way-too-addicted-to-anime

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

I don't like tangerines or Mandarin oranges but I'd eat them if Sanji was feeding them to me.

Thinking about an excited Sanji leading you around a sparsely populated market to try foods before going back to the ship. The bustling crowd is overstimulating, but the array of colourful fruits, vegetables, grains, and produce is worth it to see the lights of passion flicker behind his eyes.

Not before long, he's speaking intensely about different citrus with a food vendor about flavour profiles: sour, sweet, bitter, umami, savoury, everything while he's peeling back the peel and pith with his skilled fingers. The vendor is more than happy to talk with him, which then only halts as Beri is paid and his fingers find your lips.

"Whole thing in one go, trust me," Sanji beamed, urging you to open your lips for him. Once you let him, he's praising you first, "There you go. That's a good pirate," with a wink to follow. All teasing, all friendly, and all affectionately as he shared his world with you.

Biting down on the flesh, the bursts of flavours ripple over your palate and suck your cheeks into your mouth. Sour at first, only to be overshadowed by a crippling sweetness that tugs a moan straight from your diaphragm. Juice trickles from your lips, only to be collected by the pad of Sanji's thumb and placed into his own mouth.

"Don't let it go to waste," he chastises you, scrunching his nose while he's already fetching another slice, "But it's good, right? I could make so much with this: but I think I'm going to go with a mousse or frosting for a citrus and chocolate friand."

Then, he's already taking you by the hand to another shop, not giving you time to process the fact that he's feeding you and sharing tastes with the overflow from your own lips. But that twinkle in his eye halts you from saying anything to stamp out his ignition of passion. For now, you just allow him to lead you and give you the next taste of colourful adventure.

@loganwritesprobably writing a drabble specifically for you because of your love for tangerines, mandarines, and anything with that sour tang.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

I think my favorite moment in all of solo leveling is where when Jinwoo is fighting Igris for the first time, and realizes his dagger isn't doing anything so he puts it away and Igris is just like "Oh we doing straight hands?" Drops his buster sword and cape and just smacks Jinwoo into a wall.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

I genuinely don't remember if I've reblogged this or not, but I remember reading it before so if I didn't I'm sorry and I'm reblogging it now! This is wonderful, and it feels strange to call it sweet considering the content but it really is.

distribution system

paring: cat hybrid kageyama tobio x fem reader

warnings: dub-con, smut, hybrid au, stray hybrid kageyama, social discrimination, power imbalance, domestic life, kageyama with his platinum face card, kageyama has a tail

word count: 4.2k

english is not my first language. please excuse any mistakes. thank you for reading!

Being a stray hybrid was exhausting. Tobio thought as he wandered around a new neighborhood trying to find food after every house in the last one shooed him away.

Being a stray hybrid was exhausting. Being a bone-thin, dirty black cat hybrid was worse. 

He looked ghastly—hair long to his chest, cheeks all sunken, and without a smile on his face, Tobio looked unapproachable. Some people said he might have rabies, warning their own hybrids to stay away; he was scared of that, too, but only because he didn’t know what it actually was, just that it was fatal and humans hated it. 

Did he have rabies? He felt fine though. Tobio thought as he put his hand through the narrow opening of a trash can that was likely to have some food waste in there. After some time rummaging through, he grabbed onto a bottle; it was milk. When he shook it softly and felt some milk left inside, Tobio got his dinner. 

“You shouldn’t drink that. You will get sick.” 

A voice interrupted when he was almost done with the meal. It was a human woman in very nice clothing, the kind he saw humans in the office area wear. His previous owner also wore something like this, the male one, the one who hit him when he was drunk and angry at his wife. The wife was his favorite of the two, always patted him gently on the head and gave him nice things—snacks, toys, letting him watch TV and play with a round leather ball in their small backyard. But when he knocked over some of the flower pots, the husband forbade him from touching the ball again. 

The wife disappeared one day, so Tobio ran away. 

“Here.” The human took something out of her shoulder bag and handed it to him. “Take this.”

It was an unopened, brand new milk bottle, looking exactly the same as the one he was holding. Too late, Tobio drank all of it, spoiled as it was, it filled his belly for the night. Together with the milk, Tobio saw a banana. He wanted that.

“Sorry, this is all I have.” 

It was funny thinking back to the first time he saw you, that it was the guilt in your voice that made Tobio carefully look past his long hair at you again. Being closer in order to take the food from your hand and seeing things clearer than before, he had never seen anyone so concerned about how they didn’t have more food to give away, concerned about him. And because being a stray hybrid was exhausting, Tobio really wanted a home. 

He finally succeeded that night. He found one, after roaming around for many years…

— 

High up on a building, that was your place. It wasn’t big, but Tobio didn’t mind. He was just happy to be warm and have a roof over his head. 

Your bathroom had a tub, small but deep, he could only fit in there if he sat with his knees up. He did that while he let you wash him, at a loss on how to adjust the water temperature and not knowing which was the shampoo and which was for the body cleaning. So he just sat there in silence, not even turning the water on so he didn’t cause any problems, till you knocked and asked if he needed help. 

Your hands were smooth, slathering the body wash over his back and chest while he watched you, his now-clean hair tied up with a big claw clip. Having his field of vision expanded made Tobio feel exposed, but it was not totally a bad feeling, just a bit foreign after many years of having it down to hide his face.

“You wash,” you pointed down to his crotch, “down there by yourself, okay?”

Tobio nodded, didn’t mind. He understood you didn’t want to touch him there, you probably didn’t want to touch him anywhere, only doing it out of necessity because he was such an incompetent cat who didn’t know how to use a human's shower. He used to know, he just forgot. Tobio hoped you were not mad. 

—

It was the next day when you took him to the hybrid clinic for a check-up. He was healthy, needed to put on some weight, yes, but fine nonetheless. The doctor said the hybrid was in his early 20s and prescribed some vitamins, and just like that, the visit ended. Before you left, one of the staff suggested you buy a collar. 

“Is it necessary?” you asked before looking around the waiting area and saw that every hybrid wore one. “Okay.” 

You bought one in a random color after trying to let the feline hybrid choose and he just stared at you. He was tall, hovering over most people in the clinic. You had to tell him to crouch down so you could put the newly purchased collar on his neck. It was blue, cartoon printed. This was why making rational decisions was important. 

Next stop was the haircut. This time you handed him a magazine and tried again by letting him pick a style for himself; however, he just pointed at the first model he saw. Nothing was wrong with a mohawk, and you would have believed it was a thought-through decision if he had turned the pages of the magazine a little and at least pretended to contemplate. He did neither. 

Same with the breakfast that morning, you asked if he wanted blueberry or strawberry jam on his toast, he answered with a nod. When asked again, he pointed at the jar closest to his hand and didn’t finish the toast.

The stray you brought home—Tobio—definitely understood human language and was not mute since he was the one whispering his name to you when you asked what he was called. For some reason, he just did not make decisions. And… he hated strawberry jam.

So you rectified that, selecting two most popular styles and let him choose again. But before he could point, you said, “This is your hair, Tobio. Yours. You can choose how you want your own hair to look.” 

He listened and blinked. And for the first time in twenty hours, Tobio took his time deciding between things. He picked the style that would get his bangs cut very short, and if his swishing tail was anything to go by, he seemed to like the end result very much. Despite his head looking like a coconut with a wig on, he still looked good, all because of his face. 

The man was strikingly handsome. Without all the matted hair masking his face, his features were bare to the beholder’s eye. Dark blue eyes, sharp jawline, small perky nose, and lips—though chapped and dry—were baby pink. He was a sight for sore eyes. 

Clothes, toiletries, and extra groceries that included cat food and snacks he admitted to liking were all carried by him. It was a long walk from place to place and from the train station to yours, but Tobio didn’t allow you to take any bag out of his hands. 

It was already dark when you entered your apartment. You unpacked the groceries and officially taught him how to use the shower, learning that he was illiterate when he asked if he remembered correctly which bottle was the shampoo and which was the conditioner. He got them mixed up but was right on the body wash because it was a different brand with a different label. 

What you did was point out the difference in the words written on the bottles, but the easiest way you could think of was to place them in fixed positions, so you did just that, temporarily resolving the problem.

“Shampoo on your left, conditioner on your right,” you told him, pointing at each respectively. “But don’t wash your hair today, that would be a waste of the products the salon put on it. Unless it—stinks?”

Tobio, who was sitting on the rim of the tub, touched his hair, trying to pull it to his nose for a sniff, but it was too short. Suddenly, he turned to look at you, expectation clear in his eyes.

“You smell for me.” he bowed his head and waited. 

“Oh, no need.” You waved your hands no. “Should be okay.” 

You were not going to do it, but his head stayed down and showed no sign of coming back up. Not wanting to disappoint him, you stooped down for a quick sniff. The tip of your nose brushed against his freshly cut hair, it was soft and silky now, no trace of yesterday's dirt and grime. And it smelled so good you could have died. 

Tobio breathed out a low purr before he looked up at you again, his pupils dilated. “How was it?”

“Nice,” you replied. “No need to wash it.” 

“Okay.” His voice was small, faint. 

Out of the bathroom, you prepared dinner for two and arranged a sleeping spot at the couch in the living room as you did the night before. Your apartment was a one-bedroom, so even if you wanted him to sleep somewhere nicer, you didn’t have a better option. 

You didn’t expect to see him lying on the cold, hard floor the next morning, sleeping in the fetal position and hugging himself, pillow and blanket left on the couch. 

“Why were you on the floor?” you asked that same morning while teaching him how to make basic breakfast—a bowl of cereal for you and two slices of toast for himself, this time topped with blueberry jam. He ended up asking for more with a growling belly and round blue eyes, piercing through your heart like a sharp stalactite falling down on tender meat. The damage was so severe that you had to tell him not to seek permission for food again; it was all his to have. 

“My legs are too long.” answered Tobio. “They went over the couch arm—hurt.” 

And the cushions were probably too small for him to sleep with legs folded. Decision instantly made, you let him sleep with you on the bed from then on.

—

It was nice not having to go about people’s houses searching for food and sleep at the train station when it rained. Tobio looked out the bedroom window, sitting on the floor with his head under the curtains, his tail flicking slowly as he watched the wet street below and couldn’t help but feel grateful for the human sleeping on the bed. 

It had been one hundred and twenty two days since he had been here. 

The bed was springy; it rocked a little when he climbed back on no matter how careful he tried to be, making you stir but overall still pretty much in your deep slumber. He settled on his side, laying his head on the same pillow as you. If he were to pull you to his chest, no one would see you again. Tobio was so big now with a tremendous amount of food consumed daily. 

So much money was spent on him just to put skin, fat, and muscles on his bones, and you never once complained about the increasing expenses. He knew numbers now, and he saw them on the bills each time and noticed that you spent less on yourself. You had never gotten the blouse you said you wanted, and you ate half sometimes just to keep the leftover for the next day. He wished he could do more than just helping around with the household chores. 

“Thank you,” whispered Tobio.

He wanted so much to cuddle up to you, sink his little fangs into your skin, and touch you in the way that would get him cute noises as a reward. He liked being close to you, finding himself awake nose to nose with you more often than not and using the time before you woke to count your eyelashes. You didn’t like any of that, always pushing yourself away and hurrying up to get off the bed. 

Pouting, pouting, all he did when that happened was pout. But in his sleep, instinct took over nevertheless, he would find himself clinging to you anyway come morning, and he would pout, pout and pout…

—

This was why you never considered adopting a hybrid before you found Tobio that night. You didn’t want to feel like a scum excuse of a human being, getting so wet that you heard the squelching sound when Tobio pumped his fingers in and out of you, deep, nudging your front wall now and again, making you squirm. 

You know what many hybrids were adopted and bought for, and you didn’t want to be one of those using them for sexual pleasure, letting him help around the house was bad enough. He didn’t ask to be here, you offered. What he was doing now might just mean he got the wrong idea about what he was here for. 

“Tobio, no.” 

“I’m so hard. It hurts.” 

He propped himself up on one of his elbows, pouting while he watched his hand’s movement under your pajama shorts. “Please help.” 

“Tobio, we need to talk.”

There was no talk, Tobio flipped you to lie flat on his body, his hands tugging your shorts and underwear down before doing the same with his. When your bare core touched his, the cat hybrid moaned loudly and rubbed you frantically against his cock. 

It had never come this far, small touches here and there but never this. 

“I—don’t want—,” you gasped, “to use you.”

“Please use me. Please use me. Use me.” He pouted more, tears welling in his eyes. 

Damn those eyes to hell though you were certain Tobio himself belonged in heaven. It was these same orbs that had you ask if he wanted to come home with you, earning yourself the sweetest companion one could ever ask for. 

Coming home to see the apartment cleaned, plants watered, laundry done, nothing was left to be done but dinner because he was scared he would burn the kitchen down because there was fire involved. He was getting better at it now, you feared cooking for you might be next in his plan. Power imbalance hung in the air, but Tobio had no clue. 

“You’re not here for this.” You tried to say, turning away from his lips that grazed all over your face, trying to get to your mouth. “You are my friend.” 

“I’m yours.” 

“My—friend.” 

“Umm, yours.” he purred, so cat-like. “You own me.” 

Why did he only listen to what he wanted to hear? Not just yours, but your friend, that was what you were trying to convey. 

“You are not a thing to be owned.” 

For some reason, his eyes darkened. “Don’t be too good to me.” 

Next thing you knew, you were on all fours, ass up, face down, hands in his grip behind your back. His hot shaft spread your wetness to your clit before fooling around with your entrance. 

“Don’t—”

“Must be warm in there. Wetter, too.” the hybrid whined, claws sharpened, penetrating the skin of your hands. “Please let me get in, please please.” 

“Tobio, don’t be bad.” That was the first time you reprimanded him, and you felt him freeze. “You’re not a thing to be used, you hear me?” 

“But I’m a pet, your pet.”

“You’re not just an animal to me.” 

“But that’s what I am.” 

“You’re half human.” 

“You don’t understand.” His mouth was next to your ear when he said it. “I am more animal than human, all hybrids are.”

Following his statement was the tip of his cock threatening to push in, you had to cry out his name again to stop the deed. 

“Please. Just one dip,” he begged. “One dip and out.” 

He was so stubborn, you had never seen this side of him before, literally nonplussed as to how to handle the persistence, the negotiation, and his pitiful cries. He had never been like this, even when you told him his favorite milk was out of stock, all he did was nod and say he was happy with whatever you had. 

“Just once.” You choked out the words. “Only one dip and you’re out. You let me go, okay?” 

You made a deal. 

“Okay.” 

The head was not the problem, the thick body and base were, stretching you to the point of pain. You heard a low growl rumble in his chest as he went deep to the hilt and lingered there. 

“Thank you for taking care of me,” he said, tremblingly. “Please don’t be mad.”

You couldn’t imagine being mad at Tobio, not even when he didn’t keep his word, pulling himself out and slamming back into you. Again and again he went, pulling at your wrists with each thrust for leverage. Your upper body was lifted from the bed from how hard he pulled, head lolling from side to side. 

“Please don’t put me back on the streets.” He bottomed out with a cry. “Keep me, keep me.” 

The wanton scream you let out was embarrassing, your pussy throbbed and clenched around his cock as he pounded on the right spot. And Tobio was a quick learner, he hammered down on it repeatedly, fucking you into the mattress until you came with a shudder, eyes rolled to the back of your head; you were glad he didn’t have to see that from where he was.

He shot out a lot of cum when he came, filling you up to the brim. One dip and out? Sure. The thing was, you weren't even mad at him. His clear blueberry eyes trained on you after he rolled you onto your back, tilting his head to one side before he bent down to give a kitten lick at your mouth. 

No, you weren’t mad at Tobio, you were mad at yourself for giving in. 

—

The leather ball he used to play with was for a sport called volleyball. Tobio saw it on TV one day and immediately pointed at it with excitement. So being a good owner as you were—allowing him to fuck and hold you close after each night, albeit not without some begging and whining first—you took him out to an open gym to play with other hybrids. 

Him having to wear a collar when going out bothered you, and when it strained his neck while he was out on the court looking up at the ball, you told him to take it off. 

“Why?” Tobio asked. Every hybrid in the gym had it on, he didn’t want to be different. 

“It’s too tight on your neck.” 

“It’s fine.” 

A round of laughter erupted from the nearby court when a rabbit hybrid fell on her face trying to get the ball. It was from the humans who sat and watched the play, one in particular seemed concerned—perhaps her owner—seeing as he stood up and told her to get back on her feet. 

“You just don’t get it.” you shook your head feebly and walked out the court back to your seat which was just a chair situated not far off the sideline. But as an afterthought, you turned around and said, “Just loosen it a bit, yeah?” 

“Okay.” 

You seemed to dislike the idea of him being an animal, but at the end of the day, he was. He loved watching birds from the window and making noises at them. He loved sleeping, and when he woke, after exerting himself with the chores until the energy ran out, it was nice to curl up on the couch for a nap. 

It was not him who didn’t get it, it was you. Tobio liked being an animal. 

So when your boss, who was one of the owners of the hybrid who played volleyball with him, approached and broached the idea of getting him on a cat food commercial you and he were working on, Tobio wanted in, even more interested when the older man said this would earn you extra money to take home after the shoot ended. 

“See? Tobio wants to.” The boss gestured his hands at him. 

“But—”

“Yes,” Tobio said, earnestly. 

“Let’s talk about the shooting date together with the team on Monday.” 

The deal was sealed. 

—

The shoot was stressful for you, seeing people coo at how cute Tobio looked in faux cat ears, some even dared coming close to scratch under his chin. Tobio liked the attention, but he didn’t like strangers touching him. He would look for you, asking for help with his impossible-to-deny eyes whenever that happened, and you would come to the rescue. 

“Aren’t cat hybrids supposed to keep to themselves?” you asked, walking ahead of him, just about five minutes more until you reached home. “How come you like people so much?” 

“Not all the time.” Tobio replied. “I just happened to like them today.”

“Doesn’t it bother you,” You stopped walking and turned to face him. “being treated like that?”

“Like what?” 

“They played with you with a laser pointer, Tobio. Trying to grab your tail, calling you names.” You held on to your shoulder bag as you spoke. “They didn’t respect you at all.” 

“I’m an animal.”

“This again?” 

“You have to accept that I am one and there is nothing wrong with it.” 

There was no anger in this voice, never with Tobio, only dull sadness that dimmed his usual bright eyes down a notch. 

“But you don’t agree, do you? That’s why you’re trying to change me.” 

“You missed the point.”

“And what was it?” 

When you didn’t respond instantly, he continued, “I like wearing a collar because it shows people I’m taken, taken by you, not a stray no one wants. I like that you own me.” 

“Oh Tobio—”

“Is it wrong that I love doing the housework, that I don’t care that people want to give me treats and play laser pointer with me? I know what I am and how they see me. I’m an ani—”

“I don’t care that you’re an animal, a hybrid or whatever!” you interrupted with a soft shout. “I’m saying that no matter what you are, you deserve respect,” you said. “I don’t know what you experienced that made you think you can’t pick between strawberry and blueberry jam. And they can play laser pointer with you for all I care, but they should be aware that you have a life and mind of your own and not just assume they can do it without even asking. Just because you’re fine with it doesn’t make it okay.” 

You paused to breathe. 

“And trust me those people—those people in the studio, they don’t—they don’t understand this, yet.” You closed your eyes. “After the shoot, one of them asked me if they could buy you.” 

Opening your eyes again, he was so close you had to tilt your head back to look at him. 

“I don’t want to hear anyone say that about you ever again.” 

His kiss didn’t take you by surprise. His tongue was welcome, and his moan was your guest. Tobio held your hand all the way home and didn’t let go even when the apartment door closed behind you and him, instead, he kissed you against it. Then from your mouth, he headed downwards.

“I thought I disgusted you.” he said, nipping at the soft flesh of the thigh he put on his shoulder. 

“That is crazy. Ouch! Tobio, your claws.”

It had been almost a year already since Tobio moved in, and with his typical cat behavior, your body was full of scratches, some faded, some didn’t. He had a second haircut just two months ago, the same style with his bangs cut short, resembling a coconut for a while until it grew out past the stage, and now it was just in the right length—perfect for a grab. 

He liked when you played with his hair, loved it when you pulled hard during sex. For someone who was soft spoken and had a hobby of watching birds and playing volleyball, Tobio was surprisingly perverted when it came to fucking. 

The man purred loudly when he got the taste of your soaking folds, lapping greedily at the core and dragging his wet tongue up your inner thighs, collecting every drop like it was essential for his being. 

When your hands remained by your sides, taking action too slow for his liking, Tobio searched blindly without pulling his face away from your nectar and grabbed one of them to put on his head. Automatically, you gripped a handful, hearing him groan with relief and satisfaction. 

“So good to me.” he mumbled, his thumb leisurely circling your clit. “I like you more than anything.” 

More than the milk you gave him that first night, or the banana, even the blueberry jam could not compare to you. And despite him not being brave enough to make a choice of his own haircut, he did make a choice in that moment he followed you home—he chose you. 

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

reporting for my bi-annual login

Work isn't going well ya'll so I went running to ao3 jut to get KOd by Duke Shouto @andypantsx3 what am I supposed to do with lines like this

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

kita loves you so much. from the bottom of his heart, with his entire soul, to the moon and back he's in love with you.

which is why he's out in the garden with you at 10:30pm.

it all started about an hour ago while the two of you were relaxing on the couch. kita was reading a book, you were flipping through a cookbook you found in the closet. everything was peaceful and quiet, only the soft hum of the dishwasher in the background, until you shot up with a gasp.

"shin, my ring!"

the search started in the living room, tearing apart the couch cushions and blankets in a frenzy. then you two moved to the kitchen. kita went under the sink to undo the pipes, just in case you dropped it while the two of you did dishes together. you checked the garbage, counter tops, and cabinets. kita hit his head on the bottom of the sink when you let out a rather worrisome groan.

"what's wrong love?"

"i think it's in the garden."

the two of you ran out the door soon after that with flashlights and made a bee line to the garden next to the barn. it's dusk now, sun long gone and the sky coated in a dark purple. you've been apologizing over and over, voice full of worry about the mistake. kita's been nothing but calm, always kissing your cheeks and assuring you it's going to be okay.

while he's been nothing but relaxed smiles, he's actually quite worried.

that ring was not only expensive, but something very heartfelt that he spent weeks putting together. the ring is a family ring from kita's grandmother, with the stone from his great grandmother's ring. it's gorgeous, and looks even better when it's on your finger.

most of all though, it reminds everyone that you're forever his.

"where were ya when ya took it off?"

"right when i started, i took it off to make sure i wouldn't plant it by mistake," you pace in front of the gates, moving the flash light everywhere and anywhere to hopefully catch something sparkling. "maybe i forgot? but i swear i didn't."

kita's heart is racing. he keeps telling himself that it's going to be okay and it's just a ring! but deep down he can't accept that. he's on his hands and knees, feeling around in the dirt for the diamond.

"we'll find it sweetheart, i promise. we just gotta keep lookin'," he grunts as he stands back up, walking towards the new rows of carrots that you made earlier.

"i'm so sorry," you apologize for what must be the 100th time, but your husband just smiles and waves it off.

you wipe your hands off on your jeans for a second, and your stomach drops when something oddly ring-like runs underneath your palm.

"no, no, no," you mumble, shoving your hand into your front pocket to pull out the reason for the now unnecessarily stressful evening.

"what?" kita walks over to you quickly, laughing when he sees the ring in your hand. you throw your head back and groan, but kita only smiles. he takes your now sparkly hand in his, walking back to your house.

"i can't believe that i did that, i'm so embarrassed. i'm sorry shin, i'll be more careful."

he opens the back door for you, patting your bum as you walk in.

"don't worry baby. ya found it, and that's all that matters."

you shuffle into the kitchen and grab the tea pot from the stove, letting out a sigh of relief while you fill it up at the sink.

"in my jeans! of all places,"

kita comes up behind you and rests his hands on your hips. he places a kiss on your cheek and snorts.

"that's the best part," he pokes your side, earning a giggle.

"if it were a snake, it woulda bit ya."

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

😭😭❤️❤️❤️ Precious, absolutely precious.

Dabi x fem reader but this is the readers second pregnancy so they are getting sick a lot but they already have a 1 year old who is such a mamas boy. So the reader is getting sick and throwing up and of course Dabis there holding back her hair and their son comes in and sees what’s happening, at first I feel like he would maybe think Dabi was hurting his mom so he kinda freaks out before Dabi explains you just get sick sometimes

“Just Sick, Baby”

The morning started like most of them had lately—painfully.

You were hunched over the toilet, knees on the cold tile floor, one arm bracing you while the other clutched your stomach. The second pregnancy was so much rougher than the first—your body didn’t bounce back as quickly, and the nausea came in relentless waves.

Behind you, Dabi crouched low, one hand gently keeping your hair out of your face, the other resting on your back. He didn’t say much—he wasn’t the type to flood you with reassurances—but his presence was steady, grounding.

You gagged again, and he winced for you. “Jesus, doll... you sure there’s only one in there this time?”

You groaned weakly. “Don’t even joke—”

Just then, you heard the soft padding of little feet.

Dabi glanced up.

Standing at the doorway, in his too-big onesie with his sleep-mussed hair and clutching his stuffed animal by the leg, was your 1-year-old son. His big eyes widened when he saw you on the floor, heaving, with Dabi looming behind you.

“Mama?” he said, voice tiny and wobbly.

Then—his face crumbled.

Before Dabi could react, the boy let out a tiny, heartbroken cry and waddled over with his arms raised. “Nooo! Dada stop! No hurt Mama!”

You choked on a breath—half from the vomiting, half from sheer heartbreak.

Dabi’s eyes went wide, and he immediately scooped the toddler up with one arm, shifting him to his hip. “Whoa, hey, buddy—nah, nah, I ain’t hurtin’ her.”

The little boy squirmed, still sniffling. “Mama sad…”

“She’s just sick,” Dabi said calmly, brushing a thumb across his son’s cheek. “You remember last time when Mama had a tummy ache? It’s like that. She’s okay.”

You wiped your mouth and looked over at them, still breathless but smiling weakly. “Mama’s okay, baby. Just a little icky.”

Your son sniffled and held his arms out to you. Dabi knelt so he could gently set the boy beside you, and your son immediately wrapped himself around your arm, little head pressed against your shoulder. “Mama no sick.”

“I wish,” you whispered, kissing the top of his head.

Dabi sighed and ruffled his son’s hair. “See? She’s tough. Nothin’s gonna get her. Now c’mon, let’s let her lay down.”

“But I help,” your boy insisted.

Dabi raised an eyebrow and glanced at you.

“Let him,” you murmured. “He’s got good bedside manner.”

So Dabi helped you up with one arm while the other kept a hand on your son’s head, steering the both of you to the couch. You collapsed back with your boy curled against you like a little heat-seeking missile.

Dabi tossed a blanket over you both and handed you a glass of water.

“Try not to puke on him,” he muttered, but there was the faintest smirk tugging at his lips.

You stuck your tongue out. “I make no promises.”

And as your baby boy clutched your hand, eyes watching you closely like he was ready to fight the next wave of nausea himself, you knew—whatever hell this pregnancy brought—you weren’t going through it alone.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

I get it's probably like, plot reasons but like, how can a character be so cool and powerful one minute and absolutely USELESS the next I can't deal with this.

But also.. I need to know what happens and I need them to literally stop being lame😭😭😭

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

Emmy hey Emmy I have a prompt for you

Timeskip Kenma and his wifey getting in bed after both of them stayed up for most of the night(Kenma streaming and wifey working maybe?)

Anyways I’m putting this on anon because NO ONES SUPPOSED TO KNOW IM THIS SAPPYYYYY

- Fittsy 🐌 ps this totally isn’t inspired by the fact it’s 4:30 am and I just finished working on a sketch absolutely not no way

It was almost comedic how the timing of the universe plays out.

Your cheeks curled into a small smile as your eyes meet Kenma's at the other end of the hallway, his body still in the doorframe of his office, yours in the bedroom's threshold. You squint your heavy eyes at him accusingly, amused, and you watch as he matches your expression, shoulders twitching to try and hide his laughter. The staring contest continues, the silence of your home at the ripe time of 04:16 keeping the air still.

"Hey..."

"Sup..."

You giggle, and he shakes his head, "what're you doing up?"

"I could ask you the same thing," you say, struggling to keep your voice steady from your snickering to keep some form of mysteriousness in the air.

"I asked you first," he tips his head back in a challenging manner.

You nudge your head down the hallway towards the kitchen, "grabbing a lil' sweet treat."

"The fact you we're going to get one without me is crazy."

"Oh, and tell me, please darling, where you are going?"

He goes quiet, and looks away, "to get a sweet treat."

"Knew it."

He smiles, making his way down the hall to meet you. His sweatpants are baggy and low on his hips, the cuffs tucked into his socks- "it's warmer," he had told you once- and the stretched out neckline of his shirt exposing the thin bones of his collar, and the pale skin seems to glow under the darkness of night. His hair is barely contained in the loose elastic, and his bright, golden eyes are bloodshot from staring at his monitors for hours on end. You smile at him, and when he gets closer, he rests his forehead against yours. You snort and wrap your arms around his slender waist. "You still haven't told me why you're up," he whispers.

"Maybe I was waiting for my handsome, perfect, sweet, caring-"

"We both know you weren't," he interrupts, smirking as you sputter in indignation. "Gonna have to put a time limit on your laptop or something, so you don't stay up so late."

"Oh, you are so not one to talk," you tease.

"I'll forgive you if we can make mug cakes."

You move your head out from under his to instead rest it on his chest, "can we eat them in bed?" You mumble. "Now that I'm not staring at my computer, I'm like. Disgustingly over tired."

"It's because you've been working so hard," he whispers, turning his head to kiss your temple. "Should we call it now, then?"

"Mug cakes..." you whisper.

This has Kenma laughing, laughing loudly in the air, his chest shaking and bouncing you around. He squeezes you close, "tomorrow. I promise. Too many crumbs for bed. I'll go shut down the Kenma cave, and I'll be right for bed, alright?"

"Okay," you yawn. With your agreement, he parts and goes back down the hall to his office, saving his hours of editing and turning off the lights, beyond eager to finally get into bed with the love of his life.

But not before going into the kitchen and grabbing a few cookies to satiate the craving of a sweet treat for both of you.

Watching your eyes light up in sleepy excitement is the best remedy to the loss of the once desired mug cakes.

Mug cakes he gets to make tomorrow with the love of his life.

He can't wait.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

🥺🥺🥺

Hii!! I see that your reqs are open, if you're ok with this, maybe a fic with Ace where f!reader also has the same issues (self loathing, family issues) but he doesn't know until reader faces an old enemy from before she became a wb pirate/or just straight up tells Ace while she's comforting him. I rly love "we can be monsters tgt/us against the world" tropes, idk if it's the same bc it's just their insecurities talking but it works ig 😭

Tysm! You're one of my new fav writers rn <3 i love your fics esp since Ace & Sanji (+ Law, Zoro) are my favs too hahaha

We Can Be Monsters Together

Portgas D. Ace x Reader

warnings: reader gets beat up (lol sorry anon), self loathing, anxiety, fighting, hurt/comfort, family issues

Masterlist

You were almost certain that your navigator would have your head with the way you hung over them, watching their every move. Trying to ensure the triad log post would lead you to where you need to go. That you would simply breeze past the island you were well aware was closest.

On edge.

It was the only way you could be described and you were starting to get on your own nerves. Yet, there was no stopping it. Not when your childhood home was so close. When your so called family was so close to your new family. The true family that cared for you. That you finally experienced home with for the first time ever.

But your luck was null and void as an uptick in activity bursts through the crew. Shouting. Working hands. Word of docking.

Panic sparks inside of you as you watch the flurry of motion. Then your eyes land on the Second Division Commander shouting out to the crew. “Ace!” You’re reaching out to him before you can stop yourself. His boots skid to a stop and meet your wild eyes. “What’s going on? What are we doing?”

“We intercepted a distress signal.” Ace informs you, placing a warm hand on your shoulder in attempt to comfort. “Pop wants to check it out.” He then leans in closer to you, warmth overwhelming, to speak low in your ear. “He heard mention of this crew he used to have it out with. So we may need to get ready for a fight.”

Your heart is in your throat as you slowly nod.

Maybe you could get away with staying on the ship? Away from the action. Away from the island.

But one thing you have learned is that the Second Division Commander likes for you to be close by his side when docking at a new island. It’s an adventure, he would always reason. You’re too fun to stay cooped up on the ship.

Normally this would send a fluttering through your body and short circuit your system. Not today, when you know what dangers this island in particular held.

You’re almost certain your heart stopped beating the moment your feet hit solid ground. You go through the motions with your crew. Reluctantly. Pushed forwards by the eager commander who always enjoyed a fight. Until suddenly you see him.

The ruler of this island. A feared pirate of the new world. Your father.

He doesn’t seem aware of your presence, not when fire distracts from the crew. Not when a line of Whitebeard pirates stand on his land. Not with Whitebeard himself approaches.

But your brother does.

A wicked grin on his face.

One that would haunt your nightmares. The face of a monster. A face that you shared, because you too are a monster. It was your bloodline. Something to be squashed. It almost stole the breath from your lungs in that moment.

Shouting rings from both sides, both leaders, but you can’t make anything out with the blood rushing in your ears.

Then suddenly tremors shake the land.

And your crew is charging.

You’re off. So incredibly off that it could cost you your life. Even more so, as a man leaps effortlessly over your fighting crew to land directly in your space. A wicked grin and wild eyes that haunted your childhood. Your very own brother.

“Nice of you to finally come home.”

“I’ll never come back to this.”

“You will, even if it’s to be buried here.” He speaks the words so assuredly. Then a sword is swinging towards your head, leaving you only a split second to react. The impact of his blade against yours leaves you stumbling back. Maybe you could take it on a good day… this was anything but.

Another swing slices into your bicep, pain shooting through your arm as your sleeve adopts an easy crimson red. The eyes on you are wicked. Years of trauma being thrust into the forefront of your mind. A reminder of every way in which your family is wicked. In which your bloodline was tainted.

That distraction keeps you from blocking a blow that would have been fatal, had you not been met with the blunt side of the sword. However, it does not diminish the pain that forces you onto your knees. Another blow to your face- a ring clad fist- has you flying to your back. You would be lucky if the family crest wasn’t indented into your skin from his obnoxious ring.

Three more harsh hits follow. Blood trickles from your nose to stain your senses metallic. It was more than likely broken. Your eye may end up swollen shut as well. That is, if you stay alive long enough for any of that.

A cool blade presses to your throat.

A fist curls into your shirt to pull you close to your brother’s face. Willing you to look him in the eyes. To have the face of hate be the last thing you see before you die. Pressure stings at your neck as a threatening force is pressed closer.

Then your mind is engulfed in flames. The pressure disappears. Your body slumps back to the hard ground as the hand is pulled from your collar. Heat surrounds you and while many would find it threatening, it was all too familiar.

Your body sinks into that heat. Allows it to carry you wherever it pleases. If the flames are what take you instead of your family, then so be it.

“You’re okay. You’re okay.” The words crackle. You debate for a moment if it is your mind playing tricks. “I’ve got you now, doll.” The words play on repeat. A certain level of concern that clouds the reassurances, but where they should be muddied, you finally are able to see clear. Gone was the wicked smile that haunted you, now replaced by a warm light. “Hey, hey, you with me?”

Your head is tilted by a delicate grip that squeezes your cheeks. Ace peers down at you, impossibly close, tipping your head side to side in effort to test something. What? You’re not sure, but it’s giving you a headache. Instead of words, a groan leaves your lips, and you shakily swat at his hand.

“You are awake.” A relieved breath fans over your face.

“Unfortunately.” You mutter to yourself as you sit up with the delicate guidance of Ace. Your head swims as you take in the sight of the deck, back safely on your ship.

“Don’t say that, I was worried about you.” There’s a furrow in his brow and his dark eyes are filled to the brim with concern. “That… What happened back there wasn’t normal.” Ace’s voice is low, gentle hands pulling up your sleeve to take a look at the deep gash. “That guy was fighting like he was trying to make a point, and I don’t mean towards Whitebeard or the crew.” Your head drops, shifting uncomfortably as a bandage was wrapped around your arm. Something temporary until Marco or the others show up.

Emotions threaten to spill over, but something told you that if anyone could understand the situation, it was Ace. “That, uh, that was my brother.”

Silence hangs in the air for a long moment as Ace stares back at you. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

A laugh leaves you in spite of the situation. “Not all of us have brothers to brag about.” You nudge his arm from his place sat beside of you on the deck. “Some of us want to forget where we come from.”

“Well, that I do understand.” Ace lets out a breathy laugh, full of unspoken emotions. “Marco told me about them- your, uh, family. About the stuff they did to this island and the people who lived here.”

“Yeah.” A heaviness hangs in the air and something about Ace’s presence made you want to spill it all out. “That’s why I left, to find a fresh start. I didn’t think Pops knew who I was, but…”

“But he knew.” Ace laughs to himself. “He always knows.”

You laugh as well. “He didn’t care about whatever beef he had with those people, or how everyone said my bloodline was tainted-“

“He brought you in and loved you anyways.” Ace finishes for you. His eyes fall to you, a deep understanding in them. Ace had never told you his lineage himself, but you were well aware of the blood in his veins. You never cared. “Told you that you deserved to live, even when everyone else was telling you that the world would be better without you in it.”

“The world has always said i’m a monster.”

“It does that.” He laughs, reaching a hand out to take yours, fingers lacing together. Gentle. Warm. “We can be monsters together, then.” Ace decisively declares, offering you a smile that could warm the cool night air. “And together, we can make sure that a man deserving, one that saved us both, can become King of the Pirates.”

Your eyes meet his and the gentle understanding sparks something in the air. Something that draws you even closer to Ace’s side, allowing your heavy head to fall on his shoulder. His warmth envelopes you. “Together.” You agree as your eyes flutter shut. Exhaustion weighs on you.

“Hey, you gotta stay awake for me, okay?”

“I’m tired.” You murmur, sinking further into the heat of his body.

“I know you are.” Ace gently coaxes you to sit up on your own, met with your groaned protests, yet his hand remains gripped in your own. “But, you have to wait for Marco, doll. You could have a concussion or something so no sleeping.”

You scoff, “That’s boring.” As you exaggeratedly roll your eyes at him, you feel a prickle of pain shoot through your head. “Ow.” Your eyes squeeze shut, palm pressed to your forehead.

“See what I mean.”

“I need to lay down.” You feel like you’re swaying.

Ace watches you closely, a strike of anxiety in his chest at the idea of you falling asleep right now. “I dunno.” You can hear the reluctance in his voice. Something akin to fear.

“Ace please.” You huff, scooting closer to him to assume your previous position, head leaning against his shoulder. His entire body is tense and he makes a strangled sound in his throat as you invade his personal space. “I’ll keep talking, to let you know i’m awake. Just let me lean on you. Please.”

Ace clears his throat, tense muscles easing and allowing you to move closer into his side. “Fine,” He murmurs, his arm coming to circle around you and help support your weight. “But if you wanted to get this close, you could have just told me. Didn’t have to go through all these lengths for me.” The joke comes out a bit strained, Ace’s way of coping.

“Shut up, Fire Fist.” A nervous laugh bubbles out of you. Then, you begin talking, or rambling really. About anything and everything to offer him peace of mind that you’re staying awake. Eventually, you breach the topic of your family, of the deep seated hatred that the world holds for them. That you hold for them.

Yet, none of that seemed to matter anymore.

Not when you had someone at your side, who you could be a monster with.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

Brazil!Shoyo.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

1. Merman kisses.

2. GOT 'EM!!! Hopefully??? More than mildly concerned that something is going to go wrong because why wouldn't it😭😭😭

SOMETHING IN THE WATER | 7 | SHOUTO x READER

SUMMARY: As a future marine biologist, you’ve scored big on your final internship: a summer in the tropics, researching the waters off the coast of a lush, sunny island. But what you thought would be all beach days and piña coladas turns out to be the revelation of a lifetime when you haul in a handsome merprince, and discover not everything in these waters is quite as it seems. TAGS/WARNINGS: mermaid au, interspecies relationships, mating rituals/courting behavior, (sort of) case fic, aged up characters, eventual smut, fem pronouns/afab reader LENGTH: 4.2k of est. 31k, 7th of 8 chapters NOTES: For @honehonn3honey, for reminding me how much I love this AU and inspiring me to hurry up and finish this chapter.

Shouto’s mouth was warm and soft, and he tasted like salt.

He was many other things too—many lovely, wonderful, absolutely delicious other things—but you hardly had the brain power to think them, too focused on the way his lips moved over yours, the way his tongue teased along yours.

You heard yourself let out a muffled noise of pleasure, shifting nearer. His chest was so warm and firm under your hand, and you felt clawed fingers gently tangle in your hair. Shouto carefully cupped the back of your head to pull you closer, and you could feel the restrained strength in the movement. It made you shiver and curl into him tighter.

Shouto groaned into your mouth, and then his hands were on your waist, tugging you insistently over him until you were perched in his lap. His scales brushed against the inside of your thigh, strangely smooth and shockingly warm. It made your brain fog to feel him against you like this, the firmness and heat of him.

There was also the utter strangeness of him, too. You had never kissed someone with such sharp teeth, or claws, or a strength you were beginning to suspect was terribly beyond human. But Shouto was gentle, attentive. His thumb smoothed along your jaw, carefully angling his claws away, his other hand pressing you down onto him.

He made every one of your thoughts slur and slide together, and you were so distracted you barely heard the series of taps on your door.

A cold spike of panic stabbed through you when the noise resolved itself into the sound of someone knocking. You shot up, nearly bashing Shouto in the mouth, and scrambled off of him.

“Uh—! Coming!” you yelled to your visitor, hurriedly yanking the comforter out of its nearly tucked corners, and rucking it up over as much of Shouto as you could. Shouto looked a little dazed, his mouth flushed from your kisses. It took him a minute to realize what you were doing, pulling it on over his tail. He looked equal parts mystified, ruffled, and concerned, and it was actually so cute you could have kissed him again—but now was not the time.

You gestured at him to stay in bed and stay quiet, then hurried to the door.

Yu stood on the other side of it, raising a pert blonde brow when you only cracked it a tiny bit to peer out.

“Am I interrupting something?” she asked, trying to look past you. You wedged yourself more bodily into the opening, trying to block her view.

“What—uh. What would you be interrupting?” you said quickly. “Did you, um, need something?”

Yu looked at you for a long minute, her hair ruffling softly in the sea breeze. “I came to see if you were feeling any better. And Death Arms says we’re leaving at eight thirty for Sunfish.”

Your brain was so muddled from the combination of Shouto’s kisses and your sheer panic that it took you a long moment to remember what Sunfish even was.

“Oh!” you said stupidly, nodding quickly. “Yeah, Sunfish. I will be ready then. And I’m definitely feeling better, thank you for checking on me.”

Yu’s eyes again darted past you into your room. A sly smile pulled at her mouth. “I bet you are.”

You stood up ramrod straight in your panic. There was no way she could know.

You garbled out a strangled-sounding goodbye, waving her off and ushering her quickly off your porch. You lingered in the doorway, not daring to move an inch until she disappeared into her own bungalow, then turned back to Shouto.

He looked so handsome spread out in your sheets, mouth swollen from your kisses, but you knew you were running too much of a risk to climb back over him and make good on the promises that had underlaid his kiss. Not now that Yu had come calling.

You sighed, scrubbing a hand along your face. “I’ve got to get you back down to the beach before she remembers something else. And we’ll need to talk about what…this just was more after Sunfish.” You valiantly fought down the flush that threatened to rise to your cheeks.

Shouto’s beautiful mouth turned down, but he nodded, blinking long and slow. “I will answer anything you wish to ask.”

You thought you’d probably need a little more time and space to come up with a coherent list of questions, your head swimming with the memory of his lips on yours. You vaguely remembered something about mating rituals, and you did not have the brainpower to think through all that right now.

“I’ll come meet you tomorrow?” you asked instead.

Shouto nodded, eyes pinned on you intently. You resisted the impulse to lean back down to him.

You grabbed a handle of the wheelbarrow instead and pushed it closer to the bed for him to climb back into, studiously ignoring the sinuous flex of his muscles as he slithered back in. You shoved the tarp back over him too, then poked your head out the door to make sure Yu wasn’t skulking about again before wheeling Shouto carefully back out the front door.

Shouto was unusually quiet on the journey back to the beach, and you couldn’t think of anything to say either that wouldn’t reveal just how much you wanted to turn around and wheel him back into your bungalow.

You slowly guided him down to the water instead, pushing him in until the waves gently lapped at your thighs, sloshing up over the sides of the wheelbarrow.

It was then that Shouto turned back to you, surprising you as he reached out a clawed hand. His fingers brushed ever so gently over your mouth, igniting another hot wave of something under your skin.

“Good night,” he murmured, his voice strangely deep. His eyes seemed glued to your mouth, and you could feel even the tips of your ears getting hot.

You nodded, cringing when your own “goodnight” came out far too breathy.

But that seemed to satisfy Shouto, the corner of his mouth flicking up. His thumb brushed over your bottom lip once more, with a little bit more intention than before. Your skin tingled, and you held yourself very still under his touch, willing your knees not to give out on you.

Slowly, Shouto drew his hand back to himself, and nodded, looking gratified. “I will see you tomorrow,” he promised, in his soft tone.

You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak.

And with that, Shouto slid out of the wheelbarrow into the water and disappeared into the dark sea.

Morning found you on the step to Yu’s bungalow, the early morning wind raising goose bumps along your skin. Fat clouds drifted lazily across the sky, and the palms rustled sleepily in the breeze.

When Yu poked her head out, you could tell she was not at all pleased to see you, blinking sleepily with her hair still mussed on one side.

“I’m sorry—did I wake you?” you asked. The crew was set to leave at eight thirty for Sunfish, as she’d informed you the night before, and you’d thought she’d be up already, getting ready.

She waved a hand at you to gesture you in, yawning. “I was up, just regretting my choice of career over a cup of coffee.”

You laughed nervously, following her into the room and shutting the door behind you. Her room looked like a tropical hurricane had torn through it, an explosion of clothes draped over every surface and her luggage laying open, as if ransacked, in convenient tripping locations.

“I had something I needed to show you, before we go to Sunfish,” you said, trying to not let your eyes linger too long on the mess.

Yu grunted, grabbing a brush off the bedside table and yanking it through her blonde mess of hair. She was still in sleep shorts and a pink button-up pajama top. There was no way she’d actually been up before you knocked.

“What is it, kid?” she asked absently, moving over to one of the open suitcases.

Your hand slipped into the pocket of your windbreaker, closing in on the vial you’d filled with the samples of coral from the lagoon.

“It’s—I’ve found something. While exploring the island,” you started slowly, watching her dig through her things with her foot while she finished off her hair with her hands.

She gave a sidelong glance as if gesturing for you to continue.

“There’s this lagoon, towards the northern side of the island,” you said.

Yu’s brows scrunched. “I don’t remember setting up at any lagoon.”

You shook your head. “It’s not accessible by boat. There is—or, was, a small underwater channel to get inside, under one of the cliffs. But it’s been dammed off.”

Yu finally stopped looking through her things, turning to you to give you her full attention. “Dammed off?”

You nodded. “A huge strip of metal plating. It looks recent and it’s definitely intentional—it’s drilled right into the rock. And um, the lagoon is not doing too well.” You pulled your hand from your pocket, laying out the samples of coral on her sitting table.

“The coral there is entirely bleached, and I’ve found traces of industrial processing chemicals after testing in the lab, most concerningly what looks like formalin. There’s a pipeline that looks new as well, dumping everything out into the lagoon. I didn’t trace it back as it’s too small to climb into, and it disappears underground a little ways away from the lagoon. But I think it’s most definitely Sunfish.”

Yu’s eyebrows nearly shot into her hairline. “Well well. You’ve been a busy girl.”

Your stomach churned. You couldn’t tell if she was pleased you’d taken the initiative, or annoyed you were only now looping her in.

“I’m sorry for not telling you first,” you said.

Yu watched you for a long moment, before a devious sort of smile touched her mouth. “Your beach boy help you find it?”

Your stomach lurched then, a motion like it was trying to throw itself right through the wall of your skin. “My—what?” you gasped, catching her sitting chair for balance.

There was no way she’d seen Shouto in your room last night, despite her obvious suspicions. You’d made sure you’d blocked up the entire doorway.

Yu looked smug. “Next time you answer the door after rolling around with someone, you might wanna take a look at your mouth and hair first.”

Your face flamed. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

Yu just gave you a knowing look. “Red and white hair? Biceps like a Greek god? That ring any bells for you? If I hadn’t seen you out in the water with him the other night I would have almost believed you. But you were so obvious last night too.”

Your heart rate picked up, launching into a sprint. She’d seen Shouto! And she’d seen what he’d done to you!

You were simultaneously horrified and gratified—at least he wasn’t an insanely handsome figment of your overactive imagination. But you thought you’d been so careful! Had she seen any more than she should have?

Yu waved you off, laughing at the look of horror you knew was dawning on your face. “Relax, it’s not illegal to get friendly with the locals.”

You swallowed down a lump in your throat. “It’s not—I wasn’t—”

She padded over her sitting table, picking up the vial of coral samples. “You mind if I check this and log it before we head out?”

You fumbled, unnerved by the sudden change in conversational direction. “I—of course.”

Yu tossed her hair over her shoulder, then went back to her suitcase, digging through it with greater purpose. “If what you’re saying is true, we’ll want a paper trail showing we had this sample before setting foot on Sunfish property. Then we can get one there and see if it matches. That will be enough for local government to issue a search warrant and we can see if your pipeline really does link back.”

A shocked little thrill went through you. If that was true, you were close to closing this case out. The thought of leaving Shouto behind made you feel a little sick, but you quickly pushed it down.

You would talk to him later, once Sunfish was dealt with. And it wasn’t like you could delay. Sunfish was a danger to the local environment, and that included Shouto as well.

You’d rather have him alive and alone than sick and saddled with you.

“Take these to the lab and set everything up for me. I’ll be there when I’m done getting dressed,” Yu told you, flapping her hand at your coral samples again.

You nodded, grabbing them off the table. “Should I tell the rest of the team too?”

“Mmm,” she grunted. “They don’t know we know, but it will be good to have Death Arms cover for us in case we need to sample something they might not like. Make sure he, Kamui, and Masaki are up to speed.”

You dutifully went to the door, wrenching it open to step back out into the tropical sun.

Yu’s voice stopped you on the threshold, sounding warmer than she had before. “And kid?” she asked.

You looked back at her curiously. “Yeah?”

She smiled up at you from where she was still bent over her suitcase. “Good work. The team is gonna be proud of you.”

You felt your face flame again, building on the flush that her observations on Shouto had already left. Your first big job out of school, and your supervisor actually thought you were doing good. You tried not to feel too pleased with yourself, and with the way your relationship with Shouto had seemed to have brought you nothing but good things.

“Thanks,” you mumbled. Then you ducked out of the doorway, and darted into the sun, feeling ridiculous and shy.

Sunfish was a dominating presence on the northern edge of the island, clearly visible along the northern access road.

You’d seen it along the coast as you boated around, setting up the testing stations, but it looked even more comedically villainous up close—a corroding grey warehouse above which multiple vents and smoke stacks rose like castle turrets.

Izuku steered the jeep into the small parking lot, and you watched in the rearview as his normally kind face pinched. You hadn’t had a chance yet to catch him alone and ask exactly how long had he been hiding the fact that he knew fucking merpeople and what the hell was up with their mating rituals. And you wouldn’t dare to now, surrounded as you were by your science crew.

But you thought you caught a curious flash of those emerald eyes as you piled out behind your coworkers.

Death Arms thanked him for the ride, setting up a time for pickup, and then shepherded the rest of you towards the cannery. You wrinkled your nose as you approached, the smell of fish and low tide assaulting your nostrils.

There was a man in a suit waiting for you at the entrance, long-limbed and dark haired, with small, watery eyes. He introduced himself as Ikeda, the cannery manager, and walked you through the list of stops he planned to bring your group on your tour. He held a clipboard at his side, a pen clipped fastidiously to his jacket pocket, and his entire demeanor suggested he was eager to get you in and out as fast as possible, despite the welcoming smile he bestowed on you.

Death Arms nodded along as Ikeda spoke, then pointedly asked in an overly-friendly tone, “Sounds good. So, how long have you been the manager here?”

Ikeda blinked. “About seven years now.”

You couldn’t tell if it was your instant dislike of him, but you thought his tone was rather oily. The cannery manager for seven years—that meant there was no way this guy didn’t know what was going on in this plant. There was no way he’d missed out on a pipeline being installed for waste water disposal. No way he was missing what you were sure were thousands of gallons of waste material being pumped out and away from the facility.

Your mind flashed back to Shouto again, a surge of anger overcoming you. This guy had helped dam off a place of cultural significance to Shouto’s people, and Shouto had had to drag himself over easily a kilometer of forested land, only to then submerge himself into literal poisoned water to get you your coral.

If given enough time, more of Shouto’s people would probably have to undertake the same ritual, endangering more and more of his pod.

Your hand flew up to your neck, pressing over the coral chips that sat just underneath the collar of your shirt. You tried to suppress the wave of virulent dislike that overcame you, and hid yourself behind Yu to cover as much of your expression as you could as Ikeda gestured for your group to follow him.

You trailed along after your teammates as Ikeda led you into the building. The interior was freezing cold, a maze of industrial metals and cold fluorescence. It was a shock to your senses after the lush, humid tropicality outside, and the shiver that overtook you slid into the marrow of your bones, mixing with your sick dislike.

Ikeda led you to the processing lines first, a complex series of conveyor belts and machinery, dotted by workers in hairnets, gloves, and bright yellow aprons. He explained how the fish was sorted according to their type, then cleaned and prepared. He led you to each station as he spoke, walking you through how the fish was then packed into cans and vacuum-sealed, then heat treated to sterilize them, or treated with other preservatives if not canned.

He occasionally paused to let Masaki take samples, a strange stillness overcoming his face as Masaki did so. It made you even more sure of your dislike of him, and you couldn’t help but bring yourself to ask probing questions as Ikeda explained some of the chemicals used to preserve shelf life—salt, citric acid, potassium sorbate. All normal preservatives, and all chemicals you’d found in your samples of the coral from the lagoon—but not the most damning.

“Is that a comprehensive list, or does Sunfish use any other preservatives?” you asked, willing your voice to sound casual. Yu gave you a carefully neutral glance over her shoulder.

Ikeda paused, his eyes seeming to grow even smaller as he looked at you. You didn’t like the sharpness that lurked there, even as he smiled pleasantly. “Sunfish uses a variety of preservative ingredients, as I mentioned. The three I’ve mentioned are just a small subset.”

The statement was so carefully crafted, technically answering while saying absolutely nothing at all.

You realized you would not get an answer out of him unless you asked very directly—and doing so might alert Ikeda to the fact that you had more than just suspicions. You nodded vaguely instead, grateful when Death Arms asked another question, pulling Ikeda’s attention off of you.

Yu’s fingers delicately touched your wrist, and she leaned in, speaking quietly. “The samples Masaki got should match most of the chemical blends you found, and taking pictures of the lagoon will be enough for a warrant,” she said, then paused, lowering her lashes and cutting her magenta eyes to yours. “Although if we can confirm the formalin you mentioned, we can get production shut down immediately.”

You nodded.

Formalin—a solution containing varying amounts of formaldehyde—was a controversial method of preserving fish. Two commercially available formalin products were generally accepted by most food and health administrations, but its usage and storage was highly regulated. If the concentration of formaldehyde was high enough, drainage disposal would not be a legal option. Releasing it into a lagoon, where it would be subject to sunlight and high temperatures and was most definitely dangerous enough to get the entire operation cancelled.

Masaki politely insisted on getting a sample of all of the preservative solutions, and you helped him collect them, frowning over the neatly labeled name of each when you came across them—citric acid, potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate—but no formalin solution.

Yu’s frown was more pronounced as you were led into the administrative offices to meet some of the other executives, and to conduct what Ikeda pronounced a “quality sampling!”, smiling.

You could tell she was getting mildly annoyed, terrible at hiding her emotions, but she took a deep breath before grabbing your wrist.

“Ikeda-san, I’m afraid our newbie is feeling a little queasy after seeing everything. Become a marine biologist because she’s a sweet little animal lover. Could you point us towards the ladies’ room? I’ll take care of her.”

Ikeda blinked, turning his gaze to her, before his eyes darted to you. You had no idea what Yu was trying to do here, but you knew better than to disagree. You quickly hunched in on yourself a little, trying your best to look pale and peaky and pathetic.

“I—of course,” Ikeda said, pointing back out into the hall towards the main production line. “If you turn left out of here and follow the hallway further, they should be around the corner on your right.”

“Thank you,” Yu purred, then put her arm around you in an affectation of matronly concern you were sure she’d never actually felt once in her life. “Come on, sweetheart.”

You let her usher you out into the hall, turning to stare at her when the door closed behind you.

She rolled her eyes at your questioning expression, pulling you back down the hall towards the production line. “Come on, we only have a couple minutes. Formalin needs to be stored in a well ventilated area and it obviously isn’t in the main production area. We have to be quick if we’re gonna snoop—you take the left and I’ll take the right.”

You blinked. “You want to sneak around? Won’t they just say we planted evidence since we went off on our own?”

Yu’s mouth pulled up in a grin. “You got your phone on you? It’ll need to be stored labeled and with a spill kit. Hard for you to sneak an entire industrial spill kit in here, wouldn’t you agree? Just take a quick video of you sampling it and the conditions it’s stored in and that will be more than enough.”

You could feel a giddy sense of incredulity overtake you. She was serious. She wanted to go haring off without supervision, ostensibly breaking into parts of Sunfish without permission.

“Hurry up, time’s ticking,” she said, then tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder, disappearing down the hall almost as enigmatically as Shouto had disappeared into the dark water last night.

The thought of Shouto brought you back to yourself, a sense of urgency snapping over you.

You only had a few minutes to find and prove Sunfish’s guilt, and Shouto was dependent on the results. The faster you shut off the flow of chemical waste water to the lagoon, the safer Shouto would be.

You all but threw yourself down the hall, following it past the women’s room you’d ostensibly been on your way to, peeking into any unlocked room or storage closet on the way. The passage seemed to span the side of the building, letting onto various rooms laden with cleaning supplies, overflow product, and marketing materials.

Time seemed to fly past at sickening speeds, every minute on the clock like a millisecond. You checked the time your phone anxiously, over and over again, urging yourself to move faster, while not wanting to move so quick that you missed what was most important.

It was only as you neared what seemed like the end of the hall, that you came across a room labeled Preservative Storage, papered with various seals of certification and governmental health requirements. Your heartbeat hammered in your chest as you tried the door, finding it open.

The room itself was unassuming, a tidy, cool space with drainage set into the floor and wide vents that spanned the ceiling. A variety of personal protective equipments hung just inside the door, some sealed tightly in plastic, laminated and color-coded charts hanging beside them. A variety of industrial refrigerators dotted the room in intervals, drums of other solutions in between them, everything looking carefully stored and well-maintained.

It was thanks to this orderliness that you had almost no trouble finding exactly what you were looking for.

You followed the line of labeled containers down the room, picking over each one with eagle-eyed focus. And there, in the far corner of the room, next to a variety of spill-cleaning equipment, lay a dark container with a white label, printed clearly with blue ink. You took your phone out with a shaking hand, snapping the picture you knew would close the trap on Sunfish once and for all.

The picture was clear, despite the shakiness of your hands, the label plainly announcing the the drum’s contents:

FORMACIDE-B.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

My brain would short-circuit as well like uh.. pretty merman kisses???

SOMETHING IN THE WATER | 6 | SHOUTO x READER

SUMMARY: As a future marine biologist, you’ve scored big on your final internship: a summer in the tropics, researching the waters off the coast of a lush, sunny island. But what you thought would be all beach days and piña coladas turns out to be the revelation of a lifetime when you haul in a handsome merprince, and discover not everything in these waters is quite as it seems. TAGS/WARNINGS: mermaid au, interspecies relationships, mating rituals/courting behavior, (sort of) case fic, aged up characters, eventual smut, fem pronouns/afab reader LENGTH: 3.7k of est. 27k, 6th of 8 chapters

Shouto was waiting on the shore when you returned, mismatched gaze pinned on you as you stepped out of the trees. He seemed to know from your expression that you’d found exactly what you’d been looking for.

“It is what you wanted, then,” he said.

You could feel a grimace overtake your features. “Not what I wanted, exactly, but it is what I expected to find.”

A clawed hand reached out to catch your ankle as you stepped out of the shade onto the hot sand. You could see the impression of Shouto’s tail in the sand where he’d dragged himself from the water, a thick line of disturbed beach. He peered up at you, thumb pressing into the hollow behind your ankle bone.

“They’re polluting this place and they’re trying to hide it,” you said, your mouth pulling into a thin line. “They’ve dammed off that lagoon for now but it’s not going to hold forever. And they’ve already killed off everything in it.”

Shouto’s claws rasped lightly over the skin of your ankle. “You are upset.”

You glanced down at him, finding his handsome face concerned. “I’m—angry, I guess, yeah. Especially now that I know you and your whole pod are here. It’s bad enough thinking of what this is going to do to all the local populations, but to think of you getting sick…”

Shouto’s long eyelashes fluttered as he took a slow breath. You carefully studied the sand next to him so you didn’t watch the way the muscles of his chest flexed and relaxed as he did so. “You want to protect me,” he concluded, something strange in his tone.

Your face flushed hot. “Well, yeah.”

Shouto’s expression went carefully blank, like he was trying not to look too pleased. Instead, he reached out a hand, taking yours, prying it open to reveal the sample kit containing a bleached chunk of coral you’d cut off the poisoned reef. “And you will keep the coral I gave you,” Shouto said.

You nodded, blinking in surprise. In your momentary funk you’d almost forgotten the underlying reason for your visit here—Shouto had given you something that would have taken him hours to get. Something he’d have had to pull himself through the forest on his arms alone for, something he too would have had to have waded into a poisoned reef for—and that had to mean something significant.

You doubted it was a token of friendship, as you’d first assumed. But then—what would be the cultural significance of the gift?

Shouto’s thumb petted over the hollow of your ankle bone again. “And you will wear them.”

You nodded absently, suppressing a shiver at the feeling of his touch.

“Yes, when I get back to my room I’ll scrounge up something to wear them on,” you promised.

Shouto’s expression shifted into something satisfied. “With dinner and a movie,” he said.

You stared at him. “You want—right now?”

“Right now,” he echoed, nodding seriously. His features rearranged themselves into a mask of determination.

You laughed at the expression, like a movie was some great hurdle to overcome, some life-or-death mission.

Well, you supposed a promise was a promise. And it was nearing dinner time.

Your mind instantly began to churn with plans. You’d have to dock the boat and beg off the meal with the science crew, figure out when and how to tell them about the poisoned lagoon, find a meal somewhere that Shouto could digest, meet him back at the beach, steal a wheelbarrow, and figure out how not to get caught.

“Alright, a deal’s a deal,” you decided.

An almost triumphant smile teased at the edge of Shouto’s mouth.

His hand left your ankle and he followed you back across the sand down to the water, slithering agiley like a handsome snake. He supervised you as you stuffed all your things back into your dry bag, then slipped into the water, keeping pace alongside you as you swam out to where you’d anchored the boat.

He pulled himself in after you, and boated most of the way back to the dock with you. He only slid back into the water when you shooed him off just out of sight of the port, promising to meet him back on the beach in front of the inn.

You docked the boat in town, then poked through a couple take-away food stalls for something that seemed like it wouldn’t mess with Shouto’s digestion. Stifling a wry grin, you settled on a sushi vendor, picking out a few basic rolls with local fish and a seaweed salad that you and Shouto could split.

You trekked back to the inn, stowing your food in your room, then poking your head into Yu’s room to let her know you’d finished up on the water, but weren’t feeling well and were going to sit out dinner.

Once you’d also verified Izuku was nowhere to be seen and that Inko was safely installed in the front office, you crept over to the maintenance shed. The door was unlatched—probably a product of living on such a small island with little crime—and you helped yourself to the wheelbarrow and an ancient tarp wedged underneath several old planters.

Shouto was waiting for you just off the beach, that head of red and white pair poking out of the water inquisitively as you approached. He eyed the wheelbarrow with suspicion, even as he hauled himself up on shore.

“What is that,” he asked, flatter than a question.

“Your chariot awaits, good sir,” you joked, gesturing at it.

A red eyebrow went up, Shouto’s mismatched gaze pinning on it with distrust. “I do not think I like chariots.”

You laughed. “It’s actually called a wheelbarrow—it’s used to haul heavy stuff. And you most definitely qualify as heavy stuff. I’m not strong enough to carry you all the way back to my room.”

Shouto’s eyes slid over the muscle of your arm assessingly. “Humans,” he murmured, almost to himself. “You cannot swim, fight, or lift things. It is a wonder you survive at all.”

You poked him with a sneakered toe. “Hey, I can too swim and lift things.”

Shouto’s pointed non-reply was answer enough and you huffed out a laugh.

“I will do it for you,” Shouto decided. “The swimming and fighting and lifting.”

For some reason this made you flush. “I—there will be no fighting on my watch.”

Shouto’s mouth quirked. In lieu of another answer he reached out an arm, gripping the side of the wheelbarrow. Your mouth went a little dry as you watched the muscles in his arm activate, and you just barely remembered to hold the wheelbarrow steady as he pulled himself in, biceps cording.

He was far too large for it, the bulk of his muscle and broad shoulders taking up nearly the entire thing, leaving his tail to drape out and drag along the sand. There was no way the tarp was going to cover enough of him.

“Okay, let’s wrap this around your tail, at least, in case anyone sees us,” you decided, spreading it out over his waist like a blanket. He looked a little goofy, and possibly a million percent more suspicious with the tarp dragging after him on the ground, but it was the best you were going to get, probably.

“So how long can you last out of salt water, do you know?” you asked, wheeling him around and heading up the beach. You figured it had to be a couple hours considering how long it must have taken him to reach the coral he’d given you, but you hated the thought of him getting uncomfortable.

“A long time. Close to a day I think,” he said.

“Wow, and you don’t dry out?” you asked.

He tipped his head back to look at you as you wheeled him, wet hair dripping into the wheelbarrow. “I do, but it takes some time.”

“And you’re not uncomfortable?” you grunted out the question, shoving him up the incline towards your room.

“Not for a long while,” he said.

Well that was good. You probably wouldn’t need to set him up in the tub then. It would be nice to eat your sushi somewhere other than the bathroom.

You were panting by the time you got Shouto up the hill, and it was an even larger production getting him through the door. It was only when you finally wheeled him inside, watching him peer around your room curiously, that you realized your seating options were limited. You were possessed of a single chair, currently occupied by your suitcase—and Shouto was far too large for it besides.

Something flipped in your stomach as your eyes were drawn towards your bed.

Like he could sense your sudden hesitance, Shouto turned to you, mismatched gaze pinning on you with a startling focus.

“You are nervous,” he observed.

You could feel your face heat. “Well I don’t exactly wheel mermen back to my room every day of the week.”

Shouto’s mouth pulled like he did not like the image of that. He grasped the sides of the wheelbarrow with clawed fingers, hefting himself out and slithering to your floor. You stared at the sight of him perched there on the rug, eyebrows lifting when he reached out a hand and drew your sitting chair towards him.

Instead of climbing in, however, he flipped open the top of your suitcase, peering in curiously.

You watched him flip a book over then ease it aside, rifling through your bag of clean socks and shorts. You sputtered when Shouto’s long fingers unearthed a bra, his head tilting.

“Nosy!” you squeaked, darting forward to throw your suitcase shut again. You didn’t know why you were so embarrassed, but you desperately hoped merpeople did not know the difference between swimwear and underthings.

Shouto’s frown was almost too cute to be borne. He looked up at you, his hand going to your ankle, as it always did.

“You do not have anything to bind the coral with,” he said, sounding a little pouty again.

Oh. So that’s what he’d been looking for.

You nudged his other hand aside, unzipping the pocket where you’d stored a few pieces of jewelry. You hadn’t brought many on the assumption that you’d mostly be working, but you’d brought enough to be useful. Shouto watched with some interest as you unclipped the chain of a necklace, sliding off the charm and storing it in your bag again.

His eyes followed you as you stepped away to your nightstand, where you’d stowed the coral he’d brought you. Immediately, you realized there was a problem.

“Uh, we might have to wait a couple more days until I can find a way to put a hole in these,” you said, gesturing with the pieces.

Shouto’s heavy tail made a scraping sound as he dragged himself across the carpet to you again. You plopped down on the edge of the bed so as not to tower over him, holding out the coral to him. Shouto angled his claws carefully away from your palm as he took a shard in his long fingers, the bleached white of it standing out starkly against the crimson of his coloring there.

Shouto’s handsome face stilled in careful concentration as he angled his pinky claw carefully, so that just the point of it pressed to a corner of the piece. You watched in fascination as he pressed down, and his claw bore right through—piercing it shockingly easily.

Your stomach flipped, and you recalled the first time you’d seen Shouto—how deadly those claws had seemed. Weeks into your friendship, you’d realized you’d been so focused on his most human of qualities—his beautiful face, inadvertently funny manner, his sweet thoughtfulness. But here was a reminder that he was also something far more than a man—possibly one of the most dangerous things in these waters.

Your heart beat a little faster as Shouto did the same to the next piece of coral, and you looped the necklace chain through them. There was a sort of dark, satisfied look in Shouto’s eye as you clasped it around your neck. A clawed finger gently touched your sternum, lifting the coral for Shouto’s inspection.

“Good,” he rumbled, looking pleased. His finger was warm against your skin, and you wondered if he could feel how quickly your heart was beating against it.

For some reason you felt your face warm. You stilled under Shouto’s touch until he let the coral drop back against your skin, seeming gratified.

Clearing your throat, you quickly rose from the bed, gesturing Shouto onto it.

“I’ll, um, grab our food,” you told him, hoping you sounded normal. “And get my laptop to pick out the movie. Just, uh, make yourself comfortable.”

You pointedly did not watch as Shouto levered himself up on the strength of those arms, instead unearthing the sushi from your room’s miniscule fridge, along with two bottles of water. You piled it all on your laptop like a tray, then turned back to Shouto.

He was far too large for your bed, laid out across it like a sunbathing model. His tail was far too long, draping off the end in a sweeping fan of scarlet and white. Your eyes traced the line of his tail back up the bed, up to where the scales freckled into the taught muscle of Shouto’s abdomen, fair skin all but glowing in the fading summer daylight, the shadows swirling and pooling in the divots of the muscle like water.

You flushed again at the sight of all of that laid out in your bed, waiting for you. You reminded yourself that he did not have the cultural context you did for sharing a bed, and that you were just splitting food. And he was another species, besides, no matter how human his upper half looked.

You very deliberately did not think about the fact that his sister had a human husband.

Shouto wriggled back against the headboard as you approached, and you clambered in next to him, careful not to brush his arm as you did. You set the sushi between you like a shield, then flipped open your laptop, wondering what kind of movie a merman might like.

“Um, got any requests?” you asked him.

Shouto’s mismatched eyes pinned on you. “I want to watch whatever you want to watch.”

Well that was no help. You wracked your brain for options, blinking when you remembered you’d told Shouto that he’d probably find human movies about merpeople funny. An idea formed.

Shouto watched with interest as your fingers clacked across the keys, alternately watching the movement of them and the windows that appeared across the screen. The island wi-fi was slow, and it took a few painful minutes, but eventually you ended up with a title screen queued up: The Little Mermaid.

You looked at Shouto for approval, only to find his eyes searching over the screen, as if for some clue of what was to come. Oh—that was right—he might have been able to speak to you, but chances were probably slim he could read any human languages.

“It’s an animated film about, uh, this mermaid who strikes a deal to be human and live on land,” you explained. “She, um, falls in love with a prince and they, uh, sort of fight to be together.”

Shouto’s mismatched eyes picked over you speculatively. “A human fights? I thought you were not capable.”

You rolled your eyes. “Well he mostly steers a boat around. But he does help try to defeat a sea witch.”

Shouto eyed you. “There is no such thing.”

A startled laugh burst out of you at the look of suspicion on his face. It was patently ridiculous that a merman was propped up in your bed telling you what was and wasn’t real.

“It’s fiction,” you told him. “People also think merpeople aren’t real, as you well know.”

Shouto looked doubtful, but you pressed play on your laptop anyway. You deposited his sushi in his lap, then hesitated over whether to hand him chopsticks too. As you watched him draw one long claw across the plastic cover, slicing it open instead of just uncapping it, you decided no. He most definitely would not be needing a pair of chopsticks.

Shouto seemed to like his plain rolls, all of the ingredients except the rice ocean-based. You watched his handsome nose flare suspiciously at your own rolls when you opened your container, shooting a look of obvious distaste at the spicy mayo drizzled over the top of one.

You had to hide another smile, strangely charmed by everything about him.

Shouto also was quickly absorbed by the movie, and did not notice when you plucked his empty container from his lap. He seemed to find it equal parts amusing and ridiculous. It was only when Ariel and Prince Eric almost kissed in the boat that you felt Shouto’s eyes on you. You stared resolutely ahead, pretending not to notice, your skin prickling.

He was distracted again by the rest of the film, even leaning forward with interest during the climax. But his eyes wandered your way again when Ariel and Eric finally kissed, and you looked up reflexively, face heating when his was closer than you had expected.

“Uhhh,” you said, stupidly. “Did you… like it?”

“Yes,” Shouto replied. Outside, the sun was sinking, and it cast Shouto’s face in an orange glow, the blue light of your laptop refracting strangely off his eyes.

Your breath quickened, for some unfathomable reason.

You jumped when warm fingers met the skin of your sternum again, and you heard the chips of coral click as they were lifted. Shouto’s eyes dipped to them, then back up to your face, dragging over it slowly.

“You said there were no other mating rituals, correct?” Shouto said.

You startled under his touch, brain functions freezing up at the mention of mating. What—mating rituals? And what did he mean other?

“Mating rituals?” you echoed, trying to keep your voice from coming out strangled.

Shouto nodded. “You said jewelry is often given. And dinner and a movie. But I believe you said there were no other common practices across cultures.”

You blinked, mind whirring with the implication that Shouto thought dinner and a movie was a mating ritual and yet had engaged in such a thing with you. And as for jewelry… you felt one of Shouto’s claws drag delicately over the skin just under your neck as he thumbed across the pieces of coral.

A sudden suspicion formed in your brain, illuminating your synapses like a light had just been snapped on. A million other things Shouto had said about fighting and hunting and protection suddenly felt like they made a terrible sort of sense to you. You stared back at Shouto, mouth dropping open.

No. There was no way.

“Shouto,” you said, your voice shooting embarrassingly high. It was ridiculous to even ask the question, and yet… “Are you—did you ask for dinner and a movie as a date?”

Shouto inclined his head. His hair had mostly dried, and it looked soft and silky in the orange light from the sun. You fought down the sudden urge to reach out and touch it.

“Dates are mating practices, are they not?” he murmured.

A hand pressed down next to your hip, titling you a little towards him with the dip of the mattress. Your heart beat fluttered, the skin at your hip prickling.

“But you—but there’s—but we didn’t—but you—” you fumbled, blinking flusteredly. The air in your room suddenly felt about a million degrees warmer, almost suffocatingly hot. Shouto tilted his head, then pressed the backs of his fingers to your cheek, as if testing your temperature.

“Are you well?” he asked.

Were you well. Were you well?

A literal fairytale creature, a prince of fairytale creatures, was sitting in your bed, having all but just admitted to engaging in mating rituals with you, and here he was asking if you were well!

You made a noise somewhere between the moo of a cow and a goose honk, and Shouto’s fingers shifted against your skin.

“How is it that you conclude the mating ritual?” he asked, watching you carefully. “If it is successful and my suit is accepted?”

His suit. His suit! Like he was courting you!

Dear god what had you been getting yourself into. And why did every single inch of your skin feel like it was on fire, especially when Shouto leaned closer?

“When they—in the movie when they pressed their mouths together,” you stammered. “You must know it from your sister having a human husband—it’s called kissing.”

Shouto’s fingers moved across your skin, until he was cupping your face in one large palm. Your breath froze entirely in your lungs. This close, his face was somehow even more perfect, and you were entirely robbed of higher brain function, gawking at him like he was an animal in a zoo.

Shouto was near enough that you could feel the exhalation of his next words on your mouth. “I would like do it, this kissing,” he said, tone slow and rolling. “That is if you accept me. If you acknowledge we are mates.”

You couldn’t really think past the feeling of his hand on your face, the way his claws rasped so sweetly over the skin behind your ear. He was so warm and so close and so stupidly, mind-numbingly handsome, and the low, gentle way he spoke to you sounded like the sea, a rumble of waves you wanted to sink beneath.

You opened your mouth to ask him to repeat the question, as your processing power was suddenly at zero percent.

But then Shouto shifted on the bed, the weight of his hand tipping you even further towards him. You felt yourself losing a little balance, falling, a hand pressing against his naked chest to catch yourself—

—And then Shouto’s mouth caught yours, and you forgot to feel anything else at all.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

I did a project on reef pollution and decay for a college course, and it's honestly so sad to learn about. I mean, some people care, but.. anyway, hopefully in this fic everything will turn out alright, anyway.

SOMETHING IN THE WATER | 5 | SHOUTO x READER

SUMMARY: As a future marine biologist, you’ve scored big on your final internship: a summer in the tropics, researching the waters off the coast of a lush, sunny island. But what you thought would be all beach days and piña coladas turns out to be the revelation of a lifetime when you haul in a handsome merprince, and discover not everything in these waters is quite as it seems. TAGS/WARNINGS: mermaid au, interspecies relationships, mating rituals/courting behavior, (sort of) case fic, aged up characters, eventual smut, fem pronouns/afab reader LENGTH: 3.5k of est. 21k, 5th of 8 chapters

It was pollution. No doubt about it.

Under the lens of one of Kamui’s microscopes, the evidence was incontrovertible. The piece of white coral Shouto had brought you sported distinct traces of industrial processing chemicals that had almost certainly contributed to its bleaching, the concentration high enough that it had also probably choked the life out of the nearby environment.

It was high enough, in fact, that you were absolutely floored your team hadn’t come across even a hint of anything similar before. Based on the levels, you should have been finding at least smaller traces close to the area it came from, but nothing you’d found so far had even hinted at anything like this.

Which begged the question, just where in the hell had Shouto gotten it from?

When you legged it back down to the beach, however, both the merman and your sandwich were missing. The only evidence of his presence were the slices of mozzarella that had clearly been picked out of the sandwich, laid out cleanly on the wrapper you’d left behind.

You’d sighed and cleaned your trash up, then slogged back to your room for a shower and a few hours of sleep, stowing the coral away safely to show to your team in the morning.

When you awoke, however, you realized you would have no way of explaining to them where you’d obtained it, and no way to point them any closer to the source of the issue. You resolved to find Shouto as soon as possible to figure out what was going on, hopefully before the scheduled tour of Sunfish.

You rocketed through your morning tasks, and hurriedly volunteered to take over trap checking duty, disappearing out the door before Yu could so much as get out a reply.

You boated north to the reef where you’d first met Shouto, and jumped into the water before you’d even gotten your snorkeling gear on properly, certain the merman would somehow find you. You’d nearly finished checking the trap, kicking off the seafloor to rise back to the surface when a hand seized your elbow, guiding you back up.

Shouto’s handsome face was staring back at you when you yanked off your goggles, his distinctive hair slicked back with ocean water, the scar around his eye a deep pink in the sunlight. Sunlight glittered off the droplets on his skin, making him look even more ethereal than he usually did, and your breath momentarily seized in your chest.

“Hi Shouto,” you said, your face going hot when it came out weirdly breathy. Embarrassing.

A tiny little smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, and his fingers flexed on your elbow. “Hello,” he said in his deep, even tone.

Even that simple greeting somehow made you flush. You quickly marshaled yourself, trying to remember you had come here with an agenda, not to float here stupidly in the water, staring at him.

“Shouto—that coral you gave me yesterday? One of them has the signs of the pollution I was looking for!”

Shouto blinked, a droplet of water sliding down the side of his straight, handsome nose. Your eyes seemed weirdly glued to it as it reached the edge of his mouth.

“Then you liked it? It had…microbes?” he asked.

You nodded distractedly. “Sort of. Signs of microbial unhealth and chemically-induced bleaching. And I did like it. I think you might have actually solved the whole case for me!”

Shouto’s mouth pulled into a fuller, happier smile, just enough to bare the tops of those sharp teeth. You blinked, momentarily stunned, looking back up into his eyes to find him watching you intently.

“You liked it. My gift,” he said, something strangely smug in his tone. A little thrill raced through you, a frission of pleasure, at having put that expression on his face, that tone in his voice. Your ears went hot, and you pointedly did not think about why his pleasure made you so pleased as well.

“Yeah, I loved it,” you nodded, startled when Shouto’s fingers slid from your elbow to your wrist, lifting it up to his face.

But then in the next instant his expression shifted, his brows furrowing and the edges of his smile dipping. Instantly, you mourned the loss of it.

“But…you are not wearing it,” he said. “Either of them.”

Your eyelashes fluttered themselves in another disconcerted blink. Had…that been a requirement? Had he said that to you, yesterday?

You didn’t think you’d had much conversation between him handing over the bits of coral and you rushing off to the lab with them, but maybe that had been his expectation of what you would do with them. Maybe that was a common merperson thing, and you were too ignorant to think of it.

In fact, you hadn’t even taken the time to ask him why he’d given the coral bits to you, too focused on getting them under Kamui’s microscope like a huge disrespectful idiot.

You flushed, suddenly feeling incredibly rude. Was this a merperson custom you had just flagrantly ignored?

“Am I—? Is that something your people, um, do?” you asked. “Wear coral?”

Shouto nodded, those mismatched eyes still glued to your bare wrist. His fingers carefully shifted to encircle it, like he was replacing the expected bits of coral with his own hold on you. Your face burned and you paddled a little bit harder in the water, expelling nervous energy.

“I am so sorry, I didn’t know. Of course I will wear them, I just need to find some kind of string—” A sudden thought seized you. “Except—-well, Shouto, I need that white coral to prove pollution. I need to show it to my team, and be able to explain where I got it from. They might need to send it off as evidence.”

Shouto’s fingers tightened on you, though you noted he was still mindful of his claws. A hissing noise exploded out of him, and that scraping feeling burned at the back of your throat again, the bioelectric signal of his distaste clear enough.

“It is yours, not theirs,” he hissed, his handsome face suddenly all twisted up.

You could quite literally feel how distressed he was, and your heart throbbed with the realization that you were the cause.

You immediately backtracked, horrified. You shifted in the merman’s grip, twisting your hand to grab his wrist too, and put your other hand to his shoulder, holding him firmly.

“I’m sorry—Shouto, yes of course it’s mine. Of course I won’t give it to them,” you said, trying to angle your face to look into his eyes. “I didn’t realize—of course I will keep it with me.”

To your surprise, Shouto calmed immediately. The snarl faded from his mouth, his lips resuming their normal soft, sweet shape, and his other hand came to rest at your waist, pulling you a fraction closer to him.

“You promise,” he asked, though it was phrased more like a statement than a question.

You had to fight back a shocked laugh at how easily he’d been rerouted, and how unbelievably fleeting and childish that little tantrum had been. A prince of his people and here he was, getting fussy with you!

There was nothing for your exasperated snort, your helpless smile. “Yes, yes, I promise. But you have to help me collect another piece of white coral from where you got it originally. I promise it’s important.”

Shouto’s hands tightened on you, and you found yourself being dragged closer, so that he was holding you up in the water, only inches from the hard planes of his chest. His tail brushed against the inside of your thigh, the scales rasping lightly over the skin there. You went still, a little thrill racing up your spine at his sudden, more immediate proximity.

“You want me to take you there,” he said, his voice suddenly a little deeper.

You blinked. “I—yes? Is that…okay?”

Shouto’s eyes narrowed in on you, and you shifted nervously in his hold as his pupils went a little more slitted, a little more inhumanly focused. “It is an area of some significance to my people, though it is now difficult to get to. Your kind has begun to touch it.”

Your interest piqued. Humans had begun to touch it, alright. Judging by the chemical processing agents left behind on the piece of coral Shouto had given you, you could guess exactly which humans had touched it, too.

“Is it Sunfish?” you couldn’t help but ask, perking up in his hold.

Shouto inclined his head, a movement that brought his mouth almost dangerously close to yours. Your breath choked off in your lungs.

“Yes,” Shouto replied. “The…microbes you are interested in, then…? They are to do with Sunfish?”

You nodded excitedly, eagerly sucking in another breath. “Yes, yes! God, I’m so stupid, I should have told you earlier—anything to do with where Sunfish is operating is of interest to me. We’ve been testing the—um, the microbes to put it simply—around the area but if Sunfish has somewhere we haven’t been yet, that’s what I’m looking to know.”

Shouto looked thoughtful, and a claw trailed absently down the skin of your arm. You jumped, startled.

“Then I will take you,” he said, eyes cutting back to yours. “On one condition.”

You felt your eyebrows raise. Well that was unexpected of him. Who knew mermen knew how to bargain?

“Name your price,” you told him.

Shouto’s mouth quirked then, a hint of a sharp incisor showing, but the rest of his expression was strangely sincere. “I want dinner and a movie,” he said, a claw trailing sweetly, absently down the skin of your arm again. “Like you said humans do.”

You could feel your eyebrows escaping towards your hairline, your mouth going slack. “You want to watch a movie and have dinner,” you repeated, floored.

Shouto inclined his head, the damp strands of red and white mingling with the movement. “You said I would like a movie.”

Damn. You had said that, hadn’t you? But you couldn’t think how in the hell you were going to get Shouto to a movie. It wasn’t like there was a movie theater on this island, and besides that it wasn’t like you could just piggyback a real life merman into one.

You supposed if pressed, you could preload something on the shitty island wifi and then bring your laptop down to the beach and watch things that way. But what if someone spotted the light and came looking? Shouto could disappear quick enough, you had no doubt, but how to explain the laptop?

And then it occurred to you: the inn had a maintenance shed, just off the main office. A sudden image came to you of wheeling Shouto uphill in a wheelbarrow, getting him into the tub in your room, and setting up a few pillows for yourself, and some kind of dinner spread on the floor.

It was unconventional. But then—so was the idea of dinner and a movie with a merman at all.

You stuck out your hand, making a mental note to swing by the maintenance shed on your way back in tonight. “It’s a deal.”

Shouto stared at your fingers, seeming not to know what to do with the gesture, until you took one of his hands in your own, pumping it up and down. He held on for too long after that, those crimson-tipped fingers closing in over your own, warm and wet and strong.

“Then I will take you now, if you like,” Shouto said. “If you are ready.”

You nodded, paddling your feet a little uselessly in his hold, in eager anticipation. Confirmation of Sunfish’s activity, and the chance to see a place meaningful to Shouto and his people. It was a dream come true for any marine biologist.

Shouto let you go, following you slowly as you paddled back to the boat, swimming leisurely, looping circles around you. He helped boost you back into the boat, and then hauled himself up after you on the strength of his arms alone. The back of your neck went very warm, as you watched his muscle coil and flex as he pulled himself in, then looked at you imploringly.

“I will point the way and you will take us,” he said, slithering across the floor of the boat to slide in next to you behind the wheel. He peered at all the meters and dials interestedly, pressing a crimson claw to one.

You had to laugh at the ridiculousness of a merman sitting behind the wheel of a boat, and another wild idea occurred to you.

“Wanna learn how to drive?” you asked.

Shouto’s eyes slid over to you, turquoise and grey pinning you to your seat. “To operate the boat?”

You nodded. Another hot flush crept across your cheeks as a slow smile spread over Shouto’s mouth, those mismatched eyes glittering.

“Yes,” he said. “I should like that very much.”

You gestured him over to your seat, rising out of it as Shouto slid all that heavy muscle your way, the scales of his tail bright and fiery in the sun. He was warm and smelled like salt up close, and you tried not to take note of the way his bicep flexed as he moved to grip the wheel in taloned fingers.

You gave him a brief run through of all the meters and gauges, the fuel level meter, speedometer, the ammeter and engine hours. He seemed disinterested in all but the speed—a typical man, even if only his upper half looked it.

Then you showed him the throttle and how to turn the key to start and what degrees of movement of the wheel at a higher speed wouldn’t send both of you flying out of the boat. And then you sank down next to him, gripping the seat for safety as he started the boat, looking thrilled.

He guided the boat off the reef more carefully than you would have expected, but he grew bolder as you made it out into deeper waters, applying a ton of throttle instantly and sending you falling backwards in your seat. You zoomed across the gentle waves, horrifyingly fast, but unexpectedly smoothly for someone who had just learned. Shouto seemed intimately familiar with the island’s layout, navigating smoothly through some of the shallow channels that gave you an almost-regular heart attack, gliding easily across the waves and not seeming to catch a single one the wrong way.

A thrilled laugh bit out of you, getting lost in the wind as you sped across the sea. Shouto’s mouth pulled into a wider smile, looking pleased with himself, those sharp teeth white in the sun. You found yourself smiling, at the ludicrousness of being driven around by a merprince, and at how much Shouto looked like he was enjoying himself.

In almost no time Shouto was steering you into a shallow cove on the eastern side of the island a couple hundred meters away from where you’d laid out an observation station. As you slowed to a stop you helped anchor the boat, feeling your brows furrowing back down in confusion, the smile slipping off your face.

If there was any level of pollution in this cove then you would have known about it from the nearby observation station. You weren’t sure if Shouto had the right spot.

But as you turned back to him he pointed a claw towards the jut of the land, aiming with certainty. “There used to be a cave through which we could access the lagoon,” he said. “But it is blocked off to us now.”

You stared at him, befuddled. “Blocked off? By what?”

Shouto’s mouth thinned into an irritated line. “By some human invention—I do not know what it is.”

Your eyebrows raised. “Then—how did you get the coral out of this, uh, lagoon if you can’t access it?”

Shouto’s eyes dipped, following your words as your mouth shaped them, looking strangely intent. Your ears went hot.

“I climbed,” he said simply.

You whipped around to stare back at the strip of land rising into the jungle. You could just make out a clearing in the trees where you thought a lagoon might lay. And it was no small distance. Your jaw dropped, imagining Shouto having to drag himself over meters and meters of land to get there.

Your stomach fluttered, the white coral suddenly taking on a new significance if Shouto had gone to such trouble for it. It had to be more than just an area of interest to his people—-it more likely had to be extremely significant if this was the length merpeople had to go for this coral. No wonder he hadn’t liked the idea of you testing it, of you surrendering it and mailing it out and away, if he’d had to pull himself over land like that to get it.

And with this realization, a new, wildly disconcerting thought crept over you, an insane flight of fancy.

Was it possible that Shouto had given you… not just a friendly gift, but something even more meaningful than you had initially realized? If this was a site of cultural significance, and he’d suffered to get the coral for you—did it mean something a little bit more intimate than an exchange between new friends?

Your gaze darted back over to Shouto, sitting pertly in his seat. He struck such a handsome profile, all sleek muscle and delicately carved features, his face carefully-noted and almost supernaturally angelic. His coloring, too, was magnificent, the rose of his scar, the deep scarlet of his scales and his claws. And he was so sweet, and funny, and so very interesting. He was unlike anything—anyone—you had ever seen, and the thought of him fetching you a gift of special significance made an even more blistering wave of heat flare up in your belly.

You rose from your seat, determined to see this lagoon for yourself.

“Alright, you wait here,” you told Shouto, “I’m going to go check it out.”

He nodded, watching you closely as you went to the bag of supplies, fishing out a camera, the log book, your shoes, and a couple pieces of sampling equipment. You stuffed them all in a dry bag, rolling the top down tight and buckling securely.

“You will be careful,” Shouto intone in his deep voice, more an order than a question.

You smiled up at him, nodding your head. “Yes. I’ll be back in just a couple of minutes.”

He looked satisfied with that, and helped lower you down into the water to swim for land. He slithered off the edge beside you, sinking smoothly into the water like a dropped stone, and swam along underneath you, following you all the way until you clambered onto the sand. You hurriedly dug around in your bag for your shoes, stuffing your feet into them still sandy and damp as Shouto looked on.

Once properly outfitted, you followed the beach as it trailed off into scrub and bushes, and then into towering palms, making your way into the jungle. The sun shone brightly through the leaves, painting everything around you in shades of sunlit green, the air under the canopy thicker than on the beach. Your feet slid over the damp sand in your sneakers, a sensation you did not particularly enjoy, but you walked briskly, your curiosity leading you onwards.

In only a few minutes, the trees once again gave way to a small strip of sand, and you spilled out onto the beach of the lagoon.

It was instantly clear to you exactly what Shouto had meant. A large metallic wall dammed off one side of the lagoon, most probably blocking off the underwater channel Shouto had told you about. It had been bolted into the jutting coral and rock around it, sealing off any water flow. Around it, the ancient coral walls of the lagoon were bone white wherever the water lapped at them, disturbingly bleached of color, and you thought the scrub and the trees that had built up over the surface overtime looked a little bit unhealthy too.

Shouto had most definitely gotten his coral from here.

As you looked around your certainty grew, until you spotted the most damning evidence. Only a scant few meters away from where you had come out of the forest, there was a pipe dug into the earth, sitting about a meter above the water level of the lagoon. It was still shiny, clearly new, and it was also dribbling the occasional bit of liquid into the lagoon, as if someone were piping certain substances out and away from the rest of their facilities.

Your heart rate doubled at the sight, and you knew even as you unloaded your equipment to take samples that you had found exactly what you had been looking for.

There was no doubt in your mind that this pipe led back to Sunfish. And Shouto had indeed just solved this entire case.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

Reader is literally doing everything she can to ignore the proverbial elephant in the room🤣🤣🤣

SOMETHING IN THE WATER | 4 | SHOUTO x READER

SUMMARY: As a future marine biologist, you’ve scored big on your final internship: a summer in the tropics, researching the waters off the coast of a lush, sunny island. But what you thought would be all beach days and piña coladas turns out to be the revelation of a lifetime when you haul in a handsome merprince, and discover not everything in these waters is quite as it seems. TAGS/WARNINGS: mermaid au, interspecies relationships, mating rituals/courting behavior, (sort of) case fic, aged up characters, eventual smut, fem pronouns/afab reader LENGTH: 3.3k of est. 21k, 4th of 8 chapters

The next morning dawned with the news that Sunfish had finally settled on a day your team could tour the facilities.

“They did not seem pleased,” Death Arms reported over your morning coffee, his mouth a grim line. The group of you were stuffed up in his room, working through the several plates of homemade breakfast that Inko had blessed you with. Yu rolled her eyes even as she speared egg off of Kamui’s plate. Kamui looked resigned to this behavior.

“They should be honored, we're here to potentially clear their name,” Yu sniffed, then hummed appreciatively as she swallowed. “Wow, Inko knows what she’s about. Is there crack in these eggs?”

“I wouldn’t know, I haven’t been able to taste anything off my own plate,” Kamui returned, sipping at his coffee instead.

Yu’s mouth opened to respond to him, but Death Arms quickly spoke over whatever quip might have fallen out of it.

“Anyway, we’re going next Thursday afternoon,” he said loudly. You smiled into your own food at Yu’s disgruntled expression. “If we haven’t found anything by then, and everything looks in order at Sunfish, I think we can safely assume the initial reports were fabricated. We will issue a reminder that they are not to overfish as populations are just slightly smaller than we would expect, but it seems there’s no real issue to address.”

An unsettled feeling twisted in your stomach.

You didn’t know quite what it was, considering that you hadn’t actually found anything persuasive of Sunfish’s guilt. But something sat heavy in your gut, the memory of both Bakugou and Shouto expressing dislike of the cannery. Neither had said anything to you about wastewater pollution, but you remembered the bioelectric scrape of dislike in Shouto’s words when he spoke, how you could literally feel it at the back of your throat.

Maybe it was just a gut feeling on both of their parts. But gut feelings usually were formed out of something. You didn’t want to leave things here just yet.

The crew finished up breakfast and you set about your usual tasks, running errands between all the researchers, double-checking counts, compiling results, and going glassy-eyed in front of observation station footage.

It was only later in the afternoon that you were unleashed back onto the water with Yu and Kamui, boating out to check all the nets and the occasional trap. Kamui frowned over a couple of the specimens you’d caught, but eventually judged that they looked mostly okay, and tagged them to release.

You were on the north side, penning down the observations Kamui occasionally called back to you, when you heard the sluicing sound of something breaking the surface of the water a few feet behind you.

You glanced over your shoulder—only for an ice cold stab of panic to puncture your gut.

Shouto was floating a couple of meters away, looking curiously towards your boat. From his angle, you could tell he was definitely registering Kamui and Yu onboard with you, and you could just see the tiniest little tilt of his head, a blinking of those two-toned eyes.

Oh no.

He wasn’t considering swimming over, was he?

Yu and Kamui probably could be trusted to keep the secret, if they caught sight of him, but they were also marine biologists—and Shouto was a discovery that could make an entire career.

Even if they were to never say anything, though, the more people who knew about him, the more chance there was of that information escaping them. You could just imagine Yu giddily reliving her discovery several cups into a bottle of sake, and that wasn’t nothing if a marine biologist was claiming it, drunk or not.

As if on cue, Shouto swam closer, and you dropped the log book like a hot potato, frantically flapping your arms at him not to come any nearer.

He stopped, blinking those beautiful eyes at you again, their colors clear and true even a few meters out. From this distance you could just make out a tiny frown pulling at his mouth.

Oh, his pout was so cute. But you didn’t have time to care right now—you had to get him out of there before Yu and Kamui saw him.

You waved again, making a shooing motion, as quietly but as panicked as you could make it, to convey urgency. Shouto’s frown deepened, and you raised your eyebrows at him, flapping your hand even faster.

“What do you think, kiddo?” Yu’s voice suddenly floated back to you from the front of the boat.

You whipped around, registering her head just beginning to turn towards you.

A bone-deep panic slashed down your body, instantly blanking out all thought. Before you even registered that you were moving, your shin had already connected with the side of the boat, and you were throwing yourself over the side opposite Shouto.

The warm water slapped you in the chest as you fell, knocking the wind right out of you. It rushed up your nose, filling your mouth. You coughed and sputtered as you broke the surface, inhaling more water droplets than air, the salt burning in your throat. Yu’s startled yelp met your ears, sounding truly rattled.

“Kid! Oh my god, are you okay?” she yelled, louder than needed when she was only feet away. You hadn’t fallen far.

You licked the salt out of your mouth and rubbed it out of your eyes, catching sight of her leaning over the side of the boat in concern. Kamui had also apparently dropped the fish he was inspecting, and was holding out a long, nut-brown arm to you. You couldn’t see Shouto from down in the water, but you hoped he’d taken the opportunity to clear out.

You coughed again and paddled back over, letting Kamui catch your hand. He hauled you back up into the boat, helping you over the side with a hand under your elbow.

“Yeah, sorry,” you said, even as you sopped water everywhere climbing back over the side. Your clothes weighed about a million pounds, dragging you down into the seats. “I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing.”

Yu clucked as she shoved a spare towel down onto your head, blinding you in teal fabric. “You gave me a heart attack, you little meatball.”

You yanked the towel out of your mouth, giving her your most apologetic grin as you emerged from the terry cloth folds. “It’s just a little water, I’m fine,” you promised.

A quick glance behind her and Kamui told you that Shouto had disappeared, and a wave of relief washed through you, pooling in your limbs and weighing you down further into the pale vinyl of the boat seats.

“What the heck were you even doing?” Yu demanded, hands on her hips. You noticed Kamui’s eyes dart quickly to the swell of her thigh as she did, and then away again, as if he’d been momentarily pulled by a magnet. You suppressed a laugh. They were both so obvious.

“I was just looking at the island, I wasn’t paying attention when I stepped forward,” you lied, trying your best to look innocent.

Yu’s mouth twisted, but then she sniffed, seeming satisfied. “Well don’t do it again, kid,” she ordered you, waving a perfectly manicured finger at you.

You saluted her, then adjusted the towel around you, wrapping yourself securely like a waterlogged burrito. “Yes ma’am.”

She sighed, then turned to exchange a couple quick words with Kamui, and you peered back behind her, satisfied when you only saw the turquoise, glassy sparkle of unbroken water lapping gently around the reef. No Shouto, for sure.

“We’ll call it here for today,” Yu decided. “Since we’re not finding anything anyway.”

You didn’t protest, eager to get out of the area in case Shouto was still around, just lurking. You really would think a merman whose species had effectively hidden themselves for all of human history would have been like, a little bit more discerning about who he showed himself to. Honestly, the fact that you even knew he was around was a bit of a concern.

A sudden suspicion formed in the back of your mind.

Come to think of it, just why had Shouto been skulking around your boat in the first place, nearly a week ago? You made a mental note to ask him, when he inevitably found you later.

Which was another thing of concern. He always, always seemed to find you, no matter what stretch of island water you even dipped a toe into. How the heck was he doing that, either?

The three of you boated back to the island dock, Kamui ducking into the grocery for a couple of takeaway sandwiches for dinner, since you were still soaking wet and in no state to settle in at a restaurant. You discussed your lack of findings again briefly with Death Arms as you returned, and then you were free to trek back to your room, left to your own devices for the rest of the evening.

You wrestled yourself out of your wet clothes and into a bathing suit and a dry pair of shorts, and then took your dinner down to the beach, almost certain you would find Shouto there.

And within minutes, you were proved correct. A head of white and scarlet hair broke the surface of the water just as you unwrapped your sandwich. Shouto drew closer, dragging himself heavily through the shallows on the strength of his arms alone.

You watched, slightly transfixed, as all that wet muscle glittered in the orange light of the evening sun, cording with his lithe movements.

“Are you alright?” Shouto asked as he drew up in front of you, still in a few inches of water. The soft waves lapped the skin of his hip where it joined his tail, fading from smooth, pale flesh into speckled red and white muscle.

You blinked, your gaze flashing back up to his face, which quickly proved to be a mistake. It was even prettier than the rest of him, an almost impossible feat. His eyebrows were drawn with concern, and his mismatched eyes were darting over you, like he was evaluating you for injury.

You reached out, poking him in the chest. “I’m fine! I was distracting them from you! What the heck were you doing, swimming towards the boat like Kamui and Yu were old besties?”

A frown pulled at Shouto’s perfectly plush mouth. “They were with you,” he said, his deep tone earnest.

This drew you up a little short, your finger going limp against his chest. “What?”

Shouto leaned in closer, dipping that handsome head to look you more closely in the eyes. You tried not to find the move so charming. “They are your friends, are they not?”

You puzzled over this. “Well, yeah, sort of. They’re fellow researchers and I just met them a few weeks ago, but I think they’re good people. But—Shouto, you can’t just go up to people like that!”

Shouto’s mouth pulled into a tiny frown again. “I am aware. But you are an exception, I thought…”

The look on his face was enough for you to instantly cave, everything crumbling in the face of the sweetness of his pout. You sighed. Who would have ever thought, weeks ago, that you would succumb to the pout of a merman, of all things?

“Shouto. I think the researchers I am with are good people who want to help. But at the same time, you are a legend that humankind has chased for centuries. You would make a marine biologist’s career—you could make someone one of the most famous researchers of all time.”

Warm, wet fingers met the underside of your chin, startling you. But Shouto grasped your face gently, tipping it up to his. “Then—when you fell in the water. You were protecting me?” he asked.

Your face flushed hot. Really it had just been a distraction, a brief bout of lunacy. He made it sound way more noble than it had been intended to be.

“I was providing cover,” you said defensively.

Shouto’s eyes roved over you, long and slow and evaluative, ending in an unhurried catlike blink. Then a tiny hint of a smile pressed at the corner of his mouth. “You were protecting me,” he decided.

Your face went impossibly hotter, burning so warm you were certain he would feel it against his fingers. But Shouto just looked pleased. The hand on your face disappeared, only to reappear on your ankle, gripping gently but firmly, as he always seemed to do.

You did not want to ask what that was about.

You took a bite of your sandwich to avoid answering, pausing in your chewing when Shouto looked interested.

“You wanna try?” you asked, offering it to him. “It’s veggies and cheese—do you know if you can digest cheese?”

Shouto blinked those beautiful eyes at you, his nose scrunching the tiniest bit. “Izuku lets me try his food sometimes. I do not like cheese.”

You laughed. You couldn’t imagine not liking cheese, but you supposed it only made sense if you hadn’t grown up eating it.

“You want a veggie out of it, then?” you asked.

Shouto leaned forward, inspecting your sandwich. You noticed him inhale slightly, like he was taking stock of it, before he eventually nodded. “The rest of it smells acceptable.”

You smiled, working some tomato, basil, and a sprig of arugula free for him. “Your order, sir,” you said, laying them out in his outstretched hand. You tried not to laugh at how ridiculous the sliced tomato looked sitting there in his large palm, caged in by five deadly-looking claws.

Shouto took a delicate bite of the tomato, his sharp canines another ridiculous contrast. You hid another smile by taking a bite of your sandwich.

Which of course is when he struck.

“For my people, it is customary to provide for one’s mate,” he said, his tone low and thoughtful. “Food and protection, both of which you have given me today.”

A chunk of bread lodged itself suddenly in the back of your throat, and you spluttered, hacking.

Shouto leaned in, concerned, and you waved a hand at him as you coughed to indicate you were okay, barely managing to wheeze out, “I’m fine. Swallowed—wrong.”

Shouto lingered close, looking you over with a little frown until your breathing regulated again.

“Sorry. Just swallowed my sandwich wrong,” you said. “You surprised me.”

Shouto’s brow knitted. “You do not exchange such things with mates?”

Your face went hot, like an instant sunburn. “I—you must have learned from Bakugou and your sister that humans don’t—-it’s not quite like that.”

Shouto blinked guilelessly, looking like he was waiting for you to continue. You looked out to sea, unable to make any sort of eye contact with him while discussing this. You were suddenly all too aware of the strength and shape of him next to you.

“Humans don’t like, inherently know their partners,” you told him, fixing your eyes to the orange shine of the late evening sun on the gentle waves. “We live in mostly monogamous cultures but there’s also no like, biological imperative to choose just one permanent mate. And the way modern culture is structured—we don’t have traditional, um, practices like that. There are common dates people go on, like dinner and a movie, but that’s it.”

You heard the scrape of Shouto’s scales over the sand next to you, a sudden swish of his tail in the shallow water. “Dinner and a movie,” he repeated.

You nodded. “Have Izuku or Bakugou explained movies?”

Shouto gave a deep hum of affirmation. “I have never seen one, however.”

You scrunched your toes in the sand absently. “You might like them. There’s a bunch of ones about mermaids—you’d probably think they’re funny.”

Shouto made that low humming sound again, sounding thoughtful. “And your people don’t have other mating practices?”

Your cheeks burned even hotter. Why the heck was he so interested, anyway? Could he not just eat his tomato and give a marine biologist a break?

“There’s nothing super standard across all cultures,” you said. “I guess where I’m from guys will give a girl flowers or jewelry or something.”

Shouto made another small sound, more interested this time, and you turned to look at him just as he leaned into you again. You froze, startled by his proximity. Up close his eyes were even more beautiful, the blue of his left eye the exact shade of the tropical waters of the island, made even more standout by the surrounding pink scar tissue.

You clenched your fingers at your side against the urge to smooth them over it.

He really was so pretty, a thought that you absolutely should not be having about a dude who wasn’t even fully of your same species, though he was certainly fairly human enough, you thought. The rest of him was all hard muscle and strong lines in the corner of your vision, and you stared resolutely at his face so your vision didn’t snag on the clench of those abs as he leaned over you.

A hand touching your free one made you jump, and you just managed to keep your sandwich from dropping into the sand.

You glanced down, to see Shouto pressing two chips of something knobby into your hand, carefully avoiding the delicate skin of your wrist by angling his claws up. “For you,” he said, his tone low and soft.

It tickled something at the back of your brain, making your flush deepen, and you kept your eyes pinned to the chips shyly.

When you brought your hand closer to your face, the chips resolved themselves into two differently-colored pieces of coral, clearly sliced off by Shouto’s sharp claws again. One was a brilliant red, nearly scarlet like the color of the left side of Shouto’s hair. And the other was duller, a washed out white, the color of his right.

You blinked up at him, your mouth opening with a question about why he would be giving this to you—until your gaze jerked back down again, focusing on the white coral.

White coral. As in, bleached of all color. As in, coral bleaching, which occurred with changes in seawater chemistry, due to temperature, acidity changes, or pollution.

Pollution like the kind you’d been looking for from Sunfish.

“You seemed to like the coral, the other day,” Shouto said, by way of explanation. It was your growing concern, however, that had you only half-focused on his words, your entire world narrowing to the sliver of white coral in your hand.

“Shouto,” you said, looking up at him in wonder. “You are literally amazing. I think you might have just cracked this entire case for me.”

Shouto blinked, looking as though he did not know how to feel about this. His skin flushed, a strange sudden peek of red color creeping over his face, and his pupils went a little sharper, more slitted. Any other time you would have been fascinated by a change like this, maybe have even been bold enough to lean in and inspect him.

But you were already getting to your feet, your sandwich falling off of your lap.

“I have to go to the lab—I’ll see you later, alright?” you said distractedly.

Shouto’s brows knitted, but you did not wait for a reply. You began sprinting for Kamui’s makeshift lab—leaving your sandwich and the handsome merprince behind you in the sand.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

Cute cute cuteeee I love bonding chapters

something in the water | 3 | shouto x reader

pairing: Todoroki Shouto / Fem Reader

length: 4.3k | 3rd of 6 chapters

summary: As a future marine biologist, you’ve scored big on your final internship: a summer in the tropics, researching the waters off the coast of a lush, sunny island. But what you thought would be all beach days and piña coladas turns out to be the revelation of a lifetime when you haul in a handsome merprince, and discover not everything in these waters is quite as it seems.

tags/warnings: mermaid au, interspecies relationships, mating rituals/courting behavior, (sort of) case fic, aged up characters, eventual smut, fem pronouns/afab reader

Things did, in fact, get incredibly weird.

Once Shouto let you go, seemingly pleased with the deal you’d struck, you’d clambered back to your bungalow, the feeling of his hand still warm on your ankle. You’d shed your soaking clothes and showered off the salt you could feel tightening your skin, standing under the spray for far longer than necessary, running over the events that had just occurred. Then you crawled into bed wondering what being friends with a merman entailed, exactly.

In the morning you managed a breakfast of granola and coffee, and then were sent on a series of boring intern errands as though everything in the world was normal.

You helped Kamui prep a bunch of samples to send back to the main lab, and then double-checked several of the species counts you and Masaki had done against the observation station footage. You helped Death Arms organize the data you’d collected and log all your findings so far, and only after lunch did Yu consider letting you back near the water, though you’d really hoped you’d have time to hunt down Izuku and ask what the hell was up with his merman friend.

“You’re on coral collection duty,” Yu informed you after you emerged from your lunch of a lovingly-made sandwich and a seltzer that Izuku’s mom, Inko, had bustled in with, a little wrinkle between her brows when she asked if you’d been working too hard.

You’d assured her you were fine, but fell upon the sandwich like a vulture on carrion as soon as she’d turned her back. It had been so, so good in the way that only mothers could make food taste.

“Um, which coral?” you asked, watching Yu jot something down in her notes.

“Start with the north side near where we think Sunfish cut the net,” Yu told you. “And work your way south. A sample from every couple hundred meters or so, but take photographs and log where you’re getting them from.”

A weird, anticipatory shiver went up your spine. Somewhere out there, beyond those reefs, Shouto was probably somewhere in the water.

You didn’t quite know what to make of the idea of being in the water with him again, though he had agreed to be friends. But in your opinion, friendship was probably safer in the shallows.

You nodded carefully, and went to collect all the items you’d need–the underwater camera, the chisel and hammer you’d need to cut the coral, a log book, and the appropriate sample preservation equipment. The sun was directly overhead by the time you’d wiggled into your swimsuit and loaded up the boat, driving out to the reef where you’d first encountered Shouto.

He was nowhere to be seen as you anchored and got into the water, nor as you took your first sample. You took your time, relaxing after a while, curiously peering around at all the fish darting in and out of the coral, the elegant waving sea fans, the busy, wildly-antennaed cleaner shrimp, hard at work trying to lure fish in.

It was only after you’d moved on to the next site and were finishing up chiseling a tiny stud of coral that you felt something touch your ankle. You screamed into your snorkel, sending a heavy burst of bubbles up towards the surface, and whipped around, only to find a pair of mismatched eyes watching you curiously. Long, taloned fingers curled carefully around the bone of your ankle again, and you stared as you realized it was Shouto.

It was somewhat disconcerting to see him in the open water, instead of in the shallows. He was a little bigger than you had realized, his tail sweeping out several feet past where a pair of human legs would have ended, and he moved with a hypnotizing grace, movements lithe and powerful. In the clear afternoon sunshine, his coloring stood out against the surrounding waters, milky swirls of ice white stark against deep scarlet.

His face was just as perfect as you’d remembered from yesterday, and his muscles moved sinuously through the open water as he swam up next to you. He was so strangely, inhumanly gorgeous. And he was also watching you with a curious expression, eyes dipping to the chisel and mallet in your hands.

You realized you couldn’t explain while underwater, and that you were also nearly at the end of your breath. You gestured for the surface, starting to swim up, but were surprised when Shouto let go of your leg to catch you carefully under the elbow and pull you up himself.

You yanked the snorkel out of your mouth as you broke the surface, watching as Shouto came up too. He peered at you, water droplets glistening in his lashes.

“I’m not fucking with anything, I promise, I’m just collecting samples,” you told him, nervous that he might think you’d gone back on your word.

One of his hands came up, grasping your goggles, gently pulling them off your face, to rest at the crown of your head instead. Those mismatched eyes traced your features with a frankly inhuman amount of intensity, and you wondered what he was looking for.

“You do not need to smell nervous,” he said, his voice soft and deep. “We are friends.” That strange, bioelectric thrum slid against the back of your brain.

You blinked at him, baffled. Smell nervous? “I—you can smell that?”

Shouto looked almost affronted, like he was perturbed you’d question his abilities. “You cannot?”

You shook your head. “All I’m getting is salt water.”

Shouto frowned like this was concerning to him, and his fingers came up to press against your nose, one hand angling your head so he could inspect you closer. He hummed consideringly, and you watched those heterochromatic eyes flick back and forth, assessing you. “Is it broken?”

You couldn’t help but laugh at the sincere concern in his tone. Okay, so maybe…he wasn’t out to hurt you. He was probably just weird.

“Um, no. Bakugou and Izuku haven’t told you? Humans are not that great at smelling stuff compared to a lot of other species, and obviously we can’t smell anything while we’re in the water holding our breath,” you explained as Shouto’s scarlet fingers petted over the bridge of your nose.

Shouto’s mouth curled. “You are not good at swimming either.”

You bristled. You were a fine swimmer, thank you very much!

“Hey, I’m not that bad,” you told him, nerves suddenly forgotten. You poked him in the chest reflexively, blinking again when it was a little too appealingly warm and firm against the pad of your finger. “Oh.”

The corner of Shouto’s mouth twitched as he looked you over, like he was suppressing a tiny smile. “You are bad. All of you,” he pronounced decisively.

You frowned at him, and his eyes dipped to your mouth, watching the movement. His hand slid from your nose to your mouth, feeling the curve there. He was definitely a lot…handsier than you had expected.

“Um,” you said against the pads of his fingers. “I have a hard time believing Bakugou and Izuku let you poke them like this.”

Shouto’s gaze flicked to yours again. His expression went strangely blank, as though he was trying not to look guilty. Notably, he did not remove his hands, letting one slide under your elbow to keep you propped up in the water, the other boldly cupping your face. His touch was careful and warm.

“You are the only one who lets me,” he said. “Izuku is shy. Bakugou only lets Fuyumi.” He sounded a little put out.

You thought the word lets was doing a lot of work there. Then your brain caught up with the rest of his statement, and you looked at him in surprise. “Wait, Fuyumi? Like his boat?”

Shouto shook his head. Water droplets glittered against his skin in the sunlight, mesmerizing. “My sister.”

Your jaw dropped open in his hands. You had absolutely no idea why the idea floored you so, but it suddenly occurred to you that Shouto, as a merman, would have had to have come from somewhere. And that meant—

“You have a sister? There are more merpeople?” you asked. “Bakugou is…seeing one?”

The weight of Shouto’s purposefully blank stare made your cheeks heat.

“Okay, dumb question,” you allowed. “Obviously there would be more merpeople. But like, how many more?”

Shouto shrugged a powerful shoulder, looking bored by the concept. “Many. My father’s pod is a few hundred, but we do not travel far beyond our ancestral waters. There are many other pods out there, I do not know how many.”

You tried not to notice the way he started to pull your elbow out, looking your arm over like he didn’t have two perfectly good arms of his own. You were beginning to realize this was a bit of a thing with him.

“Your father’s pod?” you asked him, willing to trade his weird inspection of you for more information.

Shouto nodded distractedly, his fingers pressing over your own where your fingers ended in blunt nails, rather than his own deadly set of claws. “He is the king, as was my grandfather, and my grandfather’s grandfather before him—why not grow your claws instead of using that contraption?” he asked, gesturing to your mallet and chisel, still clutched in your left hand.

You stared at him, realizing that you were most probably speaking to not just a merman but a merprince, though obviously you had no gauge for how formal that designation was within his society. The careful scratch of his talon over the top of your nail rerouted your brain. “They’re not claws, they’re nails. And they are not very sharp or strong, comparatively. There’s no way I could cut coral with my nails no matter how long they get.”

Shouto made a low humming noise, which you felt again like a shiver at the back of your brain.

“You cannot swim and you cannot fight,” he said conclusively. “But you are interesting to look at nevertheless.”

“Um, thanks,” you said, mystified. You didn’t want to ask by what criteria he was judging your interestingness. “Uh, you too.” You wondered if it would be rude to ask to inspect him the way he’d been inspecting you. “Your tail is—nice.”

Shouto blinked those mismatched eyes at you, then, strangely, seemed to preen a little. “Is it?”

You had to suppress a sudden laugh. If he was only regularly interacting with the likes of Izuku and Bakugou, he probably hadn’t been complemented much on his appearance. Izuku was too sweet and shy, and Bakugou seemed the type who’d rather gouge his eyes out than say something nice.

“Yes, it’s very pretty,” you said.

Shouto looked like he was trying very hard not to look too pleased with this assessment. Except then he opened his mouth and dropped a bomb on you. “And you think my face is handsome.”

Every milliliter of blood in your body iced over. “I—what?”

Something brushed your foot in the water, and you jumped, before realizing it was Shouto’s tail, as he’d grown closer.

“When you were threatening me with the oar,” he said, his tone dipping just a bit lower. “You said my face was handsome and you did not want to break it.”

Fuck, you had said that, hadn’t you? In the whirlwind of your wild, panicked ramblings.

You could have died. You literally could have died.

“Well it…is,” you said haltingly, trying to think of how to save face here. “All of you is—I mean, you’re quite—um. You know.”

Ugh. How to tell a merman he was exceptionally and inhumanly handsome but in a way that was cool and detached and like, normal and not weird. You didn’t think anyone on earth had ever had this problem before.

You were thankfully distracted from having to say anything more by the hiss and crackle of the walkie talkie you’d left on the boat—a substitute you were using to communicate with the other researchers considering cell service on the island was more of a dream than a reality.

Shouto’s mouth curled in a snarl, and he seized you around the arms, yanking you close to him. You suddenly found yourself pressed up against kilos of warm, wet muscle, one of his broad hands on your back to hold you to him. An involuntary shiver went through you, one that you hoped he couldn’t feel.

“Oh, it’s okay,” you said over Shouto’s hiss, raising a palm to try and press yourself back from him. His skin was so warm under your hand. “It’s my walkie. I’ve been radioing in after every stop—they probably just wanna know what is taking so long.”

You tried not to be too flattered that it seemed like Shouto had sort of moved to protect you. He really did mean to be friends, then.

Shouto reluctantly let you press yourself back from him, and paddle one-handed over to the boat, still clutching your mallet and chisel. You hauled yourself up, drying one hand on a towel before radioing back to Yu that you were fine, you were just slightly behind schedule. “Well hurry up then, kid!” she replied, her perky voice crackly.

You reassured her you’d get your butt in gear. Then you went back to the side of the boat to see if Shouto was still there, startling when he was already peering at you over the side, having hauled himself up. Something pink was clutched in his hand and he proffered it to you.

You realized it was a piece of coral, cleanly sliced through by his claws.

You blinked. “Holy shit you’re fast.”

Shouto’s expression again went strangely flat, like he was trying not to look smug, and you realized all at once that he really wasn’t the threat you had thought him previously—not to you, anyway. Really, if this entire interaction was anything to judge by, he just seemed like a weirdly sincere, straightforward dude who happened to be short a pair of legs but plus a set of claws and incisors.

“Do you—would you be interested in helping me collect the rest of the samples?” you asked him tentatively, taking the coral from him and depositing it in one of the sample kits you’d brought. You fumbled around for a sharpie to annotate.

“What are they for?” Shouto asked. You could feel a curl of curiosity in the bioelectric hum of his words.

“We’re testing the coral for microbe health. There’s a baseline level we’d expect on corals like these, and the more it fluctuates the unhealthier the coral,” you said.

Shouto hummed in his throat, a low rumble that shivered down the back of your spine. “Microbes,” he echoed, clearly unfamiliar with the term. “You’re—interested—in these microbes?”

You capped your pen, stowing your sample away. “Yeah, very.”

Shouto blinked, long and slow like a cat, then nodded, seeming to decide something. “I will help you.”

Your mouth pulled into a smile, and you grinned at him, pleased. “Really?”

He inclined his head seriously, his wet bangs falling into his eyes in a way that was weirdly handsome. “Yes.”

You pumped your fist, then clambered back over to him, almost tripping on the uneven floor plate and tumbling right into him. You saved yourself with a hand on the back of a seat, gripping tightly.

This much closer to him, you could clearly see the definition in Shouto’s arms as he held himself out of the water, clinging to the side of the boat. Droplets of water had collected in the divots of his muscles, winking in the sun, mesmerizing you. You decided to keep your hand on the seat just for safety.

“Do you want to come up and drive with me over to the next spot? Or…follow?” you asked.

Shouto answered by pulling himself up further, arms cording as he hefted himself up out of the water. The rest of him appeared over the side of the boat: a hard set of abs, and his heavy tail, the colors bright in the sun. Your hand tightened on the seat.

“Alright, next stop, the east-side reef,” you informed him, your voice coming out just slightly higher than you’d meant it to.

You quickly busied yourself starting the motor, musing at the strangeness of boating a merman around on his own waters. But Shouto seemed to like it. When you looked back at him he was peering down at the water, watching it rush past. The wind played in his damp hair, lifting it away from his regal features.

You found yourself smiling to yourself almost the entire way to the next stop. Shouto slithered back over the side of the boat and went to the reef under your direction, coming back up in under a minute, a red speck of coral in his claws. You stored and labeled that one too, and he lifted himself back into the boat, looking pleased with your praise.

You managed all of your stops in under an hour with Shouto’s help, and found yourself with an extra half hour on your hands. Not wanting to arouse suspicion by returning unfeasibly early, lest your team think you’d gotten lazy and skipped a couple of samples, you anchored the boat alongside the last reef.

Shouto watched you gear up to get back into the water for a casual swim around with a little wrinkle between his brows, and you stopped short, staring down at him where he floated in the water.

“Is there—a problem?” you asked.

Shouto’s mouth went a little thin. “I do not like that,” he said, pointing a scarlet claw at your mask and snorkel where you’d been about to pull them on again.

“My mask and snorkel?” you asked.

He nodded, looking somber. “It hides your face.”

An embarrassing type of spluttering sound erupted from your mouth as your face caught fire, the implication that he wanted to see your face somehow wildly more intimate than you might have realized. You fumbled for something to say in response, not wanting to read into that statement too heavily.

“They’re how I see and breathe while I’m looking around under the water,” you said, though you were sure he’d probably already gathered as much, if he hadn’t learned it from Bakugou or Izuku already.

He shrugged a powerful shoulder. “I do not like it,” he said firmly.

You found yourself huffing a laugh. You pulled your mask and snorkel back away from your face, depositing them on one of the seats.

“Okay then, but I will be swimming around with my eyes closed,” you said. “The salt water burns them.”

Shouto blinked those mismatched eyes at you guilelessly. “I will watch out for you.”

You laughed again, a short huff, then launched yourself over the side of the boat to splash down in the water beside him. It was warm and welcoming, and Shouto’s hand immediately found your bicep, tugging you back up to the surface. Some part of you thrilled with the feeling of being back in the water with him—this man who was still a little bit of an unknown to you, though he certainly was shaping up to be kind enough.

You found there was no need to paddle your legs with Shouto holding you up so you just let yourself acclimate to the water in his grip, watching him curiously. He looked back at you, handsome, as anything, and an earlier, unanswered question suddenly came back to you.

“So Bakugou….and your sister?” you asked.

Shouto’s grip on your arm flexed slightly. “They are mates,” he said.

You could feel your eyebrows lifting, and your face got hot again. “Mates?”

Shouto nodded. “They are a pairing. Katsuki is Fuyumi’s chosen life mate. She will not mate with anyone else again. I do not think Katsuki will either.”

His claws gently pricked your skin. You made a note in your mental notepad. So it was a for life thing with merpeople, huh.

You nodded quickly, your cheeks still hot. “I see. And do you have, um, a mate too?”

Shouto’s eyes brushed over you. “No,” he intoned, something strangely light in his tone that shivered along the dendrites of your brain. “Not yet.”

You nodded to yourself again. That made sense—he looked about your age, and you were only freshly graduated. Maybe he considered himself too young.

“How is it decided? Your mate? Is it—does your family select a match for you, or…?” you wondered.

Shouto’s eyes followed a drop of water you could feel sliding down the side of your face with an almost predatory intent. “We can always tell. There is something in us that draws us towards them. With time, we can always tell who was meant for us.”

The answer sent a weird tingling down your spine, and you paddled your feet uselessly in the water to expel your nervous energy.

You decided not to ask any other questions about the idea of a merperson-human coupling lest you look too interested. Though exactly why you were nervous to appear interested was something you did not care to think more on. You’d chalk it up to the idea being slightly mind-boggling, when just days ago you’d been certain merpeople were a thing of storybooks.

“I see,” you said. “That’s, um, cool. I wish humans had that. Would have saved me tons of time on the dating apps.”

Shouto’s head tilted, and you realized you were probably rambling nonsense to his merman ears.

“Anyway! I’ve got like half an hour to kill thanks to how fast you cut all that coral. Will it bug you if I just paddle around here?”

Shouto shook his red and white head. “No.”

You smiled. “You promise? You won’t even find it an insult to the concept of swimming?”

A tiny smile twitched at the corner of his perfect mouth. “That I cannot promise,” he said, something teasing in his low tone.

You laughed, gently easing yourself out of his hold to start paddling around, charting a course for the coral. You heard the gentle splash of Shouto dipping underwater, and startled when he was suddenly underneath you, his long sinuous form gliding through the water beneath your feet, slicing through it like a particularly handsome arrow.

You decided you liked the idea of him in the water with you—he could serve as shark and lionfish patrol, now that he’d made you forgo your mask.

You found yourself smiling a little as you swam, Shouto cutting easy, elegant circles around you, his head occasionally breaking the surface as if to check your condition.

He also appeared to be paying slightly too much attention to your legs, though you couldn’t exactly tell through the shimmering waves. But he kept watch from underneath you, and seemed to be peering somewhere in the area of your thighs. You tried not to be too self-conscious. He was probably astounded at the lackluster mechanics of a human attempting to swim in the ocean.

You jumped when his hand found your ankle again, when you’d finally completed your lap around a chunk of reef, carefully angling those sharp claws away from your skin. You flapped your arms, floating on top of the water, but Shouto made no other move. He seemed content to just hold you in his grip for a while, and you tried to enjoy the feeling of the water warm and gentle on your skin.

Eventually, however, you knew you had to go. You didn’t know if Shouto could hear you through the water, but you called down to him anyway. “I gotta get back to my team with the samples now,” you told him.

For a moment, no answer came, before a claw suddenly and carefully skimmed the skin of your foot. You reflexively kicked out, ticklish, but Shouto had already let you go and was breaking the surface beside you, peering at you with those mismatched eyes.

“You will be back though?” he asked, sounding a little bit put out.

You smiled. “Yeah. No idea what my errands are tomorrow, but if I’m not out on the boat I’ll meet you at the beach tomorrow night, if that works for you.”

Shouto nodded seriously. “I will be there.”

You could feel your grin widen a little, and you just barely managed to catch yourself before confirming with a happy, “It’s a date!”

“Thanks for all your help today with the coral,” you said instead, starting to paddle back towards the boat. Shouto kept a sedate pace beside you, mirroring your movements. “I’m happy to be friends.”

Another tiny, strangely heartening little smile tugged at his full mouth. “I, as well.”

When you drew up alongside the boat, Shouto helped boost you up with a hand on your thigh. The ease with which he lifted you made little butterflies erupt in your stomach, and you clung very tightly to the railing as you pulled yourself the rest of the way up.

Your heart was beating just a little harder than you might have liked when you turned back to him, waving. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Shouto.”

“Tomorrow,” he echoed in his low, soft tone.

You reluctantly gunned the motor, and set off back towards the port, leaving Shouto behind in your wake.

But the promise of tomorrow hung in the air, thrilling, and you couldn’t help but think Shouto was, perhaps, shaping up to be a very good—if very strange—friend to have.

You couldn’t wait to see him again.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

Making Shoto a merman is genius but also so mean like he's so pretty already and then you go and make him a mythical creature??? Coming for my throat with this one.

something in the water | 2 | shouto x reader

pairing: Todoroki Shouto / Fem Reader

length: 5.2k | 2nd of 6 chapters

summary: As a future marine biologist, you’ve scored big on your final internship: a summer in the tropics, researching the waters off the coast of a lush, sunny island. But what you thought would be all beach days and piña coladas turns out to be the revelation of a lifetime when you haul in a handsome merprince, and discover not everything in these waters is quite as it seems.

tags/warnings: mermaid au, interspecies relationships, mating rituals/courting behavior, (sort of) case fic, aged up characters, eventual smut, fem pronouns/afab reader

series masterlist

You stared at the man in the water, your mouth falling open.

The snorkel mouthpiece dropped right out of it, leaving a wet streak down your chin. You quickly tore your goggles back off, convinced the glass was somehow distorting your vision.

The man in the water blinked back at you. His eyes darted over your body quickly, twin flashes of color, as if assessing a threat. You could see his left eye was the vibrant turquoise blue of the surrounding waters, the right a dark stormy gray, like the clouds of a tropical storm. His hair was as evenly-split as his eye color, snowy white on the right and a fiery red on the left, slicked back from his face with ocean water.

And his face. His face.

He was easily the most beautiful man you had ever seen, and you felt the breath punch out of your lungs just looking at him. His mouth was so soft and sensuous, his nose high-bridged and sweet, at complete odds with the strong, masculine sweep of his jawline. A pink scar circled his left eye, somehow intensifying its color.

Every single one of his features were so precise, so symmetrical that a shiver went up your spine, and something about the way they all fit together had all the lights in your brain flickering out, one by one.

And then his perfect, plush mouth moved, shifting suddenly into a vicious snarl. He let out a hiss, the likes of which you’d never heard before, and your vision seized on a set of very sharp canines set into the sides of his mouth. Incredibly, inhumanly sharp canines, that was.

“Holy shit,” you said, your focus snapping away from his mouth as a long-fingered hand came up to grasp the net over him—a hand tinted a deep crimson red, tipped with pointed claws. Your heartbeat kicked into your throat, and your gaze traveled under the water, down a powerful chest and across a long, sinuous, red-and-white flecked thing that was most assuredly not a pair of legs.

And that’s when you realized.

This man was not a man.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” you breathed, stumbling back from the edge of the boat. Your foot caught on the upturned plate, sending you sprawling over the back seat to land hard on your ass.

A snarling hiss sounded over the side of the boat, accompanied by a slapping sound, and another wave of water arced up over the side.

The slap of water to your face helped you return to your senses, and you realized he—or, it—the thing in the water with the human face was caught in your net, and you had no idea what that meant for him. Some species needed to swim to keep oxygen-rich water flowing over their gills.

And just because this guy–er, creature–had a human face and hands didn’t mean that’s where he breathed from. As you thought this, the sounds of his thrashing grew even more panicked.

You grabbed the seat you’d fallen over, hauling yourself upright, and crept to the edge of the boat, receiving another wave of water in the chest for your troubles.

You unhooked one of the emergency oars along the side, shoving it out to draw part of the net back towards you. The creature in the water hissed again, eyes snapping to the movement of your oar, and he seemed to try to retreat from it as far as the netting would allow.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, I’m not gonna hurt you,” you chanted in a squeaky, panicked tone that you were sure did nothing to calm him. “Oh my god please don’t hurt me back. I’m gonna get the net off you,” you promised him.

He thrashed harder, those blood-red claws swiping at the oar as you managed to hook it through one of the holes in the net, and quickly drew it back towards you.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” you moaned as a claw raked a deep gouge into the top of the oar.

You wondered for a wild moment, if you shouldn’t just leave him, run back to the wheel and start the boat as fast as you could. You wanted to be as far away from those claws as possible once this dude had been freed.

But another look at the panic in his eyes as he thrashed about told you you couldn’t. Not if it meant this creature would potentially drown. You carefully reached out a hand, grabbing the net off the end of the oar.

“Okay, I’m just gonna pull this up until it comes untangled,” you said, though it didn’t look like he was hearing you at all. He leveled another snarling hiss in your direction.

A lightning bolt of adrenaline shot through you, numbing your hands, tingling down your spine. “Oh my god come off of it, asshole,” you said, in a wild moment of insane bravery. “I’m just gonna let you out and then I’m gonna drive away and literally never, ever come back here.”

He cast a long look at you, blinking, seeming to calm for a second. Then he made a motion towards you, those claws reaching out again, and you bit off a scream.

“If you try to take my hand off, I will use this oar on you,” you promised him darkly. “I will knock all those sharp teeth right out of your mouth, do not try me.”

The creature paused, blinking again, those heterochromatic eyes flashing up to yours.

You watched him in mutual shock, your hands shaking on the net.

“Uh, okay yeah. Can you understand me? Probably not but, uh, good. Calm,” you said, trying to sound coaxing. “I’m not gonna hurt you, uh, unless you hurt me. Right? Totally no reason for anyone to do any hurting out here.”

The creature’s tail beat, but he made no other movements, even as you raised your hands again, drawing the net upwards so that it started to separate. It tipped him over a little bit, and he spun in the water like a burrito coming unrolled.

You had to stifle something between a horrified sob and a laugh. You kept up a stream of inane commentary in the lowest, calmest tone you could manage, which wasn’t very calm or low at all. “Okay, looking good. Just a little bit more. And we’re definitely not going to attack each other when this is over. I’m just some random biologist and you’re just some random, uh, sea guy…Which is very cool and normal…”

To your surprise, however, he let himself be rolled gently, until finally the net came free, and you quickly hauled it back over the side of the boat. He whipped back around to face you, and you took a startled step back, fumbling for your oar.

“No, do not come over here. Your face is very handsome and I would hate to break every single bone in it,” you said, waving the oar at him threateningly.

He just watched you, floating there in the water, staring weirdly.

You observed him, waiting for any sign of movement, the both of you entered in some strange marine standoff. But he made no further moves, and you thought if you booked it, you might just be able to get out of there without getting your eyes clawed out.

You hurriedly dropped your oar and clambered for the front of the boat, throwing yourself at the throttle and gunning the engine. The motor rumbled to life again, completely deafening, and you quickly steered the boat back the way you’d come from. Water sprayed out behind you, leaving a thick white bubbling trail, under which you lost sight of the man in the water.

He didn’t seem to follow you, however. You hightailed it all the way back to the main port, barely managing the appropriate docking knots with your shaking fingers. You threw yourself back onto the dock and raced ashore, your heartbeat only kicking back down once you’d made it safely onto the main street, where groups of tourists were poking through gift shops, queueing outside the various food and juice vendors, and chattering at the tables outside the open air restaurants.

You stumbled all the way back to the inn, a journey roughly fifteen minutes longer on foot than by jeep. Yu caught you on your way in, coming back from the office with a cup of iced coffee in hand, and she frowned as she looked you over.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, kid,” she said, pulling down her sunglasses. You watched her brow furrow in thought.

“No!” you said quickly, though why you rushed to deny it was beyond you. “No, nothing like that just—one of the nets was shredded and I didn’t think to bring a spare.”

Yu’s frown deepened. “Shredded?”

You nodded. “Yeah like something—uh, or someone—cut through it. It was totally done for.”

Her gaze sharpened over the tops of her lenses. “Someone?”

You swallowed, the memory of heterochromatic eyes and claw-tipped fingers flashing before your eyes. “Um. Yeah maybe. It didn’t look to be um, a shark or anything. It was torn too cleanly in too many places.”

For some reason Yu looked excited. “Like a diving knife? You think it could be Sunfish?”

After glimpsing those wicked claws yourself, you had absolutely no doubt what had been at work on that net. But after a moment’s hesitation you nodded, saying vaguely, “Uh, could be. Maybe.”

Yu hummed to herself, tossing a blonde lock over her shoulder as she gestured you back inside her bungalow. She drew you up your usual chair by the observation equipment, slurping loudly from her iced coffee. “We’ll have to keep an eye on them,” she said, a touch of relish in her voice that you did not like at all. You were learning that Takeyama Yu always enjoyed a good fight.

You gulped, settling down uneasily in the chair. You hoped she did not mean for you to go back to the reef too soon—though if that creature was smart he would have cleared out by now.

But you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything. You watched blankly as she clicked back into her monitoring windows, and nodded on auto-pilot as pointed out a couple things she’d noticed while you were gone. Your mind was elsewhere, back on the reef, replaying the events that had just occurred.

You couldn’t make sense of anything, didn’t know what to think.

All you could say was that you thought you might have, possibly, unbelievably, encountered a real life merman. You didn’t know what to make of that.

—

The next few days did not clear things up.

In fact, they seemed to make everything worse.

You went through your daily tasks, monitoring observation stations, maintaining equipment and carting things back and forth between all the professionals on your team. Yu loaned you out to Kamui for testing and you spent an afternoon hunched over a microscope, comparing slides of microbes, endlessly piping and staining. You prepped batches of slides to be mailed back to the main lab for more extensive testing, and learned more about water acidity than you ever had in any of your university lectures.

But over all of this activity loomed the shadow of the thing you’d seen in the water. Every time you took the boat out to rebait a station or resample the water, you couldn’t help but look over your shoulder. Even worse than the reef shark, you thought every shadow was the merman in waiting, every slash of red the merman’s clawed hands reaching towards you, every movement in the corner of your eye the last thing you might ever see. You eventually made it back to the reef and deployed a new net, and you thought your heart was going to punch straight through your chest, it was pounding so hard.

You never caught sight of the man in the water again, but somehow, some way, you felt like you were still being watched.

Although maybe that was just paranoia.

Almost worse than your daily heart attacks though, was the data you were gathering. The results of Kamui’s testing and Yu’s observations weren’t lining up with the initial reports that had prompted your presence in the first place. A sample sent with the report had showed incredibly high levels of chemical pollution, and though you were finding some thinning of expected populations and slight microbial unhealthiness, none of it was lining up with the expected levels given in the whistleblower report.

The report had been anonymous, so there was no telling where the sample had come from.

But you couldn’t help but wonder if somehow you were monitoring the wrong places.

Remembering Izuku’s friendly chatter from the day you arrived, you eventually dug out your phone again, clicking into the address for Kacchan that Izuku had provided. You wondered if, as a local gatherer, he might have a better read on where things were, and where you were going wrong.

A quick follow up conversation with Izuku in the main office revealed that Kacchan’s real name was Bakugou Katsuki, and that he had the day off today, to Izuku’s knowledge. Armed with that information, you followed directions back out of the dirt drive onto the main lane, following it for a few hundred feet until it pulled off again into another dirt path. You made your way down it through the thick tropical growth, until it spat you out into another cleared drive on which a jeep was parked.

There was a small, whitewashed house behind it, almost right up against the sand of the beach. A row boat was pulled up onto the sand, and further out into the water you could see a motorboat anchored. It had been painted a dark grey, at odds with the tropical surroundings, and you could just make out vibrant orange lettering spelling out the boat’s name—the Fuyumi.

You could see a man on the beach, padding across the sand to the rowboat, several waterproof bags and boxes in hand. He was blonde and just as well-muscled as Izuku had been, his skin littered with the same workman’s scars.

“Um, hello!” you called. The man whipped around, a red-eyed glare meeting your curious gaze.

“Who the fuck are you?” he demanded, his voice a low growl.

You blinked, slightly unnerved by this greeting. “I’m, um, Y/N. I’m a marine biologist.” The man’s glare didn’t waver. “Um, well, intern.”

“And?” he asked in the most impatient tones you’d ever heard.

You tried to push down a sudden annoyance. You needed details from this man. It wouldn’t do to flip on him straight away.

“Izuku said you work as a chef at the resort. He says you collect a lot of local ingredients?”

Bakugou scowled. “What of it.”

It wasn’t phrased as a question, but you answered anyway. “I’m with a team who’s looking into the possibilities of over-fishing and wastewater pollution in local waters. I was just curious where you collect plants, where you fish, and if you’ve noticed any particular changes over the past couple of months?”

For a brief second, you thought the harsh line of Bakugou’s mouth softened, and he blinked. But moments more and it was gone, replaced by a distrustful look. “Sunfish’re scum but I don’t have any info. All my plants and shit are fine. Fish too, if maybe thinned a little.”

You quickly drew out your phone again, clicking into the notes app. “You’ve noticed a population decline then? For any particular species?”

Bakugou let down his waterproof containers to cross those intimidating arms over his chest. “I fish for barramundi.”

You quickly noted that down. “Can you describe what you’ve noticed in terms of decline?”

Bakugou scowled again. “The fuck is there to describe? They’re harder to catch because there are less of them.”

You suppressed an eyeroll. “Okay. Anything else you can tell me?”

Bakugou’s mouth thinned. “No.”

You sighed, then tucked your phone away in your pocket again. “Alright. Last thing. Just—is there a particular spot you usually fish for them?”

Bakugou looked like the last thing he wanted to do was tell you, but he finally pronounced, “By the reef on the north side.”

Your skin prickled with the memory of the creature you’d encountered at the reef. You wondered, wildly, if that creature—that merman—had anything to do with the fish populations thinning. Maybe he was an invasive species—an over-hunter. Maybe it was nothing to do with Sunfish LLC at all…

That would explain why you were finding less significant microbial change than you had expected, even if the native species’ populations were declining.

You nodded in understanding. “Okay. Thanks for the details.”

Bakugou said nothing, seeming to wait for you to leave.

You cast another eye out over the beach, to the rowboat he’d been heading towards and back out to the motorboat anchored offshore. Even from this distance you could tell it was a much nicer model than the ones your team had rented out, and judging by the meticulous, clearly-custom paint job, it was well loved. Your gaze wandered over the vibrant orange script again.

“Who is Fuyumi?” you wondered.

Suddenly every fiber in Bakugou’s body went stiff—even more impossibly angry than before. “Get the fuck off of my property right the fuck now,” he said.

Your eyes darted back to his. His crimson gaze was somehow intensified even more, and you got the sense that if you did not find your own way out, he’d very well show you the hard way.

You gulped. “Right. Okay. Thanks for your time. I’ll, um, just be going.”

Bakugou grunted, his arms crossing tighter over his chest.

You turned on your heel, edging into a quick trot back up the dirt drive. Bakugou watched you the entire way, and you met his crimson glare as you looked over your shoulder just before you made it back into the dense tropical foliage. You followed the path back out onto the main road, ruminating on your encounter.

For the little help that he’d provided, you got the distinct sense that there was something Bakugou hadn’t told you, something he was deliberately withholding from you. But there was no telling what that might be, and there was no way you were going to be able to pry it out of a guy like that.

You sighed as you followed the driveway back to the inn, waving at Izuku at the front desk as you passed, and made your way back into Yu’s bungalow to report what you’d gotten out of Bakugou. She decided you’d take a trip back out to the reef tomorrow to have a more careful look around—a directive that sent a swarm of shivers down your spine. You really, really hoped that merman had moved on by now.

You spent the rest of the day re-reviewing old footage with particular focus on barramundi, trying to annotate where in the footage you’d seen some and how many members were in their school.

When work finally wrapped up you trekked back to the port to have dinner and drinks with the entire crew, catching the team up on the interview you’d had with Bakugou, and listening to their updates in turn. Kamui had apparently had no further luck in testing, Masaki had nothing conclusive in terms of counting yet, and Death Arms was still locked in some sort of political stalemate with Sunfish LLC over when you’d be able to get onto the premises to inspect the property itself.

Dinner wasn’t a total wash though. You managed a pina colada, pleased at the stereotypical tropicality of the choice, and spent most of the evening entertained, watching Kamui defend his plate from Yu’s wandering utensils and listening to Masaki recount previous field operations he’d taken part in. Before the internship, you’d sort of assumed you’d always work out of a lab, but you were growing enamored with the idea of field work, especially when it might take you to another place like Yuuei.

The team went their separate ways after dinner, retreating to your individual bungalows. The sun was still setting by the time you made it back inside, though—and still fuzzy with good food and your pina colada, you thought it was high time you spent some time on the beach, especially with a view like this one.

You made your way down onto the sand and plopped down at the edge of the water to watch the evening deepen. The beach’s view was mostly southern, but the color of the setting sun spilled generously across the horizon like watercolor, and you still appreciated the effect on the slice of sky you could see. The water was darker, a deep indigo in the oncoming twilight, and the waves lapped gently at the shore. It was so unbelievably beautiful, and you thought again that field work might be your calling.

You made a note to ask Masaki how he’d gotten into his line of work, and options for you to do the same.

You were absently tracing out a note to that effect in the soft sand when the sound of splashing roused you from your trance. You just managed to jerk your head up in time as something warm and wet closed around your ankle.

Before you could even scream, you were being dragged into the shallows. The water closed above your head, filling your mouth, gargling your panicked shout.

You struggled for a moment, kicking out, splashing water everywhere. Your eyes had closed instinctively, so you didn’t see whoever grabbed you, but suddenly you were being righted, your face guided back above the surface by a strong hand. The grip of another stayed clamped, vicelike, around your left ankle.

You spluttered and coughed, blinking your eyes open against the seawater. The water stung your eyes and at the back of your throat, and then the inside of your nose as you inhaled sharply at the sight of the handsome face peering back at you.

It was the merman from the reef.

He was poised over you, his handsome face only inches away from yours, his mouth a serious slash. Little droplets of water beaded on his skin and collected on the tips of his long lashes. You could see the careful tension in the line of one well-muscled arm, feel it in the clawed fingers that were still clamped around your chin, keeping your head above water.

You let out a weird gurgling noise, freezing in his hold.

“Holy shit don’t kill me,” you said.

Those heterochromatic eyes blinked, then traced over your features slowly, consideringly.

“I swear I did not say a thing about you,” you babbled, horrified. “Literally nothing. I was so quiet, like nuclear launch code levels of tight lipped, okay? I was so mum about everything so there’s no reason to get revenge, right?”

The man’s eyes dipped to your mouth as you spoke, as if mystified by your human babble. You instantly quieted, not wanting to irritate him further.

And then he opened his mouth. And out came an unnervingly human set of words.

“You let me go.”

He spoke in a low tone, smooth and soft, like the quiet rumble of waves at a distance. But there was something behind it too, something you felt like you could feel behind your teeth, a bioelectric hum somewhere in the depths of your brain. A shiver went down your spine.

Your mouth fell open against his claws. “You can talk?”

You watched his mouth shift minutely, pursing, like he was annoyed with the way you’d phrased this.

“As can you,” he said blandly.

Well of course you could talk! You were a person using person words!!! But he was—he was—

“But you’re a….sea….dude.”

His mouth quirked on one side, just barely perceptible. “A merman is the term, as far as I am aware.”

You didn’t dare ask how he was aware of anything people called him. But it certainly implied that you were not the first human this guy had come across.

But if other humans had come across this merman before, you didn’t doubt you would have heard about it by now. The existence of merpeople was not exactly a topic to keep quiet on. Which meant—which meant—

“Are you about to kill me?” you asked fearfully, becoming all-to-aware again of the prick of claws at your chin and ankle. Claws that had shredded the net at the reef like it was nothing, that had gouged deep welts in the oar you’d used to free him.

The merman looked perturbed. “Not if you answer my questions.”

You gulped. “Okay yes—yes I am an open book! Whatever you want to ask me, I will tell you! I am so open, you will not believe how open—”

A claw against your mouth silenced you, and that little shiver went up your spine again. Your eyes darted back up to the merman’s. Up close, you could see that he had a scar around his left eye, the skin a deep, dusky pink. It made the electric blue of his iris stand out that much more.

“Why did you let me go?” he asked, a white eyebrow raising.

You opened your mouth carefully, and he removed his fingers. “Is there…a reason I wouldn’t let you go?”

Those heterochromatic eyes narrowed on you. “Humans are dangerous.”

You couldn’t help the way your eyes trailed down to his claws again, then flicked back up to those sharp canines. You didn’t think you were the dangerous one in this scenario. Plus, you were a good person. What the hell were you supposed to do with a captured merman? Put him in a zoo?

“Yeah that’s why I grabbed you and pulled you out into the shallows,” you said, slightly offended by the implication.

Both his eyebrows went up, and he leaned a little further into you. You splashed backwards, as far as his grip on you would allow, which wasn’t much.

“You threw a net on me,” he said, his tone accusatory.

“Not on purpose,” you said. “I didn’t even know you were there. I was doing my job.”

“Which is?” he prompted.

“I’m a marine biologist. Uh, intern. We’re monitoring Yuuei coastal waters for adverse effects from, um, a cannery.”

“Sunfish,” he said.

You blinked, surprised. “Oh, you know it?”

A frown marred that perfect mouth. “Yes. They are not to be trusted.” As he said it, there was a scraping feeling behind your teeth, attached to that weird bioelectric tingle that his every word left curling in your brain. You could quite literally sense his dislike.

A strange feeling crept over you, and you remembered Bakugou implying something similar not hours ago. What exactly was it that everyone seemed to know except you? And how would a merman of all people know?

“Then, they are doing something bad out here?” you asked, curious.

“Their nets are dangerous for my kind, and they are growing ever more present,” the merman’s eyes flickered up and down your face again, like you might be at fault for the proliferation of nets instead.

“Hey, we’re just testing different environments,” you held your hands up. “We’re catching and releasing, we just want to take a look at a couple different species, count them, and see how they’re doing. We’ll be gone in just a few weeks.”

The merman looked you over for a long moment, as if assessing the veracity of this claim. His gaze slowly trailed down your body and you fought down a strange wave of embarrassment. His fingers flexed on your ankle, those claws rasping sweetly, dangerously over the thin skin there, and he pulled your leg out a little bit, like he was inspecting it.

“How strange,” he murmured, his tone going soft with the subject change.

You didn’t know what to think, just stared at him as his gaze roved over the bare skin of your leg in your sea-soaked shorts.

“I thought you–uh, have met people before,” you said, face flushing. “It’s just–that’s just my leg.”

Those heterochromatic eyes cut back to yours, startlingly intent. “I have. But Katsuki would sooner kick me than let me look closely, and Izuku finds it uncomfortable. And yours are…..more interesting…”

Well of course Izuku would find it uncomfortable! The swell of your embarrassment about your leg being more interesting momentarily choked off all thought—but then it hit you what this merman had just said.

“Katsuki like Bakugou Katsuki?” you demanded. “And Izuku like Midoriya Izuku?”

The merman hummed, staring at your leg again like he was uninterested in this conversation. “Yes. You’ve met them. I can smell them on you.”

You jerked back, startled by this assertion. He could smell that you’d been near them? What the fuck. You were floored. And had this been what Bakugou might have been hiding when he’d all but chased you off his property?

“But you—how can you—? Just who the hell are you?” you demanded, as the merman petted a careful finger across the hollow behind your ankle bone.

You shivered as he looked back at you, a little amused indent at the corner of his mouth.

“I am called Todoroki Shouto.”

He stared at you expectantly, as though he expected some reply, and you quickly scraped together your manners, though you never imagined you’d need to use them on a merman.

“I’m Y/N,” you offered, carefully reaching out a hand to shake, wondering if Shouto was as familiar with human customs as he was with words.

He accepted your hand carefully in his own clap-tipped fingers, eyes glittering. “So you are not here hunting my kind,” he said, sounding more like he was coming to a conclusion than asking a question.

You nodded hurriedly, aware of how small and fragile your own hand felt in his much larger one. “I didn’t even know you existed until I accidentally netted you. And we’re trying to stabilize this environment, not kill things in it,” you told him. “With any luck we’ll be getting rid of Sunfish and you won’t have to worry about them anymore either.”

Shouto’s claws pricked gently over your wrist as he released you, and he leaned in again, his handsome face serious. “Then we will be friends,” he said, with all the sober certainty of a child declaring the kid they’d just met five seconds ago was their new bestie.

With Shouto’s hard form looming close and his taloned fingers still clutched around one of your legs, you rather thought there was little room for disagreement. But you were fascinated by him nevertheless, and thought you might not have wanted to deny him anyway. Here would be the opportunity to observe and interact with a merman, something no outsider to these waters might ever get to do again.

You nodded, and a small smile tugged at the corner of Shouto’s mouth, clearly pleased. His fingers tightened where they still gripped your ankle, and your stomach fluttered with nerves.

And that’s when you knew there was so much more to these waters than you’d initially understood—and things were about to get even weirder.

[way-too-addicted-to-anime]

!!! Shoto!!!

something in the water | 1 | shouto x reader

pairing: Todoroki Shouto / Fem Reader

length: 3.5k of est. 17k | 1st of 6 chapters

summary: As a future marine biologist, you’ve scored big on your final internship: a summer in the tropics, researching the waters off the coast of a lush, sunny island. But what you thought would be all beach days and piña coladas turns out to be the revelation of a lifetime when you haul in a handsome merprince, and discover not everything in these waters is quite as it seems.

tags/warnings: mermaid au, interspecies relationships, mating rituals/courting behavior, (sort of) case fic, aged up characters, eventual smut, fem pronouns/afab reader

You didn’t notice Yuuei at first, too drowsy with the warmth, the wind, and the sun.

It had been a long flight out into the middle of the Pacific, and an even longer series of boat rides, each progressively smaller and more rickety, until you’d at last made it onto the island ferry. It ran once daily between the larger islands out west and the main port town in the Yuuei archipelago, an island chain you hadn’t even known existed until you’d been applying for your final internship.

The internship posting had promised the opportunity to make a difference! with an international team of marine biologists on a gorgeous tropical island, and your application had been in for all of two minutes before you started hungrily combing the internet for the cutest swimsuits the web had to offer.

Your excitement had lasted all the way through your interview, the hiring package, subletting your apartment, the flight out, and onto the ferry where the warm sun, cool breeze, and long travel hours had joined forces to knock you the fuck out.

“There it is,” the boatman’s voice jerked you out of your stupor. You raised your head, sunglasses sliding down your nose from where they’d been smashed between your eyelids and the boat railing, blinking as you noticed Yuuei yawning out of the water.

The big island looked like it was a scant few miles across, a lush, lurid green against the aquamarine waters of the surrounding Pacific. Flat stretches of pale, sandy beaches retreated up into gentle hills, which rose into a thickly forested mountain on the western side. A few buildings peeked out of the trees, crowding closer together as they approached the eastern edge, flanked by a series of docks and boats that looked like toys from this distance.

You perked up, as did some of your fellow passengers–two aggressively Hawaiian-shirted families out on vacation, a tired looking businessman in a linen suit, and Takeyama Yu–a pretty, blonde-haired marine biologist who would be serving as your supervisor for the length of your internship. You’d met her at the ferry terminal, both of you travel-creased and journey-weary, and she’d treated you to a lunch of bottled water and a sandwich. She’d proceeded to chatter your ear off until you’d boarded the boat and she, too, had fallen asleep against the side of the railing.

She turned to you with renewed excitement, a red mark high on the bridge of her pert nose where her own sunglasses had settled themselves during her nap. “You excited, kiddo?” she asked.

You tried not to frown at the nickname. You were freshly-graduated, sure, but Yu had to be only a few years older than you, in her late twenties at most.

“It looks like a dream,” you told her sincerely. The boat engine gunned as you spoke, and the ferry began to lose a little speed, the rush of water in your ears growing softer.

“I was ready to kill to get this assignment,” Yu told you, inspecting her nails. “I almost broke Kamui’s arm when he told me he’d applied too. Looking at the island now, let’s just say it’s lucky for him we both got in…” She smiled at you as she trailed off, but her eyes were strangely hard and serious.

You tried not to shift nervously under her assessing gaze. You did respect a woman who knew what she wanted.

“Um, Kamui?” You prompted, unfamiliar with the name.

She smiled, all teeth. “My coworker. He’s a microbiologist–you’ll be working under him too, even if you’re my little peon first and foremost.”

You did not dare protest the categorization of peon. You nodded warily.

Yu regaled you with various details of her and Kamui’s working relationship–which sounded in equal measure like a series of war crimes and a worryingly antagonistic romantic relationship–as the boat approached the island. The ferry eventually sloshed up against the long dock you’d seen at the eastern side, and a thick cluster of buildings crowded behind it. Most promising of all was an open-air bar with a thatched, grassy roof, advertising All You Can Drink Mimosas from 9 to 11! in a peeling pink paint.

You imagined yourself propped up there in the mornings, clacking away at some report on your laptop, a mimosa in hand and the morning sun warming the back of your calves.

Your legs were worryingly rubbery as you were helped off the boat, shaky with hours aboard the ferry. Yu tossed her long blonde hair and led you down the pier towards a cluster of all-terrain cars and golf carts that looked to be waiting for the disembarking ferry passengers.

Yu marched assuredly towards a squashy jeep onto whose side door a luridly colored mermaid had been painted. Her neon green clamshell bra seemed to reflect the sun directly into your eyeballs, searing them.

A boy about your age with a spray of freckles and wild, salt-frayed green curls waved shyly from the driver’s seat. He was well-built, with a startlingly sweet face, and you liked the look of him instantly. “Miss, um, Yu Takeyama? And, um, Y/N L/N?” He called in a gentle, lilting voice.

You nodded, and he stuck out a calloused hand, riddled with a workman’s scars, smiling. “I’m Midoriya Izuku. My mom owns the inn. I’ll be driving you guys over!”

You shook his proffered hand, and couldn’t help but return his sunny smile. Then you clambered gratefully into the back of the jeep, slinging your backpack and duffle down at your feet. Yu settled in primly next to you, and Izuku guided the jeep out onto the dirt road that led out of town. The breeze tangled in your hair, and sleep clutched at you with prying fingers once again.

You tried to seize on the steady stream of questioning Izuku started up in order to stay awake–Where are you from? Are you guys really marine biologists? Have you ever been to Yuuei before?--and you asked him about the island in turn.

“How long have you lived here?” you asked curiously.

Izuku smiled shyly at you in the rearview. “My whole life! My family has lived here for generations, actually.”

You tried not to be too jealous of someone who’d grown up in paradise. “Were there other kids your age here? What was school like?” You asked.

Izuku’s fluffy green head dipped as he nodded. “Yeah! The island’s big enough that there were a couple kids my age. Kacchan still lives next door, actually—he’s head chef at the restaurant at the resort on the next island over, Musutafu. They’re in the process of being considered for a second Michelin star!.”

You thought it was sweet how proud he sounded. You didn’t promise you would try it, however, as Michelin-starred cuisine sounded a little bit out of range of your per diem.

“Wow, that’s huge!” you said instead, trying not to sound mournful. You hated to miss out on good food. “What kind of food–is he using local ingredients?”

Izuku’s head of curls nodded again. “He highlights a lot of the archipelago’s natural species of fish and plants. He collects some of them himself, actually.”

The biologist in you perked up, eager for even some secondhand evidence that your presence here was necessary. “Has he mentioned noticing anything weird lately? Like, fewer fish, maybe? A different taste or texture in any of the plants?”

Out of the corner of your eye you saw Yu perk up too, leaning forward. “Where does he collect from?”

The back of Izuku’s neck went red, and he seemed to stiffen up under all the sudden attention. He rubbed the back of his head shyly, and you had occasion to notice his biceps were fairly well defined.

“Um…he—well I don’t see him, most days,” Izuku said. “He did, um, mention though, some difficulty—”

Yu prodded him unabashedly, tossing her blonde hair and laying a hand on Izuku’s shoulder. You watched, amused, as his ears went scarlet. “Did he say what difficulty?”

“He, um, might have mentioned a harder time, um, catching things. He didn’t say anything about the plants…”

You yanked out your phone, clicking into the notes app and trying to jot down what Izuku had given you so far. “Any chance we can talk to him?”

Izuku’s eyes found yours in the rearview, blinking. “Well…he’s kind of hard to talk to…”

You frowned, wondering how hard it would be to just answer a couple of questions. Plus, it would probably be easier to talk to Izuku’s friend than any of the people at Sunfish LLC–the real reason you were here.

Sunfish LLC was a tropical cannery based on the far side of the island, and various reports had been received about the impact of their practices on the local ecosystem. Locals, possibly even Izuku’s friend, had noticed a dwindling supply of fish in the area, and lodged complaints with the local environmental agencies, who had forwarded it up the chain.

According to your internship introductory packet, Sunfish LLC had submitted reports of their own, detailing practices followed to the letter of the law–until an anonymous source claiming to be a worker had disputed this, and even submitted that Sunfish was engaging in undue waste disposal practices as well–enough to have an even longer term impact on the surrounding waters than overfishing, if proven true.

In light of various conflicting reports, a small team of international scientists had been dispatched to research conditions and report back. And you had been the singular lucky soul who’d managed to score the one and only internship spot on that team.

“Can we at least try him?” you asked Izuku. You thought it was Yu leaning even farther forward, however, cooing something coaxing, that resulted in Izuku’s acquiescence.

You triumphantly took down this Kacchan’s address in your notes app, as Yu winked at you behind Izuku’s back.

The drive proved to be short–only a few moments more and you were pulling into a small dirt drive that looked out over a series of tiny white-washed bungalows, the foremost of which had a plaque nailed to it pointing out its front office. Between the buildings, you could just make out a winding path through the scrub down to the powdery sands and crystalline waters of a small, private beach. Neat boxes of carefully-planted tropical flowers lined the windows of each bungalow, pops of coral pink and oranges so deep they were nearly crimson, and the entire affair was overhung with looming palm trees.

You were immediately charmed.

Yu let out an appreciative breath next to you, clearly as enthralled.

Check-in was a quick interlude, with Izuku scrounging around for room keys under the desk while his mother Inko–-who could have been Izuku’s double if he’d been two feet shorter and sweetly, maternally rounded–-greeted you warmly and checked your information against the screen of an enormous, ancient computer.

And then you were bursting into the air-conditioned cool of your own tiny bungalow, throwing yourself into the bed in delight. The room was small but airy and clearly well-looked after, and the mattress was delightfully soft after over a day straight of travel.

After a brief break you spent rolling around on your mattress, Yu introduced you to the rest of the crew, which consisted of three other people.

Yu made a point of introducing you to Kamui Woods first, the microbiologist from her lab, a lean man with nut-brown skin who looked more worn out the longer Yu’s unprofessional introduction of him went on. Next was Mizushima Masaki, a friendly-faced marine biologist who seemed straightforward and easy-going on first introduction. You thought he might be the easiest person to work with on the whole team.

Lastly, Yu introduced you to a man she called Death Arms–a nickname that caused him to tint pink with some embarrassment. He was a tall, hulking ecologist who worked at an international branch of Yu’s lab, who was apparently somewhat known for accidentally shattering various slides and equipment with his undue strength–hence the nickname.

He was the team lead and de facto coordinator of your efforts on the island. You made a mental note to ask his real name as soon as Yu was out of sight.

You introduced yourself in turn, and answered a couple of polite questions from Masaki, before Death Arms rallied everyone for an early working dinner–over which you would review the plans and task breakdown for the next week. Izuku provided a short ride back to the main part of town, though it was feasibly walkable, and you got your much-desired cocktail while the team split a couple of local dishes.

Over your frozen margarita, outfitted with too many umbrellas and garnishes to be feasibly drinkable, you learned you’d be running point between several of the team members, though mostly sticking with Yu, who would be setting up various observation points and small traps throughout the waters to take a look at the species of marine creature that turned up. Masaki would be working with local fishermen to learn more about their fishing counts, and on tagging the species you caught. You’d also occasionally be looking through collected data with Death Arms, and Kamui expressed interest in your help in testing some collected samples.

It sounded like you’d be getting a thorough crash course in field-work over the course of the ensuing weeks.

Your first morning turned out to be mostly preparatory work. You spent several hours helping arrange the gear, putting together all the netting components, testing traps, making sure the various lenses and sensory meters for the observation stations were all functional. Death Arms had made arrangements for a variety of boats, and you were dispatched with Yu to learn the basics from the rental agent.

The main boat you practiced on was small and squashy, with a gratingly loud motor that you did not doubt would scare fish miles off of you, and one of the metal plates at the back had come loose, something you tripped over multiple times in your forays back to the motor. It was an endeavor and a half to get it started, yanking the pull chain so hard you thought your arm might fly off. You knew you would be perpetually sore for the next few days, until you became more accustomed.

After lunch you hauled the equipment to the boat, a task for which Yu was conspicuously absent. She mysteriously reappeared just as you finished, and you had to stifle a laugh at the feigned surprise on her face at seeing all the equipment loaded.

“You should have waited for me, kiddo!” she said, in what had to be the least authentic tone you’d ever heard in your life.

You just grinned and promised her, “No biggie!” Whatever. You were being paid, and you were an intern.

The cannery was located in the middle of the island on the northern side, so the team focused the majority of your initial efforts there. You spent the afternoon setting up several observation stations with the help of a snorkel, rope, several weights, and a variety of baits designed to attract the fish.

The water was so unbelievably warm and relaxing that you didn’t even mind being the designated water mule, luxuriating in the feel of the ocean as though it were a spa, even as you labored to get everything securely tied, weighted down, and baited with the food where needed.

The next day progressed much the same way. You scarfed down breakfast before hauling more observation equipment, traps, and netting into the boat. The majority of your time was spent in the water, arranging and securing everything. The sea was so crystalline and clear, it felt like you could see everything, and you got distracted easily by the bright colors of the tropical fish, the pudgy stacks and sweeping fans of the coral when you came across a reef.

The observation stations along the main reef just north of the cannery itself were the most interesting and terrifying to set up. Though you could see for easily tens of meters with the clarity of the water, the reef hid things from view. Once, arranging camera lenses along the top edge of the reef, a large gray shape moved in your periphery, and you froze up as a black-tipped reef shark came swimming around the bend.

It quickly changed angle, darting away, but it left you with your heart pounding, never having swam with a shark before.

After that, every shape that moved on the reef seemed a little more ominous. Fish in your periphery became much larger, and you could have sworn you caught a huge shadow moving around the base of the reef once or twice–though nothing was ever there by the time you looked closer.

Nothing happened, however, in the day or so after that, and by the time you were all set up and processing data from the observation stations, the sense of danger had passed. Yu set herself up in her bungalow, logging data from the observation station, and you joined her for a few of the initial hours, learning more about the species you were looking at, discussing a baseline for their population densities and behaviors, and talking about your expectations for what damage to either of those might look like.

In fact, you imagined the rest of your time on the island would look a lot like this–logging observations, with breaks in between for drinks and beach time.

You thought that all the way up until the next afternoon, when you were dispatched on your own to check some of the traps and nets while Yu watched the observation feeds.

You took the boat out, tripping over the shitty plating as usual, but feeling pleased nevertheless at the level of expertise you were beginning to develop. The boat was still gratingly loud, but everything else about it was starting to feel kind of natural, the way riding a bike did once you’d done it a few times before.

You guided the boat back out north of the cannery, finding mostly empty traps, with the exception of one housing a very angry lionfish. You took care to log that and then let it free from a distance, yanking the pull cord to let it out from the safety of the boat.

It wasn’t until you reached your final stop just beyond the reef that you noted your first issue—one of the nets you’d set out had been torn. Worse than torn, actually, it had been shredded to bits. Frayed threads of the ropes floated gently in the tide, spreading out and waving delicately like little fingers wherever they’d been rent.

The tears looked remarkably clean, not even remotely like what the serrated teeth of many shark species would have produced. Definitely not a blacktip reef shark, as far as you could tell. It looked more along the lines of a blade to you, something recently sharpened, wickedly thin. You wondered wildly if someone from the cannery had done it, though you’d yet to meet with any of the representatives, and you doubted they’d know where to find your set ups.

The ropes were so much of a mess that it was the work of a half hour to fully free them from the weights, a process that required tens of trips back to the surface to breathe, and a deft hand to make sure none of the shredded fibers escaped you and tangled up in the nearby reef.

You retreated back to the boat, climbing back up for spare netting.

And that is when it happened.

You stood in the boat, gulping in deep breaths for just a minute, recovering a little from your excursion. You threw the netting over the side of the boat, a single weight attached to lower it in place, and shoved your mask and snorkel back in place. And it was through your goggles that you first caught sight of it.

Your net hadn’t sank–in fact, it was floating right along the boat, thrashing wildly. Water sprayed up over the side of the boat in a sparkling arc. It caught you in the chest, slapping you wetly across your collarbone, driving you one surprised step back. You thought you saw the tip of a speckled tail before more water arced up, raining down into the boat in a series of heavy thumps.

You flailed, righting yourself, and then darted to the side of the boat–catching another faceful of water as you did so, certain you’d accidentally just snagged a shark of all things.

Except what you found glaring at you over the side of the boat, tangled in your net, was absolutely not a shark.

It was a man.

And that was the moment it all began.