero society.
***
Tomura spots you while he’s out stealing with Toga. Usually it’s Twice or Magne with her, but Twice was onto something else and Toga had decided to latch herself onto him for the day. He’s grown to tolerate her.
Besides, she’d managed to steal him a jean jacket, dark, rough, and worn with holes but it keeps him warmer while still being able to keep the hood of his sweatshirt up to hide himself. To blend in. She’d stolen herself something, too, as the weather begins to get colder and they still don’t have a base, wandering aimlessly.
(He feels stupidly responsible for them. But he’s learned good leaders are, in some way, responsible for their people. They don’t have to care in any way that is emotional, but they have to care in some way, make the group feel important to them. And begrudgingly, they are important to him–)
You’re with a boy around Toga’s age. Wild violet hair. You’re laughing at something he’s saying and you’re sharing street food, he thinks, something that’s warm, steaming up into the air.
He feels a vicious surge of jealousy for a moment. It’s so sharp and jarring that he reaches up to scratch at his neck, tearing into his skin.
But the boy looks too young and you tousle his hair like he’s a younger brother, not someone romantic. While there’s familiarity between you two, it’s not overly intimate.
Toga, unfortunately, follows his line of sight.
She looks between him and you. She tilts her head and Tomura can practically see the gears turning in her strange little mind.
“Do you know them?” she asks, almost innocently.
He doesn’t know why, but he says, “Just her.”
Toga looks back at you. She watches as you talk with the boy– the sun through the autumn leaves cast you in tangerine light, all golden and warm.
When she looks back at Tomura, a smile creeps onto her face. One that he knows is going to give him a migraine.
“She’s so pretty,” she trills, eyeing him too closely.
Tomura scratches at his neck again, harder, wincing a little when he feels a cut reopen.
“Do you have a crush, Tomura?” Toga sings, dancing in front of him to force herself into his line of sight.
“No,” Tomura snaps, bristling, which only seems to encourage her.
“Let’s say hi!” she says, about to bound off and Tomura catches her by the scruff of her jacket like a kitten. He’s wearing his partial gloves, but he still keeps a finger away from her.
“No,” he hisses, firmer now, pulling her back towards him. “They’re heroes. Don’t get distracted.”
Toga twists in his hold, wide-eyed for a moment, before her face settles into another enormous and excited smile. “You’re in love with a hero, too?!”
Tomura grits his teeth, snarling out, “I’m not in love with anyone.” He shakes her then and she yelps a little, “Now focus. We need food and I don’t want to deal with them.”
Toga finally squirms her way out of his hold, pouting at him, “You’re no fun.” she whines and all he does is shoulder past her. He stalks ahead, trying not to look at you again, if only to not draw your eye.
“Do you want to starve?” he asks waspishly, glancing at Toga over his shoulder.
She huffs, rolling her eyes, before hustling to catch up to him. She hums a strange little tune the rest of the time, knocking into his side, throwing him new looks as if to suggest they share some sort of commonality or secret. He grits his teeth but suffers through her torment.
When they return to the rest of the League with what they’d stolen, Toga announces to the whole group, “Tomura is in love with a hero, too!”
The migraine that had begun earlier in his temples reaches full force now. He doesn’t bother trying to deny it. He decides he doesn’t care.
Dabi’s laugh grates on him, though, “Is that so? Which little hero?” he asks Toga, and just as she’s skipping past him, he snags her, snatching the granola bar she’d had in her hand from their little raid.
She turns to grab it back and he pulls it out of her reach, “I don’t know! Give that back!” she squawks, clawing at him.
She must really dig at him because Dabi hisses, “You little twerp–” Just before Magne snatches the outstretched granola bar from Dabi’s hand. She hands it back to Toga, who quickly rushes off with it now.
And thankfully, for Tomura’s sanity, you’re not brought up again.
But he hadn’t noticed you– hadn’t noticed the way you’d seen him with Toga, too. Just a girl Shinsou’s age, following after him like an eager puppy.
Shinsou had trailed beside you like that, too, when you’d both walked back to U.A. with full bellies and new coffees in hand, warm and content.
***
There is a night where Shouta is out doing work undercover and you’re left to patrol on your own. You can’t take Shinsou yet, since he hasn’t earned his provisional license. You don’t mind these nights, by yourself, when you stick to shadows and rooftops, watching the city from above.
It’s cooler now and you tuck your face into the high collar of your hero uniform to hide from the wind that brushes past.
It’s been a quiet night so far. There are other, flashier heroes patrolling, too, meandering around the sidewalks to deter petty crime.
You check the time on your phone, noting that you have a little less than an hour until your shift is over, until you can go home and take a hot shower in an attempt to warm yourself up– especially your fingers, the tips of your ears.
You stretch, standing on one of the low roofs of a building. You’re stiff from crouching, so you decide to move around, change position. You use a grappling tool to shoot it onto a higher roof of the next building. You scale the bricks easily and once safely up, retract your grappling hook.
You look out over the quiet city, the golden light of lampposts, the meandering of cars through the streets. Some restaurants and bars are still open, their windows look warm and inviting with the flush of people inside.
You waste most of the last hour of your shift trying to remain warm, keeping a careful eye on the world below.
Towards the end, you notice a familiar figure in one of the alleyways down below. You don’t even see his face, just the back of his hoodie, just the angle of his shoulders.
Just the way he walks.
The thought should frighten you– that you know him like this, that you’re familiar with just the movement of his body.
Shigaraki Tomura walks away from the soft light of the main city, slips away into alleyways and darkness. You glance at the time. Your shift is nearly over.
This counts as hero work, doesn’t it? Silently following after him?
You drop down onto a fire escape– leap off to latch onto a lower window sill, until you’re dropping silently on to the ground a distance away from him.
You are careful to keep away from him, to use everything Shouta taught you about stealth to remain hidden. And you know Shigaraki is observant, you know he’s always looking over his shoulder so you have to stick to hidden places– behind dumpsters, ducking into alcoves of buildings.
He heads back to the part of the city you grew up in, where everything is falling apart, where there are plenty of abandoned buildings for hiding, plenty of places for runaway teens and homeless to sleep. The cheapest apartments, the streets that are the least patrolled by heroes and police alike, where parts of the Yakuza groups are bolder.
These streets are familiar to you. It’s a strange trip down memory lane.
You think of the last time you saw Shigaraki and flush darkly– it was around here, too, what happened that night.
Still, you follow him because you think you still have some upper hand. Maybe he’ll lead you to the rest of the League of Villains. For a heartbeat, you wonder if you’ll tell Shouta, if you’ll tell the Hero Commissions– you’d have to, right? That isn’t some little squirmish. That’s important information.
But he doesn’t lead you to the rest of the League.
He leads you to an apartment building, small and falling apart on the outside. A window is boarded up poorly. There are stray cats that linger around the side, where the trash is. You’re sure there are rats and bugs, too. You’re sure the building is one bad day away from falling apart.
Shigaraki pauses by the door that is nearly falling off its hinges.
He glances over his shoulder, “Are you following me in, too?”
Your heart kicks up, hammering against the inside of your chest. You swallow hard, internally cursing.
For all your effort of stealth, he still noticed you?
Well, there’s no use lying about it now.
You step around the corner you’d been hiding behind, moving towards the glow of a street light that flickers in and out of power to reveal yourself fully to him.
“When did you notice me?” you ask, peering at him, at the shape of him in the dark.
You catch the lifting of his scar when he smiles, just a baring of teeth, “I saw you on the roof.”
Damn, you curse again, you’ll have to work on that, “That bad, huh?”
He shrugs gracelessly, lifting of his shoulders only for them to fall unevenly, “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known. You were silent otherwise.”
It feels like a compliment– a generous one, coming from him. You don’t know why you have to hold off a smile.
He turns back to the door, shouldering it open. He walks through the archway without another word. He leaves it open and it seems there is no light on the inside, just a blackness that swallows up your vision. He disappears inside.
You stand there, beneath the light that flickers in and out, eyeing the doorway. You could go now, run back home to Shouta, to the Hero Commission and tell them you think you know where he stays, you have a lead on him. You look behind you, glance at the alleyway you came from with it’s’ dull, fluorescent lights that splash against the concrete, that barely fight against the shadows.
You look back towards where Shigaraki had been, the entrance to the building.
You’d probably even get extra little hero points for it from the Commission.
Shouta would be proud of you.
For bringing them to this dilapidated, shabby little apartment complex that rests on the streets of the place you used to call home.
You swallow hard, flex your freezing fingers.
Then you step towards the doorway, peer inside carefully. You hold your breath and the door creaks quietly when you cross it’s threshold, into the darkness.
Tomura is mildly surprised when he hears the door creak behind him. He can feel you, even in the dark of this hallway, the tentative steps you take after him. They’re almost shy.
But you followed him, didn’t you?
You followed and followed and followed him– and of course you did, he thinks, you had kissed him back, hadn’t you?
He supposes you could be playing a part, trying to get close to him but his intuition tells him differently, not with the genuine reaction you’d had. Your sudden guilt for giving in to him. Still, he’ll be careful around you.
He’ll probably have to move again, which would be a shame, since he has already killed the tenant of this apartment– he’d been sure they wouldn’t be missed by anyone, made sure he’d have time. He did the work to get it, thought he’d have it for just long enough until the League made another move.
He almost wants to test you, see if you’re going to run and tattle on his location. He wonders how far you’re willing to follow him.
Tomura walks steadily down the hallway, to the apartment he has taken claim to. He unlocks the door, hands in his partial gloves, shoving it with his shoulder to then enter. He leaves it open for you.
The apartment is a studio, shabby and the heat isn’t amazing, but it has hot water and a lack of bugs in this particular room. It has furniture– a bed, specifically, was all he had cared about. There’s empty wrappers of food and cans of energy drinks on the counters because he doesn’t really bother to pick up after himself but otherwise, the space isn’t his. There’s nothing else of his, besides some spare clothes on the floor.
And still, you follow him here, too. But you stand at the doorway, peeking inside.
He glances at you and is reminded of a fox, something with clever eyes but wary, a little skittish– would bite if he got too close too soon.
So he gives you space, just like he let you leave.
If there’s one thing Tomura has learned, it’s patience. Any good plan takes patience. The reward is always sweeter. The longer and harder the level, the greater the wins.
He ignores you, puts even more distance between the two of you as he wanders further in. He flicks on lights. He takes off his shoes, shrugs off his jean jacket and throws it over the couch. He gives the appearance of carelessness, of letting his guard down. Non threatening.
And you take your fist shy step inside. The door behind you remains ajar, though, for escape.
Tomura has to fight a terrifying smile, fight the sudden twisting in his heart, the inhale of his breath.
“I don’t know how wise it was of you to bring a hero to your home.” you finally speak, cutting through the silence. You’re trying to be witty, but he can tell you’re nervous.
“This isn’t my home,” he answers.
Home, with it’s round and warm syllabus, is not what he thinks of this place.
You eye him some more, but before you can respond, he says, “I don’t know how wise it was of you to follow a villain into his home.”
“I thought it wasn’t your home,” you quip and he only gives you a dry look.
Your bravado is wavering, especially when the door clicks shut behind you, your hand finally falling to your side.
And the two of you are sealed away from the outside world.
“Why did you bring me here?” you ask him and your voice is deceptively quiet. Small.
“Why did you follow me?” he asks in return.
You inhale like you’re trying to steady yourself, “Because I’m supposed to.”
Tomura smiles now, something lazy, almost amused. He knows it’s a lie, can feel it slide along his skin, can see the floundering, desperate look in your eyes.
“Why did you follow me?” he asks again, forcing himself not to move, not to step towards you in his budding excitement. Patience, he tells himself, be patient.
“Why did you kiss me?” you ask instead and the question is raw, as if it’s plagued you, haunted you like an insistent ghost. Crept around in the back of your mind, growing teeth and fangs and spindly, lampshade bat wings large enough to terrify you.
The idea that he’s taken root in your mind in the same way you have infested his is near dizzying.
Tomura weighs his answers carefully. He’s silent for a long moment and it’s heavy, charged with something that he can’t name– has never felt before.
When he speaks, his voice is just a rasp of breath, a little more honest than he’d like, a touch annoyed with the truth, “Because I wanted to.”
Another long stretch of silence where you watch him carefully, where he can see your chest rising and falling too quickly. He can see that frightened look in the rounding of your eyes, the high flush in your cheeks.
And when you speak again, it’s hardly louder than a whisper, like it’s all you can manage,“Do you want to kiss me again?”
It is far too gentle of a question for what he wants– it almost feels innocent, juvenile. Out of place between the two of you. But he’ll take it, he’ll take whatever you give him and then some.
He takes a step towards you. You don’t flinch away so he takes another, then another, until he is standing in front of you. You’re close now– so close that he has to force air into his lungs. He reminds himself of patience, of waiting–
He could take whatever he wanted from you now, he supposes, but he doesn’t want to have to wrestle you for it. He wants it given freely, he wants you to kiss back, like you had before. He wants you to willingly submit and it’s taken longer but it’ll be sweeter, so much sweeter.
“Are you going to run away again?” he asks and he can feel his heart quicken, the squeezing of it awful and tight.
You look up at him in a way that reminds him of his dreams, the ones he pretends to hate, where you make those small, soft noises. Where you let him touch you and taste you and have you.
And you shake your head no, just fractionally, the barest hint of movement but it’s enough for him.
The force of his kiss slams you back against the door. You make a surprised noise against him as he crushes himself to you. It’s just as violent as the first, but this time you take back what he gives. You get your bearings quicker, like you’ve learned a lesson already. He grins into the kiss, opening it, when he feels your little hands clawing at his shoulders, at his back.
He groans when you part your lips for him, when you lick tentatively into his mouth. He possesses you, bears onto you, pinning you to the door as his hands, still gloved, curl around your sides, your hips.
Your hero costume is tight, fits the curves of you snugly and in a way that’s making him nearly insane. He isn’t careful, doesn’t care if he’s moving too fast now as his hands roam and grab and squeeze. There’s layers between you, he naturally keeps a finger lifted away.
One of your hands tightens in his hair, pulling when he bites your bottom lip.
But you don’t seem to mind, either, with the way your breath is hitching, with the way you’re trying to pull him closer, desperately fuse him to you.
Your lips are so soft, he notices, even with the forcefulness with which you’re kissing him back.
It feels surreal for a moment, like one of his dreams, when he parts from your mouth only to slot his lips against your jaw, your neck. A whine is loosened from you, which breaks when he sets teeth to the vulnerable line of your throat.
Your hands are in his hair still, body arching into him eagerly. Youthful in your earnestness.
You’re better than anything he could’ve ever imagined, so alive and rosy and warm beneath his hands, beneath his mouth, which is making a mess of your neck. A particular hard suck over the sensitive line of your pulse makes you pull at his hair.
“Don’t leave a mark,” you hush and he thinks you meant to sound more threatening, but it’s softened by the desperation in your voice.
He scoffs into your throat, dragging teeth roughly along your skin.
“Shigaraki–”
“Tomura.” he corrects without thinking, finally pulling away to look at you, which is almost a mistake because you–
You’re flushed, lips kiss stung and pink, all swollen. Your head is tipped back, exposing the column of your throat, hair mussed with being pressed to the door so roughly. Your eyes are hazy and fever pink with your Quirk activated, like spring flowers, glowing in the low light.
He thinks of paintings and colors and dreams, something like beauty, if he knew anything about that.
And he’s so hard it hurts, teeth grinding together as he looks at you because he can’t even fucking stomach this feeling.
Then you repeat his name for him, “Tomura.”
He’s never heard his name like that, bedroom soft, more of a lullaby and less of a tragedy. He feels like he’s going to shake apart, his body to become just old ruins– he feels as if it’ll collapse inwards, topple over to crush his heart.
Where he’s usually seething and livid and clawing ruthlessly, the festering feeling in his chest is replaced with a new energy; something bursting and squirming and warm. His Quirk lies dormant and docile inside of him with your hand in his hair, your other now at his neck, fingers pressing lightly at his jaw.
It’s terrifying, he realizes, to not feel his Quirk at the edges of his fingers.
(It’s freeing, too, he’ll come to find, to not feel it’s weight, it’s demand that had been encouraged and shaped in him.)
You’re both trying to catch your breaths, looking at each other now. His fingers, still gloved, flex and squeeze at your waist, like he’s scared you’ll run off again.
You inch forward instead, rock onto the tips of your toes to press your lips to his again– softer this time, but no less heated, no less desperate.
He thinks you must be starving, too, with the way you pull him close. His mouth slants over yours, demanding more, a little rougher.
You squirm against the door, the slightest rocking of your hips– he can feel it against his thigh, against his waist. It makes him hiss out a breath against your lips, makes him grab harder at your waist, force you to do it again, harder this time.
You whine and it’s the snapping of his patience.
He reaches for the zipper at the back of your hero uniform, gives it a rough tug, pulling it down some. And then you’re pushing at him, nudging him away from the door and it’s a flurry of movement as you yank at his hoodie while he pulls at your clothes. You’re both stumbling further into the room, towards the bed pushed back into the corner.
Tomura feels young suddenly– feels his age. He feels like a twenty something year old with a girl in his apartment who wants his hoodie off. Who's kissing him hard in between every article of clothing that manages to come off.
He sits back on the edge of the bed to ease the rest of your cat-suit down. He watches with interest as you wiggle your hips to help him get the fabric down over you– and it’s nothing romantic, he doesn’t kiss the newly revealed skin, he doesn’t gently run his fingertips over you, but you grow shy under his gaze.
You’re still in undergarments, athletic slips of fabric, but his eyes fly over your face. You’re nervous, he can nearly feel it, with the way you shift, with the way you catch your bottom lip between your teeth and worry it.
A thought strikes him.
“Have you done this before?” he rasps, hooking his hand in the crux of your knee to drag your forward so you nearly fall into his lap.
“Yes,” you grit out, arms coming up to his shoulders to steady yourself. “Once.” you then shakily exhale.
He doesn’t particularly care– your answer wouldn’t have changed how he’d treat you. He’s not going to be gentler nor slower because you’re less experienced.
“Have you?” you ask, eyeing him, fingers nervously toying with the ends of his hair.
“Yes,” he says, perhaps too sharply, but he gives no other information and you don’t press him, which he’s thankful for. He doesn’t have the patience for useless questions.
Rather, he pulls you down harder, so your bare thighs finally settle into his lap. He slides his gloved hands up the notches of your ribs to hitch beneath your bra. That comes off, too, and then he’s got his hands on you more. You gasp, arching into his touch when his fingers curl around a breast, fingers roughly brushing over the peak.
He doesn’t think anymore, just acts, just moves and does as he pleases. All the things he’s done in dreams or in his mind– he sets lips and teeth to your breast, tongue laving over your nipple. He forces your squirming still with an arm banded around your torso, keeping you flush to his eager mouth.
You yelp in pain when he uses his teeth too roughly, trying to jerk away from him but you can’t with his hold on you. He grins, mouth opening, spit slick and wet against your breast again. He groans against you when you pull on his hair.
But then he twists you, throws you down onto the bed only to crawl over you. He yanks at your panties just as you pull him down for another kiss– maybe to distract yourself, to settle your nerves. When you pull away, you’re on your back and he’s over you, your legs hitching over his narrow waist. His hands are on your thighs and you–
You suddenly grab for his hands.
“Take off your gloves,” you get out, breathless, and before he can respond, your fingers are sliding against his wrist, up to his hand, beneath the glove and against his palm.
It makes him shiver, makes him grit his teeth. You pull off one, then the other.
For a moment, he just looks at you all spread out and bare for him, his hands now open and uncovered, too.
You squirm under his scrutinizing gaze.
“C’mon,” you coax and he thinks you’re trying to find your bravado, “Touch me.”
There’s nothing between his hands and your skin now and he settles his palm on your stomach, beneath your breast.
He naturally keeps a finger lifted away.
“Tomura,” your voice is pitched, almost pleading, “You’re not going to hurt me– c’mon.”
He tenses for a moment, eyes flashing over your face. For a moment, his heart stumbles, he grows wary. He thinks of you slipping away beneath his touch, falling away into nothing and all he’d have is a bed of ashes.
But your eyes are bright with your Quirk.
His final finger comes down. Nothing happens, except you smile a little, except you arch up into his touch– alive and vivid and furiously warm.
He feels like he can’t breathe, can’t even function.
He catches a groan behind his teeth, falls forward as his hands become feverish and possessive, suddenly confident, suddenly brash– touching and squeezing and grabbing at you.
His teeth clank with yours as he tumbles into another kiss. You’re needier now, making those higher pitched noises that used to haunt him.
It drives him insane, makes him feel half feral, overeager and desperate. His fingers wander lower, seeking and searching, just as the kiss grows in intensity again. It’s messier, all open mouth and tongue.
When he pulls away, a string of spit connects the two of you and he lets more of the saliva pooling in his mouth drip down with it, letting it fall between your open lips, some on your bottom lip, too. It’s depraved and dirty and his eyes simmer as he gazes down at you.
Your face scrunches up as you go to wipe at your mouth, and he hates it because all he can think of is how cute that face is.
“Gross,” you mewl, but his fingers finally move between your legs and–
And all he finds is that you’re hot and slick for him.
He has to grit his teeth to keep from moaning.
But you nearly cry at the touch, a pathetic little noise, hips jolting like you’re not sure if you want to go towards his touch or away.
“Gross, huh?” Tomura asks, voice low, the pad of his finger sliding easily, teasing you slowly before he goads, “Why are you so wet then?”
He sinks a finger in suddenly– just because he can. Just because he wants to watch your face screw up again, which it does, your mouth falling open, eyes squeezing shut.
“Hm?” he hums, amused with the way you’re gasping beneath him. He starts a slow but deep rhythm and–
And he’s had sex before, a handful of times, but it’d always been for him. He hadn’t cared how the other person felt, hadn’t cared to try and get them off. But now he suddenly wishes he had learned, if only for you, now. He wants you as obsessed as he is, wants you to feel as maddened as he feels.
Thankfully, you’re so expressive. And he doesn’t have to worry about his fingers. He can find the spot inside you that makes you toss your head back into the sheets and moan for him, he can focus on the way you keen when he finds your clit with his thumb.
You’re a sensitive little thing, clawing at his bare shoulders, whining into his neck. He forces in another finger and you start rocking your hips, growing more desperate until–
“Fuck,” you gasp, “Fuck, I’m going to–”
He curls his fingers harder, watching your face as you fall apart, as you try and twist and squirm beneath him. He forces you through it, isn’t gentle, but selfish, wringing everything he can from you.
And when he’s finished watching you whimper and feeling you flutter and gush around his fingers, he takes them out only to force them between your lips.
Once more your face screws up, but you close your mouth around them and he groans low and raw. You look hazy, drooling all over his fingers, lashes fluttering prettily.
He uses his other hand to fumble with his belt, to work his pants down low enough for his cock, aching so bad that he swears he’s going to go insane–
He pulls his fingers from your mouth, watching the mess that comes with it, so wet and slick and shiny. He can’t help the growl he gives, before covering his mouth with yours again.
As you kiss, sloppy and desperate, Tomura slides the head of his cock against you and you’re so slippery and soft and molten for him that his next moan tapers off into a whine.
You pull away fractionally, “Shouldn’t we–”
He thinks maybe you were about to ask about protection of some kind, but he shoves inside you hard, breaches your body and watches as your eyes roll back, just about to cross as your nails turn sharp against his back.
You moan, low and drawn out.
He can’t help the absurd laugh that is wretched from him, his head dropping onto your neck as he snaps his hips forward. He can’t believe he’s actually gotten you here, in his bed, beneath him– let him inside where you’re so warm and soft.
“Fuck,” you gasp, maybe laced with pain, clawing at him, raking your nails down his back.
“Does it hurt?” he hisses, excited, his teeth coming down to close over your exposed neck.
“Yes,” you get out, almost a whimper, “Feels good, too.”
He snaps his hip forwards roughly, grinding deep as he laughs again when you just about sob into his shoulder.
You latch your teeth onto the vulnerable juncture between his neck and his shoulder, where you’d already laid claim to him once before.
He wrestles for your wrist, the one he broke, and forces it down onto the bed.
“Look at you,” he almost snarls, voice low and gravely, “Little hero letting me fuck her.”
You gasp when he angles his hips, when his other hand reaches beneath you, to fist a hand in your hair and pull so your neck is arched and exposed to him.
“I used to dream of this,” he admits roughly, the confession like a curse being spit out of his mouth, “Wanted to stalk you or possess you or–” he groans because he can feel how you’re throbbing around him, how slick you are for him, “Wanted to fucking ruin you–”
He pulls at your hair more, tries to get you to look at him through your wet lashes. The flash of pink meets red and his smile is more a cruel bearing of teeth.
“And you feel so much better than I dreamt– fuck, so much tighter–” he babbles as he ruts into you hard and quick. You keen, high and broken, just as he feels you flutter around him again and he almost loses his mind because–
“Are you going to fucking come again?” he growls, pulling harder on your hair.
“Yes,” you groan, “Please, fuck, please, c’mon–” your voice is high and wrecked and all he has to do is angle his hips a few more times before you’re shattering, nearly breaking apart, squeezing down on his cock so tightly that he shudders, that he let’s go of your hair just to focus on his own pleasure.
He doesn’t even realize he’s drooling into your neck, not as he loses his rhythm, as he shoves himself as deep into you as he can and comes hard. Pleasure races up his spine, turns him white-hot and sensitive, making his eyes roll back into his head, too.
You’re both breathing hard when he collapses on top of you. Your fingers, which were once scratching down his back to cause sharp shooting pain, are now surprisingly gentle, slipping back into his hair.
You squirm, fussing slightly– no doubt sore, no doubt aching with him still inside you but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t want to.
He mouths at your neck, feels you sigh, before he moves to cover his mouth with yours again. He kisses you languidly now, slow and deep.
You’re making breathy little noises against him, content and surprisingly soft, your other hand tracing over his side.
(He doesn’t like how much he enjoys this part, the afterglow, all that violence slipping away, expelled from you both–)
Tomura feels his cock twitch inside of you again, feels your hips arch up a little, and before he knows it, he’s moving his hips again. It’s a slow rocking, your lips still attached to his, heated and gentle.
“Gross,” you say again, just a breath against him as he fucks his cum further into you, feels himself harden, feels the mess he made of you. But you still hitch your leg over his hip, pull him deeper into you.
He grins lazily against your lips, “You like it,” he says and it’s not a question, rolling his hips until he gets you to shut your eyes and moan against him.
“Yeah,” you reply, nudging your cheek against his, rubbing like a cat until he returns the gesture. Until he’s humming because he’s sensitive and you feel so good, better than anything he’s ever felt in this miserable fucking life–
You whine a little, ‘Touch me again?”
He doesn’t deny you for whatever reason, doesn’t even have something smart to say as he slides his hand down your torso, down to where you’re both slick and connected. He rubs unpracticed, messy circles around that sensitive bundle of nerves until you’re sighing.
He’s no expert but he doesn’t really care and you don’t seem to mind this time, either. It’s unhurried now, lazy.
This time your peak is a fluttery, soft thing, and he watches as you gasp, as you blink away tears. She’s pretty, he thinks, feeling stupidly young again, she’s pretty like this. Like his dreams.
Tomura spills inside you again soon after, groaning against your collarbones, and this time you force him to slip out of you. Force him to lay beside you as you both catch your breath again.
And he’s not expecting it, but he has the vicious need to be close to you, desperately wants to feel your skin against his. It’s a new feeling– usually after sex, he wants to be as far away from someone as possible. Usually he can’t leave or kick them out fast enough.
But there’s something about you now, hazy and pleasure-drunk, fucked out and dazed, that makes him want to stay close. Maybe it’s just that you’ve soothed all the festering that usually squirms in his chest. Maybe it’s just that you’ve made everything in him quiet for once.
He expects you to find some sort of your regret now, he’s sure that you’ll feel guilty, collect your clothes and go. But you don’t. You stay in bed with him. And it’s strange but he knows he wants to touch you, so he does. He doesn’t deny himself, why would he? He’s always taken what he wanted.
He curls around you, shivering a little with the skin to skin contact after the fog of sex has cleared from his mind. His hands slide over you, touch you fully and without restraint because he can, because you won’t disappear beneath his touch.
And for a moment, as he traces along the dips of your waist, he thinks maybe you were made for him– cut from his rib, isn’t that how the story goes?
He doesn’t know, only that there’s no one else in the world he can touch like this.
You’re surprised.
You’d figured after Tomura had his fill of you, he’d kick you out, send you away. You figured you’d feel guilty, that you would rush out of here and try to wish the whole thing away. But your hero suit stays on the floor and you’re still in his bed.
You didn’t think he’d be a cuddler, you assumed that he wouldn’t want nor care for any sort of contact after. But his arms are wrapped around you now, one of his hands sliding curiously over the curves of your body. All five fingers down, pressing into your skin.
But you suppose, for someone who has to be so careful with touch, that he would like this. That he might want this. You wonder if he ever gets to touch anyone like this, if he ever allows himself intimate touch like this– tender and for no other reason than to soothe or comfort.
You get the impression that he doesn’t, that touch is just a means to an end for him; sex is probably just an itch to scratch. You can’t imagine that he’s very relaxed or enjoying himself when he’s worried about decaying the person he’s with.
But all his crackling, restless energy now seems subdued, sated, as he walks his fingers over you. His hair tickles your bare skin as he nudges closer, nose running along your jaw.
Once more, you feel your age. You don’t feel like a hero, but just someone young, maybe on the cusp of being old. He looks young now, too, with his vivid eyes shut and relaxed, nothing to crease his brow. He doesn’t seem like a villain, either.
You brush a finger over his cheek, touch lightly at the scratches beneath his eyes, drag your thumb down to touch the scar at the corner of his lips.
His eyes flutter open to watch you, half lidded, squinted almost like a cat.
But he allows you to run your fingers over his face, doesn’t protest or jerk away from your touch.
No, his eyes fall shut again. He lets out a deep sigh that you think he has held inside him for years.
He doesn’t have a gentle face, but one that shows it’s angles and sharp edges, the scars and cuts that trail down onto his neck. You’d noticed some on his chest, too. Proof of an uneasy life lived, proof of violence and pain.
You imagine he’s seen horrors, kept them trapped inside for fear of letting them spill out, like maybe it’ll be as gruesome as the memories.
His body hasn’t been handled gently, you can tell, with it’s indents and scars and scratches. You don’t know who was the last person who touched him without wanting to hurt him. And you shouldn’t but you think of yourself when you were a child– desperate for love and affection, desperate for any scrap of attention like the scavenger you always were.
Maybe still are.
So desperate that you’d end up in the bed of your enemy– all because you couldn’t end up in the bed of your ally. So hungry that you’d eat out of a hand that has harmed and killed and destroyed.
Hands that haven’t known gentleness, a body that hasn’t known peace. But he’s being gentle with you now, isn’t he?
So you try to give gentleness to him now, too, with your careful touch. You keep your fingers kind and sympathetic.
Even your own eyes drift shut for a moment, still tracing idle patterns into his skin.
You only slip away from him for a moment, to use the bathroom, to clean up. Your reflection in the mirror looks strange; raw and flushed with color. Honest in a way that makes you turn away.
You slip back into bed with Tomura, let him latch onto you again. You drag your fingers gently over his ribs, over his sides.
You let your eyes fall shut, too.
There’s a sudden, loud buzzing from the floor that cuts through the quiet, which makes your eyes startle open. It’s insistent and you realize after a moment that it’s your phone, caught up in your hero suit on the floor.
You never came home after your shift. You curse softly, almost certain you know who's calling.
You squirm out of Tomura’s hold again, which he huffs at in irritation, but eventually allows you up.
“Where are you going now?” he asks, annoyed, when you climb out of bed to find your phone. Once found, you hold it up to him.
It’s still buzzing in your hand, lit up with Shouta’s contact.
You think the guilt should hit you now.
It doesn’t and that’s what you feel worse over. You swallow hard, frown down at your phone.
(Horribly, you even feel somewhat spiteful, as if you’re trying to prove something to Shouta. Maybe to yourself.)
You don’t answer.
And then you see the several texts from him, wondering where you are. They’re all bland, but you can tell he must be worried. It’s unlike you to not tell him where you are.
“Are you going to leave?” Tomura asks and there’s something strange in his voice, something you can’t place.
“Do you want me to?” you ask in return.
He doesn’t answer right away. But he does eventually give an annoyed drawl, “Do what you want.”
You take that as a no, don’t leave, since you’re certain if he wanted you gone, he would’ve told you.
You send a text to Shouta;
Sorry. Staying with an old friend for the night. Be back tomorrow.
It’s not unheard of, for you to spend time with an old friend from the foster care system.
You get a dry “okay” from him in response. You fight the urge to roll your eyes for some reason, tossing your phone away again.
You end up staying the night with Tomura Shigaraki, one of the most wanted villains in all of Japan.
Its not romantic— he isn’t sweet or funny or caring. But he holds you tight, leaves no room for distance. And it is the first time you’ve ever slept with someone like this, tucked away into a bed, bare, and wrapped up in each other.
Is this what it always feels like? You press yourself into the crooks of his body. You wonder if you’re supposed to fit this well together.
And it’s the first time since his Quirk developed that he hasn’t needed to wear his partial gloves to sleep in fear of decaying something.
He won’t admit it but it’s the best he’s slept in a long, long time.
You won’t admit it, either, but you think you could get used to this, too; this closeness, being held as if you’ll slip away, being held like he doesn’t want you to.
The morning brings rosy sunlight that slants through the windows. Neither of you talk much. You try to tell yourself this won’t happen again, can’t happen again.
But you had kissed him goodbye before you’d left, like he was a boyfriend and not a criminal, and you’d been in a surprisingly good mood for the rest of the day.
Like you had a crush, puppy love you never got as a teenager because you were too busy trying not to starve, only to realize you’d been starving in other ways, too.
But you’re sugar soft and excitable, dropping into bed that night alone, and allowing yourself to admit, in the quiet and privacy of your own thoughts, that you wish you were in his again.
***
One time turns into two which turns into three which turns into so many times you’ve lost count. That little, rundown apartment that isn’t really Tomura’s has turned into another world entirely, some harbor away from the rules of society. It’s almost too good to be true, a dream, a place for a secret as bad as this one.
When you’re here, you don’t talk of heroes and villains. You urge him not to; you think you’ll keep some part of your innocence in this affair if you don’t actually know anything about him or the League of Villains. You’ll feel too guilty, if you know any part of their plans and don’t tell Shouta. And telling Shouta anything about Tomura is beginning to feel like a betrayal, too.
You don’t know anything substantial about Tomura Shigaraki and that’s the way it needs to stay.
You know he likes sour candy, though, and drinks too many energy drinks– they’re sickly sweet and you think kissing him might make your teeth ache. You know he likes video games but no longer has a console. He has trouble sleeping at night. You’re familiar with the scars on his skin, the jagged ones across his neck, the one on his lip. The beauty mark on his chin. You know his moods; from the prickly ones to the downright vengeful ones. You even know the calmer ones, the quiet, contemplative ones.
(In this way, he seems like a normal twenty-something-year-old. In the quiet moments, when you’ve convinced him to watch a cheap horror movie on the tiny, staticky TV in the apartment, he could be anybody. When he’s got his bare hand up your shirt as someone onscreen screams and begs for their life, he’s not the heir to an underground empire. He’s just Tomura, with his face buried in the crook of your neck).
He pretends to get annoyed with you, huffs and scoffs against your lips when you’re being cheeky. You wear his worn down hoodies, slip your thumbs in the holes at the sleeves. He eyes you when you wear them, pulls you to him by the collar.
(He likes to fuck you in them– pushes the hoodie up your stomach to watch you ride him. But he likes things bare and raw, too. Skin to skin. So close it’s terrifying, so close you feel like he’s trying to tear you apart from the inside out. He likes it dirty, you think, because it makes it more intimate.)
You soothe him. You know you do because when he’s festering and angry, all it takes is your hand on his wrist, pulling it away from his neck. Sometimes, when he can’t think straight and there is too much on his mind, he forces you to lay on top of him until his breathing slows and his head is clear.
He can’t talk to you aloud about what’s plaguing him, but you must quiet some part of him. He likes to use you to think, runs his long fingers through your hair as you lay atop him. He pets you until his thoughts aren’t as jumbled, but smoothed out and sharp. Or until he doesn’t want to think anymore at all and he drags you into languid makeouts that always end with him surrounding you, inside you, possessing you.
You bicker sometimes, flash your teeth to make his eyes spark ruby and excited. Mostly, you act your age with him.
You don’t know when his birthday is or where he grew up. You don’t know what his childhood was like or what memories shaped him, don’t know where he’s been or where he’s going to be. You only know him now, in this moment, in this little world you’ve created for each other.
He’s what you imagined first boyfriends are supposed to be; excitable and often immature but fun and new. You never had the luxury of first loves, just odd first kisses with strangers and an uncomfortable loss of virginity with a friend of a friend of a friend who jammed his tongue too far down your throat. You hadn’t had anything stable until–
Until Shouta.
Shouta has grown suspicious of this old friend of yours and how much time you now spend with him.
He questions you about him and you wish you felt worse for lying. The rebellious part of this affair is thrilling, though. Feels like you’re sixteen and sneaking out from under your dad’s nose to be picked up by the boyfriend you’d know he’d hate. Feels like swiping liquor too young and getting sick off it, smashing the bottles and laughing with your friends because sometimes things just need to break.
“Will you at least tell me his name?” Shouta had asked one morning, when you’d let yourself into his apartment after another night at Tomura’s. You had your own hood pulled up around your face to hide the rose blossom hickeys against the skin of your neck.
He’d still poured you a cup of coffee. You’d watched his careful, large hands as they made it the way you liked it.
You’d given him a lie, fed it to him the way he feeds you breakfast, “Shinta. Are you happy?”
He’d slid the mug to you, let you catch in the cradle of your palm. He’d shrugged, but you think his eyes had flashed to you, “You know you can bring him around, right? You don’t always have to go to him.”
You’d had to bite back a painful laugh. It wasn’t funny. It had hurt strangely in the pit of your chest.
You had shaken your head, tried to brush him off, “It’s not like that.”
“Alright,” he’d said, but he hadn’t believed you. “You’re training alone with Shinsou again tonight, I’ll be busy with a job.” Then he’d given you a stern look, “And don’t cut it early to go see Shinta.”
“I’ve never done that!” you’d protested, perhaps a little too defensively. But it was true, you’d never do that to Shinsou, wouldn’t dream of it. The only time you’d cut training early was to share takeout with Shinsou, not ditch him for–
This comment had rubbed you wrong, scratched up against something abrasive and surprisingly fragile inside of you. Maybe because he was questioning your dedication which already felt so flimsy, even if he hadn’t been entirely serious, even if maybe he’d just been trying to take a dig at you. At this new boyfriend.
Shouta had grown cold then, shrugged impassively, took his mug of coffee and brushed past you to keep getting ready.
It had angered you enough to bring it up later to Tomura, when you’re falling into his lap and he’s squirming his cold, fluttery hands beneath your shirt to touch skin, to make you hiss through your teeth.
His lips tilt into a small smile as you fidget while he warms his frigid fingers on your body.
“Eraserhead asked about you yesterday,” you tell him, letting your nose brush against his, “Told me I could bring my friend around– don’t always have to go to him.”
Tomura snorts, eyes falling half-lidded when your lips skim over his. The night is plum dark, presses into this little apartment that’s tucked away from the world.
“How’d you get out of that one?” he asks, fingers walking over the dips of your spine. He likes tracing the bone beneath your skin, likes making you shiver.
“Told him it’s not like that.” you respond, your own hands wandering to his neck. You're careful over the ridges of flesh there, skim lightly to get to his jaw.
“No?” Tomura asks, pulling you closer, pressing his chest to yours, “Don’t want to bring me home to meet Eraserhead?” he sneers and there’s something underneath his voice, lurking, with its hackles raised.
You think maybe it’s jealousy, the same flash of his eyes like Shouta’s when he’d said Shinta.
But then he kisses you deep and drags your hips against his, forces a warbly, surprised little moan from you.
Most of your thoughts melt away then, most turn to something base and desperate, all desire and need. You can’t help but think about it, though, how you can’t ever take him home to Shouta. You can’t ever expect anything more than whatever stays in this room. He kisses you hard, your teeth clinking against his like clashing with the truth of it all.
There’s no happy ending here.
It’s like smashing bottles because sometimes things just need to break.
***
Tomura thinks you would be a good edition to the League of Villains.
You’re clever and capable. He comes to find you’re not just a good thief and pickpocket but an excellent one. You swipe everything from his pockets, right from under his nose, just to play with him. You’re stealthy and sharp; he could use someone like you at his side.
Your Quirk could be useful, though he doesn’t like the idea of you getting so close to people while in battles. You have a reckless streak, but he thinks he could temper that. All you need is a little guidance.
You were a thief once. You give him clues of your past; you didn’t grow up like the other heroes, didn’t come from a warm home with dreams of saving the world. Your head wasn’t filled with fantasies of rescuing the downtrodden. You were the downtrodden. And you learned that there was no one who was going to save you, except yourself. So you stole and fought and survived a world that was willing to forget you.
You’re like him, a very quiet part of him thinks, no one saved you. Not until you were too old, all grown up with sharpened teeth and claws, eyes that see in the dark. That could be now used and extorted by the heroes.
He thinks they’ve leashed you, taught you how to sit and stay and sic ‘em.
He wonders if he’d have gotten to you first, if you’d be with him and not your heroes.
Tomura doesn’t dwell on it, though. He refuses to imagine it. What would be the point? It didn’t happen.
Besides, he is certain he is capable of slowly swaying you to them still. You possess a startling amount of compassion for villains which, perhaps wouldn’t help you as a villain, but that’s fine.
(You’d have him. No one would touch you if you were at his side. You could be as stupidly compassionate as you wanted.)
You meet members of the League with him by accident, times when Toga and Twice’s meeting with him overlap with you arriving. Toga goes on endlessly about you, it seems. Dabi drops by once in the middle of the night, bloody and demanding a place to sleep because he’s tired of sleeping on the streets.
It’d been one of the more insufferable nights, perhaps one of the worst ways for Dabi to find out about you. You’d already been asleep, cocooned beneath blankets and Tomura’s body, just in one of his loose shirts.
Tomura had already been lying awake, listening to your even breathing when he’d heard the handle of the door shake roughly. He’d gotten up then, slipped into clothes, melted into the darkness by the door and waited for the intruder to try and step inside.
The lock had been picked.
He had nearly decayed Dabi by accident before realizing it was him.
A ridiculously quiet but terse argument had ensued then, before Dabi had asked, in a regular speaking voice, “Why the fuck are we whispering?”
Tomura had almost winced when he heard you stir from the bed before your small, sleepy voice had murmured into the darkness, “Tomura?”
You’d said it too soft, too sweet. It’d been for his ears only and something about Dabi hearing you, seeing you, being in this space that had been for you and for him had made Tomura suddenly livid.
He had watched Dabi’s mouth fall open in shock before you’d switched on the bedside lamp to flood the room with artificial, golden light.
Dabi’s face had been near horrific in the light, one side of it all bloody, the stitches mangled or falling out. Part of his face almost looked like it was melting, his eye squinted shut with the damage.
But he’d thrown his head back and laughed when he’d seen you, sitting up in the bed, blinking sleepily at them. Tomura hated a lot of things, but he’d hated nothing more than the sound of Dabi’s rasping laugh in that moment.
You’d narrowed your eyes when you had realized who it was.
“I had no idea you had it in you, Tomura.” Dabi had said.
“Why the fuck are you here?” Tomura had hissed instead, fighting the urge to tear into his neck, fingers twitching agitatedly.
Dabi had gestured to his face with a lazy flourish, “I need medical attention and I’m crashing on your couch.”
Tomura’s teeth had ground together, “Get. Out.”
“No, I’m sick of sleeping on the streets when you’re here playing house with your little hero bitch–”
Before Tomura could even react, though, you had found the small supply of first aid from beneath the sink in the tiny bathroom. You had come up beside them near silently and offered it up, asked, “Do you want help?”
And there it had been– that compassion of yours. Even for the likes of Dabi.
In that moment, he’d wondered how you had ever survived with it. He’d thought that you’d lose your hand if you kept extending it.
Dabi hadn’t let you touch him but you’d gotten a cool rag for him to clean up the blood, watched as he tried to patch up the wound. It was made worse by a mangled staple in his cheek, jutting out strangely.
“Does it hurt?” You’d asked but with the way you were looking at him, at his marred skin up close, Tomura could tell that you weren’t just referring to this one injury.
Does it hurt? You’d asked, like you were asking if it all hurt. You weren’t just seeing a singular part of Dabi, but a series of tragedies that was proudly presented in large, rippling scars against his skin.
“Of course it fucking hurts,” Dabi had spit out, all venom and bitterness. But you hadn’t even flinched.
Tomura had tried to kick him out again once his wound had been treated.
“It’s fine,” you’d said, resigned, tired and rubbing at your eyes.
(Later you’d shrug and tell him, I know what it’s like to not have somewhere to sleep).
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Dabi had drawled, already pulling off his heavy boots, prying the coat from his body to toss onto the floor. “Just don’t do any weird shit.”
And you’d gotten back into bed with Tomura, fit yourself against him, ducked your head down beneath his chin and pressed your hands against his sides, felt the notches of his ribs.
Sometimes he wonders if you can feel the missing one, the one you took from him, the one you’d been made out of.
It had occurred to Tomura that either you didn’t fear Dabi or you trusted him enough to know he’d never let Dabi harm you while sleeping.
Both were acceptable to him, both would aid him in converting you. And they were true, too. You shouldn’t fear Dabi, especially not with him around.
Tomura had brought his hand up then, suddenly covered your mouth with his large palm, letting all five of his fingers come down against your pretty face.
You’d furrowed your brows in confusion, not fear, which made something inside of him grow warm and hungry.
Then he’d slid his other hand down your body, between your legs, just to spite Dabi.
He’d watched as your eyes went wide in the dark, cheeks flushing beneath his hand. He could feel his smirk, smug and sharp, fitting across his teeth like a muzzle.
You’d tried to shake your head, tried to squirm away from his touch, but he’d been persistent and soon enough you were sighing against his hand, melting into the bed he pressed you into. Soon enough you were trying to hold back whimpers, all slippery and soft beneath his fingers, silently begging with your eyes.
He hadn’t denied you that night; no, you were being good, walking the steps he wanted for you. You were moldable and sweet beneath him so he’d give you what you wanted.
He watched in satisfaction as you came hard around his fingers, face scrunching up in that way he loved, fingers easing you through it. He was gentle with you then, taking his hand away from your mouth slowly, letting you nudge closer and cling to him.
(He loved when you clung to him).
You’d wanted so much affection that night and he had indulged you, letting your nose brush against his, or rubbing your cheek against his chest while his fingers wound through your hair.
You’d fallen asleep all tied up in him.
The next morning, you were gone before Dabi even woke up.
Dabi had asked, “What the fuck are you doing with her?”
“Mind your business,” Tomura had snapped, fingers already seeking out his neck again when they couldn't find you. He hated that he wanted your presence so badly now. (Hated that he missed you, but he would never say that, never even dream of it). Then he’d added,“And find someone else’s doorstep to show up on.”
Dabi had scoffed, “Whatever. Just don’t get distracted.” He’d pulled out a cigarette from his jacket still on the floor then, much to Tomura’s annoyance, and lit it with a spark of his fingers. Smoke curled into the air with his first drag. “I’m not about to watch all our efforts fall apart because you wanted to play Romeo and Juliet with some braindead little hero.”
He’d torn into the skin of his neck then. Wished he could tear into you instead.
“Violent delights and violent ends and all that shit,” Dabi had said then, his smile just a curled stitch, smoke pouring from his lips, evidently amused with himself.
But Tomura has never read that play and he doesn’t know anything about poetry in the same way he doesn’t know anything about art or beauty, just that you’re the only thing he’s bothered to compare to a painting.
***
You put Tomura into your phone as Shinta and when you’re too busy to visit him between missions and training, you text him. Though short, he is surprisingly witty over text, something that has you biting back grins and distracted, feeling like a schoolgirl as you try to hide the screen of your phone from the rest of the world.
You grow distracted with hero work, with Shouta. You pay less attention to your life at U.A. You don’t visit Shouta for lunch as often. You haven’t spent a quiet night with Shouta in weeks. You tell yourself you don’t care.
It’s better than fighting with him. It’s better than trying to beg for his love and affection.
Early tomorrow morning you’re supposed to shadow Shouta on a brief mission.
The Hero Commission is trying to train you into espionage and underground work, trying to mold you in the shape of Shouta.
But at night, when you’re alone in your bedroom, tucked away into your own apartment and not with Tomura, he calls you.
You let yourself say his name into the receiver of your phone, hushed and excited.
He doesn’t say I miss you or when will I see you again?
He says, “Touch yourself.”
And you don’t say I miss you, too, or hopefully soon.
You do as he says, let your fingers fan out over your stomach like they might be his. You listen to his breathing turn ragged over the phone. You moan softly for him.
You do what he says in the navy dark of night, bite back frustrated whines because you’ve gotten too used to his touch.
“–Wish it was you, fuck, it’s not fair,” you gasp, tilting your hips up into your fingers desperately.
You can hear the hiss of breath he takes, “Did I ruin you?” he croons into the phone lowly, his voice slithering through to you, making your thighs clench. “Can’t even touch yourself without needing me?”
You groan, high and defeated, fingers slipping against yourself. You’re aching and empty and bereft without him, “Yes, yes–”
He rambles about what he’s done to you, almost seething by the end, when he demands you tell him that you’re his, that he’s the one who made you this way. He’s the only one who can soothe you now. You need him.
He isn’t wrong, you realize, when you still aren’t satisfied after your climax. When it doesn’t feel as good as when you’re with him. You realize you hate sleeping alone now. You miss the press of his body to yours. You coo into the phone about it, lay on your stomach, arms curled around your pillow with your ear still to your phone.
It never gets overly sentimental. You don’t want to scare him, especially as you grow terrified of your own feelings. It doesn’t feel as fun anymore, you realize, only because your attraction to him has now grown serious.
Your crush has grown teeth and claws, ready to tear apart the vulnerable, fleshy parts of you.
But he talks with you until you fall asleep, phone still in hand, heart still on the line.
***
There’s a stray kitten that hangs out around Tomura’s apartment– he thinks there must be a colony of strays in the area, since it’s not the only one. But this one is scrawny, just a messy tuft of grey fur. It’d be sleek and pretty, if it wasn’t so malnourished, if it wasn’t missing clumps of fur or full of scars and scratches.
The kitten likes Tomura a great deal for some reason. It rubs itself against his legs, follows him around outside of the apartment, much to your utter delight.
You coo and fawn over it, scoop the little thing up into your arms and hold it up to Tomura’s face.
He hates it, the face you give him. The face the kitten gives him. He hates that the corner of his lips twitch upwards.
“He’s so cute,” you gush and he can hear now that the little thing is purring furiously in your hands. You wiggle the cat a little bit in front of his face and Tomura finally reaches up to stroke the back of his knuckles against the kitten’s head, if only to appease you.
Your smile is crooked– an excited curve of your lips, your eyes alight.
You’re always so expressive and he used to be livid about it, wanted to teach you a lesson in the worst way possible, but now he just wants to keep you from learning them.
He has to turn away from you at the thought, heads towards the door of the apartment building. You follow after him dutifully, coming up to nudge against his side. He’s become too comfortable with you there, knocking into his elbow.
You’re still smiling down at the kitten in your arms and he wants to look away because some part of this is starting to sting.
The kitten is excitedly looking around, green eyes all round and bright. It’s purring happily.
“Put it down, it’s not coming in with us.” Tomura tells you, his voice rough and soft.
You stop in front of the door with him. Your bottom lip pulls out into a pout. Your eyes get round like the kitten’s.
He gives you a cold stare.
You hug the kitten tighter to your body, “C’mon,” you whine, “It’s just a baby.”
“I’m not taking care of a cat.”
“I’ll take care of it!”
“No,” he responds, harsher, voice a little sharper.
Maybe, in the beginning of this little affair, you would’ve headed the warning in his tone, but now you don’t even bat an eye at him.
“Yes,” you respond indignantly.
You both glare at each other. The kitten’s purr still rumbles on.
Tomura can tell you’re not giving this one up, he can tell by the set of your jaw, the way you’re clinging to that little creature. There’s a determined flush to your face. Your eyes are bright and fiery.
All over this little stray.
“You’re a brat,” is all Tomura says and you take that as a win, because your face immediately morphs, brightens up completely. You duck past him, into the apartment building with the kitten cradled in your arms.
He heaves a deep sigh, following in after you. “I’m kicking it out when you leave.”
“Don’t be mean,” you reply, waiting at the door, and the irony is not lost on him. He comes up behind you, his chest to your back, crowding you against the door.
“I think you need to remember who you’re speaking to,” he says, his voice just a rasp against your ear and maybe at some point, it would’ve sounded threatening, but now you just lean back into his chest. His heart beats against the curve of your back.
Something soft is growing between the two of you, he can feel it. It has no place here, though, in this world. In the two of you. His ugly infatuation with you, all that anger and vitriol he had for you has melted, turned spring soft inside of him after an unforgiving winter.
He unlocks the door, he lets you in.
The kitten ends up coming and going. He opens the window to let it in and out, let’s you feed it. You call it Ryuji. It lives partially in this new little world the two of you have built.
He thinks of it like the pause screen in a video game, somewhere to return to when he’s frustrated or tired or done. Idle, soft music and the freezing of his screen. A moment away from the turmoil or struggle of the game.
But he’ll have to unpause eventually.
He can’t stay here forever, he knows it, but he just has to be sure he plays it right– he doesn’t think he’ll be able to start over this time, with you.
And he wants you there at the ending, at his side like in his dreams.
The ones where it’s all in ruins, the world nothing but his, destroyed, but he gives you his hand to have, and you take it in yours to hold.
***
The distance between you and Shouta stretches and grows until it snaps in the form of a blowout argument. Which, is mostly just you, shouting, crying furiously, and Shouta stone-faced and cool.
It had started with an offhand comment from him about how you’re not focused anymore. You’re getting sloppy. You’re distracted. And usually, you take his criticism with a stiff upper lip and a determined glare.
But you and Shouta haven’t been the same since you tried to kiss him.
You blame yourself, maybe, but part of you feels angry with him, too. Bitter. You thought, in some way, he reciprocated your feelings. He’d acted like it. And when he’d rejected you, he’d pulled away, been more careful with you.
(You wonder if this proves your point, that he was toeing a line with you then.)
And maybe your lies are starting to eat at you, too, starting to rot away on the inside of you. If you focused on them too hard and all that Shouta’s done for you, you think you’d start crying every time you looked at him.
But Tomura has also thrown all you know into question. And you’d already been critical of the life you were afforded by becoming a hero.
You look at all of Shouta’s students and you just get angry. You look at Shinsou, so determined to prove he can be a hero, that he’s good and you are livid. You look at Toga, with her villainous Quirk. She’s near Shinsou’s age and something about it just makes you ache, it makes you sick.
You look at her and see who she could’ve been as a hero– you wonder if they would’ve stuck her in espionage, with the likes of you and Shouta. You wonder if she would’ve gone to U.A. You wonder what it would’ve taken to change her fate.
Even Tomura, you look at him and in the safety and privacy of your own heart, you dare to wonder what he would’ve been like if he hadn’t been a villain.
(He could’ve been a rescue hero, you think, and he could’ve decayed debris to save people. This version of him lives in the quiet, tentative parts of you. It grows soft and underground, a seedling that has sprouted on the inside of your chest, and one day you think this little dream of yours will grow so large inside of you that it’ll breach skin and show the world it’s horror.)
It feels like a coin toss, almost, like the difference between a hero and a villain sometimes is one flip away from changing.
You don’t bother to wonder what would’ve happened if it hadn’t been Shouta that found you, but someone like Tomura. Or All For One. You know if you’d been given somewhere to sleep and a warm meal, you would’ve done what they wanted.
You wish you could say you were a noble, starving person, that there was something shining and golden inside of you. But all you were was starving.
Shouta says you’ve been underperforming lately. He says he’s considering limiting the nights you patrol until you can get it together.
The Hero Commission was supposed to come observe you to see if you’d progressed enough to begin accepting your own missions. He tells you he doesn’t think they should come any longer. It feels like a dig, too, like he’s reprimanding you somehow.
And you snap, “Well maybe I didn’t want them to observe me!”
He looks taken aback for a moment, before he asks, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know! Maybe I’m tired of being observed and used and watching all of these kids be observed and sought after and–”
“Alright,” Shouta sighs, and it makes your teeth grit because he sounds like he’s trying to parent you, “It’s one thing to be upset yourself, but I don’t see how this has anything to do with these kids.”
Your nails dig into your palms as you try to find the words to get him to understand you.
But he speaks before you can, almost patronizingly, “Clearly, you’re struggling through something, so it’s probably a good thing we’ve put this off.”
Tears well up hard and fast. It hurts to be dismissed like this. It hurts to look at him, to think that he’s a part of the ever growing issue that has been itching beneath your skin. You’re a part of it, too, but you have the sudden urge to run. To get out.
Still, you swallow down all of that turmoil and say, “I hardly know what I want now, so how do you expect children to know that they want to be a hero?”
“What is this about?” Shouta asks.
“It’s about the Hero Commission and U.A. and the entire fucking system. That’s what it’s about.” you seethe, looking up into his eyes, trying to find something there.
“It’s not just about you?” he asks, unperturbed.
“Why can’t it be both?” you respond, trying to keep your voice from going high, from going hysterical. There’s so much you want to say, so much that it’s making you sick, that it’s turning your stomach. “I’m– I’m barely older than them!” you say, because all you keep thinking about is how they’re just kids. And you were just a kid. And at one point, Tomura was just a kid.
He’s barely older than you. Closer in age to Shouta’s students than to him.
“I didn’t invent the system,” Shouta says and he sounds weary, “I just try to give my students the best opportunity at surviving being a hero. I try to teach them everything to keep them alive.”
They’re just kids! You want to shriek, kids that were chosen or forgotten or accepted or shunned.
Looking in the face of the system now feels so massive that it’s hopeless; a system that produces shiny heroes from children with their perfect and acceptable Quirks and discards the rest. Even you and Shouta, with your Quirks that aren’t as flashy, are pushed into the shadows to do the Hero Commissions business. And what business is that? You have to wonder their intentions, too, with all the money that’s pumped into it. Into all of these heroes. A system that forgets anyone who doesn’t fit into it’s perfect mold.
“But you see how it’s wrong, right? And just because you didn’t invent the system doesn’t mean you get to throw your hands up!” You say, voice raising.
Shouta levels you with a cool look. He lets loose a sigh. “What would you like me to do?”
You don’t have an answer, it’s too big of a question.
(You see the appeal suddenly, in wanting to get rid of it all, in destroying it since it’s such a mess.)
But you hate his aloofness, you hate that he doesn’t care. You hate that you feel crazy.
“I don’t know!” you shout, tears finally falling down your angry and flushed face. “I don’t know!”
“Are you done?” Shouta asks and it makes you want to scream more. You just want a reaction from him, you realize, you want something more than his impassiveness. You think of trying to shout more, to try and say something cutting or powerful or enough to make him wince.
But nothing comes to mind and you’re just stubbornly trying to keep back a sob.
So you shoulder past him, rush out of his apartment, rubbing at your cheeks and trying to keep back your hiccuping cries.
You have every intention of going to Tomura’s.
But you realize when you’ve nearly made it to his door that it might be foolish to go to someone like Tomura with tears in your eyes. What is the leader of the League of Villains going to do? You have a feeling you might just get your feelings hurt more.
So you pause, rub at your eyes again, try to dispel all the turmoil inside you. It doesn’t work, so you turn away from him, too, and you start moving.
Your feet carry you to the train station, carry you across town, to a warehouse you used to vandalize and hide in when you were young and alone.
You haven’t been here in years.
It feels strange, loping around the side of the building. The alleyways are cast in garnet light with the fading sun. It makes it look prettier than it is. You enter through the same hole in the wall that you used to when you were young; you’re bigger now, though, need to duck lower, curl yourself up to get through it.
You think of yourself scurrying around, knowing the ins and outs of this dilapidated building the way most children know their childhood home.
It’s strange, stepping back into a place you haven’t been to in years. You know, in some way, it has to have changed. It’s falling apart more, there’s larger holes in the ceiling, letting in auburn light, setting everything ablaze. There’s a lot of debris; from torn tents to discarded sleeping bags to spare junk, it’s all spread out throughout the place. Graffiti covers every corner of the walls. You used to look for a face painted in pink, it’s eyes dripping down it’s face in the back corner of a wall. When your eyes slide along all the artwork, it’s nowhere to be found now. No doubt covered up by the years, but you know it’s there, somewhere beneath all that color and paint.
There are a lot of empty bottles, glass laying around that crunches beneath your shoe.
You pick up a glass by the spout, watch as it catches in the light, murky gold and sunkissed.
You feel small again, fragile like the bottle in your hand. You stopped crying at least, but all that’s left is the aftertaste. Just the lingering frustration, the bitter aloneness that settles over you as cold as Shouta’s stare.
Your fingers squeeze around the glass, curling tight, before you suddenly hurl it at the wall.
It bursts on impact, explodes into thousands of shining, glittering pieces that spark in the sun.
It feels good, so you pick up another glass– this one’s mint green, pretty like the sea, reminds you of spring and the stems of flowers.
It breaks prettily, too, the sound ringing and sharp in your ears, your eyes trying to catch all the splinters of it. It explodes in the light. It’s cathartic, letting all your aching frustration and hurt rush out with each breaking, with each smashing.
You don’t get through many more, not before you hear footsteps behind you.
You can’t say you’re surprised to find Tomura, but you can’t say you were expecting it either. Quickly, you turn away, try to school your features. You try to rub at your eyes again, as if this will somehow dispel damp lashes and splotchy cheeks.
“Are you stalking me?” you ask, but there’s no bite to it as he comes to stand beside you.
He doesn’t answer.
You think he might be, but you can’t find it in you to care.
The sound of the distant city is just a hum between you two. Glass sparkles on the floor like stars in the fading, ruby light.
You turn to face him, don’t bother trying to look up into his face, just shove yourself into his chest. You bury your face into his hoodie, rubbing your cheek against his chest. “Creep,” you mumble, “What are you doing here?”
His hands come up, one at the back of your head, the other along your back. He has his gloves on. Not that it matters.
“I followed you from the apartment,” he admits and his voice is quiet, but it seems to echo in this open space. Then he says, “You should be more watchful.”
“Don’t start,” you grumble, letting your fingers curl in his jacket, “Been scolded enough today.”
The hand at the back of your head tugs at your hair lightly, lifting your head from its hiding place against his chest so that he can look you over carefully.
The light casts him in maroon and russet, saturating him, making the dark of him stand out sharply. It makes the silver of his hair seem peach, brands him in all the sun’s honey and whiskey glory.
His eyes are vivid, maybe the most true shade of red you’ve ever seen in your life.
He takes in your face, perhaps your bloodshot eyes, your damp lashes. You aren’t a fool; you’re certain he can tell you’ve been crying. You have the urge to squirm away, to try and hide from his gaze.
But all he asks, in a surprisingly gentle tone, is “What happened?”
You shake your head fractionally, “Nothing. Got into an argument, that’s all.”
He hums lightly, tracking your expression. You want to glance away from him, but he holds you still for a moment longer.
When you can’t take his scrutinization any longer, you ask, “Wanna break some shit with me?”
He lets you go finally, let’s you step out of his arms despite not responding. You pick up another glass, this once an icy blue that reflects light that reminds you of the color of morning skies.
You watch as it explodes against the wall, flashing like a little firework. Glass rains down onto the ground, some of it flinging up into the air or back towards you. Tomura pulls you away from it by the back of your jacket, yanks you back into his chest as glass shards fly past you.
He glares at you somewhat and you can tell he wants to scold you, but he doesn’t. You squirm out of his grasp to do it again.
Glass showers down as you break another bottle. It rains in shards of tangerine and pale yellow, bright pops of cherry in the light. It feels good, to watch it all burst apart in the sunlight, like watching little stars burst and explode at your hands. It’s so pretty, for such a violent act.
You hand a bottle to Tomura, offering him the chance to also act out. Instead, he pulls off one of his gloves– tugs it off with his teeth, the glint of sharp white against flesh pink. You watch fascinated for a moment, catch his eyes, blazing and barbed.
When he takes it with all five fingers, you watch as it first cracks in your palm, before fluttering away into dust. Into nothing.
You make a face, “That’s not as exciting as breaking them.”
He rolls his eyes, but you catch the way the corner of his lips hike up. He takes another glass, this one icy silver, caught peach in the honey light, though. He keeps a finger lifted away delicately as he lifts it up to the beams of scarlet sun that flare through the rafters.
And in that fiery patch of dusk, with the glass reflecting iridescence onto the angular plains of his face, your heart gives a violent lurch, like it’s trying to burst free from your chest.
I think I love you, you think, unbridled, and so suddenly that it feels as if the thought has slammed into you the way a body might fall from the ledge of a roof.
I think I love you, you think again, because you can’t quite believe it, as he lobs the bottle at the wall. It fractures into a thousand little beams of glass and light, like an exploding comet. You feel as fragile as that, like he’ll do the same to you. Maybe you’ll be nothing but shards by the end of this, nothing but dust slipping through his fingers.
He turns to you, no doubt to say something snarky, but you’re already taking quick steps to him. He doesn’t get the chance to speak, not when you collide with him, hard and reckless, throwing yourself up onto your toes to kiss him with a new violence.
He makes a surprised noise, soft, but catches you otherwise. His hand is already up, worming beneath your clothes to press chilled fingers into the bare skin of your upper waist. He likes the way you hiss into his mouth, and you like the way they dig roughly into you. He forces you closer, melds his mouth to yours, rough at the edges, slick and warm at the center as the kiss blossoms into slow simmering heat.
And by the end of it all, when the light has given way to violet darkness, the press of indigo shadows that stretch tall in this abandoned warehouse, there is too much glass on the floor. Everything is shattered or decayed. Your lips are stinging from sharp-toothed kisses and the desperate press of his mouth to yours. You’ve turned molten, fallen apart the way glass does.
You walk home together, hand in seeking hand.
Your eyes flush pink with your Quirk, brightening up in the dark.
You knock into his side like you’re a kid, eagerly trailing beside him. He has the hood of his sweatshirt up, hidden, as you rush into the next train back to the part of town that holds the little, distant world of his apartment.
You sit beside each other on the train, knees pressing into each other. He leans over to crowd you against the cool glass as the world streaks past you in a wash of darkness. He ducks his face to yours, his hood hiding the both of you from any onlookers as he seers his mouth to yours again.
You feel like a teenager, kissing in front of strangers, beneath the flickering light of the train car. You feel young and reckless, letting him have you like this, while the city burns like a blurry halo behind you. But you feel older, too, older and in love, like you finally know the secret of the universe, the one that every adult knows and has only learned in the burn of a kiss, in the messy squeezing of your heart.
He licks into your mouth slow, you curl your small hand into his worn hoodie. If people stare, you don’t know, don’t care.
He pulls away from you, forcing you up when your stop is announced, leaving you a little dazed and dizzy, but you eagerly follow after him. Your hands bunch into the back of his jean jacket. You stumble behind him a little, feet tangling with his as you duck beneath his arm to come to his side.
Ryuji finds the two of you on your walk home the closer you get, follows you both inside, happily chirping at your coos. But he paws at the window to be let out again a short time later, after you’ve fed him something. Tomura opens the window for the cat, but not before you catch him rubbing a knuckle against the kitten’s fuzzy cheek, brief but gentle.
You think he likes Ryuji more than he lets on. You think he loves all this more than he lets on.
Tomura takes his time with you that night, surprisingly languid for once, like you’re not on borrowed time. Like this is an entirely new planet, a version of the two of you that is not bound by pasts and future expectations. No strings puppeteering you both, no invisible hands holding you both back.
He pulls you down into his lap, to sink onto him, fill yourself with him as you please. You twine your arms around his slender neck to pull him close, eyes half lidded and pyretic pink, fiery and soft with the way your Quirk reacts to his. It always hums somewhere inside of you, brushes against his until it quiets, until he’s soothed and relaxed.
“Do you feel powerful?” he murmurs against your lips, eyes flickering up to find yours.
The question takes you by surprise for a moment, pulling away fractionally from his parted lips. And with the way your heart squirms in your chest, looking down at him like this, you want to say no, I feel terrified and new and desperate.
But he drags nails down your back, makes you gasp and roll your hips down onto him, which startles a groan out of him. The sound of it turning your stomach in the best and worst ways, making you flush, making you squirm to try and sink lower onto him. Greedy and desperate, you wiggle your hips to make his breathing come out ragged.
It makes you realize you have one of the most dangerous villains beneath you, as desperate as you are.
You roll your hips again, slow, take what you want of him. You fist your hand in his hair, tilt his head back and watch as his eyes flutter. His cheeks are flushed.
Pretty, you think faintly.
“Yeah,” you breathe, gliding your lips along his, heart a storm in your chest to have him looking up at you like this, “I do.”
His lips tilt into a knife-sharp smile, enough to gut you.
And he lets you take what you please of him that night, and the thief that you are, you take and take and take. You steal from him with deft hands and a smile that he thinks he’d destroy the world for. You take all the love that you want from him, gorge yourself on it until you feel sick.
Until you feel as if you could rot with it, carrying your love for him in the pits of you, coveting in the safe, secret parts of you, for no one else to find.
Just you and him, like this, hand in seeking hand.
***
PART III
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