#i know what i’m doing for hunter already though and it HURTS

[gremlingottoosilly]

The Horror and The Wild [Emperor!Konig x fem!Reader] Medieval Fantasy AU

You had a nice, simple life. Serve the princess, obey the princess, protect the princess with your life. You never thought that this nice, simple life would bring you to be kidnapped by the infamous Northern Emperor. Konig never thought that kidnapping a wife would be much easier than courting one. CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2| you're here! Word count: 5317 Tags/Warnings: Medieval fantasy/Alternative European history AU, Age gap, Enemies(one-sided)to lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Forced marriage, Size difference(Konig is absolutely huge), Somewhat one-sided slow burn, Yandere Konig This fic on AO3

— You’re really quiet, little princess. 

König isn’t ashamed of staring at you the whole horse ride. He isn’t ashamed of touching you, his precious treasure – cupping your breasts through that pathetic excuse of a corset, trying to feel of your legs through the billions of skirts, his touches sprawling across your skin like bruises. He is a soldier in all regards – his touches are far from gentle, far from how he should behave with his bride. You feel like a piece of meat being presented for him to devour. Like an unwilling sacrifice for a benevolent god. 

— Should I scream then?

Snarkiness isn't something that the princess should have – but it's the only weapon you have, although you are not sure if you can even use it. Emperor is laughing, and it is supposed to be a good thing – you were trained to receive such reactions, like a little dog standing and doing tricks on command; you were taught to strive for smiles on the faces of others. But König doesn’t allow you to see his smile, but König laughs all the time while describing to his soldiers the things he wants to do to you. It is almost surely, that he doesn’t think you know his language – you wish you didn’t know. 

— I can give you a reason to scream. — You shall not threaten a… — I’m not threatening you, kleine Katzen. With a good time, maybe. — What are you referring to? — That I would love nothing more but to rip your skirt off and show your cunt a royal treatment, princess.

Emperor has a foul mouth, wandering eyes, and grabby hands – he behaves like a drunk man in a tavern, even though you have never once been in a tavern, and the only drunk men you barely saw were the castle guards on various celebrations. He doesn’t act like a glorious king from the romance novels – and you don’t think that you ever read a novel about a king or an emperor, not about princes and glorious knights. People with this much power don’t deserve love, they already have everything they have – so why would he kidnap you? 

You turn away from him, the obscenity of his mouth makes your whole face burn. You are trying to hide yourself in your hands, you want to grasp something like a little fan or a handkerchief – everything to sustain your dignity. You are wearing the princess’s name and you have to behave like her – even if you don’t think that she would care about how you are behaving yourself. The dread of being exposed lingers in your chest, the only thing that doesn’t allow you to scream and launch on him like a wild cat. Rules and modesty tie you down stronger than any corset could. 

Like a rabbit caught in the hunter’s trap – you steal looks at the nature around you, excited and terrified to see it for the first time – not the perfect greenery of the castle garden, but an untamed nature. You saw the city for the first time – your capital, not burned and agonized under the empire’s boot, but eerie quiet. The city doesn’t know your face, the princess was hidden, kept in the tower as a means to escape the burden of marriage proposals and possible wars for the sake of securing her beauty. Nobody here knows you for your face, and for them, it’s just the empire’s knights, a power from a country too foreign to be worried about, and a random kidnapped girl in a dissarranged dress and tears streaming down her face. 

A hand on your waist secured you in place. No matter how much you squirm and cry, try to forget all the filthy nonsense he is whispering in your ear, you are forced to listen – and you want to cry every time his face hovers over yours. His hands are touching you, too much for comfort, your are still wrapped in his cape, but it’s a very small mercy for your torn dress and fragile body. 

The road is long and short at the same time. Your kingdom was bordering one of Northern Empire territories, but it’s days away – you never once thought that having the Empire right on your border would be such a nuisance, that it would allow them to simply take whatever they want from your tiny country – the rules of politics are never applying to those in power and, unfortunately, you found out the worst way possible. The road is treacherous, with people surrounding you, with soldiers going through the beheaded country like it’s nothing. You were biting your lips the entire first day of the ride, trying not to cry – you do not want to give him the pleasure of seeing your distress, but you can’t help but sob every time he exits the cabin to yell at his soldiers or laugh at something. 

You are not tied up, they trust you too much – they all know you would not be able to run, seeing just a helpless princess, a little war trophy of their emperor. The war trophy without the war, just a doll for him to enjoy. You steal a few glances at him – his spread legs that make you wonder how the poor horse even can handle him riding it, his mighty body, and his muscular arms. He could wrestle a dragon, you think – he could lift up the whole carriage and bring you back to the capital like this. He is a cocky bastard, not even having his sword in his hand whenever you move too much – too confident that this weak princess would not be able to resist him. You don’t want to fall from the horse and so you freeze in your tracks, even when they hit a small pause on the journey.

You can’t, of course – your hands are trained to hold clothes, to braid hair and, sometimes, fetch the water buckets – but you are mostly proficient in holding books, turning pages and embroidering. You can make tea, you can support the conversation, you can faint dramatically whenever the right opportunity occurs, but the ride has been happening for a few hours already, and you fainted three times – for specific reasons, of course, but fainting now would surely be a bit too much. 

— Is little princess too tired to hold herself straight? 

König chuckles in your ear, hands pushing you against his body. You don’t want to say anything, you’d rather continue your ride until you’re completely exhausted – books were never talking about how hard it is to ride a horse, that your rear would feel numb after the first hour, and your head would be bouncing on every little bump on the road. You never thought that the roads of your kingdom were so terribly maintained – and never thought it would be such a problem. 

You grit your teeth, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of confirming just how weak you are – but he stops his horse once you are not responding, a hand slides under your hips to help you get out from the damned animal. You swear to god that you will never ride this foul creature again – but the god, as always, stays silent. 

— What is it? 

— Princess isn’t used to long detours. We’d have to stop before dawn if we want to keep this a secret for now. — Could travel for a few more hours before it’s too bright.

His second-in-command is a weird man, no doubt. Tall, broad, wearing armor with tiger prints all over the metal – although you never saw a tiger in real life, only on various illustrations of the books you were reading for the Princess. He is painfully informal in a way that makes you wonder how he can keep his head on his shoulders – surely, if he’d talk this way to a king, he wouldn’t be such a profound member of the army. König only shakes his head, pointing at you as the reason to stop – as you begged him to get off this bloody thing. — I need my princess with all innards intact. Especially the soft ones.

Emperor laughs, cupping your ass through the skirts. He somehow managed to grope your softness without breaking the corsage, and you’d feel thankful for him, but the dress was ruined anyway – all the hard work of redoing it over and over, every time you had to manage to squish the princess inside of the harsh corset and billion skirts, every little detail you were thinking through together…it feels somehow suitable, to wear a destroyed dress. Fake princess deserves fake luxury, but even the modesty he allows you to have with his coat wrapped around you feels forced.

Stopping right now, when you feel numb and your legs are getting weak and squishy like that weird transparent foreign delicacy, is very considerate of him. So much so you don’t even want to acknowledge it, hoping he’d just continue to go forward until all the traces of your past are gone. You’re too tired to consider anything from escaping to even opening your eyes. Suddenly, being on a horse of this size doesn't sound like something out of a fairytale. Suddenly, you realize that the horses are tall. 

— What’s wrong, princess? 

— I’m not going down.

You are sitting, frozen on top of his horse. One of your hands is keeping his coat wrapped securely around your body while the other squeezes the reins, hoping not to fall miserably to the ground. You hear soldiers laugh – the embarrassment spreads around your cheeks when you understand that a true princess would have horse riding lessons. You two never did – it would give you too much freedom, and your castle would never accommodate to large grounds of free roaming to keep a princess and her loyal maiden entertained. You can only hope they won’t think that the absence of your riding lessons would be too suspicious – and you also hope that he would just allow you to never jump down to the ground that feels horrifyingly far from you. 

— Do you wish to run with my horse? 

— Yes, your Highness. — Run, then. I’ll be waiting, little princess.

There is a laugh in his voice – you squeeze the reins and try to holster them, maybe kick the foul creature to the side so it would take the hint and start running in the direction of the nearest forest. Maybe you would get lucky, and the horse would drop you in front of the house of a kind forest witch that would take you as her student – you can cook, and you can read, so, naturally, any witch would be happy to have you as a disciple. Maybe you will get even more lucky, and the horse will kick you in the head after dropping you, finishing your misery in a tragic road accident. Not a honorable death, but a quick and interesting one. The horse remains frozen in place – just like you. König gently caresses its face, giving it something to eat – an apple, perhaps, a nice and tasty fruit, or sugar cubes, the delicacy that the princess would often indulge in but never gave you, or something of a…ah, this is it – you are starting to get jealous of his horse. Mayhaps, death is the only choice for you now. 

— I will run. 

— Of course you will. 

— Sir, should we prepare the archers? 

— Don’t know it yet. Maybe the princess escape would be too swift for them. 

You feel your whole face burn – they laugh, they all laugh, looking at you like a piece of meat, a funny joke between them. You don’t want to fall from the horse, and you don’t want to stand here either – but every time you look down at the ground that is so, so far away, you can only shake in your seat. You feel like crying once again – and this is what brings you to the edge. With a deep sigh and shaking hands, you jump down swiftly, your eyes closed and your legs getting tangled in the various skirts, dragging you down. ***

The emperor had an understanding of what he was getting into when he kidnapped a princess. Princesses, pretty and young ones especially, are mysterious creatures that should be carefully studied by the imperial scientist in order to determine how in hell they can even exist without killing themselves on something stupid three times per day. This one, however, was a crowned ruler of weird girls – sometimes throughout the journey, he was thinking about returning her to the king and choosing another one. Then he remembered that he beheaded the king – and so, the bloody dot was sealed in the history of relationships between Northern Empire and this tiny shithole in the middle of nowhere. 

Besides, the princess was too adorable to really throw her out. She is smart – for someone like her, anyway; her snarkiness combined with the primal fear of him and his men made him feel strong, more significant than before. It’s funny, in a way – König had defeated countless great warriors and spent his life turning the tiny Empire into the most powerful nation on the blonde, and yet, he never once felt this achieved as when he held the princess in his arms. The emperor never thought of marriage as a necessity, his whole magic endeavors securing that he would never have to worry about leaving an heir or having someone else to rule – but the loneliness can hit you like a royal stallion bred for the purpose of battery ramming into castle doors, and you can find yourself yearning for something that you never thought you’d want. Speaking of royal horses…

The princess is cute, the princess is dumb, and the princess is the most weird and perfect creature in the whole wide world. Makes him wonder just what was you doing in your little castle with your little servants, running around like ants under your dainty heel. You are snarky to him when you know that he is too busy to strike you and too tired to care about his opinion – he likes that about you, little yawns and feeble attempts to appear strong in front of him. He doesn’t, however, like the way you are frozen on top of his horse. He needs his wife helpless, yes, dependant on him in everything – and he also needs her to ask for help when needed, not…well, not jumping from the height of a royal horse in that stupid dress of yours. 

God, hive him strength. 

König, the ruler of the Northern Empire, biggest royal regime on the globe, thought that he overcame his anxiety when he was young, so long ago, he forgot how fast his heart can beat when the situation is going out of his control. He remembers this dreadful feeling now when that stupid brain of yours has decided that jumping from a horse is a good idea. He is fast, swift enough to catch you before you fall to the ground, and he squeezes your hips enough to hear the crack of that stupid dress construction. 

He has to stop himself from yelling. From putting you in your place and slapping you across that perfect face of yours – never the one to beat women, König feels like spanking the shit out of you now. His eyes are flashing with anxiety, and he grabs your shoulders, putting you in front of him – you can’t see his face, covered by his mask, and it’s a small grace for someone like you. He is scary when angry, nostrils flashing with rage when he thinks that you’d rather break your neck than ask him for help. 

— Made others set the camp for tonight. 

Horangi is as perfect as a knight can be – his friend, his partner in crime, one of the only ones who still can survive his temper and not be intimidated by it. He can see the worry in his eyes when König is pushing the little princess down to his hold, draping the various skirts across his hands to rip them away – and he quickly yells at the other soldiers who produced the operation, making them run in various directions to collect wood, stones and set up the tents for tonight. They have to move away from the popular roads, even though nobody in this kingdom would be strong enough to hurt them anyways – but this operation should be a secret, at least relatively, until the princess is secured as his empress, and her body is sprawled across his sheets, withering from pleasure and…

Ah, Scheisse. König cannot stay mad at her when the mere thought of her smile makes his dick twitch in his pants. He survived through horribly throbbing erection against the metal plates of his armor for the whole ride, the small mercy of not having her soft body press against him directly. It didn’t stop him from wanting more, from whispering filthy things, completely undeserving of your virtue. You are bringing him down to his knees – even an emperor is just a man when a pretty girl looks at him, and even at is age, he could feel like a young lover searching for his bride’s hand. 

Oh, but König would love something more than just your hand. 

He should be thankful to his knights for how quickly they made a tent for him to secure the dignity of the first moment between a man and his sweetheart. He usually does everything himself, not wanting to make a lady in waiting out of his knights, but he enjoys their help now – he surely won’t be able to prepare for sleep with his wild cat of a bride in his hands. You are unusually active for a princess, trying to get out of his hands, kicking him with your adorable legs, still wrapped in a ruined skirt. Perhaps you were so mad at him for destroying your dress – he gets it, knowing how sensitive ladies are about this. He’d buy you a new one right away, but, for your stupidity, you deserve to wear only his coat until they are inside the borders of the Empire. 

— Did you hit your head before I got you, princess? What were you thinking? — You told me to run. I did, Your Royal Highness. 

He pinches his nose through the mask, not believing just how arrogant you sound – he wants to push you down, to open that dumb skirt of yours and give your precious ass a few spanks before setting you down, making you sit on the ruined muscle until you’d learn your lesson. The king was definitely not punishing you enough if you still think that you can talk to your betters (and elders) like this. 

— I dared you to run. Thinking you’d accept the consequences with the dignity of a royal lady. 

— Why don’t you kill me then? For belittling your dignity. 

You look too snarky for his liking – he can see how terrified you are, little shakes of your hands and tears in your eyes. You are provoking him, picking the dragon with a stick so he’d burn you to a crisp. König knows that the customs of your kingdom value a good death over everything and just how much you’d love to fall into the grasp of a common tragedy. He also knows that he will not bury his bride before they are even married. 

It’s only natural that the emperor grasps the front of your dress, the edges of the corset you tried to tie down to save some of your dignity. The fabric rips with ridiculous ease, all the gold spent on making it runs with the speed of a thread being torn. Suddenly, your front is exposed, even the underwear is not enough to conceal your privacy. König indulges in the view of your open skin, glossy from sweat and so, so delicious in dim magical light erupting from an artificial candle. He knows that he is playing a dangerous game, that not touching you now would be his greatest accomplishment and greatest torture at the same time – your body meant to be touched, you look like a doll and like a statue, like the greatest treasure and the most desirable slut he ever laid his eyes on. 

The emperor is a man in the end – a war dog, closer to death than to the start of his life, a perfect incarnation of a horrible match to a young princess like you. Too wrathful, too arrogant, with more chips on his shoulders than the hair on your head, and yet, he holds you closely, putting you out of the torture device you are calling a dress. 

You breathe for the first time in forever, and your mouth is shaking from unspoken tears and spoken pleas. He holds himself back from cupping your face in his hands and crushing your lips in a kiss, not because he doesn’t think he deserves it, but because you deserve better than to be fucked on the ground of his tent without proper preparation and some relaxing oils for your body. One kiss would never be enough for him, and he hadn’t touched a woman in far too long to handle himself properly now. 

You look like you need to be ravaged – the greatest temptation König ever experienced. 

— I can do so much to you, little princess. More than you could ever imagine. 

— i’m not…n…not little. Your Highness. 

— You are, compared to me. Should be scared, not snarky. 

— I’m not snarky. 

Just for this, he loses control – your voice, shaking with tears but never losing that arrogant edge, that delicious drawl that cannot be described as something that belongs to a princess, makes him lose all of the composure he had. König had prepared himself for a lady who would fall in his arms and cry the whole night long, he prepared himself for a fierce fighter that would try to kill him immediately – but you are soft and vengeful at the same time, too weak to resist him, but not too helpless to not run his mouth. You speak before you think, and it’s an adorable quality for a princess and horrible – for an empress. good thing you would be his regent, a pretty thing like you should never be annoyed with politics and mingling. König pushes you across his lap, his free hand is tearing through various skirts, and what is left from that awful strick construction you tried to pass as a skirt support. He never understood why anyone would live through this torture – you’d look way nicer in his shirt and nothing more. Or, even better, nothing at all, chained to a bed in his bedroom until he’d think that you are tamed enough to be shown in public. 

You yelp in surprise, precious dumb thing. Just like a princess, you are not accustomed to the consequences of your own actions – you think that you can just run your mouth or do dumb things without his wrath falling upon you…and, little princess, you’re in for quite a shock. Your emperor doesn’t have enough patience for this, even though he did want you as his wife and knew what chaos it could bring. He just never thought that he’d have so much pleasure in looking at your adorable bottoms, all modest and long. Your underpants are adorably white, not stained from multiple washings, crisp and new – he feels the fabric with his fingers and almost thinks to not rip them away, just to appreciate the fine silks that went into constructing it. 

His mercy is cut short by that sweet whimper of yours. You plead with him not to touch you – like you have a saying on this. König defiled the death itself, so why would he even consider such silly things as chastity before marriage? He certainly had enough women in his bed to forbid him from ever going to heaven, and robbing you of your innocence would be a small crime against all the countless sins he already committed. 

But, he doesn’t want you to hate him – and you would, certainly, not in the fiery and passionate way he might enjoy, but a quiet, broken anger. He doesn’t want to turn this fragile thing into the broken shell of the betrothed princess, even if you need to be taught a harsh lesson – and you deserve much better than having your cunt destroyed on the harsh floor of his tent. 

— You’re lucky, little princess. 

He laughs, taking down your underpants – a harsh hand on your bottom, rough fingers that almost burn you without a glove to conceal his touches. You whimper when he lashes on the sensitive skin, stroking sensitive skin. If you knew how hard you make him, you’d run away with his horse already. 

— How am I lucky? You…you killed the king, you destroyed my country, you…

— I killed your father, yes, but I left you alive. 

— To make a show for your soldiers, I assume.. 

— If I wanted to leave you to waste, I would allow them to bounce you on their dicks a while ago. 

— How d…

— You’re lucky because you’re mine, little princess. Not going to share you with anyone. But…

— But? 

Your voice has finally gone down. he can almost taste the dread in your tone. König was burning down villages, destroyed his enemies with nothing more but a rusty sword and hatred in his heart – but he truly feels like a monster when he slaps your ass for the first time and sees your tear-filled eyes staring at him. God, he never was faithful, but hurting you feels like defiling an angel. 

And he loves every second of it. 

— You need to learn a lesson of respect, little princess.

It’s a small grace that he doesn’t make you count his slaps – he simply pushes you down, makes sure that your face is lying on his cloak, just for something soft to rely on, and gives you enough slapping to make the rest of horseriding as painful as possible. Maybe, it would teach you a lesson that if you need help, you’d have to ask him, to beg him for this – and not try to hurt yourself by doing it on your own. You’re awfully independent and resilient for the princess. 

It took him at least five strong, harsh lashes of his hand on your rear to make you cry as loud as he wanted you to. He cups your face in his palm, forcing you up his lap – and smothered your lips with a kiss. König knows he is overstepping; he wouldn’t be able to let go of you after devouring your lips like that, but he doesn’t care, at least for now. He wants to be your everything, to push every thought out of your head and fill it with himself. 

He adores the thought of being your first kiss, your first everything – you’re so inexperienced, so fragile in his hold. Never once thinking of himself as an appreciator of all the thighs dainty and artsy, he wants to worship that pout, your closed eyes, and little prayers of mercy you whisper between each kiss. Your body feels too enticing in his hands, a treasure he needs to keep all to himself. It’s a miracle he didn’t push your underwear down and took you all the way – as much as he wanted to touch you. 

König smiled when you cried into the kiss, trembling in his hold like a caged animal. Never once he thought he’d have this much fun without taking some plumpy woman on his dick, but you are full of surprises. Another five smacks on your ass left you with a bruised bottom and tear-strained, wet face. The look of misery in your eyes made him cackle – god, you were adorable. Continue like this, and he’d spend the rest of his life with you on his lap. 

— We will sleep now. The Empire borders are still days away, and you don’t look like you could handle the road right now. 

You pout, pushing yourself off his lap. Even the hard floor of the tent was better, the cold fabric made your butt sting a bit less. You still couldn’t sit straight, still miserable, with a burning feeling in the depths of your tummy – hate, perhaps, that made your hands shake and your thighs feel a bit too wet and warm for your liking. There is a knot in your lower stomach that makes you feel weird, anxious, that makes you squeeze your legs shut as you push through the pain and get your underpants on again. The soft silks of the princess’s undergarments made you feel a bit better. 

— I’d love nothing more but to run away while we’re still at my home, Butcher.

He smiles under his hood, pushing his hand on your backside. You freeze as he rolls you over, making you fit perfectly against his broad chest. He is a horrible, disgusting human being, clingy and warm around you – his bear-like hold is too strong on your limbs, making you freeze completely. 

— I’m sure you are, Liebling. And I would love to catch you and spank your rear again. 

— I will…you won’t catch me. 

— Someone will. I’ll pay handsomely to any knight or wandering hunter to bring my wife back to me. 

— I’m not y…your wife. 

— Yet. 

You turn away from him – try to, at least. He squeezes you against his chest makes you calm down in his hold like a wild cat he picked up on the side of the road. You don’t want to admit it, but he is warm, cozy, and even the harsh fabric he threw on the ground to make you a bed feels nice compared to the castle floors where you spend so much time. You still squirm, trying to find a good position to lay next to him without feeling like a toy in the hands of a grabby kid. König feels your wounded, perfect ass grinding against him – out of most of his armor, he can’t contain his erection now. Oh, how the strong emperor wished he’d have 

— Stop moving, princess. Unless you want to consummate our marriage early. 

— I’m not…I’m not moving. 

— You are squirming. Is the ground not to your liking?

— I must prefer sleeping in a grave with my papa. — Can’t promise you this…but isn’t sleeping with the Death himself would be enough? — You’re not death, your highness. A blight, maybe. Or a plague. — You’re making me blush, little princess. There is a smile in his voice. You feel your cheeks heat up again, but you can’t say anything. Too many nights sleeping by the princess’s bedspot, always being the first one to greet her at sunrise and the last one to tell her stories before going to sleep. Like a loyal dog on the wooden floor, with a pillow under your cheek for comfort – all of her other handmaidens, precious ladies from good families, had their own quarters and rooms. 

You had a cot by her bed and her endless affection. 

Compared to this, sleeping on the floor of a rich tent with an emperor by your side isn’t as bad. You have to remind yourself that you are sleeping with a murdered, pillager, kidnapper and colonialist – you shouldn’t feel warm by his side. But, he hugs you like a lover. But, he buries his masked face in your hair and inhales your scent – sweet fragrances mixed with the blood and sweat of a long journey. 

You fall asleep in his arms before you can think of something smart to say. 

König doesn’t fall asleep until hour later – too busy looking at your precious form, wrapped so perfectly in his arms. 

[whimsyfinny]

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: Charlie discovers the Winchester boys to be struggling with keeping the bunker tidy, looking after themselves and being able to do their job simultaneously. Luckily she has a friend who’s from a Hunter family that is in need of work and can help them with research. Or so she thought that’s what her job would be. When Dean sees your more domesticated side, his head won’t stop swimming with all the wrong ideas.

Slow burn, enemies to lovers, smut

Warnings: SMUT, the forbidden quickie

Chapter Word Count: 3548

—-MDNI—-

A/N: ahhhhhhhh I finally wrote some spice! Sorry it took a while. This is a little tame I guess but we can work up to the extra lewd stuff

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Please read the below first:

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

I’m Not Your F*cking Maid

Chapter 6

The following day rolled around quickly and before we knew it there was only an hour remaining until the auction house charity event. The disturbing events of yesterday were pushed to the back of my mind, the boys respecting my wishes on not wanting to talk about it. Sam told us over breakfast that he’d managed to access the auction house database and add our names to the guest list for the party, making it easy for us to attend without getting caught out as uninvited visitors. Now back in my room, I was rummaging through my duffel and pulling out my evening attire: a long black dress made of soft satin that had a slit up to the hip on one side. The neckline was a deep v-plunge and the dress was entirely backless.

“I guess no bra for me tonight then,” I mumbled to myself, also pulling out a clean pair of black lace panties and a pair of closed toe, VERY high black satin heels that had a neat little buckle on the ankle strap. I was already showered and my makeup was already done so I dropped my towel and slipped into the dress, pulling the thin straps over my shoulders. I followed by pulling on my panties, stretching the lace over my hips so it wasn’t visible through the slit in the dress. If you didn’t know any better, it would look like I wasn’t wearing anything at all. I sat on the edge of the bed and put on the heels, securing them in place before standing up and doing a few practice laps of the room - wearing shoes this high was not a common occurrence for me. I finished up by dusting my skin with the same perfume I wore yesterday, breathing in the pleasant smell before tucking the bottle along with my rouge lipstick into my little black clutch. I fussed over myself in the mirror for a few minutes when I heard a knock at the door. Pacing over I flung it open to greet the Winchester boys, and when I did I couldn’t help but do a double take over the oldest brother. I hated to admit it but he looked good. REALLY good. He was dressed head to toe in black: a slim fitted suit, shirt and tie, all of which seemed to flick something on in my brain. His suit jacket hung open and beneath it the shirt was clinging to his well defined torso, the top two buttons straining a little.

“You scrub up well, Dean,” I said to him, trying to sound pleasantly surprised. Instead, I think I sounded incredibly flirtatious. Dean didn’t seem to notice though as I watched his jaw slacken and his eyes flit over my body.

“Uhhh-um yeah, thanks,” he said, clearing his throat a little as he stepped aside to let me out.

“You look great, (Y/n),” Sam said, making such intense eye contact with me like he didn’t know where else to look, his cheeks glowing a little.

“Thanks Sam,” I smiled up at him before locking the motel room door and trying to ignore the fact that Dean didn’t say anything. Back to being an ass I see.

“So (Y/n), you’re with Dean. It should be pretty simple: get in, get the hair pain, get out. With that many people at the event, we don’t want to risk anyone getting hurt so I'll be ready and waiting outside with everything we need to destroy it and put the ghost to rest,” Sam briefed us before carrying on, “I’ll head back to our room to get everything and I’ll meet you there - you guys get going,” he nodded his head to Deans car which was parked out front. Dean said a quick farewell and headed out and I did the same, giving Sam a wave as he turned to leave.

I climbed into the front of the Impala, running my hands over the plush leather seat.

“You really do have great taste in cars Dean,” I said, looking around at the immaculate interior. He hummed in agreement, putting his arm over the back of my seat as he reversed out of the parking spot. Those top two buttons on his shirt were not going to last all night. I crossed my legs, getting comfortable for the short journey into town - the satin of my dress falling open and completely exposing my thigh to Dean. I watched him take his eyes off the road and fixate on my bare skin, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the steering wheel. Returning his eyes to the road I saw his chest rise as he took a deep breath, a small but deep groan emitting from his chest.

“You ok?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“I’m fine,” he rasped.

“Ok… you’re acting strange though,” I said, leaning on the passenger side door to watch the street lamps turn on.

“Can you blame me?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

There was a few seconds of silence before he flicked on his cassette player and classic rock filled the car, bringing a smile to my ruby lips.

“Good taste in music too? I’ll be damned, you’ve got more of a personality than I thought.”

He scoffed a little before smirking, “there’s more to me than meets the eye sweetheart.” He looked over at me, green eyes piercing into mine with such intensity I suddenly felt a little warm. I looked away, quickly counting my lucky stars when I noticed we’d arrived.

Dean parked up and I reached for the door, however Dean stopped me from opening it.

“Wait,” his tone was authoritative as he reached a hand out to stop me, his rough fingers lightly grazing the soft skin of my thigh. Before I could even respond, he’d hopped out, slamming his door shut before striding around the front of the car to open mine for me. He held his hand out, which I grasped delicately and he pulled me to my feet.

“What was that for?” I asked, puzzled as he closed the passenger side door behind me.

“Just trying to keep up appearances for this shit-show,” he stated bluntly before he walked off ahead of me towards the front door whilst he left me to navigate the uneven cobbles in these death-trap shoes.

“Jerk,” I muttered under my breath, but he must’ve heard me because he turned around, sighed and held out his arm for me to take.

“Just ask if you need help,” he leaned in and said quietly, his face close enough that I could feel his breath on my skin. I sucked in a breath, which was a mistake as he smelt positively divine. He was filling my senses and I didn’t want him to.

We made it into the building with no trouble at all thanks to Sam’s hard work. The inside of the auction house was a grand spectacle indeed; with high ceilings, a chandelier made up of thousands of tiny pieces of crystal and two symmetrical mahogany staircases at the end of the entrance hall. It was busy, lots of people in expensive attire milling about and drinking equally expensive sparkly wine.

“Shall we get some champagne?” I turned and asked Dean, who chuckled slightly.

“You’re already more fun than Sam,” he said before whisking two flute glasses off a passing waiter and handing me one. We chinked glasses, laughing a little at how awkward all of this pomp and ceremony was for us before we both downed the expensive alcohol like shots. Dean winced slightly, handing his now empty flute back to the same waiter who gave him a concerned look.

“Aw damn, those bubbles - that shits wrong.”

“That’s because you’re supposed to sip it,” I laughed at him, placing my empty glass on an old polished oak sideboard.

“Then why did you neck it too if you knew?” He asked, furrowing his eyebrows at me. I shrugged.

“To be honest I don’t know - I guess I wanted to lighten the old-money mood in here.” He nodded, seeming to understand where I was coming from. After that fiasco we made our way towards the immense curved staircases at the end of the room, Deans hand occasionally touching my exposed back as he guided me in front of him, making me shiver involuntarily. We ascended, making our way up and past people who were at the top of the stairs, idly chatting and leaning on the bannister - not paying us any mind as we turned down a quiet corridor. We walked quietly, the hum of chatting remaining behind us as we made our way down the dim corridor, looking out for the room number Sam had given us.

“Room 19, room 19, room 19…” I chanted to myself searching every door until we found the right one. Coming to a stop, Dean quickly knelt down and pulled a lockpick from his pocket. I watched in fascination as he inserted the device, ever so gently manoeuvring it with a look of pure concentration on his face. I couldn’t stop myself from looking over at him whilst he was unaware; looking at those focused and hooded dark green eyes, slightly parted lips that he wet with his tongue and large muscled shoulders that were almost as wide as the doorway. I didn’t want to admit it, but God damn he was attractive. There was a click and he stood up quickly, pocketing the lockpick and opening the door, hurrying me inside. I walked gingerly into the room which looked like a mixture between a study and a museum. There were large bookcases spanning the walls, sideboards boasting an array of intriguing items, all contained in secure glass cabinets, and finally a large leather-topped mahogany desk in the centre of the room. This place smelt old.

I heard Dean close the door behind him as he paced in after me, immediately scanning the room.

“Right,” he said, his tone stern and authoritative, “you take that side and I’ll take this side.” I nodded, immediately scouring every surface for our haunted item.

We must’ve been looking for around ten minutes when Dean called me over.

“Do you think that’s it?” He almost whispered, pointing to an item that I would definitely have described as a jade hairpin.

“Yup,” I whispered back, leaning slightly closer to him so I could get a better look. I felt him draw a sharp breath in before sighing slightly. “Can you pick this lock?” I asked, ignoring his antics and sticking to the business at hand.

“Yeah give me a second and I’ll get it open,” he stepped in front of me. Not wanting to get in his way, I walked into the centre of the room to where the desk was and leant against it, looking around at all of the bizarre items. Surely there are some other haunted things in here other than what we came for. My eyes eventually landed on an old gramophone.

“Oh that bitch is definitely haunted,” I mumbled to myself right as I heard Dean pop the lock on the glass cabinet. I watched as he wrapped the hairpin in a square of fabric before shoving it into his pocket and clicking the cabinet closed.

“Mission complete,” he said, a slight grin on his lips as he walked to stand in front of me. That grin fell from his face though when suddenly there were voices outside the door and keys rattling in the lock. We hadn’t planned for this. He looked at me in a panic.

“Kiss me,” I blurted.

“What?”

“I have a plan: Dean just fucking kiss m-” it was like I didn’t have to tell him twice before he had a hand in my hair and his lips were on mine. My heart started pounding and his mouth was hot against my cool skin. I hummed, sliding my fingers up his chest to grip the lapels on his jacket, pulling him further in towards me. Before I could get sucked into whatever it was that I was feeling, the study door flew open and two older gentlemen in brown tweed suits walked in, stopping in their tracks at the sight of us.

“Good heavens! What are you doing in here?” One of them exclaimed. Dean turned his head to look at the men, a smirk on his face and I couldn’t help but blush furiously at the sight of my lipstick that was now smeared on the corner of his lips.

“So sorry gentlemen, the door was unlocked so we just let ourselves in. I hope you don’t mind…” I watched, my eyes widening a little as he lifted his jacket slightly, showing the gun that was tucked into his belt. The men’s eyes also widened and they backed up towards the door.

“Yes, yes! Of course you did! Please, take your time. Just…” the man paused, his eyes darting to the precious items on his desk, “please try not to make a mess - it’s all I ask.” And with that they both left as quickly as they arrived, closing the door behind them. I let out a sigh of relief, looking up at Dean.

“Thank fuck… Dean I’m so sor-” I didn’t have a chance to think as Deans mouth was back on mine; rough and needy. I sat in shock for a second before being pulled back to reality when Dean held the side of my face, his fingers sliding up to tangle with my hair. I couldn’t stop myself from kissing him back, my mind racing and going blank simultaneously. His free hand ghosted up my exposed leg, touching so gently I could barely feel him. He soon decided though that gentle wasn’t working for him, and he gripped my thigh, his fingers digging into my soft flesh and making me gasp - his hands on my body were already working their magic as I couldn’t stop his name from leaving my lips.

“Dean…” I moaned. I can’t believe it - I had actually moaned his fucking name. He groaned into my mouth, obviously liking the sound of his name rolling off my tongue. Tearing his hand from my hair and gripping my other thigh, without warning and with rushed movements, he lifted me with ease so I was sat atop the desk.

“Wrap your legs around me darlin,” he said with a deep lustful tone against my lips. I whimpered involuntarily as I did as he said. He pried his mouth from mine and started to kiss elsewhere; my cheek, behind my ear… my neck. I ran my hands over his shoulders and up the back of his neck, running my nails over his scalp and making him shiver. I gripped his hair and yanked, forcing his head up. I locked eyes with him, his eyes no longer that brilliant green but now blown and black with lust. My own eyes were probably no different. His gaze fluttered from my eyes to my lips, and before I let him kiss me again I leant forward and pressed my lips to his throat, my tongue on his skin. It was his turn to moan as I reached a hand down and traced a finger up the hard weapon growing in his pants. His large hands moving from my thighs to my ass, gripping tighter than ever before as I seemed to be pushing all the right buttons. He slid me to the edge of the desk so my lace-covered intimates were pressing right against him, friction and pleasure commencing. I pulled my lips from his throat before tugging his face down to mine, instigating the finale. I spoke breathlessly over his lips, already craving the taste of him again.

“Are you gonna fuck me or what, Winchester?”

Dean practically growled, frantically fumbling with moving my dress aside. He hooked a shaky but skilled finger into my underwear, trying to pull it aside but the elastic wouldn’t allow for it. I began to tremble as his digits kept ghosting over my most sensitive area. He soon gave up with his first plan, and his second plan made my eyes roll into the back of my head. Dean pulled a large hunting blade from inside his jacket and slid the flat side against my skin and up my thigh until it was under the lace fabric. The ice cold metal made me shiver before he swiftly sliced the blade up towards him, cutting my panties to shreds as he repeated the motion on the other side.

“Fuck that was hot,” I panted as he put the blade away and captured my lips again, running his tongue over mine. I gasped suddenly when he dipped a finger inside me, curling it and caressing that soft, sensual cushion that was hidden away. When I moaned, he added a second finger, leaning away from me slightly so he could see what a mess I was beneath him. After a few moments of utter bliss, he pulled his fingers out, sticking them straight in his mouth.

“You’re fucking delicious,” he groaned, standing up straight to shimmy out of his jacket. I leant forwards, grasping his belt buckle, undoing it and pulling down his zipper. Slowly I reached in and pulled him out of his boxers, his rock hard manhood hot and heavy in my palm. He closed his eyes as I ran my thumb over the tip, guiding my hand up and down, up and down, again and again until he grabbed my wrist.

“Let go so I can fuck you ‘til you can’t walk,” he practically growled, making me weak. I leant back on my palms, watching as he lined himself up and then disappeared inside me in one earth shattering motion. My eyes rolled back and my lips parted as I locked my ankles instinctively behind his back, my heels catching on the gun still tucked into his pants. He started to set a rhythm as he fucked me into the desk, the wooden structure sliding back with every thrust he made. He had both hands firmly planted on the desk beside me and I gripped his forearms tight, my head starting to spin from the overwhelming pleasure. It didn’t help that Deans head had dropped into the crook of my neck and his heavy breathing was like music to my ears. He kissed the skin there softly, drawing a moan from my lips with the sudden tenderness. The pounding was speeding up, and he suddenly wrapped an arm around my waist, desperately trying to get closer - to get deeper. The need for release was building and I’d lost control of my voice; Deans name tumbling from my lips like a prayer. I pressed his lips to mine feverishly, his breath ragged as he managed to pant out;

“Shit, (Y/n) I’m so close… I’m gonna need you to cum for me…”

I whimpered at the sound of my name on his breathless lips and he let go of my waist, placing his large palm on my stomach and sliding it down until his thumb connected with that bundle of nerves.

“Shit-Dean-,” whining against his mouth I started to feel the tension in the pit of my stomach build - the feeling of him pounding into me and stretching me more than ever before combined with his thumb on the magic button was a recipe for a quick release. And Dean knew that. He was fucking me so hard now that the sound of wet skin on skin echoed around the room and the banging of the desk could surely be heard from out in the corridor- maybe even downstairs. That knot was tightening, and tightening, and tightening until:

“Fuck- Dean I’m gonna cum!”

“Fuck,” was all he managed to groan before I shattered around him, that knot snapping and sending me into probably the best orgasm I’ve ever had. As I tensed up I pulled Dean over the edge with me and he buried his face into my neck, breathing heavily and cursing occasionally.

We stayed like that for a few moments, regaining some clarity and returning to earth. He took a few deep breaths before standing up and pulling out, tucking himself back into his pants and doing up his belt as his cum dripped down my thigh. He couldn't seem to look away, even when he reached for his jacket on the floor and put it back on.

“Stay there,” he said finally, disappearing behind some shelves for a second before returning with a box of tissues. He helped me clean myself up, tossing the tissues in the bin as we attempted to get rid of the evidence.

“Are you ok?” He asked sincerely, concern in his eyes as he offered me his hand. I smiled a little bashfully, placing my palm in his.

“I hate to admit it but I feel great.”

He helped me down off the table, placing a hand on my waist to help steady me on my still trembling legs. We both stood in a comfortable silence for a few moments before realisation hit us both and we looked at each other with wide eyes.

”Oh shit - Sam!”

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Up Next:

Chapter 7

[themissinghand]

Hello..I hope you have a wonderful day..I'm glad to see you..Can I ask Sung Jinwoo x cheerful female reader..Reader met Jinwoo for the first time when he was still E rank..Reader fell in love with him first ..She is always by Jinwoo's side when Jinwoo is always looked down upon by others.She also helps Jinwoo financially because she want to help him as much as possible.And the Reader meets Jinwoo's younger sister, Jinah and straight up says 'please let me marry your brother'..(Surely the situation will be lively with the behavior of both of them .(⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)..)..Jinah like aa okay??...Reader must be surprised when they see Jinwoo's new look.Reader be like: 'Where is my baby boy!!!.. As far as I know about he, he doesn't have a twin!!” dramatically…

Okay... Thank you... Take care of yourself(⁠◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕⁠✿⁠).. Hope you are not stressed by my request.. Bye-bye(⁠θ⁠‿⁠θ⁠)..

Solo Leveling: Little King, Big King

Summary: In which Jinwoo will always be your little king, even if puberty hits him hard.

Pairing: Sung Jinwoo x cheerful F! Reader

Note: Such a cute request! As well, thanks for your patience, sorry that I took so long! 

Warning: None! 

★・・・・・・★

“What is a kid doing here?”

Jinwoo perks up when he hears someone approach him. He turns around, seeing a taller girl staring at him with a cheeky smile. 

“Heya! Are you okay? Are you lost? How old are you?” She bombarded him with questions, and Jinwoo felt overwhelmed by her curiosity. Were she from another team? Probably, he had never met her before. 

“Hold on. You’re hurt.” She pulls out a potion, and without giving Jinwoo time to react, she immediately gave it to him. 

“Drink little guy. Next time, don’t wander into a dungeon by yourself alright? It’s dangerous.” 

“I’m 16.” Jinwoo deadpanned, and she gasped dramatically. 

“No way, me too!” She cheered, and Jinwoo sweatdropped at her cheerful personality. 

“Hold on, drink first. Then I’ll take you with me! You’re from the other team right? They abandoned you here? What a crazy bunch of adults!” Her words spew out of her easily, making Jinwoo a bit flustered in keeping up with her speed. Instead, he only nodded absentmindly, staring at the potion in his hand.

“Drink up little guy. What are you waiting for? Big sister will help you.” She grinned, and waited for him. 

Big sister? We're literally the same age.

Seeing her insistence, he drank the potion anyway, feeling his injuries and fatigue wash away.

“Now you look better! Come on, I’ll help you get back to your family.” She extended her hand that was also full of calluses. Was she also working like him?

“My name is (L/N) (Y/N)! What’s your name?” 

“...Sung Jinwoo.” He accepted her hand, and she shakes his hand firmly. 

“I finally met someone my age in the dungeons!” She then started leading the way, leading him away from his team who had already abandoned him, and toward another group of people. 

“I’m a gunslinger by the way, so I use guns. I’m only a C-rank though, but I have good eyes like a scout! What about you?” He flinches when she asked, and he felt ashamed of his own weakness. 

“I’m an E-rank hunter.” Jinwoo pull apart, feeling the embarrassment settle in, and he didn’t dare to look up at (Y/N), after all, she probably is disappointed-

“Okay, do you want to come with me?” Despite it all, your cheerful expression did not falter. 

Well, it’s better than here. 

Jinwoo took your hand without looking back.

Jinwoo was used to the judging eyes and disapproving looks. 

So he was bewildered to see you blissfully walk past them without a single care in the world. 

Were you just simply ignorant? 

“Ignore them. They’re always gonna judge others and put us down.” Jinwoo felt a squeeze.

“I know how you feel.” Jinwoo wondered what expression you have now, and when you turned around, you had a gentle smile on your face. 

“Come on, I’ll treat you to some convenient store food. I’m starving and I earned enough.” 

Jinwoo followed her into the store, and watched her skip and twirl until she stopped in front of instant ramen. Then, she shoved it towards him. 

Before Jinwoo could say anything, she patted his shoulder. 

“At times like this, we have to stick together! Just because we poor, doesn’t mean we’re a doormat!” 

Jinwoo blinked, but he couldn’t hold back his laugh. 

“Aww, you’re so cute when you laugh! Like a teddy bear!” Her compliment made him blush and hide away, but she didn’t stop pestering him about it until they finally got their ramen ready to eat.

“Hey, add my number, you’re in a tough spot right?” Jinwoo flinches, feeling shame, but seeing your concerned face, he felt relieved. 

“I’ll help you, and when you grow up, you can pay me back! Promise?” Sticking out your pinky like a child, you grinned brightly. 

Jinwoo could only smile gratefully, before locking pinkies. 

There and then, a promise was made.

“Mom! Jinwoo-oppa got fried chicken for us! And he brought a friend over!” 

It’s been a couple of months since that promise, and to his surprise, you didn't break the promise. In fact, you supported him...a lot.

“Oh dear, you didn’t have to.” 

“Nice to meet you Auntie, my name is (L/N) (Y/N), and this one's on me. Don’t worry!” 

“You’re too sweet, but we can’t-” 

“It’s okay! Jinwoo helped me a lot, so this is me paying him back!” 

JInwoo watched as you debated with his mom, going back and forth until his mom gave in with a smile. 

Before he knew it, everyone gathered around the table and began digging in. Soon, Jinah began bombarding you with questions, such as how you met, and-

“Do you like my oppa?” 

“Of course I do! I’ll marry him when I grow up!” 

Jinwoo froze in embarrassment, while his mom was simply a little bit surprised, before a cheeky and playful look replaced it quickly, just like his little sister. 

“Really?” 

“Yep! He’s the cutest boy I’ve ever met! He’s so sweet and cuddly like a teddy bear-” Jinwoo slaps a hand over your mouth while his face remains bright red. 

He felt your lips move still, as if joking or teasing him. 

He felt questioning and teasing stares from his family, and he knew that they would never let this go. 

One meal turned into multiple, until your presence became a norm at his little home. 

“Auntie! I got you and Jinah some skincare! You have to try this!” And your relationship with his mom and sister has grown a lot. 

A little too much. 

“Aigoo, you didn’t have to buy something so expensive for us.” 

“It’s okay Auntie! You always make me delicious food!” 

“Oppa.” Dazed, it took Jinwoo a moment to direct his attention to his sister, who had her arms crossed.

“When are you going to marry (Y/N)-unnie?” 

“W-What?!” She rolled her eyes at him. 

“You better marry her soon or else someone is gonna steal her away!” His sister gives him a little pat of encourage before she runs off towards you and his mom and joining in on the skincare talk. 

He watches as you turn towards him and gave a cheeky little grin before you were tackled into a hug by Jinah. 

Can you really ask you for marriage? Does he have the right to ask you when he’s still this weak? He still needs to rely on you to survive. 

He can’t, at least not now. 

When he grows up, Jinwoo promises to pay you back and protect you. 

He just hopes that day will come soon. 

“Jinwoo!”

He can’t die now. 

Even if his vision is blurred by blood or if hope is nothing but a bitter dream. 

He won’t die here. 

“Jinwoo?” 

Just as surprised as you were, Jinwoo noticed that he was much taller than you now. He chuckled, noticing how you seemed very confused as you peaked around him, as if analyzing and trying to figure out what is going on. 

“Jinwoo doesn’t have a twin right…?”

“(Y/N), it’s me.” 

It took a moment for you to process before you held his arms as your eyes turned glossy. Jinwoo panicked as he saw you were going to cry, until you suddenly squeeze his cheeks. 

“Where did my cute teddy bear go! I mean you’re still handsome but...my little king!” He felt a harsh tug and he stumbled forward into your arms. 

“How did puberty hit you this hard!? Was it because you were cursed and then after you woke up from a coma, you finally were able to grow?” 

What is this? Some cliche manhwa plot? 

Jinwoo pull you apart easily, shocking you again, but instead he pulls you into a hug. 

“Don’t worry, I’m still your teddy bear.” 

“But you’re too big for me to spoon you now!” Jinwoo bursts out laughing at your pouting face which is full of disappointment. 

“(Y/N), I’ll spoon you.” Before you could say another word, he holds your hand tightly. 

“(Y/N), remember our promise long ago?” You nod slowly, clearly missing his old self. 

“I’ll protect you, and pay you back for everything you did for me and my family.” 

“You don’t have to-” 

“It’s a promise, and we pinky promised it.” 

“Not fair! How come your puppy eyes are still the same even when you’re big!” You playfully cross your arms, before a cheeky grin appeared on your lips. 

“Fine, treat me to fried chicken okay?” 

“Anything you want.” 

“Let me spoon you?” Jinwoo laughs. 

“If you can.” He ruffles your hair, making you jump and punch him playfully. 

“Jinwoo! This is why I like your little version better! At least he was cute and he listens to me-” Jinwoo pulls you closer by the waist, making you yelp by instinct. 

“Am I still not cute?” You push him away. 

“You’re handsome, not cute. There’s a difference.” Jinwoo smirks when he sees you turn away with a blush on your cheeks. 

“Unnie, you can just marry him and then when you have children, there will be mini-versions of him again!” 

“Jinah!” 

JInwoo laughs, that actually doesn’t sound too bad. 

[nahoney22]

Happy Birthday 🌊

🫧 pairings: Hunter X Female!Reader

word count: 1.8k

prompts: none

A/N: For a special someone for their birthday. Happy birthday @photogirl894 ♥️ 🎂

It’s your first birthday without your loved ones nearby, however Hunter has a little surprise in store for you.

warnings: Safe for work, Fluff, Light Angst, Reader Missing Family, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, The Batch Being the Sweetest, Present Giving, Surprise Birthday Celebrations, Female Reader, Not Proofread.

“So, I heard it’s someone’s birthday today?”

The voice is like a warm caress, and you spin around in the pilot’s chair, a soft smile already forming. Hunter stands in the doorway, his arms crossed, and that ever-gracious smirk playing on his lips. Stars above, how could one man be so effortlessly handsome and charming at the same time? His presence alone sends your heart into a wild rhythm.

You try to hide your bashfulness, a difficult feat given Hunter's heightened senses. You often wonder if he can hear the way your heart skips a beat whenever he talks to you, or if he can sense the blood rushing to your cheeks. “Hmm, I’m not too sure,” you say, pinching your chin in mock contemplation. “Remind me again?”

He chuckles, a sound that feels like a soft embrace, and walks towards you, placing a caring hand on your shoulder. “Happy birthday, trooper.”

His touch sends a warmth coursing through you, and you grin, though he quickly notices the smile doesn’t quite reach your eyes. His brows furrow slightly, a sign of his genuine concern. “Something the matter?”

“It’s just… it’s my first birthday without seeing my friends and family, so it feels a bit, I don’t know, different? I guess.”

It had been almost a year since you last visited your home planet. Being a medic for the squad meant you were always on call, patching up the boys and tending to Omega’s scraped knees. You loved your job and the Batch, especially one member more than the others. But celebrating your birthday without your other loved ones felt tougher than you had anticipated.

Hunter moves to the chair beside you, using his foot to gently spin you around to face him. “I guess it would be quite strange,” he acknowledges, leaning forward. “But we will make the day work, huh? Wrecker, Tech, Crosshair, and Echo want to take you out for breakfast this morning. Maybe go for a walk on the beach too.”

The thought of the boys offering to take you out for breakfast is sweet, but you can’t help the slight disappointment. “And you and Omega don’t want to come too?”

He shifts, suddenly looking a bit nervous. “Oh, erm, I just have to do some data logs and boring stuff, and Omega said her stomach hurts this morning.”

In an instant, you panic and stand. “What? Is she okay? Why didn’t she tell me?” You start to walk away to find her, your medical and nurturing instincts kicking in. But you’re stopped by a gentle hand grabbing hold of yours.

A warmth spreads up your fingers as you look down at the hand intertwined with yours, then up to the gentle eyes they belong to. “She’s okay, just sleeping.”

Your breath catches in your throat, unsure how to respond. Why was he holding your hand? Why hadn’t he let go yet? “O-Oh, I see.”

He smiles, another one of those smiles that often turn your knees to jelly. “I’m sure you’re going to have a great birthday,” he says fondly.

Your heart swells, a mixture of emotions swirling within you. Hunter’s presence, his touch, his words—they all have a way of making you feel seen and cherished in a way you hadn’t felt in a long time. You had liked him for the longest of time and you had a somewhat naive hunch he felt something for you too. You had seen the way he acted with women before and it was never the way he was with you. You didn’t want to get your hopes up but you couldn’t miss the way he looked at you.

Hunter’s hand lingers in yours, neither of you seeming to want to let go. The warmth of his touch sends a gentle thrill through you, and you find yourself completely lost in his eyes. Memories flood back: the countless times he had stood by your side, his protective nature, the soft, caring words he had for you after tough missions, and the gentle way he always made sure you were okay.

He steps closer, his eyes never leaving yours. You feel your heart pounding in your chest, breath hitching as the space between you seems to shrink. His face is inches from yours, and you can almost feel his breath when—

The moment is shattered as Wrecker bursts into the room, his loud, jovial voice breaking the spell. “Hey! Happy birthday!” he bellows, his enthusiasm filling the cockpit.

You and Hunter quickly pull apart, standing back as though caught doing something you shouldn’t. Wrecker’s massive arms envelop you in a bear hug, lifting you off your feet momentarily.

“Wrecker!” you laugh, your cheeks flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and lingering warmth from the almost-moment with Hunter.

The rest of the Batch filters in, each offering their birthday wishes. Echo’s smile is warm and genuine, Crosshair gives a nod of acknowledgment, and Tech adjusts his goggles as he speaks. “We should get going before all the good food spots are full. I’ve done extensive research and compiled a list of optimal breakfast locations.”

You chuckle and nod, grateful for the distraction. As you prepare to leave, you give a shy wave to Hunter. He returns it with a nod and a smile that makes your heart flutter once again. Once you’re gone, Omega peeks into the cockpit, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Is she gone?”

Hunter nods, a small smile playing on his lips. “Let’s get to work.”

Breakfast is a yummy affair, filled with so much laughter juice nearly snorted out your nose at one point. With Tech having done his research, he led you all to a place where you could indulge in a variety of good dishes—crispy hash browns, fluffy pancakes drizzled with syrup, and a savoury omelette loaded with anything topping you could think of. Wrecker, of course, devours his food with unabashed enthusiasm, while Tech critiques the menu with a meticulous eye.

After breakfast as promised, the group of you heads to the beach. The sun is warm on your skin but a little too hot later on which meant you had to buy a straw hat by one of the nearby stalls, and the gentle waves lap at the shore.

As you lay on the sand, you watched on as the boys engage in light-hearted banter which soon lead to Wrecker and Crosshair ending up in a playful scuffle, each trying to push the other into the ocean. Their laughter is infectious, and you can’t help but join in, feeling a lightness you hadn’t in a while. But, the longing for your family was still there.

As the day winds down, Echo announces we need to return to the ship.

As soon as you step inside you’re greeted by the sight of decorations, a table laden with gifts and, and the people you love most in the galaxy. Your friends and family. Along with the Batch and Omega, who beams at you with pride.

Emotion wells up within you, your eyes watering instantly and you rush to your loved ones, pulling them into a tight embrace. “I can’t believe you guys are here!”

Echo approaches Hunter, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Good job.” They both watch you wipe the tears of happiness from your eyes.

That evening, the festivities of your party slowly start to dwindle. The campfire that was made crackles gently, casting a warm glow on those around you.

After the games, laughter, and a satisfying barbecue, presents are exchanged. You always felt shy when receiving gifts and today was no different. Though you were very grateful.

Tech hands you a crafted gadget, its sleek design and functionality immediately appealing to your practical side. Crosshair, true to his stoic nature, offers a high-quality knife with a subtle smile, acknowledging its usefulness. You weren’t much of a fighter but maybe you could ask Hunter to teach you one day…

Echo gives you a beautifully bound journal with a smooth leather cover and crisp pages of flimsi. He knew you liked to make notes on your adventures and this just adds a more personal touch. Wrecker’s gift, a massive stuffed animal, brings out delighted laughter from you though the others weren’t too impressed with where it’ll fit on the ship.

As the night settles, Hunter catches your eye from across the fire and nods towards the lake. “Would you like to go for a walk?”

Curiosity piqued, you nod and follow him away from the glowing campfire and the soft chatter of your friends. The path to the lake is softly illuminated by the last hues of twilight. The sun has dipped below the horizon, leaving a trail of purples, pinks, and deep blues in the sky, reflected beautifully on the still waters of the lake.

The environment is serene, with the gentle rustling of leaves in the evening breeze and the distant sound of creatures stirring. The cool air carries the subtle scent of pine and freshwater, wrapping around you. Hunter walks beside you, his presence steady and calming which is what you always felt.

“Thank you for the surprise,” you say, your voice soft and sincere. “I promise not to ugly cry again.”

Hunter chuckles softly, the sound blending harmoniously with the natural ambiance. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. Are you wondering where your gift from me is?”

“Not at all, you already did so much!” You say quickly, hoping you hadn’t come across ungrateful at all. But he reassures you as you both come to a stop, away from the view of the others.

“It was nothing, you do so much for us so it’s only fair I do something in return.. but I do actually have a gift for you.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a small box. Opening it, he reveals a stunning bracelet, an intricate mix of different shades of blue stones, woven together in a delicate design on a silver band. The twilight’s remaining light catches on the bracelet, making it shimmer softly.

You’re momentarily speechless, the beauty of the bracelet and the thoughtfulness of Hunter’s gesture leaving you stunned. Smiling gently, Hunter takes your hand, his touch warm, and slips the bracelet onto your wrist. “I don’t know how to thank you,” you whisper, emotion thick in your voice.

“You don’t need to thank me,” Hunter replies, his voice filled with warmth. He pauses, his eyes holding yours with a quiet intensity. “But maybe we could finish what was almost started this morning?” His tone hopeful

You didn’t expect him to bring it up again, in fact you momentarily forgot about it, but his words send a thrill through you. You nod, a shy smile playing on your lips. Hunter steps closer, his hand gently cupping your cheek. The touch is electric, sending a pleasant shiver down your spine.

The kiss is soft, slow, and tender, a sweet exploration of emotions that were long felt, but never spoken. The galaxy around you fades, leaving just the two of you in this perfect, timeless moment.

When you finally part, Hunter’s eyes are filled with warmth and affection. “Happy birthday, beautiful,” he whispers, his breath mingling with yours.

Your heart swells with happiness, and you realise that this birthday, surrounded by love is one you will cherish forever.

Tags: @littlefeatherr @kaitou2417 @eyecandyeoz @jesseeka

@theroguesully @ladykatakuri @arctrooper69 @padawancat97 @staycalmandhugaclone

@ko-neko-san @echos-girlfriend @fiveshelmet t @dangraccoon @plushymiku-blog

@pb-jellybeans @nunanuggets @sleepycreativewriter @erellenora @zippingstars87

@ezras-left-thumb @the-rain-on-kamino @lamiliani @tech-aficionado @grizabellasolo @therealnekomari @tech-depression-inventory @brynhildrmimi

@greaser-wolf @kaminocasey @marvel-starwars-nerd @ladytano420

@ladyzirkonia @thesith @raevulsix @cw80831 @knightprincess @crosshairlovebot @whore4rex @imperialclaw801 @temple-elder @mysticalgalaxysalad @yunggoblin @imalovernotahater @sithstrings @the-bad-batch-baroness @lulalovez

[too-much-tma-stuff]

Healing is Slow, but Inevitable (part 7)

Previous | Masterpost

“So, what are you?” Jason asked about a week after the meeting with Batman, a few days after Dick left again after his unscheduled weekend visit, and they hadn’t really talked about it. Danny had been flighty and tense for days afterwards so Jason hadn’t wanted to bring it up. Now that Danny seemed calm again, curled up in bed with him after a decent day and some great sex, it seemed like the best time he was going to get. 

Danny sighed and turned his head to hide his face against Jason’s shoulder for a moment, but he stayed relaxed and he wasn’t running, which were good signs. “I was kept prisoner for almost two years by the Ghost Investigation Ward, what do you think I am,” Danny muttered a little bitterly. 

“But you’re not a ghost, right? I mean you eat, and sleep and I can feel your heartbeat right now,” Jason said, pressing his hand Danny’s chest, where his heart was indeed beating, slower than most people’s but that was normal for Danny. Then, right under Jason’s hand, Danny’s heart stopped beating. 

Jason panicked and pulled back only for Danny to catch his wrist and keep his hand there, Danny pushed himself up a little and stared down at Jason. He seemed fully alive, and fine, even though his heart still wasn’t beating under Jason’s hand. Danny sighed and lay back down, the feeling of a heartbeat returning under Jason’s hand, he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

“I’m what’s called a Halfa. It’s a stupid name but I’m not going to come up with a new one. It’s not entirely accurate either, since I’m both 100% alive, and 100% dead.” He saw the lost look on Jason’s face and backed up quickly to explain more. “There’s a place called the Ghost Zone, or the Infinite Realms, it’s a world between worlds that links to every living world and contains every afterlife.” He was tracing little patterns on Jason’s chest as he talked. “Portals open to it in other worlds sometimes, natural things that form and collapse again quickly. 

“Halfas are made when one of those portals happen to open, directly on top of and into, a living person. It kills them, then because of the power of the realms their soul forms a ghost immediately, resurrects them and slams that fully formed ghost back into the living body, bonding them back together and creating a living-ish, ghost. I’m the only true halfa in existence right now, and I’m… unique, even for my kind. Because the portal that made me was the first man-made one, it was far more stable and more powerful than the natural ones, meaning that I got a double dose of energy.

“Halfas are already a powerful species, the perfect balance between life and death, a bridge between worlds partially immune to the weaknesses of both. But I’m strong even compared to other halfas, at least that’s what I’m told by the Ancients. Like I said, I’m the first one in about five thousand years, and the only one in existence right now, so I’ve never exactly met someone else like me.” 

“Holy shiit,” Jason whispered before falling silent. He started to comb his fingers through Danny’s hair so he would know Jason wasn’t upset or mad as he took a while to process all Danny had told him. “You don’t have to talk about it but if you’re that powerful then… how did the GIW manage to capture you?”

“My parents were the ones who captured me,” Danny murmured, hiding his face against Jason’s neck. Jason’t breath caught in his throat. “They were ghost hunters all my life, they built the portal but I didn’t want to hurt them. I was still trying to talk to them, to convince them I really was still their son. Then the GIW found out they had me and demanded my parents hand me over. When my parents refused and tried to defend ‘their discovery’ The GIW just… blew up the house. Because of my powers I survived, no one else did. While I was still in shock they took me.

“It broke my heart, in a literal sense. I want to show you something,” He said and sat up again, legs crossed. Jason sat up as well, mirroring Danny’s position and watching him curiously. “Humans have organs and brains and all those squishy, meaty bits. Ghosts have a core, it contains everything we are, everything else will just reform around it as long as the core is undamaged.” He pressed his hands against his own chest and after a moment, he drew something out. 

It was an orb of what looked like blue stone, but it was cracked, pretty extensively, in a similar pattern of cracking to Danny’s lightning scar. “What they did, it cracked my core,” Danny said looking down at it baleful. “Literally broke me. If I was a full ghost it would have destabilized and ended me, my humanity kept me together. Which just meant more for them to experiment on,” He said with a bitter little laugh. 

“Danny,” Jason murmured, a heartbroken little sound as he sat forward and reached towards Danny. Danny tensed, and looked fearful for just a moment, but he didn’t pull away. Instead he opened his hands and held his core, his heart, out towards Jason. With permission Jason traced the branching pattern gently with a finger, it felt cool and smooth under his fingers, energy tingling in his fingertips and the cracks rasping slightly against Jason’s calluses. Danny shuddered and gasped as all the tension bled out of him under Jason’s gentle touch, his eyes fell closed, and his expression was peaceful now.

“It’s been getting better,” Danny said, opening his eyes again after a moment and looking up at Jason adoringly. “Since I met you, you gave me purpose again and I can feel the cracks healing, it’s slow, but it was always going to be.” 

Jason pulled his hand back and Danny pressed his core back to his chest. “I’m glad you’re healing. You’ve been helping me a lot too, healing is always slow, but we’ll do it together. And you’ll tell me if I ever make it worse, or if there’s anything I can do to help won't you?” 

“Ya we will, but I think I’m well enough to face the GIW soon. I’ll start looking for them along with your people. If they’re still around I don’t think it will take me that long to find them,” Danny told Jason softly. “As for helping, just don’t leave me, and don’t die. I don’t want to think about what I could become without you to ground me.”

“I’m not going anywhere, and I’ll be right there with you when we take down the GIW. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I love you,” Jason promised, pulling Danny back against his chest.

“I love you too,” Danny sighed, snuggling against Jason tiredly.

-----------

Danny hadn’t been kidding when he said he would be able to find the GIW quickly when he started to look. It turned out that the GIW were sort of using ghosts in their firewall? It made it next to impossible for regular people to find, or hack it, but made it all the easier for Danny to track down. He found five bases besides the one that he had destroyed during his escape. Which was more than Jason had expected, though none of them seemed to be that big. According to the files two had ‘specimens’, so they were going to hit those two first and free whatever free whatever poor souls were still trapped there.

Jason had yet to leave Crime Alley since his takeover of the turf, but it would have to happen eventually. They would only be gone for one, maybe two days so it was a good first test. 

They had a basic plan; break in and rely on stealth till they had located the prisoners, release them, then cause as much damage and havoc as they could on the way out. Danny would be the power house, taking the chance to really let loose in a way he hadn’t in a long time. Jason would follow and plant explosives so once they got out they would leave nothing to salvage. 

They had a bit of a discussion about when to go. During the night there would be fewer people there making it safer to break in, but the disadvantage of that was they would take out fewer GIW agents. The fewer of those assholes still walking the earth the less likely it was anyone would come for Danny. There would be no one to continue the cycle of violence if everyone else was dead. In the end they still decided to go at night. If only because they would be less likely to walk in on someone actively being tortured, which would be too much for Danny. They needed to avoid Danny having a panic attack in enemy territory if at all possible.

So Jason wrangled his people into readiness to be left alone and keep things ticking over, and told a few selected people where they were headed in the unlikely case they needed rescue. Jason had started planning a ride too, since unlike the Bats they didn’t have their own private jet. But Danny told him there was no need, just get them out of Gotham and Danny could handle the rest. Jason was curious about what he meant by that, but when he asked Danny gave him the cheeky smile that promised it was a surprise Jason would like. Jason decided to wait and see.

Once they were ready they left Gotham at Sunset, Danny on the back of Jason’s bike with his arms tight around his waist and pressed against his back. Normally when they rode like this Jason could feel Danny’s vibrating purr against his back but today Danny was still and silent, probably too tense to purr. Jason understood, no matter what they found or how well this went it was bound to be triggering as hell. Danny was walking right back into one of the facilities where he had been experimented on and tortured. Jason didn’t think there was anything he could say to make Danny feel better, so he mostly stayed quiet and let Danny think his thoughts. 

“Okay, we’re far enough away I think. Pull over please, far enough that we won’t be easily seen from the road. I haven’t done this in… more than a year, I’m not totally sure how it’s going to go,” Danny said suddenly and Jason nodded, looking for a place to pull off the road and into the woods. Finding a good place to hide his bike, and themselves for whatever Danny was planning on doing.

Jason found a place to park his bike and let Danny get off before him, once they were off he laid the bike down where it wouldn’t be easily found, and turned on his personal tracker so he would be able to find it later. “Alright, ready when you are. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ve been so mysterious about,” Jason encouraged his boyfriend, taking off his motorcycle helmet to switch it for his Red Hood one.

Danny nodded and took a few steps back and took a deep breath, “I really haven’t done this in years. Not since I escaped for the first time. It made it easier for them to track me,” Danny explained before he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. 

As Jason watched Danny started to change, not all at once, but the appearance Jason knew started to flicker and fade in patches. It looked like he was molting, and like a computer glitching, leaving him looking… different. The shape of the costume was a lot like his Hyena get-up, but it was entirely monochrome, and this Hyena had been dead for a long time. The suit was black with start-white protruding ribs wrapped around his chest like armor, white knee and elbow pads, and a white stripe down the front of his boots added to the skeletal effect. Danny’s mask had turned from a muzzle to a Hyena skull with a tuft of white hair showing above it. When Danny opened his eyes they were pits of toxic green glowing from behind the Hyena’s empty eye sockets. 

Jason would have frozen up completely, if he hadn’t noticed Danny was swaying slightly. Jason jumped forward just in time to steady Danny before he could fall. Danny leaned against him, he felt cooler than usual and… insubstantial in an odd way. 

“That felt different then it used to,” Danny murmured, putting a hand to his forehead. He felt the mask and blinked before glancing down at himself. “Huh, I knew this form was connected to emotions and shit, but I didn’t expect it to change this much,” He murmured, running his hands over the mask and then back through his hair, pushing his hood back to show his hair was all white now, and moving like it was underwater. 

“What… is this?” Jason asked, combing his fingers through Danny’s hair which felt like the softest, unmelting, fresh fallen snow between his fingers.

“My ‘ghost form’. I told you I was as dead as I was alive, this is my dead form,” Danny said gesturing down as himself before fully gaining his footing and standing up on his own. He took off the mask (Jason was far more relieved then he’d admit that Hyena skull was a mask, he hadn’t been sure) and smiled at him. Danny still looked very much like himself, though his mouth was wider, his teeth were sharper and his skin had the very distinct deathly pallor of a frozen corpse. 

Jason gave a considering hum and cupped Danny’s face, leaning down to kiss him. His lips felt cool and there was no pulse against Jason’s lips, but they were soft and Danny kissed back with the same sweetness as always. “You look badass as hel,l Moonlight,” Jason told Danny who blushed a soft blue and smiled at him, pulling him back in for another quick kiss.

“Alright, like this I can get us to the base,” Danny said, pulling the mask back on before his feet lifted off the ground and he hovered a few feet up. “Carrying you should be no problem, we’ll be silent, and if needed I can cloak us. We just have to land a ways out because I’m sure they have ghost detectors and shields. I’ll have to change back to get through. Sounds good?”

“Sounds great,” Jason agreed easily. He’d been around the Supers for years as a kid, he was used to being carried like that.

“Great,” Danny cheered, swooping over Jason and grabbing him under the arms and lifting him up with no apparent effort. He held Jason as they took off towards base, Danny flew fast but Jason’s helmet protected his eyes from the wind so it was fine.for Danny to change back into his human form. It looked like reversed timelapse footage of a flower losing its petals. Jason watched in awe as the man he knew and loved reformed around this odd, pale being. 

When it was done Danny shook out his limbs and rolled his head on his neck like he was having to resettle himself in his body before he nodded firmly once. “Alright, let’s go,” Danny said, checking his mask one more time.

Jason nodded and made a hand sign to advance, reminding Danny from here on they wouldn’t be using words. Danny nodded and fell in just behind Jason as they approached the facility. They had found a weak point in the plans for ventilation and used that to get in. This place was clearly designed to keep things in more than out, and not with humans in mind, it was almost embarrassingly easy to sneak in. They hid as a couple of agents walked by, assholes in white coats and dark glasses, edgy as hell and obviously overly full of themselves. Jason was looking forward to ripping through them on the way back out.

As they moved through the building Jason planted bombs at strategic locations ready to be detonated once they had cleared the facility of anyone who actually deserved to live. They didn’t want to leave anything standing. The less of the information and weapons that survived to potentially fall into the wrong hands, the better.

In the labs on the lower floors they found a few ‘blob ghosts’ as Danny called them, and a bunch of equipment, a couple of which Danny helped himself to. Jason didn’t bother because he didn’t know what any of this stuff was, they’d probably do more harm than good in his hands. 

Deeper in the labs they found a few proper ghosts too, locked in cells Jason managed to hack and get open. Danny darted in and started murmuring softly to a woman he called Ember, and who called him Babypop with shock and grief before he used one of the tools he’d stolen to open some sort of portal and sent her on. He found a thing he called Shadow, but that one didn’t talk, and Jason didn’t see it though he believed Danny that it was there. Danny used the portal gun to send them on too.

They were reaching the end of the facility and Jason was glad they’d only found two sentient beings, he would have much preferred None but it could have been a lot worse. This was the largest facility so if they only had two actual ‘ghosts’ the others would probably have one at most. 

They moved through the rest of the labs quickly, staying just long enough to clear them of anyone who might be held there, but not lingering over metal tables, scalpels, lasers, and saws. Jason was trying not to think about Danny strapped down to one of those, cut open and either begging them to stop or dissociating and staring, he wasn’t sure which would be worse. 

Finally they reached the deepest room in the facility, Jason was expecting another lab, until he saw the security pad at the door. The previous labs had been in a complex, no codes or cards needed to get into each individual one once you were on the floor. What was special about this lab? The security was decent too, nowhere near as easy to get through as previous doors. 

“Keep watch Hyena, this is going to take a minute,” Jason murmured into their mic and Danny nodded, flitting to the end of the hall to keep watch while Jason worked on the security. 

It took him about fifteen minutes and thankfully no one came around, they must have hourly patrols or something. Danny glanced over at the sound of the door unlocking and Jason nodded, gesturing for him to come. He stepped inside, getting the full view of a room full of wires, monitoring equipment, and what looked like a cloning tube or stasis pod. Holy shit was the GIW somehow in league with CADMUS?

There was a girl floating in the tube, maybe fourteen or fifteen, small for her age. Her hair was black but he couldn’t see much else. He heard Danny come into the room behind him and let out a soft gasp.

“Oh god,” Danny breathed softly. Jason looked over at Danny expecting to see his own surprise reflected in Danny’s face. No, he was shocked, yes, but he looked heartbroken and horrified. There was absolutely recognition there. “Ellie.”

[kayleighwinchester]

Praise

(( Another Jensen-a-Thon drabble for @artyandink's lovely event! This one is separate from the previous two - more coming for those later! This is based loosely off of real events - no, Graay, I still haven't forgiven you for not telling me I did a good job healing Trial of the Crusader that night. ))

You're a grown adult.

You're a grown adult, and a damn good hunter. You shouldn't need validation to remind you of that. You don't need validation. 

At least, you don't think you do.

It had started off innocently enough. You’d hunted with the Winchesters for years - practically every job they took, unless Dean royally pissed you off, which happened, at most, once or twice a year – and after every job, without fail, Dean would loop you in a one-armed hug, pull you close to his side, and press a kiss to your temple, offering a quick, but utterly genuine, ‘good job’ – or, if he was feeling particularly proud (or particularly frisky), ‘good girl’. It didn’t matter how well the job actually went - hell, he’d said it a few times when everything had gone completely off the rails. He'd said it when you were all bruised and bloody and hurting and half-dead and nothing felt okay, much less good.

When it came down to it, though, you don’t need his praise to know that you were doing your job well.

It wasn’t on purpose, you knew that much. That last job - a nest of vamps down in Tucson - had gone entirely sideways, and you were sure that giving you any sort of praise was the farthest thing from Dean's mind. Sam had almost died, you were pretty sure Dean had at least three or four broken ribs… Still, you didn't feel right, getting into the car in the silence that followed, broken only by occasional grumbles, groans, and hisses of pain.

You couldn't place why, exactly, the silence bothered you, but it was grating on your nerves, making you feel more irritable than you could remember being in a long time. Even Sam could feel the tension in the car building on the way back to the motel, and it wasn’t long before Dean picked up on it as well. The eldest Winchester cleared his throat, glancing your way. “Wanna go get a few drinks once we get cleaned up? I could really use a beer.” He offered, eyes darting from you to Sam, as if begging his brother to back him up. You offered a shrug in response. “Or we could stop at that diner ‘cross the street from the motel. Got a sign sayin’ they make their pie fresh every day.” He tried again, simply earning himself another shrug from you, and a confused glance from Sam.

It finally made sense when Sam spoke up – clearly trying to smooth things over, trying to put you in a better mood, offering, “You did a great job back there, Y/N.” It worked, at least a little – you could at least force yourself to smile at him, even if it didn’t feel entirely genuine. 

Dean’s eyes cut to you, and as he caught your smile, the gears started turning – you saw several expressions cross his face in quick succession: confusion; realization; annoyance; exasperation. “That's what this is about?” He demanded. “You're throwin' a whole fit ‘cause I didn't tell you that you did good today?”

“I’m not throwing a fit.” You offered halfheartedly.

You weren’t expecting Dean to pull the car over on the gravel shoulder, casting Sam a stare – the younger Winchester stared back for a moment, before Dean raised his eyebrows. “Backseat.” He ordered, pointing. Sam looked baffled – and you were sure you did as well.

Dean was barely fighting a smile, even despite his clear exhaustion. “C’mon, Sweetheart.” He waved toward the front seat, motioning for you to switch with Sam. You hesitated a moment, looking to Sam – he still looked just as confused as you were – before you obediently left the backseat, trading places with Sam. Dean was already leaning forward to pull his box of cassettes up onto the seat between you. 

You settled into the passenger seat, your backpack between your feet, taking in the amused grin that lit up Dean’s face, growing with every passing moment, looking out of place among the blood, dirt, and bruises there.

He glanced up at you, taking in the confusion still painted onto your face. “Since ‘m apparently breakin’ rules,” He drawled out, his stare a bit more pointed at the words – it had never been a rule, and you all knew it – “what’s one more, huh?” There, shoved between two cassettes - Metallica and Mötley Crüe – was the iPod adapter Sam had bought (the one you were quite sure Dean had thrown out the window the moment he’d seen it). “Just try not to make my ears bleed too bad, huh?” 

As you dug through your backpack for your iPod, Dean leaned down, his face close to yours, his lips against your ear, his voice low enough that Sam wouldn’t hear.

“‘N when we get back to the motel, I’ll tell Sammy to take a hike, ‘n I’ll tell you what a good girl you are as many times as you want.”

[lorryicious]

do you perhaps have any more Loretta/Bill content I’m VERY curious about their dynamic now 👁️👁️

I HAVE. SO MUCH. CONTENT. Loretta has been an oc I have had for YEARS so I absolutely have SO much stuff on her! Shes definitely my favorite oc alongside Jack, my other gravity falls oc. The short of it is they are forced to work together out of inconvenience by the Axolotl.. The most recent development has been the change in Lorettas ability revolving her sight because I thought it would be so cool if Loretta had the same/similar kind of mutation to Bill. It didn't change much to her character, just another reason why they ended up at the wrong place at the wrong time (time police events. I seriously need to write fanfic of the whole story LMAO)

Their dynamic is SO FUN. They bicker ALL the time and usually are yapping about something. They live together, so I think they argue over the smallest things. When they first ended up needing to work together, Bill was not thrilled AT ALL. He was VERY closed off. Loretta, not knowing this creature at all, just decided to let him do his own thing. It's only after an event where Loretta protects Bill when he's at his weakest that Bill realizes Loretta is harmless and that it wouldn't hurt to try to get some enjoyment out of her company. That turns into an actual friendship, which turns into Bill finding out Loretta is like him. Through this, they open up and become closer because of their similar identities. They just ended up on different paths because of their own mutations AUGH. Bill wanted more, when in comparison Loretta was content with what her world was already like.

Loretta is a demon hunter. She takes bounties from individuals around town to get rid of weirdness. She naturally has a knack for attracting it, so the job is perfect for her. Bill helps her with her bounties; in exchange, Loretta lets Bill drain her energy so he can regain his physical form. I have a whole animatic on my tiktok that shows how the possession works-

They are silly. They fight over what to watch on the tv, they karaoke and drink together, it takes AGES for Bill to actually open up to Loretta, Whenever they decide to share the bed (even though Bill doesn't sleep) he kicks off Lorreta off of it anyway just to frustrate her, they do makeup together, They drive up to one of the hills in gravity falls via Loretta's motorcycle and watch the sunset together. Love them. I have SO many thoughts on their dynamic, but they are there for each other, and despite all their issues, they love each other. They NEVER say it to each other because Bill is deathly scared of that word.

They are an oc x canon ship so they are together as partners TECHNICALLY. Still, I also think they are so messed up via the canon story that an ACTUAL domestic relationship dynamic just doesn't work for the two. Plus, Bill needs help understanding labels and Loretta doesn't need them. Plus there's the Jack situation...Which is a WHOLE OTHER RANT. JACK. AUGH. The love triangle (literally) goes insane. In my happy au they are a polycule asf.

Literally ask ANY questions about them, I might even draw something up if its a fun scenario you guys send,,, I LOVE THAT PEOPLE ARE INTERESTED IN THE OCS BECAUSE !!!! I HAVE SO MUCH CONTENT FOR THEM.

Some of this is older art but it still works <33 and I STILL LOVE IT

This one I did recently-

Great side effect for being able to see outside your plane of reality AND being intertwined to a demon, you get to relive HIS trauma TOO!! (imagine how horrifying that was when Loretta told Bill the dreams shes been having) (double note: Bill played it off like they were random when he was FREAKING OUT ON THE INSIDE)

[animeyanderelover]

Hello again! Could I get a scenario where the darling is super emotional and cries all the time. She's not particularly scared or trying to be manipulative, just cries really easily. I thought it'd be interesting to have Ash from black Butler, Kanike from Tokyo ghoul, Shiapouf from hunter x hunter, and any other emotional yandere who you think fits. Crybaby vs crybaby. Thanks!

I’m currently on a vacation so I had to keep this limited to only a few characters.

Tags: @lovley-valentine7 @leveyani @chxxz @jamayah @cynniical @shenryu-sama @maggiequinn59 @flaming-vulpix

Tw: Yandere themes, possessive behavior, obsession, delusional behavior, isolation, manipulation, abduction

Crybaby vs. Crybaby

Ash Landers

▫️Tears are droplets of innocence, at least the tears that you spill are. It is a sight that he would even consider beautiful if it wouldn’t be for the grief that is piercing the essence of his soul when he sees you spilling tears of purity. Initially Ash mistakes your tears as a sign of fear, a thought that tightens his heart with anxiety and self-hatred but he doesn’t wish to bother you with his problems and keeps the stress and anxiety to himself, leading to emotional meltdowns when he’s all by himself. He’s convinced he’s doing something wrong every time you start crying and that behavior is hard to shake off even when he eventually figures out that you are just a very sensitive person. The sensitivity of yours is only more of what makes you so pure and perfect in his eyes. It is your tendency to cry so easily though that leads Ash to cuddle you even more all to not overwhelm your fragile feelings and to keep all anxiety and stress away from you. He will worship tears of happiness and joy but he will damn everyone, including himself, if your tears are ever caused by sorrow.

Shaiapouf

🎻His demeanor really depends on what stage of his obsession he is in already. If he’s still in his earlier stages where he overloads you with tons of expectations to be perfect Shaiapouf is going to be the main culprit for your tears. He may pretend to be nice but the disappointment due to your lack of self-control is written all over his face. He’s strict and his words are harsh, belittling you and even using his abilities on you to calm you and your tears down. If we’re talking about Shaiapouf after he has properly embraced his obsession things look quite a bit different. He’s using your sensitivity to manipulate you further into his arms, actively encouraging the overwhelmed meltdowns so that he can be the one to smother you and help you to calm down. He was born a servant, he needs to be needed by you and it just so happens that you need him too. That is at least what he tries to indoctrinate into your mind with attentive touches and sweet lies. What used to be a burden in his eyes has now turned into something precious and sweet which only gives him more reasons to isolate and protect you. After all the world outside would only overwhelm you.

Kaneki Ken

🔲Kaneki is already very fidgety and nervous, frightened that his darling is simply going to despise him and view him as the monster he thinks he is deep down as well. So the first few weeks after the abduction aren’t pretty. He knows that you tend to cry easily, his heart always tightened and hurt when he stalked you but it is still so much worse when he is the cause of your tears, especially knowing that those aren’t happy tears. You may as well have poured acid over his skin and it would have hurt him less than watching you spilling tears because you are frightened of him. His stomach is churning and worms are feasting through his pained heart, his own vision blurry as he stutters out apologies, longing to reach out for you yet terrified that you would only flinch away from him and only break his bleeding heart more. It is this initial trauma that has him trembling whenever you cry long after you’ve gotten through the worst parts and your tears are no longer his fault. His presence is hovering over you as soon as Kaneki senses that you’re crying, terrified that something or someone upset you.

Fudo Akira

👿Even after Akira’s transformation he has remained the crybaby boy he has been since his childhood. He’s highly sensitive and it is very likely that he may even start crying together with you when you start spilling tears first. At first he is a tad bit ashamed of it. In this new body of his he was hoping to be able to toughen up and to be your pillar of comfort yet his own tears get stained in his own tears the moment he sees you as he is just weeping with you, no matter whether you’re sad or very happy about something. Akira starts getting more comfortable the moment he realises that you actually seem to take comfort in the fact that even someone as intimidating and tough-looking as him has a very sensitive soul. So he just starts crying with you to comfort you and help you to regulate your emotions. If there is a negative reason behind your tears and it happens to be a person as well Akira may just pay them a visit later for some civilised talking but he prioritises you always first by comforting you before he weaponises his new strength and appearance. He hates it when your tears are those of grief and fear after all.

[mm-lurking]

MAY I REQUEST FOR ANGST POOKS 😘😝 MYBE ABT BRINGING UP THEIR DEAD EX BY ACCIDENT DURING AN ARGUEMENT? THERES RARELY ANY ANGST IM GETTING MAD 👹

I saw your ask at 11 pm and something about the way you wrote your request made me giggle so hard idk why 🤣 Since you demand angst I shall give it to you. You’re my first ask btw so thank you very much! 

I’m not sure which character you wanted me to write for so I’m going to go for Blade and Aventurine. Though feel free to send me specific characters through the ask again!

Warnings: no fluff at all, pure angst, fem! reader and ex, reader has no chill running her mouth, Aventurine’s kinda feels ooc sorry about that WC: 1881

Blade

You were a hair’s breadth away from being gravely injured. If it weren’t for Blade’s interruption you would have been Antimatter Legion dinner tonight. In your eyes you weren’t in that much danger, you knew you could handle it on your own but in Blade’s eyes, it was just another flashback to how he lost her. It felt frustrating to watch him downplay your capabilities, it's not like you were some weak damsel in distress. There was a reason your relations with the Stellaron Hunters had lasted as far as it had; you were good at wielding your weapon and making good use of the enemy’s weaknesses. Sure there were moments when you were in trouble but you never really got to live the thrill of it because Blade would always step in to help you even when you didn’t ask for it. 

You loved him dearly and appreciated his assistance but just for this instance, you wanted to deal with things by yourself. Ultimately your agitation got the best of you and so now here you were with your arms crossed, glaring at Blade after the enemy was taken care of.

“Have you always been this foolish?”

You stare at him with wide eyes and an open mouth, questioning his audacity of insulting you like this.

“Excuse me?”

“You could have gotten hurt.”

He says matter-of-factly and you feel your jaws clench at the way he speaks to you.

“Blade I am fully capable of looking after myself! I need you to stop interrupting my fights!”

“If I didn’t that Antimatter Legion pawn would have sliced your head off your shoulders.”

“And how the hell do you know that was going to happen?! I could have fought it easily if it weren’t for you!”

He turns around and looks at you with cold eyes which make you flinch momentarily.

“You overestimate yourself.”

“I do not! I have worked relentlessly on my skills! I know what I can handle or what I can’t! You just never allow me to prove it!”

“You are a fool. I do not need to see you pushed to your limits to acknowledge your skills.”

“Then why the hell won’t you let me do what I want?!”

You both argue back and forth with neither of you backing down. Blade speaks calmly, just as he always has but with slight frustration whereas you on the other hand are full-on yelling and boiling over to the point of rage. He takes a deep breath and continues.

“I am just looking out for you-”

“I am not weak like Chun. Stop treating me like I am.”

You almost immediately regret it the moment those words leave your mouth. Your words are sharp and bitter, and pierce his heart like a blade slashing through flesh. His eyes are ablaze with fury and pain and the way his jaw clenches is enough to let you know you have overstepped your boundary.

Chun was his first love. She was a good woman with a kind heart, and despite how odd she looked amongst the Stellaron Hunters, they welcomed her as long as it made Blade happy. But in a world full of evil, being kind is a weakness and ultimately she met her end in the hands of an enemy during heated negotiations. For the one whose life was already cursed by immortality, he took her death hard and swore never to love again, for he couldn’t bear to witness yet another loved one depart for the nth time in his long life. His already broken heart took ages to heal and by the time you crossed paths with him, he was still grieving over her. You knew this very well because it was you who assured him that history wouldn’t repeat itself with you. It was you who helped him heal further and gave him the confidence to open his heart up once more to you. You knew what she meant to him because he had been honest with you about his past yet-

“Blade I-”

-here you were driving the very knife you had taken out of him so lovingly back into his heart in full force. He looks at you with so much despise and agony that your heart hurts knowing you are the cause for it. A blade being stabbed over and over into his body hurt, but those wounds always healed after a while. Yet the wound your words had caused was one that no medication could fix. Your throat tightens and you want to reach out to him and hold him but you stay glued to your feet.

“We don’t need to be around each other anymore.”

Despite the torment he feels, he looks straight into your eyes and monotonously speaks. There is not even a single moment spared for you to reply as he walks out of the room and slams the door shut, indicating he is done with you. The door closing was not just the end of the argument you both were having, it was also the end of what you were to each other. You stand there rooted to the ground as tears sting your eyes. Why did you have to be like this?

Aventurine

“Aventurine I swear to god I am not playing your petty games again.”

You angrily huff as you cross your arms and glare at Aventurine with disapproval. The audacity of this man was truly something, especially at a time like this. You both were stuck in an interesting situation, where Aventurine had made a gamble with an enemy territory and he wanted you to be part of it. More precisely, he wanted to turn you into his bargaining chip for a while. There was one tiny problem. He wasn’t asking for your approval, he had already made the deal.

“The table has already been set, friend. You just have to play your role real well.”

Your jaw hangs low when you realise what he has done. 

“Aventurine don’t tell me….”

“They have decided to ask for you in exchange of information. Do not worry, I will find a way to-“

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence as a loud slap resonates across the room. You stare at him in disbelief with tears welling your eyes, unable to process what he has done. A shaky sigh leaves his mouth and he stares at you, bewildered by your behaviour.

“It hasn’t even been a full week since we finished another deal and you want me to jump head-on into another one?!”

“Was there a need to slap me like this? If you’re forgetting, friend, you agreed to help me out on these deals regardless of the risk. Or should I have the doctor examine your memory?”

“Aventurine I agreed to help you out, not be used however you please! You could have at least asked me first before making the deal!”

You rub your temples and rethink the entire situation through. Your relationship with Aventurine was compatible due to one simple fact: you both loved taking risks. The thrill of the gamble and the adrenaline of waiting for the results kept you both alive. It was the drug you both needed in this cruel unjust world.

But this, this was different. This wasn’t just any gamble and it wasn’t a small one either. Being traded off to the enemy territory for a few weeks was no easy task and you have no idea what the hell Aventurine was thinking. In your last deal, you barely made it out alive as the tables turned against your favour. It was a miracle your assets weren’t taken and that you weren’t killed in the process.

“…I promise you will be fine, friend.”

Tears sting your eyes and you try to take a deep breath. 

“How can you be so sure?”

“The gaiaithra triclops blesses me abundantly. We will not lose.”

“Is that what you said to Lilac as well before her demise?”

You hear how his breath hitches in his throat at the mention of Lilac. He coughs a little and then stares at you with a look you cannot decipher.

“Do not bring her up.”

His voice is a mere whisper and you know you’re crossing some lines already. Yet you don’t stop there. You jab your right index finger into his chest with every word you speak.

“I don’t know what’s worse, being a gambling chip on purpose or being a gambling chip unknowingly, like she was.”

He grips the hand you have on his chest tightly. You can’t help but wince a little at how he’s looking at you with red eyes filled with regret and anger. He tries to speak but you cut him off.

“Was losing her not enough to learn your lesson? Or do you turn everyone you love into pawns of your game?”

“You’re crossing the line now.”

He warns and you shake your head.

“You treat everyone like an asset, even the ones who truly love you without any hidden agenda. No wonder you couldn’t save Lilac-“

“Enough!”

Before you can process what is going on Aventurine pulls out a gun from his inner coat pocket and shoots a random vase on the table behind you. The bang of the gun and the loud shattering of the ceramic into pieces makes you jump and shake a little. He then shifts his gaze on you and lets your hand go before issuing his warning.

“…you need to leave. Leave before I accidentally hurt you.”

“I-“

“I said leave!”

He points the gun at you. His hand is shaking in a manner you have never seen before and you can tell he doesn’t want to do this but you’re giving him no choice. You stare at him for a moment and nod your head before scurrying away.

Once you’re out of his sight he plops onto the nearest sofa and drops his gun. It lands with a loud thud as he puts his head into his hands and shakes visibly. Flashbacks of that dreaded day start to play over and over in his head and he clenches his teeth as a tear rolls down his eye.

Lilac was a woman he met during one of his travels as an IPC stoneheart. They got along pretty well and eventually fell in love. A few years ago, Aventurine asked her for help during a deal he made and she agreed only for the other party to target her as leverage against Aventurine. He still remembers the pain in her eyes as she looked at him, confused and hurt from how she became the target. He remembers holding her in his arms apologising over and over for his lack of foresight, unable to figure out where he went wrong.

It was the first and last deal he ever lost. And now you, his new partner after several hard years of grief, were bringing up old wounds that never healed. Gaps of his heart that nothing would ever fill. Another tear rolls down his eye as he grits his teeth further. Had he known you would bring her up like this, he would have never told you about her. It’s always the closest ones that hurt you the most. ⋇⋆✦⋆⋇ ©mm-lurking 2024 do not copy, steal or reuse my work.

[dashielldeveron]

soulmate trope | dabi

Dabi’s route of soulmate trope.

"post-canon dabi? canon isn't even finished as of when this was posted on 30 july 2023!" to you. i know he's doing just fine. and obviously i will be wrong about some things. warnings: female reader. manga spoilers up to chapter 390: specifically about touya's body but vaguely about ~all of that~. sexual content. food mention/discussion. injury descriptions (burns) that aren't reader's. weeb slander. a note: part of the plot revolves around...analysing anime. i use hunter x hunter here, and if you are not into that, i have, to the best of my knowledge, included neither spoilers (aside from early story arc names) nor information that cannot be understood via context clues. additionally, there is a brief pokemon metaphor that also can hopefully be understood with context clues as well.

~27.7k

You’re being watched.

Or rather, you had the eerily intense inkling that you were being watched, or as if you were some sort of recently awakened sleeper agent—as if you were somehow the key to someone’s spying into U.A., even though the most secretive thing going on right now in 3-A’s common area was that Hagakure’s facial features were somewhat revealed by the drying face mask.

“Jirou,” you said, bookmarking your place, “Would you mind checking for—I don’t know, any kind of outside surveillance devices in here?”

Jirou bit the stem of the carnation she’d been about to weave into Yaoyorozu’s hair and shifted all the strands of the braid into one hand, and she tilted her head to jab the arm of the couch with her earjack. After a few moments, she unsheathed it, the hole in the couch sealing itself, and shook her head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. What’s up?”

Furrowing your brow, you shoved your book between the cushion and arm of your chair. “I’m not sure. It’s—I have this weird feeling that someone’s looking at me. Or through me, really. Both? I don’t know how to describe it, but it feels like someone else is seeing what I’m seeing.”

“Do your eyes hurt, ribbit?” Asui asked from her spot on the floor, where she was sorting her m&ms by colour.

“No. More like I’m hyperaware of them,” you said, “But I can’t shake the feeling that someone’s watching all of this because of me.”

“What’s there to watch? It’s nothing but a Girls and Todoroki Night. There’s nothing worth seeing and or any big secrets being spilled. Well, spoilers for the New Year’s episode of Kamisama Kiss, but it’s been out for years already,” said Mina, gesturing towards the television, and Uraraka snatched Mina’s hand out of the air and laid it flat on the coffee table again, because she’s not done painting her nails, damn it. Mina sighed dreamily at the sheep whose wool fluffed enough to take up the entire screen. “What I wouldn’t give for my hair to have that much volume.”

“I guess you’re right,” you said, settling down into your chair, pulling Shinsou’s blue-pineappled blanket up to your neck (he was out on his bike, so he wasn’t attending this Girls and Todoroki Night [Shinsou and Todoroki were the only boys allowed, since their presence wasn’t obtrusive or contrary to the vibe. Additionally, Shinsou thought it was funnier if his name weren’t included in the title of these events]). “Y’know, in the manga, the New Year avatar isn’t a sheep. It’s a dragon.”

Mina blew on her hands as Uraraka rebottled the nail polish brush. “Whaaaaat?

“It was changed to a sheep to align with the year the episode was released,” said Todoroki, his thumb and index finger pinching his lower lip with his eyes glued to the screen, “I understand the change on a narrative scale, but I believe the dragon had more of a character arc than the sheep. The dragon didn’t think it was as appealing as other years’ avatars, and it had to learn to accept itself and accept others’ love for it. It was rooted in misunderstanding.”

For some reason, when you looked at Todoroki, you were doused with regret. Sharp and cold, followed by a splash of something more muddled: envy, maybe? Gratitude?

These…these feelings weren’t yours.

***

“I can’t believe I missed a Girls and Todoroki Night,” said Shinsou, grinning, his legs dangling off the dorm’s kitchen counter, “but alas! The night was calling, and I had to go out in it.”

“We will not spoil Kamisama Kiss for you,” said Todoroki. He was crouched in front of the oven, hands clasped as he stared through the tinted window at the browning potato wedges. “You will have to watch that episode on your own.”

“You should really read the manga,” you were saying as you scanned the inside of the refrigerator, looking for anything that might go well with the potatoes—ah, Aoyama’s got some bougie-looking sauce. Savoury, by the looks of it. “It goes farther than the anime covers, and it’s so sweet. The worldbuilding gets better, too.” You took out the bottle and gave it an experimental shake.

“Really?” Shinsou wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know; that villain guy isn’t very fun. Feels like too much time is wasted on him.”

Todoroki’s head snapped towards Shinsou at the same time you slammed the refrigerator shut. “No,” the both of you said at the same time, and you continued. “The anime hasn’t been quite as accurate in tone regarding that character, but he’s really wonderful, eventually. You really feel for what happened to him and for his past relationship to the main characters. Simple but effective job of deconstructing his villainy and granting him humanity.”

“Huh.” Shinsou propped his cheek on his fist, his ankle resting on his opposite knee. “I wonder how much nuance I’m missing because I’m only watching the anime.”

For a second, you felt as groggy as if you’d just woken up, your eyes focusing a bit more precisely, blurring the kitchen tiles for a moment before re-focusing, and it crept in again: the feeling that someone was watching you, that someone else was here.

“Hey, Shinsou, Todoroki,” you said, blinking several times, Aoyama’s brown sauce clutched in both hands, “Do my eyes look any different?”

Both of them looked you over. Shinsou shook his head. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I’ve got—” You nodded towards Todoroki. “I have that same feeling from last night. Like someone’s watching. But Jirou said nothing was wrong.” Shrugging, you tossed the sauce to Shinsou and sat in front of the oven with Todoroki. “I guess Kamisama Kiss must bring out the voyeur in me. Or being voyeur-ed. Watched.” You crossed your legs at the same time Todoroki jolted because of a crushed peppercorn popping in the oven. “Maybe we should start reading manga alongside the anime so that we can judge how accurate they are. See how much character nuance is lost or preserved.”

Todoroki’s eyes bulged. “You have no idea how much that appeals to me. I desperately need to discuss the differences between the Hunter x Hunter 1999 anime, the 2011 anime, and the manga. Sero refuses to watch the 1999 version.”

Amusement. Condescension. Bubbling to the top of your consciousness.

Distinctly not yours.

Why would you be feeling these things in the face of something that sounded so wonderfully, uselessly pedantic? A project like Todoroki’s just proposed sounded like an absolutely ideal waste of time that would allow you to be more accurate than the vast majority of people when it came to plot, lore, and characterisation. Why would emotions you’d associate with making fun of someone pop up now? You didn’t want to make fun of Todoroki; you were enthusiastic about joining him in this pointless endeavour.

The timer on Shinsou’s phone blared, and he tapped it off, patting his pockets (?) for the oven mitt, which he spotted on the counter next to him. “Why would Sero refuse to watch the older version?”

Todoroki helped you stand and guided the both of you away from the oven. “To be fair, in the 1999 anime, the animators did take liberties with panel composition and brought in new angles and lines sporadically. Colours are also odd and inaccurate, and those are corrected, for the most part, in the 2011 version. More of the manga is covered, and the animation is smoother in the 2011 version as well.”

Why did you feel the distant sensation of laughing? Nothing about this has been funny, per se, but the…what was going on?

“Okay, I’ll bite,” you said, strangely heavy and hyperaware and surveying the tray of steaming potato wedges as Shinsou shuffled it to the stove, “I’ll do it with you, all this manga accuracy checking.”

“Me, too,” said Shinsou, shaking the over mitt off, “My suggestion is that we keep it to just the three of us, to prevent exhausting arguments, like we’d have in a big group the size of Girls and Todoroki Nights.”

“I can lend you the first few volumes,” said Todoroki, opening a cabinet to search for Aoyama’s sauce bowls, “After that, I have a link to high-quality scans I can send you.”

“Sounds perfect,” you said, reaching for a potato wedge that did not sizzle and screech as much as the others, “Should we watch the first episode tomorrow night?” When you retracted your hand at the burn, you felt your own pain and someone else’s sense of nostalgia.

***

You’d already been on the precipice of falling asleep during Present Mic’s lesson, but when a concentrated shot of fatigue pierced you, you set down your pen and reluctantly resolved to get the subsequent notes from Iida. God, couldn’t this wait until you were out of class? No one needed to see how terrible your own notes were. No one needed to see your drawings in the margins.

Burying your face in your hands, you dug the heels of your palms into your eyes, rubbing them as the lethargy kicked in, and you braced yourself for the uncanny sensation of being your own worst voyeur.

When you opened them, after the lightheaded dots blinked away, you weren’t in the classroom, instead entrenched in darkness. Well, wait—you groped around on your desk: physically, you still were upright in your desk at U.A., able to grasp your pen, set it down, able to faintly hear Present Mic, as if he’s in the next room over.

Blindly, you tapped Mina’s desk behind you, turning your head over your shoulder. “Do my eyes look weird to you?”

“No. Should they?” she whispered back—or maybe she said it at a normal volume, and the classroom had been so far removed the distance silenced her.

Biting the inside of your cheek, you faced the front again. Looks like you have to figure this out yourself, or else you’ll be sitting in pitch black for who knows how long.

A minute passed. Your eyes adjusted to the darkness, shapes appearing—you’re inside. In a room with the lights off. Sideways, for some reason. One of the shapes was so rigidly rectangular that it had to be a shoji divider, and you were just trying to estimate its size when all of your mental facilities halted at a loud, rumbling groan.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” a scratchy, masculine voice said, “Must be my turn, huh?”

He flipped over, and barely cracked venetian blinds behind dark curtains just barely illuminated part of the scene: you were seeing this sideways because he was lying in bed, an out-of-place, opulent, Western-style bed in what you assumed was an Eastern-style room, judging what you could make out of traditional wallpaper and tatami flooring.

“Well, you’re not getting anything out of me,” he said, reaching for one of the many strewn pillows and hugging it—you lost half of your sight when his face sank into it (too dark for you to get a good look at his hands or arms), “Sucks for you, but I’m going back to sleep. Don’t care how curious you are. Not sharin’ anything with someone who can’t cook potato wedges right.”

No, get up. Get up. Say more right now. Who was he? It’s—it’s the middle of the day, anyhow; what is he doing asleep?

“Hah. You’re angry with me.” His laugh sounded more like a hiss, somehow. “Get used to it.”

He shut his eyes. After about a minute, the darkness faded, and Present Mic’s voice hit you at full volume, and you winced, clamping a hand down on your notes when the classroom came into view.

***

“You are not dropping out of school the semester you’re supposed to graduate,” said Aizawa, pinching the bridge of his nose, elbow digging into the puffy leather chair by Nezu’s desk.

“From my perspective, it does not appear you are a liability to U.A.’s security.” Nezu steepled his paws together, his pink toe beans preventing him from pressing them completely flat. “Simply seeing through each other’s eyes and feeling some of his emotions are no cause for the drastic security measures you are proposing. I believe that so long as you have some sort of indicator that either situation is happening, faculty can prepare for your temporary debility.”

“Don’t even think about abusing it to get out of class,” said Aizawa, propping his chin on his fist.

“You think I would? Shocked! Shocked and offended,” you said, “I’m gonna be in class; I don’t trust anyone else’s notes. I want my own interpretations of lectures.” You slumped down in your seat, tilting your head back to stare at the ceiling. “Principal Nezu, do you have an idea of why this is happening to me?”

“I do.” Nezu opened the top drawer in his desk to retrieve a stack of yellow-green papers, torn from a legal pad and crimped because of whatever was spilled on it. “Recovery Girl and Midnight have been analysing the results of Tainted Love’s quirk for some time now. The female rehabilitation centre with which Midnight works, Sakura Grove, has uncovered evidence of two other incidents that caused a soulmate bond with similar qualities to form.”

“What? No,” you said, letting a whine creep into your voice, “That means my soulmate’s a jerk. He was rude to me. He insulted my potato wedge recipe.”

Aizawa raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth twitching upward as he crossed his arms. “You can’t expect there to be love at first sight, can you? Love is a choice. You work at it every day. You have to keep choosing it.”

“Yaoyorozu and Jirou were already dating when they got assigned soulmates,” you said, listing on your fingers, “Midoriya and Uraraka had been pining after each other for years—”

Aizawa scowled. “Stop that.”

“So, do you want me to report anything? Do you want me to duck out of class when he—checks in?”

“If you feel unsafe, let us know. Otherwise, it is of my opinion that you will be just fine,” said Nezu, and he reached for his paw-sized coffee cup to remove the melting stroopwaffle cookie off the top. “Report what you perceive as dangerous, but you deserve privacy. When you decide on your signal that the bond is active, please send an email to faculty members. Whether or not you inform your peers is at your discretion.”

***

So, of course, you told everyone.

Meaning no one batted an eye the next time the soulmate bond activated, which was in class. Feeling the exhaustion and the slight buzz from your soulmate popping in to watch through you, you made the phone call symbol, grabbed a marker from the whiteboard, and headed out into the hall, no questions asked.

“Hey,” you were saying, shoving your forearm against the concrete-block wall and popping the marker cap off with your mouth, “Good to hear from you. Didn’t know I could see through you, too. Excited to see how we’ll deal with that. This is my phone number.” You scrawled it across your arm, along with your given name above it. “If you can’t memorise it now, that’s fine. I’ll write it down next time, too, so you could prepare to have something nearby to record it with. I look forward to getting to know you.”

No strong emotions on his part. But he was there.

“Okay,” you said, and you turned to sink down against the wall to sit in the deserted hallway. “Some basic stuff: I’m a student at U.A., in my last year. I’m in that—uh, I’m in the class that’s gotten into a bit of trouble over the past few years. Midoriya, Bakugou, and all of them, if you watch the news. I’ve just ducked out of class with everyone.” You kept looking at your arm so that he could memorise it. “I don’t really wanna talk about my quirk, since that seems like such a boring, capital-A adult question, but I can tell you about it later, if you really want to know. Oh! I do not suck at making potato wedges. It was just a recipe that none of us had made before, and they were fine. They were good. I—”

And he’s gone, link severed.

Crossing your arms, you slumped against the wall. Did he choose to end it? Could he? He didn’t seem very receptive, so you wouldn’t put it past him.

***

You woke up from a nap watching through him play a video game, some non-discernible, first-person shooter. Again in the dark, but perhaps not in the same room. The windows weren’t open enough to let in enough light to tell.

Your soulmate never acknowledged you were there by gesture or word. Just played his stupid fucking game. You were trying to send him foul vibes of frustration and indignation, but he ignored you.

After a mere six minutes of the world’s worst Let’s Play, you decided you could be a little bitch as well.

***

“Oh! He’s here. Excuse me,” you said to Shinsou and Jirou, making the phone call gesture as you pushed yourself up from the lunch table, “I’ll be back in a moment. Please guard my gummies from Monoma.”

A flash of curiosity, finally, from your soulmate as he got the image of Shinsou and Jirou smirking to themselves and waving you off.

Once you were alone outside in the courtyard, you pulled out and unfolded the piece of pink construction paper, at this point every inch covered by doodles of flowers and increasingly shitty bulbasaurs. You tapped at the writing in the centre. “This is called a telephone number,” you said, “This one belongs to me. If you dial this number into a phone to call it, you will reach me. Then, we could have a conversation and arrange to meet up, instead of this unreliable, one-sided bond.”

You flattened your hand to smooth out the creases, halting midway when it struck you. “I’ve just realised you may be confused by this situation. Don’t worry; I am as well. But be assured, due to a quirk incident, we’ve been assigned soulmates. Yeah, I know they’re fake, but with this villain Tainted Love’s quirk, soulmates are real.”

He evidently was feeling like he wanted to walk straight into the ocean.

“I’m assuming you’re not a U.A. student, so—do you remember breathing in some sort of pink dust? Within about the past—I don’t know, two and a half years? That’s how long Tainted Love was active. She only got arrested about a month or so ago.” You couldn’t garner anything from him except for exasperation, so you continued. “And not, like, snorting a line of pink dust. It would’ve been in a dust cloud. A bit like fog. You would’ve noticed it.”

Staring at your phone number the whole time, you allowed him silence to think. Whatever he was feeling was very subdued, so you couldn’t really surmise what it was, but ten seconds before the bond broke, a livid, fiery ire consumed your whole body in the heat of recognition.

***

Shinsou, Todoroki, and you were all crowded around a laptop in Shinsou’s dorm to watch the beginning episodes of Hunter x Hunter the next time your soulmate spoke to you. He’d gone a couple of times ignoring you in silence, once outside on a walk during the day on a path uptown you didn’t recognise, and the other on some rooftop while playing on his phone and watching a meteor shower. Completely disregarding your attempts to give him your number or talk to him in real time.

It just figured that he bothered to spare you any information when you were trying to see what the next phase of the Hunter Exam was, so Todoroki and Shinsou paused the show for you and waited. With a stab of affection for your friends, you moved to the corner, waiting for your soulmate to say something.

And he was. Your soulmate knew more combinations of swear words and general filth than you’ve ever cared to consider, and you were almost impressed with the creativity of his vulgarity. Outside under the night sky, he was furiously ripping open some medium-sized, cardboard box as he stomped towards a carefully cultivated, lilypad-covered, manmade pond towards the back of a highly organised, traditional garden.

Eventually, non-profanity was added. “Goddamn fucking shit-ass fish and goddamn fucking shit-ass crusty motherfucking doctor can’t take care of his own goddamn fucking pet project.” Tips of his house slippers stopping at the pond only by way of running into the stone wall, he stumbled, growling in frustration, before regaining his balance and yanking out the plastic bag inside the remnants of the box. “Wants a goddamn gift for fucking Mom but can’t be arsed to do it him-fucking-self. Deserves every fish fucked into his respiratory system, clogging up his arteries to give himself a goddamn heart attack. And then I can’t be blamed for—” The plastic stretched, and he ended up tearing it in half above the water, pieces falling atop waterlilies. “Shit on a cuntbag. What the fuck. I don’t deserve this.”

He stretched to reach the waterlilies, cupping his hands to sweep the fish food off and into the water. And—the moonlight struck the gently rippling water, enough for you to see a flash of an orange koi tail break the surface tension, but not enough to see whatever was going on with his hands—not that he was doing anything strange with them (just picking shreds of plastic out of the water), but they somehow were strange. They moved stiffly and had some sort of bumps on them, but—does this guy live in darkness? You couldn’t tell anything about what his hands looked like aside from the shadowed bumps, which could be anything.

“I deserve a lot, but I sure as hell don’t deserve this.” He rounded the pond and punched a few buttons on a small, hidden, monitor, checking the pH of the pool and water levels. “Not my fucking job. Not my fucking job. Why do they think—why am I the one to do this shit. How come I can get in trouble with my fucking brother for him not taking care of his project.” He swatted at his wet bathrobe sleeve, pissed, and shook out some of the water. “Hey, you. I know you’re there.”

Back in the dorm, you jolted in your seat. In the distance, you could hear Shinsou ask what was wrong. “Nothing,” you said, sounding distant yourself, “He acknowledged me is all. Hasn’t done that for a while, so it felt like a fourth wall break.”

Your soulmate sat down on the edge of the pond, glaring out at the rest of the garden (wisteria heavy, vines swaying in the night wind). “Are you hot?”

You’d never wanted to be able to transfer direct words or actions to him so much, because he needed to be strangled.

“I’m not kidding.” He crossed his arms, covered by a dark bathrobe, sticking his hands in his armpits. “Are you hot? I don’t like the idea of being connected to some hideous fuckwad.”

Never mind. Now you have never wanted to be—

“This quirk shit isn’t gonna last long, but if you’re hot, you need to get on my dick before it goes away. I wanna see how it looks giving me a blowjob from your perspective.”

Kill. Destroy. Maim. Eviscerate, even.

“Ooh, watch out. We’ve got an uptight, prudish bitch over here,” he said, and he laughed—again, sounding more like a hiss than anything else. “Well, then. If you’re not gonna put out, then I’ve got no use for you. Don’t need anyone, especially not some goddamn lunatic who claims to be my soulmate. Too many people are interfering in my life, anyway. And to be honest, it seems like you’re dumb and irritating. I don’t like people like you.”

Maybe you’re soulmates because you’re destined to kill him on sight. Your soul, calling out for his to suffer extreme violence. He’d deserve it.

May all his potato wedges burn.

***

Monoma was at the next Hunter x Hunter anime viewing, because he’d been dying to know why you were wearing an actual and literal clown costume, wig and enormous foam nose included.

“I’m liking the new hero outfit,” Monoma said, flipping his hair back with a flourish, “but why are you wearing it during our off-hours?”

“Shove off,” you said, grinning as Shinsou tossed you a pillow to hold, “Did you bring your peach gummies?”

“I did,” said Monoma, sitting next to you on Todoroki’s tatami mats, and he pulled a massive bag of white peach gummies from inside his jacket, handing it to you to open. “May I ask if it’s seriously part of your new uniform, or—”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Monoma,” you said, ripping open the bag at the notch, “I’m making a point.”

“Her soulmate,” Shinsou supplied, pulling up the next episode, “He wants to know what she looks like. So, she’s been dressing up in horrible, gawdy shit so that he can never really tell, even around mirrors.”

“He’s pissed,” you said, beaming, digging into the bag and popping a gummy into your mouth, “He wants me to stop playing around, but he was mean to me. Mean to me, unprovoked, and in a way that wasn’t hot. Tomorrow, I’m wearing a sheet and running around like a ghost. I will say nothing to him but boo.”

“I suppose that explains the influx of regular face masks you’ve taken to wearing during class.” Monoma scoffed, his incredulous, open mouth stretching into a grin. “You are impossible. If your humourless soulmate is worth his salt, then he should at least value the effort you’re putting into it.”

“Sero has sent me a message,” interrupted Todoroki, thumb swiping his phone screen, “He says that he has changed his mind and would like to join us. He’s started rereading the series and likes it more this time around.” Todoroki looked up and around his room, lips pursed. “There is not much space for five people. It is getter harder to see the laptop.”

***

The five of you started the Heaven’s Arena arc of Hunter x Hunter in Aizawa’s dorm apartment, seeing as he had the best television setup: for one, having an actual television instead of simply relying on his computer. His sound system held up, too, though you suspected Present Mic had something to do with that, instead of Aizawa’s own preferences.

You, Shinsou, Todoroki, Monoma, and Sero were scattered across Aizawa’s living room, all cosied under blankets and pillows and pointed towards his wall-mounted television, sitting on his cat-hair covered couch and armchairs, mugs and snacks on his coffee table, socked feet loose, and house slippers at the edge of the shag rug. The cats, Dango and Konpeito, chose to snuggle up towards Todoroki and you (beat that, Shinsou!), so you were careful not to disturb them from their slumber on your lap. No sudden movements, even when the tired dizziness of your bitch soulmate faded in.

“Spoilers for Hunter x Hunter, I suppose, even though it’s been out for decades,” you said under your breath, raising your hand to signal to the others that your soulmate was looking in. At your movement, Dango raised her head from her cocoon in your lap to yawn, her face nearly turning inside out, and she flinched, her pupils dilating, at the creak of the door.

Laden with groceries, Aizawa stepped into his own apartment, his brow furrowing at the sight of his students in his living room. “You have ten seconds to tell me what you’re doing here.”

“The fuck?” Sero whipped his head towards Shinsou and back at Aizawa. “Shinsou told us you were okay with it.”

“I said that he wouldn’t mind, which he can’t if he doesn’t catch us,” said Shinsou, bracing himself when Aizawa tugged at his capture weapon around his neck, “It’s my fault, Aizawa-sensei. Please don’t get angry at anyone else.”

Your soulmate seemed pleased that you were getting in trouble. Bastard.

Aizawa set his cloth bags on his kitchen counter, the insides shifting with the weight of the groceries. “Is this appropriate for Eri to watch?”

“Well, in general—”

A character onscreen chose that moment to seductively moan another character’s name, over and over again.

Aizawa winced, scrunching his eyes shut tightly. “Turn that shit off. Find another place to watch it.” Shaking his head, he unbagged the first of his groceries. “Shinsou, never bring anyone, including yourself, into my personal space again with express permission.”

“Damn it,” you said, reaching for the remote. You pressed the power button, watching the screen fade from the vibrant colours of Heaven’s Arena to black, with Aizawa’s living room reflecting back at you. Forlornly, you scratched the back of Dango’s neck, watching her mirrored reaction, before you realised what you were doing: giving your bitch-ass soulmate a clear view of your bare face. Eyes bulging, you gasped and bent over to hide your face, with Dango scurrying away at being disturbed.

The connection cut at the faint suggestion of intrigue.

***

YOU

hey i know we said we’d keep it small but. i think midoriya would really enjoy the battle analysis that the hxh characters are doing

YOU

bc they be doing some QUICK analytic work based on their opponents’ personalities

TODOROKI 💅🎏

Midoriya has been asking more questions than usual during our sparring sessions.

SERO 🧃🍊

ffs why isn’t he already in the group? should’ve thought of him

SHINSOU 💜🍡

want me to add him?

YOU

would that be okay, todoroki?

TODOROKI 💅🎏

There’s more than enough room at our new venue. We should invite him.

SHINSOU 💜🍡

why don’t you text him then? it’s at your place

MONOMA 🔇🎭

Midoriya CANNOT sit next to me

MONOMA 🔇🎭

I’d like to hear the onscreen dialogue instead of whatever he’s saying under his breath

MONOMA 🔇🎭

He CANNOT shut up

YOU

WHOMST won’t shut up??????

SERO 🧃🍊

don’t worry no one will sit next to you

MONOMA 🔇🎭

Good

MONOMA 🔇🎭

Wait

TODOROKI 💅🎏

Midoriya can attend! He’ll be a little late today, but I think we should wait for him, since it’s his first time joining us.

Startled by the waiter, you put your phone down on your notebook and accepted your coffee graciously. You shifted your laptop and notebook over so that you could cup the mug in front of you, its warmth seeping through the sides, and you took a tentative slurp. Interesting. You’ll finish it, but you won’t order this again.

You were killing time that Saturday by getting ahead on your work for Put Your Hands Up Radio: editing and fact-checking news segments that Yamada would read between songs towards the evening. Electing to get some sunshine on your skin before hunkering down with the group again to analyse some anime, you’d chosen to edit the articles outside at a café you’d discovered recently, one at which you hadn’t decided on a regular order yet and were shopping around the menu each time you came. Plus, if you’d stayed on campus, no doubt Shinsou or Monoma would’ve found you to distract you.

The café’s patio with scorching, cast-iron furniture and haphazard parasol installation led to most of its customers sitting inside, but that meant you had space to think, even with the hot groves of your seat imprinting patterns into your skin.

Your soulmate was probably being rude because he was scared, or perhaps he didn’t believe that Tainted Love’s quirk was legitimate. You’d have to assure him that it was, as you’d run through Nezu’s report with Midnight and Recovery Girl, fact-checking that. Either way. Some frustrated guy—living at home, apparently, and pissed about it—was paired out of the blue with some student at U.A. He might be scared that you were a creep.

Tainted Love’s team’s notes on her quirk that Midnight had confiscated explained that each soulmate bond, somehow, was moulded around the pair’s personalities and would fulfil a lifelong need. A lot of responsibility, it seemed, but if it were true—and other pairs proved it true—you would fulfil it naturally, and so would he.

So, even though your soulmate had been rude, you’d give him a chance. The soulmate bond existed for a reason. Plus, he might be a real-life tsundere, and wouldn’t that be fun to crack? To be the only one a rude, evil person was soft for was the ideal, wasn’t it? Someone so naturally cruel and heartless but learning to be kind for you—

Get a hold of yourself. He’s a real guy who will be in your life forever, not just someone you can throw away, like a celebrity/pro-hero crush. Treat him seriously.

“I’m…being serious,” you said to yourself, pouting into your coffee. You hunched in your seat to drink from the mug without lifting it, and you slorped away the neck of the latte art swan the barista had so carefully poured. “He’s probably not even be a sexy sort of cold-hearted. He’s just a type of bitchiness I haven’t learnt how to handle yet.”

Those boys in the anime analysis group? You could play their types of bitchiness like the world’s smallest fiddle. They were all so easy to handle (especially Monoma because of his predictability; Todoroki gave you the most trouble due to his complete non sequiturs), and it was fun bouncing off the petty parts of their personalities. Your soulmate spun things differently, but you’d learn his inclinations in time. If not, it’s not worth your time trying to “fix” someone who has no redeeming vulnerability.

You sighed. Now that you’ve lost your editing groove, you might as well do some last-minute reading before watching the next few episodes tonight. Closing your laptop, you reached down into your bag to get the next volume of Todoroki’s manga, and your vision blurred over, dizziness incoming. Well, at least you’re sitting down.

You held the manga volume in your lap and waited for your soulmate’s line of sight to appear. If he were in a darkened room yet again, you could buy yourself a little treat. The café’s display case had some sort of new chess square that you’d been eyeing. And—shit, sunlight was coming through. No little treat for you.

Well, maybe you’ll get one, anyway. You slumped farther down in your seat, blinking as dappled, sunlight-covered pavement and an empty terrace outside a business across a busy street came into view—your soulmate jumped back off the road when a car whooshed by, and after that, he jaywalked, horns blaring in his wake.

He did a little hop to get on the opposite sidewalk, hands in his pockets, and peered past the iron fence into the window of the shop—a packed coffee shop; maybe you could at least learn his coffee order, because then you’d have some shred of information about him. But no, he unlatched the iron gate and wove his way through the cast-iron patio chairs and tables, and—

You’re staring right at you: sitting, legs crossed, not taking up space, stuff spread out over your table, and he’s gaining on you. You flinched, watched yourself flinch, and your gaze darted around until you were able to meet his (your) eyes (your head making minor, nervous movements you wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t seen them), expression cautious, curling in on yourself on impulse. When you saw how, through an outsider, that made you look small, you made the effort to sit up and roll your shoulders back, elbows on the table. You watched yourself recoil at the heat of the iron, and you had to use his perspective to know where your notebook was so that you could rest your arms on it.

He brushed past your table’s open chair, instead yanking the table by the edge away from your lap so that he could stand closer to you and grabbing your face. He first cupped your jaw with his whole hand, pale skin and leather of a fingerless glove cold to the touch, and then, when he seemed sure you weren’t going to protest (his vision turned slightly to the left—he must have tilted his head), he narrowed his grip in little jerks of his hand, sliding erratically from gripping your jaw to just tilting your chin upwards towards him. He turned your head to the left and to the right before returning to centre to stare you down (you’d been pliant under his control, because the doubling of you watching you do things was throwing off your senses of balance and direction).

“Not as hard as you fucking made it out to be, huh?” His thumb rubbed over your chin. His nail was cracked. “Now, are you gonna stop acting like a little bitch, or are we gonna keep playing your stupid game?”

“First of all,” you said, fascinated by the way your lips curled in under your teeth to shape the consonants, and judging by where your soulmate was looking, he was, too. “It’s not an act. I am a little bitch.”

“No more of that hiding shit.” He tapped your cheek a little harder than he needed to with his middle two fingers. “Don’t know why you’d wanna hide this, anyway.”

You wouldn’t’ve said you winced at his rough touch, but you noticed enough of an aggravated microexpression around your eyes that you could tell you didn’t like it. “You’re doing the same. Hiding what you look like from me.”

“And I’m gonna keep doing it. You get nothing. There is no us. Soulmates don’t exist, and even if some hack fraud’s quirk has paired us off, I don’t need anybody, least of all you.”

“Well, maybe you don’t need anyone,” you said, your eyes dipping to see more of his hand (hot damn, we forgot we can’t see through our own eyes that quickly?) and then raising them to look directly into your soulmate’s—hyperaware of the way your eyelashes fluttered against your skin, of the slight pinch of your eyebrows, of the way the sun struck your cheeks, “but you could want someone.”

A sliver of a cool breeze wove its way through the patio, some of your hair swaying with it.

“I won’t pressure you to do anything you don’t want,” you said, lying, “but at the very least, we could communicate enough for this to be easy for us. Please let me give you my phone number, and please save it this time.”

His thumb inched up to press into your lower lip.

“Please,” you said, eyes dark but slightly glassy, letting your tongue tap the tip of his thumb, so lightly wetting it that it was as if you hadn’t touched it at all.

Your soulmate tilted his head again, lurching to the side as he shifted his weight to lean on the table. He knocked your pen onto the ground, and when you made the slightest movement to grab it, he pressed his thumb harder against you to still you, and he shook his head.

Your throat ran dry. Your (his) eyes honed in on the bead of sweat dripping down it and into your blouse. “Give me your name, then. A name, if you hate me that much.”

“It’s Touya,” he grumbled, and he closed his eyes in the moment before he kissed you, cold lips open before even touching yours (both rough, but his lower lip was much rougher for some reason). Blind, you startled back at the initial touch, but he held your chin firmly near his, sliding his gloved hand to your cheek as his tongue did into your mouth, pressing against the roof of your mouth and along your gums, alternating pressure where he pleased, not seeming to care what you did with your tongue—not that you were doing much at all due to surprise, but you at least had the mind to press your lips back, because while yes, his style was unorthodox, it still felt good. He laughed through his nose, once, when you slid your tongue against his, but when you raised a hand to cup his cheek, he pulled away before you could do more than graze him.

“Touya,” you said, and now that he was looking at you again, you—well, you looked kissed out, leaning towards him to chase that feeling, to encourage him to touch you again, and you looked fucking hot (the hell? It took a lot for you to think of yourself that way, and today hadn’t even been a good day for you, but now, freshly kissed, saying your soulmate’s name, you found yourself thinking you were pretty. Uh. Could this be what he was thinking instead of you? You couldn’t tell; it felt like it was coming from somewhere deep in your gut). “Touya. Let me write—”

You watched yourself grapple for your pen for a while. He huffed, crossed his arms, and bothered to look down where your pen was for you, and when he did, you finally grabbed it.

“Touya,” you said, uncapping the pen and hovering over your notebook, and you paused after the first stroke. “Touya spelled like that Todoroki Touya who released that Endeavor video during the war?”

The ink bled through the sheet of paper from being pressed in one spot for too long.

“Yeah,” he said eventually, voice rasping, “Spelled just like his.”

“Okay,” you said, bending over your paper and writing based on muscle memory, and under his name, you wrote your phone number for him again, with your name written beneath it, just to hammer it in. You ripped the page out of your notebook with some difficulty before passing it to him.

Touya scanned it and rubbed his thumb over your name, the leather of his fingerless glove catching on the uneven tear.

Cute. Nerd. “Do the gloves have something to do with your quirk?”

“What? No,” he said, crumpling the paper and stowing it in his pocket, and he kept his hands there, hiding them, “I don’t have a quirk.”

Okay, so Touya spoke in a rush and concealed evidence. Sounds like a lie. Monoma took that route on occasion, so the obvious thing for you to say was “Oh, so you wear them because of Naruto? Do you run like him, too?”

“Fuck off,” he spat, and you watched yourself grin: you’ve got him. “As if I had time to be a fuckin’ otaku.”

“Good to know,” you said, “So, all the manga re-analysis I’ve been doing with my friends is new to you? I hope you’re not planning on reading or watching any of the works that we’re covering, then. Unless you wanted to read along with us?”

“I don’t need that shit to scorch my brain.” For some reason, he winced, scrunching his eyes shut for a moment, and you waited in the dark for him.

“You have enough going on?”

He pried his eyes open, blinking blearily at you, still grinning, still smug. “Yeah,” he said, and he dug his left hand out to stare at the back of it, leather shining in the sunlight while he wiggled his fingers. He bent across the table to grab your coffee, fingers spidering over the rim to grip it, and he brought it to his mouth. “This is fucking awful; what’s wrong with you?” he asked after an audible swallow.

“It’s not my usual order.” Closing your notebook, you crossed your arms, staring down at you and feeling more and more like you’re in a dream. “You can either tell me what your quirk is, because I know you’re lying, or you could stay? For coffee? I’ll buy you something better.”

(You would have asked what’s up with his appearance that he didn’t want you to see or feel, but considering how early in your first official meeting it was, the question may be too insensitive, especially if he were born with it.)

Touya glanced over his shoulder, saw something you couldn’t, and set your mug on the iron table with a quiet clink. “I’ve got to go,” he said, and he spun around, taking the first step away.

You slammed a hand on the table purely on guesswork based on where he left your mug, and the sound of shaking iron and tinkling porcelain resounded, distant when you heard it through his ears, yet feeling the vibrations travel through your own arms. “Tell me your goddamn quirk, you daft fucker.”

Touya paused, and he turned back to you. “That’s more like it.” He sat on your table, at the place over your lap, and he reached out towards your face. You saw yourself lean back, eyes wide, but he simply dug his fingers into your hair at your hairline, scratching your scalp and digging his nails in enough to hear the movement.

(You saw yourself frown the moment you noticed his skin was colder than the glove.)

“Barking at me like that is how information is usually torn out of me. Makes me feel at home,” he said, a bit too cheerfully for your liking, “You can be trained to be a bitch towards me yet.”

“Touya,” you said, raising your head to embolden more of his touch, “Who’s—who’s been treating you like that? You don’t deserve it.”

“Shut up.” Touya laid his hand flat atop your head, the weight of it pushing down on you. “Sure, I lied. Said I didn’t have a quirk. Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters.” Your tongue swiped over your lower lip, and Touya’s gaze darted to it. “I want any scrap of you I can get. Everything I’ve already learnt I’ve filed away in my heart: your name, the way you speak, your hatred of your brother’s fish and living at home—”

The hand on your hand slipped to slap over your mouth. “Jesus Christ, stop noticing things about me. Freak. Goddamn.” Touya lifted his hand off of you, and based on his perspective, he ran it through his own hair. “So that you don’t go making your own intrusive observations, I’ll tell you about my quirk: I effectively don’t have one anymore. I used it a lot, and it fucked me up. So, for my own self-preservation, which I’ve been told I should value, I can’t use it anymore. Good enough for you?”

“Great enough for me,” you said, “I’ll take care not to talk about my quirk or hero course stuff too much. I don’t want you to feel left out.”

“Holy shit,” said Touya, and he broke eye contact with you to stare at his boots (scuffed, black, but new, so the scuffing must be intentional), blinking rapidly before pressing—probably—his thumb and forefinger against his eyelids.

Something was deeply wrong with this man. You needed him to kiss you again. You opened your mouth to ask him to, but wooziness and your dry throat called; the ripped page of your notebook you’d been staring at dripped back into your own perspective at a glacial pace. You heard the scuffle of his shuffling off the iron table and the grit of his boot against the concrete, and when you grappled for him in the dark, your hand clenched around nothing.

You rubbed your eyes until the vertigo passed, and when you opened them, Touya was gone.

***

Later that afternoon, you were scrolling through your phone on the end cushion of one of Todoroki’s couches in the living room in a poor effort not to gawk at everything. You expected some of it could be excused, since it’s your first time at his house, but good God, rich people were insane. This was the biggest, traditionally-styled building (estate?) you’ve been in since you toured a castle preserved from the Edo period—but it was apt, you supposed, since Endeavor had been acting as a sort of daimyo of his own.

Dormer gables. Hip-and-gable roofs, with golden shachihoko shibi cupping the corners—though instead of the customary sea monsters, if your eyes weren’t deceiving you, they appeared to be made for flame-swimming instead of in water. A recessed entryway, its wooden flooring tiles hand-cut in tiny designs to make you aware of the space, with brand-new guest slippers already provided before you could ask. Todoroki’s house (estate?) screamed business, or at the very least, don’t touch anything.

At least the living room in which you sat stiffly had a touch of clear modernity—and so it seemed that the inner rooms actually revealed that they were living in the modern age, but the barrier of traditional architecture to get to actual living space heaved a hyperawareness of outsider onto your shoulders.

Todoroki himself, bless him, moved around like the elegant austerity didn’t even occur to him. Waiting for Midoriya with the rest of you, he’d helped everyone spread out their notes and manga over the short table and floor, gathering blankets for everyone when it occurred to him that not everyone’s body tolerated temperature like he did (since the house was kept oddly cold), and, instead of offering tea, like he’d said his sister would expect him to do, he provided a peculiar but pleasant combination of snacks: cheap-ass cup noodles, strawberry chardonnay-flavoured cheese on soup crackers, old mooncakes that had been in the fridge for a month but he declared were still good, and gummy worms for Monoma.

The bitch even bought everyone a fancy little drink according to personal preferences—and no one had even requested them or informed him what to get, but he’d gotten everything right, regardless (you suspected he’d asked Shinsou for help).

“Thank you,” you said, turning over in your hands the poshest bottle of pink lemonade you’ve ever seen, “You’re a very gracious host, Todoroki.”

He slurped his own caramel frappe. “I’m very excited to have so many friends over at once.”

“Of course,” you said, your weight jostling on the couch cushion as Todoroki sat next to you, “I can’t believe we didn’t think of going off-campus to watch this shit earlier. There’s way more privacy here.”

“Our doors are always open nowadays,” he said, and when Sero tapped Todoroki on his shoulder to help open another package of cheese, he held up a finger to pause your conversation.

Smiling softly, you twisted off the bottlecap of your lemonade, holding it up to your nose to inhale that pressurised burst of lemon scent, and—oh, hey, you felt a little lightheaded as you did so. Two times in one day? That’s new. At least it was from your perspective this time, so you didn’t have to worry about knocking anyone’s drink over.

“Hey,” you said, snuggling down into the couch, your palm atop the opening of your drink (when Monoma shot you a questioning look with the phone call hand signal, you nodded, and he relaxed and leaned towards you, his teeth cutting into his lower lip as he grinned). “Funny how we keep meeting like this, yeah?” you asked, feeling soft and full of love for this fucker, and you reached towards the coffee table to set down your drink and grab a flower-shaped mooncake. “I guess I can stop hiding from my reflection now, sweet boy.” You made eye contact with yourself in the reflection of the Torodokis’ enormous flatscreen, and you held your mooncake up in a toast before biting into it. “Hope you’re well. You seemed stressed earlier. I’m currently—”

Your phone rang in your lap, and you narrowed your eyes at the unknown number before answering it. “Hello?”

“Where the hell are you right now?”

“Wow,” you said, chewing, “No greeting, even? No mention of how much that you miss my voice or my lips now that you’ve—”

“Just tell me where the fuck you are,” said Touya, at the same time that Monoma’s eyebrows shot to his hairline at the kissing implication, and he thumped Shinsou in the chest for him to look up from his phone.

“Does it matter?”

“I told you my quirk shit when I didn’t want to, so fucking tell me,” said Touya, sounding muffled and, again, like he stood near traffic.

Swallowing mooncake in a rush and choking a bit, you cleared your throat and said, “Fine. I don’t know why it matters that much to you, but I’m at a friend’s house. Our anime analysis group has gotten too big for the dorms, so we’re trying out his place.”

You had to ensure the call hadn’t dropped due to his long response time. “What friend?” he asked.

You raised a brow, though he couldn’t see you. “I doubt you would know—shit!”

Struggling to tear the plastic covering the cheese, Todoroki had accidentally slammed his elbow into your collarbone.

“Geez.” You winced at Todoroki and rubbed the spot. “No, no, I’m fine,” you said when he reached towards your collarbone, his fingertips already icing over, “You may want to go get a knife to open that, though.”

Nodding soberly, Todoroki lowered his thawing hand and rose from the couch, tossing the cheese to himself. “I’ll do that. Anyone need anything from the kitchen while I’m up?”

While the others answered, you spoke into your phone again, hand on your chest. “Sorry about that. I guess if you paid attention to the news last year, you’d know him: one of Endeavor’s kids, Todoroki Shouto.”

The soulmate connection started to trickle away, but Touya stayed on the phone. “Do you not have any other friends who have a place?” Plastic crinkled on his end, along with a car horn in the background. “Hell, the library downtown rents out portable TVs—”

“Why should I be at another friend’s house?” Touya wouldn’t be able to see the reflection of your self-satisfied smirk now, but surely he could hear it in your voice. “Jealous that I’m at the house of another man?”

Touya gagged into the speaker. “Someone’s full of herself. Don’t wait up for me,” he said, and he hung up.

You pulled your phone away from your ear, pouting at the call screen before creating a new contact.

“You didn’t tell us you’d met your soulmate,” said Shinsou.

“It only happened this afternoon,” you said, saving his number under Touya 🐠🚷 (the fish for the koi pond he hated, and the no pedestrians sign for his apparent propensity to jaywalk), “and I’m not sure what to make of him. I was hoping to form my own opinion before telling all of you.”

Todoroki perked up and tilted his ear skyward at the sound of the front door opening. “I’ll get it,” he said, standing, “I bet that’s my brother. He’s back four hours late from physical therapy; I hope everything’s okay.”

Your eye twitched.

(Todoroki had warned everyone before coming over that his family would probably be in and out. Less so Fuyumi and Natsuo, because Fuyumi had recently moved in with her significant other and Natsuo had his own place near campus, but more of his parents and Dabi. Well. Touya, now, but you had your own Touya to worry about.

You’d met Dabi. Twice, during freshman year. When he’d been a villain, instead of whatever was happening with him in recovery. Rather formulative experiences for you, ones you only permitted yourself to think about in the hollowness of lonely nights—but you didn’t need those memories anymore, because you had your Touya now.

Remember? You have your own Touya. You don’t need another.)

“Do you want me to carry that for you?”

Todoroki’s voice trailed behind boot scuffing and a sliding door, and in Dabi/Touya shuffled—hoodie yanked up (layered over a longer coat?), strings pulled firmly around his face, plastic bags from the convenience store down the street on his wrist, very determinedly staring at the floor as he strode past behind the couch instead of at the four of you strewn across his living room, ducking into the kitchen as soon as possible.

You’d barely seen him for five seconds, and your heart was going to beat out of your chest. Or maybe that was just the bruise forming on your collarbone.

Todoroki nodded after his brother, standing behind your place at the couch. “There’s no ceremonial introduction, I assume. That’s my brother, Touya. You’ve all,” said Todoroki, scratching the back of his neck, “met him before. But! If you’re nervous, we will not be seeing much of him. He doesn’t spend much time in the main house; he lives in the old-fashioned teahouse towards the back of the garden. Privacy, you know, even though we’ve got to keep him close.” Todoroki wetted his lips as he looked towards the emptied shrine on the far wall. “He shouldn’t be any trouble, but I may have to zip out on occasion to help him. Not all of his skin grafts are taking.”

The doorbell rang, and Todoroki started towards it. “That must be Midoriya. Sero, would you please pull up the next episode?”

When Todoroki stepped into the entryway to greet him, you couldn’t suppress your curiosity. “I’m gonna go pour this over ice,” you said, gesturing with your pink lemonade bottle, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Shinsou—the only one whom you’ve told about what happened with Dabi back then—shot you a crooked grin, but he distracted Monoma from noticing exactly what you were doing while you sneaked away down the hall.

His back was to you. Water flowed out of the kitchen faucet while he yanked his hoodie over his head and tossed it over the back of a chair, and he did the same with a longer, black coat—similar in shape to the coat he’d worn as a villain but not the same one. Maybe he’d grown accustomed to having the weight of it on his body, so what he wore now was a type of security blanket. While he ran a spoon under the faucet, he fumbled behind himself for his plastic, convenience store bag and fished out a pudding cup.

Backtracking a little, you purposely made your footsteps audible so that you wouldn’t startle him, and you entered the kitchen, shaking your lemonade for more noise to alert him of your presence.

His white brows pinched when he saw you, and he hastily shut the water off and scooted off to the edge of the counter while he put his stuff away, his movements rigid and close to his chest.

“Hi,” you said (oh, my God, you were talking to Dabi; holy shit), “Where do the cups live?”

Dabi blinked slowly, unable to look at you, and he peeled the lid off of his pudding cup. He glanced towards the door and back towards his stuff on the table, and he pointed towards a cabinet, his finger returning to his fist in a rush to get back what he was doing.

“Thank you,” you said, opening the one he’d pointed to. Oh. Fancy. Lots of choices. “I hope we’re not bothering you. We can—we can always leave, if you need us to. Or you could join us, if you like.” You turned around in time to see the flat of his tongue lick pudding off of the lid, stitches showing at the back of his tongue, and in the moment where he ducked his head, the tiny, unblemished part of his skin near the corners of his eyes blazing pink, your brain short-circuited.

(Dabi had been your first kiss.

During freshman year, in the week of that first round of internships, you’d been planted in Hosu City, around the time Stain closed his fist around the public consciousness. On a night patrol, your mentor had slipped into a restaurant that the yakuza frequented and stationed you in a nearby alley to watch for other yakuza incoming from the employees’ entrance.

An official sidekick had caught up with you—late forties, spandex, unrecognisable. You’d been terse in your replies, since he’d been essentially blowing your cover, but he couldn’t take a hint.

It’d only occurred to you that he’d been hitting on you when he’d propped an arm on the brick wall above your head to dominate your personal space, and an all-consuming dread had erupted in your stomach when he’d said, moving to take your chin in hand, “You know, you remind me a lot of my daughter.”

Before he’d been able to touch you, something rabid and ravenous about the size of a labrador had tackled him to the ground, the force knocking him almost two whole meters away, and the thing ripped into the sidekick’s chest, blood spewing—and somehow having the sense to cover his mouth to stifle the shouts.

In the moment you’d moved to get a better look at what was, in retrospect, a nomu, another figure had stepped between you and the sidekick, his own arm resting on the wall to keep you from getting closer.

“Hey,” Dabi had said, an easy grin stretching across his face, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about anything. Just testing some shit out for someone. So long as you don’t go making any noise, I’ll let you walk away.”

Dabi hadn’t made his villain debut back then, but even so, it hadn’t seemed like it was just testing something out for someone; this guy had seemed his own brand of dangerous. Your gaze had started to creep towards the source of crunching, but he’d tapped your cheek, making you look at him. “Nuh-uh. Keep your eyes on me. If you don’t know anything, I don’t have to kill you, do I?”

“I, I’m—” You’d steeled yourself somewhat, your hands clenching into fists at your sides. “I’m not just gonna let you kill a hero while I stand here.”

Again, Dabi had stopped you before you could take a full step, this time by gripping your jaw, letting it rest in his palm while his fingers dug into your cheeks. “Can’t call him a hero. Was comparing you to his daughter—didn’t you hear? And it looked like he was gonna assault you. Some guys aren’t meant to be fathers.” His syrupy gaze had fallen to your neck, and he’d squeezed your face. “Jesus, your heart is beating like crazy.”

“I don’t normally calm myself down to the sounds of someone getting maimed,” you’d said, blood splattering in the air behind him, “Oh! Fuck.” You’d scrunched your eyes shut and curled in on yourself, trying to block out the sound of bones snapping.

“Some hero you are.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you’d said, “You’re more of one than I am, tonight. Thanks—?”

“Dabi,” he’d said, and at the time, it had just been a name. When you’d pried open your eyes, he’d been smiling, mouth closed, head tilted at being called a hero. You’d smiled back, but at an enormously strident crack from behind him, you’d had a full-body jolt. “Fucking hell, calm down,” he’d said, his arm sliding from the wall to your upper arm, “For once, you’re safe with me.” Seeing you try to look over his shoulder again, Dabi had dragged you forward by the jaw to kiss you, closed-mouthed but hot, leaning into you, his mouth overwhelming you with hardly any effort on his end, and he’d kept kissing you, stroking your cheek with the back of his hand, until the nomu slinked into silence.

Dabi had broken off when the nomu scuttled farther down the alley. “Right.” He’d taken a deep breath. “You gonna tell anyone about me?”

You’d shaken your head, confused as to why he seemed more concerned about descriptions of him rather than descriptions of the murder. But he’d been nice to you. Had given you a hell of a first kiss. “I can say someone in the yakuza killed him.”

He’d roughly patted your cheek and dropped away from you, stowing his hands in the deep pockets of his coat. “His death isn’t worth reporting, but I’ll take it.” He’d spun on his heel, raising a lazy hand in a wave as he disappeared into the night. “You’d better hope you never see me again.”)

And now, here he was, hunched over shitty gas station snacks in his family kitchen, a spoon hanging out of his mouth while he stowed things away. His naturally white hair showed now, and…he seemed terribly shy. Dabi, shy. Fucking ridiculous. But, you supposed, there’s guilt and shame around, uh, doing what he did. And—and his body was horribly, horribly mangled and mottled. He might not think anyone should look at him.

Todoroki (Shouto, you supposed you should think of him as, since Dabi was a Todoroki, too) had mentioned not all of Dabi’s skin grafts were taking. It was obvious. He’d burnt up during the war, and while you’d heard Recovery Girl and Eri had worked on him, despite outside protests that he wasn’t worth it, he still was very clearly cobbled together.

He still had a lot of staples, though faded stitches filled in new gaps, and those that remained had been replaced with medical-grade staples that wouldn’t get infected. Patches of successful grafts left a waning diamond pattern, particularly around his neck. Very little purple, overall, but going by the scars, you could still tell where it had been. Based on his appearance, he shouldn’t be alive, let alone able to walk around.

But he scooted with such speed out of your way when you got ice out of the freezer. “But really, you could stick around with us, if you wanted to. No pressure, though, if you want to be alone.” Calmly. You were calmly popping ice out of a tray and letting them clatter into your glass. “We’re watching Hunter x Hunter right now, if you’re interested. Have you read or watched it before, either the 1999 or 2011 version? Do you have a favourite character?”

Dabi clutched his snacks and discarded clothes to his chest, almost at the door, with his eyes darting all around the kitchen except on you.

Yeah. Must be shy. You were one of the U.A. students who fought in the war, after all, even though you didn’t personally fight him in the end. Probably feels guilty about the whole thing. Shy could be refreshing, after those bitches in the living room and your cunning soulmate.

Finally, tentatively, Dabi shifted his belongings to his right arm, and he raised his left to pat his throat, swallowing so that his Adam’s apple bobbed.

“Oh,” you said, ice melting in your hand, “I’m sorry. Are you on vocal rest? Vocal cords messed up somehow?”

After a moment, Dabi nodded. He edged towards the hallway.

“Okay. I hope you feel better soon,” you said, and you poured your lemonade over the ice. “I’ve kept you long enough. Please go rest; I hope we don’t disturb you further.”

Before you finished, he’d already skibbled off, his house shoes slipping on the wood.

***

(The second time you’d met Dabi hadn’t been as hands-on, but it’d still left an odd impression.

It’d been in an urban jungle-type battle, after knowing his involvement the League but before his backstory reveal, and you and some classmates had been fighting a handful of PLF-aligned villains.

You’d slithered underneath a lean-to created by a partially collapsed building to catch your breath, along with shielding yourself from an explosion Bakugou had been building up. You hadn’t even known Dabi was in the group you were chasing, but he’d slinked underneath the same, protective ruins as you had, barely slipping underneath the cover before Bakugou’s explosion had shaken it.

Dabi had braced himself on the crumbling entrance, scrunching his face away from the explosion, and once it’d stopped, he’d noticed you were barely two paces away from him, sweat dribbling down your face the same as it’d been down his.

You still didn’t know if his startled, constipated expression had been of recognition or simple surprise to see someone else taking cover under something that could collapse and kill them. He’d taken in your U.A. gym uniform—your personal hero costume had been in repairs that week—and there’d been a couple of heavy seconds where neither of you had done anything besides pant and let sweat drip onto the rubble.

He'd slipped out first, since he’d been blocking the entrance, and you’d left soon after. You hadn’t been five steps out of the lean-to before someone on the PLF side had destroyed it, and in the privacy of your heart, you liked to think that Dabi had waited until you were out to raze it.)

***

You made it a habit to call Touya whenever the soulmate bond activated. Though he never initiated a call, he answered most of yours. What else was he going to do, if it were on your side, besides sit there in the dark? He continued to be hold information about himself like a miser clutching coins, but you found it refreshing to have a charismatic grouch of a pseudo-pen pal.

You’d closed the door of a library study room behind you as you called him this time, setting your stack of books on the table.

“You’re finally reading something besides manga? I thought your brain was gonna rot,” he said upon picking up.

You slung the strap of your purse over a chair. “No greeting? No admittance of missing the melodious sound of my voice?”

“Why in the hell would I do that,” he said over the screech of pulling out your chair.

“Because you missed the melodious sound of my voice?” You pulled out your notebook, flipped it to a new page, and fossicked around for a pen. Clicking the one you found, you reached for the first book in your stack, a rudimentary sign language dictionary, and you jotted down a list of common words as they came to you, such as thank you, help, and, of course, the all-important cat.

Touya clicked his tongue. “Are you seriously gonna make me study with you?”

You made the final stroke in the word pudding. “I don’t expect you to absorb the information. If you rather I read manga, I can go to that section for a while. Pick out a shoujo.”

“Get fucked with that otaku shit,” said Touya, and—he must have had his phone on speaker, because a couple of people were speaking to each other nearby about what must be the latest Assassins’ Creed, and the sound changed after some scrapes, with Touya sounding closer. “Why study sign language?”

“There’s someone in my life who recently became unable to talk all of the time,” you said, “and I’d like to help give him some way to communicate.”

“Just text him,” said Touya, “Well—never mind. Who’d wanna text you, anyway?”

“Sometimes, people put away their phones, Touya. Have you heard of it?” You drew a line down the half of your paper to make a new column, one sorting the words in groups—places, family members, requests, and the like.

“What are you getting out of it?” Touya must have scratched somewhere on his face, the sound coming over the phone. “You makin’ fun of him? Making him feel bad? If he wants to talk to you, he can just write shit down.”

“I think he might hate it because of how slow it is. And what if I luck out, and he knows sign already? Then half of my work is done for me,” you said, listing off all of the terms for family members, “Text-to-speech may be okay, but I don’t know. Still slow.”

“He probably doesn’t even want to talk to you,” said Touya, “let alone learn something for you. That’s a lot to ask for someone you ain’t fuckin’.”

You hummed and ignored him. You titled a new column Body, and the first word under it was burns. Followed by healing, surgery, hands, skin, hurt, and rest. For the first time in a while, Touya’s emotions were strong enough for you to feel, but you couldn’t name them. More like some pitiful, fearful soup, if anything, and other stuff you couldn’t put your finger on.

His voice still came in confidently derisive, though. “What kind of fucked up guy are you spreading your legs for, since those are what you’re writing down for his body? Seems like you’d be better off as a cocksleeve for someone else actually capable of fucking you.”

“Oh, rude! Rude!” Scowling, you set down your pen. “That’s rude to both me and him. I’m not talking to you anymore. Enjoy studying, asshole.” You flipped to a random page in the dictionary and started memorising, a bit too pissed to be productive for real, and you kept it up—if Touya were going to be here, then he’s not learning productive sign language, either. Try using marble and mare in everyday conversation, jackass.

Later, you caught yourself zoning out while staring at an entry, only shaking yourself out of it when Touya grumbled under his breath for you to turn the page already.

***

Todoroki paused the episode when the pizza arrived.

Moaning way too sensually, Kaminari stretched his arms above his head and arched his back. “My electricity is cooler than Killua’s, right? I have more swag than him?”

“No.”

“In your dreams.”

“Yikes.”

“Wrong,” said Shinsou, pelting him in the face with a popcorn kernel.

Kaminari picked it up off the floor and ate it mournfully. “I’m getting beaten by a fictional twelve year old.”

“I’m going to the bathroom,” you announced, pushing yourself up from your seat between Shinsou and Monoma (which was just as well, since they were comparing scans of the current manga chapter over your lap), and you set off with the intention going to the farthest bathroom to increase your chances of bumping into Dabi.

No such luck, even though you deliberately stomped your slippers as loudly as you could to try to draw him out. Sighing, you backtracked to a tiny bathroom you’ve used before, one that wasn’t as intimidatingly wealthy as the rest of the house and therefore actually felt like it was meant to be used, and you opened the creaking door onto an exhausted, shirtless Dabi trying to rub some sort of cream on the back of his neck, a massive jar open on the sink, blood seeping down his biceps at the strain around his staples.

Both of you froze. He took a quick glance to the gobs of cream on his hands and managed to kick the door shut from his seat on the closed toilet, but your foot caught in the door, which struck your nose and cheekbone, with you yelping and clutching the area.

“Sorry! I’m sorry,” you said through the crack in the door, shakily dragging your bruised foot out of it, “I didn’t know anyone was even in this side of the house. Are you okay? No, wait, sorry again—you’re bleeding; of course you’re not okay. I’m sorry.” You checked your nose for bleeding of your own, but nothing leaked out of your nose. “Can I—may I help with whatever you’re doing?”

No answer. But he hadn’t shut the door.

“Fine,” you said, and you spoke into the crack, only able to make out the granite on the near side of the sink. “I don’t know what’s going on with you nowadays, but I hope you’re doing okay. Or that you’ll be okay soon, at least. I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through, and I’m sorry you had to go through it. But I can grasp, I think, that having a bunch of your brother’s friends over can be intimidating and isolating. If nothing else, I’d like to get to know you better—or you could just get to know me better, if you don’t feel like sharing—so that having all of us over isn’t as terrible. I’m sorry we’re bursting into your life when you’re working out a lot of stuff in recovery—”

Dabi yanked open the door, brow furrowed, and instead of looking at you, he clamped his slimy hands on the sink and stood on his toes to arch towards the mirror, opening his mouth wide to breathe hot air onto it, teeth bared, as if he were roaring. In its fleeting fog, he traced out kanji, streaked with lotion and hidden by his left hand as he wrote, and he blew over it a final time before stepping back and jabbing at the message.

Stop apologising.

“Ah—oh,” you said, while Dabi squatted and rooted through the cabinet under the sink, “Okay. I’ll try. Thank you for saying so.” How do you talk to someone who was formerly 1) an S-tier villain and, more importantly, 2) your longest-running crush?

Dabi plopped a meagre first-aid kit on the counter and pointed to the source of bleeding on one of his arms, the inside bicep where two staples had come loose.

“I don’t know shit about first-aid,” you said, reaching for the kit anyway, “I know you have to keep pressure on it, and stuff, but—”

And so the first time Dabi looked you in the eyes was to shoot you an incredulous, suspicious glare that accompanied his snatching the kit back from you, clutching it out of your reach. Relaxing once it was in his hands, he hesitated a moment, shifting his jaw, before nudging the open jar of lotion with his knuckle, reverting to his fixed gaze on his feet.

“I can do that,” you said, heart racing, “You wanna—why don’t you sit back down?”

Not lotion, you noted, as Dabi pulled out disinfectant wipes and a roll of gauze near its end, burn cream. Aw. You dipped your first three fingers into it (heavy, roll-around slimy, like holding a frog) and hoped to God that your soulmate didn’t tune in during this. Touya didn’t like a lot of things you did, but he’d probably loathe your gawking over the scarred back of someone who wasn’t him.

Yeah, Touya would probably hate how you would hone in, laser-sharp, each time Dabi’s muscles flexed as he wrapped his wound, how the space between his shoulder blades with the tiny dent along his spine (well, his spine indented at the top of his back, where he was broader and still held muscle, and poked out towards his lower back as he bent over) held your focus far too long to be impersonal—and you got to touch it. You kept the contact to your fingertips, because as much as you wanted to flatten your hands to feel every moving tendon, you didn’t want to scare him. He’s probably not used to outside touch, and you shouldn’t come on too strongly, especially when someone else’s soul was fucking bound to yours.

But as your fingers smoothed over the marks around his shoulders where burns used to be, skin cold to the touch, as Dabi turned his head to the side just barely so that he could watch you out of his periphery, you found it hard to remind yourself that you already had a Touya. Can’t have two.

“I know it’s none of my business, but, uh, if you’re on vocal rest this often, I could—I could help you learn some sign language?” You scratched underneath your eye in a nervous gesture and smeared some of the burn cream on your cheek. “Nothing intensive. Only simple, everyday stuff, like—well. I don’t know what frequents your vocabulary. You don’t have to, but I’m offering. Just in case.”

In the mirror, Dabi halted in tying the gauze to glare up at you, his lip curling up in flash of a sneer.

“Okay, that’s cool. That’s fine. I can—I can leave a sign language book with your brother, if you—if you ever change your mind.” You nodded, just to have some sort of reaction he could see, and he tucked away the disinfectant wipes and tossed the empty roll of gauze into the trash bin. “Hey,” you said, noting how he’d only bled at his left arm, which was covered with mottled patches of skin, staples, and stitches, along with the faint diamond-pattern of skin grafts, while his right arm needed no medical attention, pale and unblemished without any sign of damage, “What’s up with—if you’re comfortable with sharing, why doesn’t your right arm have any scars? Was Recovery Girl able to heal that more effectively, or something?”

Holding your gaze in the mirror, Dabi raised his eyebrows, nearly vanishing under the drooping, white spikes of his hair, and he reached over with his left hand to rub his thumb over his right shoulder and curving down into his armpit.

He actually laughed (a laugh through his nose, yes, and one without the humming sort of vocalisation usually accompanying a laugh through a nose, but a laugh nevertheless) at how hard you jumped when he popped off what was apparently a prosthetic.

***

“If you hate gardening this much, why keep doing it?” you asked, once again trapped in Touya’s perspective late at night while he tended to a traditional, Japanese garden. You lay flat on your back in bed, hands and phone resting on your chest (laptop closed to the side. Your essay was due at eight o’clock in the morning. Would Present Mic accept late work due to soulmate interference?).

“Lots of dumb fucking reasons that all fold in together,” said Touya, shovelling gravel out of a wheelbarrow and into the man-made brook he was trying to shape, “One: my stupid fucking family has decided that doing this earthy shit would calm me down. Zen gardening, or whatever.”

“Oh, do you have issues controlling your anger, Touya?”

“Stop that. Two.” Gravel pittered off the shovel blade, falling into the trickling water with a series of tiny plops. “One of my brothers brought up how Mom always liked the garden but was stopped from taking care of it herself, and since I did some shit to—it’s not like I could’ve helped it; they were keeping stuff from her, too. Anyway, Mom’s fucking sad nowadays. Better, but sad.” Touya sank the shovel into the gravel to lean on it, tracking the flow of the water for a moment, twisting through the previous path currently being overtaken by moss and fallen stone. “And my brother thinks the garden being fancy again will make our mom happy, especially if I’m the one to do it. Dick. Saying if we hired people to do it, it wouldn’t be the same. Started with just the damn fish, but now the whole fucking thing’s my job. It’s fucking shit. It’s blackmail and family obligation and rent all at once. It’s a fuckin’ nasty trick.”

Touya dug into the wheelbarrow again. “And my fa—that guy had the nerve to suggest that I needed something to do during the day. As if I’m not busy enough.”

“During the day? Touya, I’ve only seen you garden at night.”

“Because it’s too damn hot outside all the time. And I don’t want anyone watching me. I’m no one’s business. But I bet they’d like staring out of a window at me, while I break my fucking body again moving all of these shitty rocks and shaping Mom’s fucking evergreens.” He shovelled with deep malice. “Did you fucking know that there’s goddamn symbolism in these shitty gardens? That you can’t just put things anywhere without it meaning something? Somehow ponds are supposed to be oceans. Rocks are supposed to be mountains. Forced perspective shit, paired with tenets of Zen and Shinto, and it’s the pettiest, most unnecessary bullshit I’ve ever had to deal with, and I dealt with a friend’s abominable driving for years. Never got any better at it, even though I got fucking motion sick.”

He knelt, and when two, fat glops of Touya’s sweat dripped onto the stone at the impact, you rather enjoyed the gentle wafting about your dorm room at the blades of your ceiling fan.

He must have felt your appreciation. “Stop that. I’m making a point. Look at this shit,” he said, gesturing to the brook and then up at the three-quarter moon, “I’ve gotta change the course of the water, because it’s better to face towards the moon to capture its reflection, and I’ve gotta make it somehow cascade or waterfall at some point over there.” He pointed far across the garden towards a flickering pair of stone lanterns. “How am I supposed to do that? I can’t even make it flow through gravel right. I might have to move some of the stepping stones again. I fucking hate those things. They’re too heavy for one person, and I’ve already had to rearrange them because some of them weren’t fucking weathered or natural-looking enough.”

“Sure. Death to aesthetics,” you said, blindly feeling around for a pack of gum you kept in your bedside table, “I’d come help you if I could, but somebody—”

“You’re not getting a location out of me, princess.”

You paused, hand on the knob of the first drawer, and a wide, smug smile broke across your face (Princess, Touya? You’re gonna call me princess? You sure you don’t care about me?).

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“I could feel it,” said Touya, flexing his fingers on his knees, “so shut up.”

Gloved hands clenched into fists, he glared at the brook, the gravel, up at the moon, and back into the water.

“You know, it looks like if you moved most of the gravel to one side, the water might flow the direction you need it to.”

“Who’s the one busting their ass here, me or you?” But he plunged his hands into the water, grabbed heaping fistfuls of rocks, and patted them onto the far side of the stone bed.

“Touya,” you said, feeling around in your drawer for the pack of gum, “Take your gloves off! You’re gonna ruin the leather.”

“Like I care.” He dragged more gravel underwater. “If I took ’em off, you’d see my hands.”

“Come off of it, Touya. I bet they’re perfectly fine,” you said, successfully grabbing gum and sliding your drawer shut, “Hands are often the most attractive part of a man.”

He paused, water flowing around his arms up to his elbows (he wouldn’t roll up his sleeves, either. Stubborn boy. He must hate whatever’s going on with him). “Not the dick?” He sounded like he was grinning.

“Not always. Some of them look like sad, sea creatures,” you said, unwrapping your gum into your phone’s speaker to annoy him, “It takes talent to have a pretty cock. Hands, however, can easily be lusted over because of what they’re capable of. Or what you know they’ve done.”

(Hee hoo hah, like burn down a city. You’re so normal about it.)

“Not how they look?”

“Appearance can help, but it’s not the whole cow,” you said, chewing while the flavour faded fast.

Touya scoffed, his fingers sinking into gravel. “You makin’ fun of me?”

What? “Of course not. Why?”

“Don’t say shit like that to get on my good side. I’m more than aware I ain’t got anything besides my shitty personality goin’ for me.” He cleared his throat. “That sign language guy got anything I don’t?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You sure seem obsessed with him,” said Touya, leaning more deeply into the water, soaking his hoodie even more, “even though he sounds pathetic. You tryin’ to fix him to make yourself look good?”

“Of course not. I know no one can fix anyone else. He has to choose to do that himself,” you said, “Not that there’s anything about him that merits fixing.”

Laughing (oh? hot), Touya scooped a handful of gravel out of the wheelbarrow to add it to the far side. “Yeah, you’re fucking obsessed with him. Am I not your soulmate?”

You rolled your eyes, even though he couldn’t see it (and…you…couldn’t see it). “You haven’t given me anything to obsess over, unless you want me to research gardening tips or how to breed carp.”

“I would love for you to be obsessed with breeding, sweet—”

“Oh, my God, you have to ease into that sort of thing, Touya.”

He pulled his hands out of the brook, drenched sleeves gushing water back into it. “D’you want me to start with how much I wanna suck on your perfect tits?”

“Touya,” you said carefully, shoving the gum to one cheek, “Is everything okay? You’re acting—strange.”

“What do you—”

“Where’s the blind hatred for me? Where’s the disdain?”

Sitting back on his knees, Touya shoved his leather-wet-dripping hands into the damp, double pocket of his hoodie with a muted slosh. “You think I hate you?”

“You’re that rude to people you don’t hate?”

Water seeped through the pocket and through his jeans, visibly darker in the moonlight and soaking his thighs. “Fuck off. I mean—what I mean is that I’m not used to people like you. Who don’t talk like me. Who aren’t mean to me back. Or who don’t seem to want anything from me. Didn’t know you really thought I was rude.”

You screwed up your face. “Who have you been hanging out with? What the hell is wrong with you? Spend time with people who like you, please?”

“No one likes me—”

“Get your head out of your ass, edgelord,” you said, sitting up in bed and holding the phone up to your mouth, “Newsflash, dipshit, it sounds like lots of people like you. Your brother, who wants to help you make your mom happy, in an easy, physical way that you’re more than capable of. Your mom, who sounds like she’s happier now that you’re back in her life. The rest of your goddamn family, who want you close by so that they can help you if you ever fucking accepted it. Your stupid friends who are into Assassins’ Creed.”

“Stop fucking noticing things about—”

“And me. I like you, dipshit. Get over yourself. You’re digging yourself your own lonely, self-deprecating hole, where I guess you’re at your most comfortable. But tonight alone you’ve shown in your garden that you fucking hate digging holes. They mean unnecessary work.”

Inhaling sharply, you threw your phone into the bedspread, but all that came through was a distant deer scare, bamboo hitting rock.

“Since when do you like me?” he asked, pushing on his knees to stand.

The artificial-yellow light from your lamp starting creeping in around the rim of your vision, blotting out parts of Touya’s silhouette in the moonlight. “I talk to you, don’t I? I wouldn’t even acknowledge the bond if I weren’t open to—we’ve been hanging out. You didn’t know?”

“Like I would know what that looks like,” said Touya, the walls of your room coming into view while Touya pulled his own phone out of his inner pocket, tapping the screen to see how long the call has lasted, “Like I would know how someone like you would behave when they like me.”

“Stay on the goddamn phone,” you said in the moment his thumb hovered over the end call button, the last thing you made out before fully sinking back into your dorm room, “If you don’t know what I—well, what does your love look like, Touya? What do you do when you like someone?”

“Sexually? Romantically?”

“Not necessarily,” you said, pissed to have the connection severed and sliding off of the bed to turn off the lights, “Just when you care for someone at all.”

“Gimme a minute,” came Touya’s voice, and after you flipped the lights and the ceiling fan off, you wandered over to your window, switched your phone off speaker, and held it to your ear as you stared up at the same moon Touya was under, and you waited.

“Right, I don’t know for sure,” he said after a while (but it sounded like he’d stopped dealing with the gravel to think about it), “but this is the only thing that’s coming to mind. Before I was living at home again, me and some friends didn’t have consistent sources of food. Don’t interrupt to say you’re sorry. But. So, whenever I’d, uh, buy stuff. From a store. I’d make sure I got some sort of snack for whoever I was with, even though we were all too proud to ask for shit. Didn’t really think about doing it on purpose. But I guess I did.”

“You are deliciously, delightfully, tender as fuck,” you said, clenching a fist over your heart, your boob jostling with the fervent impact (and it pleased you knowing that Touya would’ve laughed if he’d seen), and you kept talking over his sounds of disapproval. “And I am gonna cook for you. I am going to set you a table so vast that you’re gonna be eating off it for a long, long time. You’re never gonna be fucking hungry ever again, Touya.”

When he didn’t answer, you worried you said the wrong thing, but you stayed on the line, listening. Two minutes later, he hung up, and you could have sworn he cut off in the middle of a wet sniffle.

***

What can you cook? What were you good at cooking that actually constituted a filling meal?

Start small, you supposed.

Fuyumi kept the Todoroki kitchen much more well-stocked than the kitchen to which you had access, and so, with welcome permission, you headed over to the estate earlier than the scheduled viewing time to prepare, with Shinsou and Todoroki hanging out in the kitchen with you.

“Jirou says she can attend,” said Todoroki, thumb swiping across his phone screen, “Turns out her tipping point was stating the merits of studying Melody’s music powers. She’s asking if Yaoyorozu may attend as well?”

“It’s your house.” Shinsou was folding his napkin into an origami frog. “If there’s a need for excuses, you can always say Yao might like—I forget his name, but he’s that character in the Phantom Troupe whose hair looks like a mop? She might like analysing how his power lets him copy anything, even though it doesn’t have the same limitations like her quirk.”

“I will mention that,” said Todoroki, nodding sagely.

The plan was simple: with a captive audience of anime nerds, you could get feedback on your cooking until it was good enough for Touya (a small part of you still cringed thinking about how he reacted to your potato wedges). You would lure your friends into a state of complacency with your smaller dishes—baked goods, and the like—until there was no escape when you served them something more filling, like soups.

Today, you were making teeny little lemon ricotta pancakes (the recipe called for them to be regular-sized, but if you made them around the size of a potato chip, it would be more accessible to eat with fingers in the living room) that gave you the air of being fancy but were actually mindless to make, it turned out, and right now, you were stirring the stewing blueberry syrup that you’d decided would be a dipping sauce rather than drizzled over—the Todorokis had an excess of white furniture, and you would like to be invited to use their kitchen again.

“I think,” you said, once the syrup was behaving like syrup when you let it dribble out of the ladle back into the pot, “I’m gonna take some to your brother. I don’t want him feeling left out, if he comes through. He’s home right now, yeah?”

“He’s in his teahouse. It’s towards the back of the garden.” Todoroki got up from the table. “Do you want me to show you?”

“I’m sure I can find it, since it’s the only building not connected to the main one,” you said, but you did accept his help finding a tray and sauce cup for the syrup, and once it was set, you picked up the tray and strode with purpose towards the garden.

Walking through its seemingly-natural landscape while balancing food and liquids proved to be miraculously easy. Their hired gardeners must be doing insane upkeep to ensure its deliberate, natural-but-not cosiness. You made a mental note to ask Touya what some of the structures symbolised, like the recurring patterns of three rocks of different heights close together. He’d know, reluctantly, since he did stuff like this, and you considered his work to be superior to this, anyway.

In the blistering sun, you had to narrow your eyes to slits, regretting that both of your hands were full so that you couldn’t shield them from the light, and you found a gated, stone path to the teahouse. Clearly, it had once been slightly dilapidated but had since been worked on; another room had been latched on to the side to double its size, judging by the change in architecture styles, and the roof reflected sunlight a little too well for its polished, stone tiles to be less than a year old.

Bracing the tray, you took the steep step onto the neatly swept, bamboo engawa running around the edge of the teahouse, and you—was the door around to the side? Around the left side of the original part of the tearoom, two shoji panels had been spread to let in sunlight upon an empty room with an actual fucking sunken hearth, unlit, with one of the same fire-fish as on the estate’s roofs for the crank’s lever. Behind what would have been the seat of honour stood a dishevelled tokonoma, devoid of scrolls or incense burners but instead housing an unzipped backpack atop a long coat, its sleeves trailing onto the floor outside the tokonoma, with sticky notes taped to its inner wall. A red-tinted wood dresser had been pushed into the corner, tissues and hand sanitiser atop it and a single stack of books propped next to it.

A pair of boots was tucked inside the open shoji. Maybe he’s asleep.

At your first step inside, you jolted so hard you had to struggle to hold onto the tray—the floor had chirped at you. Dead ringer for a bird call. Tentatively, you took another step, and it chirped again, this time with a bit of a wheeze, more artificial-sounding.

You jumped and stumbled again at another wall sliding open, giving the impression that a flock of birds had flown inside, and Dabi poked his head through the gap (you could make out the gleaming pause screen of a gaming system in the newer room behind him). His face had relaxed when he’d seen it was you, but it pinched into a strange, unnameable expression when he saw what you were carrying.

“Hi,” you said, holding out the tray, “I’ve made too many snacks for the anime group today, so I thought you might like some? I can take it away, if you don’t want any.”

Since he probably didn’t know the amount of people attending nowadays, he probably didn’t recognise your lie. Dabi held up a finger for you to wait while he exhumed a short table and two floor seats from storage in the walls, and he waited for you to sit before he did, slowly, crossing his legs on the cushion, his joints creaking.

“They’re little lemon ricotta pancakes. Todo—Shouto told me you didn’t have any food allergies, so it should be fine. That’s blueberry syrup,” you said when he pointed at it. “I’m—I guess you could say I’m practising recipes for cooking for someone else. If you don’t like it, please let me know. I’ll make it better next time.”

Dabi fiddled with two of the tiny pancakes before selecting one, inspecting it in the sunlight, and dipping it into the syrup (you went a little crazy when it dripped onto his tongue stitches, but you managed to suppress it). As he chewed and swallowed loudly, Dabi’s eyes bulged, brow furrowed, and he, panicked, fumbled around for probably his phone, patting the pockets on his jeans. Hands pausing after slapping the empty pockets on his ass, he sprung up, grabbed a pen off of the dresser, and snatched a sticky note off of the inner wall of the tokonoma. He returned to the table and knelt half on the seat, scribbling furiously, and when he pushed the sticky note to you, under a crossed-out potting soil, sledgehammer, he’d written fuck you marry me NOW.

There’s a moment in which you forgot, a moment in which you laugh, head tilted back, flooded with endorphins at your long-time, pseudo-celebrity crush liking something you made to even joke about being in a relationship with you. You opened your mouth to make some joke about how you’d like to go on a few dates first, to have some sort of courtship, but you stopped at the first word: “Touya.” You cut yourself off, brow pinched. You can’t have two.

Not that…not that Dabi/Touya could ever genuinely like you, who fought against him and now witnessed his debasement, but in the far-flung chance that he could, you should clarify about your Touya.

“Touya,” you said again, this time sober and grim, hands folded on your lap, “I know you were only joking, but I was in a quirk-related incident a while ago, and it assigned me a soulmate. So, even if you could like me, I’ve got someone waiting. Presumptuous of me to say, I know, but. I want to treat you with kindness and not make you wonder, in the case it arises. Funnily enough, his name is Touya, too—”

Your phone rang loudly in your back pocket (you kept it on loud nowadays so you could easily feel around for Touya’s call, but it’d led you to awkward moments like this, too). Dabi scowled when you brought it out to silence it and dipped another pancake in the syrup, letting it absorb what it could to tinge it purple.

“It’s him, actually. Odd timing.” Lying flat in your palm, your phone flashed an incoming call from Touya. Leaning across the table, Dabi grabbed it out of your hands to answer it, put it on speaker, and lay it in the centre of the table while he ate his soggy pancake, shaking his head when you moved to undo all of that.

“Hey,” came a tinny, raspy voice that was very much not your Touya’s, “You’re the soulmate, right?”

Dabi shouldn’t have to hear this. Before you could tap the speaker button again, Dabi swatted your hand out of the way, gesturing for you to answer.

“Uh, yeah,” you said, shifting in your seat, “Who are you? Where’s—”

“Tell Touya he left his phone at my place the next time you see through him.” A repetitive, techno instrumental played in the background (video game music?). “At Shiiiiiiiimura’s place. Yeah.”

“I can do that, Shimura,” you said, unsure if you should hold out the vowel as long as he did, and perhaps you can take advantage of the situation for a brief moment, because Dabi was staring at your phone with a constipated sort of expression as he listened. “I can’t control when the bond activates, but I’ll let him know. Do you know what sort of food he likes?”

Shimura barked out a laugh, filling the room in a wide, cleansing way you wouldn’t expect from someone with his scratchy voice. “I heard your potato wedges are shit.”

You sputtered, “He didn’t even have any—”

Dabi ended the call, frowning, shaking his head, and tipping your phone off the table to gently bounce twice when it hit the tatami. He held up a tiny pancake and made a show of looking at it, at you, and back at it, and he shot you an aggressive thumbs-up.

***

Uraraka spent an entire patrol gushing about how she would fuck the author of Hunter x Hunter if she could, so she showed up to the next get-together, along with Asui, whom everyone already thought would be friends with the story’s protagonist if he were real. When you Aoyama caught you in the act of stealing one of his posh cookbooks, you explained the situation to him, and so he tagged along to taste what you were cooking, along with supplying some of the fancier ingredients you wouldn’t’ve known how to obtain. Then you’d asked Sato for advice on how to make the swirl in a strawberry swirl loaf not go to shit, and then the group had spent a few hours discussing the good relationships with animals that Hunters are inherently supposed to have, so Kouda was summoned for his opinions.

The long of short of it was that there were many more spectators than necessary to when Dabi strode into the viewing room, drenched in sweat from his walk back home, to pelt the back of your head with a two-pack of Sakeru cheese. As you rubbed the back of your head, pulling the cold plastic from between your shirt collar and skin, he at least had the decency to drop the single-wrapped fish bread into your lap.

“Hey, Touya,” you said, grabbing his hand before he could skitter away as usual (his wide eyes couldn’t decide to look at both of your hands or at your face), “I’ve set aside slices of both strawberry swirl bread and garlic bread for you in the kitchen. I recommend heating the garlic bread up so the cheese gets all melty again, but it’s good at room temperature, too. Thank you, by the way. For these.”

Nodding hastily, Dabi tore his hand away from your in two, spasming jerks, and he slithered into the kitchen.

Though the rest were watching the show, Shinsou was turned towards you, his head tilted with an incredulous sort of smile. You stuck your tongue out at him and crinkled open the cheese.

Dabi returned with both slices on a paper towel and stood behind you at the couch for a minute, watching the episode. Shifting his weight, he pulled out his phone. “This is garbage,” came a droning, text-to-speech voice from behind.

He stood behind the couch for three more episodes.

***

Through another moonlit, soulmate connection, Touya was failing to prod stray ducks out of the koi pond with the skimmer.

“They’re tenacious little bastards,” you said, sitting on the counter of the dorm kitchen and praying to God that the oven timer wouldn’t go off while you couldn’t see.

“Why. Won’t they. Move.” Touya nudged a duck with the flat of the skimmer, its width as long as the entire duck, and the duck kept gabbing to its friends. “I have no idea if ducks upset the chemical balance of the water enough to kill koi; I’ve never seen them in here before ten minutes ago. Goddamn.” He waved the skimmer over the water’s surface, filtering some debris, and he flipped it onto a duck, who remained vexingly apathetic at the new source of wet. “Tonight was gonna be easy; I was only gonna put up windchimes; I was gonna get to go to bed early. Now I—no, no, no, don’t—!”

One duck bit at the skimmer net, and having pierced it, the duck led the rest of them to the centre of the pond, where the skimmer couldn’t reach, no matter how Touya strained.

“I fucking hate birds,” said Touya, slamming the skimmer on the ground, “and I fucking hate fish. They’re not even good when they’re alive.” Seeming to have a change of heart, Touya picked the skimmer up and took care to lean it against the stone wall of the pond. “Tell me something good, won’t you?”

Does that imply you don’t have to work on any fish dishes? “You’ll be thrilled to hear that my little anime analysis group is almost through the Hunter x Hunter anime, probably. We got to the end of the 1999 version last night.”

Touya sat and splayed his legs on the koi pond stone, watching the moon’s reflection ripple as koi tails broke surface tension. “That’ll only make your process more streamlined, since you’re not watching two episodes covering the same chapters in conjunction anymore. The Chimera Ant arc takes forever, though. You’re not almost done.”

Groping around for your oven mitts, you smiled. “How do you know that, Touya? Thought you hated—”

“What are you going to watch next?”

Stupid boy. Shy boy. “Well, Sero is pushing for Pokémon since there’s so much of it.”

“God, no,” said Touya, leaning back on his hands, “Iconic, yeah. Fun, not really, because in the games, you’re the one getting to battle and bond with the things. It’s not fun to watch someone else get to do it.”

“I can rely on you for negative reviews of everything.” Oven mitt? Oven mitt. Now, where’s its pair? “You want a pokémon, Touya? Which ones?”

“You are such a fucking child—”

“You want a pikachu, don’t you?”

“Hell, no,” Touya spat, “None of that cliché shit. Pikachu isn’t even that good. I—” Cutting himself off, he hunched forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his gloved hands together. “You’ll shit on me for it. Forget I said anything.”

“Should I let you make fun of me first?” You slipped on the other mitt. “I’m cliché as hell. My top choice is either a certain starter or an eevolution.”

“No, I—”

“All right. How about you tell me your favourite as a kid and the one you would choose now?”

“You’re pushy as hell. When I was a kid, I wanted a Ninetales. I was—my mom had read enough for me to know about traditional kitsune,” said Touya, and he ducked his head to stare between his legs (crotch unfortunately hidden in shadow), “and Ninetales is immune to fire. It can use it and not burn up, and it’s not affected by outside fire attacks.”

The memory of rubbing burn cream across Dabi’s shoulders and how delicate his skin looked surfaced. You wouldn’t wish that on anyone. “You scared of being burned, Touya?”

Touya kicked the stone beneath his boot, scuffing it. “Just seems like it’d be neat.”

“Perfectly reasonable,” you said, wrapping your muppet-y, mitted hands around the oven handle in preparation for whenever it would go off, “and a perfectly logical pokémon to latch onto. It’s fairly popular. I don’t see how I’m supposed to make fun of you for that.”

“Sure.” Touya bent farther to re-tie his bootlaces. “I like my current choice for a dumb as hell reason, though. Shiiiiiiiimura,” said Touya, yanking the laces tightly (and he dragged out Shimura’s name, too. Was that the proper pronunciation?), “was trying to hype us up for something stupid we had to do that some of our friends were scared of. Shimura’s teacher—’scuse me, abusive fucking manipulative shithead of an adoptive father—wanted him to make a speech to show leadership, or some bullshit. Instead, Shimura pulled out his phone and showed us someone’s video of playing one of the early Pokémon games, for the battle at the end to win the game. And to defeat the last boss’s toughest Dragonite, the player used this…this fuckin’ weak-ass, all-around insignificant pokémon picked up from the beginning of the game, and it fuckin’ won. It won against the toughest opponent, and—and Shimura was saying, oh, the Venomoth is us, and we can win against our big-ass enemy, oh, ho, ho—”

“Excuse me. A Venomoth? You only use them temporarily at the beginning of the game, when you don’t have anything cool yet. They fucking suck.”

“See, you’re making fun of me. I’m not going to say anything else.” Touya leant back on his hands again, this time crossing his legs to prop his ankle on his opposite knee.

“No, I’m—I’m sorry. Sorry. First impressions. But you’re convincing me. Go on. I’m listening.”

Touya flicked water towards the ducks. “Are you gonna keep insulting—”

“I won’t! I won’t,” you said, sliding off the kitchen counter to stand directly in front of the oven, “So, Venomoths. I hear they’re fantastic.”

Touya rolled his eyes, and it was cute, you thought, how you had to follow the motion, seeing the moon at the upwards roll and back at its reflection in the pond. “Yeah. I bet Shimura’s forgotten all about it, but it stuck with me. Not immediately—at the time it was stupid, and to be fair, it’s still stupid. But now that I’m back here, living at home, it’s—it’s stupid. It’s, like, if that stupid fucking bug can defeat a goddamn dragon, then I can tend the garden. I can keep that stupid tsukubai clean. I can hang out with my brother. I can fucking—” He cut himself off again, this time striking the water hard enough to splash one of the ducks (it quacked at him with disdain and simply swam a couple of centimetres away).

“Do what, Touya?” The oven timer started beeping, and you tensed. “Hold on; don’t say anything. Don’t say—I have to concentrate; I’m getting stuff out of an oven.”

Touya stirred the pondwater with his ring and middle fingers while you blindly approximated the logistics of getting the tray out of the oven, and by standing at the oven’s side inside of reaching into it from the front, you were eventually able to remove the tray and rest it on the counter above it—you’re not going to bother feeling around for the pot holders.

When you sighed in relief once you’d closed the oven again, Touya asked, “What are you cooking?”

“Strawberry cheesecake muffins,” you said, frowning in the tray’s general direction, “They’re supposed to have a marbling effect, and I’m supposed to be putting on some sort of streusel-type sugar on top right now, but I’m not gonna risk it. I hope they’re done. You have to trust the recipe’s bake time with cheesecakes exactly, so I’m hoping it’s the same for—”

“I am gonna make you come so hard,” Touya was saying in a strained sort of way as he ran his hands down his face, “I am gonna fuck you so hard that you leave in a permanent dent in my mattress. I am gonna hold you and kiss the back of your neck and make you cry out as you gush around my fingers. You’re—you’re so fucking per—I am gonna take care of you back.”

“Cool.” Right, so bake the muffins again at some point. “Do you have any food allergies?”

“I’m allergic to you not saying anything hot in response to what I just said.”

Sure, Touya. “I’m also gonna make you this really sexy tomato soup with what the recipe calls a grilled cheese top. It’s got cheesy bread cut into chunks that coat the surface so that you can’t even see the red, and it melts into the soup—”

“Stop, I can only get so hard—”

“Show me your cock, then.”

“No,” said Touya, deliberately looking at a trio of fish convening near the pond’s surface, their o-shaped mouths blorbing and blobbing underneath the water towards Touya’s waving fingers, “I meant—well, first, you are gonna make that soup, pl—please—but I meant that—I mean.” He twirled his finger under the water, and the koi were fascinated. One of them kissed his finger. You were feeling a similar impulse—and perhaps that’s what prompted Touya to continue. “I came the first time someone stuck their tongue in my mouth.”

It occurred to you that anyone could be walking by the dorm kitchen to overhear. Now that the muffins were out of the oven, you elected to turn off the speaker setting to hold you phone to your ear. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I was sixteen and insane with hormones, and it hadn’t been long since I’d woken up from—well. When someone kissed me with tongue for the first time, I came in my pants. Taken completely by surprise that someone was even kissing me, that someone could even want me when I look like—and then that. We were outside, on a public bridge, during the day. I haven’t seen that fucker since.”

You had been contemplating whether it’d be worth fumbling around for a knife to ease the muffins out of the tray, but all cogs stopped at Touya’s story. “Why are you telling me this?”

“So you’ll tell me something back. I already told you some embarrassing shit about pokémon and shit, so you have to embarrass yourself back. You’re the one who brought up cocks, anyway. So—so you have to share something back,” said Touya, allowing a fish to rub up against his hand in a pseudo-sort of petting it, “Something about when you were young and stupid.”

“And preferably sexual, right? I know what you’re about, you shy, baby boy.”

“Ffffffuck that.I ain’t shy—”

“You won’t show me your face, Touya. You’re scared for me to see it. Shy boy.”

Touya scratched along the side of the koi like it wanted, and another nudged the back of his hand to be scratched, too. “Fuck off.”

“I’ve only told one other person about my first kiss,” you said, moving to sit on the counter again, “Wanna hear that story?”

“Fine,” said Touya, and he pulled his hand out of the pond, flicking water off his fingers and into the open, mournful mouths of the koi he’d been petting. “You had better be about to tell me about seeing through me at that coffee shop.”

“Come off of it, Touya; isn’t it better for me to have outside experience and still choose you regardless? My first kiss was way before that,” you said, hoping how pleased you were at his mild possessiveness was being transferred to his side of the bond, “and I didn’t even know the guy’s name at the time. And it was—it could’ve turned really bad, really quickly. Because my first kiss was with Dabi, before he made his villain debut.”

“Do—huh?” Touya shook his head, causing you to wince and steady yourself at the dizziness. “Beg pardon? Beg your fucking pardon? I didn’t—know that that Dabi guy went around kissing people.”

“He did at least once. It was back in freshman year, and I was out at night during my hero internship.” Getting comfortable on the kitchen counter, you crossed your legs and leant against the cabinets to support your back, exhaustion kicking in. “Some older sidekick hit on me in what was an exceedingly creepy way—he made it pseudo-incestuous by saying I reminded him of his daughter. In retrospect, the interaction could have gone much, much worse, if Dabi hadn’t inadvertently rescued me—scratch that, it may have been intentional, looking back, because he’d said stuff about the sidekick being a shitty father, and now he’s, uh, let us know about his own dad.”

It took Touya a moment. At least he wasn’t shaking his head anymore. “Are you saying Dabi burnt some guy to death in front of you, and you still kissed him?”

You sucked in through your teeth. “Not exactly. I didn’t know it at the time, but he was testing out a nomu, and that ripped the other guy to pieces. And—this is gonna sound wild—I think Dabi may have kissed me to comfort me? I know it was a distraction from the gore and from getting a good look at the nomu, but I think he may have also done it to calm me down. It was—oddly sweet.”

Touya gripped the edge of the stone wall, his fingers dipping into water (but not deep enough to remoisten his leather gloves) and koi swarming. “What did the nomu look like?”

Even though you couldn’t see it, you held your phone away from your ear for a second to shoot it an incredulous look. “Wha—Touya, weren’t you going to ask if he were a good kisser, or something?”

His knuckles popped when he clenched his fingers and asked flatly, “Was he a good—”

“You’re better.”

“Thanks,” he said, not sounding like he cared about that at all, letting a koi drag his hand into the water by biting his finger, “What did the nomu look like?”

“God, I don’t fucking know. That wasn’t important to me. I, uh—it was around the size of a good-sized dog, like a golden retriever or a lab. I don’t—I guess it walked on all fours,” you said, wondering why the fuck—oh, the dizziness must not have come only from Touya shaking his head, because it’s sweeping over you again, waves emanating from the bond. “Now that I’ve seen other nomu, I can recognise that its head looked whacky because its brain was exposed, and I think its skin was more green-tinged than the others who had that navy-black colour going on. Honestly, Touya, I wasn’t—”

Through the phone came such a strident, alarming crack that you halted mid-sentence to listen for it again. It’d come from Touya’s side, clearly, but nothing in his line of vision betrayed its source, although—and you would not have noticed this if you hadn’t been scanning his environment for any hint—something that looked like split glass frosted the inside of Touya’s fist before he unclenched his hand a second later, any illusion of something there melting into the water.

But something was wrong. “Touya?”

“You still see that Dabi guy when you watch anime at Shouto’s house, yeah? Stay on the line,” he said, darkness of the bond fading drabbling at the edges of his vision from your perspective.

“I am,” you said, uncrossing your legs, “I do.”

“What do you think of him? Ugly fucker, isn’t he?” Touya fell still as a duck approached him as it navigated through the water lilies, and Touya’s outstretching his hand to its head was the last thing you saw before the bond gave out. “Still as pathetic as he was in the war? Think he should be in prison?”

“Negative reviews of people, negative reviews of television, negative reviews of potato wedges—so cool, bro. Now say something true and beautiful.”

“Answer me, damn it.” A disgruntled quack.

“You’d better not be strangling that duck.”

“You think so little of me? Do you want me to put the duck on the phone?”

“I don’t think it could sit comfortably,” you said, pushing yourself off the counter and walking to the knife drawer now that you could see, “I see Dabi every once in a while when I’m at Todoroki’s house. He’s shy. I don’t mind. It’s not my place to assume anything, but. I don’t think he’s doing okay, since it seems like he’s spent a good part of his life wanting someone to look at him, to pay attention, and now he’s getting that in a way he probably didn’t anticipate, and I want him to be okay. I think I’d like to help him get there, if he’d let me. But I know I’m nobody important to him, and that’s fine.”

“Sounds a lot like pity,” said Touya, and when you made a noise of protest, he kept going. “Or maybe you’re fucked up enough that you like him? From when he kissed you?”

You couldn’t exactly tell your soulmate that you’ve been suppressing naïve, celebrity-crush-type feelings for someone else. “Well,” you said, grimacing as you slid knife edge between a muffin and the tray and started to remove it, “He’s very babygirl-coded.”

***

TOUYA 🐠🚷

looked it up. definition of babygirl does NOT help

TOUYA 🐠🚷

incidentally

TOUYA 🐠🚷

what should a guy wear to impress someone

YOU

a guy? or you specifically?

YOU

because i am, of course about to suggest the golden standard of rolling up thy sleeves to thy elbows, but you won’t even showing your fucken hands asldkjfa;

TOUYA 🐠🚷

gloves necessary.

TOUYA 🐠🚷

but think formal. formal setting.

YOU

why are YOU going to a formal event?

TOUYA 🐠🚷

have to. blackmail/family obligation/rent.

TOUYA 🐠🚷

open to suggestions. about style more than brand, because if I go too expensive, my dad will think I’m making him pay a lot as sabotage.

YOU

and here i was about to recommend that you go skinny-dipping in a vat of liquid gold

TOUYA 🐠🚷

you just wanna see my cock, don’t cha

YOU

what makes you think I’D be invited to some shitty formal event

TOUYA 🐠🚷

I’m betting you’d hear about it on the news

YOU

i think i’d be more interested in what food is provided

TOUYA 🐠🚷

…

TOUYA 🐠🚷

no, I shan’t say

YOU

is this a cum joke

TOUYA 🐠🚷

but seriously. what should I wear. assume I will do something awful and evil and that you will see the outfit on the news when I get arrested.

YOU

touya, how would i recognise you. idk what YOU even look like. not that it matters, i guess. all that matters is that you wear something that fits you well. you don’t need to impress me; you’ve already won me over

TOUYA 🐠🚷

i what

TOUYA 🐠🚷

wait what do you MEAN it doesn’t matter

YOU

does it help get it through your thick head if i tell you that you are also babygirl-coded? perhaps not even coded but genuinely babygirl??

TOUYA 🐠🚷

it does not.

***

Adjusting your lace shawl, you gripped Shouto’s arm as the both of you furtively sneaked away from the hordes of pro-heroes, industry workers, and flashing press to slink back to the enormous table of hors d'oeuvres to see how many of them you could pack into your purse and his strategically planned inner coat pocket, sewn into the inside of his lapel for the occasion.

When Shouto had invited you to this ghastly awards ceremony for Endeavor, he’d claimed his motivation was that so he could talk to you about how the 2011 Hunter x Hunter anime was wrapping up, since he (flatterer!) said you had the best interpretations of certain characters, unlike some of your classmates, and Shouto tempted you with how you could stake out whatever posh food they had for you to try to recreate later. So, you’d dug out the dress you’d only worn to All Might’s official retirement party and agreed to attend.

Those present were a strange conglomeration of people, since the public opinion of Endeavor has been odd and tenuous lately. Essentially, the handful of attendees you knew were busy ingratiating themselves to people you’ve never seen before but they evidently were acquainted with, so those with whom you could hold an actual conversation with were scattered and few.

However, you didn’t even need to bring a book, because once you and Shouto had settled at a back table with both of your plates stacked with the most variety you could fit on them, he deadass pulled out his anime analysis notebook, which was starting to resemble Midoriya’s quirk analysis notebooks in terms of extensiveness and insanity, with lines crossing several pages to connect ideas. As you discussed where the two of you thought the characters were going, you had your own notebook—a new one, this one for recipes, and whenever either of you thought one of the appetizers was interesting, you wrote it down.

You were chewing on what Shouto had informed you was a water chestnut when the chair on your other side was pulled out with a screech against the tile, and Todoroki Touya plopped into it, his legs hardly having the time to spread before swiping a piece of candied salmon from your plate. The instant he bit down into it, his nose scrunched up.

“It’s fish, Touya,” said Shouto, dipping his own crudité in a tiny bowl of raspberry vinaigrette, and he passed his napkin to him. Touya spat the salmon into it, bunched it up, and edged it underneath the edge of your plate.

On your list, you wrote no fish! at the top, but before you even lifted your pen from the paper, you froze. The list wasn’t for this Touya; it was for your Touya. You crosshatched it out, trying to remember if your Touya had ever said anything about liking fish. He’d said he hadn’t, right? He didn’t like them alive, at the very least.

Shouto chomped down harshly, the crunch of raw celery distinct even through his closed mouth. “What brings you over here, Touya?”

He already had the text-to-speech function pulled up on his phone, and he held a parmesan palmier between his teeth as he typed. “People were asking Natsuo and Fuyumi about what they’re doing with their lives. It was only a matter of time before they got to me. Don’t wanna hear anyone else describe the nothing I’m doing. At least I know you guys are too busy talking about nerd crap to shit on me.”

“Oh, sweet boy,” you said, pursing your lips, “You’re in recovery. That’s enough. You don’t have to do anything to be worthwhile.” Wait. Fuck. You don’t talk to this Touya this way. Reel it back.

Crumbs fell from his mouth to the tablecloth. “The hell is wrong with you?” he typed.

Yeah, reel it way back. You elected not to respond, instead biting with difficulty into a brie/fig/prosciutto crostini and not being able to taste any of it.

“Would you like to discuss some so-called nerd crap with us?” Shouto arranged his notebook father across the table to be more in the middle of the three of you. “I know it’s been a while since you read Hunter x Hunter, but it’s been on hiatus so long that there’s not much new information that you need to know.”

“Hey,” you said, rushing to swallow, “You’ve read this before? How come you haven’t been sitting in to watch stuff with us?”

Touya shot Shouto a dark look, tongued a chunk of palmier into his cheek, and furiously typed on his phone. “I’m not interested in that shit anymore. It’s for kids.”

Shouto looked taken aback. “This is news to me. Do I have permission to take your manga volumes out of the house, then?”

“Fuck you,” Touya had already typed while Shouto was talking.

You bit back a smile. You’ve been borrowing a former, major villain’s manga? Cute. “But if you read it a while back, that means you’ve had more time to think about the characters,” you said, resting your elbow on the back of your chair as you shifted to face him, “Most of us are absorbing the story for the first time. It’d be cool to hear what you think.”

That parmesan palmier had looked good. Trusting this Touya on his taste, you wrote it on your list to investigate later, while he typed his response.

His expression fell flat enough to match the robotic tone. “Do you just want to hear me project my daddy and mommy issues onto the characters in the Zoldyck family?”

“No, Touya,” you said, laughing, “You have valuable things to say across the board, and I want to listen.” You almost nudged his knee with yours, but you had to stop yourself, something dark swirling in your chest. This wasn’t your Touya. You’re not allowed to.

His eyes flicked down towards the movement, but he didn’t comment. Shifting his jaw, he slipped off his white tuxedo jacket to drape it over the back of his chair, and for some reason, his gaze kept darting to you while he rolled the sleeves of his button-down up to his elbows, but he tried to give the appearance of being very focused on whatever skewered meat and pineapple was on the rim of your plate.

You were frowning. Fuck this. Fuck him. Touya was probably one of those guys who knew their effect on women, so he would know about the rolling-sleeves-to-elbows move. And fucking hell, was it effective for him, because the way he’s lost a lot of weight but was currently gaining it back made the tendons in his forearms much more noticeable when they tensed and strained, and the asymmetry of the burns and scars up his left arm in comparison to the smoothness of his prosthetic right only made him even more horribly, horribly attractive, and you were pissed about it, only getting more furious as he wrapped his tongue around the base of the first pineapple chunk and used his teeth to maneuver it off of the stolen skewer, hooded eyes staring you down. This Touya can act like a fucking slut, sure, but your Touya won’t even show you his goddamn hands.

“Hey, watch out.” You scratched your forehead in an attempt to conceal how enraged you were. “I’ve already had one of those. That lump at the end is an overly-breaded coconut shrimp. So—fish—be careful,” you finished lamely.

Touya’s hands and mouth were full with the skewer. Unable to type on his phone, he shifted the skewer to his left hand, flattened his right, and tapped his left wrist with it—the JSL sign for thank you.

You nodded and didn’t think anything of it for a moment, but when it hit you, you seized up and stared at him, chest swelling, proud and confused and frozen. Getting a little lightheaded, actually, but oh, God, who wouldn’t at the sight of Todoroki Touya, quiet and subdued but still suave as fuck, sitting so close to you in a freshly dishevelled white tuxedo that fit like it was custom-made for him, smelling so, so good and smiling with his perfect teeth (how are they that good when he was with the League for so long?), leaning towards you to steal your food and showing that he’d been paying attention to you, that he’d taken the JSL book you’d left with Shouto, that he’d thought about you when you’ve been apart and cared enough to try to learn something new with you, and you were going to kiss him; he deserved it; you were going to grab that stupidly adorable face and—no, that lightheadedness was also stemming from the soulmate bond activating.

Nausea swept through you for more than one reason. If your Touya discovered you were fighting the urge to kiss someone else, let alone the other Touya, then—you didn’t know. You didn’t know how you’d ever recover. Please let this be from your perspective, so he can’t feel your feelings, please.

“I have to go,” you said, pushing up on the table to stand, not even bothering to flash Shouto the soulmate hand signal. You had to get away. No matter if it were from your perspective or his, distance would help you suppress your fucking shameful crush on your friend’s older brother.

Good God, you were crossing the streams, you noted and fumed as you escaped onto a vacant alcove. Because they have the same goddamn name, your brain has been conflating the two of them. Shut up. You’re only allowed to have one Touya. Two would be greedy and dismissive of the soulmate bond in the first place.

Vertigo struck you so severely that you had to brace yourself against the nearest column, but you swopped to the balcony railing because you could grasp it and put most of your weight on it, and because your brain was swimming, you hand to get on your knees to wait for it to pass. “No, you can’t,” you said, trying your hardest to push thought of that Touya out of your head in case your Touya could feel them, “You can’t—that one doesn’t need to be in a romantic relationship right now. He’s working on himself. It’d fuck him up.” And ohhhh, you left your phone at the table, so you couldn’t call your Touya, and fuck, you didn’t want him to feel confused or betrayed because you weren’t calling him—

“Whose future are you deciding, here?”

Your Touya. He was here?

You opened your eyes to the sight of the balcony and the garden below, thank fuck. Okay, you could work with this. You could work with this; he’s not supposed to be able to feel—

His voice came from close behind you, as if he were leaning on another side of the column. “What’s got you feeling this guilty?”

Holy shit holy shit, has the bond evolved? Can feelings be felt from both sides regardless of perspective? “Hey, Touya.”

“Don’t turn around,” he said, even though you’d made no movement to.

“Can you see?”

“Only through you, angel. Otherwise, I’m in the dark.” With the sounds of clothes shifting, Touya must have crouched behind you, joints cracking. A fingerless-gloved hand brushed down your arm, and he moved your lace shawl out of the way to stroke your bare skin. Your mind was already going haywire at your betrayal, and his cold, gentle touch was not helping. “What’s wrong, hm?” He adjusted himself again behind you so that he could wrap his other arm around your waist, pulling you back into him, and his cool, rough lips pressed against the curve of your neck as he rested his head there.

You were going to cry. You’ll do it. For real, this time.

“Did that Todoroki Touya guy bother you? I saw him sitting at your table.”

God, no, he brought up whom you were trying to avoid, and you cringed, hating yourself as Touya’s hand sank down your arms to entwine his fingers with yours, rumpled shirtsleeves grazing your bare skin and leather gloves curbing the maximal skin-to-skin contact.

“He’s so fucked up that I wouldn’t be surprised if you hated him,” Touya was saying into your ear, “I could grind him into a pulp for you. He’d deserve it, wouldn’t he, for what he did to everyone? And I was burning up with jealousy from across the room; someone as pretty as you shouldn’t have such a hideous thing by your side.”

You made a noise from the back of your throat. You didn’t know, and you especially didn’t need the one person you were trying to hide your internal conflict from while you were actively trying to work out the internal conflict. First things first, you supposed. “Touya’s not fucking ugly.”

Your Touya snorted against your neck, hot air washing down the hollow of your throat. “I forgot how twisted you are. But there’s no way you could actually like him, right?”

“I can’t,” you said, releasing the balcony to clench your fists on your knees, “I can’t like him. He needs to discover who he is as an individual before he finds out how he functions in a relationship. He doesn’t need romance—or me, at this point in his life.”

“Interesting,” he said, more clearly now that his mouth wasn’t muffled against your skin, “Sounds like you think something’s wrong with him. Like he’s not whole. And isn’t he broken? You’d have to be, if you pulled the shit he did, burning cities to the ground and murdering—”

“Shut up,” you said, hunching in on yourself, “You’re don’t know. You’re believing what other people have told you about him. You’re just—you’re just like people who talk about that nerd shit you hate without checking the source material. They’ll talk about certain characters in terms of false narratives they’ve crafted, and they’ll talk about them for so long that the false information becomes conflated with the characters, with everyone thinking the wrong stuff is real. I—fuck.” You winced, but he was listening, his free hand winding around your neck to adjust the migrant clasp on your necklace to the back of your throat. “I know my ideas of Touya stem from propaganda, but I want to learn about him from him. Just based on what I’ve seen, there’s so much out there that’s wrong—it’s even subconsciously perpetuated in his own home, since the shrine where his family mourned him is still there. And I hate it. I hate it, because he seems so lovable, but so are you, and I hate myself because I want to love only you, because you’re my soulmate, and I’m so, so, so goddamn terrified that you’re gonna reject me and leave me alone forever now that I’ve betrayed you. By feeling stuff for someone else.”

You were crying. You were crying, nose stopping up, and Touya kissed your throat, over the clasp of your necklace. “Rejection’s a bitch. I know that,” he said under his breath, “So, I’m not gonna do that to you, even if…” He trailed off, instead latching his mouth to your neck again, letting his tongue flick over your skin once, as if it were an afterthought. “You really like him?”

“I’m scared that I do,” you said, taking a corner of your shawl to daub at your tears.

“The only thing to do is feel it out, I guess.” Touya settled at last, shifting weight and moving his legs so that they’d be on either side of you, and his left arm joined the other around your waist to hold you close. “Or let it die, if you want. The soulmate bond doesn’t matter in the end. You don’t have to love him or me.”

“But Touya,” you said, sniffing, dying to look back at him but restraining yourself, “I do.”

***

Later that night, you were researching how to make little cheese balls that were shaped like pumpkins like they’d had at the awards ceremony when you felt the familiar wooziness. Funny. It’s not often that the bond activates twice in one day. You closed your laptop and set your notebook aside, waiting for the slow, drowsy fade into Touya’s eyes.

Tonight, it’s a jarring, instantaneous slam into his perspective, and you felt like you’d been knocked about in the baggage rack of a train. You threw out your hands to balance yourself, even though you hadn’t been physically moved, and the queasiness made it hard to concentrate, blackness blotting at the edges of your periphery.

But the darkness of Touya’s bedroom wasn’t helping, with only partially drawn curtains letting in moonlight, and—and oh, my God, he’s flat on his back in bed, tousled bedsheets, cock out, and it’s so pretty, unfairly pretty, thick as hell but thicker at the head than the base, blushing deep pink, leaking onto the faint lines of re-developing abs and a vaguely red trail of hair, and—

The hand touching it has skin grafts.

“—ugh, darlin’, fuck, you know what I’m gonna—gonna do to you, angel?” Touya was muttering to himself, too caught up to realise you were there. “You don’t—you don’t know what you do to me.”

You’d registered his pubic hair as vaguely red because, now that you were staring, only the very tips of the untouched hair trailing down his stomach were red, with what he’d probably shaved at some point lower on his body snowy against whatever unburnt skin could still grow hair. He’s gripping himself at an angle that doesn’t make him rub against a strand of load-bearing staples on his upper thigh (did someone say load?), connecting a stretch of familiarly burned skin to a healing graft, diamond-speckled and twitching with his cock the closer he drew to orgasm (from the back of your mind surfaced a questioning thought of if he’d advocated for healing his hands first, since staples would hinder smooth masturbation). His prosthetic arm lay unattached at his side.

“Hahh, I wanna,” said Touya, drawing in a ragged breath, “wanna make a mess outta you, y’always too put together, too fuckin’ pretty for y’own damn good, fuck.” He rubbed his thumb over his tip, the skin there giving everso slightly at the pressure, with another bead of precum swelling before it dripped onto his stomach. “Gonna find wha—whatever I can do to make you fuckin’ whine, and I’m gonna, hah, follow that sound for the rest of my goddamn life, and, oh—fuck, fuck, how, how sweet you’d feel wrapped around me, how much I don’t fuckin’ deserve—”

He cut himself off to take a deep, stuttering breath, and you saw the gates of heaven in the way his chest surged forward when he arched his back, lines of burns and scars carved into his skin like a roadmap. And Touya moaned for you, and you didn’t know how much you’d needed to hear both Touyas do that until now, but before he could finish the first syllable of your name, you were lurched out of the bond and back into your room, just as abruptly as it had begun.

Your hands were shaking as you tied your shoelaces, aware of the leak into your underwear when you bent over, and you dashed to the nearest train depot, navigating in fervent, distant buzz all the way to the Todoroki estate. You must have appeared sufficiently crazy, because the only vacant seats on the train were next to you.

(In your heart of hearts, you had known.

If you’d put it into words, consciously, where both Touyas overlapped, it would’ve been too hard to bear if they’d been different people, which was, regardless, the most logical situation. Getting excited for your soulmate to be your former crush and then being disappointed when it wasn’t him felt like a betrayal to your soulmate. You hadn’t wanted to set yourself up for disappointment or betrayal, because you shouldn’t feel guilt when you look at your soulmate. Someone who holds your heart in his hand should never be second best to you. Touya’s had enough of not being enough in his life.

Surely the random chance of a stranger’s quirk wouldn’t be so kind to give you whom you’ve been wanting. You haven’t allowed yourself to hope.)

You didn’t even go in the front door. You clambered over the garden wall and berated yourself for not recognising Touya’s garden earlier, even though you’ve usually been around the kitchen and living room when you’re here. It took you longer than it could’ve to get to his teahouse, because you were deliberately staying on the garden path instead of walking on his hard work, but you didn’t even take off your shoes at the entrance, the nightingale floors chirping out in the night as you surged towards his bedroom door.

Touya lay facing the window in his very Western bed that took up most of the room—and much of his bedroom was like that, with his modern belongings scattered across other outdated furnishings, clean but cluttered, thought it startled you to open the door onto a Naruto poster taped in the space designated for a hanging scroll.

You only had time to absorb poster and lived-in before you saw the face of God in how Touya stretched and groaned in bed, arching his back and holding it until his back popped (a little too fixated on his moonlit nipples, like seeing them would fix you, flip you back to your factory settings). “Natsuo,” he said, coming out of his groan, eyes scrunched shut, “Don’t say you’re here to make me re-hang the windchimes. I spent all day tracking how air flows through the garden.”

You sat at the foot of his bed, mattress dipping slightly, still in your coat and shoes and hesitant to spread dirt, but the need to be near Touya, even if it were through blankets, consumed you. Hands folded behind his head, Touya cracked open an eye at the weight, and he froze.

You hadn’t prepared any confession on the train. You’d been too focused on the memory of his thighs. So, what garbled nonsense that came out of your mouth was “I figured your dick would be pierced.”

Touya appeared to snap back into reality, and he sat up in bed, pulling the blankets up to cover more of his bare chest (mourning for his nipples. Inconsolable about it, even) and quite obviously tried so hard to be chill (the way his leg started jiggling underneath the covers and how he wouldn’t look you in the eyes for more than a couple of seconds gave him away, though). “Is that what they say about me?”

You folded your hands in your lap, bent over for a swift escape in case he wanted you to leave “Jirou conjectures that you have a Jacob’s ladder.”

“Just what I need. More holes in my body.” He ran his tongue over his lower lip—much more scarred than the upper one, clarifying some things about kissing him. “Don’t know how to take that a bunch of kids who resent me talk about the state of my dick. You a part of that crowd?”

“I was shown a picture of what was advertised to be a very realistic dildo,” you said, scooting your ass farther back onto the bed now that he wasn’t going to send you away, “It had many, many piercings. It wasn’t as thick, if that makes you feel better.”

“It does not,” said Touya, brow pinched. He brought his legs up to hug them to his chest, but he must have changed his mind, instead just letting them block your view of him, hiding behind the cover of the lumpy comforter.

You waited for him to elaborate. His tuxedo was thrown over a wicker trunk, bowtie tossed onto a kotatsu, even though it wasn’t cold enough outside, with his gaming controller next to it and an open can of black tea. Two floor seats were haphazardly tucked underneath the kotatsu’s blanket, the one facing the TV flatter and duller than the one nearer the door. His only bookshelf had the illusion that it was constantly being added to, with the first shelf arranged neatly and the rest completely shoved together, the lowest one still mostly empty—your sign language book lay horizontally on it.

He should’ve said something by now, right? Antsy, you shifted your weight, staring down at your shoes. To have something to do, you slowly took them off, lining them up with Touya’s house slippers (with seahorses on them?) next to the bed, and you swallowed your pride to break the ice. “I’m glad it’s you, by the way. Very glad.”

Touya grunted and draped an arm over his knees. “Did you know?”

“I will be generous and say not really,” you said, shuffling off your coat to hang on the bedpost, “I didn’t permit myself to make the connections.”

“Eh.” He shrugged with one shoulder—the left one, the natural one. He’d reattached his prosthetic in the meantime. “There are around one hundred Touyas in Japan, according to the last census.”

“Sounds like a prepared statistic,” you said, holding back that the name frequency has probably plummeted in the last few years, “I’m serious, though. I wanted my Touya—soulmate, you, Touya—to be Todoroki Touya. So badly.”

He covered his mouth, thumbing at his lower lip and simply staring at you. In the moonlight, his eyes were as fucking bright blue as—well. As his flames. More things were clicking into place.

“Really, Touya,” you said, desperate for him to believe you, “I liked you as the stranger in the alley, and I liked you as Dabi, and when my soulmate seemed to share some traits with the other Touya in my life, I didn’t give myself permission to think about it. Because I was growing fond of the you that spoke to me, that I was getting to know, and while my feelings for the other you were being rekindled, too, I wanted to love the soulmate you more, because it's become fucking evident to me that I was made to love you, even without this soulmate stuff. You’ve been scattered throughout my life, anyway. It just happened to speed things up, since it forced you to talk to me. Otherwise, you’d probably still be at the point where you’re the brooding-older-brother figure who isolates himself in his room when his brother’s friends are over.”

Touya was frowning, but you waited it out entirely this time. “You saw…all that,” he eventually said, gesturing down himself, “and you still want me?”

Biting back a smile, you lifted your knees to the bed, moving slowly to gauge his reaction before getting closer to him. “I saw you decapitate someone, and I still want you.”

“You’re insane,” said Touya, tensing up as you neared him but twitching into a nervous grin, eyes falling to your boobs, away to the window, and back to your face.

“Correct,” you said, and you knelt next to him, taking all of your restraint to keep from reaching out the final few centimetres to run your hands down his chest. “Don’t you need someone a little insane, though?”

The comforter fell a few inches down his chest, and you throat ran dry at the long line of fading stitches and staples.

You raised a quivering hand to his face, and it’s strange: both of you flinched in the moment your fingertips felt the tiniest bit of body heat emanating from his cheek, and it’s strange: it’s the first time you’ve felt any heat come from Touya at all, and it’s strange: you could see yourself so clearly waking up next to him every day, putting your chin on his shoulder while he picked out fruits at the grocery store, feeding the koi late at night together while you lured the ducks away, watching his eyes soften in the same way both when he sinks his teeth into something you’ve baked and his cock deep into you while he cradled you closely to his chest, but at the moment, it might be too much for you—and perhaps Touya as well, judging by the nearly incomprehensible, jumbled sort of expression—if you even touched his face.

Perhaps the prospect of romance was too much for him at this point in his life. The last thing Touya should be feeling about that was guilt.

“I don’t mind being on the backburner while you figure things out,” you said, returning your hand to your lap and trying very hard not to look at his nipples, “I’ll wait for whatever you need to do. I’ll—”

“No,” said Touya, shaking himself out of whatever spiralling dive he’d been leaning into, “Hell, no. No fucking—” He snatched the hand you’d almost touched him with and clenched it hard, smushing your fingers together (startled by the physical contact, even though he’d initiated it), and after a flash of frustration at his prosthetic arm, he passed your hand to his left. “You’re fucking sticking around. You—you don’t just look at me; you see me, in such a different fucking way than anyone else, and you did it immedia—it took my family so long to look, and you—you’ve been watching. Been paying attention. It’s all I’ve ever—” He frowned, rolling his tongue along the inside of his cheek. “It’s good to have you around while I dig myself out of this hole,” he said, squeezing your hand harder but glaring outside through the window, “I wish I had known you sooner.”

“I’m here now, and I want to get to know you better. I want to hear more about you, things that are true,” you said, “and don’t start with anything self-deprecating, Touya. The next time the bond lets you see through me, I’m gonna show you what you look like through my eyes. And I’m not lying to you when I say you are so very, very pretty.”

Grunting, Touya fidgeted in bed, the covers slipping down to his stomach, drawing your hand closer to him, with your body leaning in to follow his pull. “Shit,” he said, “Don’t say shit like that right now.”

“Touya, I am gonna tell you how gorgeous you are until you believe it, and that starts now.”

“Not tha—well, yes, that, but I—” He sucked in through his teeth (also sucking in through a tiny hollow in his cheek caused by a loose staple, with a faint, wheezing whistle) and threaded his fingers through yours, pulling your hands towards his shoulder so that you loomed over his chest, “I have a hell of a refractory period now. It’s fuckin’ hard for me to get hard a lot, and you saw me; I just—” Inhaling sharply, he jerked his hand away from yours and frantically started wiping it on the blankets.  The new skin around the tips of his ears bloomed pink. “I haven’t washed my hands.”

“Touya,” you said, “Like I care.” You took the hand he was trying to hide in the folds of the blanket and licked up his palm, holding eye contact and relishing the way the blush spread to the untouched skin around the corners of his eyes. “I want all of you. Both sides you’ve shown me, and more. So long as it’s real. So long as it’s you.”

“All right. First step is getting on top of me,” said Touya, and, palm wet, he took your hand again, and he tugged on it, guiding you into his lap, other hand sliding down the thigh you swung over him. “Makes it easier to talk, y’know. To look at you.”

“Oh? Are we starting with your tragic backstory? If you’re taking requests,” you said, sliding your hand up and over his shoulder to run your fingers over his collarbone (jutting out from under both burnt and new skin), “then I’d like to hear your perspective of when you first kissed me.”

Touya lift his prosthetic hand to your cheek, just as cold and strong as his real one, and he placed his thumb at the corner of your lower lip, tip breaking the seal of your lips to press in just barely. “Actually, I think we’ll start with this pretty mouth of yours.”

***

Iida was shouting and gesturing from the living room that you only had fifteen minutes before the episode viewing was scheduled to start, and Shinsou shut him up by reminding him that Tokoyami had to pick up Ojiro and Hagakure from the floristry across town and that they’d start watching whenever they started watching, so chill out, Iida. Go help Mina pick the bugles out of her hair, or something.

You and Touya crouched together in front of the oven, staring through the glass at the rows of potato wedges—the recipe he claims his mother made when he was five, but surely a woman as sensible as Todoroki Rei wouldn’t put that much fucking cayenne pepper or paprika or chili sauce or—listen, it was a lot.

“C’mon, pretty boy, tell me something else true about you,” you said, nudging his shoulder with yours while you made eye contact with him in the oven’s reflection.

“Hm,” he said, scratching the underside of his chin with a bare hand (the gloves lay folded back on the teahouse dresser), “I hate fish.”

(Here you sighed dramatically, because you obviously already knew this. His loathing was intensified at the moment, though, because he’d had to get up and leave you in the middle of the night last night because the koi pond monitor was blaring at a stupid clog in the filter.)

“Tastes fuckin’ gross dead. Bitch to take care of livin’.”

You pushed on your knees to stand, and you held out a hand to help him up. “Enough with the negativity, dickhead. Tell me more about what you like.”

“Besides you?” He took your hand and grinned, putting all his weight into it as you strained to lift him, and when the oven timer beeped and you’d shot a few choice words his way, he had mercy and stood up by himself. He grabbed the oven mitts and tossed them to you, and while you removed the tray from the oven, he ran his hand through the sharp, white spikes of his hair, inadvertently wiping specks of paprika into it.

You set the tray on a cooling rack. “C’mon, Touya. No need to be so cheesy.”

“I can be worse,” he said, winding his arms around your waist before you could even take off the oven mitts, cradling you close to him, no room in between, and he propped his chin on your shoulder. “I can even incorporate—you call me cheesy; you’re the one who called me pretty boy not a minute ago.”

Blindly, you raised a hand to run it back through Touya’s soft, soft hair, and you gently bumped your cheek against his. “I am not being cheesy by simply stating the truth. You’re gorgeous, Touya.”

“Bet I’d look even better throbbing inside you.”

“Please follow a logical flow in conversation like the rest of us,” you said, and when you couldn’t grasp the spatula you were reaching for, Touya grabbed it for you, scraping up some of the first row, having to release you during the process.

Leaning on the counter to face him, you flinched at the heat before pinching a potato wedge between the tips of your fingers, but Touya held one like it was completely cool. It had almost touched his tongue before he paused and waited for your reaction to his recipe.

His potato wedges were bad. Too crunchy on top because of the odd broil time and not-fully-ground peppercorns and too soggy and soft underneath, especially in the part where it’d stuck to the tin foil and peeled off, and the combination of spices didn’t quite mesh together well. With a sliver of quiet triumph, you swallowed a bite of potato wedge decidedly worse than the ones you made.

But Touya was looking at you, eyes brimming with hope despite his otherwise carefully cultivated cool exterior, watching, waiting for you—and it was Touya, after all; Touya was the one who cooked these—made them for you, deliberately, on purpose—and so that made what words were about to come out of your mouth true and beautiful.

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

[kybercrystals94]

Letting Go

Read here on Ao3

Summer of Bad Batch 2024 | Week 6 | Battle Scars

Rated: G | Words: 903 | Summary: Story takes place just before Omega leaves to join the Rebellion.

Crosshair sits down next to Hunter on the sand. “Omega told me what happened.”

“I’m sure she did,” Hunter says. It comes out harsher than he means it to, but he does not try to take it back. It seems that age has worn down the barriers of his emotions, bitterness and hurt leaking through.

“She said you were being unreasonable, overbearing, and overprotective,” Crosshair continues. “Not to mention your listening skills need some work, because you only care about your side of the argument.”

Hunter’s frown deepens. “Good to know.”

“And I said,” Crosshair goes on, as though Hunter hadn’t spoken, “the same thing I said way back when she was only about this big.” He holds out a hand to demonstrate.

Hunter rolls his eyes, because they never knew Omega when she was that small, but he gets the point.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I said?”

Hunter sighs. He’s too tired to play this game. “What did you say?”

“Don’t hold it against him. He’s only worried about you.”

Hunter turns to look at Crosshair, surprised. “When did you tell her that?”

“When we were going to Barton IV,” Crosshair replies, digging a toothpick out of his pocket. He puts it between his teeth. “That kid’s always trying to prove herself, isn’t she? That she’s one of us.”

“She is one of us,” Hunter argues.

Crosshair huffs. “Of course she is, but she’s not a soldier, Hunter. She’s our kid, not our brother in arms. I don’t think she’s ever figured out the difference.”

“So she wants to join the Rebellion because she wants to prove herself as a soldier?”

“Not entirely, although I think that is part of it,” Crosshair says.

“And the other part?” Hunter asks.

Crosshair meets his eye. “She might not be a soldier, but she is a fighter. We raised her that way, didn’t we? To stand up for the defenseless, to do what’s right?”

“That’s not…” Hunter stops because his voice gives out, barbed anguish ensnared deep in his throat. He tries to swallow it away, but it is unyielding, so his voice cracks and breaks around it. “That’s not what I want for her. I want her to be safe. I want her to be here.”

A younger Crosshair might have looked away, trying to comfort from arm’s length. But just as time has made carefully constructed emotional walls brittle, time has softened the sharp edges of his brother. The former sniper moves closer, knocking their shoulders together. “I’m scared to lose her too.”

“We fought so hard to get away from war,” Hunter says brokenly, “to get Omega away from war. And she wants to throw herself into another.”

“I don’t want her to go,” Crosshair says. “But I think she’s already made up her mind. I don’t know where she gets her stubbornness from. Certainly not from me.”

Hunter chokes on the laugh that bubbles up through the mire of sorrow. “Hate to break it to you, Cross, but you’ve got a stubborn streak a hundred klicks wide.”

“Do I?” Crosshair muses, and Hunter glances at him in time to see a grin twitch his lips in the moonlight. “Because she reminds me an awful lot of you.”

“I see a little bit of all of us in her,” Hunter admits, “and yet she is still something all her own.”

Crosshair hums in agreement.

“What if she loses that?” Hunter asks. “What if joining the Rebellion steals that spark she’s always had? We changed so much from the time we were cadets and then soldiers. We didn’t have a choice. But Omega does. She doesn’t have to face the horrors we did, experience the pain and suffering. She’s safe here. Why can’t that be enough for her?”

“Omega already has battle scars, Hunter,” Crosshair says. “You think she went unscathed living the life she did before Pabu? The kid’s tougher than she looks.”

“I never said I didn’t think she could handle it,” Hunter argues, “She just shouldn’t have to.”

“She doesn’t have to,” Crosshair says. “She wants to. Whether we like it or not, she’s a grown woman. She needs to make her own decisions. She needs to have her own cause, her own life. She won’t have us forever!”

That last sentence is like a blaster bolt to the heart, a burning, white hot sensation that drives the breath from Hunter’s lungs. But he takes the pain and shoves it deep, turning his grieved anger on Crosshair instead. “So you want her to go. You’re encouraging her.”

“You know that’s not true,” Crosshair bites out, and Hunter can hear the effort his brother puts into controlling his own, retaliating anger. “But it’s not up to us. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We have to let go.”

Bruised silence solidifies between them, and Hunter can’t find it in himself to disturb it. He should apologize, should appreciate Crosshair’s attempt at playing the mediator in spite of his own feelings on the matter. Why does Hunter feel at odds with every sibling, no matter where they stand on the issue?

“You’re stronger than I am,” Hunter mutters at last. “Omega can just talk to you about it…but with me, it’s a fight. Why?”

Crosshair sighs. “Because she doesn’t want my blessing, Hunter. She wants yours.”

And the last of Hunter’s brittle, emotional barrier crumbles completely.

END

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[flippinpancakes64]

the cullens with a vampire hunter reader that will NOT harm the Cullens?

The Cullens with a Vampire Hunter! Reader

Writing this as I’m waiting for food at the Texas Roadhouse lol

Also I watched Longlegs today talk about a weird ass movie. It was good though, I would recommend it if you're into weird horror.

Thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy!

Edward:

He doesn’t trust you at first

Instantly, he knows what you are

He can hear your thoughts and how you intend to harm vampires

He warns the family about you

You had heard about a family of vampires who didn’t harm people, but you didn’t believe it

You were convinced that it had to all be an elaborate lie

But when you see one of them in public, it's instantly obvious

The golden eyes, the calm demeanor, etc.

He takes a while to warm up to you, he still doesn't trust you entirely

But when some opposing vampires come into the area and you fight with the Cullens, he stands corrected

He helps you fight other vampires lol

He doesn't like them either

He follows you all around the world to go hunting

He loves it

Alice:

She sees you coming in a vision

She sees you holding a vampire's head as they wither away into smoke

And then she sees a flash of you crossing the line into whatever town they are in

She warns everyone that you are coming

And when you arrive, you almost get into a battle

But then you see that the Cullens are different

In the moment that you hesitate and choose not to attack, Alice gets a flash of the two of you together in the future

She declares that you're not a threat

She trusts you fully from the beginning

She gets a bit wary just because she's worried that if Jasper slips at all that you might attack him

Just reassure her that you won't <3

Jasper:

You had been tailing him for a while through the college campus

He didn't know who you were or what you wanted

All you knew was that he was far too beautiful and graceful to be human

But one day you sat next to him in the cafeteria and you saw his newly golden eyes from him having just fed yesterday

He could feel the shock from you

When he turned to fully look at you it was like he could feel the connection

After you two talk for a while, he learns that you're a vampire hunter

He gets a bit nervous after that

I feel like he's probably run into some trouble with hunters before

So yeah he's a bit scared

He takes a while to warm up to you

But after you reassure him multiple times that you are not a threat to him or his family, he relaxes

He also tells you about all of his troubles with cravings

He feels so much better that you're so patient with him

Rosalie:

Yeah she doesn't trust you at all

She's already not a huge fan of humans

But someone who poses a threat to her family who she will never admit that she cares about? Yeah no

She will be the last one to warm up to you guaranteed

And it will take a while

She needs to be 100% certain that you aren't gonna hurt them

I feel like it would take one last big push for her to really start trusting you

Like an attack from a rogue vampire that you help fight

That will kick into her mind that you really do care and mean no harm

After that she hangs out with you a bit more

But don't expect too much

At least not a first

Just give her time, she'll come around

Emmett:

He's one of the quickest to trust you

I feel like after a couple of days of you not trying to kill them he's like "good enough for me"

He's just really curious about how you do it

I mean, it takes him a bit of force to kill a vampire, so how does a human do it

He wants to go hunting with you

He just thinks it's fun

Every once in a while, it's very rewarding to pick on someone your own size

He would make jokes about your profession if you ever say he's annoying you

"Emmett. Stop tapping my head, I'm busy"

"Or what? You gonna kill me?"

And then he acts shocked when you hit him on the head

Esme:

She's very worried

The last thing she wants is danger to come to her family

But at her core she is a loving and accepting person

So it doesn't take her long to warm up to you

She is still pretty wary around you, she doesn't truly know what to expect after all

But having you around is a pretty big comfort to her

Just knowing that there's one more person who's able to defend each other should the need arise

She is also very curious about what exactly it is that you do, but she does not want to be a part of that

Not her cup of tea

Carlisle:

Another one who has encountered vampire hunters before

Only, the last ones he interacted with didn't care that he didn't hurt humans, they just wanted him dead

So it's a very pleasant surprise when you don't instantly try to kill him

You explain that you heard rumors of a big vampire clan that was completely docile and you needed to see it for yourself

He's very curious to hear about all of your adventures

But he's also not going to go hunting with you

He has other things to do

He does trust you pretty early on, though

His thought process is that if you wanted to try to kill them then you would have done it already

And Edward or Alice would have told him something's up

Vampire! Bella:

She's pretty extreme

When you first show up and reveal what you are, she is ready to attack no questions asked

But as soon as Edward and Alice confirm that you're not a threat, she is instantly your bestie

In like a casual way though

She's so curious, she wants to know everything

She becomes attached at the hip for a while

And yes she does want to go kick some vampire ass with you

She's so down

[corazondebeskar-reads]

no quiet on this earth

Joel Miller x f!reader

originally for Febuwhump 2024 Day 10 - killing in self defense | Febuwhump masterlist

words: 2.8k

summary: You and Joel run into hunters on patrol.

-- I'm a fucking menace, and this is Joel & reader from "you know you never stood a chance" (spoiler warning). BUT this can be read as a standalone. I just can't seem to help myself/let them go.

warnings: established relationship, jackson, patrol partners, hunters, Joel and reader both kill hunters, canon-typical violence, graphic descriptions of violence, lots of blood, oral (m receiving), p in v unprotected, creampie, feelings, guilt/trauma, trauma response, a little hurt and a LOT of comfort, Joel takes care of you, one (1) ass slap, pussy/clit spanking

dividers by @saradika-graphics

They had been waiting for you. Not the biggest group of hunters that’s come ‘round, but there hadn’t been any signs. It was supposed to be an easy half-day route. 

It was also your first patrol with Joel. 

You’re already off to a rough morning. He’s settled back into Out There Joel, gruff and tense, and you’re already feeling useless again even though you know you can handle it now. 

You’re on horseback, you with a gentle brown mare that you’re a little irritated about. Penny is notoriously slow and usually used to teach people to ride. Tommy taught you to ride ages ago, but Joel fucking insisted. 

“Ain’t havin’ you have to deal with a spooked horse our first time out.”

“Our first time. I’ve been out loads of times,” you grumbled. He leveled you with a look so stern that you rolled your eyes. 

“Don’t start with your smart mouth,” he said. “Only way this works is—“

“If I do what I’m told. I got it. Same shit, different place.” 

To say you’re pissed would be an understatement. You thought after all the shit you’ve been through that he’d trust you now. And you’ve gotten quite good with your revolver and halfway decent with the rifle. 

Now, out here on the trail to the safe house, neither of you has said a word. Just like the good old days. Y’know. If they had been good. 

You’re nearly there when they make their move. They don’t have guns, thank fuckin’ god, but there are five of them and two of you. 

It becomes quickly clear that they want the horses. Joel makes quick work of the first hunter that lunges for him. 

One comes at him from each side, and you’re too worried to notice the other two do the same to you. 

One grabs the reins and the other tries to yank you from the saddle. Your boots are stuck, and they don’t seem to particularly care if they break your legs during the extraction. 

You free your feet, boots left behind, and let the brick house of a man pull you down. He doesn’t care much about your landing, so when you hit the ground, you grapple for your revolver. 

His partner yells, and he spins back to you, a huge fist aiming for your face. But it doesn’t connect, because your bullet does first.��

He was close enough that it would have been near impossible to miss, which also meant that his stupid body landed on you, turning your clothes into a sponge for his blood. 

Joel’s rampaged through the others by now and turns to take down the one trying to abscond with your horse. 

But he doesn’t make the shot, because he freezes up when he sees you. 

“Get the fucking horse,” you yell. 

He swears and loads the rifle, one neat bullet into the head of the escaping hunter. He hadn’t fully mounted your mare yet, and his corpse crumples into the soft spring soil. 

Joel whistles and Penny takes her fucking time to come back, giving him a very unimpressed look and shaking her mane. 

He heaves the dead man off you. “Where?” he says sharply, eyes darting all over your body. 

“Nowhere, Joel, I’m fine,” you say. 

He’s already dropping to his knees, hands gripping and patting every inch of you before cradling your face. “You’re sure?”

“I mean, I think so. Unless I’m in shock, but I guess we’ll find out in a little bit.”

“Not funny, sweetheart,” he mutters, doing another check, slower this time and more thorough. 

You let him. You feel kind of funny, dizzy almost, but mostly just… muted. Like the world around you is muffled and you’re suddenly hyper aware of how blood is turning tacky and your jeans are stiffening as it dries. 

“Hey,” he snaps. 

You’re pretty sure that means he was already talking to you, and when you look up and meet his eyes, they abandon their irritation for concern beneath furrowed brows. 

“Sweetheart, listen to me,” he says, voice low and slow. It draws out the Texan twang and loops you in. “You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you. You did what you had to do, okay?”

“Okay,” you echo, but the word sticks in your throat, tasting of copper. 

“Say it.”

“I did what I had to do.”

You’ve done as he said, but he looks more worried for it. 

“Alright, c’mon. I’m gettin’ you home.”

“But—“

“Rethink that, baby. I ain’t in the mood to argue.”

“But we were supposed to—“

“Yeah, and plans fuckin’ change. We’re going back. Tommy and I can come out and deal with the bodies later.”

He stands and pulls you up, though you follow willingly. You hover where you stand as he pulls a rope from his bag and tethers it to Penny’s lead. 

“What’re you doing?” 

“Want you on Oakley with me.”

“I can ride,” you snap. “I’m not fucking hurt.”

“I know,” Joel says. “But you’re gonna ride with me.”

“Don’t start this shit,” you say, mortified when your voice and hands are trembling. “I can handle myself.”

He spins around, fury written in the curl of his lip. “I fuckin’ know that! I don’t give a shit. You’re riding with me, end of fuckin’ discussion.”

You open your mouth, ready to bite back, but he seizes you by the shoulders and shakes you a little. 

“Don’t you fuckin’ get it? It’s not about you,” he snarls. You’re crushed against him before you realize it’s an embrace. “You’re gonna fuckin’ ride up here, so I know you’re okay.” 

“Oh,” you whisper, leaning into him. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” he says, but the fight is already leaving him. He presses a kiss to the top of your head before he lets go. “Now get on the damn horse before I put ya there myself.”

You think you deserve credit for only hesitating a little, tempted to see if he really would. But his jaw ticks and you heave yourself up onto Oakley. Joel swings himself behind you, caging you in as he takes the reins. 

“You’re so fuckin’ stubborn,” he gripes. 

“I learned it by watching you,” you say, voice pitched in mockery of the vague memory. 

But instead of irritation, something akin to relief flashes across his face. “Yeah, s’that right?”

“Uh-huh.” Now that everything has calmed, you’re exhausted. He can tell because of course he can. He knows you too well. 

“C’mon, lean back. I got ya. Not gonna let you fall.”

You don’t sleep, not really, but you fall into something between the light and dark. It’s blissfully absent of reality. You’re only aware of the soft sunshine, the sway of the horse, and Joel. 

Joel, your Joel, is everything right now. All encompassing. You’re surrounded by his warmth and smoky musk, masking the chill and tang of the stains on your skin. 

His heart seems to beat in time with Oakley’s hooves and the steady pace he encourages keeps you lulled in this safest place. 

“Holy shit, what happened?” Carl asks at the gates, almost loud enough to knock you from your peace. 

“Nothin’ too serious, she ain’t hurt,” Joel’s smooth tone settles you back down. “But do me a favor and get the horses back? Send Tommy my way in a while. I’m gonna take her home.”

Home. It sounds so nice. But you’re already there, you want to tell him. There’s nowhere you’d rather be than right here. 

You must actually say it, because he chuckles. “Okay, sweetheart, but I can think of somewhere I’d rather be.”

It hurts a little before he leans in and murmurs in your ear. 

“I’d rather be in a warm bath with ya. That sound better than stayin’ put?”

“Oh,” you say. “Yeah, you’re right. Way better idea.”

He makes good on his promise when you get home. While he draws the water, he peels your ruined clothes off and sits you on the bathroom counter to rinse the blood into the sink. 

You sit very still with your eyes clenched shut as he cleans you. 

“I know,” he murmurs. “First one’s the hardest.”

You can’t quite stopper the whimper. 

“This is part of why I don’t like ya goin’ out there. I can’t protect you from this.” The admission costs him, but he seems to decide it’s worth it when you look up at him. 

The tub isn’t really big enough for both of you, but he makes it work, long sprawling limbs propped up to make room for you against his chest. You lie on your side, both to make more room and to press your ear to his chest and listen to his strong, tender heart. 

He holds you there, hand gentle on your head and the other around your shoulder until neither of you can pretend the water is comfortable still.  More importantly, his cock’s been pressing against you for a little while now, and you’re unable to ignore it anymore.

You roll over on your stomach, legs bent a little funny to fit, but it’s the right angle to press a kiss to the fat mushroom head that you love so much. 

“Sweetheart, you don’t need—”

But you just give him a look, because he knows better, he knows you’d never do anything you don’t want to. And he knows how often you crave it, how your throat aches for it.

He raises his hands in surrender. “I sure as hell ain’t gonna stop ya.” 

With the convoluted seating arrangement, you’re able to swallow down his length, working your throat open in the way you’ve grown to know well. It’s a lot at once, but the way he groans is worth the effort. 

You choke and gag a little, but neither of you are really bothered by it. Quite the opposite. And you’re grateful for the way the thoughts you don’t want to face are knocked from your brain each time he ruts deeper. 

Too soon, though, he’s pulling you off, spit thick with precum stringing between him and your lips as you whine.

“C’mon, let’s get out. I gotta have more of you.”

You don’t dry off quite as much as you’d like, but you’re probably going to need to change the sheets anyway. He can’t be bothered to let you towel off properly, picking you up and setting you on the bed before crawling over your body.

He kisses you, ferocious but hesitant, and you trail your hands up his arms, basking in the way he encompasses you for the second time today. His soft, powerful body leaves no wiggle room, practically pinning you down with his bulk. 

Except he’s holding himself up, tense. And the gentleness of his tongue and distinct lack of nipping teeth in his kiss is grating. 

You turn your head to break apart. “Stop acting like I’m gonna fall apart.” 

“I—”

“Oh, don’t even. It’s like you think I’m going to break if you touch me.”

“I didn’t want to make it feel like…”

“I know,” you say, softer. “But I want to feel you, Joel. I don’t want to feel the ghost of it… him. Please.” 

“You wanna feel me, sweetheart? Want me to be a little rough with ya?” 

“Unless you’re too tired. S’it past your bedtime, old man?” 

He doesn’t fall for the taunt, but he pretends to, and you’re deeply grateful as he snarls and bites at your breast before licking and sucking at your nipple, taking it between his teeth and shaking a little. 

“Oh, fuck,” you moan, hand tangling into his hair. He wears it a little shaggier these days, and you find you like it long. A lot. 

“Think you can take it just like this?” he says around your other nipple. The hand that isn’t holding him up has reached down to his cock, rubbing it against your clit until you squirm, and then dragging it down your slit. “You’re fuckin’ soaked. I think you can take it.”

He doesn’t wait any longer than the first little nod of your head before he flicks his hips, parting you, forcing your body to make room for him. It takes a second thrust to push all the way in, and you cry out as he stuffs you full. 

It hurts so good. It’s just the edge you need to feel awake again. The world is no less fuzzy but the haze is pleasurable and electric instead of the numb fog that refused to dissipate. 

“That’s my girl,” he says. 

It floods you with warmth. You think maybe the sappiness is leaking through, that he can see how stupidly in love you feel. 

Or, you know, it’s actually leaking, since you’re apparently fucking crying. You can’t really begrudge yourself for it. It’s been a hell of a day. 

“There you go,” he murmurs, the gentleness of his voice playing second to the harsh slap of his hips and the tight pinch of his fingers on your breasts. “Let it out, sweetheart. Let me help you.” 

His pace, somehow, intensifies, the brutal snap of his cock blunt against the softest parts of you. He pushes your legs to your chest so he can shove his way in deeper, and smacks a harsh hand against your ass from his new vantage point. 

He grips your hip with one hand and lets up on your tits, only to show no mercy to your clit. He skips over the gentle circles and soft strokes, instead pinching and tugging. He wrenches two orgasms from you before he eases off. 

“Hold your pussy open for me,” he grunts.

You look at him with wide eyes. How can he still be finding ways to shock you with depravity? The two of you have to have fucked every which way, and yet. You slide a hand down but he shakes his head.

“Both of ‘em, baby. Nice and wide.” 

Your cheeks are burning as he lifts up onto his knees, pushing your legs apart to watch as you spread your lips wide. For a moment, he’s mesmerized by the push and pull of his cock splitting you apart and the way it comes out a little slicker each time. 

“Look at that,” he says, a smug smirk spreading. “Fuckin’ creamin’ all over me, sweetheart. Now hold still.”

Before you really process the order, still dying from how hot his filthy words are, he slaps your clit. You jerk and let go, crying out more in surprise than pain.

“Put your fuckin’ hands back,” he says, and you obey. 

Your whole body is on fire, maybe. He brings his hand down sharply again and again, making you hold yourself spread wide for him to use as he pleases. 

It doesn’t really surprise either of you when you come. He finally knocks your hands away from your cunt and leans back down over you, hips stammering sloppily. 

“Can I—” he chokes out, and you’re nodding so hard it shakes your brain around. He digs his fingers into your hips. “C’mon, sweetheart, one more. Gimmie one more while I fill you up.”

He goes to reach for your clit, but it doesn’t matter. As soon as he starts twitching and pulsing inside you, you come, eyes rolling back and fingernails digging into his biceps. 

When you’ve both settled, there’s something bright in his eyes, something wild and dangerous. He sinks his teeth into your collarbone and doesn’t pull out. His softening cock isn’t much smaller than it is erect, and he stays buried deep in you, eyes trailing over your face. 

“What?” you say softly.

“I thought… thought I fuckin’ lost you today.” His voice is gruff but tight.

“You didn’t, Joel. M’right here.”

He kisses you, and it’s not gentle exactly, not like earlier, but it’s tender and demanding. His hands grip you and roam, not pursuing pleasure but just to have his fill of you, to feel your body warm and alive beneath him. 

When he breaks away from your swollen lips, he presses a kiss to your forehead. “You did good. I don’t like it, but you did good. I’m not gonna ask you not to go out again, but—”

“I’m gonna ask Tommy if I can have a break,” you say, pursing your lips. “I’m not a coward, but I don’t know if I can do that again.” You’re burning again, but this time with shame.

“No one expects you to. It doesn’t mean you’re a coward. You’re tough, sweetheart. But y’ain’t a killer.”

“I am, though,” you whisper. 

“Stop. Yes, you killed that man today. But you had to. It was him or you. You’re a survivor. But I’m going to make damn sure you don’t have to be anymore, alright? We’re safe here, now.”

You let out a ragged sigh and try to relax back into the pillow. “Okay,” you agree. You can tell he needs it. How scared he was. 

At least for now, you’ll let him protect you from this.

*title from "Death For My Birthday" by Say Anything

[waywardxwords]

I've Got You

Summary: After a year of being in Purgatory, Dean has returned and is trying to make sense of what happened while he was away.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Female Reader (more of a friendship; they deeply care about each other but nothing wildly romantic happens in this story)

Word Count: ~1.6k

Warnings: Light cursing, angst, Dean/Sam contention (this takes place after Dean gets back from Purgatory and Sam is on/off with Amelia), light fluff, light blood/silver testing (non-descriptive)

A/N: Happy October, friends! This is my first entry for the #flufftober2023 @flufftober prompt challenge. The prompt is: "I've got you." I hope you enjoy!

“Dean,” you breathed as you walked through the door of the cabin. Even after you heard his voice on the phone, you couldn’t be sure it was really him–not until you saw him. 

“Test me,” his words were firm and clear–much firmer than you remembered. You processed that the man had been in Purgatory for the last year, and his experience had most likely hardened his already tough demeanor. 

“Dean, I–” you tried to stop him.

“Test me, dammit,” he grumbled as he grabbed what looked like a jug of holy water and took a swig of it. Next was the silver; he didn’t hesitate to run it along his forearm before he wrapped the cut it left behind with a bandana. He wiped the blade on his denim jeans. 

“Dean,” you said, for the third time now. Your eyes burned with tears. You knew it was him from the get go, but now it was confirmed. He handed you the holy water and the blade. You moved slower than he did, but you took a sip of the water and winced at the bitterness; it was laced with salt. Then, you took the blade and matched his movements with a small slice on the underside of your forearm. 

Without allowing another moment to pass, he pulled you in tightly to his chest for a hug–so tight, you thought you might not be able to breathe as your body was crushed against his. 

“God, it’s good to see you,” he breathed in your hair before he finally released you. “Where’s Sammy?” His eyes moved over your face inquisitively.

“I, uh, I don’t know, Dean,” you were careful with your words. You were a little bit angry with Sam, but you didn’t want to have to explain why to Dean.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” The sharpness made you blink, but you knew he wasn’t trying to hurt you with his tone. The man had been in Purgatory for a year, for Christ’s sake. 

There was no way around it, though. You were going to have to try to explain and hope he could understand.

“I’ve gotta get out of here,” Sam mumbled. It had been three days since you all had killed the Leviathans, but somehow Dean and Castiel had been killed in the process. You had spent three days researching and looking for how to find them, but you had come up empty. Sam had tossed around the idea of Purgatory , for Cas, at least, because he was an angel; but neither of you knew how that worked–the death of an angel? Where would they go? Could an angel go to Hell? 

“Sam, we’re going to find them,” your eyes were heavy, you hadn’t slept. The pain of running in circles reading and re-reading and searching was making you feel crazy.

“Are we? Even if we do find them, how are we going to get them out?” Sam was angry, and you understood that. But anger wasn’t helping the situation, and you wished he could realize that.

“I don’t know yet,” you sighed as you placed your elbows on the wooden table in front of you and dropped your head into your hands. “We will find a way. We always do.”

“I have no one now. My family is dead, I just…I gotta get out of here,” he repeated. His words stung, but you knew you weren’t family. You weren’t even a hunter, initially. You had stumbled into this world when the Winchesters had saved you on a hunt a while back. Now that you knew what went bump in the night, there was no turning back. “I’m sorry, but I have to go…” Sam seemed reckless, but you also knew that you couldn’t stop him. Not really, anyway.

You stayed silent, but as the door closed behind him, tears pooled in your tired eyes.

After you had explained carefully what had transpired, you tried to ease the blow. “You always wanted Sam to get out of the hunting life, Dean.” Your words were soft.

Dean sat on the sofa leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs as he stared at the wall opposite him. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t say a word.

“I gotta get some air,” he cleared his throat and stood quickly. He reached for his jacket. “I’ll be back later.” Before you could say a word, he was already out the door and pulling it behind him with a slam. You couldn’t help but feel defeated, yet again.

This was the third dive bar you had checked in an hour. You had lost hope and wondered if you really knew the oldest Winchester at all as you looked for him. But there he sat on a barstool at the end of the dimly lit bar. 

You heaved a sigh before you walked towards him. “I’m gettin’ real tired of looking for your ass,” you grumbled playfully as you carefully moved onto the stool next to him. 

His eyes didn’t move from the back of the bar as he took a pull from his beer. 

“Yeah, well, at least somebody’s lookin’,” he muttered just loud enough for you to hear.

You weren’t sure what to say to that immediately, so instead you leaned against the bar and flagged down the bartender. “Could I get a Stella, please?” The bartender nodded and went to retrieve your bottled beer.

A few moments of silence passed. “I just thought he’d look for me,” Dean's voice cut through the quiet noise in the bar as he stared at the label on his bottle. His fingernails picked at the edges in a way to distract himself. 

“I know,” you tried to form the words in your head before they tumbled out of your mouth incorrectly. “Sam loves you, Dean. He’s just…he’s tired. Does that make it right? Not necessarily. You’re his brother, but this life…it’s not the life he wanted.”

“And you think I wanted it?!” His voice raised as he looked at you incredulously. 

“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that you and Sam are different people,” you tried to explain carefully, reminding yourself again that it’s not you, it’s Purgatory. 

He seemed to relax as he remembered this was you that he was talking to. “I’m sorry,” he groaned inwardly as he turned back in his stool to face the bar. “I would do absolutely anything for Sammy. I was lost when he was gone. I just thought he might do the same.” After a quick pull from his beer, he changed the subject. “So, what’d you do this past year?” Dean asked acrimoniously, as he glanced at you briefly and toyed with the paper label on his beer bottle.

You waited for a moment, just as the bartender placed your own beer in front of you. You moved it around in your hands for a few seconds. Like Dean, your fingers found the sticker on the bottle and began to pick at it so you wouldn’t have to look at him. “I looked for you,” you answered slowly before you pulled the beer to your mouth and took a sip. You felt his gaze now, his head turned to watch you as if he was surprised to hear what you said. “I hunted a little, here and there. Mostly just when I stumbled upon a job, though.”

“...you looked for me?”

You were surprised that he was surprised. It was your turn to turn your head back to him to meet his gaze. “Of course I did,” you said hesitantly. “I tried everything, Dean. I interrogated demons, I tried to make a deal, I tried to summon Crowley–”

He cut you off very quickly. “Woah, woah, woah,” his eyes were narrowed in on you now and you watched his entire body tense. “You tried to make a deal? And summoning Crowley?” He was pissed. You didn’t care.

“None of it worked, Dean. The crossroad demons said they didn’t know where you were, but I didn’t believe them…though I’m wondering if they really didn’t, since you were in Purgatory,” you were mostly just reading your own internal dialogue at this point. “I’m not sure how that works, exactly.” You nibbled gently on your bottom lip as you processed your thoughts.

“Are you insane?” He was still pissed. His voice rose a bit in volume and you glanced around to see the handful of other bar patrons glance in your direction. 

“Oh, calm down,” you said in a hushed tone while you rolled your eyes. “Like you wouldn’t do the same thing.” Dean knew it was true, but he still wasn’t happy. “Again, none of it worked anyway.”

“You know better than that,” he shook his head, the disappointment bled through his words. But somewhere mixed in with the frustration, you heard gratitude.

“And you know better, too. I wasn’t just going to sit on my ass or ride off into the sunset like everything was fine,” you still couldn’t find his gaze. It was easier to stare at the glass bottle between your hands.

He didn’t respond right away. The sound of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me” was playing on the jukebox now, and it was the only noise you could hear just over the chatter of the other people in the bar. “Thanks,” you weren’t sure you heard him right away, but you felt his fingers graze the top of one of your hands that was clasped around the bottle. “I’m really glad I’ve got you. So if some shit ever goes down again, no goin' off and making deals to save me. If I came back and somethin' had happened to you..." his voice trailed off. You would spend a lot of time wondering what he had wanted to say, but chose not to. Instead, you moved your head to look straight into those green eyes, and that’s when you noticed it. A smirk tugged at the corners of his lips, and while his eyes were still sad, you saw a glimmer of hope.

A/N: Thank you for reading! As always, I am always open to any feedback you may have :)

Tag List: @jackles010378 @ladysparkles78 @hallecarey1 @zepskies @lyarr24

[heliads]

Hi! Hope I’m not too late, could I request a Derek Hale x reader where she (already knowing ab the supernatural) gets tired of Derek constantly disappearing from her life whenever he does that Derek thing until finally she’s fed up with it being the one to disappear this time idk how to end it or go from there but I was thinking of an angsty hurt/comfort with a happy ending🥺! Hope it’s enough, thank you!!

'the one who leaves ' - derek hale

masterlist

The hardest part of both being a werewolf and knowing a werewolf is, and will always be, the horrors. The attacks that never cease, the blood always shed. The second hardest part is the strain of being with someone whose life is always in jeopardy purely because of who they are. Although it doesn’t feel nearly as important as the constant threat of hunters, or the latest monster to decide that Beacon Hills should be its new domain, sometimes you swear the second part hangs even more heavily about your heart than the first. Then again, maybe that’s just because of Derek Hale.

Derek is one of the most complicated players on the supernatural chess board. You met him what feels like a lifetime ago, when one of seemingly dozens of supernatural attacks had threatened the lives of Beacon Hills citizens. Derek had saved your life. A month later, you’d saved him from some hunters. The back-and-forth of life saving went on and on until the two of you decided you were better as friends than people a little too important to each other to be acquaintances, and then the boundaries were shifted again when you started dating.

Sometimes, though, on rough nights after long fights and darker ones when you haven’t seen Derek in weeks and he doesn’t seem all that inclined to answer your texts or voicemails, you start to think that entering into a relationship with you is one of Derek’s biggest regrets. It’s not that he doesn’t care for you; Derek has assured you many times over that his feelings for you are stronger even than his loyalties to his pack, his commitment to killing the hunters responsible for the Hale House fire, yet the problem remains.

Derek is all too familiar with the struggle of having a weakness. When his ancestral home burned down with most of his family trapped inside, he learned for the first time that sometimes a mortal blow capable of destroying his life doesn’t have to threaten him specifically. When he loves someone so much that he prioritizes their safety above his own, Derek creates a weakness that hunters and other supernaturals can exploit. He would never forgive himself if you were hurt as a tool to get to him, so Derek has been doing his best to limit the fallout of any supernatural fight onto you.

However, this only seems to drive the two of you apart. Yes, by not being seen in public as often anymore, Derek lowers the possibility that a hunter would try to kidnap you as a hostage, but it also means that you see him less and less frequently. When you do finally manage to meet up, after thoroughly checking to make sure you haven’t been tailed, and only after dark in one of your houses, you’re both exhausted, wrung dry of the same life and spirit that had brought the two of you together in the first place.

It’s not the same anymore. You hate to admit it, but it’s true. Loving Derek is no longer the beautiful victory it had always been. Instead, you feel as if you’ve lost the war. Derek isn’t yours anymore. If he was, you wouldn’t have to hide what the two of you share, you wouldn’t have to constantly stare at the long list of missed calls on your phone and wonder when he’ll ever pick up, if he even wants to anymore. Derek is doing a great job at keeping you safe, but somewhere along the line, the two of you got your priorities mixed up. Now you’re alone and he’s alive, and you don’t know that you’re any happier about it than you would have been if one of you were lost to the hunters.

At this point, why try? Why even bother with the pretense of maintaining the ruse? The two of you might as well not even be together at all. It doesn’t feel like you are, certainly, when you go so long in between visits. Even when the two of you are finally face to face, Derek is harried and brief, hardly staying longer than a few hours before rushing off again, never to be seen for another few months.

It wears away at you like a river at a stone. Your sharp edges, the ones that pierced through his shell so easily at the beginning of it all, have been smoothed to nothingness. Each of your attempts to break through to Derek and coax him into staying even a little longer are brushed off with simple excuses. It’s like you don’t even exist to him anymore.

Fine. Fine. If you’re not a person to him anymore, he will not be a person to you. You pack up your things and leave Beacon Hills early one morning, only telling Scott McCall and Deaton over at the vet so they can contact you if need be. You don’t say a word about your absence to Derek. Why bother? He’s not even in town, hasn’t been for months. When he comes back– if he attempts to come back at all– he can ask one of his friends and hear the same answer that he would from you right now. There’s no point in wasting either of your time any longer.

You’re still engaged in fighting the good fight against the supernatural. Deaton is a longtime friend of yours, and he’d been hearing rumors of a peculiarity a couple of states over. He couldn’t afford to leave Beacon Hills for an extended period of time, being so important to the town as one of its last defenders, so you offered to go instead. It would be good for you, you said. The trip. Being able to clear your head.

Odds are, Deaton had been able to see through that excuse as he has many of your others all throughout your life, but he had just nodded and said that he was grateful for your help. With that, you left town. You’ve been in Beacon Hills for your entire life, excluding brief excursions in the name of school or work or family trips. Never before have you left like this, not entirely sure if you would ever come back, uncertain that the person you love most of all would be there to want you to return.

At first, the trip feels like a terror. Then you roll down the windows and let the early morning light touch your face with soft, bright fingers; then the breeze cools your face, running over your skin in loose circles; then you start to breathe at last, for the first time in what feels like years. Then you remember that you are still a person worth saving, and maybe even if Derek Hale cannot do that, you can save yourself by leaving.

The miles pass by in moments. You’re long gone by the time anyone starts waking up. Scott knew that you were leaving and told the other teenagers in his pack so they wouldn’t freak out, but he still texts you anyway. Hope you find what you’re looking for.

So do I, you message him back at a red light. Stay safe.

Thanks, he responds, then no more.

You end up in the state of your choice by the middle of the afternoon, booking a room at a hotel so you can have a home base while properly surveying the area. You don’t have a supernatural’s knack for telling when something is wrong, but the hairs on the back of your neck prickle anyway, letting you know that the currents of the wind around this city have a magical edge, a certain element that sets them aside from a normal town. Good. You could use something fantastical and uncommon.

You don’t know when you expect to hear back from Derek. Never, maybe. You had assumed that he wouldn’t try to reach out to you until he got back, which might be anywhere from a few months from now to never. Once he returned to Beacon Hills, Derek could hear from Scott as to why you weren’t there anymore. You and Derek hardly spoke at all anymore, except out of an obligation to make sure you were still alive. He probably wouldn’t care at all.

Yet not a week has gone by before you start getting frantic texts from Derek.

Y/N. You in town?

Why is your house empty?

Scott tells me you left town. Why didn’t you tell me?

Y/N. Please text back. I’m getting worried.

Three missed calls.

Please pick up, sweetheart. I’ll drive over there myself if I have to. Just tell me you’re alive.

You stare at the notifications for a long time, reveling in how they build in intensity, then tap out a message of your own at last:  I’m alive and well.

Derek immediately responds. And you didn’t tell me you were going?

The bright glow of your phone dulls your senses. Nothing feels right, but nothing feels wrong anymore. Loving Derek used to make you feel invincible. Now, you’re just tired, and wishing this exchange would end.

Didn’t think I would have to. You’ve been away for months, and you never tell me when you’re going. Why should I?

Derek doesn’t like that at all. It’s different with me, sweetheart. You know that.

You don’t bother to grace that with a response. Setting your phone on ‘do not disturb,’ you shove the device back in your pocket. It’s good that Derek is unhappy with this turn of events, you decide. For once, he should be the one panicking when he wakes up alone, when he wants to be with the person he loves only for them to disappear without a trace. Why should it be you all the time?

You carry on with your task. As it turns out, the case at hand, the utter unraveling of the supernatural presence in this town, is due to an overactive ancient curse on the town. Deaton talks you through how to shut it down, and once the job is done, you return home, proud of yourself and your accomplishments.

You’re fully expecting Derek to have left town again by the time you got back. He’s been messaging you non stop, but you’ve been leaving most of those messages on ‘unread’ since they all say pretty much the same things:  why wouldn’t you tell me you were going, are you alright, come back ASAP. You message back occasionally to assure him that you’re still alive, but mainly, you think a bit of silence would do the both of you some good.

After arriving back at Beacon Hills, you stop by your house to drop off your belongings before visiting Deaton to debrief. He’s glad to hear of your success, but once both of you have ensured that the town was handled accordingly, he breaks protocol to talk about your personal life instead.

“I think you should talk to Derek Hale,” he says uneasily.

You frown at him. “What?”

Deaton glances around to make sure no customers can overhear you, then continues on. “He’s been a wreck ever since you left. He keeps stopping by the shop to demand information from me. He insisted for a long time that I give him the name of the town you were visiting so he could check on you himself, but I kept it from him because I thought you would need to focus.”

“That was the right call,” you assure him. It would, after all, have been more difficult to juggle both an errant curse and a supremely ticked off boyfriend.

Deaton chuckles good-naturedly. “That was what I had assumed. I would still recommend talking to him, though. These sorts of conflicts are best handled sooner rather than later.”

You nod your agreement, and, after talking a few minutes longer, head out towards Derek’s apartment complex. Although you’ve felt bitterly triumphant in the fact that Derek now knows what it’s like to miss somebody like you’ve been missing him, you fell in love with him for a reason, and that reason was that you liked being around him more than you did with anyone else. You still love him, even if the two of you have been on the fringe of an argument for a while now.

That’s what drives you to his building, what carries you up the interminably long elevator ride, what brings you to knock twice on his door and wait until a quiet voice from inside announces that the door is unlocked.

That’s the first sign that something is wrong. Derek never leaves the door unlocked. Some could call it an overwhelming concern for safety, or just plain paranoia, but Derek’s experienced enough tragedy in his life to go overboard in making sure that he keeps all potential avenues of risk firmly blocked off. The fact that the door is unlocked disquiets you more than you like to admit.

Slowly, carefully, you push the door open. Immediately, you’re struck by the gloomy atmosphere of the place. Derek pulled the curtains over the wide windows of his apartment, making the whole place darker and more lifeless than usual. The lights are off. You can assume that Derek can see thanks to his werewolf senses without needing the fluorescents, but for your human eyes, the whole place just seems as dark and grave as a crypt.

“Derek?” You call out hesitantly.

Silence. Then, a husky voice from the back. “Y/N? Is that you?”

You still can’t see him in the gloom, so you cross the apartment to open the blinds on the large windows, hoping to toss some light on the situation. You know the layout of the place from memory, so many visits here help to solidify your knowledge of each piece of furniture in the apartment. Still, you’re not expecting to see Derek crumpled in a chair on the corner, looking significantly the worse for wear.

You’re at his side in an instant. “Derek? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he says listlessly. “Not like you knew a thing about that, though, disappearing like that.”

Your concern for him starts to fade away, replaced instead by a burning irritation. “So that’s what all of this is about? You’re so hurt that I was the one to leave that you’ve become comatose?”

Derek sits up a little, eyes flashing. “You vanished without a trace and didn’t tell me where you went. I thought you were dead, Y/N. I had to pry information out of Deaton so I even knew you were alive, and when I tried to contact you, you ignored my messages. What the hell was I supposed to think?”

You laugh, although it’s not a happy sound. “Finally, you understand. This is what I deal with every time you leave town, Derek. You never tell me where you’re going or what you’re doing. I sat here in Beacon Hills for months, wondering if you’ll ever come back. I was gone for half the time you usually are and yet it’s far too much for you to handle. How do you think I feel?”

Derek’s lips flatten. “I– I didn’t realize you took it like that. I was just trying to keep you safe. You know how the hunters watch me, and–”

You cut him off, feeling the anger coiling through your stomach. “I know that, Derek. I know that every supernatural in your life that isn’t a part of your pack wants you dead. I know that in your head, this is how you keep me safe, by constantly cutting me out of your life, but has it occurred to you that this isn’t what I want? You could have asked me if this was the way to handle it. If you had even talked to me at all, I would have told you that I don’t care about being safe. Not if it means we’re like this. Not if it means I don’t get to have you at all.”

Derek stands up slowly, until he’s hovering just a few breaths away from you. One of his hands reaches up to cradle your cheek. “I never wanted to hurt you,” he whispers. “I’ve lost so many people in my life. I can’t lose you, too.”

“I know,” you murmur back. “But if you keep going on like this, if you keep pushing me away, you’ll lose me anyway.”

He flinches. “I should have asked you,” he admits. “I can’t erase the past, Y/N, but I can apologize for the present. Will you forgive me?”

“Only if you stay with me,” you answer him.

A ghost of a smile plays upon his lips. “I’ve never had a problem with that. It hurts like hell, leaving you. Always.”

“Then don’t do it anymore,” you urge him. “Stay with me, Derek. Keep me safe by staying with me.”

“I will,” Derek promises.

People in love make a lot of promises. Some are kept, some are broken. Some are forgotten about entirely. Looking at Derek in this half-darkness, though, you have a feeling that this one will be cherished for quite a long time indeed.

teen wolf tag list: @mayfieldss, @rogueanschel, @lovesanimals0000, @rafecameronswhore, @bellabadacadabra, @watchreadfangirlrepeat, @23victoria

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[rosazoldyckk]

-Yandere! Illumi X Kidnapped! Reader-

⚠️warning⚠️ mentions of physical violence and abuse, un-consented NSFW moments (ONLY KISSING but still worth the tw) and needles.

Fandom: Hunter X Hunter. Character(s): Illumi Zoldyck, butler(s) (not specific)

A/N: I’m sorry if this is absolutely crap. I’ve got a lot of drafts about yandere Illumi, Chrollo and Hisoka so I didn’t really proof read this one😅 hope you enjoy my writing anyways❤️

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"You know how I feel about repeating myself Y/N." Illumi muttured, harshly sticking his needle into your already needle-covered head. His heartbeat increasing as your pained screams filled the room.

"I told you not to engage with them, didn't I?" He questioned, shoving another needle into your skull. You nod weakly, shivering at the cold chains while the burning sensation drew tears to your eyes.

Them, the them he's speaking of were simply butlers, which over time you considered friends after all the things they did to ensure your safety, that's all! Though he is probably no more. Your "lover" hated when you talked to anyone else, whether it was his butlers or even his own family, Illumi hated when you talked to anyone but him. That was the only thing that scared him, that was something he wouldn't allow happen. As long as he's alive he won't allow anyone to taint you, to see things in a different view than him.

It's unacceptable.

"Answer me."

The usual coldness of his voice had a tint of anger in it, which almost scared you, how could doing something so simple manage to make him this angry? "Y..es"

The dark-haired man smiled, a sick one at that. Moving closer, giving a thankfully soft tug on your blood-covered hair, pulling you into his arms. His hands being a bit closer to your back than you'd like. You simply attempted to ignore the sharp pain from the impact, thinking that it couldn’t get any worse than this.

As much as you tried to ignore the pain, it was enough for you to loose strength in resisting when Illumi fully closed the gap, placing his lips against yours experimentally. They were so oddly warm compared to the rest of him, molding to yours with ease as he moved against you. All you could sense was him. The dangerous may strong scent of pine with metallic undertones nearly becoming overpowering and almost intoxicating has he continued to kiss you breathless. It was almost enough to forget the pain shooting throughout your body.

Almost.

You attempted to protest with whatever strength you had left in your body but Illumi continued to cling onto you; the whine you let out muffled from his mouth over yours.

When he finally let you go, he left you breathless - chest heaving while you stared at him once more with eyes as wide as plates.

Illumi rubbed his thumb over your soft lips. Using his other one you run over your bruised back, snickering at your small flinches.

"Why must you disobey me like this Y/N? Why can't you make my job easier?" He whispers against your skin, talking more to himself than anything else.

"I love you so much," He sighed, kissing away from the salty tears streaming down your face. Being hardly able to contain himself in your disheveled state. "I'm only doing this because I love you, because others can and will seek to hurt you. You know I can't have that, don't you?"

You didn't have anything to say, there was nothing you really could say. You were confused beyond comprehension. How could he possibly hold you in his arms, look at you with such loving eyes after doing such unspeakable things to you? He doesn't want them to 'hurt you' but hasn't he hurt you more than they ever could? What could you possibly do now? Were you even in a position to go against his command?

You hiss at the sudden pain from the numerous questions racing through your head. Alerting the assassin much to your distress. The assassin could read you like an open book, studying you and your reactions longer than you can remember. As if knowing exactly what was going through your mind he scoffed, switching from his much nicer expression.

"And what could you possibly be thinking about?" Illumi asked, tapping on your cheek. "Ah, don't tell me it's those fools from earlier. It must be."

You let out a shaky sigh at his challenging tone. He knew he was right and so did you; that look you gave him only confirmed his suspicions. But the little bit of hope in your heart for them to be kept alive regardless of their so called ‘betrayal’, for them to continue helping you get back home. It would be your fault for their deaths after all.

Illumi gathered his needles from your head and freed you from the chains, catching you in his arms as you collapsed onto the floor. He let you go, still staring down at you as he licked your blood off the needles.

Crouching back down to you, he holds your face in one hand. "You'll stay here until you are properly disciplined, I have things to do." Though not realizing what they were you knew they were nothing but good. Pressing one last kiss to your cheek he leaned forward to whisper in your ear.

"Just remain by my side and behave, and everything will be alright."