#returning. and i’m torn between trying to grow it out or getting it cut

[lilgynt]

i know it’s a process but my hair is so lucky my mom would have a heart attack if i just shaved it all off. you are so fucking lucky.

[ficmashup]

Lifelines

Summary: You join TF141 after something happened on your last deployment. They take you in and while it takes some time, you find yourself warming up to them, and them to you. Perhaps especially to the Captain.

A/N: Alright, I think I've decided on eight parts for this. Or at least that's the limit I've set for myself, so it might be less. I like even numbers and ten just seems like too much. I might do little drabbles for G and the team later on, but these eight parts will be the end of the sequential story. Hope you all enjoy!

Warnings: Vague references to SA and PTSD just to cover my bases, crass language, sickening fluff.

Word Count: 4.5k

Feral Masterlist

It’s been three months since I joined TF141.

“I hate this fucking thing, fucking impossible, fucking piece of shit…” I’m elbow deep in a car engine in a valley, trying to fix the damn thing. Gaz is watching me and looks torn between being afraid of me or amused about the amount of cursing I’m doing. We just finished a mission and are waiting for the others to meet us here so we can drive to the exfil point. If I can get this damn car running, anyway.

“What are you planning to do on leave, G?” Gaz asks and I give him a pointed look. He raises his hands in surrender, smirking but wisely keeping his mouth shut. We’ll be on leave as soon as we get back to base and I might be a little…uneasy about it. I’ve finally settled into a pattern here and returning home to my empty apartment in a city I barely know doesn’t exactly appeal to me. “Hey, G?” Gaz calls again and I take a breath to cuss him out, but swallow every word I’m about to say when he holds up a tiny hard candy.

“Where did you get that?” I ask, my tone changing in an instant.

He grins, pulling the wrapper taut so it unwraps itself. “You’re not the only one who likes sugar, G. You want it?” I nod, pulling out a hand before frowning at seeing it smeared with oil and dirt. “Yeah, don’t think that’s going to work. Open up.” He holds the candy out and I hold out my tongue, humming happily as he slides it off the wrapper and onto my tongue. The flavor fills my mouth and my mood instantly lifts at tasting the sweet treat.

“What are you doing on leave, Gaz? And if you say ‘breaking hearts’, I’ll break your favorite fingers.” I go back to work, my steady hands replacing the part that broke with the replacement we luckily had on hand. My tongue tucks the hard candy into my cheek.

He chuckles. “Nah, I won’t break hearts this time. Some backs, maybe.” Amusement fills his warm brown eyes as I give him a deadpan look and I can only hold it for a second before smiling.

“You’re a menace.” I scold and his own smile grows.

“Haven’t gotten a complaint yet.”

“Yeah? You give out comment cards?”

“Sure do. Each one sprayed with a little cologne to keep their memories fresh.”

I snort. “Let me guess, the average is three stars out of five?” I raise a brow at him before smirking to myself at his outraged expression.

“You’re a cruel woman, G. Always strike for the heart.” He puts his hand over his chest as if I’d mortally wounded him. My head shakes as I finally make the connection I needed and I finally stand up straight, stretching and wiping away the sweat on my brow.

“You’re right, I’m being too charitable. It’s two stars, isn’t it?” His jaw drops and my smile only grows. “Can’t blame me for doubting you, Gaz. You couldn’t figure out where to plug in the hose to the car, how am I to expect you to know where to put anything else?”

“Fuckin’ hell, G. Just cut my balls off and be done with it.” But he’s grinning just like I am. I flick my chin towards the driver’s side as I step off to the side and grab a rag to wipe off some of the grime covering me.

“Try to start her up and see if it works. You do know where the key goes, yeah?” I tease and he gives me the middle finger while I chuckle. He slides into the car and as soon as he turns the key, the car starts. I breathe out a long sigh of relief and nod to him, shutting the hood and slapping it twice to make sure it’s secure. Gaz cuts the car off just as the others arrive and all eyes go to me and the mess that I’ve made of myself. “Car’s fixed.” I tell them the end result and look them over carefully for any injuries.

“Good to know.” Price says, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Ten minutes, then we move out.” He spins a finger in the air before moving a bit closer to me and Gaz. “Did you just sit here and look pretty while G did the work, Garrick?” He asks and I hide my smile at the edge of humor in his voice.

Gaz shrugs a shoulder. “It is what I’m best at, Captain.” Price chuckles, shaking his head before looking at me with that little spark in his eyes that I’m growing to love seeing. I roll the candy to my other cheek and Price tracks the movement, smile widening a little.

“Clearly. She looks like she bathed in oil.” Ghost, always the one to be relied upon to be complimentary, says and I swear I see his nose scrunch under his mask.

“You’re welcome to walk back to base.” I respond lightly and wave away Soap’s attempts to wipe the oil off my face with a rag he just spit on.

Ghost steps towards me and I give him an extra thorough once over to make sure he’s not hiding anything. My eyes zero in on a rip on the outside of his left pantleg on his thigh. Red tinges the fabric. “But seriously, clean up before you get in the car or you’ll kill us all with fumes.” He comments gruffly, but with a hint of laughter in his voice.

“What’s that?” I ask immediately, taking Soap’s rag and wetting it with my canteen before wiping my hands as clean as I can get them. Ghost is quick to take a single step back as his mouth opens. “And you think long and hard about the wisdom of lying to me.” I bite at him before he can say a word and he gives me a heavy sigh, but I don’t back down when he stares at me.

“Just a graze.” He grumbles and I point to the ground, telling him to sit. Reluctantly, he sets his gear down before sitting in the dirt.

“Pants down.” I curl my fingers and give him a pointed look as he starts to roll his eyes. He shimmies them down enough for me to see the wound. It is just a graze. Not too deep, but something he should have reported. “Alright. You’re going to sit here and wait while I clean my hands, then you’re going to let me treat this. In return, I will not yell at you for keeping this to yourself.” I offer him a deal and we stare off for another few moments before he sighs again, then nods.

“No promises here.” Price says and gives Ghost a pointed look of his own which Ghost shrugs off. I scrub my hands and arms almost raw before disinfecting myself and walking back over to Ghost who has thankfully stayed put.

“Didn’t see any use in troubling you, G.” He says quietly as I meticulously clean the wound with my candy held between my teeth before it disintegrates. “Would’ve taken care of it when we got back to base.”

“You trying to make me obsolete, Ghost?” I ask softly, glancing at his eyes when he hesitates to answer and seeing the surprise on his half-hidden face behind the mask. “Because this is my job. Which means by definition, this isn’t troubling me, it’s letting me do my fucking job. And Soap came to me last week with a paper cut, so never feel like your injuries are too small for me to treat.”

“It was fucking between my fingers! Hurt like a bitch!” Soap objects from the car while Gaz grins next to him and pats his shoulder in consolation. Price is leaning against the side of the jeep, watching us while slowly smoking one of his favored cigars.

Ghost hums and I can see the thoughts behind his eyes as he thinks on it. “You want me to come see you when I get a papercut?” He asks while I begin wrapping the wound, just to keep it clean while we’re traveling.

“I want you to lean on me.” I respond softly, well aware of what I’m asking of him. “When you’re injured or sick, trust me to do my job and take care of you.” My fingers are ginger as they finish the wrappings, but I stay kneeling next to him as I meet his gaze. He’s silent for a little bit, considering as he usually does, before he nods once.

“I’ll work on it.” The response isn’t out of the ordinary for him and usually means no, but his tone is softer this time. I’ll take it.

I nod and stand while he straightens himself out too. “Good. I’m going to give you a list of how to care for that and you’re going to send me a picture of it every day while we’re on leave.” My gaze turns sharp and this time he doesn’t bother resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

“Just come check on it yourself, G. Your flat isn’t far from mine.” He offers and I blink at him while he stands, his hand sliding over the small rip in his pants with a frown. “I’ll take you for tea in that place I told you about.” His gaze lifts to mine and I struggle to hide what the offer means to me, how he’s offered a lifeline that I’ll cling to during leave.

“Deal. But I don’t want to hear a fucking thing about the amount of sugar I put in.”

He groans, but I see his mask twitch with a smile. “Gonna give yourself a heart attack.”

I smirk at him. “More likely to be shot before my heart gives out.” He adjusts his gloves on his hands while shaking his head and we head over to the car with everyone else.

“G, come ‘ere.” Price curls his fingers and I walk over to him as he folds a piece of cloth into a square. “Your face is still covered in muck.” He offers me the damp cloth and I take it with a grateful nod, scrubbing my face quickly before looking back at him for a once over. He chuckles and the sound makes my skin tingle and my stance lax. If I could bottle it, I’m positive the sound would be gold as sunlight.

“I didn’t get it all, did I?”

“Yeah, not quite.”

I huff, folding the cloth before handing it to him. “I’m not going to get all of it because I can’t see. Forget it.”

Price straightens from his spot leaning against the car and takes half a step towards me, eyes on mine to check in as his fingers lift to hold my chin. “I’ve got it. Had to do this to Gaz when he faceplanted in the mud.” He waits as the surprise leaves my eyes and I give him a slight nod before gently using the cloth to clean my face.

“Yeah, I recall you shoving a rag in my face and scrubbing it like trying to get burnt cheese off a pan.” Gaz grumbles and the corner of my mouth twitches at the discontent in his voice, but I’m a little too taken with what Price is doing to focus on anything else. I’ve seen these hands gut a man like a fish with a knife the size of my forearm. Now, they’re gentle and firm as he wipes the cloth over my brow, across my jaw, dabbing at my cheek, then slides it down my nose while my lips twitch as it tickles.

I’m silent as he works and I take the time to look over Price’s face. I can see the pores of his skin, the individual hairs of his beard, the way the light hits his eyes and makes them seem a shade lighter. It’s nice…being tended to like this. Price finishes and turns my head back and forth a little while I swallow. “Verdict?” The words are supposed to be teasing, but it comes out a bit breathless.

Price’s eyes meet mine and his thumb slides back and forth over my chin a moment before he nods. “Fit.” He responds quietly before stepping back and we both look away. I’m a bit unsteady within my own mind and I’m happy to load the car when Price calls for it. I’m not sure what just happened, what just passed between him and I, but maybe going on leave isn’t such a bad thing after all. If only to get a little distance.

*     *     *

I’m itchy in the city.

Leave started a few days ago and I’m already irritated with civilian life. London is bustling as always and all the sounds and people have me taking a deep breath every minute just to keep calm. I keep walking, repeating the address in my head before the sign enters my sight and my shoulders lax a fraction. My steps are strong and sure as I make a beeline for the door before stepping in and surveying the shop. People mill about, some sitting down in the small café, and my next deep breath brings the scent of fresh coffee, tea, and pastries into my lungs. The familiarity among the unfamiliar settles me a bit more.

My eyes look towards the tables that are in clear view of the door, both front and back, and my gaze zeros in on a figure sitting at a table with the barest sliver of shadows across it. Naturally, he’d find the one place where there’s a shadow. I walk towards him with purpose and I get the privilege of actually seeing the corner of his mouth lift, rather than the little twitch of his mask. “How’s the wound, Simon?”

He chuckles and I can’t help smiling at getting to see the emotion on his unmasked face. It’s a show of trust that not many earn. “Isn’t that what you’re here to tell me?”

“Figured I’d trust your word while we have a cup. Unless you’d like to take a trip to the back so you can drop your pants?” I dare and he shakes his head, a real smile tugging on his lips.

“Wound’s fine. Barely twinges.” He answers as we settle across from one another at the table. We’re both angled slightly, me towards the back door behind him and him towards the front door behind me. Old habits die hard.

“Alright, tell me which swill is your least favorite and that’ll be the one I’ll get.” I tease, already feeling a little lighter being around a friend. He gives me a look, but silently points out rose tea on the menu. I raise a brow at him and he waves a hand at me, telling me to shut up before I can say anything. We order and I silently judge him for getting black tea, why not just get coffee, then stare down at the milky pink of my tea.

“Won’t bite you.” Simon says amusedly, his voice deep as he drinks his own tea. My fingers perch on either side of the cup as I try a sip. It’s sweet and floral. Not at all the type of drink that I would think Ghost would try, but my lips press together to keep in a wide smile as I realize I like it. “Thoughts?” He says and he already sounds smug.

I sigh, letting myself smile. “I love it.”

He chuckles. “Don’t sound too excited about it, G.”

“Means I have to put up with you being right.”

“Should be used to it. Happens all the time.”

“Some of the time.” I correct, smirking as he doesn’t combat me this time. “What are your plans this leave?” I ask as I take another sip of my sweet tea and Simon shrugs a shoulder while his legs stretch out a bit more under the table.

“No plans. Sit on my ass for a while without being bothered.” He says simply and my head shakes as I tap the pad of my finger against the edge of my cup. He sounds like an old man, but I’d be lying if I said that my plans were any different. But after being out with him today, the image of me sitting alone in my flat feels less peaceful and more…lonely. He quirks a brow at me as I look at him, but he lets me think before voicing my thoughts.

“If that’s your plan, then come out with me today. Sit on your ass tomorrow.” I offer, leaning my elbow on the table as I look over at him. His eyebrows raise and I think I see pleasant surprise flit through his eyes.

He copies my position and leans forward a bit. “Yeah? What are you doing today?”

My smile turns a little sheepish. “Grocery shopping?”

He chuckles, nodding as he finishes his cup of tea. “Alright, G. Let me judge what you fill your pantry with. Bet it’s all sugar.” I finish my cup as well and shoot a longing look at the tea leaves they have for sale. I make a mental note to come back and get a bag of rose tea for myself sometime. We head out and I tug my jacket tighter around me as a cool breeze greets us. It’ll be Winter soon.

“Yeah, and what do you buy? Fuckin oats?” I bat back and this time I get a little bit of a bigger laugh. The sound makes me grin and this time, as we walk through the city and we’re sure to keep within a handsbreadth of one another, I feel steady.

*     *     *

A week passes. Simon and I settle in a routine of meeting every other day either for tea or to go with the other on a meaningless errand. It helps make mundane life feel more…normal. We both relax knowing we have someone else to watch our backs. There’s a week left of leave and when I enter the little tea shop to meet Simon, I’m surprised by another guest.

“Price.” I greet him warmly, a little thrown off at how pleased I am to see him. He takes my hand and shakes it, then pulls me in for a hug. I breathe him in as my free hand slides over his back and my head rests briefly against his hard chest.

“Good to see you.” His arm tightens around me before we pull back and look each other over. He looks good in civilian clothes. I’ve seen him like this before, of course, when we went out to drink with the team. Somehow, this is different. Maybe it’s just that I haven’t seen him in a week. “And I prefer John when we’re on leave, if you don’t mind.” He says and I can’t help smiling softly at the sound of his voice. He coughs a little and I track the sound and pinching of his expression before his expression smooths. We stay close, standing barely half a foot apart while Simon stands opposite me across the table.

“John.” I correct and see the corner of his eyes crinkle at the sound of his first name from my mouth. “It’s good to see you too. I wasn’t expecting you.” My gaze cuts to Simon who smirks as the three of us sit down.

“Didn’t know he was going to be here till an hour ago. Figured I’d surprise you.” Simon says as he settles in his usual place and I in mine, Price sitting beside me on the right. “Besides, Price goes a little stir crazy when the four of us are out of sight for too long. Like leaving kids in the other room and things go a little too quiet.” I grin and Price chuckles.

“Already checked in with Soap to make sure he hasn’t blown anything up and Gaz spared me an hour before he had to run off for a date. You were the next stop.” He tilts his head towards Simon before looking towards me. “Hadn’t quite figured out a way to check in on you without being obvious, so this worked in my favor.”

The corner of my mouth lifts even as Price coughs quietly again. “You could just ask me for coffee and I wouldn’t have thought anything of it.” Not completely true. I would’ve obsessed about the meeting and what it might be about until it happened, but now I know what his intentions are, my answer is true for any future attempts he might make. “Although, am I to take it that you checked in on us last because you trust us to cause the least amount of trouble?” I tease, smirking at Simon with the knowledge that since I was last, that means I cause the least amount of trouble.

He quirks a brow in return as if to say that isn’t saying much. I resist the urge to stick my tongue out at him. “More about the likelihood and type of trouble caused, but whatever makes you happy.” Price teases back and I lightly kick his shoe under the table for spoiling my fun. A server comes by and drops off three cups in front of us. Warm affection fills me as I pull the mug into my hands and soak in the warmth as I see the familiar pink of my favored rose tea. Simon must have ordered for us.

I peek over at Price’s cup and see a light amber. Surprise flits through me. I’d pegged him for a black tea man like Simon, despite how much I make fun of him for it. “It’s lemon. Only place that brews it right and makes a nice change from the usual.” Price tells me when he sees me looking and lifts the cup towards me. I lean in, steadying the cup with my hand even though he doesn’t let go of it as I take a sip. The slight zing hits my tongue first and my eyes widen a touch before the taste is soothed by a slight earthy bitterness not unlike tobacco.

“Mm. Suits you.” I say with a nod, relaxing back into my chair and offering my cup to him as an exchange before he holds up a hand with a shake of his head.

“Can’t handle that sweet stuff. Figures you’d like it, though.” He says with a slight smile and my heart beats a little funny as he takes a sip of his tea, putting his lips exactly where mine were while holding my gaze over the cup.

I shift in my seat, swallowing before breaking away and glancing at Simon while my skin gets a little hot. “We’re both predictable, then.”

Price makes a soft, disapproving noise that makes my head swing back towards him. “I’d like to think we just know each other.” He tempts a small smile onto my face and I nod once, allowing the amendment. We both look back over to Simon and while his expression is smooth, his eyes are twinkling with…something.

“Technically, Simon ordered so he knows us best. Softie.” I nudge his foot under the table and his gaze drops while he hides his smile behind his cup. The three of us talk for a while and finish our drinks before Simon comes up with a very suspicious reason to leave that I don’t buy for a second.

“Take Price to the shops with you, G.” He suggests as we file out of the tea shop out into the chilly air. My eyes widen at the suggestion and he can’t hide his smirk fast enough. Simon turns to Price while barely hiding a smug grin. “Maybe you can keep her from rottin’ her teeth with sugar.” Price turns to me, laughter in his eyes, but my focus is on Simon.

“You fucking loved that cereal I got, I saw you eating it when you were at my place and I know you have a box in your cabinet. You hide it behind your stupid packages of jerky.” I call him out, pointing at him accusingly. His brows raise.

“At least they have fuckin’ protein. All you’re getting are cavities.”

“Sorry, didn’t know you were actually the medic here.”

Simon opens his mouth, but Price cuts him off with a small pat to his chest. “As productive as this is, I think we all have places to be. Till next time, Simon.” They shake hands while I give Simon a pointed look that he smirks at before we part ways. Price and I walk down the street side by side in the opposite direction. “He’s told me about the trips you two have been making. It’s been good for him.”

I smile, pulling my sweater tighter around myself. “It’s been good for me too. Civilian life never seemed to…fit right after a deployment. Like that was my real life and this was an uncomfortable dream. Merging the two has helped.” Even walking down the street now with Price makes the world seem more concrete under my feet, the noise of people around us less grating, the breeze less chilling.

“That’s good to hear.” Price’s voice rumbles and his eyes are soft as he looks at me. “I wouldn’t mind going with you this time, if you’d have me.” Surprise flits through me, but I can’t keep myself from smiling.

“Of course, I’ll have you. I’d love the company.” People slide by and I automatically slide my hand into the crook of Price’s elbow to keep us close. His hand slides onto mine and I look up at him as he lets out a small huff.

“You’re freezing.” He pulls us aside and shrugs off his coat while my eyes go wide. Gingerly, he wraps his jacket around my shoulders and tugs it snug around me while the warmth leftover from his body sinks into me like an embrace.

“John, it’s too cold for you to go without a coat.” I scold, but my voice lacks any sharpness or heat. All he has on now is an olive long-sleeved shirt that looks very good on him and jeans.

His eyes crinkle at the sides again as his fingers keep tugging lightly on his jacket, making sure it’s secure. “It’s alright, I run hot anyway.” He assures me and I frown slightly, really looking him over while my mind races. His cheeks are a little pink, but not his nose or ears. Flushed then, not from the chilly breeze winding around us.

“Fine, I’ll allow it. But only because I run cold and the shop isn’t far from here.” My hand wraps back around his elbow and I notice how hot his skin is, even through the fabric of his shirt.

Price chuckles. “Yes, ma’am.” His hand automatically slides back over mine as we start walking again. The feeling of his calluses against my skin makes my brain short-circuit and I falter in my inspection of him. I realize with a start that this is the first time we’ve really been alone with no danger of interruption by a mission, a teammate, or anyone else. The thought makes my heart beat funnily again and I start rethinking this.

Maybe being alone with him like this…isn’t a good idea.

Taglist (hello, darlings, thank you for reading as always. <3 If anyone else wants to be tagged, lmk!):

@under-the-dirt @jj-ara33 @sorchateas @cherry-blosom-tree

@thriving-n-jiving @jinxxangel13 @emsstuff1 @missmidnight-writes

[black-bentley-niatruc]

Fic

Title: The Mind-Body Problem [part 2/3]

[A bonus smutty thing happening between chapters 20 and 21 of my main Human AU fic]

Fandom: Good Omens

Category: M/M

Relationship: Aziraphale/Crowley

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: filthy smut, check below for any squeaks/no-no's

Additional tags: Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot; touch-starved; Crowley has a praise kink; inexperienced Crowley; experienced Aziraphale (kind of); fluff; first time; first time topping; first time things; chest-fucking; Aziraphale is a Pillow Princess; Crowley is a tease; Aziraphale has an oral fixation; angst (thanks, Crowley!); barebacking; butt plugs; anal sex; low-key D/s vibes, but not a 'proper' D/s setting; rough sex; safe, sane and consensual; kinky; more angst (thanks, Aziraphale!); face-fucking; Aziraphale is a mess; coming untouched; virginity kink; Aziraphale is a tease; first time bottoming

Words: 3575

Originally published: 2024-05-28

Summary

“I know we were meant to go on more dates, but could we spend the whole weekend here?” Crowley asks nonchalantly.

Aziraphale makes a sound of amusement, a little breath against Crowley’s skin. “Just say it.”

“What?”

“I know what you want. Ask.”

Crowley shudders at the stern tone and Aziraphale hides a smile against the back of his own hand.

“Marathon sex.”

Human AU, Crowley and Aziraphale try new things in their relationship That's it, that's the fic; can be read as a standalone

A relevant note: Crowley's Chinese zodiac sign in the main fic is a Snake 🐍 and Aziraphale's is a Dragon 🐉

Aziraphale feels so good – each cell of his body seemingly swelled with contentment and love – that he laughs softly at the all in all cruel joke. Not that he believes Crowley meant to hurt with those two words.

Attempting to return the frantic kisses, but too slow (or is it Crowley who always goes too fast for him?) Aziraphale tries to ignore the feelings catching in his throat and to cut them at their stems before they grow into something impossible to deny.

“Marry me, angel.”

Belatedly, he feels the smile disappear from his face, not quite in control of his expression, as he searches Crowley’s eyes, focused intently on his own.

They speak of something mischievous, yes, but only on the surface, pretending to be playful, but deeper still, there are things too soft and fragile, telling him how serious Crowley is – and how can soft and fragile things cut so viciously?

“Ask me again once we’re thinking clearly,” says Aziraphale as lightly as possible, instead of what he wants to say, burying the ‘Yes’ deep in his heart and cupping Crowley’s face in his hands.

“I’m thinking clearly,” Crowley insists. “Never thought clearer in my life.”

Something twists painfully in Aziraphale’s chest. He cannot let Crowley promise what he might regret in the future. The higher they fly, the more disastrous the fall. But, if they pretend not to be connected by the invisible line that Aziraphale felt the moment they met for the first time, then perhaps nothing and no-one can break it.

“Well, I’m not.”

The disappointment and hurt in Crowley’s eyes is almost unbearable, but he makes himself withstand the wounded stare.

“Okay,” says Crowley, looking away, getting back to his guarded self.

Breathing slowly out in relief, Aziraphale cuddles up to him, face pressed against his chest, dark red hairs tickling his cheek.

He closes his eyes, physically exhausted by the intense orgasm and emotionally torn to shreds by everything he doesn’t know how to deal with. How is it that Crowley goes on and on about the complexity of the world, yet, somehow, he operates in it as if everything were simple? Why does it feel like Aziraphale is walking in circles, one moment thinking he’s found his answers only to be thrown back to square one to start anew in the next?

“I hope the plug was unreasonably expensive and you paid with your card, so that your parents could see that,” Crowley mutters, causing Aziraphale to giggle hysterically.

“It was obscenely expensive and if they’re still checking what I’m buying, it’s entirely their own fault,” he admits.

“I’m so glad I signed up for the philosophy course.”

“Me too. Though, actually, we had no choice, it’s mandatory for our programme.”

“I know we were meant to go on more dates, but could we spend the whole weekend here?” Crowley asks nonchalantly.

Aziraphale makes a sound of amusement, a little breath against Crowley’s skin. “Just say it.”

“What?”

“I know what you want. Ask.”

Crowley shudders at the stern tone and Aziraphale hides a smile against the back of his own hand.

“Marathon sex.”

“There. Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Shut up.”

“About that,” Aziraphale says, wriggling in sudden excitement and nervousness. “There’s something I’d like you to... do to me.”

It’s Crowley’s turn to tease. “Oohh, I bet there is.”

“Nothing too complicated, really,” Aziraphale rushes to explain. “But of course―”

“Angel, if you don’t tell me what you mean, how can I tell you whether I want it?” Crowley huffs in irritation, stroking his hand down Aziraphale’s side.

Heat crawling up his neck and cheeks, Aziraphale presses his hand against his eyes in embarrassment.

“What you did today, except... my throat, and, slower,” he manages, not that fluent in dirty talk when he isn’t on edge or already aroused.

He can tell Crowley’s grinning when he asks, “Want me to shut you up with my cock? Love it.”

Aziraphale chuckles, still nervous despite Crowley’s explicit approval. “I like it rough,” he adds.

“’Course you do,” is Crowley’s reply and suddenly the warmth of his body disappears.

“Where are you going?” Aziraphale blurts out, hating the obvious clinginess behind his reaction.

“To wash my dick before I put it in your mouth!” Crowley calls back, the crude phrasing and nonchalance in his tone causing Aziraphale’s cheeks to burn.

Oh.

Aziraphale didn’t expect Crowley to immediately implement his plan as if he were only waiting for a request of any kind. Not that he’s going to complain.

By the time Crowley comes back, Aziraphale is sitting on his heels next to the bed and shivering slightly from anticipation and the cool air caressing his naked skin.

“Wow,” says Crowley as soon as his eyes land on him. “The only thing missing is a collar around your neck.”

There is a lilt to this statement, a hidden question.

Would Aziraphale allow Crowley to put a collar on him?

“I’ll be sure to add it to my next shopping list,” he assures with a smile, watching the Adam’s apple in Crowley’s throat bob as he swallows, hard.

“Can’t wait,” Crowley breathes, stepping close, lazily stroking a hand over his erection.

Aziraphale licks his lips, leaning in to take the cock into his mouth, but Crowley doesn’t let him, cupping his palm over the flared head.

Shooting him an offended look, Aziraphale can’t keep the pout off his face.

“You’ll only take what I give you, and nothing more, you greedy cherub,” says Crowley with a mean grin.

The fiend.

Huffing through his nose, Aziraphale presses his lips together. If Crowley thinks he’s going to beg for it, then he’s got another thing coming.

A temptingly hot cockhead brushes against Aziraphale’s lips. “Open up.”

He makes sure Crowley can see him glaring defiantly. A bead of clear precome oozes from the slit, glinting tantalisingly, and Aziraphale curls his hands into fists, where they rest against his thighs. A trickle of Crowley’s seed leaks out of him in that moment and he gasps at the unfamiliar but somehow deeply arousing feeling.

The lapse in his concentration doesn’t escape Crowley’s notice. “You okay there?” he asks, his concern evident and so very sweet.

There goes all of Aziraphale’s resolve. Nodding once, he opens his mouth expectantly, pushing his tongue out just enough so that the tip is visible over his lower lip. With a sigh, Crowley presses his cockhead against the flat of Aziraphale’s tongue, rubbing gently against it with slow, shallow thrusts.

Mouth watering, Aziraphale swallows quickly. He probably should have warned it might get really messy, bordering on disgusting, at least for some people. He’s in no position to talk, now, though. He wishes Crowley would start fucking his throat already. He’d like to close his lips around him. He’d love to suck his cock.

Instead, he allows Crowley to tease him mercilessly, more precome spreading over his tongue as he waits patiently, breathing faster every time Crowley dives deeper into his mouth only to draw back again.

He moans softly when the warm cockhead hits his soft palate. Crowley groans in response, hand curling in Aziraphale’s hair, eliciting an appreciative whine, the vibrations hopefully pleasant.

“You really want me to be rough?” Crowley asks, the uncertainty and concern in his voice endearing to Aziraphale’s ears.

In response, Aziraphale grasps his hips firmly and groans around the cock in his mouth.

It seems to be enough seeing as Crowley slams into his throat without any further warnings. Tears of pain prick at the corners of Aziraphale’s eyes and he moans again, making sure to wrap his lips around his teeth – a somewhat tricky thing he never needed to learn (but he did, anyway; he doesn’t like doing things by halves).

Crowley’s so good to him – as slow and brutal as Aziraphale dreamed. His throat burns. He can’t stop moaning and squirming. His cock aches, but he keeps his hands around Crowley’s hips, digging his nails in whenever he needs to breathe. His chin is wet with spit and he revels in the undignified feeling.

He comes untouched, spilling messily over his belly and thighs, moaning loudly, tears running down his hot cheeks.

“Fuck, angel,” Crowley whines above him. “Can I come on your face?”

Normally, Aziraphale believes refractory periods to be nature’s unnecessary joke, the kind that nobody gets, but in this moment he’s grateful he physically can’t get hard again, because he’s sure he would come immediately, either at Crowley’s question or the moment his hot seed paints his cheek and nose and lips – and another orgasm like this would probably kill him.

Staring up at Crowley, Aziraphale distractedly wipes at his own wet chin with the back of his hand.

“A moment,” says Crowley, sitting at the edge of his bed, breathing hard. “I’ll bring some water― Just.”

Aziraphale understands what he means. He feels uncomfortably sticky with – he counts quickly – four...? – loads of come and just as uncomfortably slippery with lubricant, and he’d love to take a hot shower and yes, a glass of water does sound nice, but most of all he wants to cuddle with Crowley and fall asleep together in bed that’s been getting progressively filthier as well.

However, he is not that spoiled and Crowley has been so good to him, so he volunteers to bring the water and wanders to the kitchen, lightheaded from the oxygen deprivation and dazed from everything else.

He finds the glasses (and a paper towel to wipe his face relatively clean) and takes two bottles of water from the fridge. There is something domestic about it that he doesn’t want to dwell on, but his mind latches onto the feeling. So many day-to-day things they could do...

Crowley drinks his water straight from the bottle and Aziraphale smiles privately because he expected that.

“You should see yourself,” says Crowley, eyes raking over his entire body hungrily as Aziraphale takes his water in small sips, his abused throat hurting with every swallow. “You look like sin.”

“And all you want to do is sin?” Aziraphale prompts, laughing at his own terrible joke.

“That’s about right!” Crowley agrees, laughing with him even as he rolls his eyes.

“Well, I am in desperate need of a shower, I suppose, but...” Aziraphale sighs, shaking his head, tired.

“...meh,” Crowley finishes his thought. “I’m thinking: some sleep and then shower, but we do something worth getting out of bed there.”

When Aziraphale gets all wrapped in Crowley’s long limbs, he thinks – not for the first time – that there really is something snake-like about him and that he’s going to need some serious motivation to leave the bed, which is new to him, seeing that he’s not a fan of sleep. Crowley is, though, and the way he cuddles against Aziraphale to absorb his warmth and drifts off easily is a surprisingly soothing experience.

As it turns out, not even two hours later, all the motivation Aziraphale needs to leave the bed and shower is the prospect of a hot shower itself. Crowley joins him, complaining the entire way, until the steaming water hits his skin and the grumbling noises switch into ones indicating deep appreciation. In the meantime, Aziraphale re-appreciates Crowley’s body with his hands and mouth.

He insists they decide on sort of safe words to use when either needs to stop completely or just a little break for whatever reasons (because Crowley’s concerned check-ins are too sweet and too disarming, but he doesn’t tell him that) and Crowley chooses Plato and orange respectively, explaining that ‘Berkeley is too long’ when Aziraphale raises his eyebrow at him.

“Now that we’re properly cleaned,” Crowley begins, shivering with cold as he throws an oversized, black band T-shirt at Aziraphale and pulls a similar piece of clothing over his own head, “I want you to top me.”

Torn between amusement at the phrasing and the thrill of wearing something that belongs to Crowley, no matter how distant it is from his usual style, Aziraphale touches one of the sleeves affectionately with a smile and a short, “Alright, yes.”

Gosh, he hopes that didn’t sound too eager.

“Listen, I―” Crowley breaks off. “Wait, I expected I’d have to do more convincing.”

“Oh, do you want me to say no, so that you can ‘convince’ me?” Aziraphale offers, only half-jokingly.

“No, I don’t want any more coddling.”

“Good.”

“Yeah, it’s― what?! Okay!”

Still, Aziraphale sits on the bed with his back against the wall and insists that Crowley straddle him, at least for his first time, so that he can control the depth and tempo, discover what he likes best without interference from Aziraphale’s personal preferences.

“You just want me to do all the work,” Crowley accuses, gesturing around with the bottle of lubricant, but he settles in Aziraphale’s lap with a feverish look on his face – beautiful eyes glassy, cheeks flushed delicious red.

“Oh, no, you have discovered my diabolical plan,” Aziraphale mocks, good-natured, trying to convince his mind that the fact he’s the first one to do all those things with Crowley is not that arousing. His mind is of a different opinion, however.

Crowley hands him the purple bottle. “More like, the depths of your laziness,” he growls, sounding angry, but Aziraphale can tell he’s being hissy as a principle. “At least prepare me,” he demands.

“With pleasure,” says Aziraphale, already warming the viscous fluid with his fingers.

A soft sound falls from Crowley’s lips before he tilts Aziraphale’s head up and bows down to kiss him hungrily.

With his clean hand splayed over Crowley’s chest – he thinks he might be a little obsessed with the feeling of Crowley’s heartbeat against his skin – he reaches around the lithe body in his lap, slick fingers exploring unhurriedly between the firm cheeks.

When his fingertip catches against the tight little hole, Crowley breaks the kiss with a groan and curses, thighs tensing. He doesn’t use any of the words they agreed on, so Aziraphale presses gently against the furled tissue, licking his lips as Crowley lowers his hips greedily, attempting to take in Aziraphale’s finger, but failing due to Aziraphale withdrawing his hand just enough.

“Angel,” Crowley complains, giving him a look so betrayed it would look comical, if his eagerness weren’t so arousing.

Aziraphale gives in and feels the inviting warmth of Crowley’s body around the tip of his finger, his thoughts circling insistently around the fact that no-one has ever touched Crowley so intimately, and oh, Aziraphale can’t wait to bury himself to the hilt inside this heat― don’t dragons like virgins?

“Hhnngghh,” says Crowley and Aziraphale cannot help but agree as he presses in, slowly, but without a pause, until his whole finger disappears inside. He curls it, searching, until Crowley makes a prolonged sound, something between a sigh and a moan, a string of clear fluid oozing out of his cock at the new stimulation, leaving dark stains on his T-shirt.

It would seem they forgot to take these off.

Aziraphale stares at the precome that keeps leaking from the slit wishing he could lick Crowley’s cock clean and keep licking it until Crowley’s utterly spent. Perhaps another time.

Leaving the gland alone for now, Aziraphale moves his finger in a more thrusting manner until Crowley gasps, hips twitching for a while in little, abortive jerks, and then he’s suddenly fucking himself on Aziraphale’s finger, groaning, curling his hands around Aziraphale’s shoulders.

“Well? Do you feel prepared?” Aziraphale prompts gently.

“Ah!” Crowley looks down between them, eyeing Aziraphale’s cock doubtfully. “Are you sure about stretching with three fingers being a myth?” he asks cautiously.

Huffing a breathless laugh, Aziraphale kisses him, lips soft and tender, holding his head still by the jaw delicately, as he withdraws his finger and immediately comes back with two, swallowing Crowley’s groan.

Not giving him much time to process what’s going on, he adds the third finger to prove his point, feeling Crowley’s entire body tense and then immediately melt against him.

“How about now?” he asks, letting their lips part.

“Fuck,” says Crowley, panting and squirming. There’s a drop of sweat running down the side of his throat and Aziraphale leans up to catch it with his lips. “Someone’s eager,” Crowley adds, his voice a little too weak for the full teasing effect.

“You have no idea,” Aziraphale admits, looking into his eyes.

“Ngk.” Crowley avoids his gaze as if it burns him. “You really are a slut,” he mutters, taking hold of Aziraphale’s cock and sliding off of his fingers.

The words sting for the briefest moment, but Aziraphale remembers that Crowley tends to say all kinds of things when he’s overwhelmed, so maybe he doesn’t really mean it.

“I’m your slut,” he replies with a playful smile to see if he manages to lighten the mood.

It has the opposite effect, it would seem, as Crowley’s eyes shoot back to his face to stare at him, his lips slightly parted.

“I think your true diabolical plan is to kill me.”

“We shall find out by Monday.”

At this, Crowley grins at him, and then his features sharpen in concentration as he raises on his knees, apparently ready for the next part.

“Crowley, dear, wait,” says Aziraphale, alarmed, searching for the bottle of lubricant with one hand and holding Crowley gently by the hip with the other.

“Yes, I know,” Crowley hisses impatiently, pretending he didn’t forget about slicking Aziraphale’s cock.

Definitely not in a mood to argue about who knows what, Aziraphale completes this task himself without a comment. Crowley doesn’t talk either as he finally sinks down onto Aziraphale’s cock, torturously slow and with maddening breaks, really, who’s trying to kill whom, again?

People often assume that Aziraphale has poor self-control, probably something to do with his admittedly hedonistic lifestyle. Generally speaking, he agrees. But he thinks he’s perfectly capable of reining himself in, perhaps with two exceptions – being pushed to his very limits and choosing to surrender his control if he feels safe doing so (he already did that with Crowley).

Focusing on his breathing and watching Crowley’s face for any signs of discomfort, he keeps as still as possible and allows him to move, and what moves they are―

Breathing deeply, admiring the view, staving off his orgasm, teasing Crowley’s nipples and cock – all within his capability.

“Fuck me,” Crowley groans, throwing his head back.

Aziraphale’s eyes wander along the lines of his white, exposed throat. He isn’t entirely sure if Crowley’s words were a request or just a figure of speech, but he decides there’s no harm in trying to find out, so he rocks up into Crowley with measured thrusts, unerringly hitting the prostate once they discover the perfect angle together, and is endlessly happy to hear Crowley – right above his head – spilling absolute filth with his tongue, and then swearing and calling out until he’s finally reduced to broken cries and whimpers.

Aziraphale feels him come, the muscles pulsing around his cock giving away Crowley’s uncharacteristically silent orgasm. He groans, fucking him through it gently, but eventually he has to help Crowley pull off, knowing that further stimulation would be unpleasant to him.

Crowley is boneless and sluggish in his arms and looks at him with such dazed, sex-stupid eyes that Aziraphale can’t help grinning just a tad smugly.

“Shut up,” Crowley mumbles as soon as he’s able to do more than panting.

Aziraphale obediently doesn’t talk, instead leaning up to kiss and lick at Crowley’s neck.

“Next time, I don’t want you to hold back,” says Crowley, touching Aziraphale’s face with a hand covered in streaks of semen.

“You really enjoy ‘marking’ me,” Aziraphale observes, sending him a knowing smile, still somewhat smug.

Crowley blinks at him until he seems to notice what he’s doing, and he bites his lip, as if caught. “Yes,” he admits, following that with a choked sound and resting his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder, his other hand reaching between them to caress Aziraphale’s cock with slow strokes.

Moaning softly, Aziraphale presses his face into Crowley’s hair, still wet from the shower, eyes closed.

“What’s in your basket?” Crowley asks and there is an edge to his voice, like he’s suddenly suspicious.

Aziraphale concentrates on the meaning behind words with difficulty. “Wine. Some cheese. Spare clothes, though it looks like I’m not going to need them.”

“Right.” Crowley grins, pointing at his own T-shirt, which belongs in the washing machine, and offers his come-stained fingers for Aziraphale to lick clean, which he sets to with a pleased sigh. “I think we could just spend those two days in the shower, really. Would save us time.”

Aziraphale makes an amused sound at the idea but is also delighted by the thought they still have almost two days of this. His throat throbs painfully, reminding him how exquisitely Crowley fucked it.

Mere minutes later he climaxes, moaning around the long fingers in his mouth.

[tragidean]

Last Ride [6.1k] (ao3)

Somewhere between Mount Hope and Oak Hill, lost in the winding stretch of West Virginia Route 16 and surrounded by pines and clear-cut granite, Dean sees a man walking along the side of the road. No car in sight, no thumb out signaling for assistance, just a man, with the sunlight glancing off his white suit and hat, the black of his shirt abysmally dark. He lifts his gaunt face, his cheeks hollowed and angled, and Dean catches a glimpse of dark brown eyes right before he slams on the brakes, sending the Impala into a skid. Sam flies forward, throwing his cellphone into the footwell. Castiel braces a hand against the back of Dean’s seat, managing to not fall into the floorboards. “Dude,” Sam hisses. The moment the Impala careens to a stop, Dean wrenches around to look through the rear window, only to find nothing. Just more trees and rocks, the cracking asphalt of the highway, and a white cinderblock-walled building reading the Skyline Drive-In. A worn hangs from a pole, advertising burgers, barbeque and hot dogs—and Hank’s Last Stop. “Did you see something in the road?” Castiel asks, torn between Dean’s face and the spot where for a split second, a man stood. “Did—No one else saw that,” Dean says, eventually, once his higher brain functions return and the adrenaline unclenches his throat. “There was a—a guy.” “A guy?” Sam fishes his phone from the floor. “Dude, we’ve seen plenty of hitchhikers out here, and you’ve never tried to send me through the windshield for any of them.” Good thing I taught you to wear a seatbelt. “Just—Jesus.” Headlights flash from over the hill; Dean shifts back into gear and applies pressure to the accelerator, getting back up to speed. Skid marks paint the roadway, the only proof that he isn’t hallucinating. “I’m not crazy, alright?” “I’m not saying you are.” Sam straightens up and checks his lap belt. “I mean, it wouldn't be the first ghost we’ve seen on the side of the road, right?” Ghost. That’s what it was—a ghost. Just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill ghost in the middle of West Virginia, just out for a leisurely stroll and trying to give Dean a coronary. But he looked familiar, in a haunting way, like he might visit his dreams later tonight, wondering aloud why Dean never stopped to help him. Technically, he did stop, but ferrying the dead has never been part of his job description. It’s nothing, he thinks, scrubbing his face. Over the bench, Castiel pats his shoulder, giving him a light squeeze. The endless blue sky hangs overhead, the shadows growing longer and thinner through the trees as the sun begins to make its descent for the evening. “Just tired,” he mutters. “How far are we?” “We’re almost there,” Sam says. He pulls up the article he was reading and hands it over to Castiel. “Oak Hill, couple of teenagers reported seeing a nine-foot-tall man in the woods.” “Bigfoot,” Dean scoffs and rubs his eyes. “Really, we’re hunting bigfoot?”

continue reading on ao3

[m5ria]

Chapter 8: The Key

I have finally stumbled into the hotel’s doorway. I wear my new black top and cargo pants. 

Angel’s changing room was more of a backstage actor room. He sneaked me through the back door of the shiny building and let me take a shower and change. I asked for a pair of scissors to cut a hole in my pants for my tail, but he refused to give me those. Instead, he cut the hole for me. I guess it was for the best, as I’d have just ripped the material.

I left him to his work and wandered on the streets of Hell. I wasn’t familiar with that part of the city and my orientation skills seem to work best in the woods, not in the City. I had to rely on smell and asking for directions. At least two demons out of five told me bullshit.

I dream of my room right now. I am so exhausted from this day already. It tends to tire you, you know? This combination of explosions, discoveries of new abilities, and marathons. I think it’s Hell’s way to celebrate my first anniversary.

Thank you, no thank you!

The world darkens for the second time today and I watch the black streak indifferently. It circles me and stops behind me this time. I turn around and raise my head to the shadow head. I wait for the color to come back, but the only thing that happens is the shadow getting more detailed.

Do I have to touch him?

I really don’t want to. But I can’t be stuck like this here, in a world of grays. I try another reasonable way to return.

“I know it’s you, Alastor.”

The world seems to paint itself, only this time from the edge of my vision to the middle. Alastor’s face is the last that gets color.

“You’re a curious phenomenon, my dear!” His mic echoes a quiet crowd of laughter.

I sigh and turn my back, searching for the stairs.

“How was the shopping escapade?” he asks unbothered from behind.

“Escapade?” I repeat. There’s no way he knows. I play dumb: “It was merely some clothes choice. Angel Dust indeed made it more palpable.”

“Indeed he would,” he reaches to my left. “And, oh, such a fine choice of clothes!”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Mind if I ask... Where are your old clothes?” he wonders. When I look at him, I see a predator smile on his face. I realize that I was wrong. He must know something. There’s no use in denying it anymore.

“I threw them away. They were ruined, after all.”

“With blood, I presume,” he grins smugly.

“What gave it away?” I try to smile, but it comes weakly.

“Ha ha ha. You reek of blood, darling!”

“You’re one to talk!” I snort.

“He he, I see Angel already spilled some beans,” he shrugs.

“Would you be so kind as to point the direction to the stairs?” I change the subject. I don’t know if I got Angel in some kind of trouble. Besides, I only know I’m in the welcoming corridor.

“Why, yes I would,” he offers his arm. 

I don’t take it. I’m still upset. And I am the one who offers an arm! Not the other way around!

He sees my decision in my eyes, as he drops it and vanishes. Then, he materializes ten feet in front. I walk to him, trying to keep calm. He is so frustrating, only showing off.

When I reach him, he sweetly asks: “Why didn’t you blitz your way here, my dear?”

“Are you spying on me now?” I ask him, quite irritated.

“Ha ha ha! You should know,” he leans over me, “I do have eyes anywhere.”

His face darkened and his smile widened. His way of scaring me.

Not today.

“And you should know,” I touch his chest with my index finger, “that I don’t have to have eyes anywhere. Once I know who’s my enemy, I know them.”

A silent question hangs around us: Are you my enemy?

He looks as if he’s torn between looking agreeable or threatening. I withdraw my finger and hold his stare. His smile grows wider.

“I am merely making sure everyone at the hotel is safe,” his eyes dance with joy. 

“Good job!” I smile sarcastically. “Thank you for your services!”

“Would you need any help getting to your room?” he asks sinfully.

“I think I can manage a couple of stairs,” I turn him down. 

I make one step towards the stairs only to have the world whirling around me. I see weird ancient-looking symbols and drawings that resemble a lot with emojis, twinkling like stars in the night sky. After a dizzy moment, my feet hit the ground and I lounge my arms to grab something, anything to hold onto. 

I won’t fall again! 

My left-hand painfully hits a wall, while the right one grabs onto some material. My spinning head slows down and I can figure I’m in a hallway with doors. Did I teleport somewhere? But my teleporting doesn’t look like this!

I look at my right hand, see what I grabbed. With horror, I see I grabbed Alastor’s coat. I quickly unclasp my hand and stand my ground. I look at him with fury and I see he’s not too far from my sentiments either.

“I didn’t ask you to do that!” I snarl at him.

“My dear! I simply helped a lady in distress!” his voice is normal, but his eyes are troubled. I don’t see why, though.

“Next time, don’t!” I turn my back, trying to calm the hell down. I don’t know why I keep losing my temper today. First with him, second with Angel, third again with him! I must be really exhausted.

I look for the key in my pants and find it. I search for a number on it, anything to indicate what room I have, but the only thing that happens is the eye blinking back at me.

“You have to listen to it,” Alastor whispers in my ear.

I keep myself from shuddering. I don’t like his proximity. It’s never a good sign when a man approaches me like this.

I redirect my attention to the key, studying it. I only see the eye. From where should I listen?

“Does it have a mouth?” I ask stupidly. 

“Oh, but does it need to?” he asks back. I’d feel like I’m talking to myself if I couldn’t feel him behind me. “Do radios have mouths to speak music?”

“They have a speaker,” I point out. I don’t think it was the kind of answer he was looking for, but I’m not looking to fulfill any expectations. 

He takes my key gently from my hand, as if not to spook me, and then brings it to my ears on my head. My left ear stiffens when it feels the proximity. Of the heat from his hand or the origin of a new sound? I don’t know.

I focus on listening and, sure enough, in seconds I hear it say “Generosity. Generosity. Generosity.”

“Generosity?” I turn to him, grabbing my key from his hand. He looks at me satisfied, his smile plain.

“Ah! It’s Charlie’s humorous idea,” he explains. “Each floor has seven rooms. Each room has the name of one of the seven virtues.”

“That’s quite original,” I smile enchanted. “Like the seven sins as rings in hell. Does she choose rooms specifically, though?”

“Why?” he leans his head on one side, curiously. “Would you consider yourself generous?”

“Frankly, I don’t have anyone to be generous to,” words escape my mouth. I immediately mentally slap myself. He’s one of the most dangerous Overlords in here. I can’t just spill him details about me!

“Then, we hope that will soon change!” he winks before some glitches distort his appearance. I thought it was some headache of mine, but he soon vanishes, leaving me alone at last.

This time, though, I’m not relieved. Too many questions fly through my head, starting with Why did he teleport like this? Special effects? He acts like he’s always on a stage. Is it that important to him to be the center of attention all the time?

Then, the way he said we, like he’s completely part of the hotel, not just helping it occasionally. This kind of fun-seeking demon would surely tire of the mundane way of life in this hotel. But he didn’t seem to for four months.

Perhaps that’ll change. Perhaps I might be lucky.

Yet, I know luck is not my strong suit.

Next Chapter

Previous Chapter

Masterlist

[ink-filled-aquarium]

The diner off the side of the highway was empty in the early morning, except for the usual staff, and for father and daughter duo, Madeline and Dave Benson. The pair sat at a booth, with faded and torn plush cushions, across from each other. At first glance, one could tell they were family immediately. Both had dark hair and gray-blue eyes, both had straight noses and strong chins and triangle faces. Dave sported a beard that already had gray hairs growing in it. Madeline had an overgrown pixie cut that hadn’t been cut for some time. They were both wearing thin hoodies and jeans.

Madeline had ordered a fresh orange juice, Dave got a black coffee that was scorched and bitter. The two were looking at their tall menus, both propped up identically, burying their faces in the countless options. Dave put down his menu first. “Know what you’re getting yet, kiddo?”

Madeline put hers down as well. “Guess.” She folded her hands under her chin, and flashed a smile.

“Blueberry pancakes topped with fresh blueberries, and a side of sausage?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

Madeline nodded. “And you’re getting… biscuits and gravy with scrambled eggs?”

“Correct again!” The two smiled, and Madeline laughed.

After a while, their food had come. Madeline drowned the pancakes in maple syrup as soon as they arrived. The two took their time eating. They talked, laughing at inside jokes no one else would understand. They spoke of their trip; they were driving up to Illinois from Georgia to see Chicago, the two’s birth town, for Madeline’s birthday gift. They spoke about Dave’s work, about all the jobs he was applying for. They talked about music, about movies, about whatever the two could possibly talk about.

Madeline paused the conversation, getting up to use the bathroom. She returned relatively quickly, but she looked more giddy than before. Dave seemed to ignore it, though, and continued their rambling talks.

The waiter from before came up to them, a plate in his hand, and he began singing “happy birthday” in a low, off-tune, monotone voice. “What’s this all about?” Dave asked, one eyebrow cocked upwards.

Madeline smiled as the waiter set the pancake down. Bananas formed the shape of a smile on top of it, with blueberries for eyes and a whole strawberry for a nose. Where its forehead was, a tall candle stood instead. “It’s for you. Happy one year, dad. I said it was your birthday today,” she said, whispering the last bit.

Dave looked at his daughter with surprise. He looked down at the plate below him, then at his daughter, then at the plate again, and he smiled. He blew the candle out, and the waiter walked away from the table. “Thank you, Maddy.”

Madeline smiled. Her smile was bigger and brighter. She took a sip of her juice, and Dave took a sip of his coffee. Dave’s sip was slower, he took his time drinking, thinking. When he swallowed, he began to speak. “I’m sorry, Maddy, for everything before,” he said, “You didn’t deserve how I acted.”

Madeline shook her head. “I know you’re sorry. You don’t gotta apologize again.”

“I should. I treated you and your mother really badly when I was drinking-”

“But you’ve changed since then. We shouldn’t dwell on the past, not today. Today’s a day to look towards the future, y’know?”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right, kiddo.”

A silence filled the room, and the father and daughter both appeared to be lost in their own thoughts. Minutes passed before someone spoke again.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you, and I know you know that, but…” Madeline paused, taking a deep breath, “You’re still my dad. And you’ve done a great job of getting better. You’ve really… tried. You’ve been trying so hard. I just… thank you.”

Madeline began to choke up, holding back tears from her eyes. Dave stood up from his side of the booth, and sat on the edge of hers. He wrapped his arms around her, closing her in a tight hug, protecting her from the surrounding world, allowing her to cry. 

“Dad…” she muttered between heavy breaths, “I love you.”

He ruffled her hair. “I love ya too, Maddy.”

Reaching over the table, Dave cut a piece off of the pancake with his fork, and ate it slowly. Madeline laughed. - Originally written on November 18th, 2022, for my Creative Writing class. The prompt was “Reflection”

[theunboundwriter]

Writeblr Intro

Hi everyone! Thanks for stumbling upon my little corner of Tumblr :) Please call me J (she/her) and I’m just using this space to post about my projects and shamelessly throw out random info about my ocs.

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Link to more info about me: Meet the Writer

Please recommend me music: Link

To Get Tagged in Tag Games: Link

My WIPs below the cut:

⋆ A series following an immortal girl who is trying to find her place in the world.

⋆ Includes two main books and numerous side stories following other characters introduced in The Prices We Pay and It All Started At The End

⋆ Link to all character moodboards Here.

⋆ Link to all character piccrew face claims Here.

⋆ Tag used: #unbound time universe

⋆ Book One of The Unbound Time Series

⋆ Kendyleigh's world was ripped apart in a single night.

After being betrayed in the ugliest way possible, leaving her bloodied, frightened, and broken from grief, Kendyleigh fled into the night to get away from the people that wanted her nothing less than dead.

She had sworn to herself that she would never make the same mistake again— a mistake that exposed her most dangerous secret— but as she was hunted down by some of the most powerful people in the nation, she began to grow desperate. Fate placed her in the home of a witch, and for the first time in her life, she was offered a chance to exact her revenge on those who wronged her. Torn between the path of good and evil, Kendyleigh's decision was cemented when she was told there was a way to remove the curse that had plagued her life for centuries.

Now in over her head and blinded by rage, Kendyleigh has to figure out what kind of person she has become and what it means to trust people again.

⋆ Fantasy-Adventure, Found Family, Right vs Wrong, Quest, Destruction, Revenge, Companionship as Salvation,

⋆ Link to WIP intro found Here

⋆ Tag Used: #wip: the prices we pay

⋆ June ‘Cutthroat’ Marlowe had built up quite a reputation for herself. Not only was she the daughter of legendary Captain Damon ‘The Marked,’ but she was the only one brave enough to wrong him and get away with it. Now fleeing for her life, June has to find a ship and a crew, and sail to wherever the map she stole from her father takes her, before he can get his hands on the treasure she’s after. 

Word travels fast, and it seems as if the seven seas were against her, as she’s being hunted down by more than just her bloodthirsty father:

Captain Bates Anderson— The British Navy Officer— who she’d outsmarted time and time again, and wants nothing more than to see her pay for the crimes she’s committed. 

The love of her life, who she had left for dead. 

This pesky pirate who just so happens to have exactly what she’s looking for.

And an ancient curse that had been following her family for years.

⋆ Adventure, Pirates, Curses, Buried Treasure, Found-Family, Will to Survive, Self-Reliance, Learning to Love, Loneliness as Destructive Force

⋆ Link to WIP Intro found Here.

⋆ Tag Used: #wip: the sea is in her blood

⋆ Tag List: @fearofahumanplanet @marinesocks @parttimeghost @houndsofcorduff @creatrackers (let me know if you want to be added or removed)

⋆ Jacques and Louis Monet weren't surprised when they were approached by a stranger, saying he was investigating some of the most prominent criminal masterminds in the world. They were surprised, however, to learn that he wasn't a detective.

The man went by a code name, Chaos, to conceal his identity from not only the rest of the world, but also from the group of people he had gathered to assist him in robbing the Natural History Museum in London, England.

The ragtag group of criminals banded together,-knowing nothing about each other or what their life was like before the heist- and invaded the museum of London.

The goal?

Return the items that were stolen by the British to their rightful countries (at a high price, of course), and don't get caught.

Both objectives were difficult, but as each hour passes they only get harder, especially when dealing with a building of unruly hostages, and having to undermine UK law enforcement.

The worst part, though?

Hostages keep turning up dead, and no one has the slightest clue why. They do know, that with each body they find, the deeper and deeper they're digging a hole that they aren't sure they can climb out of.

⋆ Crime, Heist, Interrogations, Adventure, Mystery, Greek Mythology, Stealing from the British,

⋆ Link to WIP Intro found Here.

⋆ Tag Used: #wip: god complex

[metalbuckaroo]

Mafia Bucky and prompts “seeing you between my legs is so hot” and “I may have left some marks”

Mafia!Bucky can have my heart if he wants it

Warnings: a slight, teeny tiny mention of violence, smut, cursing, oral (m receiving) minors dni

Bucky had been working on his temper. Though, he never did have a short fuse and was usually able to stay level headed. He wanted to be better and the man who was holding a hand over his bleeding nose and mouth in the middle of Bucky's office, took him three steps back.

He let out an aggravated groan, grabbing a cloth from the drawer of his desk to wipe his right hand clean. "Deal with that." Bucky ordered to one of his men.

He slipped his suit jacket off and dropped it on the blood stain that tainted the grey carpet. You'd be there any moment and he didn't have time to deal with it.

Just as he sat in his desk chair, the doorknob turned. "Hey, babydoll." He said with a soft smile that melted your heart. "Everything okay in here?" You asked, glancing down at the suit jacket on the floor as you made your way to him.

"Is now, c'mere." Bucky tugged you onto his lap, thick, contrasting arms of metal and flesh circling your waist as he nuzzled his face into the crook of your neck. "How was your day?" You asked, letting your hand rest on the back of his neck.

He started muttering about the man and what had happened. How he tried but as soon as the man saw your picture on the corner of Bucky's desk he made the wrong comment that made Bucky feel like the man was objectifying you.

It was his favorite picture from a beach trip a few months before, so he hated to have to move it. Captured perfectly of you with a gleaming smile plastered on your face, wearing a sundress that ended up torn on the floor of the hotel room hours later.

"You need to relax, Buck." You sighed, feeling his lips brush the side of your neck. "I am relaxed." He grumbled like a child.

Shifting around you fiddled with the buttons of his shirt. "Want me to help?" You asked, popping the first one open as he lifted his head to rest against the back of the chair. "Do you even need to ask?"

You gave him a smile and moved to stand on your knees between his parted thighs, Bucky watching you with dark, lust filled eyes as you kissed the exposed skin with each button that was undone.

Letting his nimble fingers undo his belt and fastening to his pants, you gently massaged the tops of his toned thighs as his hand dipped under his waistband; wetting your lips when he pulled his throbbing erection from the constricting fabric.

Bucky let out a low groan when you flicked you tongue over his leaking tip, already becoming putty in your hands from the simple action. "Seeing you between my legs is so hot." He huffed, a gravely moan pulling itself from his throat as you took his swollen head into your mouth.

"More, take more, sweet girl." Bucky moaned, bucking his hips into the welcoming warmth.

Bracing yourself with your hands on his thighs, you position yourself so you can take him further; swallowing him to the base. "God, I don't know how you fit me in that pretty little mouth. But it feels fucking amazing." He purred, metal hand tangling in the back of your hair.

You hummed around him, earning another thrust of his hips and pleasured sigh before you were being pulled off of him. "I wasn't-" A soft yelp cut you off from the sudden movement of being lifted onto his desk.

"Love stuffing your mouth, but I wanna fill you up, babygirl." Bucky said, hands palming up the sides of your skirt to pull your underwear off in a haste.

He slotted himself between your legs, hands wrapping around your calves to pull you closer to the edge of the desk; his lips engulfing yours in a messy, lust filled kiss as he buried inside you.

Your breath caught in your throat at the sudden intrusion, not having much time to adjust to his thickness when his hips rolled into yours at an erratic pace.

"Bucky-" You whimpered, arms hooking under his to hold his shoulder blades, nuzzling your face into his neck to muffle the moans and whines he caused.

Bucky did the opposite, letting the vulgar sounds fill the air freely as he bit and sucked marks into your neck, angling his hips up to fuck into the rough patch in the back of your pussy. "No one can hear, babydoll. Be as loud as you want."

The gravely moan that rumbled from his chest was nearly pornographic when your clenched around him, hips stuttering for a moment before he found his rhythm again; grip on your waist tightening. "Make a mess on my cock, sweetheart." He panted, nudging your jaw with his nose as you bit your bottom lip harshly.

Bucky slipped his hand to your clit, pressing sloppy circles to match the ruthless pace that made your head spin. "Louder, baby. C'mon, I need it." He nearly whined, needing every sound and reaction he could get to replace the thought of another man thinking of you.

Your jaw went slack, moans and pants spilling out as you release around him.

Bucky was nearing his own high, gripping onto your thighs with a force that would surely bruise; the swirling in his stomach growing stronger from the whines you made before his head snapped to the opening door.

His hips still against yours, a cold glare being sent to someone behind you. "Can I fucking help you?" Bucky sneered, your eyes blinking open as your breathing started to slow.

The man quickly averted his gaze from the vulgar scene unfolding on Bucky's desk and cleared his throat. "I figured- you- you usually lock the door. There's some urgent business." He stuttered out, trying to keep his eyes on the carpet and not how you were clinging to the front of Bucky.

"More urgent than what I'm doing right now?" Bucky snarked, biting back a groan at how your walls fluttered around him when he shifted slightly. "Of course not, sir."

"Then get the hell out, I'm busy." The man quickly nodded and rushed out of the door.

You looked at Bucky through your eyelashes, the hard look on his face softening when his eyes flicked back to you. "Where was I, sweet girl?" He hummed, nipping your bottom lip. "Lay back."

Nodding, you leaned back on your elbows, throwing your head back in a moan when he returned to his rough, steady pace.

His hands pressed flat against the wood of the desk, trying to pull another orgasm from you before bringing on his own.

You could feel the pressure building again, higher and higher with each punishing snap of his hips. "Please, Bucky, so close." You all but sobbed. "I know, sugar. Cum again for me."

He groped at your chest, hips stuttering and thrusts growing sloppy when you did, your thighs quivering against his sides.

A choked grunt tore from Bucky's throat, spilling into your velvety walls.

A satisfied smirk graced his face when he noticed the blossoming hickies on the side of your neck, both of your chests heaving and skin coated in a thin layer of sweat. "I may have left some marks."

[firecatvariant]

Mortalitatis (Lucifer)

(Idea inspired from @boozye​ - I felt like this had so much potential and I was excited to give it a shot. Then the more I wrote it, the less I felt confident about my ability to give it justice, but at least I tried. I’m just not the greatest at writing angst unless I’m in a certain headspace. But I hope you will enjoy it anyway! Also, thank you @eternallydaydreaming2015​ for letting me bounce my idea off of you!) TW - a little angst, death, funeral, etc. 

Lucifer was in a good mood for once. A very good mood. He practically hummed as he walked through the house of Lamentation. He stopped at MC's bedroom door and knocked.

"Come in!" A voice sang out.

"MC! It's ready!" Lucifer said excitedly.

MC looked confused. "Lucifer? What's ready? What are you talking about?"

"The immortality potion. I've scoured the three realms for a way to keep us together forever. And I finally found it."

"Immortality?"

"Yes! Now, I read that after you drink it you might feel strange ..."

MC held their hands up.

"Wait a moment. Lucifer - I-I don't want immortality."

Lucifer stopped and stared at them. "What are you talking about? What do you mean by that?"

"I don't want immortality. I never have. In fact, I think it's a bad idea."

Lucifer could only continue stare. MC didn't want immortality? They didn’t want to stay with him forever? They wanted to grow old and die - like any ordinary human?

"This can only mean one thing," he said incredulously. "You’ve either lost your mind or you don't truly love me."

MC stood up. "Stop that! I do love you! I love you more than anything else in the three realms. But I can't do this, even for you. I don't want to be immortal." MC's fists curled into a ball, and they took a deep breath as they went on. "Remember what Diavolo said that one time? Being human is what makes me, me. And I need to accept every part of that, including my mortality. I will treasure these times I have with you and everyone, and I hope you will treasure them in return, more so, knowing they won't last forever."

Lucifer also curled his fists into a ball. "MC, this is ridiculous. You'd rather die, and leave me, the devildom, my brothers, all your friends, instead of staying with us forever? Just because your proud to be a human?"

"Your stupid pride is what is blinding you right now! You won't listen to me! You only want what you want! Why can't you respect what I want?"

With that, MC stomped out, slamming the door behind them.

It'd been weeks. Lucifer tried everything to convince MC to give in and take the immortality potion, but MC was stubborn as always and refused to budge. Things had gotten so bad between them that they barely talked, and only glared at each other whenever they were near. The others decided not to get involved, and they were torn. Most of them wanted MC to live forever, to stay with them forever. But they also wanted to respect MC's wishes. The whole house was filled with tension so thick that you could cut it with a knife. After two weeks or so of this, Diavolo decided to send Lucifer and MC into the human world on business, hoping it would help repair their relationship in some way.

Lucifer's head was in a fog as he walked through the human city with MC. His brain was constantly at battle with itself, over trying to convince MC to take the immortality potion, and letting MC do what they really wanted. He was barely eating or sleeping, so he wasn’t as sharp as he normally would be.

"Lucifer! Get out of the way!"

The next thing he knew, Lucifer was pushed to the ground, and he saw MC running into a busy street and heard the screeching of breaks and a loud thump.

Chaos. People yelling, and voices. Too many voices at once.

MC's body lay in the middle of the street. Broken. A small child was shivering to the side, being comforted by a few adult humans.

Lucifer ran to MC's side, pushing his way through the crowd that had gathered around them. He reached out and gathered MC in his arms.

"Lucifer. I had to. It's ok. I - I love you. I-I'll see you again one day."

"MC, NO! MC!!!"

Lucifer felt his entire body go numb. This couldn't be real. They couldn't be gone. But there was no denying what his senses told him. He felt MC's body, completely limp. They weren't breathing and were beginning to feel cold to the touch. Tears threatened to come to his eyes, but he repressed them. There was no way he, the Avatar of Pride, would cry in front of strange humans.

"Your stupid pride is blinding you!" MC's words rang out in his head.

Was this his fault? Was his pride to blame for all of this?

And no matter how hard he tried to keep them back, the tears began to fall.

Everyone was devastated. The moment MC passed; they all felt their pact marks die. Satan raged, Levi, Asmo and Belphie couldn't stop crying. Beel did his best to comfort Belphie but went around with a pained look on his face. And Mammon ... Mammon worried everyone the most. He neither raged nor cried. He just looked completely dead inside. Lucifer felt akin to what Mammon was feeling. Completely dead inside.

The funeral was small, and held in the human realm, where MC would have wanted it to be. As the brothers, royals, angels and Solomon stood there with flowers in their hands to pay their respects, they saw a small child walk up with flowers in his hand. It was the child MC had saved. The child looked fearfully at them but pressed on until he was standing in front of the grave.

"Thank you", the child whispered. "I'll never forget you." With that, he laid the flowers on the grave and went back to his parents. The parents gave the brothers a sympathetic look and began walking away with the child.

"Life is born, and life dies." Diavolo said. MC gave their life for that child, Lucifer thought. A human giving their life so that another human may live. Was that not one of the purest means of being a human?

Diavolo clapped a hand on his shoulder and gave him a supportive look. Then he and Barbatos walked away. The others laid their flowers on the grave and murmured their words of farewell, and they too, walked away until only Lucifer was left. He stood there for a few moments, until he found his voice.

"MC, you may be gone but the love I have for you will be eternal. This I promise you. I'll see you again someday, my love. I know I will. I just - wish that you could hear me right now."

A small butterfly was floating by on the breeze, and briefly landed on Lucifer's shoulder. He stared. And then a small smile formed on his lips.

MC had gotten what they wanted. To fulfill their mortality. And he knew that his love for them would last all throughout eternity. Until he could see them again.

Masterlist

[lucytara]

Yeah I get wanting some variation in your writing and whatnot. Hmm.

Gold. "I defy you. I defy your god. The laws of the universe said my love was gone from me. I said watch me save her." Bumbleby.

Have fun!

it’s possible. that i went. a little overboard with this prompt. 

"I defy you. I defy your god. The laws of the universe said my love was gone from me. I said watch me save her."

All four candles are lit in the corners of the small room, wicks burning purple and melting black wax. Her offering sits in a dish at the feet of the small statue - an old, worn piece of paper, bent and torn around its edges - and she herself kneels in the center of the floor, her hands clasped.

“I’ve never done this,” she begins, “but my name is Yang Xiao Long, and I humbly request an audience.”

Nothing happens, though she isn’t sure what she would’ve expected even if it had; the flames flicker with her unsteady heartbeat, the blood in her ears crashing as if waves in a storm. For some reason it’s embarrassing, calling on a higher entity who decides to put you through to voicemail.

She tries again, and aims for theatrical exaggeration; maybe the gods like a bit of a show. If she’s making a fool of herself, she might as well do it brilliantly. “O, Great Goddess! I call upon thee - All-Knowing Ruler of the Dead, Empress of the Night, Most Holy Lady of Darkness, Reigning Queen of Entropy--”

“I think that’s probably enough,” a voice comes from in front of her, amusement evident beneath its tone. “What was that one in the middle? ‘Empress of the Night’? I might keep that.”

Her head whips up towards the sound, and a woman in a deep purple cloak is leaning against her own statue, arms crossed and watching her performance with a look that can only be described as shameless delight. Gorgeous black hair framing golden eyes, like the sky wrapping itself around stars; the statue doesn’t do her justice.

“Oh my God,” Yang says, sitting back on her heels. All the preparation and rehearsing she’d done isn’t enough to conquer the shock of a beautiful, unearthly woman appearing in front of her and--

“Yes, I get that a lot.”

--mercilessly mocking her.

“Well, Yang Xiao Long?” the woman continues. “Why have you called upon me?”

“How do you know my name?” Yang says stupidly.

“I’m a god,” the goddess replies, a smile pulling at a corner of her mouth. “I’m the all-knowing ruler of the dead or whatever. Also, you said your name when you summoned me.”

“Fuck,” Yang says, struggling to regain her composure and failing spectacularly. “I - yeah. Right. Okay. Is it rude to swear in front of gods? And what do I call you?”

“I’ll allow it,” the woman says. “And you can call me Blake.”

“Blake,” Yang repeats; her hands open and close like a nervous tick. The name is a heavy weight in her mouth, settling her into steadiness. “I’ve come to request guidance.”

“Guidance?” Blake repeats, and gently lifts the note from the offering dish, turning it carefully around her hands without opening it to read it - she doesn’t need to. Yang registers faint surprise in her expression; yes, she’d assumed the sentimentality would fetch a rather large price. “This is quite the payment.”

“It’s the last note I have from someone who loved me,” Yang says. “I figured it would be sufficient.”

Those bright, inquisitive eyes glance over to her, and now the playing field has been reversed: intrigue and curiosity outweigh Yang’s atrocious initial delivery.

“Stand, please,” Blake commands softly. “I want to get a good look at you.”

Obediently, Yang rises to her feet, and with an odd jolt realizes she’s a few inches taller than the goddess. It’s unexpected, and it seems to unnerve Blake for a moment, too. Or maybe that’s the candlelight, throwing shapes and colors, turning the room cavernous. Maybe Blake is shrinking and she’s growing. Maybe once she was so tall the entire world trembled beneath her feet.

“You already have power,” Blake says, circling her curiously, and now she’s seeing what isn’t visible, looking for handprints on her soul. “You have been claimed. Whom do you answer to?”

“I didn’t receive this power from a god,” Yang says quietly. “I’ve had it as long as I can remember.”

“That’s impossible,” Blake says, and her gaze is piercing into Yang’s heart; she sees its strength, but she sees its scars, too. And its emptiness. There is plenty of that.

“Touch me,” Yang says. “You’ll find no prior claim.”

“I don’t need to.” Blake takes another step closer to her, the way you’d inspect a painting in a museum. Hands at her sides, cautious of glass and rope. “I can see your aura. But it’s impossible.”

“I’m looking for something,” Yang says, and Blake glances up, briefly meeting her eyes. “I don’t know what it is. But I’ve been looking for something for what feels like my entire life.”

Quizzical, now. One by one the candles are burning down. The room is collapsing in on them, or perhaps that’s simply the god in front of her, looking like she’d dive into Yang’s veins and unravel her if it were permitted.

“Why me?” Blake asks finally. “You know what I’m the goddess of, don’t you?”

“You guard death,” Yang says, her voice impossibly gentle; dusk flows river-like from her mouth. There is a world Blake can almost see. “But you can’t guard death without also guarding life, right? I don’t know what I’m looking for, but whatever it is, I imagine you encompass it.”

“Poetic,” Blake responds, and waits further. “I would like the truth, please. Our time is running short.”

There’s no point in playing games with gods. “The truth is stupid,” Yang says bluntly, and the corner of Blake’s mouth tilts again.

“Try me.”

“I’ll make you a deal,” Yang says, and Blake’s eyebrows raise in amusement. Bold, reckless, and absolutely pushing her luck to the furthest corners it can inhabit. “Accept me as yours, and when the time is right, I will tell you the truth.”

“Is the truth that powerful?” Blake says, curious despite herself.

The last candle flutters, throwing shadows from Yang’s eyelashes to her cheek. “I think it is.”

--

“Welcome back, Empress of the Night,” Ruby says upon her return to the Kingdom, giving her an exaggerated bow. “I hope you enjoyed your summon, My Lady of Perpetual Darkness.”

“What the hell was that about?” Weiss asks. “I haven’t even heard you crack a joke for, like, a millennia, and suddenly you’re the court jester?”

“She was amusing,” Blake says, shrugging. “Usually people are so timid and terrified. I felt like having some fun.”

“You?” Weiss says dubiously.

“Shut up, Weiss,” Ruby says. “You mustn’t speak that way to Our Patron Saint, Duchess of Death.”

“Now you’re not even trying.”

“Don’t you both have work to do?” Blake says, ending the interrogation before it can really begin. She’s not sure she’d have the answers for them, anyway.

--

Yang journeys east.

Find me again, Blake had said. The closer you get to my temple, the more I can see of you. She’d brushed aside Yang’s bangs, touched a single finger to her forehead. It felt like a teardrop, or a meteor shower. It felt like digging up a grave, or chiseling into stone. It felt like the last explosion. It felt like the first breath.

You are mine, Blake had said, and something about it had felt far too right.

She crosses from Sanus to Anima, spends days traversing forests and mountains, fending off bandits and monsters. Eyes flashing red and fire licking up her skin. Aura glowing golden before breaking. There is something wrong with the trees, she thinks; there is something wrong with the sky. Like I’m looking at them from the wrong side.

Nobody is there to answer her, and not for the first time, she wonders how she came to be so alone.

--

Blake watches Yang’s power unveil itself from above. Yang is hers, now, and though she can’t make house calls to the world below without a summon, she at least has instant access to her claims. There aren’t many of them, and Yang is different.

It reminds her of the God of Vengeance, almost - how he absorbs power before returning it, strike by vicious strike - but Yang’s is personal, sacrificial. She feels the pain before she can utilize it, and her anger is never cruel, her actions never misplaced. And she doesn’t complain.

Sometimes, Blake wishes she would: she can hear when she’s being talked to, even if she can’t respond. Every prayer, every curse, every devastation, every hope.

She waits for the sound of Yang’s voice, but it never comes.

--

There’s a small shrine in a village called Shion, which is still weeks out from the docks where she can potentially get a ferry to Menagerie, but the locals are kind, and honor her far too greatly for being touched by their ruling god. They direct her to their place of worship deep in the woods, and leave her without looking back. It’s a sacred thing, a bond between a god and their chosen, and law forbids them from watching her ceremony.

Yang pulls the candle from her pouch, lighting it at the foot of the shrine. She kneels down on the stone, worn with the imprints of a thousand prayers, and says, “Blake.”

“I was wondering when I’d hear from you again.” The voice comes almost immediately, as if its owner had been waiting to be beckoned.

It’s still a bit of a shock, though she’s much better prepared for it this time. “Hi,” Yang says, and stops there before she can fuck it up.

“Hi,” Blake says, and seems to be amused against her will. More guarded, less open. Yang can read the warning signs, but she’ll cut them off at the source.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she means it, getting to her feet. “If I waited too long to contact you, I mean. I’m...not familiar with this area.”

“Don’t worry,” Blake says, lowering her arms. “It’s only been a few weeks. I won’t smite you until at least a month.”

Yang laughs, and unexpectedly to the both of them, Blake goes deadly still. Her body language says Yang’s done something wrong, but her expression says she’s hearing music.

The candle is burning. The moment can turn itself over gently, if Yang knows how to guide it. She keeps her smile on, but makes it quiet. “You know, I didn’t expect the Goddess of Death to have a sense of humor.”

It seems to work. “I like to surprise people,” Blake says, and moves closer. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“You never talk to me,” she says, pretending to be in control of something she clearly isn’t. “Why not?”

Only the forest speaks for a moment, branches creaking, leaves rustling. And then: “Do you want me to?” Yang asks.

“It’s...something people tend to do,” Blake says slowly. “But not you.”

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Yang says.

“It’s not a bother.” The words come out too quickly, tone too reassuring. Blake’s own want is what laces the conversation, rather than Yang’s uncertainty. That’s a new, dangerous line.

Yang takes a careful step forward, her eyes lowered to the ground as if in apology; they raise slowly, trailing over Blake’s form until meeting her gaze. Looking for lines she’s crossed, and should step back over; searching for lights that say go. Instead, she only finds an intense, hungry confusion - I want it without understanding what it is.

“You know,” she murmurs, “these statues - they never do you justice.”

And she lifts a hand to Blake’s cheek, hesitating over her skin - is that Blake’s catch of breath, or is it the wind? - before gently cupping it in her palm. She could lose an arm for this; touching a god without being explicitly asked is the greatest sin a mortal can commit, but Blake only stands there, unmoving, eyes wide and lips parted, the moon sitting in the hollow of her throat.

“Blake,” she whispers, and it can only be a god’s strength keeping her voice steady, “I’m never not thinking of you.”

The candle goes out.

--

Nobody is waiting for her when she returns. This is how gods give each other gifts - by saying, no, I see everything but I didn’t see you.

--

Yang starts talking to her, and changes her routes so that rather than taking the most direct path to Menagerie, she’s able to stop at some of the smaller shrines on the way. There are only two more, and she hasn’t called Blake since Shion. Yang hopes she’ll still come.

“Isn’t it strange,” Yang says, “how much easier it is to think about someone than to talk about them? I think about you differently than I can talk about you. I don’t even know if that makes sense.”

No response; not that she expects one. At this point, she assumes Blake’ll just kill her if she gets too annoying. Maybe a tree will fall on her, or she’ll do something embarrassing like trip over a rock and break her neck. “I can’t remember much about my life. I know there were people I loved, but I can’t see their faces. I must’ve traveled a lot; I don’t like sitting still. I don’t know how old I am, or even when my birthday is.” She’s never admitted this before; never admitted she came to lying on the ground, with only her name left ringing in her skull and a note in her pocket.

“I think you’re beautiful,” she tells the warm night air. “That’s what I was trying to say. Before. Blake, I think you’re beautiful.”

A star shoots across the sky, light trails leaving imprints against the swirling blue-purple-black of the galaxy, but it must be a coincidence.

--

Another shrine, another candle. This one burrowed into the side of a mountain, a dome of a room with a hand-woven rug for kneeling, several long benches behind. The statue sits against the far wall, centered.

“They’re getting better,” Yang says, getting to her feet. “This one, at least, gets your eyes right.”

“Hm,” Blake says, pressing her lips together. She moves to stand next to Yang rather than in front of her, and they both examine the statue together. “I suppose you’d know, wouldn’t you?”

“Were the compliments too much?” Yang asks, impressed with how light her voice sounds. She nudges Blake’s elbow with her own. Oh, she’ll see how much distance she can cross. She’s already walked miles - she’ll swim oceans, too. “You said you wanted me to talk to you.”

“I didn’t say that,” Blake denies unconvincingly, and then pauses. “And in regards to your first question - I didn’t say that, either.”

Yang could tease her - so even gods like being called pretty, huh - or she could be brave, turn to Blake, take her face in both of her hands and lean in--

“Yang,” Blake says, and does step one of that plan by turning to her. “What do you want from me?”

Maybe the idea’s overwhelmed her to the degree that she can no longer see its risks - its potentially horrible, literally life-ending consequences - and that's what drives her to do it. Maybe it’s that Blake is looking at her like a poem; something beautiful, not to be understood by anyone but the artist who made her.

“What would you do if I kissed you?” Yang says, as if it were merely an interesting, hypothetical concept to explore and not the end of the world. “Is that possible, even if you wanted me to?”

This room is warm and close and silent. The clay is cracking where the floor meets the walls. A tunneled-through skylight is the only thing that keeps Blake from swallowing the place in shadows, instead coating them in an amber, dream-like glow. Like if you mixed the two of them together, you’d still be left with light.

“I think,” Blake murmurs, “we’re both going to have to find that out.”

Step two of her plan. Both of her hands cupping Blake’s cheeks. She’s strangely aware of her lifelines - do they mean anything to you, she wants to ask, does my life mean anything to you now and if it doesn’t, will my death - she leans in, their noses brushing, Blake’s breathing as if she needs to, Yang isn’t and she does; teach me about magic, teach me about memory, tell me how I knew you before I knew myself--

Blake kisses her, tired of her caution and hesitancy, lips parting and fists knotting around the fabric of her shirt. Yang expects them to crash together, like comets. She expects them to crumble and collapse under the impact, buried in the ruins of each other and suffocating. She expects them to decay there, reveling in their own destruction.

What she doesn’t expect is sunlight.

Her skin set aflame, Blake’s tongue in her mouth, hands traveling from her face to her lower back and pressing close - somewhere a rule is being written about the gods and desperation - Blake pulls away, gasps, her fingers begging for Yang’s heart.

“This power,” she says, mesmerized, staring at things only she can see, golden gossamer roots running up Yang’s veins. “Where did you get it?”

“I don’t know,” Yang breathes out, and kisses her one last time before the candle burns out. “But I swear I’ve never felt closer to finding out.”

--

Nobody attempts to stop her from barging through God’s door. Weiss and Ruby, Sun and Neptune; they all avert their eyes. I see everything, but I do not see you.

“What is she?” Blake asks, standing before them with her head bowed. “Please, God. I need to know.”

“If you weren’t already sure,” God says, “you wouldn’t be here.”

She hates it when they’re right.

--

Yang hits the docks; situated on the outskirts of a fishing village called Ito, and with constant transport to Menagerie, their shrine to Blake is the largest one yet.

“And this one?” Blake asks, before Yang has even begun to pray.

“How did you do that?” Yang says, staring up at her, startled. “Are we, like, super close now?”

“Shut up,” Blake says, but she’s smiling. She extends a hand, helping Yang to her feet. “Your soul calls me. You barely even have to light the candle, anymore.”

The sound of the ocean knocks on the door; the smell tackles the windows. Above, the seagulls are crying out, angry at all the fish they can’t have. Yang says, “Hi.”

“Hi,” Blake says, and kisses her. Soft and chaste. Something so human and so immortal. “I missed you.”

“I’m your favorite, aren’t I?” Yang teases, her fingers catching Blake’s chin in her hands.

“No,” Blake says, and for the first time, smiles with her teeth. Oh, this is happiness. “I do this with everyone who requests my presence. I’m very popular.”

“I can imagine,” Yang says, brushing a thumb across her bottom lip. “So what else are you the god of?”

“You had a few of them right,” Blake says nonchalantly, settling against Yang’s body. She could be taller, if she wanted to be, but there’s so much beauty to see when looking up. “Night, and all things within it. Darkness, shadows. Death.”

“What else?” Yang says, watching her mouth shape every letter.

“Forgiveness, and justice,” Blake murmurs. Oh, there’s a fine print for this, and she’s violating every word. “Promises,” she continues. “Seduction.”

Hook, line - a heavy wave rattles the walls; oh, the sea, the sea! - Yang shudders against her mouth, salt sinking into her blood. Leaves her bouyant and floating, the earth bubbling up beneath her. Rising and rising and rising.

“Shockingly,” Yang says, letting Blake press kisses into the crook of her neck, “I don’t find that hard to believe.”

--

“God,” Blake finds herself standing before them once again, hands clasped and head bowed. She speaks formally in the presence of God, as is customary of respect. “Please, God. I am supposed to be guiding her, but I fear all I’ve done is lead her astray. I need to know where she came from, and where she is going.”

“Blake,” God says, and touches the top of her head with their hand, “she is close to your temple. Look at her, and tell me what you see.”

--

Menagerie is a busy, populated island, and Blake’s temple is the primary reason for that. Pilgrimages are made from around the world to pray at her shrine and leave offerings at her feet. Protect me from loss, help me navigate my grief, let me fulfill my promise.

Yang is none of those things. And when the keepers of the temple ask the reason for her journey, she says, “I am in love with her.”

“You have been touched,” one says, and bows to her upon entry. “You have as long as the goddess is willing to give you.”

The heavy doors close, but the room shimmers, firelight glittering over golden-accented walls. A large moon is carved into the marble floor, crossing over a sun. Before her is the largest, most intricately carved statue of Blake she’s ever seen, and it looks exactly like her.

Yang kneels.

“You know,” Blake says from behind her, “you don’t have to do that anymore.”

“No,” Yang says. “But it - it’s been a long journey. And I’m only here because of you.”

  Blake’s footsteps echo, her boots stopping at the north point of the sun. “How do you feel?”

It’s enough to make Yang smile. “I know you heard me,” she says pointedly, but her amusement is apparent. “You hear everything I say.”

“I thought I’d give you the chance to tell me yourself.”

For the last time, Yang rises to her feet. Blake’s eyes glitter, mischievous and playful. She looks as she always has, but clearer, somehow; defined and resolute. She carries the truth in the way she extends a hand, in the way she searches for Yang’s mouth. When they kiss, Yang swears she can see another world.

“I’ll tell you something better,” Yang says. “The truth.”

She leans down, bumps their foreheads together. Blake’s arms loop around her neck automatically. Oh, Yang thinks, if I were the god of anything, I’d want it to be habits.

“So what’s the truth?” Blake asks.

“The truth,” Yang says unshakably, “is that it was you. I woke up with no memory and a note, and somehow, I knew I had to find you. The only thing I’ve been searching for is you.”

It’s you, she says. It’s you. You. You.

--

“God,” Blake says, and this time God is ready for her.

“Blake Belladonna,” God says, and inclines their head. “Come. Show me what you have.”

In her hands is a small slip of paper, worn and ripped around the edges. “It is a note,” she says, and unfolds it gingerly. “It is a note, God, in my handwriting.”

“And what does it say?” they ask.

“Find me,” Blake recites, “and I promise I’ll bring you home.”

“Well,” God says whimsically, “you are the Goddess of Promises.”

--

Tears build in the corners of her eyes, shipwrecks gaining water. “Yang,” Blake whispers, and now that she is close, she can see everything. Meteors falling from their showers; the day the sun went out. “Yang. I’m sorry. I’m so, so--”

“Shh,” Yang murmurs, pressing her lips into Blake’s hair. “What are you apologizing for? I found you, and you brought me home.”

--

“Oh, this is exciting,” God says. “I so rarely get to come to Remnant on business.”

“God,” Yang says, and bows her head. The temple doors remain locked; Blake’s hand is clutched tightly in her own. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you, Yang Xiao Long,” says God. “You fell in the last war, over five-hundred years ago. Do you remember this?”

“Yes,” she says. “I was trying to protect my sister.”

“And what happens when a god falls?”

“We forget them,” Blake says. “Their power is forfeit; they are erased from our memories, and our world.”

“It is not a law of justice, but a law of reality,” God says. “Or it was, previously. Only you did not forget immediately, Blake Belladonna. I did not know it was possible for two souls to be so intrinsically bound that they leave traces in the other, but you did not forget, just long enough to leave her a message. It took five hundred years for Yang to fall to earth, and when she awoke, she did not forget, either.

“Gods are made, and this means that what we are gods of can change,” they continue. “Blake, you were not previously the Goddess of Death. You became it because you believed that Yang had died, and no god had as strong a connection to loss as you. Your power became a beacon, just as it now will be a beacon for Remembrance.

“And you, Yang Xiao Long,” God says. “Goddess of the Sun, of Loyalty, of Sacrifice. You were many things. And now you are the Goddess of Rebirth.”

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Stronger Together

"Dreamer!"

Lena's alarm sears across Nia's senses. She registers the danger at the corner of her eye-- a Brevakk ripping off his sleeves to expose the keratinized spurs protruding from his arms. One sweep of his arm and she'll be dead, skewered in a spray of thick quills sharp enough to penetrate her suit and lacerate any organ they could reach. But she's locked in battle with a K'hund attacking from the front, so all she can do is brace for the inevitable impact.

Suddenly, Nia's view of the Brevakk is eclipsed by the shadow of Lena's back.

"NO!"

The force of the thorns' impact knocks Lena fron her feet, slamming into Nia and causing them both to go down with a cry. Lena's gauntlet fires once, stunning the Brevakk with a glancing blow. Nia throws her own arm out towards her opponent in a desperate bid to gain some ground. The blast of dream energy sends him flying, and when Nia doesn't notice that he doesn't rise again. Her attention is locked on Lena, and the half dozen quills that have found a home in her chest.

"Lena, Lena, oh my god." Nia's hands shake as she climbs out from under Lena and kneels beside her on the pavement. "No, no, no..."

Lena's eyes are glassy and dazed. She looks down at the horns, reaching drunkenly towards them only for Nia to pull her hands away.

"Why did you do that?"

Nia's suit wouldn't have helped much, but it was better than Lena's blouse-- a silly silken thing now ripped and torn, digging into the edges of the wounds around the quills. Lena had no protection beside her gauntlet, and still she had jumped between them.

"N-nia..." Lena's voice crackles in her throat. She coughs, and blood spatters across her chin, staining her berry-red lips a color far more sinister.

Nia's heart lurches with panic. Her head whips up in search of Kara, but Supergirl isn't here. She's on the other side of the city with J'onn, fighting further unrest there. Her eyes lock on another figure, black leather instead of blue.

"ALEX!!"

Nia's shriek cuts through the din, and Sentinel's head whips towards her. In an instant, the pistol in her hand shifts into a warhammer, and Alex slams it down on her opponent, all thoughts of mitigating casualties forgotten. She skids to her knees beside Nia, nearly elbowing her out of the way to crouch over Lena.

"Lena? Jesus... Lena! Can you hear me? Look at me, look at me--"

Lena's eyes track to Alex, and Nia chokes on a sob when she sees the fear in them. But Alex only calms.

"Good, you're okay," Alex tells her, stroking Lena's hair once with a gentle hand. "You're going to be okay."

With her free hand, Alex fumbles for the watch on Lena's wrist, flipping open its face and silently pressing the symbol embossed there. She doesn't take her eyes off Lena for a moment, and when the signal is active Alex slides her palm into Lena's, which curls tightly around hers.

"H-hurts--"

Lena's breath begins to quicken, and the corners of her eyes pinch with the onset of pain. The shock is quickly wearing off, leaving nothing to dull the pain. Alex nods, giving Lena's hand a squeeze.

"I know, but it's going to be okay," she promises. "We're going to get you somewhere safe--"

Supergirl touches down at the moment, pavement cracking beneath the force of her panic. "Lena!!"

Kara kneels opposite her sister, taking in the damage with wide eyes. She grips Lena's free hand tightly, even as she looks to Alex for instructions.

"Hospital," Alex says simply, urgency clipping her tone. "Now."

Kara nods, and gently maneuvers Lena into her arms. Lena cries out, the sound sharp in Nia's ears. When Nia blinks, tears dampen the fabric of her mask.

"I'm sorry," Kara murmurs, pressing her nose to the side of Lena's head. "I'm sorry."

"K-kar--" Lena gasps for breath, coughing up more blood. Her back now visible, Nia sees that one of the thorns has penetrated so deeply that it tents the back of Lena's shirt.

"It's okay," Kara echoes the well-meaning lie of her sister. "I've got you."

In a burst of wind, Kara takes off, and Nia sits dazed in her wake. It's long moments before she registers Alex's insistent hands tugging her up.

"It was supposed to be me," Nia intones, flat with shock. "She--"

"I know," Alex cuts her off, not unkindly. She tugs Nia to her feet then shoves her into a run. "But we need to go. Now!"

Together, they make their retreat, leaving the alley and the unconscious aliens behind just as the distant wail of approaching sirens cuts through the air.

---

Nia wastes no time in stripping off her costume and changing back into her civvies. But before she can reach the exit, Alex cuts her off. "You can't go to the hospital."

Surprise jolts through Nia, before its quickly replaced with anger. "Are you insane?"

"Nia--"

"I can't just wait here-- she-- those barbs were meant for me, Alex! She's hurt because of me. I can't not be there!"

"Kara just called."

Time seems to freeze. Nia feels ice pool in her veins as a lump climbs to her throat and lodges there. "No..."

Alex rushes to reassure her. "No! That's not-- no, Lena's still in surgery. But-- the police are there."

Nia's relief that Lena is alive cuts short with confusion. "What? Why?"

"They're there to take Lena into custody."

"They can't do that!"

"She's aided and abetted known vigilantes," Alex explains. "With everything that's been happening lately--"

"It's not right!"

"Lena will be fine. Truly. Kara is going to CatCo to get Andrea to make the arrest as public as possible. Between that and the Luthor reputation, my guess is that they'll question her about our identities and then let her go."

"That's-- that's--" Nia struggles to find words through her growing rage. The helplessness of the past few months, the rising anti-alien sentiments, the crackdown on Supergirl on her friends... it all comes to a head, and Nia can barely breathe.

Alex reaches for Nia's hand. "If you go now, you'll only risk exposing yourself. Lena wouldn't want that."

Nia sucks in a breath, but it comes in a sob. The next thing she knows, Alex's arms are around her and she's crying into her shoulder, huge lurching sobs that feel like the world is quaking around her.

"It's okay," Alex promises.

"It's my fault," Nia gasps. "It's all my fault..."

"Lena's going to be okay."

---

Nia may not be able to go to the hospital, but she can't stay in the Tower either. In the end she goes to CatCo, ready to throw her weight behind Kara's pitch to fry the police in the press. Luckily, Andrea doesn't need the convincing.

"I want both of you on this," their boss delivers with a coolness sharpened to a razors edge by the glint of rage in her eyes. "William too. I want you to dig up anything you can find about the arresting officers. Any whisper of corruption within the NCPD that you might have been sitting on, now is your time to air it. CatCo won't stand for this."

Nia and Kara both nod solemnly before retreating to their desks. But instead of diverting to her own desk, Kara follows Nia to hers.

"How are you holding up?"

The gentle question threatens a resurgence of tears. Nia looks away, only for her eyes to catch on the photo of her and Lena on her desk, taken at one of their sister nights the year before. Nia can't remember the last time they've hung out, just the two of them.

Blinking furiously, Nia flips the picture down and opens up her laptop. "Fine."

"It's okay to not be fine..."

"Do you want to know if I'm angry that my friend is alone in the hospital because of me? Fine! I'm angry!"

Kara's features soften. "Nia..."

"It's my fault she's there in the first place!" Nia hisses. The lump returns to her throat, and her eyes burn with unshed tears. "She just, just... she just jumped between us! I should've--"

"Hey." Kara calms her with a hand on her shoulder. Nia sucks in a breath, then another, trying to steady herself. Finally, Kara's features pinch into a bemused smile. "You know Lena... There's no line she won't cross, for the people she cares about."

Instead of comforting her, Kara's words only makes Nia grit her teeth. She turns back to the computer. They better be willing to do the same for her.

"Let's get to work."

----

The first article runs the following morning, skewering the police department for rampant anti-alien abuses while highlighting Lena's charity and outreach. While it's not quite enough to banish the police presence from the hospital, it does get a single visitor in to see Lena. Nia expects Kara to take it, but to her surprise Kara simply nods her towards the door.

"Go," Kara says softly. "Give her our love."

Nia doesn't stop to ask twice. She's ushered into Lena's hospital room by a kindly looking nurse, glaring at the officer posted outside the door on her way in. The second her eyes land on Lena, rage swells in her chest at the side of the handcuffs tethering Lena to the bed.

"Is that really necessary?" she demands, balling her hands into fists. "Where is she going to go?"

"Nia..." Lena's soft voice from the bed interrupts her before she can gather much steam. "It's okay."

Nia huffs, eyeing the way the officer slowly moves his hand from his sidearm when Nia turns back to the room. But then all she can see is Lena, hair limp and torso bulky with bandages under her hospital gown.

"It's not okay," Nia says, sitting in the chair thats been placed next to Lena's bed.

"It's just a misunderstanding," Lena insists, her gaze sliding towards the door. The door itself remains open, denying them any sense of privacy. But Lena doesn't seem to mind when her gaze returns to Nia. "You okay?"

Nia chokes on her own tongue. "Am I--? Lena, you're in the hospital..."

"And I'm okay." Lifting her cuffed wrist, Lena silently reaches for Nia's hand, which Nia offers without hesitation. "Promise."

All of a sudden, the tears come back, pressing against her eyelids as she squeezes her eyes shut. "I promised myself I wouldn't cry--"

"It's okay," Lena assures her. "I'm okay."

"You shouldn't have--"

"Been there in the alley? When that guy tried to mug me?" Lena asks pointedly. Clearly, she's already established her cover story. "You're right, I should have known better." She pitches her voice loud enough to carry to the door. "I'm just lucky Sentinel and Dreamer were there to help me."

They wait a moment to listen for a response, but when none comes, they devolve into a fit of giggles.

"Ow," Lena grimaces with a cough. "No laughing for a while."

Nia tightens her grip on Lena's hand. "I... Lena, I'm so sorry--"

"I'd do it again," Lena returns, softly this time. Her words are for Nia alone. "That's what friends do."

---

Alex turns out to be right. As soon as Lena is well enough to leave the hospital, she's taken to the precinct for interrogation, but between CatCo's articles stirring up enough local support that a crowd forms around the precinct to protest the arrest, and the kind of lawyers a Luthor can acquire even after abandoning the family legacy, Lena is released without charge in a matter of hours.

Nia stays at the Tower hoping to see her, but Lena doesn't come.

"She's guessed she's probably being watched," Alex tells her. "She'll being laying low for a while til the heat dies down. All the better, honestly. It'll give her time to heal."

Nia swallows thickly. "Where is she?"

"Home. Kara's with her, but I'm sure she'd love to see you."

Nia approaches Lena's condo without much of a plan. She's armed with snacks and movies, but she knows that having Kara there won't give Nia the time with Lena she needs. She misses Lena, all more the more since she realized how long it had been since they'd just been... friends. More than allies, more than teammates, just... friends.

It feels like Maeve all over again.

But she swallows her nerves and takes the elevator up. Kara opens the door just as Nia lifts her hand to knock.

"Hey," Kara says quietly. She steps aside to let Nia in, and though she can hear the tv from the next room, they linger in the foyer.

"Is everything okay?" Kara asks.

Nia nods. "Yeah. Um. I just--"

She doesn't have an explanation either. Nia stares at her feet, until Kara breaks the silence.

"Look, I have a favor to ask..."

"Yeah?"

"Would you mind staying with Lena for a few hours?"

When Nia looks up, she finds Kara scrubbing the back of her head with one hand, looking sheepish.

"Yeah," she continues, "I've been kind of... hovering? And I think it's getting on her nerves a little. So I figured I could get some stuff done at CatCo--"

"Yes," Nia blurts. "Yes, of course. I'll stay."

Kara grins. "Thanks. She's in the living room now, if you want to..."

"Right. Yeah, I've got this. Go."

Kara thanks her with another smile that makes her whole face shine. "Call if you need anything."

She slips out the door with a wink, and locks it behind her. Nia walks to the living room on wooden legs, and finds Lena laying on the couch against a pile of pillows, propping her up to take the pressure off her wounds.

She looks up when Nia enters, and though her eyes are tired, her features crease into a smile. "Hey..."

"Hey."

Lena struggles to sit up, prompting Nia to close the distance swiftly. "No, no, no, stay comfy."

Relenting with a sigh, Lena groans. "Not like I have much choice these days."

"It'll get better."

Silence follows. Nia stands awkwardly, hands gripping her bag of candy tightly until Lena regards it with curiosity.

"What's all this?"

Nia starts. "Oh. Uhm... I thought-- well, I was wondering..." She trails off, shoulders slumping. "It's been a while since we've had sister's night."

When Lena doesn't answer, Nia risks a glance up to find Lena blinking in astonishment, before her features soften to warmth. She smiles.

"Well, there's no time like the present."

Lena lifts her arms, making playful grabby motions with her hands.

"What'd you bring me?"

----

Hours later, Kara returns home to find Nia seated on the couch with Lena's legs across her lap. It's as close to cuddling as Lena can get, with her injuries, and the way Nia's hands are spread over Lena's shins tells Kara that the contacr was very much needed.

Lena sleeps peacefully, the tv low in the background. Nia looks up at Kara from the shadows, the light reflecting in the tear tracks painted on her cheeks. Without a word, Kara slips in next to Nia, working her way under Lena's ankles to wrap one arm around the younger girl's shoulders.

Nia hugs her back, shaking quietly with the effort to keep her crying silent.

"It's okay," Kara whispers. Nia nods against her. So long as they were all together, they could get through anything.

"We're going to be okay."

[lcksndkys]

Pairing: JJK x reader

Rating: 18+

Genre: smut, fluff, tiny hint of angst

Word count: ~8k

Summary: Save a drum, bang a drummer. 

Warnings: one tasteful semi-nude sext, brief flashback of male masturbation, discussions about conception, an unholy amount of nipple play, blowjob, fingering, pussy slapping with a dick (but like, romantically), unprotected sex within an established relationship, multiple orgasms, creampie

A/N: This is my first attempt at creative writing… ever. Borne from my horny imagination and a thirst dream, this piece is an epilogue of sorts. S/o to @jinpanman ​ and @wwilloww ​ for being the wind beneath my wings and the floaties around my arms. Also, big thanks to Willow who made the banner <3

There are two things you know are happening tonight. One: Beyond the Scene is out celebrating the completion of their newest EP. Two: your husband, the drummer of Beyond, is going to come home, high off the adrenaline of a successful night, and fuck you into oblivion. Your period tracking app that you both have been studiously monitoring over the last few months has notified you that you were going to be ovulating over the next couple of days. 

You slip into one of Jungkook’s oversized cut-off tanks and a pair of crotchless black lace panties that you know he likes. Checking in the mirror, you see a generous view of side-boob due to the cut of his shirt and you turn around and decide to forgo bottoms entirely—they’ll be discarded soon anyways. Your husband may be out with the boys tonight, but you’re determined to wait up for him. It’s not that late after all. You roll over, pulling a bottle of lube from the nightstand and set it out for later.

Lying in your shared bed, you check your phone again, reading the last messages you sent to each other.

[9:51pm] Jungkook-ah: i’ll be home late babe. dont wait up. love you.

[9:54pm] You: … but i’m ovulating today. I want you.

You haven’t heard from him since. Tapping to the camera icon on your phone, you decide to send a little more encouragement. You quickly snap a photo of your torso covered in his shirt, making sure to give a tasteful glimpse of your ensemble. 

[11:39pm] Jungkook-ah: fcuk. dont temnt meee idk when ill  b home

You sigh. He's definitely drunk which means that even if he did come home soon, he’d be too wasted to finish the job, more likely to fall asleep seconds after washing up. Tossing your phone onto your pillow, you roll to Jungkook’s side of the bed. Breathing in his clean, slightly sweet scent, you let it comfort you as your eyes close. Your mind drifts off to the first time you ever saw Jungkook as a man. 

Sprawled out on a twin sized bed, there was barely enough space for the two of you. Propped against the headboard and wearing nothing but a smile, he laced his fingers behind his head and cockily encouraged you to take pictures. “They’ll last longer,” he had said. Cheeky brat. You had instructed him to pleasure himself as you watched. “Tell me what you think of when you touch yourself, Koo” to which he replied, “You in my clothes with nothing on underneath”. He had whined, panting and desperate to hold off his climax with the hopes that he might get to feel you wrapped around him. 

You made him promise that night would be a one off; an itch scratched. And above all, he wasn’t to speak of that night to anyone, especially his sister- your best friend. At the time, an emotional relationship was not something you were ready to pursue. And certainly not with someone so intimately linked to your inner circle. So when it happened again, and then again, you proposed an easy benefits-only relationship to which he quietly accepted. You didn’t know he had been secretly yearning for something you could not yet give him. Despite trying to push him and your emotions away, Jungkook persisted, and with time and patience, you let him into your heart and let him show you the meaning of true love. 

With a love-sick smile plastered on your face, you drift off to sleep, plans for tonight all but forgotten.

_______________________________________________

Eyes still closed and hanging on to the quickly fading wisps of your dreams, you unconsciously feel around the sheets for your husband. When your hands come across nothing but layers of bedsheet and blankets and the lingering warmth of Jungkook’s body heat, you roll over seeking the comfort of his embrace. 

Sitting up, you see that he must’ve moved you during the night towards your side of the bed before climbing in behind you. Realizing you’re still in his shirt and the sexy panties from last night, you huff out a groan of annoyance. 

You get out of bed and make the short trek to your bathroom to wash up. Jungkook never missed an opportunity to “practice” baby making. The thought that he was avoiding a session in the sheets with you makes you press the bristles harshly against your teeth. 

Upon returning to your bedroom, you see that at some point Jungkook had plugged your phone in to charge. You open up your app and double check that you’re still within short the ovulation window. 

The shuffling of slippers alerts you to your husband elsewhere in your shared apartment. As you leave in search of him, you notice he had put the bottle of lube away. 

Padding out towards the kitchen, you can hear the tinkling of dishware and cutlery. The smell of toast floats through the air as you spot Jungkook at the counter pouring his cereal into a bowl of milk. Endearing. You smile, remembering he once reasoned that adding cereal to milk ensures you won’t be left with any soggy bits. 

Coming up behind him, he startles a little with your quiet arrival. You wrap your arms around his middle, pressing a light kiss between his shoulder blades, and nuzzling your face against the wide expanse of his back.

“I missed you last night, baby,” you coo. 

Turning in your embrace, Jungkook wraps one arm around your shoulders and uses a pointer finger to gently tilt your head, aligning your mouth to his. He leans down to give you a sweet, chaste kiss in greeting before pulling away. 

“I’m sorry I was out late. But I’ll make it up to you ok?”

“How about you make it up to me right now?” you wiggle your eyebrows suggestively, stepping back from his grasp. 

His eyes rake up and down your figure, pausing to take in the long expanse of skin showing from under his cut-off tank. You turn your torso slightly, lifting your arms up overhead to smooth back your bed head, allowing him a generous view of your tits through the large armholes. You smirk to yourself knowing this simple outfit is one of his favorites on you. 

“- oh, fuck,” Jungkook breathes, feeling the beginnings of desire stir in his sleep pants.

“I was so ready for you last night,” you continue, planting your hands behind you on the kitchen counter opposite of Jungkook. With a hop, you sit yourself upon the cold hard surface and try not to cringe at the sudden change of temperature on your bare rump.

You beckon towards your husband with a crook of your finger. 

“I even wore one of your favorites,” you purr. Slowly trailing a hand towards your hip you pull the hem of your—well, his—shirt up, exposing some of the black lace panties you had worn. 

Jaw clenched and brow furrowed. You enjoy Jungkook’s rapt attention.

“Come closer” you plead. 

When he shows no sign of approaching, you lean back onto your elbows and prop one foot onto the countertop. Parting your legs, you smile victoriously when Jungkook’s eyes drop immediately to your exposed core. Thank goodness for crotchless panties.

His throat constricts at the sight of your pussy, framed in black lace, and bared lewdly for him. 

“Fuck,” he growls lowley. You watch his throat bob again swallowing down a moan. He looks from your eyes, to your lips, and down between your thighs. Cock hardening, his desire rises hot and heady at the sight of you glistening before him.

Seeing him grow in the unforgiving fabric of his grey sweatpants, you grin at his visceral reaction. “You know I’m ovulating, right?” You bring your other foot up onto the counter further spreading yourself out for him. “Fuck me, baby. Fill me up with your cum.” A little dirty talk was nearly always enough encouragement to get your husband started.

Doe eyes wide, he is torn between his carnal desires to ravish you on the countertop and his mounting emotional distress. 

When your husband doesn’t immediately react to your proposition, you know something is wrong. You hop off the counter and come to wrap around him. Jungkook has always been a shy boy, and as he got older, grew into a reserved man. He had a small social circle, knowing first hand that some people had no qualms with using him for his services. He was the golden boy. Jungkook was good at things and always has been- drums, sports, computers, video games, writing music, singing, sex. Many people sought to use him and had gotten away with it. And at first, he was eager to please; to prove himself worthy of the attention. But it wasn’t long before he grew cautious and began to keep a selective few close, including you. 

You've always seen him. And you see him now, eyes tight with emotion he's been holding back from you. He hasn't done that in years. 

Your arousal from earlier has all but dried up, evaporated with the sense that something important is weighing on Jungkook. 

"Do you need me to listen or find a solution?" you ask him. 

"Listen" he replies softly. 

You take his hand, leading him towards the couch. Sitting down, you part your legs pulling his back to your front. You wrap all four limbs around him and lay back to let his weight press the both of you into the cushions. His hands immediately go to stroke along the soft skin of your shins. You tuck your face into his nape, ghosting soft kisses along the skin available to you. Holding him against you, you feel Jungkook slowly melt, head leaning back against your shoulder. You know he’ll speak when he's ready.

“I just… Lately I’ve been feeling like you only want a specific part of me,” says Jungkook quietly. His hands go to tuck back some of his hair behind his ears- a nervous tell he's never been able to kick. "And I guess it kind of reminded me of the time from before we officially got together, ya know?" 

You feel your heart crumble in your chest at his admission. At that time, you weren’t ready for what Jungkook wanted to give you, convinced that the age gap and BTS’s rising fame would ultimately lead to disaster. Thus you had pushed for a purely physical relationship. He had agreed mistakenly believing that having your body, but not your mind or heart, was better than not having you at all. He hoped that time and love would help you change your mind. Luckily for both of you, it did. 

You want to say something to comfort him, but you remember he asked you to listen. You stay quiet, giving him a safe space to speak.

"And I know we're trying for a baby, but lately there's no intimacy when you make love to me. It's like once I finish, it's over and you push me away to lay with your legs up against the wall." 

You feel his ribs expand as he takes a deep breath, and then another. In, then out. 

"You know how important aftercare is to me," he continues. You do know. Jungkook is a romantic; being held and praised for a job well done has always been just as important as the actual act of sex for him. "And if you're just trying to fuck me, I don't know if I want it." 

There's a few moments of pause.

“Why didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want to have sex?” you ask softly. 

Jungkook’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “No! I mean- I want it, trust me, I want you. But the last few times, it felt like you just fucked me until I came.” Jungkook goans. “You didn’t even finish. Makes me feel like a bad lover."

You cringe remembering that the last time you had been intimate with your husband, you straddled him and then rode him fast and hard until he spilled his seed inside you. The whole ordeal lasted 3 minutes tops, and then you were rolling off him onto your back leaving him to clean up on his own. 

Sensing he was finished, you start to apologize. “I had no idea you felt that way,” you start. “I never meant for you to feel that way. I’m sorry.”

“I just- I love you so much, and I would give anything to make you happy,” he says quietly. His hands continue to absentmindedly traverse the length of your legs.

Your hold around him tightens, a silent I love you. 

“What do you wanna do today, baby? Today’s all about you,” you promise. You’re ready to give your husband the attention he craves. 

“Anything?” Jungkook asks, craning his head back to meet your gaze.

“Mhmm.”

Jungkook smiles, pleased with your enthusiasm. 

“I promise you I’ll give you a creampie, but can we please just play super smash bros first?”

Seeing the child-like wonder in your husband’s eyes, you can’t help but chuckle at him. Jungkook has always been easy to please and competitive to a fault. 

“Sure, Kook-ah. Maybe I’ll even let you beat me” you joke, fingers digging into his ribs causing him to laugh and squirm from your grasp. 

Jungkook unwinds your legs from around his waist to set up the gaming console. 

_______________________________________________

After several rounds of super smash bros, Jungkook has other ideas in his mind. Pulling you onto his lap, you’re forced to part your legs to straddle him. He fingers along the hem of your shirt pulling up the backside to expose your bare ass. 

“Ah, you wore these for me?” he asks, hand rubbing circles along your quickly heating flesh. 

“Depends. Are you ready to take them off me?” you retort with a wink. 

Giggling, Jungkook lunges for you, wrapping his strong arms around you and burying his head into your neck. You feel the gentle pressure of his lips suckling and tilt your head further back to grant him more access to the sensitive skin of your neck.

He laps against your throat, making you moan out in satisfaction. Your arousal starts to leak onto Jungkook’s grey sweats as you absentmindedly grind your bare cunt against the stiffness growing there.

“Mmm, fuck. Let’s go” you pant, urgently tapping at Jungkook’s shoulder.  

Walking into the bedroom, Jungkook slowly lowers you down to the ground, letting your front drag along his, your soft curves trailing along the firm planes of his chest. The moment your feet touch down, you gently press a hand against his chest- right over his thrumming heart- and encourage him to sit at the edge of your bed. His eyes gaze lovingly up into yours, a small smile hanging on his lips, waiting for your instruction. 

You tug at the hem of his shirt. “Can you take this off, baby?” 

Jungkook eagerly nods, licking his lips in anticipation. He reaches back, hooking his fingers into the neckline of his collar and pulling his stupidly oversized shirt over his head in one swift motion. For a second, he lets you admire his body. He works hard to achieve his physique and enjoys knowing you’re your attraction towards him has never waned. 

You swallow down a groan as your eyes trail from his chest, dusky nipples pebbled with arousal, down his abdominals, towards the bulge in his sweats. Your husband is a beautiful man, inside and out, and he is all yours. Tonight and forever.

Climbing into his lap, you straddle him and cup his face between your hands. Jungkook needs emotional intimacy, and you’re prepared to deliver.

You kiss his forehead. “I love the way you think. You’re quiet, but so clever, and I wish more people could see how your brain works. You’re considerate of other people and so fucking humble, qualities I really admire about you.”

Moving down to his eyes, you place twin kisses over his closed eyelids. “I love the way you see the world. When I’m tired, you remind me that there is so much beauty in the mundane, and I’m so lucky to see it all by your side.”

You reach down for his hands and press your lips along the knuckles of both his hands. “I love the life you’ve helped build for and with me. People always say you’re good at everything, but they don’t see how hard you work to earn it. I respect you so much for that.” You play with his fingers- somehow long and delicate, but strong at the same time- and lace them together.

“I love your nose,” you continue, pecking the tip. 

“But-”

“No interruptions, Jungkook” you hold up a hand, effectively cutting him off. “I know you’ve always thought it was a little too big and round when we were younger, but it shows how much you’ve grown into yourself over the years. You are so sexy- both on the stage and off.”

You pull back in time to see him fighting down a shy smile at your praise. “Besides, a man should have a big nose,” you wink. Unable to hide his toothy smile or blushing cheeks, you continue.

“I love these cheeks,” you say, planting sloppy kisses over his face. “When you smile - a real, genuine smile- your whole face lights up. I hope our children inherit that.”

You plant more against the beauty marks on the bridge of his nose and under his lip, on the faint scar high on his cheek. “So beautiful,” you murmur against his skin.

“These are my favorite lips. You were the first man that I believed when you told me you loved me.” You press your lips against his, kissing him gently. Tilting your head for a better angle, you press forward more ardently, and part your lips further to slide your tongue against his.

When you pull back, Jungkook’s eyes are still closed, face craning forward to chase your kiss. You card your fingers through his hair and push him back enough to look into his eyes again. 

Your lips continue their loving path down his face, nipping along his sharp jawline and down his neck, paying special attention to his sensitive pulse point. Jungkook whimpers in appreciation encouraging you to work color into his skin. 

“Most of all, I love your heart.” Your arms wrap around his torso, hands caressing up and down his back as your head tips down to press your mouth against his chest, just left of center. “You are patient and kind and romantic. You show me every day what true love means, and I am forever grateful for that. You have all of me, and you always will. And tonight, I want to make you feel good because I love every part of you. Even the parts you don’t particularly like yourself.”

You continue to leave wet kisses along his clavicles and throat making him moan quietly.

“Lay back for me, baby” you say, and he allows you to push him onto his back.

Your body follows him down prone on the bed, allowing your comforting weight to settle atop him and press him into the sheets. Linking your hands, you bring them up to rest by his head. You reconnect and kiss him senseless, lips and tongues moving seamlessly in a dance well practiced over the years. You continue until he’s whining, until you feel him thickening further in his pants. 

Lips descending downwards, you continue a fiery trail along his jawline, hands caressing his neck and chest to maximize his pleasure. Evidence of your love blooms down his neck as you continue a path towards his chest. Perched on his lap, you grind against him as you take a nipple between your lips and begin to suck.

“A-ahh fuck”, Jungkook pants as your lips wrap more securely around his pebbled bud, tongue flicking against him. Your other hand rakes along his other pectoral, thumb catching along its twin and you rub circles over him with your thumb. His cock, which had begun to throb when you love bombed him, is now fattening with arousal.                                                                                

You trail your lips across his chest making sure to provide equal attention to his sensitive buds. Dusky and shining with your saliva, you continue down his abs, licking the contours of his hard earned muscles. Jungkook continues to quietly moan at the sensation of your soft, warm mouth slowly moving south along his body.

Sitting up a bit from his supine figure, you tug down at the band of his sweatpants. “Can I take these off?” you ask, slipping your fingertips into the waistline of his bottoms. He nods his consent and you push them down as he lifts his hips up, effectively removing Jungkook’s remaining piece of clothing. 

As you move to stand from his lap, he immediately sits up as if pained by any distance between your bodies. You give him one last, sweet kiss on the mouth before settling down on your knees between his spread legs. His cock, perfectly framed between powerful thighs, is hardening rapidly and attempting to defy gravity as it bobs in the space between your bodies. Licking your lips at the sight of his leaking length, you settle on the floor and reach for his base.

“Hold on” he says, stopping you to reach across the bed and pulling his pillow from under the covers offering it to you for comfort. Your heart swells at his consideration and you accept it gratefully. You place it under your knees for an added cushion and make yourself comfortable on the ground.

Maintaining eye contact you run your hands up and down his thick thighs letting your fingernails lightly scratch along the sensitive skin there. Each pass brings you closer and closer to his cock, subtly twitching in eagerness to feel you wrapped around him. Keeping your eyes locked on his, you wrap a hand around his base and feel him harden fully in your grasp. Bringing your lips down to his weeping tip, you run your tongue up and down his slit, then slowly in a circle around the engorged head leaving a ring of precum and saliva in your wake.

“F-uuuck” Jungkook keens as you continue to tease him with your tongue. “Please. More, please.” 

Your lips immediately close around him, surrounding his throbbing cock with the wet heat of your mouth and begin to suck tasting his musky flavor. Popping off, you run your tongue up and down to spread moisture along his shaft; your hand will have to cover what your throat cannot take. He is not profoundly large, but he is more than thick and long enough to satisfy you.

Unable to mask his desire, Jungkook pants as your mouth works up and down his rigid length. You take him as deep as you can tolerate, gagging lightly when you feel him slide down the back of your throat with each pass. The hand not grasping his base is rubbing soothing circles along his hip and inner thigh, amplifying his pleasure.

“Mmm yeah, you’re doing so g-good,” he groans as you continue bobbing, hand furiously pumping whatever won’t fit in your mouth. He weaves his fingers into your hair, encouraging you to take him deeper into the depths of your throat. Eyes starting to water, his other hand wipes at the tears in your lash line as you continue to enthusiastically blow him. 

Jungkook’s volume steadily increases along with the pace of your mouth and hand as you work over his cock. You continue to suck him off sending white hot pleasure through his veins. “Oh shit- shit.” Jungkook stops you as his impending orgasm begins to crest. “You need to stop, or I’ll cum” he breathes out. Though your mouth is no longer on him, your hand continues to slowly jerk him off.

“Aren’t you ovulating?” he tries to confirm with you. “I need to put it in you,” he insists, teeth clenching together as your hand glides up and down the full length of his dick twisting your wrist with each upstroke.

“Tonight is all about you - about us,” you shake your head. “I want to make you feel good. Can I do that?” you ask as your other hand travels from his hip to cup and gently fondle his balls.

He whimpers in pleasure as you continue to stroke him.

“Do you want to cum in my mouth tonight, baby?” you purr. No longer able to formulate a coherent sentence, he nods his head aggressively.

“Good boy,” you tease with a smirk. Your mouth returns to his cock and joins the hand pumping his shaft. Years of learning each other’s bodies has taught you the tell tale signs of your husband’s orgasms and you can tell he’s close. Very close.

Hollowing out your cheeks, you apply the suction you know he has never been able to resist. You’re determined to suck his soul from his body, gripping him firmly as you furiously work his throbbing length exactly the way you know he likes. Your mouth focuses on his mushroomed head, lips sealed around the tip and tongue lapping against the sensitive frenulum.

Jungkook desperately tries to stave off his release to linger in the wet heat of your mouth. It’s been a while since he’s allowed himself to finish down your throat and he wants to savor it. “Ah, I’m so mad that you’re so good at this” he groans, earning a muted giggle from you. Stuffed full of cock, the vibration sends a thrill up his spine. 

You know Jungkook’s cumming before he can warn you. It starts with a subtle lifting of his balls as they prepare to empty into your eager mouth. Eyes squeezed shut and moaning wantonly, he chants your name over and over as he begins to orgasm. You continue your determined ministrations as his shaft pulses in your grasp.

“Hmmmph- ahh, fuck yes! Oh fuck, so good,” Jungkook whimpers as ribbons of cum burst across your tongue and hit the back of your throat. You quickly swallow his load as he erupts into your mouth. You continue stroking and sucking Jungkook through his high, helping him ride it out until he gently pushes you away when he feels the burn of overstimulation. 

“Good?” you smile up at him and let go of his wilting length to lick at a stray bit of cum from your thumb. You wipe off the remaining spit on your shirt.

“Amazing,” he replies, smiling dazedly down at you. 

You allow him to pull you from the ground up onto the bed with him, laughing when your knees pop loudly in the quiet of the room as you stand up. Giggling, you curl up against his side listening as his heart rate evens out to a steady rhythm. You can't be bothered to care that his skin is tacky with a light sheen of sweat.

You lay against Jungkook for a few minutes as he basks in the afterglow of a powerful orgasm. He pulls you tighter against him, tipping his head down to kiss you for a blow job-well-done. Tasting the residual flavor of his cum, he groans against your mouth, enjoying your combined essences.

Jungkook rolls you onto your back, continuing to kiss you with fervor. The sound of lips and tongues clashing fill the room as the two of you enjoy the simple intimacy of being together. Reaching down, Jungkook spreads your legs apart to make room for him to lay comfortably between your thighs. 

“W-what,” you’re breathless as his lips leave your mouth and travel down your jaw.

“Mmm,” he mumbles against your skin. “It’s your turn now.” He nibbles along your sensitive neck, goosebumps rising with his light touch. 

You run your fingertips up and down his back, scratching along the peaks and valleys of his spine. Leaning his weight into one arm, he uses the other to push up the hem of your shirt, ghosting a hand under to cup a breast. He palms greedily at the flesh as he continues to kiss you passionately. 

“I wanna see you,” says Jungkook. “Can I take this off?” he gestures at his cut-off tank you’re still wearing.

Criss crossing your arms and pulling up by its hem, you bare your chest to Jungkook’s eager eyes. His gaze drops down to admire the bouncing of your tits as you wiggle out of your top. Propping up on his elbows, he ducks his head to capture a nipple between his petal soft lips, coaxing it into a stiff peak with gentle suction and the lapping of his tongue. When your back arches in pleasure and you clutch his head to you, Jungkook takes the opportunity to slide his arms under you to hold you securely to his mouth as he worships at the altar of your breasts. 

“Baby, yes, you’re so good to me” you pant, feeling your arousal generously leak from your core.

Eyes closed and relishing in the sensation, you whimper, sending one hand to grip his long, dark locks and feeling the prickle of his freshly trimmed undercut. With a hand in his mane, you feel him unlatch from your tight bud to plant wet open mouthed kisses around your areola and across your chest. He stops over your heart, lips lingering to feel the rapid thumping rattle your sternum.

Generous with his attention, he moves to nip and suck around your neglected breast. He slurps your nipple into his eager mouth, tongue swirling to tease it to a hard peak. Jungkook's diligent stimulation of your breasts sends sparks of pleasure down to your cunt as he continues to lap at your pebbled beds.

“More, please,” you whine, bucking your hips upwards, hoping to encourage him to touch you where you need it most. 

Hearing you beg so prettily for him slowly coaxes life back into his spent cock. He feels himself begin to swell again against your thigh. Pleasuring you has always been incredibly arousing for him, and he knows with a several more minutes of rest, he’ll be ready to fuck you senseless.

Pulling an arm out from under your torso, Jungkook leans his weight onto one elbow and sends his free hand down between your legs to the treasure between your thighs. His lips pursed around your nipple continues to suckle and tease you into a frenzy. 

The room fills with sounds of your mewling and his blunted goans as he plays the familiar song of your body. His hands brush against the soft black lace as he spreads your legs, positioning you to his liking. 

“So wet,” Jungkook acknowledges with a quirk of his lips, fingers swiping along your slit to feel for your arousal. Bringing those fingers towards his mouth, he sucks your essence from his fingertips, savoring your taste. Jungkook switches nipples again and his fingers, now slickened with his saliva, return to the warmth of your pussy. 

You gasp when you feel him caress at your opening before sinking a lone finger into your tight, wet heat. Jungkook can’t help but grunt as he feels your walls clench around him, excited to feel it around his growing erection. 

“It’s all for you baby,” you praise him, carding your fingers through his fringe and pushing his hair back to get a better view of him suckling at your breast. Your breath hitches when you feel him add a second finger, stretching you open with his long, tattooed digits and curling them against your g-spot.

“Mmm yes- ahh. Fuck me with them,” you plead. Lacking the power to drive you towards an orgasm, he teases you with sensual strokes until your cunt drips down your ass and his fingers come out sparkling with your arousal. Completely at his mercy, you feel Jungkook slow down further. Brat. 

You’re writhing beneath him as he continues his personal brand of slow, pleasurable torture. His lips release your tender nipple and return to your open mouth attempting to swallow your moans. 

“Fuck me harder, please, I need it harder.” you beg, hoping to convince him to finger you to completion. Despite your request, Jungkook stops thrusting completely, opting to curl his fingers and rubbing softly against your g-spot while grinding the heel of his palm just off center from your pulsing clit. Your eyes are closed, but you can feel his gaze on your visage committing your whining and fucked out expression to memory. You’re being uncharacteristically pliant for him tonight- a change that he is very much enjoying. He files it under ‘spank bank material’ for when Beyond ultimately goes back on tour. 

“Please, baby, make me cum. I’m so close.” you try one last time. You’re panting and desperate for release. 

“You’re not cumming tonight unless it’s on my cock,” he grits out. His fingers stay hooked inside you, caressing at your sensitive front wall. Jungkook’s mouth returns to suckling at your pebbled bud and he slowly fucks you open with his fingers. Your cunt quivers and leaks with your arousal, but without the thrusting or clitoral stimulation, you won’t be cumming anytime soon.

“But how-” you glance down, not expecting his nearly fully erect cock. Pleasuring you had sparked his arousal again, the sounds of your approval and sight of your wet pussy glistening with desire has encouraged him back towards full mast. Licking your lips at his growing girth, you push his hand from your core to collect some of your personal lubricant. You wrap your slicked up fingers around his length jacking him to his full potential. 

“Uunffff- ok, ok. Hold on,” he says, reaching out into your bedside table for lube. You hear Jungkook uncap the small bottle and are eager to feel him deep inside you. Quickly flipping onto your front, you prop yourself on your elbows and knees, presenting your husband with your sloppy, swollen cunt- a soundless request imploring him to fuck you from behind.

“I want to feel you deep,” you reason and unable to resist you, Jungkook agrees. Eyes glued to the way your crotchless panties have dampened with your cream, he spreads a generous glob of lube up and down his cock. He wipes the remainder against your labia and rubs some onto your clit making you mewl out for him. He wipes off the residue on your sheets. You’ll have to wash that later.

Taking a moment to admire his view, his hands caress over your hips and ass. “Are you ready?” Jungkook asks, always so considerate of your needs. 

You nod and delirious with lust, you reach between your legs for him, sliding his bulbous tip up and down your slit before pushing your hips back to take him into your awaiting passage. Jungkook descends down creating a canopy with his body, sheltering you with the physical representation of his love. Jungkook’s hands find yours, lacing his calloused palms to the backs of your hands, fingers interlocking. With light pressure, he encourages you to lay your front down onto the bed. He nudges your knees further apart, propping you ass high in the air. 

Positioned to his liking, he takes his first stroke into your eager cunt. Despite his diligent fingering, the fit is still tight, and you feel the initial pinch as he breaches you. You both release matching moans upon your coupling, and you already know you won’t last long after enduring Jungkook's extensive foreplay. He sets a slow pace plunging deep into your velvet heat. 

“Harder, Kook, I’m already so close.” you puff into the sheets, turning your head as far as possible to watch your lover as he takes you from behind. “Please,” you rasp.

No longer denying your release, Jungkook thrusts faster, snapping his hips powerfully with the intent of getting you off. His cock hammers into you and you’re helpless underneath him to do anything but take it. He can already feel you tightening around him deliciously and lets go of one hand to reach down between your legs. With two fingers, Jungkook rubs tight circles around your clit while he continues to drill into your cunt which is just what you need to finally cum.

“Oh, fuck! Ah- ah-ah, Jungkook!” you chant. Your hands furiously grip the sheets trying to hold onto something to ground you as your high threatens to pull you under. Legs quaking and pussy fluttering around him, your walls contract rhythmically around his turgid length as he continues to rigorously fuck you through your orgasm. 

Jungkook whines at the sensations gripping his cock, but pulls out of your spent heat to spare you from the sting of overstimulation. Any other night, he may have considered fucking you into a second orgasm, but tonight feels different. Tonight, he wants to make ardent love to you.

Without Jungkook’s strong frame to hold you up, you crumble limp against the bed. Your ears ring with the aftermath of a good round of fucking. It takes a second to register that he is speaking.

“Can you take more?” he asks. Confused, you look down and see that he’s still painfully hard. Oh. His erection is glossy with your juices, shining as it bobs between his well-muscled thighs. 

“Fuck- yes,” you quickly consent to him. 

Jungkook swiftly rolls you onto your back again and sits up on his knees between your spread thighs. “I love you in these, but I want to see all of you,” he rasps, tugging at your ruined panties and pulling them off while his eyes stay glued on your saturated folds. Climbing back up your body, he spreads your legs wider and leans forward bringing his cock to your core. You look down to watch him steadily thrust his length against your slit, bumping against your clit on the upstrokes. 

Wanting to draw out his teasing, he grips his slickened base and slaps his dick against your slippery folds. Each wet smack sends waves of electric pleasure through your system as Jungkook works you back up. “Just fuck me, baby. I’m ready.” you insist. Your gaze trails up, meeting his heated stare. 

“I want you to keep your eyes on me when I make love to you,” he says, voice dropping an octave. When you nod in understanding, he catches his tip against your entrance and pushes back into your ripe, warm cunt. Your legs immediately wrap around his trim waist pulling him closer and encouraging him to brace the weight of his upper body on his hands. Your ankles interlock against the base of his spine to bring him deeper.

Jungkook starts with long, slow strokes, pulling nearly all the way out of you before feeding his cock back into your sopping pussy. Going slow enough for you to feel every ridge of his throbbing length, he impales you over and over.

Your back arches in pleasure and you have to fight to keep your eyes open for him. Wanting him closer, you greedily reach your hands up to pull him down closer to you, forcing him to drop to his elbows as he continues to give it to you slow and deep. 

Jungkook braces on his forearms and cradles your head. He tilts your chin up to align with his intense gaze as he continues to plow into you. Brow furrowed and eyes locked, your husband watches your dazed and needy expressions while his body and mind make love to yours. 

He’s always so good to you. Devoted and adoring. You’re suddenly struck with the reminder that this beautiful man is yours. Always has been. Always will be. And tonight is a good time to remind Jungkook how deeply you love him. A fear of commitment used to hold you back, but he peeled back your layers and showed you that love didn’t have to hurt. You haven’t been afraid since. Jungkook has the whole of your heart. 

“How did I get so lucky?” you say, reaching up to caress his jaw as he continues to thrust into your depths. “I’m sorry I lost sight of us,” you stutter trying to sound coherent as your husband diligently sinks his thickness into you again and again. “I never meant for you to feel-”

“- I know. And I’m sorry I didn’t communicate better, I just- I’m working on it,” Jungkook cuts you off. He knows this is a two way street. 

“We don’t have to try anymore if you aren’t ready. Pull out and I’ll suck you off again” you offer. If Jungkook isn’t 100% in, you aren’t either. 

“No, I want it. I’m ready for our love to create something beautiful and for everything that comes after that.”

You moan, eyes closing briefly, as Jungkook begins to pick up the pace. The increase in friction against your walls is quickly bringing you towards the edge again. An unexpectedly fierce pump of his hips has you gasping in delight.

“I said-,” Jungkook grunts with another sharp thrust, “-eyes on me, baby.” You pry your eyes open, surprised by his display of dominance and try not to squeal.

Jungkook reaches one hand down to tilt your pelvis back further and you lock your legs up higher on his frame allowing him to shove a pillow under your ass. The new position brings your clit directly under his pubic bone. When he slams back down to stuff you full, he grinds deliciously against you, making you nearly scream out in ecstasy.

“I love you,” you whisper in earnest. “I love you so much,” you moan as Jungkook begins to pound you into the sheets. You’re both quickly unraveling, approaching another high, bodies tingling with impending release. When your thighs begin shaking around him for the second time tonight, he picks up the pace filling the room with a symphony of your euphoria. 

Breaking your eye contact briefly, Jungkook looks down at the juncture of your connection and is enthralled by the visual- his cock coming out foamy with your cream and slamming back into your weeping pussy. Groaning, he suddenly feels the sharp sting of your nails raking down his back as you’re overcome with pleasure. 

“Come on, babe. Cum on my fucking cock,” Jungkook grunts, urging you towards completion. With your hips canted deliciously, he continues to ram directly against your g-spot. 

“Oh fuck, it’s so good. I’m so close,” you babble, feeling Jungkook push deeper against you to stimulate your pulsing clit. Hands clutching your husband and thighs trembling, your eyes slip closed as you finally succumb to his endeavors. You cum with a silent scream, head tilted back and throat exposed as your walls spasm uncontrollably. The wild contracting of your pussy squeezing his cock triggers Jungkook’s own release. His length throbs desperately within your walls as you coax him towards his end. 

“Ahh, I- I’m holy shit- I’m cumming, too” Jungkook whines as he climaxes with breathy whimpers, exploding as he fills you with streams of his ejaculate. He thrusts as deep as he can get while his length continues to spurt inside you, shallowly rutting to ride out his high. 

Panting, he collapses his weight into your waiting arms. “Oof,” you grunt as you feel your husband’s sweaty and spent body pin you against the bed. You let him rest against you for a while, content to feel the warm fullness of his cock and spunk nestled deep inside you.

“Can I stay inside?” he asks shyly. “I just wanna hold you.” You smile and Jungkook holds you close and carefully rolls under you so you can comfortably lay against him. With his arms wound around your waist and your thighs spread wide with his dick sheathed inside you, he ensures maximal skin contact.

Seeing his blissed out face, you giggle as the two of you revel in your post-coital afterglow. His spent length slowly softens letting some of his cum leak from your used hole onto him and the sheets below. You’re definitely going to have to wash these. 

Your fingers find their way into his hair, scratching along his scalp and pushing back his long locks to expose the sexy undercut hiding beneath. Jungkook’s eyes are still closed, but he still leans his face forward knowing you’ll meet his lips with your own. The two of you make out for a little longer, savoring the intimacy shared in your little bubble. 

Jungkook clings to you, preening at your gentle caress and basking in his favorite form of aftercare. Your cunt is runny with lube and your combined releases, but you’re too content to lay with Jungkook in your arms to clean up just yet. You lie wrapped around each other for a few more minutes, mindlessly kissing at his face and neck, whispering praises for his performance.

It’s quiet for a long moment, and assuming he must have fallen asleep as he tends to do after a vigorous round of love making, you attempt to unwind your limbs from his. Grumbling, he tightens his hold around you, preventing you from getting far. 

“Jungkook,” you warn with a laugh, “I have to get cleaned up.”

“Mmm not yet, hold me a little longer” he requests as he burrows deeper in your embrace.

Sighing, you relent, slowly dozing off with your husband in your arms. 

_______________________________________________

When you wake, you find that you've shifted in your slumber. Jungkook's chest is plastered to your back and he has an arm slung over your waist with a hand curled around one of your tits. The mess between your legs has dried making you cringe when you move to get up. Leaving Jungkook who is slowly stirring, you go to the bathroom to shower. 

You step under the spray and let the warm water relax you while you clean off the sweat and unholy mix of bodily fluids from between your thighs. You hum along to the new Beyond the Scene single and sing some of the chorus that you can remember. You exit the shower, wrapping a towel securely around you and return to rouse your sleeping husband.

You find that Jungkook is already awake and sitting against the headboard. “You know, I hope our kid doesn’t inherit your singing voice,” Jungkook cackles, cutting through the silence. 

"Why you-," you gasp, tackling him down into the sheets and laughing along with him. You pin him down and pinch at his nipple in retaliation. It’s not long before he’s pulling the towel from your body and rolling you under him to latch his mouth to your cunt. Before the night is over, he delivers another two orgasms and a fresh load. After all, practice makes perfect.

[aimfor-theheart]

COIN TOSS– PART II

(18+ MINORS DNI)

PART I

PAIRINGS: Tomura Shigaraki x Reader, a little Shouta Aizawa x Reader

SUMMARY: As you fall asleep, you wonder faintly, almost sadly, if you’re the first thing he’s fully touched without losing in a long time.

You are Eraserhead’s troubled protege with a Quirk that cancels out others the moment they touch you. Tomura Shigaraki takes great interest in you.

(Enemies to lovers, a lot of angst, some hurt/comfort)

WARNINGS: Unhealthy/complicated relationships, age gap/power struggle, violence, gore, Tomura’s trauma specifically, (in later chapters) murder, heroes’ abuse of power, smut, some blurred lines, rough sex, a smidge of a spit kink, a smidge of somnophilia (let me know if I’ve missed anything!)

If you are under the age of 18, you should not be reading or interacting with this!

A/N: again, thank you @randomrosewrites for beta-ing!! and thank you guys for the support and comments on the first part! here is your part two!! it's tomura heavy, but for those who love shouta, there's a lot of him in the final part! i hope you enjoy! let me know what you thought!

i also am obsessed with making playlists for when i write and i spend far too much time organizing it all and making sure the songs blend together so if you'd like to take a look at the playlist i made for this fic, it's here!

Read on Ao3

***

Shouta, like the responsible adult he is, soothes things out with you. Well, it doesn’t feel very soothed to you, but Shouta’s made his position clear and you’ve both returned to some semblance of normalcy.

He keeps his distance.

You try not to overstep, but you’re aching and furious.

(You’re holding a secret, too, letting it tear apart your insides, letting it turn circles in your mind until all you can think about is the chill of rain, the bite of a desperate kiss).

You hate that Shouta has retreated from you now. You hate that he’ll stop his hand before reaching out to touch you, like he always has to make sure, like he has to decide if that will be good for you. If you can handle it.

You feel shockingly alone.

You lash out at him more, bicker and argue over things you never used to. You don’t even know why you do it, can’t stop yourself from trying to dig into him. You regret it every time when all he gives you is impassiveness, levelheaded coolness. An adult speaking with an unruly child. He’s good at that, unfortunately.

Some days you want to beg him for answers. Why can’t you love me the way I love you? Is it me? How would you have me? If I was older? I can be more mature, I can be better and better and better–

His undercover work grows greater, draws him away from both you and Shinsou more. Shouta seems to ghost around your life now, drawn away from you, keeping a very careful space between you both.

But there are nights where he tells you to train with Shinsou alone now. You feel responsible. Mature. You glow with pride that he can trust you with one of his students, that you could be a mentor to Shinsou, too.

You grow closer to Shinsou because of this, too, when it’s just the two of you in the gym.

There is one evening in particular, when you’re both sprawled out on the floor taking a too-long water break because Shouta isn’t around when he admits that he used to be– still is sometimes– feared for his Quirk.

He tells you everyone expected him to be a villain.

“I used to be a thief,” you admit, “I was a petty villain, I guess.”

Shinsou looks at you and if he’s surprised, he doesn’t entirely show it, except for the lifting of his brows. You don’t sense judgement from him, though, when he asks, “Really?”

You take another swig of water, humming in affirmation. You swallow, “I was homeless, had no money, nothing. I was stealing from a supermarket when Shouta caught me.”

“You were just trying to survive,” Shinsou adds, like he’s trying to justify the crime, like it soothes him to know there was a good reason for a misdeed.

“Sure,” you reply, fiddling with your water bottle, “But I stole things I didn’t need, too. Just things I wanted.”

“But you’ve changed,” Shinsou says and you can’t tell if he’s trying to reassure himself or you more. “You’re a hero now.”

“Only because my circumstances changed. I was given a roof over my head, food to fill me. Clothes of my own that fit and weren’t torn. I was accepted.” You explain, “If it hadn’t been for Shouta, I would never have become a hero.”

Shinsou is silent, watching you.

“I’d probably be in jail. Or still a thief, in the least, if any other hero would’ve caught me.”

You don’t know why, but you think of Shigaraki suddenly. You think of how young some of the League of Villains are. You wonder if it had been them who offered you food and a home, if you’d be with them now, and not here, sitting on the floor of a nice, sparkling gym attached to U.A.’s dorms.

Something strange grows inside you, something a little bitter. It simmers with sympathy for them, for their lives. For kids like Shinsou with their villainous quirks. You wonder if he’d been poor, if he’d been alone, would he be here, too? Or somewhere else?

“But you were good before,” he says, and it almost feels naive, “I know you’re good.”

You shrug, “Good is relative, you know? I thought I was good because I didn’t kill people, I didn’t steal from other poor people, but society didn’t think I was good. I was still a thief.”

“But you were only a thief because you needed to survive.” he says again, “When given the chance, you changed and became a hero.”

“Exactly.” you say, “How many villains do you think just needed a chance?”

Shinsou goes silent now. His brows furrow in thought, pinching together in a way that makes him look a little too old for his age. You think all of the kids at U.A. grow up too quickly, all of them with too much on their small shoulders.

They’re only kids.

You’re barely older.

Shigaraki is barely older than you.

You push him out of your mind, toss your water bottle aside, and rise to your feet again. “C’mon,” you offer Shinsou your hand to help him up, too, “Shouta would kill me to know I let you lay around so much.”

This seems to pull him from his thoughts and he snorts, taking your hand.

You pull him up. And you both stare at each other a moment. You think he looks at you in a different light now and it isn’t bad, no, he seems to be pondering you more.

(And you’ll realize later that he’s become more sympathetic, that he sees you in villains now, reminds himself they’re people, too, with lives and needs and wants–)

It gives you a strange hope, as you begin to train with him again, to know that he’s the future of hero society.

***

Tomura spots you while he’s out stealing with Toga. Usually it’s Twice or Magne with her, but Twice was onto something else and Toga had decided to latch herself onto him for the day. He’s grown to tolerate her.

Besides, she’d managed to steal him a jean jacket, dark, rough, and worn with holes but it keeps him warmer while still being able to keep the hood of his sweatshirt up to hide himself. To blend in. She’d stolen herself something, too, as the weather begins to get colder and they still don’t have a base, wandering aimlessly.

(He feels stupidly responsible for them. But he’s learned good leaders are, in some way, responsible for their people. They don’t have to care in any way that is emotional, but they have to care in some way, make the group feel important to them. And begrudgingly, they are important to him–)

You’re with a boy around Toga’s age. Wild violet hair. You’re laughing at something he’s saying and you’re sharing street food, he thinks, something that’s warm, steaming up into the air.

He feels a vicious surge of jealousy for a moment. It’s so sharp and jarring that he reaches up to scratch at his neck, tearing into his skin.

But the boy looks too young and you tousle his hair like he’s a younger brother, not someone romantic. While there’s familiarity between you two, it’s not overly intimate.

Toga, unfortunately, follows his line of sight.

She looks between him and you. She tilts her head and Tomura can practically see the gears turning in her strange little mind.

“Do you know them?” she asks, almost innocently.

He doesn’t know why, but he says, “Just her.”

Toga looks back at you. She watches as you talk with the boy– the sun through the autumn leaves cast you in tangerine light, all golden and warm.

When she looks back at Tomura, a smile creeps onto her face. One that he knows is going to give him a migraine.

“She’s so pretty,” she trills, eyeing him too closely.

Tomura scratches at his neck again, harder, wincing a little when he feels a cut reopen.

“Do you have a crush, Tomura?” Toga sings, dancing in front of him to force herself into his line of sight.

“No,” Tomura snaps, bristling, which only seems to encourage her.

“Let’s say hi!” she says, about to bound off and Tomura catches her by the scruff of her jacket like a kitten. He’s wearing his partial gloves, but he still keeps a finger away from her.

“No,” he hisses, firmer now, pulling her back towards him. “They’re heroes. Don’t get distracted.”

Toga twists in his hold, wide-eyed for a moment, before her face settles into another enormous and excited smile. “You’re in love with a hero, too?!”

Tomura grits his teeth, snarling out, “I’m not in love with anyone.” He shakes her then and she yelps a little, “Now focus. We need food and I don’t want to deal with them.”

Toga finally squirms her way out of his hold, pouting at him, “You’re no fun.” she whines and all he does is shoulder past her. He stalks ahead, trying not to look at you again, if only to not draw your eye.

“Do you want to starve?” he asks waspishly, glancing at Toga over his shoulder.

She huffs, rolling her eyes, before hustling to catch up to him. She hums a strange little tune the rest of the time, knocking into his side, throwing him new looks as if to suggest they share some sort of commonality or secret. He grits his teeth but suffers through her torment.

When they return to the rest of the League with what they’d stolen, Toga announces to the whole group, “Tomura is in love with a hero, too!”

The migraine that had begun earlier in his temples reaches full force now. He doesn’t bother trying to deny it. He decides he doesn’t care.

Dabi’s laugh grates on him, though, “Is that so? Which little hero?” he asks Toga, and just as she’s skipping past him, he snags her, snatching the granola bar she’d had in her hand from their little raid.

She turns to grab it back and he pulls it out of her reach, “I don’t know! Give that back!” she squawks, clawing at him.

She must really dig at him because Dabi hisses, “You little twerp–” Just before Magne snatches the outstretched granola bar from Dabi’s hand. She hands it back to Toga, who quickly rushes off with it now.

And thankfully, for Tomura’s sanity, you’re not brought up again.

But he hadn’t noticed you– hadn’t noticed the way you’d seen him with Toga, too. Just a girl Shinsou’s age, following after him like an eager puppy.

Shinsou had trailed beside you like that, too, when you’d both walked back to U.A. with full bellies and new coffees in hand, warm and content.

***

There is a night where Shouta is out doing work undercover and you’re left to patrol on your own. You can’t take Shinsou yet, since he hasn’t earned his provisional license. You don’t mind these nights, by yourself, when you stick to shadows and rooftops, watching the city from above.

It’s cooler now and you tuck your face into the high collar of your hero uniform to hide from the wind that brushes past.

It’s been a quiet night so far. There are other, flashier heroes patrolling, too, meandering around the sidewalks to deter petty crime.

You check the time on your phone, noting that you have a little less than an hour until your shift is over, until you can go home and take a hot shower in an attempt to warm yourself up– especially your fingers, the tips of your ears.

You stretch, standing on one of the low roofs of a building. You’re stiff from crouching, so you decide to move around, change position. You use a grappling tool to shoot it onto a higher roof of the next building. You scale the bricks easily and once safely up, retract your grappling hook.

You look out over the quiet city, the golden light of lampposts, the meandering of cars through the streets. Some restaurants and bars are still open, their windows look warm and inviting with the flush of people inside.

You waste most of the last hour of your shift trying to remain warm, keeping a careful eye on the world below.

Towards the end, you notice a familiar figure in one of the alleyways down below. You don’t even see his face, just the back of his hoodie, just the angle of his shoulders.

Just the way he walks.

The thought should frighten you– that you know him like this, that you’re familiar with just the movement of his body.

Shigaraki Tomura walks away from the soft light of the main city, slips away into alleyways and darkness. You glance at the time. Your shift is nearly over.

This counts as hero work, doesn’t it? Silently following after him?

You drop down onto a fire escape– leap off to latch onto a lower window sill, until you’re dropping silently on to the ground a distance away from him.

You are careful to keep away from him, to use everything Shouta taught you about stealth to remain hidden. And you know Shigaraki is observant, you know he’s always looking over his shoulder so you have to stick to hidden places– behind dumpsters, ducking into alcoves of buildings.

He heads back to the part of the city you grew up in, where everything is falling apart, where there are plenty of abandoned buildings for hiding, plenty of places for runaway teens and homeless to sleep. The cheapest apartments, the streets that are the least patrolled by heroes and police alike, where parts of the Yakuza groups are bolder.

These streets are familiar to you. It’s a strange trip down memory lane.

You think of the last time you saw Shigaraki and flush darkly– it was around here, too, what happened that night.

Still, you follow him because you think you still have some upper hand. Maybe he’ll lead you to the rest of the League of Villains. For a heartbeat, you wonder if you’ll tell Shouta, if you’ll tell the Hero Commissions– you’d have to, right? That isn’t some little squirmish. That’s important information.

But he doesn’t lead you to the rest of the League.

He leads you to an apartment building, small and falling apart on the outside. A window is boarded up poorly. There are stray cats that linger around the side, where the trash is. You’re sure there are rats and bugs, too. You’re sure the building is one bad day away from falling apart.

Shigaraki pauses by the door that is nearly falling off its hinges.

He glances over his shoulder, “Are you following me in, too?”

Your heart kicks up, hammering against the inside of your chest. You swallow hard, internally cursing.

For all your effort of stealth, he still noticed you?

Well, there’s no use lying about it now.

You step around the corner you’d been hiding behind, moving towards the glow of a street light that flickers in and out of power to reveal yourself fully to him.

“When did you notice me?” you ask, peering at him, at the shape of him in the dark.

You catch the lifting of his scar when he smiles, just a baring of teeth, “I saw you on the roof.”

Damn, you curse again, you’ll have to work on that, “That bad, huh?”

He shrugs gracelessly, lifting of his shoulders only for them to fall unevenly, “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known. You were silent otherwise.”

It feels like a compliment– a generous one, coming from him. You don’t know why you have to hold off a smile.

He turns back to the door, shouldering it open. He walks through the archway without another word. He leaves it open and it seems there is no light on the inside, just a blackness that swallows up your vision. He disappears inside.

You stand there, beneath the light that flickers in and out, eyeing the doorway. You could go now, run back home to Shouta, to the Hero Commission and tell them you think you know where he stays, you have a lead on him. You look behind you, glance at the alleyway you came from with it’s’ dull, fluorescent lights that splash against the concrete, that barely fight against the shadows.

You look back towards where Shigaraki had been, the entrance to the building.

You’d probably even get extra little hero points for it from the Commission.

Shouta would be proud of you.

For bringing them to this dilapidated, shabby little apartment complex that rests on the streets of the place you used to call home.

You swallow hard, flex your freezing fingers.

Then you step towards the doorway, peer inside carefully. You hold your breath and the door creaks quietly when you cross it’s threshold, into the darkness.

Tomura is mildly surprised when he hears the door creak behind him. He can feel you, even in the dark of this hallway, the tentative steps you take after him. They’re almost shy.

But you followed him, didn’t you?

You followed and followed and followed him– and of course you did, he thinks, you had kissed him back, hadn’t you?

He supposes you could be playing a part, trying to get close to him but his intuition tells him differently, not with the genuine reaction you’d had. Your sudden guilt for giving in to him. Still, he’ll be careful around you.

He’ll probably have to move again, which would be a shame, since he has already killed the tenant of this apartment– he’d been sure they wouldn’t be missed by anyone, made sure he’d have time. He did the work to get it, thought he’d have it for just long enough until the League made another move.

He almost wants to test you, see if you’re going to run and tattle on his location. He wonders how far you’re willing to follow him.

Tomura walks steadily down the hallway, to the apartment he has taken claim to. He unlocks the door, hands in his partial gloves, shoving it with his shoulder to then enter. He leaves it open for you.

The apartment is a studio, shabby and the heat isn’t amazing, but it has hot water and a lack of bugs in this particular room. It has furniture– a bed, specifically, was all he had cared about. There’s empty wrappers of food and cans of energy drinks on the counters because he doesn’t really bother to pick up after himself but otherwise, the space isn’t his. There’s nothing else of his, besides some spare clothes on the floor.

And still, you follow him here, too. But you stand at the doorway, peeking inside.

He glances at you and is reminded of a fox, something with clever eyes but wary, a little skittish– would bite if he got too close too soon.

So he gives you space, just like he let you leave.

If there’s one thing Tomura has learned, it’s patience. Any good plan takes patience. The reward is always sweeter. The longer and harder the level, the greater the wins.

He ignores you, puts even more distance between the two of you as he wanders further in. He flicks on lights. He takes off his shoes, shrugs off his jean jacket and throws it over the couch. He gives the appearance of carelessness, of letting his guard down. Non threatening.

And you take your fist shy step inside. The door behind you remains ajar, though, for escape.

Tomura has to fight a terrifying smile, fight the sudden twisting in his heart, the inhale of his breath.

“I don’t know how wise it was of you to bring a hero to your home.” you finally speak, cutting through the silence. You’re trying to be witty, but he can tell you’re nervous.

“This isn’t my home,” he answers.

Home, with it’s round and warm syllabus, is not what he thinks of this place.

You eye him some more, but before you can respond, he says, “I don’t know how wise it was of you to follow a villain into his home.”

“I thought it wasn’t your home,” you quip and he only gives you a dry look.

Your bravado is wavering, especially when the door clicks shut behind you, your hand finally falling to your side.

And the two of you are sealed away from the outside world.

“Why did you bring me here?” you ask him and your voice is deceptively quiet. Small.

“Why did you follow me?” he asks in return.

You inhale like you’re trying to steady yourself, “Because I’m supposed to.”

Tomura smiles now, something lazy, almost amused. He knows it’s a lie, can feel it slide along his skin, can see the floundering, desperate look in your eyes.

“Why did you follow me?” he asks again, forcing himself not to move, not to step towards you in his budding excitement. Patience, he tells himself, be patient.

“Why did you kiss me?” you ask instead and the question is raw, as if it’s plagued you, haunted you like an insistent ghost. Crept around in the back of your mind, growing teeth and fangs and spindly, lampshade bat wings large enough to terrify you.

The idea that he’s taken root in your mind in the same way you have infested his is near dizzying.

Tomura weighs his answers carefully. He’s silent for a long moment and it’s heavy, charged with something that he can’t name– has never felt before.

When he speaks, his voice is just a rasp of breath, a little more honest than he’d like, a touch annoyed with the truth, “Because I wanted to.”

Another long stretch of silence where you watch him carefully, where he can see your chest rising and falling too quickly. He can see that frightened look in the rounding of your eyes, the high flush in your cheeks.

And when you speak again, it’s hardly louder than a whisper, like it’s all you can manage,“Do you want to kiss me again?”

It is far too gentle of a question for what he wants– it almost feels innocent, juvenile. Out of place between the two of you. But he’ll take it, he’ll take whatever you give him and then some.

He takes a step towards you. You don’t flinch away so he takes another, then another, until he is standing in front of you. You’re close now– so close that he has to force air into his lungs. He reminds himself of patience, of waiting–

He could take whatever he wanted from you now, he supposes, but he doesn’t want to have to wrestle you for it. He wants it given freely, he wants you to kiss back, like you had before. He wants you to willingly submit and it’s taken longer but it’ll be sweeter, so much sweeter.

“Are you going to run away again?” he asks and he can feel his heart quicken, the squeezing of it awful and tight.

You look up at him in a way that reminds him of his dreams, the ones he pretends to hate, where you make those small, soft noises. Where you let him touch you and taste you and have you.

And you shake your head no, just fractionally, the barest hint of movement but it’s enough for him.

The force of his kiss slams you back against the door. You make a surprised noise against him as he crushes himself to you. It’s just as violent as the first, but this time you take back what he gives. You get your bearings quicker, like you’ve learned a lesson already. He grins into the kiss, opening it, when he feels your little hands clawing at his shoulders, at his back.

He groans when you part your lips for him, when you lick tentatively into his mouth. He possesses you, bears onto you, pinning you to the door as his hands, still gloved, curl around your sides, your hips.

Your hero costume is tight, fits the curves of you snugly and in a way that’s making him nearly insane. He isn’t careful, doesn’t care if he’s moving too fast now as his hands roam and grab and squeeze. There’s layers between you, he naturally keeps a finger lifted away.

One of your hands tightens in his hair, pulling when he bites your bottom lip.

But you don’t seem to mind, either, with the way your breath is hitching, with the way you’re trying to pull him closer, desperately fuse him to you.

Your lips are so soft, he notices, even with the forcefulness with which you’re kissing him back.

It feels surreal for a moment, like one of his dreams, when he parts from your mouth only to slot his lips against your jaw, your neck. A whine is loosened from you, which breaks when he sets teeth to the vulnerable line of your throat.

Your hands are in his hair still, body arching into him eagerly. Youthful in your earnestness.

You’re better than anything he could’ve ever imagined, so alive and rosy and warm beneath his hands, beneath his mouth, which is making a mess of your neck. A particular hard suck over the sensitive line of your pulse makes you pull at his hair.

“Don’t leave a mark,” you hush and he thinks you meant to sound more threatening, but it’s softened by the desperation in your voice.

He scoffs into your throat, dragging teeth roughly along your skin.

“Shigaraki–”

“Tomura.” he corrects without thinking, finally pulling away to look at you, which is almost a mistake because you–

You’re flushed, lips kiss stung and pink, all swollen. Your head is tipped back, exposing the column of your throat, hair mussed with being pressed to the door so roughly. Your eyes are hazy and fever pink with your Quirk activated, like spring flowers, glowing in the low light.

He thinks of paintings and colors and dreams, something like beauty, if he knew anything about that.

And he’s so hard it hurts, teeth grinding together as he looks at you because he can’t even fucking stomach this feeling.

Then you repeat his name for him, “Tomura.”

He’s never heard his name like that, bedroom soft, more of a lullaby and less of a tragedy. He feels like he’s going to shake apart, his body to become just old ruins– he feels as if it’ll collapse inwards, topple over to crush his heart.

Where he’s usually seething and livid and clawing ruthlessly, the festering feeling in his chest is replaced with a new energy; something bursting and squirming and warm. His Quirk lies dormant and docile inside of him with your hand in his hair, your other now at his neck, fingers pressing lightly at his jaw.

It’s terrifying, he realizes, to not feel his Quirk at the edges of his fingers.

(It’s freeing, too, he’ll come to find, to not feel it’s weight, it’s demand that had been encouraged and shaped in him.)

You’re both trying to catch your breaths, looking at each other now. His fingers, still gloved, flex and squeeze at your waist, like he’s scared you’ll run off again.

You inch forward instead, rock onto the tips of your toes to press your lips to his again– softer this time, but no less heated, no less desperate.

He thinks you must be starving, too, with the way you pull him close. His mouth slants over yours, demanding more, a little rougher.

You squirm against the door, the slightest rocking of your hips– he can feel it against his thigh, against his waist. It makes him hiss out a breath against your lips, makes him grab harder at your waist, force you to do it again, harder this time.

You whine and it’s the snapping of his patience.

He reaches for the zipper at the back of your hero uniform, gives it a rough tug, pulling it down some. And then you’re pushing at him, nudging him away from the door and it’s a flurry of movement as you yank at his hoodie while he pulls at your clothes. You’re both stumbling further into the room, towards the bed pushed back into the corner.

Tomura feels young suddenly– feels his age. He feels like a twenty something year old with a girl in his apartment who wants his hoodie off. Who's kissing him hard in between every article of clothing that manages to come off.

He sits back on the edge of the bed to ease the rest of your cat-suit down. He watches with interest as you wiggle your hips to help him get the fabric down over you– and it’s nothing romantic, he doesn’t kiss the newly revealed skin, he doesn’t gently run his fingertips over you, but you grow shy under his gaze.

You’re still in undergarments, athletic slips of fabric, but his eyes fly over your face. You’re nervous, he can nearly feel it, with the way you shift, with the way you catch your bottom lip between your teeth and worry it.

A thought strikes him.

“Have you done this before?” he rasps, hooking his hand in the crux of your knee to drag your forward so you nearly fall into his lap.

“Yes,” you grit out, arms coming up to his shoulders to steady yourself. “Once.” you then shakily exhale.

He doesn’t particularly care– your answer wouldn’t have changed how he’d treat you. He’s not going to be gentler nor slower because you’re less experienced.

“Have you?” you ask, eyeing him, fingers nervously toying with the ends of his hair.

“Yes,” he says, perhaps too sharply, but he gives no other information and you don’t press him, which he’s thankful for. He doesn’t have the patience for useless questions.

Rather, he pulls you down harder, so your bare thighs finally settle into his lap. He slides his gloved hands up the notches of your ribs to hitch beneath your bra. That comes off, too, and then he’s got his hands on you more. You gasp, arching into his touch when his fingers curl around a breast, fingers roughly brushing over the peak.

He doesn’t think anymore, just acts, just moves and does as he pleases. All the things he’s done in dreams or in his mind– he sets lips and teeth to your breast, tongue laving over your nipple. He forces your squirming still with an arm banded around your torso, keeping you flush to his eager mouth.

You yelp in pain when he uses his teeth too roughly, trying to jerk away from him but you can’t with his hold on you. He grins, mouth opening, spit slick and wet against your breast again. He groans against you when you pull on his hair.

But then he twists you, throws you down onto the bed only to crawl over you. He yanks at your panties just as you pull him down for another kiss– maybe to distract yourself, to settle your nerves. When you pull away, you’re on your back and he’s over you, your legs hitching over his narrow waist. His hands are on your thighs and you–

You suddenly grab for his hands.

“Take off your gloves,” you get out, breathless, and before he can respond, your fingers are sliding against his wrist, up to his hand, beneath the glove and against his palm.

It makes him shiver, makes him grit his teeth. You pull off one, then the other.

For a moment, he just looks at you all spread out and bare for him, his hands now open and uncovered, too.

You squirm under his scrutinizing gaze.

“C’mon,” you coax and he thinks you’re trying to find your bravado, “Touch me.”

There’s nothing between his hands and your skin now and he settles his palm on your stomach, beneath your breast.

He naturally keeps a finger lifted away.

“Tomura,” your voice is pitched, almost pleading, “You’re not going to hurt me– c’mon.”

He tenses for a moment, eyes flashing over your face. For a moment, his heart stumbles, he grows wary. He thinks of you slipping away beneath his touch, falling away into nothing and all he’d have is a bed of ashes.

But your eyes are bright with your Quirk.

His final finger comes down. Nothing happens, except you smile a little, except you arch up into his touch– alive and vivid and furiously warm.

He feels like he can’t breathe, can’t even function.

He catches a groan behind his teeth, falls forward as his hands become feverish and possessive, suddenly confident, suddenly brash– touching and squeezing and grabbing at you.

His teeth clank with yours as he tumbles into another kiss. You’re needier now, making those higher pitched noises that used to haunt him.

It drives him insane, makes him feel half feral, overeager and desperate. His fingers wander lower, seeking and searching, just as the kiss grows in intensity again. It’s messier, all open mouth and tongue.

When he pulls away, a string of spit connects the two of you and he lets more of the saliva pooling in his mouth drip down with it, letting it fall between your open lips, some on your bottom lip, too. It’s depraved and dirty and his eyes simmer as he gazes down at you.

Your face scrunches up as you go to wipe at your mouth, and he hates it because all he can think of is how cute that face is.

“Gross,” you mewl, but his fingers finally move between your legs and–

And all he finds is that you’re hot and slick for him.

He has to grit his teeth to keep from moaning.

But you nearly cry at the touch, a pathetic little noise, hips jolting like you’re not sure if you want to go towards his touch or away.

“Gross, huh?” Tomura asks, voice low, the pad of his finger sliding easily, teasing you slowly before he goads, “Why are you so wet then?”

He sinks a finger in suddenly– just because he can. Just because he wants to watch your face screw up again, which it does, your mouth falling open, eyes squeezing shut.

“Hm?” he hums, amused with the way you’re gasping beneath him. He starts a slow but deep rhythm and–

And he’s had sex before, a handful of times, but it’d always been for him. He hadn’t cared how the other person felt, hadn’t cared to try and get them off. But now he suddenly wishes he had learned, if only for you, now. He wants you as obsessed as he is, wants you to feel as maddened as he feels.

Thankfully, you’re so expressive. And he doesn’t have to worry about his fingers. He can find the spot inside you that makes you toss your head back into the sheets and moan for him, he can focus on the way you keen when he finds your clit with his thumb.

You’re a sensitive little thing, clawing at his bare shoulders, whining into his neck. He forces in another finger and you start rocking your hips, growing more desperate until–

“Fuck,” you gasp, “Fuck, I’m going to–”

He curls his fingers harder, watching your face as you fall apart, as you try and twist and squirm beneath him. He forces you through it, isn’t gentle, but selfish, wringing everything he can from you.

And when he’s finished watching you whimper and feeling you flutter and gush around his fingers, he takes them out only to force them between your lips.

Once more your face screws up, but you close your mouth around them and he groans low and raw. You look hazy, drooling all over his fingers, lashes fluttering prettily.

He uses his other hand to fumble with his belt, to work his pants down low enough for his cock, aching so bad that he swears he’s going to go insane–

He pulls his fingers from your mouth, watching the mess that comes with it, so wet and slick and shiny. He can’t help the growl he gives, before covering his mouth with yours again.

As you kiss, sloppy and desperate, Tomura slides the head of his cock against you and you’re so slippery and soft and molten for him that his next moan tapers off into a whine.

You pull away fractionally, “Shouldn’t we–”

He thinks maybe you were about to ask about protection of some kind, but he shoves inside you hard, breaches your body and watches as your eyes roll back, just about to cross as your nails turn sharp against his back.

You moan, low and drawn out.

He can’t help the absurd laugh that is wretched from him, his head dropping onto your neck as he snaps his hips forward. He can’t believe he’s actually gotten you here, in his bed, beneath him– let him inside where you’re so warm and soft.

“Fuck,” you gasp, maybe laced with pain, clawing at him, raking your nails down his back.

“Does it hurt?” he hisses, excited, his teeth coming down to close over your exposed neck.

“Yes,” you get out, almost a whimper, “Feels good, too.”

He snaps his hip forwards roughly, grinding deep as he laughs again when you just about sob into his shoulder.

You latch your teeth onto the vulnerable juncture between his neck and his shoulder, where you’d already laid claim to him once before.

He wrestles for your wrist, the one he broke, and forces it down onto the bed.

“Look at you,” he almost snarls, voice low and gravely, “Little hero letting me fuck her.”

You gasp when he angles his hips, when his other hand reaches beneath you, to fist a hand in your hair and pull so your neck is arched and exposed to him.

“I used to dream of this,” he admits roughly, the confession like a curse being spit out of his mouth, “Wanted to stalk you or possess you or–” he groans because he can feel how you’re throbbing around him, how slick you are for him, “Wanted to fucking ruin you–”

He pulls at your hair more, tries to get you to look at him through your wet lashes. The flash of pink meets red and his smile is more a cruel bearing of teeth.

“And you feel so much better than I dreamt– fuck, so much tighter–” he babbles as he ruts into you hard and quick. You keen, high and broken, just as he feels you flutter around him again and he almost loses his mind because–

“Are you going to fucking come again?” he growls, pulling harder on your hair.

“Yes,” you groan, “Please, fuck, please, c’mon–” your voice is high and wrecked and all he has to do is angle his hips a few more times before you’re shattering, nearly breaking apart, squeezing down on his cock so tightly that he shudders, that he let’s go of your hair just to focus on his own pleasure.

He doesn’t even realize he’s drooling into your neck, not as he loses his rhythm, as he shoves himself as deep into you as he can and comes hard. Pleasure races up his spine, turns him white-hot and sensitive, making his eyes roll back into his head, too.

You’re both breathing hard when he collapses on top of you. Your fingers, which were once scratching down his back to cause sharp shooting pain, are now surprisingly gentle, slipping back into his hair.

You squirm, fussing slightly– no doubt sore, no doubt aching with him still inside you but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t want to.

He mouths at your neck, feels you sigh, before he moves to cover his mouth with yours again. He kisses you languidly now, slow and deep.

You’re making breathy little noises against him, content and surprisingly soft, your other hand tracing over his side.

(He doesn’t like how much he enjoys this part, the afterglow, all that violence slipping away, expelled from you both–)

Tomura feels his cock twitch inside of you again, feels your hips arch up a little, and before he knows it, he’s moving his hips again. It’s a slow rocking, your lips still attached to his, heated and gentle.

“Gross,” you say again, just a breath against him as he fucks his cum further into you, feels himself harden, feels the mess he made of you. But you still hitch your leg over his hip, pull him deeper into you.

He grins lazily against your lips, “You like it,” he says and it’s not a question, rolling his hips until he gets you to shut your eyes and moan against him.

“Yeah,” you reply, nudging your cheek against his, rubbing like a cat until he returns the gesture. Until he’s humming because he’s sensitive and you feel so good, better than anything he’s ever felt in this miserable fucking life–

You whine a little, ‘Touch me again?”

He doesn’t deny you for whatever reason, doesn’t even have something smart to say as he slides his hand down your torso, down to where you’re both slick and connected. He rubs unpracticed, messy circles around that sensitive bundle of nerves until you’re sighing.

He’s no expert but he doesn’t really care and you don’t seem to mind this time, either. It’s unhurried now, lazy.

This time your peak is a fluttery, soft thing, and he watches as you gasp, as you blink away tears. She’s pretty, he thinks, feeling stupidly young again, she’s pretty like this. Like his dreams.

Tomura spills inside you again soon after, groaning against your collarbones, and this time you force him to slip out of you. Force him to lay beside you as you both catch your breath again.

And he’s not expecting it, but he has the vicious need to be close to you, desperately wants to feel your skin against his. It’s a new feeling– usually after sex, he wants to be as far away from someone as possible. Usually he can��t leave or kick them out fast enough.

But there’s something about you now, hazy and pleasure-drunk, fucked out and dazed, that makes him want to stay close. Maybe it’s just that you’ve soothed all the festering that usually squirms in his chest. Maybe it’s just that you’ve made everything in him quiet for once.

He expects you to find some sort of your regret now, he’s sure that you’ll feel guilty, collect your clothes and go. But you don’t. You stay in bed with him. And it’s strange but he knows he wants to touch you, so he does. He doesn’t deny himself, why would he? He’s always taken what he wanted.

He curls around you, shivering a little with the skin to skin contact after the fog of sex has cleared from his mind. His hands slide over you, touch you fully and without restraint because he can, because you won’t disappear beneath his touch.

And for a moment, as he traces along the dips of your waist, he thinks maybe you were made for him– cut from his rib, isn’t that how the story goes?

He doesn’t know, only that there’s no one else in the world he can touch like this.

You’re surprised.

You’d figured after Tomura had his fill of you, he’d kick you out, send you away. You figured you’d feel guilty, that you would rush out of here and try to wish the whole thing away. But your hero suit stays on the floor and you’re still in his bed.

You didn’t think he’d be a cuddler, you assumed that he wouldn’t want nor care for any sort of contact after. But his arms are wrapped around you now, one of his hands sliding curiously over the curves of your body. All five fingers down, pressing into your skin.

But you suppose, for someone who has to be so careful with touch, that he would like this. That he might want this. You wonder if he ever gets to touch anyone like this, if he ever allows himself intimate touch like this– tender and for no other reason than to soothe or comfort.

You get the impression that he doesn’t, that touch is just a means to an end for him; sex is probably just an itch to scratch. You can’t imagine that he’s very relaxed or enjoying himself when he’s worried about decaying the person he’s with.

But all his crackling, restless energy now seems subdued, sated, as he walks his fingers over you. His hair tickles your bare skin as he nudges closer, nose running along your jaw.

Once more, you feel your age. You don’t feel like a hero, but just someone young, maybe on the cusp of being old. He looks young now, too, with his vivid eyes shut and relaxed, nothing to crease his brow. He doesn’t seem like a villain, either.

You brush a finger over his cheek, touch lightly at the scratches beneath his eyes, drag your thumb down to touch the scar at the corner of his lips.

His eyes flutter open to watch you, half lidded, squinted almost like a cat.

But he allows you to run your fingers over his face, doesn’t protest or jerk away from your touch.

No, his eyes fall shut again. He lets out a deep sigh that you think he has held inside him for years.

He doesn’t have a gentle face, but one that shows it’s angles and sharp edges, the scars and cuts that trail down onto his neck. You’d noticed some on his chest, too. Proof of an uneasy life lived, proof of violence and pain.

You imagine he’s seen horrors, kept them trapped inside for fear of letting them spill out, like maybe it’ll be as gruesome as the memories.

His body hasn’t been handled gently, you can tell, with it’s indents and scars and scratches. You don’t know who was the last person who touched him without wanting to hurt him. And you shouldn’t but you think of yourself when you were a child– desperate for love and affection, desperate for any scrap of attention like the scavenger you always were.

Maybe still are.

So desperate that you’d end up in the bed of your enemy– all because you couldn’t end up in the bed of your ally. So hungry that you’d eat out of a hand that has harmed and killed and destroyed.

Hands that haven’t known gentleness, a body that hasn’t known peace. But he’s being gentle with you now, isn’t he?

So you try to give gentleness to him now, too, with your careful touch. You keep your fingers kind and sympathetic.

Even your own eyes drift shut for a moment, still tracing idle patterns into his skin.

You only slip away from him for a moment, to use the bathroom, to clean up. Your reflection in the mirror looks strange; raw and flushed with color. Honest in a way that makes you turn away.

You slip back into bed with Tomura, let him latch onto you again. You drag your fingers gently over his ribs, over his sides.

You let your eyes fall shut, too.

There’s a sudden, loud buzzing from the floor that cuts through the quiet, which makes your eyes startle open. It’s insistent and you realize after a moment that it’s your phone, caught up in your hero suit on the floor.

You never came home after your shift. You curse softly, almost certain you know who's calling.

You squirm out of Tomura’s hold again, which he huffs at in irritation, but eventually allows you up.

“Where are you going now?” he asks, annoyed, when you climb out of bed to find your phone. Once found, you hold it up to him.

It’s still buzzing in your hand, lit up with Shouta’s contact.

You think the guilt should hit you now.

It doesn’t and that’s what you feel worse over. You swallow hard, frown down at your phone.

(Horribly, you even feel somewhat spiteful, as if you’re trying to prove something to Shouta. Maybe to yourself.)

You don’t answer.

And then you see the several texts from him, wondering where you are. They’re all bland, but you can tell he must be worried. It’s unlike you to not tell him where you are.

“Are you going to leave?” Tomura asks and there’s something strange in his voice, something you can’t place.

“Do you want me to?” you ask in return.

He doesn’t answer right away. But he does eventually give an annoyed drawl, “Do what you want.”

You take that as a no, don’t leave, since you’re certain if he wanted you gone, he would’ve told you.

You send a text to Shouta;

Sorry. Staying with an old friend for the night. Be back tomorrow.

It’s not unheard of, for you to spend time with an old friend from the foster care system.

You get a dry “okay” from him in response. You fight the urge to roll your eyes for some reason, tossing your phone away again.

You end up staying the night with Tomura Shigaraki, one of the most wanted villains in all of Japan.

Its not romantic— he isn’t sweet or funny or caring. But he holds you tight, leaves no room for distance. And it is the first time you’ve ever slept with someone like this, tucked away into a bed, bare, and wrapped up in each other.

Is this what it always feels like? You press yourself into the crooks of his body. You wonder if you’re supposed to fit this well together.

And it’s the first time since his Quirk developed that he hasn’t needed to wear his partial gloves to sleep in fear of decaying something.

He won’t admit it but it’s the best he’s slept in a long, long time.

You won’t admit it, either, but you think you could get used to this, too; this closeness, being held as if you’ll slip away, being held like he doesn’t want you to.

The morning brings rosy sunlight that slants through the windows. Neither of you talk much. You try to tell yourself this won’t happen again, can’t happen again.

But you had kissed him goodbye before you’d left, like he was a boyfriend and not a criminal, and you’d been in a surprisingly good mood for the rest of the day.

Like you had a crush, puppy love you never got as a teenager because you were too busy trying not to starve, only to realize you’d been starving in other ways, too.

But you’re sugar soft and excitable, dropping into bed that night alone, and allowing yourself to admit, in the quiet and privacy of your own thoughts, that you wish you were in his again.

***

One time turns into two which turns into three which turns into so many times you’ve lost count. That little, rundown apartment that isn’t really Tomura’s has turned into another world entirely, some harbor away from the rules of society. It’s almost too good to be true, a dream, a place for a secret as bad as this one.

When you’re here, you don’t talk of heroes and villains. You urge him not to; you think you’ll keep some part of your innocence in this affair if you don’t actually know anything about him or the League of Villains. You’ll feel too guilty, if you know any part of their plans and don’t tell Shouta. And telling Shouta anything about Tomura is beginning to feel like a betrayal, too.

You don’t know anything substantial about Tomura Shigaraki and that’s the way it needs to stay.

You know he likes sour candy, though, and drinks too many energy drinks– they’re sickly sweet and you think kissing him might make your teeth ache. You know he likes video games but no longer has a console. He has trouble sleeping at night. You’re familiar with the scars on his skin, the jagged ones across his neck, the one on his lip. The beauty mark on his chin. You know his moods; from the prickly ones to the downright vengeful ones. You even know the calmer ones, the quiet, contemplative ones.

(In this way, he seems like a normal twenty-something-year-old. In the quiet moments, when you’ve convinced him to watch a cheap horror movie on the tiny, staticky TV in the apartment, he could be anybody. When he’s got his bare hand up your shirt as someone onscreen screams and begs for their life, he’s not the heir to an underground empire. He’s just Tomura, with his face buried in the crook of your neck).

He pretends to get annoyed with you, huffs and scoffs against your lips when you’re being cheeky. You wear his worn down hoodies, slip your thumbs in the holes at the sleeves. He eyes you when you wear them, pulls you to him by the collar.

(He likes to fuck you in them– pushes the hoodie up your stomach to watch you ride him. But he likes things bare and raw, too. Skin to skin. So close it’s terrifying, so close you feel like he’s trying to tear you apart from the inside out. He likes it dirty, you think, because it makes it more intimate.)

You soothe him. You know you do because when he’s festering and angry, all it takes is your hand on his wrist, pulling it away from his neck. Sometimes, when he can’t think straight and there is too much on his mind, he forces you to lay on top of him until his breathing slows and his head is clear.

He can’t talk to you aloud about what’s plaguing him, but you must quiet some part of him. He likes to use you to think, runs his long fingers through your hair as you lay atop him. He pets you until his thoughts aren’t as jumbled, but smoothed out and sharp. Or until he doesn’t want to think anymore at all and he drags you into languid makeouts that always end with him surrounding you, inside you, possessing you.

You bicker sometimes, flash your teeth to make his eyes spark ruby and excited. Mostly, you act your age with him.

You don’t know when his birthday is or where he grew up. You don’t know what his childhood was like or what memories shaped him, don’t know where he’s been or where he’s going to be. You only know him now, in this moment, in this little world you’ve created for each other.

He’s what you imagined first boyfriends are supposed to be; excitable and often immature but fun and new. You never had the luxury of first loves, just odd first kisses with strangers and an uncomfortable loss of virginity with a friend of a friend of a friend who jammed his tongue too far down your throat. You hadn’t had anything stable until–

Until Shouta.

Shouta has grown suspicious of this old friend of yours and how much time you now spend with him.

He questions you about him and you wish you felt worse for lying. The rebellious part of this affair is thrilling, though. Feels like you’re sixteen and sneaking out from under your dad’s nose to be picked up by the boyfriend you’d know he’d hate. Feels like swiping liquor too young and getting sick off it, smashing the bottles and laughing with your friends because sometimes things just need to break.

“Will you at least tell me his name?” Shouta had asked one morning, when you’d let yourself into his apartment after another night at Tomura’s. You had your own hood pulled up around your face to hide the rose blossom hickeys against the skin of your neck.

He’d still poured you a cup of coffee. You’d watched his careful, large hands as they made it the way you liked it.

You’d given him a lie, fed it to him the way he feeds you breakfast, “Shinta. Are you happy?”

He’d slid the mug to you, let you catch in the cradle of your palm. He’d shrugged, but you think his eyes had flashed to you, “You know you can bring him around, right? You don’t always have to go to him.”

You’d had to bite back a painful laugh. It wasn’t funny. It had hurt strangely in the pit of your chest.

You had shaken your head, tried to brush him off, “It’s not like that.”

“Alright,” he’d said, but he hadn’t believed you. “You’re training alone with Shinsou again tonight, I’ll be busy with a job.” Then he’d given you a stern look, “And don’t cut it early to go see Shinta.”

“I’ve never done that!” you’d protested, perhaps a little too defensively. But it was true, you’d never do that to Shinsou, wouldn’t dream of it. The only time you’d cut training early was to share takeout with Shinsou, not ditch him for–

This comment had rubbed you wrong, scratched up against something abrasive and surprisingly fragile inside of you. Maybe because he was questioning your dedication which already felt so flimsy, even if he hadn’t been entirely serious, even if maybe he’d just been trying to take a dig at you. At this new boyfriend.

Shouta had grown cold then, shrugged impassively, took his mug of coffee and brushed past you to keep getting ready.

It had angered you enough to bring it up later to Tomura, when you’re falling into his lap and he’s squirming his cold, fluttery hands beneath your shirt to touch skin, to make you hiss through your teeth.

His lips tilt into a small smile as you fidget while he warms his frigid fingers on your body.

“Eraserhead asked about you yesterday,” you tell him, letting your nose brush against his, “Told me I could bring my friend around– don’t always have to go to him.”

Tomura snorts, eyes falling half-lidded when your lips skim over his. The night is plum dark, presses into this little apartment that’s tucked away from the world.

“How’d you get out of that one?” he asks, fingers walking over the dips of your spine. He likes tracing the bone beneath your skin, likes making you shiver.

“Told him it’s not like that.” you respond, your own hands wandering to his neck. You're careful over the ridges of flesh there, skim lightly to get to his jaw.

“No?” Tomura asks, pulling you closer, pressing his chest to yours, “Don’t want to bring me home to meet Eraserhead?” he sneers and there’s something underneath his voice, lurking, with its hackles raised.

You think maybe it’s jealousy, the same flash of his eyes like Shouta’s when he’d said Shinta.

But then he kisses you deep and drags your hips against his, forces a warbly, surprised little moan from you.

Most of your thoughts melt away then, most turn to something base and desperate, all desire and need. You can’t help but think about it, though, how you can’t ever take him home to Shouta. You can’t ever expect anything more than whatever stays in this room. He kisses you hard, your teeth clinking against his like clashing with the truth of it all.

There’s no happy ending here.

It’s like smashing bottles because sometimes things just need to break.

***

Tomura thinks you would be a good edition to the League of Villains.

You’re clever and capable. He comes to find you’re not just a good thief and pickpocket but an excellent one. You swipe everything from his pockets, right from under his nose, just to play with him. You’re stealthy and sharp; he could use someone like you at his side.

Your Quirk could be useful, though he doesn’t like the idea of you getting so close to people while in battles. You have a reckless streak, but he thinks he could temper that. All you need is a little guidance.

You were a thief once. You give him clues of your past; you didn’t grow up like the other heroes, didn’t come from a warm home with dreams of saving the world. Your head wasn’t filled with fantasies of rescuing the downtrodden. You were the downtrodden. And you learned that there was no one who was going to save you, except yourself. So you stole and fought and survived a world that was willing to forget you.

You’re like him, a very quiet part of him thinks, no one saved you. Not until you were too old, all grown up with sharpened teeth and claws, eyes that see in the dark. That could be now used and extorted by the heroes.

He thinks they’ve leashed you, taught you how to sit and stay and sic ‘em.

He wonders if he’d have gotten to you first, if you’d be with him and not your heroes.

Tomura doesn’t dwell on it, though. He refuses to imagine it. What would be the point? It didn’t happen.

Besides, he is certain he is capable of slowly swaying you to them still. You possess a startling amount of compassion for villains which, perhaps wouldn’t help you as a villain, but that’s fine.

(You’d have him. No one would touch you if you were at his side. You could be as stupidly compassionate as you wanted.)

You meet members of the League with him by accident, times when Toga and Twice’s meeting with him overlap with you arriving. Toga goes on endlessly about you, it seems. Dabi drops by once in the middle of the night, bloody and demanding a place to sleep because he’s tired of sleeping on the streets.

It’d been one of the more insufferable nights, perhaps one of the worst ways for Dabi to find out about you. You’d already been asleep, cocooned beneath blankets and Tomura’s body, just in one of his loose shirts.

Tomura had already been lying awake, listening to your even breathing when he’d heard the handle of the door shake roughly. He’d gotten up then, slipped into clothes, melted into the darkness by the door and waited for the intruder to try and step inside.

The lock had been picked.

He had nearly decayed Dabi by accident before realizing it was him.

A ridiculously quiet but terse argument had ensued then, before Dabi had asked, in a regular speaking voice, “Why the fuck are we whispering?”

Tomura had almost winced when he heard you stir from the bed before your small, sleepy voice had murmured into the darkness, “Tomura?”

You’d said it too soft, too sweet. It’d been for his ears only and something about Dabi hearing you, seeing you, being in this space that had been for you and for him had made Tomura suddenly livid.

He had watched Dabi’s mouth fall open in shock before you’d switched on the bedside lamp to flood the room with artificial, golden light.

Dabi’s face had been near horrific in the light, one side of it all bloody, the stitches mangled or falling out. Part of his face almost looked like it was melting, his eye squinted shut with the damage.

But he’d thrown his head back and laughed when he’d seen you, sitting up in the bed, blinking sleepily at them. Tomura hated a lot of things, but he’d hated nothing more than the sound of Dabi’s rasping laugh in that moment.

You’d narrowed your eyes when you had realized who it was.

“I had no idea you had it in you, Tomura.” Dabi had said.

“Why the fuck are you here?” Tomura had hissed instead, fighting the urge to tear into his neck, fingers twitching agitatedly.

Dabi had gestured to his face with a lazy flourish, “I need medical attention and I’m crashing on your couch.”

Tomura’s teeth had ground together, “Get. Out.”

“No, I’m sick of sleeping on the streets when you’re here playing house with your little hero bitch–”

Before Tomura could even react, though, you had found the small supply of first aid from beneath the sink in the tiny bathroom. You had come up beside them near silently and offered it up, asked, “Do you want help?”

And there it had been– that compassion of yours. Even for the likes of Dabi.

In that moment, he’d wondered how you had ever survived with it. He’d thought that you’d lose your hand if you kept extending it.

Dabi hadn’t let you touch him but you’d gotten a cool rag for him to clean up the blood, watched as he tried to patch up the wound. It was made worse by a mangled staple in his cheek, jutting out strangely.

“Does it hurt?” You’d asked but with the way you were looking at him, at his marred skin up close, Tomura could tell that you weren’t just referring to this one injury.

Does it hurt? You’d asked, like you were asking if it all hurt. You weren’t just seeing a singular part of Dabi, but a series of tragedies that was proudly presented in large, rippling scars against his skin.

“Of course it fucking hurts,” Dabi had spit out, all venom and bitterness. But you hadn’t even flinched.

Tomura had tried to kick him out again once his wound had been treated.

“It’s fine,” you’d said, resigned, tired and rubbing at your eyes.

(Later you’d shrug and tell him, I know what it’s like to not have somewhere to sleep).

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Dabi had drawled, already pulling off his heavy boots, prying the coat from his body to toss onto the floor. “Just don’t do any weird shit.”

And you’d gotten back into bed with Tomura, fit yourself against him, ducked your head down beneath his chin and pressed your hands against his sides, felt the notches of his ribs.

Sometimes he wonders if you can feel the missing one, the one you took from him, the one you’d been made out of.

It had occurred to Tomura that either you didn’t fear Dabi or you trusted him enough to know he’d never let Dabi harm you while sleeping.

Both were acceptable to him, both would aid him in converting you. And they were true, too. You shouldn’t fear Dabi, especially not with him around.

Tomura had brought his hand up then, suddenly covered your mouth with his large palm, letting all five of his fingers come down against your pretty face.

You’d furrowed your brows in confusion, not fear, which made something inside of him grow warm and hungry.

Then he’d slid his other hand down your body, between your legs, just to spite Dabi.

He’d watched as your eyes went wide in the dark, cheeks flushing beneath his hand. He could feel his smirk, smug and sharp, fitting across his teeth like a muzzle.

You’d tried to shake your head, tried to squirm away from his touch, but he’d been persistent and soon enough you were sighing against his hand, melting into the bed he pressed you into. Soon enough you were trying to hold back whimpers, all slippery and soft beneath his fingers, silently begging with your eyes.

He hadn’t denied you that night; no, you were being good, walking the steps he wanted for you. You were moldable and sweet beneath him so he’d give you what you wanted.

He watched in satisfaction as you came hard around his fingers, face scrunching up in that way he loved, fingers easing you through it. He was gentle with you then, taking his hand away from your mouth slowly, letting you nudge closer and cling to him.

(He loved when you clung to him).

You’d wanted so much affection that night and he had indulged you, letting your nose brush against his, or rubbing your cheek against his chest while his fingers wound through your hair.

You’d fallen asleep all tied up in him.

The next morning, you were gone before Dabi even woke up.

Dabi had asked, “What the fuck are you doing with her?”

“Mind your business,” Tomura had snapped, fingers already seeking out his neck again when they couldn't find you. He hated that he wanted your presence so badly now. (Hated that he missed you, but he would never say that, never even dream of it). Then he’d added,“And find someone else’s doorstep to show up on.”

Dabi had scoffed, “Whatever. Just don’t get distracted.” He’d pulled out a cigarette from his jacket still on the floor then, much to Tomura’s annoyance, and lit it with a spark of his fingers. Smoke curled into the air with his first drag. “I’m not about to watch all our efforts fall apart because you wanted to play Romeo and Juliet with some braindead little hero.”

He’d torn into the skin of his neck then. Wished he could tear into you instead.

“Violent delights and violent ends and all that shit,” Dabi had said then, his smile just a curled stitch, smoke pouring from his lips, evidently amused with himself.

But Tomura has never read that play and he doesn’t know anything about poetry in the same way he doesn’t know anything about art or beauty, just that you’re the only thing he’s bothered to compare to a painting.

***

You put Tomura into your phone as Shinta and when you’re too busy to visit him between missions and training, you text him. Though short, he is surprisingly witty over text, something that has you biting back grins and distracted, feeling like a schoolgirl as you try to hide the screen of your phone from the rest of the world.

You grow distracted with hero work, with Shouta. You pay less attention to your life at U.A. You don’t visit Shouta for lunch as often. You haven’t spent a quiet night with Shouta in weeks. You tell yourself you don’t care.

It’s better than fighting with him. It’s better than trying to beg for his love and affection.

Early tomorrow morning you’re supposed to shadow Shouta on a brief mission.

The Hero Commission is trying to train you into espionage and underground work, trying to mold you in the shape of Shouta.

But at night, when you’re alone in your bedroom, tucked away into your own apartment and not with Tomura, he calls you.

You let yourself say his name into the receiver of your phone, hushed and excited.

He doesn’t say I miss you or when will I see you again?

He says, “Touch yourself.”

And you don’t say I miss you, too, or hopefully soon.

You do as he says, let your fingers fan out over your stomach like they might be his. You listen to his breathing turn ragged over the phone. You moan softly for him.

You do what he says in the navy dark of night, bite back frustrated whines because you’ve gotten too used to his touch.

“–Wish it was you, fuck, it’s not fair,” you gasp, tilting your hips up into your fingers desperately.

You can hear the hiss of breath he takes, “Did I ruin you?” he croons into the phone lowly, his voice slithering through to you, making your thighs clench. “Can’t even touch yourself without needing me?”

You groan, high and defeated, fingers slipping against yourself. You’re aching and empty and bereft without him, “Yes, yes–”

He rambles about what he’s done to you, almost seething by the end, when he demands you tell him that you’re his, that he’s the one who made you this way. He’s the only one who can soothe you now. You need him.

He isn’t wrong, you realize, when you still aren’t satisfied after your climax. When it doesn’t feel as good as when you’re with him. You realize you hate sleeping alone now. You miss the press of his body to yours. You coo into the phone about it, lay on your stomach, arms curled around your pillow with your ear still to your phone.

It never gets overly sentimental. You don’t want to scare him, especially as you grow terrified of your own feelings. It doesn’t feel as fun anymore, you realize, only because your attraction to him has now grown serious.

Your crush has grown teeth and claws, ready to tear apart the vulnerable, fleshy parts of you.

But he talks with you until you fall asleep, phone still in hand, heart still on the line.

***

There’s a stray kitten that hangs out around Tomura’s apartment– he thinks there must be a colony of strays in the area, since it’s not the only one. But this one is scrawny, just a messy tuft of grey fur. It’d be sleek and pretty, if it wasn’t so malnourished, if it wasn’t missing clumps of fur or full of scars and scratches.

The kitten likes Tomura a great deal for some reason. It rubs itself against his legs, follows him around outside of the apartment, much to your utter delight.

You coo and fawn over it, scoop the little thing up into your arms and hold it up to Tomura’s face.

He hates it, the face you give him. The face the kitten gives him. He hates that the corner of his lips twitch upwards.

“He’s so cute,” you gush and he can hear now that the little thing is purring furiously in your hands. You wiggle the cat a little bit in front of his face and Tomura finally reaches up to stroke the back of his knuckles against the kitten’s head, if only to appease you.

Your smile is crooked– an excited curve of your lips, your eyes alight.

You’re always so expressive and he used to be livid about it, wanted to teach you a lesson in the worst way possible, but now he just wants to keep you from learning them.

He has to turn away from you at the thought, heads towards the door of the apartment building. You follow after him dutifully, coming up to nudge against his side. He’s become too comfortable with you there, knocking into his elbow.

You’re still smiling down at the kitten in your arms and he wants to look away because some part of this is starting to sting.

The kitten is excitedly looking around, green eyes all round and bright. It’s purring happily.

“Put it down, it’s not coming in with us.” Tomura tells you, his voice rough and soft.

You stop in front of the door with him. Your bottom lip pulls out into a pout. Your eyes get round like the kitten’s.

He gives you a cold stare.

You hug the kitten tighter to your body, “C’mon,” you whine, “It’s just a baby.”

“I’m not taking care of a cat.”

“I’ll take care of it!”

“No,” he responds, harsher, voice a little sharper.

Maybe, in the beginning of this little affair, you would’ve headed the warning in his tone, but now you don’t even bat an eye at him.

“Yes,” you respond indignantly.

You both glare at each other. The kitten’s purr still rumbles on.

Tomura can tell you’re not giving this one up, he can tell by the set of your jaw, the way you’re clinging to that little creature. There’s a determined flush to your face. Your eyes are bright and fiery.

All over this little stray.

“You’re a brat,” is all Tomura says and you take that as a win, because your face immediately morphs, brightens up completely. You duck past him, into the apartment building with the kitten cradled in your arms.

He heaves a deep sigh, following in after you. “I’m kicking it out when you leave.”

“Don’t be mean,” you reply, waiting at the door, and the irony is not lost on him. He comes up behind you, his chest to your back, crowding you against the door.

“I think you need to remember who you’re speaking to,” he says, his voice just a rasp against your ear and maybe at some point, it would’ve sounded threatening, but now you just lean back into his chest. His heart beats against the curve of your back.

Something soft is growing between the two of you, he can feel it. It has no place here, though, in this world. In the two of you. His ugly infatuation with you, all that anger and vitriol he had for you has melted, turned spring soft inside of him after an unforgiving winter.

He unlocks the door, he lets you in.

The kitten ends up coming and going. He opens the window to let it in and out, let’s you feed it. You call it Ryuji. It lives partially in this new little world the two of you have built.

He thinks of it like the pause screen in a video game, somewhere to return to when he’s frustrated or tired or done. Idle, soft music and the freezing of his screen. A moment away from the turmoil or struggle of the game.

But he’ll have to unpause eventually.

He can’t stay here forever, he knows it, but he just has to be sure he plays it right– he doesn’t think he’ll be able to start over this time, with you.

And he wants you there at the ending, at his side like in his dreams.

The ones where it’s all in ruins, the world nothing but his, destroyed, but he gives you his hand to have, and you take it in yours to hold.

***

The distance between you and Shouta stretches and grows until it snaps in the form of a blowout argument. Which, is mostly just you, shouting, crying furiously, and Shouta stone-faced and cool.

It had started with an offhand comment from him about how you’re not focused anymore. You’re getting sloppy. You’re distracted. And usually, you take his criticism with a stiff upper lip and a determined glare.

But you and Shouta haven’t been the same since you tried to kiss him.

You blame yourself, maybe, but part of you feels angry with him, too. Bitter. You thought, in some way, he reciprocated your feelings. He’d acted like it. And when he’d rejected you, he’d pulled away, been more careful with you.

(You wonder if this proves your point, that he was toeing a line with you then.)

And maybe your lies are starting to eat at you, too, starting to rot away on the inside of you. If you focused on them too hard and all that Shouta’s done for you, you think you’d start crying every time you looked at him.

But Tomura has also thrown all you know into question. And you’d already been critical of the life you were afforded by becoming a hero.

You look at all of Shouta’s students and you just get angry. You look at Shinsou, so determined to prove he can be a hero, that he’s good and you are livid. You look at Toga, with her villainous Quirk. She’s near Shinsou’s age and something about it just makes you ache, it makes you sick.

You look at her and see who she could’ve been as a hero– you wonder if they would’ve stuck her in espionage, with the likes of you and Shouta. You wonder if she would’ve gone to U.A. You wonder what it would’ve taken to change her fate.

Even Tomura, you look at him and in the safety and privacy of your own heart, you dare to wonder what he would’ve been like if he hadn’t been a villain.

(He could’ve been a rescue hero, you think, and he could’ve decayed debris to save people. This version of him lives in the quiet, tentative parts of you. It grows soft and underground, a seedling that has sprouted on the inside of your chest, and one day you think this little dream of yours will grow so large inside of you that it’ll breach skin and show the world it’s horror.)

It feels like a coin toss, almost, like the difference between a hero and a villain sometimes is one flip away from changing.

You don’t bother to wonder what would’ve happened if it hadn’t been Shouta that found you, but someone like Tomura. Or All For One. You know if you’d been given somewhere to sleep and a warm meal, you would’ve done what they wanted.

You wish you could say you were a noble, starving person, that there was something shining and golden inside of you. But all you were was starving.

Shouta says you’ve been underperforming lately. He says he’s considering limiting the nights you patrol until you can get it together.

The Hero Commission was supposed to come observe you to see if you’d progressed enough to begin accepting your own missions. He tells you he doesn’t think they should come any longer. It feels like a dig, too, like he’s reprimanding you somehow.

And you snap, “Well maybe I didn’t want them to observe me!”

He looks taken aback for a moment, before he asks, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know! Maybe I’m tired of being observed and used and watching all of these kids be observed and sought after and–”

“Alright,” Shouta sighs, and it makes your teeth grit because he sounds like he’s trying to parent you, “It’s one thing to be upset yourself, but I don’t see how this has anything to do with these kids.”

Your nails dig into your palms as you try to find the words to get him to understand you.

But he speaks before you can, almost patronizingly, “Clearly, you’re struggling through something, so it’s probably a good thing we’ve put this off.”

Tears well up hard and fast. It hurts to be dismissed like this. It hurts to look at him, to think that he’s a part of the ever growing issue that has been itching beneath your skin. You’re a part of it, too, but you have the sudden urge to run. To get out.

Still, you swallow down all of that turmoil and say, “I hardly know what I want now, so how do you expect children to know that they want to be a hero?”

“What is this about?” Shouta asks.

“It’s about the Hero Commission and U.A. and the entire fucking system. That’s what it’s about.” you seethe, looking up into his eyes, trying to find something there.

“It’s not just about you?” he asks, unperturbed.

“Why can’t it be both?” you respond, trying to keep your voice from going high, from going hysterical. There’s so much you want to say, so much that it’s making you sick, that it’s turning your stomach. “I’m– I’m barely older than them!” you say, because all you keep thinking about is how they’re just kids. And you were just a kid. And at one point, Tomura was just a kid.

He’s barely older than you. Closer in age to Shouta’s students than to him.

“I didn’t invent the system,” Shouta says and he sounds weary, “I just try to give my students the best opportunity at surviving being a hero. I try to teach them everything to keep them alive.”

They’re just kids! You want to shriek, kids that were chosen or forgotten or accepted or shunned.

Looking in the face of the system now feels so massive that it’s hopeless; a system that produces shiny heroes from children with their perfect and acceptable Quirks and discards the rest. Even you and Shouta, with your Quirks that aren’t as flashy, are pushed into the shadows to do the Hero Commissions business. And what business is that? You have to wonder their intentions, too, with all the money that’s pumped into it. Into all of these heroes. A system that forgets anyone who doesn’t fit into it’s perfect mold.

“But you see how it’s wrong, right? And just because you didn’t invent the system doesn’t mean you get to throw your hands up!” You say, voice raising.

Shouta levels you with a cool look. He lets loose a sigh. “What would you like me to do?”

You don’t have an answer, it’s too big of a question.

(You see the appeal suddenly, in wanting to get rid of it all, in destroying it since it’s such a mess.)

But you hate his aloofness, you hate that he doesn’t care. You hate that you feel crazy.

“I don’t know!” you shout, tears finally falling down your angry and flushed face. “I don’t know!”

“Are you done?” Shouta asks and it makes you want to scream more. You just want a reaction from him, you realize, you want something more than his impassiveness. You think of trying to shout more, to try and say something cutting or powerful or enough to make him wince.

But nothing comes to mind and you’re just stubbornly trying to keep back a sob.

So you shoulder past him, rush out of his apartment, rubbing at your cheeks and trying to keep back your hiccuping cries.

You have every intention of going to Tomura’s.

But you realize when you’ve nearly made it to his door that it might be foolish to go to someone like Tomura with tears in your eyes. What is the leader of the League of Villains going to do? You have a feeling you might just get your feelings hurt more.

So you pause, rub at your eyes again, try to dispel all the turmoil inside you. It doesn’t work, so you turn away from him, too, and you start moving.

Your feet carry you to the train station, carry you across town, to a warehouse you used to vandalize and hide in when you were young and alone.

You haven’t been here in years.

It feels strange, loping around the side of the building. The alleyways are cast in garnet light with the fading sun. It makes it look prettier than it is. You enter through the same hole in the wall that you used to when you were young; you’re bigger now, though, need to duck lower, curl yourself up to get through it.

You think of yourself scurrying around, knowing the ins and outs of this dilapidated building the way most children know their childhood home.

It’s strange, stepping back into a place you haven’t been to in years. You know, in some way, it has to have changed. It’s falling apart more, there’s larger holes in the ceiling, letting in auburn light, setting everything ablaze. There’s a lot of debris; from torn tents to discarded sleeping bags to spare junk, it’s all spread out throughout the place. Graffiti covers every corner of the walls. You used to look for a face painted in pink, it’s eyes dripping down it’s face in the back corner of a wall. When your eyes slide along all the artwork, it’s nowhere to be found now. No doubt covered up by the years, but you know it’s there, somewhere beneath all that color and paint.

There are a lot of empty bottles, glass laying around that crunches beneath your shoe.

You pick up a glass by the spout, watch as it catches in the light, murky gold and sunkissed.

You feel small again, fragile like the bottle in your hand. You stopped crying at least, but all that’s left is the aftertaste. Just the lingering frustration, the bitter aloneness that settles over you as cold as Shouta’s stare.

Your fingers squeeze around the glass, curling tight, before you suddenly hurl it at the wall.

It bursts on impact, explodes into thousands of shining, glittering pieces that spark in the sun.

It feels good, so you pick up another glass– this one’s mint green, pretty like the sea, reminds you of spring and the stems of flowers.

It breaks prettily, too, the sound ringing and sharp in your ears, your eyes trying to catch all the splinters of it. It explodes in the light. It’s cathartic, letting all your aching frustration and hurt rush out with each breaking, with each smashing.

You don’t get through many more, not before you hear footsteps behind you.

You can’t say you’re surprised to find Tomura, but you can’t say you were expecting it either. Quickly, you turn away, try to school your features. You try to rub at your eyes again, as if this will somehow dispel damp lashes and splotchy cheeks.

“Are you stalking me?” you ask, but there’s no bite to it as he comes to stand beside you.

He doesn’t answer.

You think he might be, but you can’t find it in you to care.

The sound of the distant city is just a hum between you two. Glass sparkles on the floor like stars in the fading, ruby light.

You turn to face him, don’t bother trying to look up into his face, just shove yourself into his chest. You bury your face into his hoodie, rubbing your cheek against his chest. “Creep,” you mumble, “What are you doing here?”

His hands come up, one at the back of your head, the other along your back. He has his gloves on. Not that it matters.

“I followed you from the apartment,” he admits and his voice is quiet, but it seems to echo in this open space. Then he says, “You should be more watchful.”

“Don’t start,” you grumble, letting your fingers curl in his jacket, “Been scolded enough today.”

The hand at the back of your head tugs at your hair lightly, lifting your head from its hiding place against his chest so that he can look you over carefully.

The light casts him in maroon and russet, saturating him, making the dark of him stand out sharply. It makes the silver of his hair seem peach, brands him in all the sun’s honey and whiskey glory.

His eyes are vivid, maybe the most true shade of red you’ve ever seen in your life.

He takes in your face, perhaps your bloodshot eyes, your damp lashes. You aren’t a fool; you’re certain he can tell you’ve been crying. You have the urge to squirm away, to try and hide from his gaze.

But all he asks, in a surprisingly gentle tone, is “What happened?”

You shake your head fractionally, “Nothing. Got into an argument, that’s all.”

He hums lightly, tracking your expression. You want to glance away from him, but he holds you still for a moment longer.

When you can’t take his scrutinization any longer, you ask, “Wanna break some shit with me?”

He lets you go finally, let’s you step out of his arms despite not responding. You pick up another glass, this once an icy blue that reflects light that reminds you of the color of morning skies.

You watch as it explodes against the wall, flashing like a little firework. Glass rains down onto the ground, some of it flinging up into the air or back towards you. Tomura pulls you away from it by the back of your jacket, yanks you back into his chest as glass shards fly past you.

He glares at you somewhat and you can tell he wants to scold you, but he doesn’t. You squirm out of his grasp to do it again.

Glass showers down as you break another bottle. It rains in shards of tangerine and pale yellow, bright pops of cherry in the light. It feels good, to watch it all burst apart in the sunlight, like watching little stars burst and explode at your hands. It’s so pretty, for such a violent act.

You hand a bottle to Tomura, offering him the chance to also act out. Instead, he pulls off one of his gloves– tugs it off with his teeth, the glint of sharp white against flesh pink. You watch fascinated for a moment, catch his eyes, blazing and barbed.

When he takes it with all five fingers, you watch as it first cracks in your palm, before fluttering away into dust. Into nothing.

You make a face, “That’s not as exciting as breaking them.”

He rolls his eyes, but you catch the way the corner of his lips hike up. He takes another glass, this one icy silver, caught peach in the honey light, though. He keeps a finger lifted away delicately as he lifts it up to the beams of scarlet sun that flare through the rafters.

And in that fiery patch of dusk, with the glass reflecting iridescence onto the angular plains of his face, your heart gives a violent lurch, like it’s trying to burst free from your chest.

I think I love you, you think, unbridled, and so suddenly that it feels as if the thought has slammed into you the way a body might fall from the ledge of a roof.

I think I love you, you think again, because you can’t quite believe it, as he lobs the bottle at the wall. It fractures into a thousand little beams of glass and light, like an exploding comet. You feel as fragile as that, like he’ll do the same to you. Maybe you’ll be nothing but shards by the end of this, nothing but dust slipping through his fingers.

He turns to you, no doubt to say something snarky, but you’re already taking quick steps to him. He doesn’t get the chance to speak, not when you collide with him, hard and reckless, throwing yourself up onto your toes to kiss him with a new violence.

He makes a surprised noise, soft, but catches you otherwise. His hand is already up, worming beneath your clothes to press chilled fingers into the bare skin of your upper waist. He likes the way you hiss into his mouth, and you like the way they dig roughly into you. He forces you closer, melds his mouth to yours, rough at the edges, slick and warm at the center as the kiss blossoms into slow simmering heat.

And by the end of it all, when the light has given way to violet darkness, the press of indigo shadows that stretch tall in this abandoned warehouse, there is too much glass on the floor. Everything is shattered or decayed. Your lips are stinging from sharp-toothed kisses and the desperate press of his mouth to yours. You’ve turned molten, fallen apart the way glass does.

You walk home together, hand in seeking hand.

Your eyes flush pink with your Quirk, brightening up in the dark.

You knock into his side like you’re a kid, eagerly trailing beside him. He has the hood of his sweatshirt up, hidden, as you rush into the next train back to the part of town that holds the little, distant world of his apartment.

You sit beside each other on the train, knees pressing into each other. He leans over to crowd you against the cool glass as the world streaks past you in a wash of darkness. He ducks his face to yours, his hood hiding the both of you from any onlookers as he seers his mouth to yours again.

You feel like a teenager, kissing in front of strangers, beneath the flickering light of the train car. You feel young and reckless, letting him have you like this, while the city burns like a blurry halo behind you. But you feel older, too, older and in love, like you finally know the secret of the universe, the one that every adult knows and has only learned in the burn of a kiss, in the messy squeezing of your heart.

He licks into your mouth slow, you curl your small hand into his worn hoodie. If people stare, you don’t know, don’t care.

He pulls away from you, forcing you up when your stop is announced, leaving you a little dazed and dizzy, but you eagerly follow after him. Your hands bunch into the back of his jean jacket. You stumble behind him a little, feet tangling with his as you duck beneath his arm to come to his side.

Ryuji finds the two of you on your walk home the closer you get, follows you both inside, happily chirping at your coos. But he paws at the window to be let out again a short time later, after you’ve fed him something. Tomura opens the window for the cat, but not before you catch him rubbing a knuckle against the kitten’s fuzzy cheek, brief but gentle.

You think he likes Ryuji more than he lets on. You think he loves all this more than he lets on.

Tomura takes his time with you that night, surprisingly languid for once, like you’re not on borrowed time. Like this is an entirely new planet, a version of the two of you that is not bound by pasts and future expectations. No strings puppeteering you both, no invisible hands holding you both back.

He pulls you down into his lap, to sink onto him, fill yourself with him as you please. You twine your arms around his slender neck to pull him close, eyes half lidded and pyretic pink, fiery and soft with the way your Quirk reacts to his. It always hums somewhere inside of you, brushes against his until it quiets, until he’s soothed and relaxed.

“Do you feel powerful?” he murmurs against your lips, eyes flickering up to find yours.

The question takes you by surprise for a moment, pulling away fractionally from his parted lips. And with the way your heart squirms in your chest, looking down at him like this, you want to say no, I feel terrified and new and desperate.

But he drags nails down your back, makes you gasp and roll your hips down onto him, which startles a groan out of him. The sound of it turning your stomach in the best and worst ways, making you flush, making you squirm to try and sink lower onto him. Greedy and desperate, you wiggle your hips to make his breathing come out ragged.

It makes you realize you have one of the most dangerous villains beneath you, as desperate as you are.

You roll your hips again, slow, take what you want of him. You fist your hand in his hair, tilt his head back and watch as his eyes flutter. His cheeks are flushed.

Pretty, you think faintly.

“Yeah,” you breathe, gliding your lips along his, heart a storm in your chest to have him looking up at you like this, “I do.”

His lips tilt into a knife-sharp smile, enough to gut you.

And he lets you take what you please of him that night, and the thief that you are, you take and take and take. You steal from him with deft hands and a smile that he thinks he’d destroy the world for. You take all the love that you want from him, gorge yourself on it until you feel sick.

Until you feel as if you could rot with it, carrying your love for him in the pits of you, coveting in the safe, secret parts of you, for no one else to find.

Just you and him, like this, hand in seeking hand.

***

PART III

[lunar-wandering]

“one does not simply go clothes shopping”

so like, a week ago, @smallpwbbles drew this art of Wukong in a bathrobe and idk, something something ‘comedy brain activated’ or something like that, so here’s this fic-

-

It was a normal morning on the ship.

"Uh, where did you get that bathrobe?" Tang asked, and Wukong paused.

It had been a normal morning on the ship.

"...A closet." He eventually replied.

"Which closet?" Tang asked.

"...Would you believe me if I said it was my own?"

"No I don't think I would." Tang said, crossing his arms as Wukong continued to look more nervous by the second. "Let me change my question, why are you wearing my bathrobe?"

"Uh....."

-

An hour later, and somehow everyone was gathered in Wukong's room of the ship. Wukong himself, was currently trying to keep the others from opening the door to his closet, by physically leaning against it, arms spread out as though he was trying to hide the door with his body (very ineffectively, one might add).

He was still wearing Tang's bathrobe.

"C'mon guys, we don't have to do this." He said, a nervous smile tugging at his lips. "I assure you, there's nothing to see here- wh- HEY-"

He cut himself off with a yelp, as Sandy easily lifted him off the ground, pinning his arms to his torso so that he couldn't claw his way out of the other's grip. MK stepped around him, grabbing hold of the closet door's handle.

"Sorry, Monkey King." He said, "But the amount of protesting you've done this past hour- which, by the way, woke me up- means I kinda have to do this."

"My own successor, betraying me, I can't believe it-" Wukong dramatically wailed, kicking his legs as he tried to get out of Sandy's grip. This did nothing to stop MK, who rolled his eyes at his mentor's dramatics and swung the closet door open.

The first thing everyone noticed was Wukong's usual outfit, hung from a clothing hanger and horribly torn, damaged in a way that made it practically unwearable. (And honestly, why was he still even keeping it?)

The second thing everyone noticed was their own clothes.

"...When did you take this?" Mei asked, taking one of her jackets and holding it out to inspect it. "I don't think I ever saw you even get close to my room....."

Wukong didn't answer, whistling innocently.

Pigsy threw a spoon at him.

"Ow!" Wukong yelped as the spoon bounced off the back of his head, bouncing off and hitting the wall beside him, before ricocheting and hitting him in the forehead as well. He hissed in pain, for a moment, cringing.

"Answer the question, Monkey King." Pigsy said, crossing his arms with absolutely no guilt in his eyes, promising that spoon would not be the last should Wukong keep refusing to answer.

"I took it during the night okay?!" Wukong admitted, refusing to look the others in the eyes. "You guys should really get better locks on your doors, it was far too easy to sneak in-"

"Wait, so you rummaging through my closet in the middle of the night wasn't a dream?" MK asked.

"You saw him do this and you didn't say anything?" Tang said, incredulous.

"To be fair, I did knock him back out." Wukong said, quietly, under his breath.

"Like I said, I assumed it was a dre- wait you what?!" Clearly, Wukong had not said that as quietly as he hoped he had, as MK spun around to stare at him. "You knocked me out??"

"I admit it was not my best move." Wukong said, shrugging the best he could while still trapped in Sandy's grip. "But it was like, 3 AM and I panicked okay? You were fine anyways so-"

"Is that why you were so overly nice to me the other day? You were trying to make up for knocking me out??" MK asked, Wukong growing more sheepish with every word that left his successor's mouth.

"...Maybe?"

"Okay that's it." Mei said, making the others jump as she slammed the closet door shut. "We're going to take you clothes shopping."

"What?! No-" Wukong started-

"You don't get a say in this, Mr. Clothes Thief." Mei deadpanned.

-

Wukong stood in front of the clothing store, wearing a hoodie that was about two sizes too big for him.

(He wasn't entirely sure who he had stole it from, at some point the pile of clothes had started blending together until he couldn't tell what was from who, which would've eventually been a problem when he'd return all the stuff he'd stolen without the others noticing.

Well. That is, it would've been a problem if he had planned to give it back...).

Mei and MK stood beside him, glancing between him and the store.

"...Well?" MK asked, "Aren't you going to go in?"

"...No, actually, I think maybe I'll just keep wearing my torn up clothes-" Wukong started, moving to turn around, only for Mei and MK to loop their arms around his, preventing him from leaving.

"C'mon Monkey King, what's the big deal?" Mei asked, "It's just shopping for some new clothes, it isn't like, torture or something."

"But it's- it's just-" Wukong started, before groaning in frustration and making a series of noises that were distinctly...monkey-like. Mei looked over to MK with an expression of confusion, to which MK responded with a shrug and a gesture that clearly meant 'IDK, he just does this sometimes'.

"Look, Monkey King, you don't exactly have much of a choice here." MK said, "You can't just keep stealing our clothes, and you are definitely not going to keep wearing your torn up outfit."

"....Fine." Wukong said, slouching a little. "One hour, but after that I'm leaving, whether or not we've paid for anything."

"Monkey King you can't upgrade from casual thievery to actual thievery-"

-

"Hey, what do you think of this shirt?" Mei asked, holding up a loose fitting shirt for Wukong to inspect. Wukong looked it over, reaching out and feeling the edge of the shirt, before looking away with a non-committal shrug.

"...Fabric's nice, I guess." He mumbled, and Mei looked between him and the shirt, before placing it into the basket along with a few other shirts and pairs of pants. Most of it was soft clothing, hoodies and sweatpants, which Mei had honestly found kinda surprising, she'd thought the Monkey King would've wanted something more formal.

But then again, when she'd felt his torn up outfit, the fabric had been soft, and most of the things he'd stolen from her and the others had been soft as well, so maybe there was more of a texture thing going on here than she realized.

"I'm back!" MK said, appearing from around a rack of clothes, holding a pair of peach-patterned pyjama's. "It took forever to find a pair of these in your size, but I finally did it!"

"Great! Can we go now?" Wukong asked, perking up a little at the prospect of leaving. Mei and MK both glanced at the fairly small pile of clothes they'd gathered, and then back at Wukong's face. He looked antsy, like if he spent another minute in this store he'd start loosing it.

Neither of them particularly wanted to deal with a boredom-crazed Monkey King.

"Sure." Mei agreed, and Wukong almost immediately twirled around, picking up the basket they'd been setting clothes in and moving to go to the checkout-

And bumping into a rack of clothes, sending it crashing to the ground.

-

An hour later found the three of them leaping onto the ship, ignoring the others confusion as they ran inside and into Wukong's room, slamming the door shut behind them. Mei threw the clothes basket onto the bed, and the three of them stood there for a moment, hunched over, breathing heavily.

"...Okay." Wukong started, once he'd caught his breath. "Just to make sure we're all on the same page here. We're never going back to that store again, right?"

"Agreed." MK and Mei said, in sync, before sliding down and onto the floor, tired. Wukong, after a moment of hesitation, slid down to lay on the floor with them.

It was official, Wukong hated going clothes shopping.

[hogwartsfirebolt]

cw: wizarding war, and the violence it ensues.

The year bled.

It bled great gouts of wizards, beacons of hope shining bright red at the tip of their wands. Led them to their deaths, in the battlefront that had taken their friends and family, yet remained unsatisfied.

The year took his Hagrid, took his Ron, the year flung a sword into Harry’s survival instincts and turned them inside out — backwards, all wrong. He lived and breathed for his days on the front, inhabited the outermost trench for longer than anyone was allowed, his wand glowing green more often than red.

Voldemort’s tooth — sharp, a snake’s poisonous incisive — hung on a thread, rested against Harry’s throat, had for the better part of the season. Yet the war raged on.

There’d been a time when things had been simpler.

“Will you be resting this fortnight?” Hermione had asked him when she’d served, a few days earlier. She was at a safe-house, now, replenishing her core, drawing energy from the underground streams that pulsed with golden magic so she would be ready to return to the fight. It was was everyone did, every couple of weeks, what their warlord had ordered.

Harry’d not been to a safe-house in three months. He’d not known anything but carnage in all those days, was beginning to suspect that the inexhaustible nature of his core didn’t extend to his body, definitely didn’t extend to his mind.

“Where are they getting this strength? These numbers?” Ron had asked, the night before a Death Eater had torn his head right off his neck.

They still did not know the answer. It happened everyday, at the strike of dawn: dozens of Death Eaters arrived at the front, and it didn’t matter that Harry sliced right through their ranks like a sword, there were dozens more the next morning. And they still did not know the answer.

It was not simple. Nothing was simple.

“They must have found a way to clone their soldiers. It can be done — they have Voldemort’s knowledge on soul-splitting.” Kingsley had written, in the letter Harry had received two days earlier. “Soon enough they will press at their advantage. I trust you will know what to do. Do not fail me.”

There was no “soon enough”. The advantage was already being pressed, every waking second, on multiple fronts. Harry spent his days blocking them with his magic, with his body, and his nights fighting against their secret weapon, they one they seemed to reserve for him only — the mind games.

“They impersonate us?” Arthur had asked, when he’d brought health potions the previous week.

“They show up as you, or Molly, Gin, R-Ron. I’m not sure what they want, they seem to be trying to extract information, but not on our lines, not on our manpower. I don’t know what I have that they want.”

“Don’t trust anyone.”

The days cut him, and the nights suffocated him. He got approached by group after group of imposters, wearing a different face every night. People Harry loved and hadn't seen in months. Those ones didn't hurt as much. Not like it hurt when it was people he had loved and lost.

Arthur had told him not to trust anyone. Some nights, he didn’t even trust himself.

He was going mad, sending away whoever it was that wore Cedric’s body, that showed up in his mother’s face, that slipped into Sirius’ limbs like they would into a coat. People he trusted, people he loved, and whose memory would forever be tainted by this, in his mind.

The night Draco Malfoy showed up, Harry thought it was another mind trick. Then, he realized that it broke the pattern. He’d never trusted, never loved, never even tolerated Draco Malfoy.

But there he was. He showed up, nose bleeding, broken arm cradled against his chest, miserable, everything Harry raged against. His tears shone bright silver over his cheekbones, down his jaw, carrying magical energy, draining him.

“Please,” he said. “Please, I don’t know where else to go.”

Harry didn’t trust him, he shouldn’t help him. But he did. He mended the fractured bones, cut his own palm with a knife and gave him some of his magical energy, poured it right into his gaping mouth. Saved his life.

Malfoy stayed.

Something like guilt, if he was still capable of that, draped itself across Harry’s shoulders as he fed him their food, let him drink from their goblets, gave him their healing potions.

He didn’t trust him. He didn’t trust himself.

Malfoy talked, at least, which was useful.

“Portraits.” He coughed, shivery from the core-loss. “They all have hundreds of them, their magical energy split. Not their souls, that’s not sustainable, it’s their magical energy. And they take them out, give them life. There’s an energy source, and an ancient spell, a rune ... I wasn’t told, but I saw, she performed it in front of me. Please, I’ll tell you. I ran. I need your help.”

Harry didn’t need to ask who she was.

“I can fight. I can help. Please. Please, they killed my mother.”

And there were the tears again, but crystal clear, no longer carrying Malfoy’s power. Harry had successfully stopped the drainage.

“I shouldn’t.”

“Please. Write to your general, I’ll say anything, I hate her.”

There had been a time in which Malfoy’s desperation would have made him feel at an advantage, would have made him laugh, prod at the wound. But that time was long gone, desperation was the only thing he knew now, as well, and there was no winning. It was a winless fight. Malfoy was too human, too scared, not an instrument of war.

“No. We don’t know he’s telling the truth, I forbid you from sheltering him.” Kingsley’s letter said.

There’d been a time when things had been simpler.

But the war raged, the weeks blended into each other, and the pain, renewed as it was every single day, numbed him.

Harry was human. Harry was scared. Harry was an instrument of war.

He sheltered him anyway.

“One wrong move, and you’re out. You have one chance.”

Malfoy nodded, weeping right there in the trench, in his blood-stained clothes. Harry couldn’t afford to distrust him, was too busy staying alive.

And Malfoy did not fail him. In the morning light, dozens of Death Eaters Harry had killed a million times marched into the battlefield, and Malfoy fought next to him. Harry’d not had anyone watch his back in months, and it made for a nice change.

At night, they fended off the imposters, and Harry fed him his own magical energy, watched him grow stronger with it. His core was inexhaustible, he knew. He didn’t have to send Malfoy away to regain strength, he gave it to him, every single night.

It was forbidden, but it was also the only thing that seemed right in the vortex of destruction he’d been living in.

“She keeps an artifact at the Manor. It looks like a prophecy, is kept under lock and key inside her chambers. I saw it, she made me clean it once. I think it’s the source of all this. I think if you destroy it, this will be over.” Malfoy said, three weeks after they’d been fighting side by side. He looked stronger, energized, and if Harry closed his eyes, he could feel his own magic inside Draco’s corestream, like an extension of himself.

“How?”

He felt Draco prodding back, felt him extending his energy so it circled back to Harry, so it flowed freely between them.

“There’s no time to look. Burn down the manor.”

The discovery that they could access each other’s magic should have been monumental, yet felt like nothing at all. They’d known, they’d experienced it every night for weeks. An intimacy unlike any other, between enemies, between allies.

“I thought I forbid you from taking him in.” Kingsley’s letter said, when Harry proposed the idea. It didn’t feel like a reprimand. It felt like a father, telling a child off for keeping a stray kitten. “I have sent reinforcements to the front, come to headquarters. Both of you. We’re burning the house this week.”

The plan was to march off to Malfoy Manor the morning after they arrived at headquarters. Instead, they slept for three days straight.

They were in different rooms, but Harry only had to close his eyes to trace his energy back to Draco, and it soothed him.

They’d been enemies. They were human, they were scared. Now, they were allies. Now, they were one, more than they were two.

“I think we can read each other’s minds.” Malfoy said when they woke up, except he wasn’t anywhere in the room. The voice had come from Harry’s head.

“So it seems.”

They found each other in the kitchen, had breakfast, made vague conversation, not a single word spoken out loud.

“Is the war ending?”

“Once they stop multiplying like crazy, we can beat them, and stop fighting. Live our lives, maybe. But I don’t think the war will ever end, Draco.”

He wanted to explain that he felt like he would carry it forever, but he didn’t have to. In the space between thinking it and wanting to communicate it, he already had.

“I know.”

For the first time in months, when Harry searched inside himself, he didn’t feel empty. There was energy, magic, there was someone else with him, in the space that had existed between his anger and his grief.

“Also, I can do wandless now," Draco added.

“Yeah, that’s on me.”

“Do you think this means we are …?”

“Yeah.”

They showered.

After, they apparated to Malfoy Manor, didn’t even have to touch to do it together, the crack of the spell going off in unison, turning heads once they arrived. The entire Order was there, and, in front of them, the house aflame.

The Manor bled. It bled tendrils of black magic that dissipated into thin air, screamed, called to the tooth hanging at Harry’s neck. He wrapped his fingers around it and held it tight — his trophy, his burden.

All that was left of the enemy army were twenty wizards that scuttled out of the blazing house like fleeing rats. She wasn’t amongst them. Somehow, Harry knew she’d died trying to protect her energy source. He knew that he would have, and soldiers weren't so different.

He and Draco took care of the survivors, both their powers pulled into a single explosion of green.

“Wow.” Hermione said, standing next to Harry.

“We think it’s over.”

“You two are …”

“Yeah.”

“Permanently.”

“Yeah.”

“You know that’s forbidden.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

The year had bled, had been an open wound. Then it had been cleaned and stitched, messily, but closed. It ached. It bore the name of the friend Harry had loved the most, his other half. It would never go away, it would scar.

But it was healing.

Harry reached out with his magic, and felt Draco meet him halfway.

-

Written for @drarrymicrofic prompt "forbidden"

[bloodstainsontengensfloor]

Mai Zenin x Fem!Civilian Reader:

A snapshot before it’s too late

Warning: spoilers for 149!

TW: light reference to suicide

::readmore:: Flash!

Mai crinkled her nose, placing a hand on her hip as your Polaroid barfed up the film. “What was that for?” She asked, a light blush scattered across her face as she watched you take the film out and place it on the table in front of you. You and Mai had gone out for Boba on the shoreline, and the sunset was just... perfect right behind Mai. You couldn’t help yourself.

“Sh! You have to wait for it to form-“

“If you shake it I’ll be faster-“

You slapped Mai’s hand away. “No! That makes it worse-“

“No it doesn’t-“

“Mai-chan, just look and wait-“

“Y/N! I don’t have the patience-“

“Look!” You said, proudly and carefully picking up the Polaroid picture to show Mai. You weren’t oblivious to her obvious embarrassment, but... with the sunset behind her and the natural beauty that was her, you really couldn’t help yourself. Mai didn’t seem entirely impressed, and it was just a Polaroid, it wasn’t something to be absolutely amazed by.

“Humph, I don’t even know why you made that.”

“Because some moments are so beautiful, you just can’t stop yourself from capturing them.” You said, without missing a beat and without really thinking. After realizing what you said (and how totally cheesy it was), you blushed, mumbling some apology and ramble about how the sun looked pretty with her silhouette. You nervously took a sip of your Boba-

Flash!

Your eyes were wide as your vision focused again. “Huh-“ You asked, blinking rapidly a few times. Mai just smirked, your Polaroid in hand. She lightly began to wave the film that was just vomited out of the top of the camera.

“What?” Mai said, feigning innocence. “Some moments are just too beautiful that you just want to capture them.”

-

-

-

-

-

You didn’t expect not seeing Mai after October.

You didn’t expect her sister, burn marks scattered around her body, to come to your house. You never even met her sister before, but now you did, and you were scared. You knew what Mai did was dangerous and you woke up one morning in a cold sweat, unaware why. Before you shot up in your bed, you swore you heard seagulls or the lulling sound of the waves....

“I don’t really know how you knew my sister.” Maki said after a while. She sounded as alive as she looked. Her voice was dry, almost monotone. She was a lot bigger than Mai physically. You thought focusing on the differences between the twins would be easier than focusing on the similarities. You knew why she was here. You knew what happened. It was one of those things you would know. The way you felt off the past few days, like something was missing from your world. “Anyway,” Maki shifted the sword in her grip. She placed it on the table that sat between the two of you. “This is the last thing Mai gave me.” You felt a lump grow in your throat. “The last thing she ever gave anyone.”

She couldn’t even say the words that would finalize it. Mai was dead. You felt your finger nails dig into your palms as you avoided eye contact. It might have been a terrible thing to say, but it was a blessing that was Maki was so damaged that she barley looked like Mai anymore. Well accept for the hair... and if you looked closely enough you could see... You swallowed the lump in your throat, and tried to settle your breathing. You wouldn’t cry in front of Maki, Mai wouldn’t have wanted that. Mai always described Maki as stronger and as braver and as brasher and-

“So.... yea.” Maki awkwardly added, fiddling with the sword in hand. The last thing Mai created was a weapon of destruction... that was so dramatic... just like her...

Maki kept on rambling, and despite yourself, your mind wandered. Mai sacrificed herself, she did something heroic. You knew Mai, she wasn’t heroic. She was selfish and prideful and obnoxious and a total bitch almost all the time. But at the same time she was funny, caring, and someone so full of love that was never taught how to give. Sometimes you would catch Mai staring at the ocean when you guys would go to the beach, and there would be something so dead in her face. Sometimes you would notice the way Mai cut things off when she spoke about the jujutsu world. The anger, sadness, and despair in her words...

A dark thought crossed your mind that you quickly shuddered away. It could be true but right now, you didn’t have the stability to worry about it. “She left.” You said, cutting of whatever Maki was saying. “She left us both.” Maki stared at you for a little. Her expressions were even harder to read than Mai’s. “But I’m okay with that... if that makes sense. I just wish that-“ The breath got caught in your throat. You closed your eyes and took a quick, shaking, breath. You wouldn’t cry, not yet at least. Or maybe even at all. Mai hated seeing you cry and you could almost hear her mocking voice.

“Aww don’t flatter me too much by crying over my death! What happened to trying to keep my ego down?”

Despite yourself, you smiled, letting out a wet chuckle. Maki raised a brow but said nothing. “I just wish that she got to say goodbye.” You added. Maki didn’t respond.

After a few moments of silence, Maki asked, “was she happy?”. You looked up from your own pity party and saw the tears that were gathering in the corner of Maki’s eye. Maki was half of a person now, and no matter how much shit Mai might have told you about her, you knew they loved each other more than anything in this world.

But her question got you thinking. Was Mai happy? She hated being a shaman, she didn’t want to be one at all. That’s why she was always with you because with you, she could pretend to be normal. Pretend like she was just a delinquent friend coming over, and not a shaman who wanted to play a different role. But Mai’s eyes always lit up or softened when she talked about her friends. The way she teared up when she explained the time Utahime-Sensei let her stay with her over the Winter Break because Mai didn’t want to go back to the Zenin complex without Maki. The way she complained about Todo but the light tone in her annoyed voice told you that she enjoyed his company. The way she held Nishimiya in such high regard that you always felt a little bit of jealously burn in your stomach. The way she admired Miwa for being apart of the world but still was able to smile and have fun, how nothing could break her stride. The way she would tease Kamo in her descriptions of him but admitted that he was one of the people who she related to the most. “I just wish he didn’t have such a large stick stuck up his ass”, she had said. The way she explained Mechamaru’s crush on Miwa and how the two should just suck it up and go on a date because she couldn’t stand watching them run circles around one another anymore.

The way she smiled when she was with you. The way she looked... free whenever you guys went on your mini adventures. The way she softly would kiss your lips or the way she snuggled into your shoulder. It was so tender and so normal and so sweet it seemed so out of character for Mai. But what she had with you was one of the things she wanted but never had before.

“Y-yes.” You said, annoyed that another lump had grown in your throat. “I-I think she was.” Maki let out what seemed like a sigh of relief. She hastily wiped away the tears that had gathered in her eye before standing up, confident, powerful, and intimidating as ever. You hated how much she looked like Mai then. Because now she was playing a part she didn’t want to play and she was feeling a pain she couldn’t understand.

“Well, that’s good then.” She said, pulling something out of her pocket and handing it to you. You lightly gasped as you realized it was the Polaroid Mai had teasingly took of you, and that it was stained with some blood. “This was on Mai’s b- when she di- when she left.” Maki looked at the clock on the far side of the room. “Well... I should be going now.”

“Thank you, Maki-San.” You said, holding the Polaroid a little bit closer. Maki grunted in acknowledgment before leaving. And that’s when you let the dam break.

What? Did you think you wouldn’t be in my final thoughts or something?

You sobbed, your throat burned as you held the Polaroid close to your chest. Your parents weren’t home so you could have screamed if you wanted to, but with what was happening all over Japan, you knew it was better not to. You held a bloody memory of Mai, a bloody memory of the two of you together. You couldn’t even remember the last thing you said to Mai and Vice versa and that was even worse. You stumbled up your stairs and threw the door open to your bedroom, your body feeling weak. You ripped down the Polaroid photo of Mai from that dumb beautiful day on the shoreline and sobbed. Something was missing for the past few days and now you knew what it was. No more teasing smiles, no more taunts, no more kisses, no more late night adventures, no more unexpected sleepovers, no more nothing. Because Mai was nothing but a fucking sword now.

Well, I think I’m a pretty hot sword but-

“I hope we meet again. I don’t know what happens or where we go after we die, but I hope we meet again. If we meet in some afterlife, I hope it’s a good one. I hope it’s happy. And if it’s rebirth, I hope you aren’t a shaman. I hope your family loves you. I hope you and your sister get to be real sisters and not be torn apart by the world of a Shaman. I hope we meet at school or some Starbucks or something, and we do this all over again, but it ends better. It won’t end like this.

And if we just become nothing after we die, I hope i become nothing with you, right by your side. And if we return to the stars whose dust we were made from, I hope our stars are right next to one another, and I hope yours shines brighter than you did in this life.

I wish you the best, Zenin Mai.”

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Yea I’ve been dead for a bit, still not over her death so uhm... here. Enjoy. Or cry. Or both’