#m.tomura

[shibaraki]

I miss when tomura was a scrawny scraggy gawky guy I miss when he looked like a strong wind could take him out and I could throw him against the wall and he’d stick there like a cooked string of spaghetti

[shibaraki]

SYMBOL OF FEAR ┊ SHIGARAKI TOMURA

tags: GN reader, hospital setting, reader is a nurse, post war recovery au, canon divergence (tomura loses his quirk after he’s saved), this is not sexual, angsty, idk I just wanted to help him wash his hair :(

wc: 2.3k

“Don’t touch me!”

You exhale shakily, lowering your head with both hands held out in surrender. Slowly does it. You back away from him, stopping when the heel of your foot hits the wall.

Eyes alight and wide with fury, there’s a red bloom bordering the sclera. He must have thrown up again. The needle once in the crook of his arm has been torn out, his IV pole laid across the floor. With a white knuckle grip, he’s trembling violently enough to rattle the metal frame around his bed.

Nothing is decaying.

Gently, “Tenko—”

“That isn’t my name!” he spits. His voice is brittle, much like a cub's imitation of a roar. You feel your chest tighten. In your care is Shimura Tenko, once Shigaraki Tomura — The Symbol of Fear, undeniably frightened of you.

“Tomura,” you correct yourself. “I’m sorry. I acted hastily because I was worried about your IV. I shouldn’t have done that”.

Pale faced, skin visibly sore and dry. The bridge of his nose wrinkles, his upper lip pulling back. He snarls, even as it splits the surface wounds around his mouth. Viscous strings of saliva thin between his jagged teeth as he bares them in your direction.

“I know you’re still confused, and I wish I could give you answers,” you hold his gaze meaningfully for a moment before dipping your head. “I am only here to help you recover. That remains true whether you believe it or not”.

His chest rises and falls erratically, refusing to give a response. You simply watch as his gown falls forward with each rasping breath, revealing pale, scarred collarbones. There are streaks of pink running down the column of his throat, blood rushing to the broken skin.

You wait a few more minutes. Time moves forward, tenderly wearing on his defenses. As the anger melts away the expression on Tomura’s face is fearful. Eyes wide as they survey the room, unblinking until the sting is unbearable, then repeating the motions.

The clear helplessness struck a chord with you, playing the strings in your heart. Given all the atrocities he had committed, any normal person might say the guilt you felt for his treatment was misguided.

Yet with the knowledge of his upbringing plastered across every news outlet, the details of his family’s death and the near loss of his own self, there is an undeniably human part of you that seeks to reassure him. Cowering before you is Shimura Tenko, taken and misshapen. A small child whose flesh had been held over the hearth, repurposed to be the perfect tool for destruction.

And now the reason he was allowed to live, the sole reason for which he believes he received patience and love, is gone. He has found himself back at the start.

Cowering before you is Shimura Tenko. Quirkless.

“You have been bed bound for quite some time now,” you begin again, speaking with soothing cadence. He bristles at your tone, but the defensive snapping doesn’t return. He only scrutinises you.

“I’m sure you’d like to wash yourself again and get a little independence back,” you say, unsure if he is even aware of the bed bathing that you and the other nurses gave him during his induced coma. “There’s a wet room adjoined to this one with an accessible shower, if you’d like to use it”.

“I’m not a child,” he fumed.

Dignity is a fragile thing. You nod, softening your gaze as you do so, and tell him, “I know”.

Your acquiescence appears to startle him, the grip he has on the bed frame marginally loosening. His silence permeates the air, stifling as you inhale, waiting in anticipation for his decision.

Gradually, he sheds the reluctance and his limbs unfurl across the mattress. A sliver of bare skin between the end of his gown and the beginnings of his compression stockings. His body trembles with the effort it takes to scoot to the edge of his bed, and he hesitates to set his feet on the floor.

“Do you need me to—”

“No!”

“Right,” stupid question. You wince, averting your gaze to the bathroom door, enough that it is no longer pervasive but he is kept in your periphery.

Tomura grabs the IV pole from the floor, pulling himself up with it to stand. Reflexively, his pinky is extended away from it. He breathes in deeply and visibly steels himself before letting go, finger by finger, until he is upright without support.

He makes his way around the bed towards the ensuite, his gait slow and heavy as if wading through water. Neither of you say a word, and you follow him two steps behind, noting how his shoulders stiffen if you come too close.

The bathroom is clinical in nature, entirely waterproof and sealed. Beneath your feet are stone coloured tile, painted over with anti slip coating, and the walls are a washed out white. There is a slightly raised toilet with an adjustable grab rail beside it, and a basin between two mounted rails for stability.

Largest is the shower itself, wide enough for a wheelchair to fit. Attached to the wall are three dispensers, a fold down stool bordered by two metal rails, and tucked into the corner is a large blue shower curtain.

Before you can offer, Tomura reaches behind his head to fiddle with the string keeping his gown together. You turn away, pulling out the stool beneath the shower head and stretching to toy with the water, flinching as it rushes out of the head onto the wetroom floor.

A huff. The warmth of another body brushes against you. “Move,” Tomura gripes. Keeping your eyes up, you step back with both arms held out. He ultimately ignores them, bracing onto the grab rail as he lowers himself onto the stool beneath the spray. Pin pricks of water bounce off his back onto your clothes.

You make no comment about the small towel wrapped around his waist to protect his modesty. Reaching over, you pull the curtain across. “I’ll have to stay in the room for your safety, but let me know if you need anything”.

“Whatever,” is his succinct reply. You worry the flesh of your bottom lip between your teeth. His silhouette is murky behind the curtain. The pressure is loud, repetitive white static in your ears. You watch as his head dips to hang defeatedly between his shoulders, drapes of his hair falling forward with the movement.

“The dispensers on the wall are label—”

“I can read!”

Well, at least he’s energetic. With no further assistance needed, you slowly back away to sit on the closed toilet seat. A hospital gown, disposable pants and his compression socks have been left in a heap beside the door.

When the shower cuts off abruptly, Tomura’s frustrated growl echoes throughout the room. “This thing is broken!”

“Did you try to turn the temperature up?” you ask.

Aside from the staccato drip of water from his wet body, everything falls silent. You sigh quietly. “The system automatically turns off if you make it too hot. I don’t want it to scald you”.

“Why not?” he snaps. You can hear him playing with the buttons. “I can handle a bit of pain”.

You smile despite yourself. “I think you’ve had enough of that already”.

Tomura doesn’t respond, and instead restarts the water. As his body moves under the spray the direction changes, spitting against the inside of the curtain. Over the crescendo, you can hear the distinct mechanical click of one of the dispensers.

Tenko is to be tried as a villain, yes. He is patient of yours, too. But most of all he is a person, deserving of privacy and respect. So you temper the urge to talk further, and allow him this unencumbered space to think, folding both hands in your lap. Minutes pass, and you wait.

You glance up as he gasps. It’s a soft, pained sound, barely heard. “Hey,” he croaks, rapping his fingers against the curtain as he searches for the opening. “Can you…”

Moving instinctively, you grab a dry towel before pulling back the curtain. Tomura is still hunched over, curling into himself. The towel over his lap is soaked. Quickly, you scan him for any obvious injuries.

He’s covered in bubbles. You see his white hair sticking to his naked shoulders in spiked clumps, saturated with water. Thick scars of various shapes and sizes, slashes and starbursts mottling his back.

Then you notice he is pressing the heel of his hand harshly against his eyes. You lower onto your haunches, proffering the dry towel. “Press this where it stings,” you tell him.

His throat bobs as he swallows. Head turning, his expression is pinched in distress. Tomura keeps both eyes closed, blindly searching for the cloth and recoiling as he makes contact with you.

“Here, let me…” you bring the towel up to him, dabbing it gently along with one hand while the other shields his face from the spray. To your surprise he doesn’t object, but instead steadily thaws under your touch. You tense in the effort to remain upright as he leans more of his weight into your palm, nuzzling into the fabric.

There are still bubbles spilling over from his crown. He definitely used too much from the dispensers, but that’s best kept to yourself. Gingerly, you use your free hand to brush them away before they can slip down his forehead.

“Would you like me to rinse your hair for you?”

His response is muffled and short. “Tomura, I need you to verbally consent”.

“Fine,” he groans, voice clearer with his chin tilted away from the linen. “…Hurry up”.

You instruct him to hold the towel and he does so, going back into hiding as you busy yourself with angling the shower head and adjusting the pressure. “Okay. I’m going to hold the back of your neck. Is that alright?”

Another grunt, though this time it is paired with a sharp nod. Cautiously, you pull the stool further from the wall and turn it until his back is to the spray. “Let me know if you want me to stop”.

Carefully you slide a hand behind his head, cradling the nape of his neck like you would an infant. His elbows raise with him as you tilt him back under the shower, keeping the towel over his eyes.

His hair falls with the flow of the water. Aware of his sensitive temperament, you begin at the roots, lightly massaging his scalp with your fingertips. You do not progress until the rigidity has seeped from his body, relaxed and breathing steadily in his chair.

Tomura’s hair is unnaturally white, thick and coarse. It is long, too, falling to the small of his back. There are plenty of knots, and as you comb your fingers through the length to rinse away the bubbles, you find yourself pausing often to gently untangle them.

“Does that feel okay?”

“Mm,” he sighs.

“Don’t fall asleep here Tenko,” you laugh under your breath, “I can’t carry you”.

Your arm is entirely wet, and in reaching to squeeze the water from the tips of his hair, he has slipped into the crook of it. His head turns limply into your chest, and the towel slips from his face.

Where there was once a snarling, ferality in his eyes there is now a haunting contentment to them. He blinks up at you in a daze, the fluorescent light reflecting in the burst vessels around his iris. You watch each other silently, accompanied only by the pitter patter of droplets hitting tile.

Belatedly, he mumbles, “Mama…?”

Breath held, you smother the emotions that well up inside of you. Deep, deep down, you pack them into an already overflowing chest and lock it shut. After shutting off the shower, you tap two fingers against his cheek.

“Tomura?” you call him, concerned about his sudden delirium. The bridge of his nose wrinkles at the name. “I need you to come back to me, okay? Do you know where we are?”

Gradually, the recognition moves through his face. You witness brick by brick as he rebuilds his wall. Blinking away the haze, tension returns to his body, and he cringes away from your embrace upon realising his position.

“Tomura?” you’re both sad and relieved to see his upper lip curling in disdain again. Once more, you ask, “Do you know where we are?”

“In the hospital,” he rasps, cognisant again. “Get the hell off of me”.

You remove your arm from behind his head and he leans on to the grab rail, skin damp and pebbling in the tepid air. Hastily, you find him a larger towel and tuck it around his shoulders, unperturbed by his choleric hiss.

“Careful when you stand, your muscles relaxed quite a bit,” you give a small smile. He grunts. Intuitively, you know that offering to walk him would result in more embarrassed anger. “Do you feel comfortable enough to let me insert the IV back in once you’re dressed?”

Tomura sits himself up straight and readjusts the covering in his lap. “I’m sick of needles,” he says, avoiding your gaze.

Dark blotches seep through the towel as it soaks up the water. While the shower had been short, you think he already looks a little better like this. Clean. There was still a long road ahead, but before this he had never let anyone touch him without sedation, so you count it as a significant win.

“How about I do it after you’ve eaten, then?”

He peers at you through the curtains of hair, laid comically flat to his head. His appearance and his behaviour sometimes resembled a stray cat. More often than not, you had to remind yourself that he had been an extremely dangerous individual, responsible for tragic destruction all throughout Japan.

And here he was, “Can I have some ohagi?”

The figurative chest deep in your consciousness threatens to burst. You rub at the spot over your heart as it aches, and smile sadly.

“Sure, Tenko. I’ll have them send up some ohagi”.

[shibaraki]

horikoshi told me personally that tomura rubs his feet together like a cricket in bed

[shibaraki]

A crooked pinkie finger twitches as you try to move, accompanied by the tell-tale sound bite of a character dying from above, flecks of dust crumbling briefly from the outer case of Tomura’s console. You huff when he tenses around your shoulders to keep you held in the crook of his arm, feeling his disdained grumbling against your crown where you remain pressed to his front. Limbs entangled, cramped together as if there is no other space on the large bed.

You murmur his name in complaint, tilting your head back to meet his gaze, pulsing red and curtained by stray hair. The bun must’ve come loose. “Tomura, baby. You gotta let me walk around a little. My legs are full of static”.

Chin ducking into the material of his hoodie, his eyes narrow. “Fine,” he says, slacking his grip just enough that you can slip away while keeping both hands either side of his switch. “Just hurry up. You’re my lucky charm and I need to beat this final boss”.

“Pretty sure I just heard your player die,” you tease, scooting to the edge of the mattress where feet finally meet carpet and glancing back to flash him a smile. The space is dim, light leaking steadily through the bowed gaps in his blinds just enough for you to see how his face contorts.

“Because you were leaving,” his voice rasps harshly into a choleric hiss. Again, you hear the mocking tune of his player being defeated, and the right stick cracks. “See?”

You laugh, interrupted by the slight buckling of your knees as you stand. Your legs are still somewhat numb, and you feel your body subconsciously startle at the lack of sensation with each step. Blood slowly returns to your toes and prickles up your ankles to your calves. From one end of the room to the other, you grimace through it.

“I don’t know how you can sit at the computer all day without moving,” you whine, bending to massage your thumb along your thigh, “it's like I've aged a decade”.

The buttons continue to click rapidly. He ignores you in favour of sounding out his combination moves — “Down back, forward , three KB... forward, forward three...” — and in your next step towards the bedframe you put a spin onto your heel, a hum vibrating between your lips to form a familiar tune. Edges blur together as you are momentarily awash with vertigo, stumbling to avoid the corner of his desk where it meets your hip.

“What’re you doing?” he mutters, watching you in his periphery with eyes flickering back and forth across his screen.

“Dancing,” you coordinate yourself better, arms extended to curl awkwardly toward your stomach as you turn once more to increase the velocity of your spin. It dampens some of your restlessness; it feels good to seek normalcy and indulge in a little silliness — something you thought Tomura should do more often.

“You look like you’re rag dolling,” he snorts. The quiet synth music pouring from the switch speakers abruptly stops as he pauses his game, dropping the console onto his sternum to reach for you. “If you’re done being weird come back to bed. Now”. 

His expression wanes, shifting with his emotions no matter how much he tries to remain stoic. Faux authority, then agitated, then beseeching. You understood the power at his fingertips, knew the harm he was capable of, but still you never feared him. You were weird for that too, he’d said. Like a captive animal with no instincts, helpless without even knowing it. 

You take the hand he offers to you, threading fingers into the spaces between his knuckles. His pinkie remains hooked, kept away from your precious skin regardless of his mastered control. Tomura took no chances when it came to you.

His demeanour softens at how seamlessly you touch him, only to twist in bewilderment as you begin to pull him toward yourself. Hesitant curiosity guides him to the edge of the bed, where you then encourage him to stand in your embrace.

Tomura goes without resistance, reflexively sinking into your warmth until you’re close enough to kiss away the slant in his mouth. He follows your backwards walk into the centre of the room and you fashion his arms around your waist, then smoothing your hands over the curve of his shoulders to rest them on his chest.

“Why’re you…” you feel his body stiffen once you attempt to sway him, rooting himself to the floor at the realisation. His fingers twitch irritably by the base of your spine. “I’m not doing this,” he protests.

“Please?” 

He casts a glance toward his game, abandoned between the sheets. “This is a waste of my time. You’re distracting me and I’m gonna forget my combos”.

“For me?” he tips his head back to avoid pleading eyes and the pout in your lips. You lean to feather light kisses against his pulse point, scarred and scratched pink. The refusal was all for the sake of maintaining his fraying dignity, to retain the lie that he was capable of saying no to you. That, and pure embarrassment. 

Tomura didn’t like to be bad at things. 

“There isn’t even any music,” he says, jaw shifting as he grits his teeth. Still, he doesn’t move away from you. Nosing gently at his jugular, you feel him shiver against your exhale, breath cooling over the small wet pecks left across his throat. 

“We don’t need any,” you tell him, “just wanna be close to you like this”. 

Visibly, you see him swallow. Your affectionate touches assuage the tension in his muscles enough that he begins to yield, and you smile through the hesitant rock of his weight between each foot as you move. 

You guide him and he takes to it like a lamb, no witness aside from the sun peeking through his crooked blinds. In your mind four simple chords play in a universal melody that puppets your rhythm; he mimics it cautiously, bottom lip caught between teeth.

Completely intertwined, the two of you slowly begin to turn as your bodies sway in tandem. There isn’t an elaborate routine or set of steps to adhere to, and you continue like this in harmonious silence, wrapping you in a blanket of comfort. Chest to chest, eight fingers curled into the back of your shirt with pinkies lifted, he stares at you in an anxious bid for approval.

“Thank you Tomura,” you murmur, hearing your own contentment bleeding into the words, “for always indulging me. You picked it up quicker than I thought”.

The tentative oscillation of your bodies hardly needed to be measured by skill but he corrects his slouch all the same, standing impossibly taller with you in his arms. Betrayed by the proud inflection in his voice he replies, “Like it’s hard”.

[shibaraki]

MONTY U HAVE TO SEE THE NEW ART HORI DREW£~!{£_ SHIGARAKI LOOKS SO GOODOSNDIAMDIAKDJISJS HEAD IN HANDS'.+{€~!\£

I would pay horikoshi any amount of money to draw this tomura next to hair up aizawa instead of lesbian deku like I think that would genuinely heal all of my ailments

[shibaraki]

actually any bad decisions tomura has made or will make can all be blamed on the fact that he is 21

[shibaraki]

Fresh out of the shower, the ends of his hair still damp against your collar where he tucks into your throat, Tomura settles himself on top of your chest. He huffs irritably and shifts his hips as he gets comfortable between your thighs, reaching down with a rough hand to hook your leg around his waist. Laid back and spread along the length of your bed, you wait while he shapes you.

Once his restlessness dims you ask, "Better?"

The air carries a gentle scent of eucalyptus. His skin is still warm, accompanied by the dull scratch of his cheek as he presses himself even closer. His weight is heavy, but comforting. Lacking the energy for words he hums in contentment, and you feel the soft vibration through his lips.

Fingers threading into his roots, he arches into your touch briefly with eyes half closed, taking on the expression of a benevolent cat. The corner of your mouth lifts as you watch him fondly, and in meeting your gaze you can almost hear his reply.

Yeah, he thinks, leaden with exhaustion. This is better.

[shibaraki]

The argument happened as a result of your concern. Usually happy and willing to be doted on, Tomura’s sense of defeat had still been fresh, and it’d clung to his skin no matter how much he clawed at it. Thus your incessant reminders of his recklessness, the questions and the tears, was what ultimately lead him to snap.

So you backed off, leaving him alone to lick his wounds, to make peace with his own embarrassment and calm down. While you thought it for the best to give him time to process everything, the absence of affection and the hurt that’d briefly flashed across your expression before your exit had only exacerbated the itch.

Blood and skin beneath his nails, the curve of his pink throat raw and stinging against the cool air, Tomura sat on the damp doorstep at the back of the bar. Everything was wet, drenched with the putrid scent of expired food and whatever else had found it’s path to rot at the bottom of the dumpsters — it was hardly his family garden, not that he recalled much detail of it. Mercifully Kurogiri hadn’t come out to bother him nor to usher him back inside, and so he uses the early morning hours to replay the pained quiver of your lip after he’d cursed you.

He isn’t sure how long he waits there. Further down the pathway is an old streetlight bathing the walls in flickering orange luminescence and the roads are quiet. Without a clock time simply seems to be at a stand still, and his body feels as if he’s phased into a liminal space. At some point he hears the door handle lower, the inner workings clicking out of place as it’s opened. He hadn’t really expect it to be you, far more likely to be Dabi skulking off to the port again where the sky was clearest at night, but he’s intimately familiar with the warmth of your touch where it rests on his shoulder.

“Tomura,” you breathe his name and it’s strained with confusion, “what are you doing out here? I woke up and you weren’t there. You’re— you’re freezing!”

At the realisation you sink to your knees behind him and wrap your arms around his chest in an attempt to cradle him. He’s felt this before, though maybe not with you. Held against a soft warm breast, a hand combing through his hair, gently swaying back and forth.

“The quest went bust and I made you cry,” he says, unsurprised by the rasp in his voice. The phantom weight of his father’s hand covering his face bores a spike of irritation in his stomach and it weaves into his muscles, jaw tightening with gritted teeth.

His neck begins to burn again, and you kiss his jugular with gentle lips as if you already knew. “That doesn’t mean you need to sit out here and punish yourself,” you tell him.

But he did need to. You’d walked away from him, and that part was important somehow. His brow pinches as he meets your gaze, eyes still bright behind the curtain of his hair, and a shadowed memory slides jarringly into place.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, watching you soften, rendered pliant with relief as you kiss him again. He’s not sure he deserves your loving forgiveness, but it doesn’t matter much to him either. Cold and sore, Tomura just wants to come inside.

And he can’t come inside until he apologises.

[shibaraki]

back to regularly scheduled programming, such as, that wet little hitch of breath from the crook of your neck where tomura has burrowed as he fucks you because he doesn’t want you to see him cry. more at ten

[shibaraki]

tomura isn’t all that good at dates and such, that was clear. but he loves you. he enjoys quality time with you more than anything, even if it’s just the two of you sitting quietly together as you do your own thing. that’s why he’s always happy to have you in his lap while he’s on the computer, comforted by your weight and the warmth of your body while the room fills with the sound of his keyboard clicking. sometimes he even thinks he plays better when you’re there, though it would only ever last until you became restless — as you are now.

you like to have your face tucked against the crook of his neck. the skin is a little rough under your lips as you begin to press long, chaste kisses to his jugular. you like feeling it as his breathing begins to deepen, his body shifting awkwardly underneath yours, throat bobbing as he swallows. “are you bored already?” he rasps, expression pinched. a few months ago you might’ve heard some insecurity in his voice, but not anymore.

“no,” you murmur amusedly. amidst the silence with nothing else to focus on you can intimately see how much you affect him. you lick over his pulse point and hear him curse, his screen darkening as his character dies again. frustrated, he ducks his chin to bite your cheek in retaliation and you laugh.

“one more round” is perhaps his most commonly told lie. still, you don’t mind, because you enjoy being here with him too. even if it’s just to toy with him a little.

[shibaraki]

“Open up for me,” the pad of your thumb is gentle where it grazes his lower lip, then a short tap to coax him open. When his jaw is slack enough you hook it into his mouth and his tongue is soft. Tomura groans as you map out the grooves of his teeth, a shudder rolling through his body with the pink that darkens across his throat and chest. “So pretty like this,” you murmur reverently, a quiet wet sound as the saliva pools behind his gums.

You’re the comforting weight in his lap, knees either side of his hips and sinking into the mattress. When you’re looming above him like this something hot and taut settles in his belly. Thumb in cheek and a hand cradling his jaw, you tilt his head back further and he inhales a sharp breath through his nose, watching you with half lidded eyes. Muscles pliant. Mind compliant. He lets you mould and bend him as you please.

“All the way open baby,” you smooth over his palate, pinning his tongue and prying his jaw further open. A whine is caught in the back of his throat as your own lips part, swallowing around the sound. He does as you ask, eager for what comes next.

You let the glob of your spit fall naturally, drizzled like honey and thinning with the stretch. Tomura rolls out his tongue until it aches, thighs clenched and impatience thrumming under his skin. He hums a dazed, happy little sound at the taste of you — at the thought of consuming a part of you — eyes fluttering shut when you close the distance to lick into his mouth. Messy and wet, just how he likes it.

“Good boy,” you breathe.

[shibaraki]

I think that to tomura, protection and possession come hand in hand. you are his and he is yours. there’s an odd juxtaposition in how suffocating he can be about it, somehow smothering, yet still kindling. he would do anything you asked of him, because his conscience is guided by a certain ferality that can only be likened to a wild animal — a moral compass that extends only to what feels right and wrong to him, or to you, not much further. what felt wrong was to be rid of, what felt right was to be kept, and you have always felt undeniably right. where he is the magnetic north, you are the magnetic south. believe that there is no where on earth you could go that he would not instinctively follow

[shibaraki]

I MISS THIS RAGGEDY LITTLE GUY SO BAD

[shibaraki]

tick tick tick DING!!!!

[shibaraki]

shigaraki ‘he’s not a monster he’s just a villain he’s not a villain he’s just a boy’ tomura!!!!!!!!

[shibaraki]

actually I think tomura loves you so much he wishes he could unzip your body and climb inside it