#I’m just gonna go the easy route
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atalante241 · 6 months ago
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I know that the entire life mission of the batfamily is to be as sad as possible or whatever, but I need a mer fic where they live in a rescue place or whatever idk and they’re happy. Lex Luthor and his bald head can be trying to shoot down Superman from the sky, but he cares about human/sentient-beings-from-earth rights. The joker is just some dude who comes to stare at Bruce for uncomfortably long and has to be escorted out but he never does anything. Just let them enjoy their life.
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starlooove · 1 year ago
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Realizing the adultification and demonization of Duke and Damian is just. Not gonna stop. El oh el
#demonization more in Damian’s case#and not in the characters can’t do bad things kinda way#but in a writers and readers are so racist they’ll never even acknowledge that they don’t grant him the same grace they do anyone else#especially their white faves in comparison#and with the way they keep tryna spin Ra’s and Talia as being like. perfect parents maybe slightly absent or evil back then but family ppl#at heart it’s just gonna be more excuses to demonize a brown child bc now the very basis of his previous attitude will be gone#i mean for some of you it was never existed or acknowledged but there’s a certain bitterness I’m feeling when y’all can point to a panel#written by someone who’s only read WFA for background and say ‘see its canon that he’s just a murderous asshole for no reason!’#same mfs who can’t tell me three bad things Tim’s done that they don’t fw bc either they’ve never read it or they justify it in their minds#and for Duke it’s like. just removing every aspect of his character bc god forbid u pay attention to a black child who’s not an easy stereo#that’s the difference Damian’s early appearance was very easy for a lot of y’all to stereotype even and at times especially Talia Stans#for Duke u can’t call him ghetto and u can’t call him one of the good ones bc there’s no ‘bad’ ones as a comparison point so he’s just a guy#he’s a good bro :) he’s there :) u don’t know enough about him to speak :)#and honestly if they keep going down the Al Ghuls are perfect route they might shoehorn Damian near that position too#that’d make it three for three when you involve cass. wow the poc of the family being reduced to no character besides propping up the yt#cast. maybe if we go that route and it happens to all three of them some of y’all will make a ‘fandom has a problem 🥺’ post and dip#like always el oh el so exhausted#batfandom racism#tim drake#jason Todd#dick grayson#bruce wayne#Lemme be a bitch today#Duke cass and Damian Stan’s I won’t clog ur dash with this#actually some of u cass Stan’s are….#I’ll just say it a lot of you are racist as fuck and can’t say shit about cass besides she fights good and deserves the world#batfam#wfa#anti wfa
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danielnelsen · 8 months ago
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hrm so i’m doing an ice type-only sword run now and i’ve reached the big dilemma point of…… there are ACTUAL legendaries i could go and get before the first gym. dynamax adventures have articuno and kyurem at level 70 so they would sweep most of the rest of the game.
that’s……. kinda against the spirit of the challenge (ice types suck so it’s meant to be hard and strategic) but i also do want to get them at some point. 70 is higher than the big endgame fights so it’s not like i can just get them when they’re no longer overleveled….
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david-talks-sw · 3 months ago
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Debunking myths in the GFFA: Luke Skywalker isn't the One True Jedi™ and doesn't "reject the Jedi teachings."
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The myth:
Luke's Jedi mentors - trained to be dispassionate and mission-driven - callously tell him to let his friends die in service of a greater cause.
"In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke becomes Yoda's Padawan, and there are echoes of Anakin's training and the dilemmas he faced. Like Anakin, Luke is told he is too old to begin the training. Like Anakin, he has a vision of his loved ones suffering in captivity, and receives cold advice from Yoda, who tells him to sacrifice Han and Leia if he honors what they fight for." - Jason Fry, “Family Tradition; Rejecting the Jedi Teachings” Star Wars Insider #130, 2012
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The intended narrative:
The Jedi are actually right on all points. Luke isn't ready or fully trained and he's arrogantly letting his emotions rule him and rushing into danger. By ignoring them, Luke gets himself into a spot of trouble that actually jeopardizes the lives of the very friends he tried to help, as they now need to rescue him.
“It’s pivotal that Luke doesn’t have patience. He doesn’t want to finish his training. He’s being succumbed by his emotional feelings for his friends rather than the practical feelings of “I’ve got to get this job done before I can actually save them. I can’t save them, really.” But he sort of takes the easy route, the arrogant route, the emotional but least practical route, which is to say, “I’m just going to go off and do this without thinking too much.” And the result is that he fails and doesn’t do well for Han Solo or himself.”
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“Luke is making a critical mistake in his life of going after- to try to save his friends when he’s not ready. There’s a lot being taught here about patience and about waiting for the right moment to do whatever you’re going to do.”
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“Luke is in the process of going into an extremely dangerous situation out of his compassion— Without the proper training, without the proper thought, without the proper foresight to figure out how he’s gonna get out of it. His impulses are right, but his methodology is wrong.”
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The myth:
The Jedi want Luke to repress his feelings and kill his father, to destroy the Sith, their religious enemies. As emotionally-detached Jedi, it is inconceivable that a Sith would come back from the Dark Side, and thus wrongly believe that the only solution is to kill Vader.
"It's easy to miss that Luke disagrees sharply with his Jedi teachers about what to do. Obi-Wan and Yoda have trained Luke and push him toward a second confrontation with Vader. He is, they believe, the Jedi weapon that will destroy both Vader and the Emperor. When Luke insists there is still good in Vader, Obi-Wan retorts that "he's more machine than man-twisted and evil." When Luke says he can't kill his own father, Obi-Wan despairs, "Then the Emperor has already won."  But Obi-Wan could not be more wrong. It is precisely because Luke can't kill his own father that he defeats the Sith." - Jason Fry, Star Wars Insider #130, 2012
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The intended narrative:
The Jedi never tell Luke to "kill" his father. That's just a fact.
They tell him to "confront" and "face" him.
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Their bottom line is that Vader and the Emperor need to be stopped.
If Luke can manage to do so without killing his father, that's great.
"In Jedi the film is really about the redemption of this fallen angel. Ben is the fitting good angel, and Vader is the bad angel who started off good. All these years Ben has been waiting for Luke to come of age so that he can become a Jedi and redeem his father. That's what Ben has been doing, but you don't know this in the first film." - Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays, 1998
(credit to @writerbuddha for finding the above quote)
The problem is: Darth Vader has a track record of murdering loved ones who refuse to kill him. Be it his wife...
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... his father/brother...
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... and if you're going by Canon, his little sister.
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As such, there's a very strong chance that Vader might do the same to his son as well.
“A Jedi can’t kill for the sake of killing. The mission isn’t for Luke to go out and kill his father and get rid of him. The issue is, if he confronts his father again, he may, in defending himself, have to kill him, because his father will try to kill him.” - 1981 story conference, from The Making of Return of the Jedi
Now, as the last Jedi left, the fate of the galaxy rests entirely on Luke's shoulders.
If he dies, then the galaxy and its billions of inhabitants are doomed to live in a tyrannical dictatorship forever.
“He knows a confrontation is brewing between Luke and his father. Ben hopes Luke will either save his father or kill him, because whatever extra powers Luke's got in his lineage, he is the one person that can probably fight his father and win.” - The Star Wars Archives: 1977-1983, 2018
There's a time for talking things through... and a time to do your duty. Above all else, a Jedi's duty is to end conflict.
Obi-Wan was once tasked with this same duty.
And while he managed to weaken Vader considerably (thus avoiding the catastrophe of a full-powered Vader being unleashed onto the galaxy)... because of his attachment, he failed to kill Vader.
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Twice, if you include the Kenobi show.
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(A show which, per Pablo Hidalgo, is one of George Lucas' favorite recent Star Wars projects, a tidbit that doesn't surprise me one bit considering how much the series perfectly aligns with what Lucas said about Star Wars (see here, here and here))
Point being: because Ben failed his duty, the galaxy suffered for it.
Luke is now in danger of doing the same.
If he's unable to end the conflict in a peaceful way, then Luke needs to be ready to do so in a more permanent manner. Because while Luke has qualms about killing his father, there's a very big chance that the feeling won't be mutual.
So Luke isn't rejecting his teachers' orders to kill Vader. He's saying he's unable to confront Vader altogether, because he'll be half-assing the task. In the (very likely) worst case scenario where reasoning with Vader fails, Luke is concerned he won't be able to follow-through and do what he must.
Further, there's also a worse outcome to Luke dying: Luke joining the Dark Side and becoming yet another asset of the Emperor, more dangerous than Vader himself.
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It's thus essential that Luke steel himself and mask his emotions, because the Emperor is a master manipulator who'll likely attempt to corrupt Luke via the strong emotions he has for his friends.
Obi-Wan is not telling Luke to repress his emotions. On the contrary, he acknowledges that these feelings do Luke credit. But the fact remains that when your opponent can jiu-jitsu those feelings against you and your friends, you need to keep a poker face.
And judging by how close the Sith Lords come to seducing Luke to the Dark Side...
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... that advice is completely on point.
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The myth:
"It isn't Jedi teachings that save the galaxy, but bonds the Jedi tried to forbid - such as the love of a father for his son, and a son for his father. Emotional attachments, in other words." - Jason Fry, Star Wars Insider #130, 2012
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The intended narrative:
In Return of the Jedi, Luke isn't doing anything different than what other Jedi have done.
He does his best to avoid lethal force unless he deems that it is necessary (see his fight against Jabba's hostile forces).
He sacrifices himself for the greater good and let himself be captured, in order to allow the mission to be carried out.
He tries to reason with his enemy, hoping to avoid conflict.
He spares his enemy, showing mercy.
That's all standard Jedi stuff. We've seen other Jedi do all those things, both in the films and The Clone Wars.
If that isn't enough, just look at how Lucas describes what Jedi normally do (left), versus what Luke does in Return of the Jedi (right):
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See what I mean? There’s pretty much no difference.
In Lucas' narrative, Luke isn’t “better than” or “rejecting the teachings” of the Jedi who came before him. He’s following the Jedi path. And he's really good at doing so.
Because this idea that Luke "rejects the teachings" makes no sense! They're Lucas' teachings. He agrees with the Jedi, they're the mouthpieces he uses to deliver the audience his own values.
Lucas having his main character do something he'd ideologically disagree with is something that doesn't make sense.
And part of this confusion comes from a misunderstanding of the word "attachment", in Star Wars.
It doesn't mean "emotional attachments" or "feelings" or "affection." It comes from the Buddhist principle of non-attachment.
It's not about depriving yourself of relationships or affection, it's about accepting that everything comes and goes and letting go of those very things you hold on to, when the time comes.
Lucas makes a distinction in his discourse between attachment and compassion.
"The whole idea of the movie, ultimately is that you have the Light Side and the Dark Side. The Light Side is compassion, which means you care about other people. The Dark Side is you care only about yourself. And you are obsessed with yourself. Getting your pleasure and getting all your stuff. The other one, you give it to everybody. You give goodness and health to everybody else.  So the issue of love... there’s a line between loving somebody compassionately and caring about them and helping them. But the other line is not to be greedy or... once you are greedy then you get fearful. You don’t want to lose what it is you have that you are getting. So you have to learn to give up everything. And ultimately for a Jedi Knight, it’s very easy to give up." - Celebration V, Main Event, 2010
In-universe, this is something Anakin knew the theory of, but never really applied all that much.
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Luke on the other hand, was able to learn the lesson and apply it.
Speaking in Lucas lingo, it's not Luke's attachment that makes him spare Vader. It's his compassion. And in turn, that compassion inspires Vader to do the same.
"It really has to do with learning. Children teach you compassion. They teach you to love unconditionally. Anakin can’t be redeemed for all the pain and suffering he’s caused. He doesn’t right the wrongs, but he stops the horror. The end of the Saga is simply Anakin saying, ‘I care about this person, regardless of what it means to me. I will throw away everything that I have, everything that I have grown to love - primarily the Emperor - and throw away my life, to save this person. And I’m doing this because he has faith in me, loves me despite all the horrible things I’ve done. I broke his mother’s heart, but he still cares about me, and I can’t let that die.’" - The Making of Revenge of The Sith; page 221
Or, to put things more simply:
Attachment (selfish love), is what makes Anakin do this:
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Compassion (selfless love), is what makes Luke do this:
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Now, could Lucas have made his narrative more explicit, to avoid confusion? Maybe.
But I think it's also fair to point the finger at the biggest cause of these muddied waters:
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Simply put, the Expanded Universe (the Star Wars books, novels and games that spun out of the films) established new lore elements that didn't necessarily align with Lucas' vision of things. Namely:
Jedi can get married, and Luke marries Mara Jade.
Jedi can begin their training as adults, and Luke takes on many apprentices that are already adults.
When considering George's minimal involvement in the development of EU stories, it's easy to see why these plot points were allowed to come through.
But when he made the Prequels, his headcanons came to light and the above plot points needed to be retconned.
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George Lucas' narrative:
"Nope. You can't be a Jedi and be married."
This isn't actually coming out of left field.
When Timothy Zahn asked for Luke and Mara to be married or engaged, back in 1993, Lucasfilm initially vetoed the idea.
And over the years, Lucas and other Lucasfilm employees have made it it clear that "Luke getting married" did not align with his vision (so much so that it's a plot point in Attack of the Clones).
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So the question becomes: why can't Jedi get married?
It's about commitment.
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Simply put: you can't have two marriages. Eventually, your commitment to one of them will falter and you'll ruin them both. A Jedi is already married to the cause and to the Order.
If they want to get married, they have to leave the Jedi.
"One of the things [the Jedi] give up is marriage. They can still love people. But they can’t possess them. They can’t own them. They can’t demand that they do things. They have to be able to accept the fact, one, their mortality, that they are going to die. And not worry about it. That the loved ones they have, everything they love is going to die and they can’t do anything about it. I mean they can protect them as you would ordinarily protect, you know, ‘Get out of the way of that car.’ Somebody charges you with a gun, you knock the gun out, but there is an inevitability to life which is death and you have to accept that." - Celebration V, Main Event, 2010
And this is another example, really, of how Lucas' own values and past experiences shape the Jedi's teachings.
Marcia Lucas divorced George because he was constantly working on Star Wars, even when he wasn't directing it, which she said led to an emotional blockage in their marriage...
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... and this leads us to the reason why George didn't double-down on the success of the Original Trilogy: he decided to take time off to raise his three kids as a single Dad.
He learned his lesson, reasoned that he wouldn't be able to be both a good, present father and a successful blockbuster film director.
When you're dealing with time-consuming commitments of this scale, you need to make a choice, or you'll end up (half-assing and thus ruining) both of them.
"Nope. Jedi get taken in as babies for a reason."
Once again, this has to do with Lucas' definition of "attachment."
"Jedi Knights get taken from their families very young. They do not grow attachments, because attachment is a path to the Dark Side. You can love people, but you can't want to possess them. They're not yours. Accept that they have a fate. Even those you love most are going to die. You can't do anything about that. Protect them with your lightsaber, but if they die they were going to die. There's nothing you can do. All you can do is accept that fact. In mythology, if you go to Hades to get them back, you're not doing it for them, you're doing it for yourself. You're doing it because you don't want to give them up. You're afraid to be without them. The key to the Dark Side is fear. You must be clean of fear, and fear of loss is the greatest fear. If you're set up for fear of loss, you will do anything to keep that loss from happening, and you're going to end up in the Dark Side. That's the basic premise of Star Wars and the Jedi, and how it works. That's why they're taken at a young age to be trained. They cannot get themselves killed trying to save their best buddy when it's a hopeless exercise." - The Star Wars Archives: 1977-1983, 2018
Jedi need to maintain objectivity and neutrality, in their day-to-day lives of mediating peace between planets.
And learning to "let go of your attachments when the time comes" is part of that training. But it is something that takes discipline and time, and thus the child needs to be young enough to develop this skill. Otherwise, they end up like Anakin, who always struggled to properly learn it and eventually was doomed by his greed.
This being part of Lucas narrative is also evidenced that in his earlier plans for the Sequel trilogy, he'd have Luke train children, not adults like he does in the EU.
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"Luke is trying to restart the Jedi. He puts the word out, so out of 100,000 Jedi, maybe 50 or 100 are left. The Jedi have to grow again from scratch, so Luke has to find two- and three-year-olds, and train them. It’ll be 20 years before you have a new generation of Jedi." The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005, 2020
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The EU's retcons of Lucas' narrative:
Now, obviously, the addition of all these rules and other elements such as midi-chlorians... it does something to the older audience. They grew up on the Original Trilogy, dreaming they could be a Jedi too if they just believed enough. Now that bubble is burst.
"Wait, if I'm a Jedi I can't get married?! And I need to be taken in as a toddler, with a certain kind of blood score?! That's bullshit!"
More importantly... it goes against about a decade's worth of established EU lore (which Lucas never factored into his storytelling)!
So what does Lucasfilm Licensing do? They go with it.
They take these "weird" rules the older audience and authors don't like, and retcon a new narrative around them to ensure both the books and the new films all stay canon within the EU own continuity.
George Lucas revealed new information about his universe in Episode II that ran counter to earlier stories of the Expanded Universe. Among the surprises: the Jedi Order is monastic, with love and marriage forbidden to its members. This would necessitate reforms to the Jedi Code over time to separate the ancient era when Nomi Sunrider was married to a Jedi, seen in the Tales of the Jedi (1993–94) comics, as well as the post-Empire era when Luke Skywalker married Mara Jade in the comic series Union (1999–2000). LucasBooks also needed to create plausible exceptions for Ki-Adi-Mundi, a Jedi Master who had multiple wives in the Prelude to Rebellion comics (1999). - Pablo Hidalgo, The Essential Reader’s Companion, 2012
When it comes to Luke specifically, the narrative becomes:
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"Uh... y-yes. The old Jedi Order forbid marriage, only took in toddlers and had a blood pre-requisite... which was weird, wrong, too detached, too systemic, and part of why their Order failed! But, uh, Luke's New Jedi Order allows marriage, unlike his dogmatic predecessors, because anyone can be a Jedi guys!" Hahaha! (fuck's sake George)
But as already explained above: those new rules aren't meant to be perceived negatively. It would make no sense if they were, they're based on Lucas' own values.
You know what it does do, though?
It cements the narrative that Luke is the One True Jedi™, who rejected the dogmatic teachings to forge a new path forward.
That's not the intended narrative of the Original Trilogy, nor the six-film saga as a whole.
If you've made it this far in the post (congratulations) and are interested to read another all-encompassing post about that, you can check out the link below :)
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darlingdreadwrites · 29 days ago
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I read your Toby fics, and I really love your writing:D
I see your open with requests and I wanted to ask a Toby x final girl reader?
They just kept fighting against him, and he somehow gained a crush on the person he is supposed to kill? It's fine if you don't ;D
I WAS SO EXCITED TO WRITE THIS I SQUEALED WHEN I READ IT!! i hope i do right by you, my lovely anon.
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pairing: Ticci Toby x Final Girl F!Reader
summary: Toby thought you'd be an easy target since you were just a girl. He should've gone with the easy kill when he had the chance.
contains: getting chased by a man wielding two hatchets, slight pov switches but it's still in second person, idk what else to put
warning: violence, gore (more like imagery is gore-y), MEAN TOBY, reader gets hurt, toby gets hurt, me not knowing how to write fight/tense scenes and the logistics that go with them, barely any talking cuz i think toby would be too embarrassed by his stutter
word count: 1.6k
masterlist
a.n: when i read final girl in the request, i pictured reader wearing those outfits that female japanese horror game protags wear (picture fatal frame). i’m gonna keep the end ambiguous for you because my freak brain wants it all to work out perfectly for them, but the other part of my brain wants to keep it realistic cuz there’s no way in HELL i’d let someone forcing me to run live. if you want me to continue where i left off i’d be so glad to (and you can pick whichever type of “route” you want). ENJOY!!
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The cool, night air gave you chills all over as your feet pounded against the soft forest floor under your feet. With every quick step you took, another short burst of breath escaped your lips. It felt like you were being pushed back by a sudden gust of wind, but the trees continued to look blurry in the corners in your eyes, and that was a good thing. You kept your pace – even if it felt like the breeze kept poking needles into the cuts on your skin.
You had decided to actually dress up today but stayed mindful enough for the fall weather. So, you weren’t exactly dressed for the occasion. Maybe next time you decide you want to get attacked by some psycho swinging hatchets; you’ll be a little more fucking prepared. 
The whistling of said hatchet reminds you of why you were running. The sound of his weapon whirred by as it lodges itself deep into the bark of a tree. It’s already behind you as your mind yelled at your body to keep up. His other hatchet thwacks into a tree too close to your head and you scream involuntarily. You stumble to a stop stupidly, stabilize yourself, and drag your body to pivot and sprint to the right.
You weren’t sure how long you could keep going. But - as much as your lungs burned - that buzz that came from fighting for your life nagged at you like a bitch. You don’t care how much your body hurts because you will deal with the consequences later.
You’re not going to let yourself die.
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Toby grunted as frustration and anger seethed in his veins. Wrapping his hands around the handle of his hatchet, he kept his eyes trained on you as he struggled to pull the thing free. He’d all but forgotten that the other one was a few feet away. He wasn’t normally fond of losing his favorite toys. He wouldn’t lose you either.
You were a stupid, stupid girl, after all.
His head violently twitched to the side compulsorily when he finally dislodged his weapon. A few wood chips flew out and landed on the muddy leaves below. He stood there, taking and letting out deep breaths.
He thinks about what might be going through your mind as you keep running. Maybe about how you were gonna get out of here, call the pigs, and have some nurse tend to the wounds he gave you. He smiled and tightened his grip on his hatchet as he fantasized about your naïve hope. He knew these woods like the back of his hand.
You wouldn’t make it out of here in one piece.
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You slow down as the structure of a house comes into view. It fits the eerie atmosphere perfectly – chipping paint, broken windows. You’re not here to admire the neglected building, though, and you stomp up the small steps. The door lets out a low groan as you practically shove it open using your shoulder.
Slamming it behind you, your head whips around for the exit or some type of weapon. In the distance, you can hear the shrill whistle of the man outside, an involuntary thing, you’ve noticed. Just how long have you been fighting this freak? Enough to learn his quirks, that’s for sure. 
Delving deeper into the house with hurried steps, you look around for a kitchen. Find a weapon, find a weapon, you repeat to yourself, the sound of your quick gasps filling your ears. You catch yourself on the doorway when you almost rush past it.  
You barely stepped foot into the room before crying out when you felt something make impact with your back. The dull, heavy pressure sends painful shockwaves through you. Having the wind knocked out of you, the muscles in your back spasm and you buckle forward. He shoves you, and you wheeze as the edge of the rusted stove in front of you digs painfully into your stomach.
Your eyes immediately land on a cast iron skillet, and you think you have less than three seconds. You smash the pan against the side of his head, your grunt and the metal clang the only sounds in the room. You were confused as to why he wasn’t yelling out in pain. But your arms jerked upward, the heavy iron bludgeoning into his chin and he stumbles back.
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Toby can hear the ringing in his ears with each blow to his head, his world spinning for far too long than he would’ve liked. He snarls and grabs your arm, throwing you in the direction of a wall hard - causing you to drop your makeshift weapon.
He looks at you, at how your legs shake as you try to steady the world around you. Look at you - you looked like a fawn. With your wide eyes and trembling form. Guess he’ll be your coyote, right? He’d sink his teeth into the side of your neck and stain his maw with your crimson flood. You were just pretty enough that he couldn’t wait to watch your eyes roll back when he greedily kept the air from inflating your lungs.
No, but you weren’t a fawn, were you? He’d seen more fight in you than any of the losers he was tasked to kill. They sobbed – they fucking begged on their hands and knees – to keep him from tearing them limb by limb. You were stronger than he thought you’d be, but you weren’t as agile as he was, he thought.
His face stretched as another wide, sinister grin spread across his face. His gloved hand tightened around the hatchet’s handle. He could hear the leather creak if he focused on anything other than your breathing.
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You duck and stumble out of the way as you hear the spitting of wood above your head. He yells out a loud “fuck!” and attempts to yank the weapon free. You run out of the room and almost collide with another wall. You pivot on your heel because there was no way you’d run away from the front--
Gasping, you caught your balance before you could fall through the gaping hole on the floor. No time to jump, you told yourself, and you spun once again. Sprinting down the hall, you were met with the door to a room rather than any kind of exit.
You’d remember to set this house on fire when you made it out alive.
The room stunk of decaying carcasses and a thick powdery smell – the former outperforming the latter. You make your way to a second door and find yourself in a bathroom. You think there’s nothing here heavy enough to hurt him until your eyes land on a towel rod that hung loosely from the wall.
With a determined tug it comes out and you know he heard it. You can tell by the way you hear his heavy boots scramble in the direction of the room. You take a deep gulp of air and press your back against the wall next to the door.
The air was heavy with tension as the door creaked open. His shadowy figure stretched on the floor, and he walked right in. Would he turn around? Would he sense where you were before it was too late?
While he twisted around, you slam the rod into the side of his head. He’s disoriented for a moment, his head rolling to the side. Before he could react, you lifted your right leg, and the bottom of your shoe made contact with his stomach – sending him hurtling back.
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Toby lets out a groan as he loses his balance and falls into a tub. His limbs sprawl out, legs and arms dangling from the sides. He attempts to move when a raw, guttural scream that causes his chest to tighten makes him stop. His eyes dilate as he stares at you wildly. Something about your scream has shaken him to his core. His head was still dizzy and a little numb from the force of your hit. And yet he couldn’t help but admire your resilience. He should be livid – breaking all your fingers and pulling your pretty little teeth out of your mouth one by one.
The man’s tics overtook him, his eyelids squeezed shut with a sudden intensity. He opens them again, and you’re still rooted in the same spot – breathing heavily. He’d never seen a girl look as hot as you did right now. He didn’t think that was even possible in your state. Your clothes, hair, and face were caked in mud and blood from your gashes. A girl like you should’ve been screaming in pain and crying for her mommy. But you stared at him with a burning defiance that caused his heart to pound violently against his chest.
His hatchet lay at your feet, and he realized that you had gotten him. You won. He could try attacking you again – he was bigger than you – but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He can’t fight back anymore; he just stares in what he can only assume is awe. Years of taking lives and witnessing more gore than anyone ever should, could not have prepared him for this moment. You didn’t stop – you just couldn’t. It was… admirable. Beautiful, even, if he was a more sentimental person.
You piqued his curiosity like nobody had ever done before. He wanted to know what made you tick. He wanted to study every movement, sound, and judgement you’d ever make. You could break all the bones in his body, and he’d come running back to watch you do it again when the Operator put him together again.
You astonished him.
So, what’ll you do now?
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sleepyjuice · 6 months ago
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patience is a virtue - jj maybank
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Summary: you finally get on birth control, which means you and jj finally get to raw dog it, whoop
Warnings: 18+!!!!!!!! SMUT, p in v sex (reader is on birth control but theoretically both parties are tested and clean and exclusively sleeping with each other), little bit of praise kink, cream pie, fluff? soft jj <3
wc: 2771 wtf 🫣
A/N: so I decided to start writing again and then this happened lol. I’m probably rusty and this is my first time writing for jj so I hope it’s okay and y’all enjoy!!!<3
Jj had been counting down the days until your doctor's appointment. You were finally getting on birth control, the arm implant, to be specific. You had done your research, as well as an initial consultation with your doctor to go over all of your options and decided that the ‘one and done’ route would be the best for you.
You and jj had been together for a little over a year, using condoms every time you had sex. As much as you both liked the security of you not getting pregnant, you both wanted more, you both craved more. Not only that, but you had irregular and horribly painful periods and when your doctor mentioned that being on birth control could stop your periods, that was more than enough to convince you to take that step.
The day finally came, though, and jj insisted on driving you to your appointment, ignoring your assurance that it was a quick and easy procedure.
“jj, it’s not like I’m getting put under for a major surgery or something, it’ll probably be only like ten minutes. No medicine or anything.” You told him as you buckled your seatbelt. There was no changing his mind.
jj rolled his eyes as he started up the twinkie, already having made arrangements with john b over a week ago to let him borrow the van.
“I know, baby, but this is a big moment, wanna be there for you.” He said with a grin, pulling onto the road and starting towards your doctor’s office.
“Well, I appreciate it. I honestly think you’re more excited than I am.” You giggled, glancing over at your boyfriend as you pulled your hair up into a ponytail.
“Now what makes you say that?” He teased, knowing damn well he had this appointment marked in his phone calendar and his extra ass even drew a dick and a smiley face on your little desk calendar you had.
You had arrived shortly after, and just as you predicted, the whole appointment only took about ten minutes and was pretty painless. jj waited in the car for you to be done, smiling ecstatically at you once he saw you make your way out the office doors and towards the twinkie.
“How was it? Did it hurt?” He asked as soon as you got into the car, looking at your arm that was now wrapped in a bright pink bandage.
You shook your head, leaning across the seat to softly kiss your boyfriend, his hands finding your hair first before slowly trailing down your body to rub on your thighs as he deepened the kiss. You knew exactly what he was trying to do, so you pulled away with a laugh.
“Nope, nope, don’t even think about it. This thing doesn’t start working for seven days.” You told him, smiling innocently at him as you watched his face drop. You swore all the light in his eyes left his body for a second. He was so dramatic.
You were obviously disappointed too. It would have been nice to go straight home and have what would probably be the best sex of your life right away. But then you would have to go and buy a Plan B, and then this would all be for nothing.
“Now what the fuck? How are they gonna call this shit modern medicine but that shit doesn’t start working for a week?” jj scoffed, one of his hands still resting on your thigh while his other raised to softly graze your bandage, “like, they put a whole ass stick in your arm. What’s it even doing for these seven days? Just sitting in there doing nothing? They really need to make advancements to this shit.” he rambled on, but he couldn’t help but start laughing once you did.
“You are the most dramatic person I have ever met. We just gotta wait it out. Although, with all this anticipation, hopefully you can last more than a minute.” You mumbled the last part, your gaze leaving jj’s as you buckled your seatbelt, knowing he would start huffing over your comment.
And that he did, huffing as he started the car, running his fingers through his hair. “That’s — shut the fuck up. Don’t act like this won’t be torture for you, too.” He mumbled back, backing out of the parking lot and heading towards the chateau.
It had been a long week since your appointment. You and jj had never gone this long without having sex. You could have still used a condom in the meantime, but after a conversation in bed the first night, you had both decided to wait until you could do it raw for the first time. You were struggling, to say the least, but you had more composure than jj did all week.
He wasn’t making it easy though. The way he cuddled against you in bed, his hard dick pressing into your lower back made you crave the feeling of him inside of you. You almost caved multiple times every time he touched you, you just wanted more. But he respected your agreement, even though it was just as torturous for him. Touching your skin, seeing the way the bottom of your ass cheeks stuck out of the bottom of your shorts, all he wanted to do was rip your clothes off and bury himself inside of you. But he could wait, it would be worth it.
It couldn’t have been more perfect timing. Day seven had finally come around and your beautiful and wonderful friends all happened to have plans, which meant you and jj had the chateau to yourselves. It truly felt like a gift from god.
It was late morning, the soft glow of the sun peaking through the sheer blinds of the bedroom jj had made his own had woken you from your sleep. jj was still sleeping soundly next to you, his face pressed against your neck, an arm draped firmly across your waist.
“jay,” you whispered, softly rubbing circles on the back of his neck, your face being close enough to leave soft kisses in his messy blonde hair.
“mm- oh, fuck,” jj rasped, quickly gaining consciousness as he realized it was finally morning. He was so excited to sleep last night because it meant the next day would come quicker. It was like a kid on Christmas Eve. “it’s time?” He lifted his head from your neck, rolling himself over so he was on top of you, his hands holding himself up above your head on the pillow.
“It’s time,” you giggled, reaching up to cup his cheeks, “I’m done being patient. Need you inside me.” You whispered, and at that, jj leaned down, connecting your lips. He wasn’t completely rough, but he wasn’t gentle, and god did you miss this.
Your lips didn’t part from one another as his hands moved their way down your body. His fingers fiddled with the hem of his t-shirt that clad your body, yet another thing making him absolutely feral.
You disconnected to breathe, and so that he could lift your shirt above your head, discarding it on the cluttered floor. You looked up at him, now only in your panties, finding that familiar comfort that lived in those beautiful blue eyes of his.
“Fuck, missed seeing you like this, baby.” He panted, his breath hot on your skin as he lowered his mouth down to your tits, his tongue circling your sensitive nipple as you gasped, reaching up to entangle your fingers in his hair.
He soon took your whole nipple in his mouth, humming in satisfaction against the warm skin, while also lowering his body to grind his boxer clad dick against your wet center. He was achingly hard, no doubt his boxers were already stained with the precum that was eagerly leaking out of his sensitive tip.
You whimpered softly as he grazed his teeth against your nipple as he sucked sloppily, the feeling of his mouth on you making your center pulsate harder.
“jj, need you, please..” you whined, grinding your hips up against his dick, the fabric beneath the two of you was too much. You needed him.
“Okay, baby, okay,” he breathed, pulling his mouth off of your nipple with a pop, leaving the skin red and wet, “need to taste you first.” He added before scooting down further on the bed, giving himself enough room to pull his shirt over his head and discard it with yours.
He quickly repositioned himself in front of your legs, his ring clad fingers cold on your skin as he pushed your knees apart, sliding his hands up your thighs as he spread your legs. He was met with your underwear which you could feel was soaked, and you were sure it was quite the sight for him to see.
“Jesus, fuck, you’re soaked.” He hummed, palming his hands up and down your thighs until he reached the waistband of your underwear, his fingers not hesitating to pull the fabric down your legs and off of your body completely.
“There she is,” jj smiled at the sight of your pussy before him, running a finger through your wet folds, circling your entrance and sliding it back up to rub torturously slow circles against your clit. He was acting as though your pussy was his best friend who he hadn’t seen in months. Again, he was dramatic.
“Please, jay, fuck, you — you can’t torture me now, ‘s been way too long.” You whined, your eyes shutting for a moment as you clenched around nothing, his touches making your veins feel like fire. You needed something.
“M’kay, baby, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just missed this. Don’t like not having you for so long.” He finally gave in, lowering his head to finally take you in his mouth, his tongue flicking quickly against your clit as his wet lips closed around it, sucking the sensitive bud in his warm mouth.
You couldn’t hold back the moans that fell from your lips, the feeling of his mouth finally on you mixed with the soft breaths leaving his nose that was pressed against your pelvic bone was everything.
“That’s right, that’s good, yeah? Just what you needed?” He pulled back for only a moment to glance up at you as you nodded quickly in response before his middle finger teased your wet entrance. Without another word, he pushed his finger inside of you, bringing his mouth back on your clit at the same time as he began pumping his finger inside of your tight pussy, not missing the sweet gasp that left your parted lips.
He got a rhythm going as he always did, eventually adding his index finger, stretching your tight walls around his fingers as his mouth moved sloppily against your clit. It was a wet mess already, his chin and fingers completely soaked with your juices, the sound of your moans and his soft praises filled the room as he quickened his pace, bringing you closer to your high.
“I’m close, fuck me, I’m gonna come-“
It took only a few more pumps from jj, the way he curled his fingers perfectly, not missing a beat as your stomach tightened before contracting, your eyes squeezing shut as you moaned loudly, reaching forward again to grip tightly onto your boyfriends hair, pulling rather hard as your orgasm took over your body.
Your pussy clenched around his fingers as he pulled them out, bringing them up to his lips to lick them clean as he grinned lovingly at you.
“That’s good, baby, you’re so good for me,” he cooed, leaning down once again to press a sweet kiss onto your sensitive clit, making your breath hitch as you came down from your high. “You ready for me now? Been dreaming of this since I met you.” jj studied your face for any sign of hesitation, brushing a loose strand of hair that had fallen by your eyes.
“I’m ready, please, need to feel you.” You responded rather quickly, wholeheartedly enjoying the foreplay, but this is what you had been waiting for, you were ready to feel him fully.
“I got you, I got you…” he gave a quick kiss to your lips before sitting up and removing his boxers. His cock sprung free, happily unrestricted now, his tip red and swollen, precum now leaking out down his shaft.
You watched as he gave himself a few quick pumps, lubricating himself with his precum before positioning his cock in front of your pussy, gathering your wetness onto his tip before lining himself up with your entrance.
One hand held his cock as he slowly pushed himself inside of you, the other holding your bare waist. It was immediate euphoria for the both of you. You both had no idea what utter pleasure had been beneath the thin condom you had grown so accustomed to.
jj paused once he bottomed out, his eyes meeting yours as you nodded profusely for him to keep going. He needed a second, your joke about him not lasting was now fresh on his mind, but he was determined to make this last for the both of you, and he would be damned if he didn’t give you at least one more orgasm.
“Fuck me, Y/N, holy shiiitt you feel so perfect. So perfect for me. Pussy was made for me.” He groaned, taking a deep and shaky breath before he felt like he could begin moving again.
And so he did, his thick cock pushing in and out of you as you desperately reached up to grab the back of his neck, your fingernails digging into the soft skin making his little curses and moans grow louder.
Sex had never felt this good before, no barriers at all, just jj, completely jj. Watching his eyebrows furrow in pure and utter pleasure as his lips parted was sending your stomach into a frenzy and realistically you both knew that this first time going raw wouldn’t last too much longer, but that was okay.
“Love you, love you, feels so good, just— fuck, harder, please, I’m close.” You whined, your pussy clenching around jj’s cock as he quickened his pace, his hand that was holding your waist now moving down to rub at your clit, knowing that was going to do it for you.
“C’mon, baby, let go, yeah? Come for me, fuck — love you so much, so so good..” he praised, his cock hitting your sweet spot so perfectly while his fingers worked tirelessly against your clit, and that was all it took for your orgasm to hit you at full force, showing no mercy as your back arched, your fingers digging even deeper into your boyfriend’s skin. You didn’t even know what words left your mouth as you rode out your high, but you couldn’t care less.
jj’s gaze left your eyes as he looked down at the sight of his cock sliding in and out of your pussy, juices everywhere, no doubt leaving a mess on the sheets. But the sight of that alone, mixed with the euphoria of being inside of you completely raw, not to mention the way your pussy clenched repeatedly around his cock, that was it for him. He pushed in one last time, his tip hitting deep inside of you as he came, truly inside of you for the first time. Thick spurts of come shot into you as he completely lost his composure, his arms unable to hold him up any longer, collapsing against your bare chest.
“My baby, god, fuck, I love you so much, you’re… ahh, fuck.” jj moaned one last time, needing a moment to catch his breath before he could move again. What felt like forever was only a few seconds, however, and he slowly pulled his softening cock out of you, not missing the way you winced at not only the sensitivity but the loss of fullness.
Taking a breath, jj leaned over the side of the bed to grab his t-shirt, gently wiping up his mess that was now spilling out of you. He made a mental note to put a towel down next time, might save a load of laundry, and a shirt.
“You did so good, baby. I’ve never felt so good in my fucking life.” He kissed your swollen lips once he finished wiping you up, smiling tiredly at your sweet post orgasm face, cheeks pink with a small but satisfied little smile on your lips.
“Yeah, no, that was well worth the wait.”
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droolypupboy · 8 months ago
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MINORS DNI
warning: petplay, orgasm denial/control, painplay, degrading
my puppy’s being a huge brat as i type this “i can be rude to you if i want” - “im NOT talking back” - “im not being a brat” - “im gonna win everyyyyy game we play” “you can’t punish me for something i didn’t even do” to name a few.
he “doesn’t believe” that i know EXACTLY what im going to do to him later so im typing this to prove to my dumb little bitch that im always ten steps ahead of him.
if you’re reading this it means he’s already fucked out, used, and has had his attitude reigned in.
the only way to reign in that smart mouth of his is to deprive him. so first i’m going to gag him and put him in time out for six minutes (it was originally going to be three but his mouth got him in trouble, not that he knows it yet). i’m gonna ramble about allllll the things he’s missing out on since he’s talked himself into a hole.
afterward, i’ll let him take the gag out, force him to give me the apology i deserve, and edge him a couple good times before i breed him up and fuck him and brainwash him into being the good puppy he always is deep down.
my boy’s always a good puppy even when he’s making a pathetic attempt at behaving badly. he’s trained too well to know how to do it right. so i’ll let him use that tone with me, not gonna take much to remind him he’s too dumb to keep up the charade.
i love my little bimbo pup, even when he’s being a stubborn little bitch.
those are the plans. the rest of the post is gonna be scene updates.
update mid punishment: had to add on more time to his time out. thirteen minutes instead of six. he “didn’t regret his words” …he does now. he’s sitting on a chair with a vibe (turned off) between his legs, a gag in his mouth, and hands behind his back. i have a vibe on. poor thing is so jealous it hurts.
i told him no words apart from the ones i asked him to say. “i’m sorry for being a brat sir, please punish me, im sorry for being a naughty boy”
poor baby sounded so embarrassed. i forced him to get up with the vibe in and on to go grab the other toys im gonna use to edge and fuck him. poor thing promised to say thank you after every orgasm i deny him. he better be ready to keep that promise.
and only ten minutes into it he’s telling me how much better it feels to be a good boy and that he’s too stupid to be a brat. didnt i predict that earlier? nice and easy to break. my mutt <33 i think its because i made him listen to me cum.
sucked my cock SO obediently for a good ten minutes <33 he’s finally taking the easier route; being a good dog. i’m so proud of him. my training really shines through.
some of the details are just for us <33 but i’ll let you guys in on a pretty intimate part. we came to the sound of mutual i love you i love you i love yous.
extremely intimate and lovey-dovey scene. it ended up a LOT sillier and more giggly than it started. @purenullity
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xenteaart · 5 months ago
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it's not about the roses
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pairing: chan x reader (i wrote it with idol!chan or producer!chan in mind, but despite a brief mention of the studio it can fit any au, really) word count: 1,1k genre/warnings: er, fluff, a hint of angst if you squint but overall just tooth rotting sweetness. reader being kinda vulnerable author's note: inspired by my and @skzms 's channie brain worms, me crying over how boyfie he is in may's dms and her coming up with this little prompt. i'm manifesting a sweet healthy relationship for y'all, never settle for less <3
you were never the one for flowers, really.
it just didn’t seem anything meaningful or special, an occasional cute little bouquet on some first date you had ages ago, meeting someone completely new after mindlessly swiping them right on a dating app. plus, it’s always such a bother to take care for it. disassemble the thing, cut the stems, change the water, maybe cut off the leaves too.
at some point, you began to think of yourself as more of a practical person, taking gift giving to the point where it completely lost symbolism. always getting your friends and family either money or something they specifically asked for.
“at least, they’re actually gonna use it and get some utility out of it. ‘s good, right?” you thought to yourself, ticking a box on one of your friend’s wishlists for their birthday. it is good. no stress of choosing and endlessly pondering whether they’ll like it or not.
or is it avoiding the vulnerability of going down a more symbolic route if they don’t happen to respond to your gift the way you’d like them to after carefully planting hidden meanings and confessions all over a seemingly useless present? yeah, maybe, that’s the one, actually.
it was a regular saturday evening, no work, no plans, no big day or anything to celebrate. so, naturally, you were just spending the time at your place, resting after successfully having done all the house chores in one go.
purposelessly lying on the bed, you wondered what chris was up to. it wasn’t something out of the ordinary for you two to leave each other hanging during the day, keeping each other’s messages unread and waiting for some free time to give a thoughtful, proper reply.
but the little “1” next to your kakaotalk message was starting to feel unfriendly because... honestly? you just missed him. you wanted to know about his day, what he ate for lunch and whether work was okay today (knowing full well the man couldn’t care less about days of the week, coming over at the studio any time he needed or pleased).
distracting yourself with scrolling tiktok for a quick dopamine hit, you end up losing track of time a little. and the thing bringing you back to reality is chan’s short message, popping up on your notifications bar.
“can you come out for a sec? i’m at the door hehe~”
it takes you three times to read to finally understand what it actually means. he doesn’t have keys to your apartment yet, and you mostly hang out at his place anyways, so him coming all the way to the opposite side of the city makes your heart skip a beat.
you rush to the door and open it almost immediately, only to see channie, your channie, standing right in front of you with a nice bouquet of red roses wrapped up in kraft paper. the next thing you notice is chan’s wide smile, so sincere and endearing it makes you wanna cry on the spot.
you were never the one for flowers, really.
red roses always seemed like something either too vulgar or “easy”. something that becomes men’s first pick because they just never care enough to look for anything else and assume every girl loves it by default.
right now, however, it doesn’t feel like either of those.
the way chris is a bit nervous and really excited all at once; his hands gripping at the crunchy paper-wrapped base as he's waiting to give the flowers to you. the way his eyes sparkle and shine with warmth and genuine adoration for you. and you read past the roses, you learn so much more from it.
you learn how he’s been quiet because he was plotting a little surprise for you, trying not to be too obvious.
you see how he thought of you during the entire process, from an idea to carefully picking out the best flowers, making sure they’re fresh and pretty and will stay this way a while.
you can hear his timid little “thank you” to the florist as they exchange their bows and polite smiles.
you imagine the slightly awkward small talk with the taxi driver asking him about the occasion — the traffic and the parking area next to your building are awful, so you’re guessing he did take the taxi. and the drivers sure love to talk on the long drives, this one you had to learn the hard way.
gosh, chan looks so warm and… so soft, his lips making a familiar heartbreaking :] shape.
snapping out of your thoughts, you look into chris’s eyes and swallow down a salty lump in your throat.
“please don’t be alarmed, but i probably will cry a little,” you warn him before your voice gives out and take the roses, holding them close to your chest where the heart is bleeding.
“so pretty,” you stare down at the gentle velvety petals and sniff quietly.
chan looks worried for a moment but quickly pulls you into his embrace, stepping into the apartment and locking the door behind him.
“hey-y, i expected a smile, not your tears, baby. i didn’t upset you, did i?” to which you shake your head to reassure him.
“no, no, ‘course not! what do you mean? they’re so nice. i’m just… really happy? and i missed you. so much,” the last words come out like a weak mouse squeak as you close your eyes and let your emotions roll down your cheeks, staining your skin wet.
chan nods and takes your face into his palms, wiping away the tears and looking at you so lovingly you think you might actually break.
“i missed you too, baby. do you mind if i stay the night? i…- uh. i bought some face masks too, so we can just relax a little before bed and cuddle?”
you squeeze out a little “yeah” in response, headbutting his forehead and putting your arm around him, with another still holding the roses carefully.
“i love you,” you say slightly louder, making sure that he hears it.
maybe, gifts don’t have to be practical all the time. maybe, it’s okay to put sentimental value into simple, useless things sometimes. make them mean something.
“i love you too, baby,” chris hums still a little confused, rubbing soothing circles into your lower back and planting a chaste kiss on the bridge of your nose.
you reach for his plump soft lips and press yours against them. and even though your tastebuds can feel the salt, it’s the sweetest kiss you two have shared so far.
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dashielldeveron · 11 months ago
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soulmate trope | shigaraki tomura
Shigaraki’s route of soulmate trope.
"post-canon shigaraki? canon isn't even finished as of when this was posted on 4 january 2024!"
yeah. thank god. gives us time to write our own endings. and obviously i will be wrong about some things. i recommend you read at least one other route, preferably dabi’s, before reading this one. warnings: female reader. manga spoilers up to around chapter 390-411ish, based on language used by others to describe shigaraki and his trauma. bodily consequences to his trauma (some things are intended to read as AFO having forced an ED on shigaraki, but this is not made definitive). sexual content. stalking. gore (in a game). reader is experiencing a type of gifted kid burnout.
~28k
There’s a hentai book lying on your bed.
You’ve never seen it before.
Flipping through it, you winced at the positions the large-titted, ponytailed woman was manhandled into, and though you were frankly impressed that she managed to wear such intricate lingerie underneath her everyday business attire, the protagonist only just got home from work; let her decompress for, like, ten minutes before railing her against the window, please.
Whom did you know who would read volume four of something called GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK?
Unfortunately, you were burdened with knowledge about your friends’ sexual habits, and some of them, therefore, were already ruled out: Shinsou only read erotica because he preferred his own imagination to any images hentai or live-action could provide, and Monoma only read hentai in which the woman’s eyes had hearts in them to let the reader know she’s enjoying it—not to mention Monoma wouldn’t buy a hard copy of it, let alone a story that didn’t have more plot and character development to it. There wasn’t enough drool for Sero to be interested, and the male protagonist wasn’t enough of a twink for Kaminari to project onto, so whose was this?
Moreover, who the fuck would come all the way back to your old school’s campus to break into your room to leave it on your bed? (Shinsou would be your best bet for that part, but whenever he finished a patrol nowadays, he went directly to sleep, and his and Monoma’s flat was across town.)
You cat, Dango, jumped onto the bed, slithering up next to you and bumping her head on your elbow affectionately.
“Is this yours?” you asked her, and she sniffed the book before climbing into your lap.
You tossed the book aside to pet your cat with both hands, and you resolved not to think about it any longer, even though the cringy way the mangaka depicted the female orgasm was burnt onto your brain.
***
Hopping to put your heel back into a ballet flat, you held the phone between your ear and shoulder while you struggled towards the lift. “I’ve got to cancel on you, Ochaco,” you said, flipping the back of your blazer collar down and adjusting the lapels, “I’m, fuck—I’m not gonna be able to make it this evening, so just go without me.”
Uraraka sighed on her end. “Okay. I know a lot of us were excited to see you after so long—there’s a card Tsu’s made us all to sign, and everything—but we’ll manage. ‘Spose we’ll just have a routine night at the bar and reschedule when you can make it. I miss you,” she said, “and I’m pretty sure I can say the same for everyone.”
The elevator door slid open, and you entered. “All of you are so clingy. I’ve only been away from the agency for around two months, and you know where to find me.” You mashed the button for the ground floor. “In fact, it’s embarrassingly easy to access me.”
“Well, we’re very busy,” said Uraraka, “People are very eager to conscript us for missions, even if they really could be done by the police. U.A. alumni have somehow upticked in their popularity even more since we graduated—”
“Ochaco, I know. I was there. Allow me to weep for your success. I am playing the world’s tiniest violin.” You shifted your bag’s full weight onto your shoulder and exited into the commons. “But listen. I’ve got to go; I’m running late this morning. I couldn’t find my pantyhose even though I laid them out last night, and they weren’t in any of my cat’s usual hiding places. I had to turn my flat upside down and still never found them.” The outside doors slid open when you approached, and the harsh, morning wind upset your hair on impact. “Give everyone my love, O. Tell Todoroki to smile in his next interview.” Eyes darting across your surroundings for any witnesses, you shrank in on yourself and bit the inside of your cheek. “And tell everyone I’m sorry, okay?”
By the time you arrived at U.A.’s administration building, the wind had been joined by a light drizzle that would probably morph into a storm within the hour, a prediction compounded by a plethora of faculty umbrellas in and beside the stand by the sliding doors. The front office was gloriously vacant, though, so you were able to slip behind the front desk without someone rebuking you for being—you shook the computer mouse to wake it up, the clock popping up in the corner—seventeen minutes late.
(You’d graduated with the rest of the class six months ago, and you’d founded the all-girls agency uptown, with most of the women in the graduating class joining to form an instant powerhouse of the industry.
Founding an agency appealed to a good deal of graduates, but you were the only one to go the distance: you were the one to actually make the calls, fill out the paperwork, get aggravating shit done, and by the time to move into the building, it had pleased you to no end that Midoriya had asked you for help on kickstarting his own.
And then two months ago, you’d pulled off, frankly, what was supposed to be an impossible rescue. For the first time, you were getting enormous amounts of attention, from civilians, from press, from other heroes—and you were being followed, never having more than a moment to yourself—always being watched, either from well-wishers or nay-sayers—and sometimes, the analytical critic, eager to point out your faults in the rescue mission to try to drag you out of the hero scene.
You hated yourself for this, but they won.
Too many expectations. All sinking down on you, as if no other hero existed while the light shone in your direction. [And you hated yourself for even daring to consider this—what reprehensible audacity, but—but was this how All Might had felt?]
You’d had something next door to a panic attack when a convenience store, a regular stop in your weekly routine, filmed your reaction to how they’d auctioned off your signed receipt for over nine hundred thousand yen. Breaking their cameras, Shinsou had to escort you out of there in a rush and call Aizawa for help.
Sobbing into Shinsou’s phone on the soggy concrete of a darkened alleyway, you did something you never fathomed you’d ever do, something you could never see any of your friends ever doing, something that seemed as alien and unthinkable as sticking your hand into a pit of needles: you begged Aizawa to get you out of the hero business.
You’ve been handled with care and relocated into a surprising covert secretarial job in the U.A. admin, Nezu’s logic was that you’d adjust to one person needing you at a time, say, over email or at the desk, and if you only answered the phone with only a shortened version of your name, then no intruding civilian would be the wiser.
The job was easy, anyway. Paid well for what it was, but perhaps that was simply standard for U.A. Nowhere nearly as well paying or exciting as working as a hero, but you were adjusting into mundanity. Some days had stretches of hours in which you didn’t interact with anyone, sitting at the front desk without a task, and you even had a few days in which you’d gone in, piddled around at the desk for your whole shift without seeing another soul, and gone home.
Your friends were always so busy. The two times you’ve been able to meet with them contained nothing but conversation about hero work, or else everything was somehow tangentially related to it, and you found yourself unable to contribute to the conversation. Both times, you’d left early, a little overstimulated, leaving Shinsou to make your excuses.
And Shinsou, bless him. Not avoiding you on purpose. In fact, you knew he’d drop almost anything for you to hang out, but you knew his schedule and how little rest he got. So, it was more of a self-imposed boundary on your side, taking into account that he needed sleep more than he needed to spend time with you.
So, yes, some of it was directly your fault, but you were achingly, astonishingly lonely, with an ever-lowering threshold for tolerance of outside stimulation, ultimately feeling like you didn’t belong here.)
Pens aligned. Coaster. Check the school email for—good, no emails. No voicemail. Get out your planner and write your hours in it to look busy. Hey, your water bottle’s nearing empty; maybe you could go fill it or even waste time brewing coffee. But where’s your work mug? You probably left it on the cleaning rack next to the office sink. You should go check.
“Hey,” said Aizawa out of nowhere, ignoring how you jumped out of your own skin, “Good morning. Are you doing a specific job at the moment?”
You gripped the arms of your swivel chair to ground yourself. Is this a test? “I was about to take a moment to make some coffee,” you said, because never let someone in a position of authority know that you were doing jackshit, “Is there something I can help you with, Aizawa-sensei?”
Frowning, he dipped his chin into his capture weapon, still tucked closely to his neck to shield him from the wind, and he shifted his weight to one leg, his fingers tapping in a ripple on the reception desk. “You don’t have to call me that anymore.”
“I’m gonna,” you said, “How can I help?”
Please don’t need anything. Please don’t need anythi—
“Permission has just cleared for me to assign you a long-term task.”
Shit, you thought, internally wincing at how he used the term task and not mission, as if you’d be plunged into the ice-cold water of a panic attack at the word. The kid gloves that everyone handled you with somehow both ingratiated and insulted you.
“You’ll be paid for it,” Aizawa continued, “and it’s low stakes interaction, not even face-to-face. It’s all online.” Aizawa clasped his hands on the desk and hunched over the top of it, the ends of his scarf trailing down onto your keyboard. “You’ll recall moving some boxes into room 310.”
“Of course.” Early in your first month back at U.A., you’d helped clean out and move some boxes into 310 in the same hall that housed Aizawa, Eri, and now you—you’d unofficially dubbed it as U.A.’s drawer to shove social rejects. “Is someone about to move in?”
“He’s been moved in for a while,” said Aizawa, pulling his capture weapon away from his neck, “Keep all of this quiet. You’re allowed to know because I’ve advocated for you, because I trust in you and in your ability to do this well.” Aizawa paused, the silence dragging on much longer than usual. His eyes glazed over, as if considering how to phrase his next proposal.
You waved your hand, prompting him to continue.
His eyes focused again. “The new person is a ward of the school, but All Might and I are his primary—caretakers isn’t quite the right term, and nor is supervisors, so perhaps it’s better to—”
“No, I get it,” you said, “This person is an adult, but they’re not quite independent. Go on.”
Aizawa paused, brow furrowed just slightly as he scrutinised you again, but he nodded slowly after a moment. “I’ll allow him to introduce himself to you. He doesn’t need me to set up expectations. What’s important for you to know, regarding your own participation, is that he’s very new to the hero scene and is receiving his hero training later in life than usual. He won’t be attending class but will be trained personally by select U.A. faculty, mostly All Might, Nezu, and me.”
“Is he officially a student?”
 “On paper.” Something strange passed across Aizawa’s face, but you couldn’t name it. “Where you come in is his socialisation. He’s spent most of his life in disciplinary isolation. Because of the adults raising him, his instincts trend towards distrust and animosity.”
So, Aizawa wanted you spend time with him until he was no longer bad with people, like spending time with feral cats at animal shelters until they’re ready to be adopted. “So, he’s distrustful. Hostile. Angry,” you said, scratching the side of your head, “Is he—do you think he’ll bring up bad stuff I’ve done to use it against me?”
“He doesn’t know who you are, aside from someone trusted by U.A. with hero experience,” said Aizawa, shaking his head, “and you can choose what information you give him.”
“Does he,” you said, sucking in through your teeth, “Does this guy know about how you’re going about this? I think—wouldn’t he be insulted if he knew about how you’re socialising him like an animal?”
Aizawa looked over his shoulder at the empty office, but he bent farther over the desk and spoke softly, anyway. “Recently, when I was training him at night, he expressed that he never knows what to do when someone wants to talk to him after mission, whether it’s successful or not. He froze entirely when a senior citizen thanked him last week, and that’s when we decided something tactile needed to be done. Since he’s grown used to me, you’re the solution.”
Okay. A volatile man, someone who couldn’t go to U.A. at the average age but for whom Aizawa, Nezu, and All Might were making an exception, even going so far as to personally take him out at night to practise hero work.
Hm. Fishy.
But if the good, good men who took care of you wanted you take care of another misplaced person, then you’re going to do it to the best of your ability.
“I hope I can live up to your expectations,” you said, making a note in your planner, “What am I doing?”
“I need you to learn how to play a video game,” said Aizawa, “and I need you to be absolute shit at it.”
***
For you to help some loser with socialisation, he would be teaching you how to play some janky, twenty-five-year-old MMORPG called Cipherstone—and not even the current, polished version of it; you had to sign up for an account on the version preserving the game exactly as it was in 2007. Nostalgia reasons, apparently.
You nudged Dango out aside to check your bedside clock. The discord call would start in five minutes, and you were making your Cipherstone account, completely unable to come up with a suitable username.
“Don’t connect it to your other online accounts or your actual identity,” Aizawa had said that morning.
Dango’s tiny prance across your stomach was not helping, and you couldn’t use Dango in your username, because if someone knew about your cat (and hopefully no one did, because cats were not allowed in the dorms), then a Dango username could be linked back to the real you. You plopped your head back on your pillow, knocking against the headboard. What’s something that couldn’t be traced back to you? Slumping, you let your head fall to the side and sulked.
The hentai book peeked out from underneath a jacket on your dirty clothes chair.
GinsengTea
That username is unavailable.
Well. You couldn’t use your birthdate as added numbers. You kept typing.
GinsengTea69
That username is unavailable.
You’re not about to try Lustful Ballsack. Maybe if you put aside your secretarial propensity for being correct for a moment.
GinzengTea
Username available!
Oh, thank God. You sorted out your password and started customising your character, though you couldn’t do much with the negative six billion pixels you were dealing with, and oh, is that the noise discord makes for a call? You plugged in your earbuds and clicked the answer button.
“Hello?” you asked into the microphone on your earbud cord, narrowing your eyes at his profile picture of a rotund, cartoon mouse. Username Tenkopeito. Looks like he ran into the same spelling trouble you did.
“Greetings and salutations,” he said, his tinny, rasping, just-got-out-of-bed, gruff-from-lack-of-use voice striking you with about fifty psychic damage, “I am Aizawa-sensei’s pupil, here to teach you about the intricacies of Cipherstone. It will be my pleasure—”
“Cut that shit out,” you said, narrowing your eyes at his profile picture: actually, that mouse was so round because it had just swallowed an enormous piece of konpeito whole, with the little star spikes jutting out underneath its fur. “No one talks like that. You sound fake as fuck.”
“I see,” he said after a beat, tone deflating to sound resigned (and though he’d relaxed, it somehow sounded as if talking this way took more effort, like it physically strained his vocal cords). “Am I not supposed to be nice?”
“You weren’t exactly being nice. You were using a customer service voice—which is being polite, not nice. Not even kind. Politeness is usually some sort of put-on affectation of niceness, forced for the situation. I understand if that’s what you think you need to do when you talk to people as a hero, but in hero work, since the stakes are high, you need to be genuine, or at least sound like you are.” Dango crawled across your stomach again, but you lifted her off before she could settle into a loaf on your keyboard. “In the field, it’s often hard to be kind because of how involved you get as a hero; being kind takes effort and drains you emotionally. Kindness implies there’s some sort of reciprocity, some sort of ongoing relationship. You can choose to be kind if you want, but it may wear on you in the long run. What will probably be healthiest for you, on your side, is if you aim to be nice, meaning being honest in a gentle way, framing situations positively but realistically for listeners. The public doesn’t want to be lied to and told everything’s fine, but telling them the harshness of reality doesn’t go over well. Kills morale.”
“Holy shit.” He was scratching something close to his microphone—it must be a fairly good mic, since you could deduce short fingernails against a dry surface. “That’s…a lot.”
“It is. But you can do it. All it takes is practise, and that’s what I’m here for,” you said, moving Dango from your keyboard again, “And I didn’t mean to overwhelm you with all of that; it just came out—I, uh, I happen to know a lot about the way heroes present themselves.” Swallowing thickly, you ran your tongue over your lower lip. “Why don’t we begin with what you were saying before? But in the actual way you talk, please. You need to be comfortable in your own voice.”
His mic picked up the distant noise of slurping through a straw, against what sounded like the bottom of a metal cup, which clinked when he set it back down. “Have you played Cipherstone before?”
“Total newcomer. Though I’ve seen some screenshots in memes.”
“Cool,” he said in a way that was clear it was not cool, “I can’t add you to my in-game friends list until you get off Tutorial Island. Share your screen with me until then.”
All right. You can be bad at this. You can be so bad at this. “What’s a screen?” Not that bad, idiot! “I mean,” you said, fumbling, “How do I share my screen with you?”
The scratching grew louder. “Bottom left. Screen button. Right click. Share option.”
“Ah.” You should probably lure him into thinking you’re competent while there was a literal tutorial onscreen so that he would be more frustrated with you later. “Gotcha.”
For a few seconds after your avatar popped onscreen for the first time, nothing came through but the 8-bit tutorial music. “Is that what you look like in real life?” he finally asked.
“No,” you said, not exactly lying. The character had her hair down in her face (which you wouldn’t normally do when you were on patrol, since it could get in the way of physical hero work), and, hoping to endear yourself to this weirdo, you’d chosen the sluttiest shirt: while none of the horrible pixelated options showed any boob whatsoever, the poor rendering still managed to convey that the top was off-shoulder. Again, not great for hero work. “In real life, I’ve much, much more panache.”
Another silence, during which you assumed he was looking up the word. “So, you click on the screen to go where you want to walk, on either the overall game interface or in the mini-map in the corner. Your destination will show up—”
“Wait, what should I call you, screwboy?”
“—as a red flag,” he said, frown audible, his rasping voice screeching to a stop the way brakes are slowly applied to the wheels of a train. “Not screwboy.”
“I’m not calling you by your handle. Not only is it cringe, but you won’t have to answer to it anywhere else in your life. If you don’t want to give me your name, that’s fine. I could call you by your hero name, if you like; it’d help you get used to answering to it. But no, I’m not calling you your username,” you said, shoulders slacking once Dango finally settled in a ball at your hip, “Especially since you couldn’t even get the correct spelling of Ten Konpeito.”
“It’s—it’s not supposed to say that,” he said, sputtering with a groan coming in at the end, “It’s a play on my name, and including the n makes it harder to say aloud. I think these things through; I have to be aware of my public image and branding now; that’s the whole point of this stupid—my name is Tenko, you asshole.”
“Oh, you’re gonna call civilians asshole?” You clicked your tongue. “Bad. Bad and evil. Speaking from experience, people don’t like that.”
“Just fu—just click on the map.”
“Fine. But you can’t fool me with your medieval, point-and-click game,” you said, clicking to pick up a fishing net, “Incidentally, the oldest known fishing net is the net of Antrea, crafted of willow and dating back to 8300 B.C.”
Tenko paused. “What would be the socially expected response to that?”
Your avatar fished for shrimps. “Oh, usually people yell at me. Get mad for bringing up total non sequiturs. My friend Bakugou is fond of telling me that I’m a collection of those bottle caps with facts printed on the inside.”
“Would…would you like me to get angry? Am I supposed to? I was under the impression I was supposed to curb my anger. To be nice.”
Your inventory filled with shrimps.
“You only need one shrimp,” said Tenko.
“You’ll thank me when we have food later,” you said, continuing to fish for shrimps.
“It’s the tutorial,” he said, frown creeping into his voice, “You won’t keep any resources from it. You should go chop the tree down to light a fire.”
“Well, hell. I want my shrimps.” You clicked away from the fishing spot and onto a tree. “Nothing’s happening.”
Tenko cleared his throat. “You need to talk to the woodcutting tutor first. She’ll give you an axe.”
“I thought this game had magic,” you said, guiding Dango’s head away from blocking the screen, “Can’t I just get logs with magic?”
“No, it’s—you must want me to get angry. As a test.” Scratching. “Magic comes later. Not for getting logs.”
You interpreted that as a sign to make the rest of the tutorial go smoothly. You followed the instructions for a few silent minutes, proving to him that you could read, and when you reached the end of the tutorial, a wizard teleported you to the crossroads of a town centre.
“Ah,” you said, genuinely surprised as other players’ avatars, decked out in what must be high-level gear, dashed past, “I don’t know where I am.”
“You can turn your screen-sharing off now.” Tenko typed on what sounded like a mechanical keyboard. “I’m over here. I’ve got—by the fountain—white hair, all black clothes. I’m not—there you are.”
Dozens of other players were running past the two of you, the only bare, new players in the area. Tenko’s pixelated avatar waved at you. Cheeky bitch. He’s so poorly animated and so very 2007 that it gave no indication what he could look like in real life. But he’s chosen to have a black t-shirt as his default, so he has to be a slut.
You resisted the urge to ask to feel his pixelated bicep. “You don’t have any equipment. I thought you’ve played Cipherstone before?”
“My main account is max-ed out. I started a new account to grow at the same rate as you. Before anything else, notice where we are,” said Tenko, “We’re in the centre of the city of Renfield. Get familiar with it. Think of it as home. It’s where you’ll always come back to when you get lost.”
It’s a barely animated town centre, with a short path up the stairs to a castle door and a few market stalls split between fountains.
“I have no idea what that means, Tenko.”
“It means that—that,” Tenko said, and stopped.
You couldn’t stop grinning, biting at your lower lip to keep from laughing—he’d let out a flustered huff, sounding a little strangled, because you’d said his name for the first time—and, judging by how long this delicious silence was dragging on, Tenko was probably his given name, not the family name. Beautiful, really, that a guy his age (however old he was, but he’s at least the same as you, since he couldn’t attend U.A. at the usual time) could get this nervous over a woman calling him by his name.
Tenko recovered in a way that showed he didn’t: “It means that you are always able to cast one spell, regardless of magic level,” he said in a rush, “It is a homing spell that teleports you back to this spot, so even if you get lost, you can always get back to Renfield. You can teleport other ways, too, but that’s for another time, and I need a cup of coffee.” He inhaled sharply.
It's only the first day, so you should go easy on him. Let his moment of awkwardness go.
However, Aizawa gave you a mission.
Excuse you, a task.
“Do you plan on getting flustered every time a civilian calls you by name?” you asked, petting between Dango’s ears, “Or are you planning on avoiding as much publicity as possible by being an underground hero like Aizawa?”
“I don’t—they’re not going to—it’s different with you. I can already tell,” said Tenko (you froze, fingers curled into Dango’s fur), “because I’m going to have some sort of working relationship with you. I assume you’re here to stay.”
Putting it that way made your heartbeat throb around your ears. You decided you could ask directly. “Tenko’s your first name, then?”
“Yeah.” He must have covered his hand with his mouth, muffling his voice at first. “But people usually—people have been calling me something else.”
“Then I can call you something else, if you like,” you said, getting back to petting Dango behind her ears and resolving to treat him with the same tenderness—he must need it, since no one in his life knows him well enough to call him by his given name.
“No, I think you should,” he said a bit too quickly, “Call me that. Tenko. I’m tired of that other stuff. Click on something to keep from logging out, by the way. There’s a timer.” Mechanical typing noises. “No, Aizawa-sensei wants me to be better. Of all things, I need to learn to respond to my real name.”
You squinted at your screen, as if the methodical rise and fall of his avatar’s chest could betray how he was feeling. Something had to have happened to this guy to make him feel this way about such a basic part of his identity, to make other people avoid his real name so universally. Aizawa couldn’t’ve have assigned you this task just to socialise him; something else was unfolding here. How did you enter the equation? If you’re supposed to guide someone who’s also lost their direction in life, you’re a hell of a bad candidate.
But what if you fuck up Aizawa’s plan, whatever it was?
Your recent history is riddled with things going downhill. What if you somehow screwed over Tenko? You’d be dragging someone else down with you, down to…the beginning again, a humiliating re-start, back at your fucking school, when the rest of your friends were out living the dream you’d all crafted together, the dream that apparently could go on without you in it.
Well. Enough of that. Distract yourself. Distract Tenko, too. “Got it. I want a hat.”
“What?”
“I want a hat,” you said, clicking the space around the fountain for your avatar to walk, “My head is cold. How do we get a hat? Hats. You should get one, too.”
“Hats. Very well,” said Tenko, clicking to face you across the shitty fountain, “Do you want one that’s purely decorative or one that has some sort of stats? Decorative ones we can get within a minute, with good RNG, by killing goblins across the bridge. There’s a low chance we could get a low-tier wizard’s hat doing that, too.”
“Then it will be a pleasure killing goblins with you, Tenko.”
“Mm,” he said at the back of his throat, “First, we’ll need to obtain some sort of weapons, since bare-handed punching them will take forever. We could either talk to the melee tutor to get a temporary sword or start wi—actually, we should talk to the melee tutor. Melee will probably be the easiest fighting style for you right now, and it’ll be the simplest, since you won’t have to worry about running out of ammunition or runes.”
“Sure,” you said, leaning back in bed, “Do we go starboard or port?”
“You can just call them east and west, y’know. And we go north.”
To be obstinate, you clicked the opposite direction that Tenkopeito was going, and the moment you ran offscreen, Tenko spoke in a low, grumbling voice into his microphone. “No, don’t run away from me. Come back here.”
The rumble in his voice shot warmth straight to your lower stomach, the nature of the encounter between the two of you changing in a second. Your avatar kept running to her destination, your hand frozen and hovering above the tracking pad. You blinked, your throat drying. Snapping back into it, you ran back to Tenko, who seemed unaware of what he just did to you—and he almost negated your arousal in the way he kept talking about sword upgrades and something called RNG.
Uh.
“—now, it’ll take about ten minutes, but it’ll seem like two hours of hard labour. Follow me across the bridge. Follow—there’s a follow mechanic, if you’ll right-click on me.”
Oh, you’ll right-click him, all right. You needed to know more about Tenko—why you’ve been paired off, what Aizawa’s planning for him, what—a tinge of shame soured at the back of your tongue, because what currently gripped you were minutiae: more about him, what he looks like, what he likes, what he does for fun, if you’re…the sort of person he’d get along with in real life, if you hadn’t been forced together.
God, get over yourself. You spend two months away from men your age, and now, you’re thirsting over someone you don’t even know because he said one hot thing. You needed to be socialised—no, stop. This isn’t about you. Stop thinking about what his hands would feel like on you, what he’d sound like grunting into your ear as he ground against you—
“You’ve been quiet for a minute,” said Tenko, slashing the first goblin, “Are you all right?”
A very heroic question when you haven’t been thinking too heroically. The thought of his voice muttering against your neck still grasped you tightly. “I’m having—technical difficulties.”
***
Poking your head outside of your dorm/apartment door, you scanned the hallway for witnesses. You gripped the handle of Dango’s carrier, still hidden behind the door inside your dorm, and you nodded back at her when she meowed at you.
“I know, baby,” you said, listening for footsteps, “We’ll be outside soon enough. Gotta check for people, though.”
Okay, nothing coming. You shifted Dango’s carrier out of your dorm and pulled out your key, sticking it in the lock at the same time as a door opened down the hall.
Too fast—you had to prod her carrier back inside, your foot stuck in the crack between wall and door, just as—as Midoriya strode down the hall. Keys jangling. Civilian clothes (a Froppy hoodie, in fact).
“Oh, hello!” Midoriya only seemed to notice you once you were struggling to close the door despite the carrier being the way, and hopefully you thrust it fully inside swiftly enough for him not to catch the flash of burgundy. He trotted up to you, hands in the pockets of his worn cargo pants. “I didn’t think you’d be around. Do you not have work today?”
Dango meowed mournfully through the door, and you stepped in front of it. “It’s my lunch break. I’m going for a walk.”
Midoriya nodded, and he glanced over his shoulder back to the room he’d left. “Gotcha, gotcha. Good weather for it, especially after that storm earlier this week.” easy smile stretched across his face as he faced you again, but his gaze weighed down on you, as if the number one hero’s attention magnified your failures in comparison to his rise to the top—and the fact that he didn’t mean to pressure you only exacerbated the feeling.
“Uh,” you said, stuffing your keys in your backpack and setting it on the ground, as if you’re not waiting to go back inside, “May I ask what you’re doing here? Don’t you have better—aren’t you busy?”
Chuckling, Midoriya scratched the back of his neck (and oh, in that laughter, he was hiding something). “I make time. I’m just visiting,” he said, jerking his head back towards the end of the hall, “A friend. I want to take care to see him regularly. I didn’t know you lived on the same hall.”
“If you can call it living,” you said, and for some reason, Midoriya frowned, took a step closer to you, and said your name under his breath, eyes fucking wide and too damn concerned for your comfort. Fuck, you only meant to make a self-depredating joke, not make the situation serious. 
“You—you know that you can reach out to us. I mean that. If you’re scared you’re gonna burden any of us—”
You’d squatted down to go through your bag, just to have something to do, to have an excuse to not look him in the eyes. If you were going to cry—which you were not!—then the number one hero’s not going to get to witness it.
“—then reach out to me, at least. I’ve got time, or else I can make it.” Midoriya was kneeling next to you, and you kept your eyes on the inside of your backpack. “If it makes you feel less like you’re bothering any of us, I could check in with you when I come see my friend. I’d already be on campus. I wouldn’t be going out of my way.” He sighed to fill the space when you didn’t answer. “What are you looking for?”
“I can’t find my planner,” you invented, and, acting like you were upset, you zipped your backpack again. “I think I need to go back inside to locate it.”
He shifted his jaw, and he glanced down at your bag and back at you. “Come with me to the vending machines, at least?”
The new symbol of peace, asking to spend time with you. You didn’t deserve it, so you shook your head. “I don’t have much time left in my break. I think I’d better let you go.”
Shifting his jaw, Midoriya tilted his head at you, his eyes glinting. “All right,” he said slowly, “You know yourself better than anyone else. Do what you need to. Rest up.” He started walking backwards towards the stairs. “And I want to see you more—we all do. I’ll see you the next time I come around. Maybe the three of us could hang out?”
“Sure,” you said, shoving your key in the lock to let a thrashing Dango out of her misery.
***
“The church. It’s the one with the altar icon in the minimap.”
You clicked enough so that your avatar would backtrack. “How am I supposed to know that’s the church? Is that icon supposed to be an altar? It looks nothing like an altar. It looks more like a steaming cup of tea.”
“That’s fair,” said Tenko into his headset, “but this is the easiest quest in the game. How are you having this much trouble with it?”
“Oh, stop that,” you said, reaching his character in front of the priest, “It’s intuitive to you because you’ve been playing this for years. Do we kill this guy?”
“What? No. He’s going to give us each the key to a dungeon underneath the church.”
“How can he give us both a key if there’s only one?” You clicked through the dialogue with the priest, and a key appeared in your inventory. “Also, how accurate is this dungeon? Because if this is a broadly medieval game, then the dungeons will be closer to underground bathrooms rather than, like, creepy and wet with shackles and bones. That was popularised by Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.”
“How the hell do you know that,” Tenko asked flatly, “Ne—never mind. It doesn’t matter. Follow me to the trapdoor outside.”
You did, and it was locked. “Are we allowed to do this?” you asked, clicking on the key and then the lock, “Will we get arrested for trespassing?”
“Wha—no. No, we’re supposed to in order to progress the quest. In fact, our characters do a frankly criminal amount of breaking and entering throughout the game and never get checked for it. Hey, don’t go down there without me.”
Your character had only just gone down the trapdoor, prompting a blackout loading screen, but you popped back up to the surface before you could get a good look around. Your character stood next to Tenko’s, still next to the trapdoor. “What’s the holdup? I thought the only step was to use the key on the door. Did I skip something?”
“No, I—huh,” said Tenko, cutting himself off with a tinge of frustration creeping into his voice, “I lost the key.”
Raising a brow, you tilted your head. “What? How’d you lose it?”
“I don’t know. It was in my inventory one minute, and now it’s not. I didn’t touch it.” His mic picked up light scratching. “You’re not supposed to be able to lose the key, but I guess I can go back to the priest to get another. You wait—”
“Hold up,” you said, brow furrowed, “I have it. It’s in my inventory.”
“The hell? Are you sure it’s not just your own key?”
“Positive. I have two of them now. Same key, right next to each other. Want me to share my screen?”
“No, I—I believe you.” Tenko took a moment. “I’m not familiar with this sort of glitch, where an item from one player’s inventory randomly transfers to another’s. This doesn’t even happen, in my experience, but maybe it’s because this is one of the earliest quests coded into the game. It’s twenty-five-year-old code at this point, and it might have glitched because we’re both trying to perform the same quest actions on the same game tick.”
“Sure,” you said, “So, what do I do? Do I drop the key for you to pick up, or?”
“It disappears if you drop it. Trade me. Right-click, trade option.”
Once the key was traded, the two of you went down the trapdoor and wove your way back into the underground headquarters of a low-level cult, vacant for the moment but with evidence of rituals on the walls and floors, particularly in front of their bloodstained altar.
“Okay, we’re in their headquarters,” you said, making your character walk up the aisle, “What now? Priest guy didn’t give us any instructions.”
His avatar followed you and sat on the only programmed-to-be-sittable seat in the pew, his black cape (that he stole from a highwayman’s corpse) folding under his legs. “Actually, he did. You just clicked through his dialogue.”
“Because you’re here to tell me what to do, Quest Man.”
“Click on the—” Tenko heaved an enormous sigh, microphone sparking. “You figure it out. What’s clickable in this room? What has examine text?”
You hovered your mouse over most of the room, and nothing popped up with the examine option, except for something on the altar. “It’s this weird-looking, severed hand, isn’t it? This thing standing up on a slice of wrist by itself?” Your character walked nearer to it, fingers splayed widely enough to hold an in-game apple. “Weirdest ring-holder I’ve ever seen.”
When Tenko didn’t say anything, you glanced towards his character, but he was still sitting on the pew.
“Is this whole quest a pun? Because it’s one of the easiest quests, so they’re giving us a lot of guidance, so it’s like they’re holding our hands to get it through?”
That broke his silence: he scoffed into the mic. “I doubt it,” he said, “You need to grab the hand for the quest to keep going.”
“Fine,” you said, clicking the hand, and the instant your avatar touched it, a zombie spawned from the altar and began to attack you. “Dude! Did you know that thing was gonna jump me?” you asked, clicking away a few spaces but turning around to stab at it with your stupid bronze dagger, “And you just sat there? You could’ve warned me.”
“I did, and the priest did, and the duke who gave us this quest did. That’s why we went and baked all those pies in your inventory, yeah? For you to eat during this fight?”
Your character kept missing hits. “Yeah, but—like! I didn’t know the fight would be now.”
“Hey, relax.” Tenko’s voice sounded muffled, like his mouth was smushed as his fist dug into his cheek. “It’s only a level 12, and you’re level 9. Not too big of a difference. With your armour and weapon, you out-level it.”
The miss sound effect spoke for itself.
“You’ll kill it eventually. You won’t always hit zeroes, so it’ll pass.”
Though your character dealt her first damage, you frowned. “That’s…that’s actually really good advice, Tenko. The stuff you just said would work well if you were trying to calm someone down—reminding people of reality and emphasising perseverance over luck or natural talent are some of the better ways to encourage people.”
“Is that so,” he asked flatly, trying to put off a yawn and failing, “I haven’t—I wasn’t thinking about hero work. Just thinking about the game.”
“Well, it was nice,” you said, “and it seemed like it came naturally. Mind if I ask if something caused it?”
He yawned again, but he must have leant away from the mic so that you wouldn’t hear anything besides the initial inhale. “Nothing special happened today, but I’m too tired to get irritated. Therapy took a lot out of me today.”
Therapy. Therapy. Okay, so he’s got an official diagnosis somewhere. The word today implies that it’s a regular thing, and for some reason, this session was more intense. Intense emotionally? Physically? What kind of therapy? Well, they offered cognitive behavioural therapy on campus, but considering his non-traditional student status, his might be outsourced. Plus, if you, a former hero but technically a civilian, are being implemented into his care plan without being informed directly—
“You usually don’t go this long without saying some inane non sequitur,” said Tenko, that same, strange scratching picking up on the mic, “Snap out of it. You’re gonna get killed by the easiest quest boss in the game.”
Making an undignified noise, you shook yourself and spam-clicked on a cherry pie for your character to eat until she was healed completely, and then you clicked on the zombie to attack again.
“Why’d you pause when I said therapy? Surprised I’d go? Think that sort of thing is below me?”
“Of course not,” you said, trying to seem like you were focused on the fight so that he wouldn’t get nervous about sharing personal information, “Therapy good. Therapy great. Everyone needs to go to therapy.” Since he appeared to be taking this casually, you could probably ask after the type without it seeming too intrusive. “What kind? CBT? That’s what—”
“You think U.A. would arrange for me to get my cock and balls tortured? That wouldn’t qualify as therapy for me, certainly, and there’s no way that U.A. would pay for—”
“Not fucking cock-and-ball torture, you muppet; cognitive behavioural therapy. The sitting-down-with-therapist-to-talk-about-your-trauma-and-restructuring-the-way-you-think-through-practise type. You fuckin’ pervert,” you said, grinning at his avatar onscreen.
“Good to know. I didn’t know the name for it.”
“It’s good that you made this mistake with me instead of with Aizawa-sensei.”
“He’s probably more inclined towards bondage. Congratulations on killing your first boss,” said Tenko, and you blinked in surprise at your character: you’d defeated the zombie while staring at him. It fell to the ground, dropping bones and some sort of arrows.
“Take those. Check to see if they’re iron or steel. All right, equip them in your ammo slot for now so that they don’t take up an inventory space.”
You did so. “Why didn’t it attack me with the arrows if it were holding them?”
“There’s no logic to it besides that arrows are on its drop table. It’s coded to attack by punching you in the face, which doesn’t involve arrows.”
“Sure. Now, let’s get out of the cult basement; I wanna bake more pies until we can make apple ones. Did you know that the first record of fruit pies was around 1600? That means these fruit pies are anachronistic, since this game pitches itself as medieval.”
“Is that…” The hesitance had you beaming, daring him to actually ask it. “Is that not medieval?”
“Tenko, get your head out of your ass. For reference, 1600 is arguably the year the Azuchi-Momoyama period ended and the Edo period began. The game frames itself as medieval European, and 1600 is hard Renaissance-slash-Early-Modern. That’s Shakespeare times, screwboy.”
Only silence on your headphones. Character still on the pew. You made your character walk over to his to perform the curtsy emote, and in real life, you frowned. “Did I go too far there? Bit too annoying? I’m really sorry if I’m bothering you with this sort of thing; my friends say that I—”
“Nothing’s wrong. I needed a moment,” came Tenko’s voice, quiet and steady, “I could hear you smiling, and it was—it was good.”
Inhaling sharply, you pressed a fist to your mouth. Great. Fucking fabulous. Goddammit, you hadn’t aimed for it to go this way, but were you now the one getting flustered at something as simple as—
“Do most people consider a long pause in conversation rude? Did I fuck up with that?”
“No! No, of course not,” you were saying, trying to recover but still startled at how he was able to flip the vibe of your conversations in so few words, words that seemed so casual to him but grabbed you by the throat/cunt, “Especially since you followed-up with a check-in of how it might be strange; a lot of times, people will be comforted by checking to see if something’s okay with them personally…”
Frowning, you trailed off when another avatar entered the cult’s sanctuary and strode up the aisle. You hovered over the new guy’s stupid frog mask to see his username was Venomothman.
“Fucking great,” grumbled Tenko, “Here comes someone else to break our immersion. Ignore him. I’ll go ahead and fight the zombie so that we can get out of here.”
“The zombie’s dead. You don’t have to fight him,” you said, as Venomothman sat directly on top of Tenkopeito, with both avatars glitching as they took up the same space on the pew.
Tenko made some sort of noise in the back of his throat. “No, I have to kill it, too. It’s like each of us is the only one doing the quest, so in your version, the evil has been defeated, but in my version—it’s this thing called an instance—”
Venomothman: wow a couple questing together
Venomothman: bet ur one guy on two accounts
Venomothman: roleplaying that he can get a gf
The new guy’s in-text chat appeared in yellow font above his avatar’s frog-faced head, and somehow, the boggly, green eyes made his words more irritating.
Venomothman: leave the basement sometimes ya incel
“Some people are assholes recreationally,” said Tenko, making his avatar stand to go to the altar as the clatter of mechanical typing came through the mic, “Let me get rid of this fucking scumba—wait.”
 Venomothman: ur doing too much work to stare at pixelated ass
“Would it be correct for a hero to insult someone online?”
You shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it. “Eh. You’re not on duty, and you’re not under any persona connected with your public branding. I would say go for it, but since you’re trying to be better with people, you may want to practise.”
Venomothman: somehow this is even more pathetic than never knowing the touch of a woman at all
“Then I’ll shut him down. The shit-talking isn’t bothering me so much as his breaking our immersion in the game,” said Tenko, grabbing the hand on the altar to start his instance of the fight, “I’m trying to cultivate a particular experience for you, and he’s a fucker who won’t stop yapping. Give me a second.”
Venomothman: is this what does it for you??
Venomothman: why no response
Venomothman: hard to type with one hand, isn’t it, ******* shithead
You laughed through your nose. “Cipherstone censors the word fuck?”
“It censors fuck; it censors cunt,” said Tenko, avatar casting a weak air spell at the zombie, slowly, slowly draining its health, “Everything else is fair game.”
“Will it censor variations of cunt? Like, if I typed in cuntbag? Or—actually, let’s find that out later,” you said, tapping the buttons on your earbud cord to turn up the volume, “Let’s practise navigating difficult social interactions. What’s our goal here in this conversation? Is it to continue to engage?”
“No.” His spell missed, and the zombie landed a hit on his character, prompting him to eat half of a pie. “It’s to close the interaction. Therefore, I need to say something concise that invites no response, right? I’m assuming that a simple fuck off is unacceptable.”
“You’re getting better at this, y’know?”
“Is that condescension I detect?”
“Only a little.” You slumped back against your headboard and reached for the bottle of water on your bedside table. “Actually—no. No condescension. Genuinely, Tenko, you’re picking up on this stuff easily, and it’s impressive. You’ll be able to walk little old ladies across the street with style and flair in no time.” 
“Hilarious,” he said, voice restrained and tight at the mention of his name (too easy—he gives himself away aurally so freely; who knows what you could read off of him when you had a visual?), “I’m sure no one wants me touching them. Can I—hm.” He sounded like he was pressing his fist against his face somehow. “Why you keep bothering to compliment me? Most people bitch down to me like I’ve spat my own cum in their coffee.”
“Wha—how about because you deserve to be complimented? Listen,” you said, electing to brush over his vivid simile, “Silent admiration rots. By keeping in appreciation or gratitude, you’re not doing anyone any good. Kind regards are meant to be shared. Like, now, if I held back any positive thoughts concerning your growth, then you might not feel encouraged to keep going.”
“Like I’m gonna go around fucking complimenting ev—”
“I’m not saying you have to,” you said, “but consider trying it more often. See if anything turns out better. And be sure to be sincere about it—obviously.”
“This is bullshit.”
“Just consider it. So. What has he told us about himself based on how he’s insulted you?”
“He’s so low-level that it looks like he just created his account. His stats are even lower than ours,” said Tenko, speaking more quickly now that it was a subject he was more comfortable with, unequipping his wand to punch the zombie instead, “But he’s gone out of his way to get the frog mask.”
“His words, Tenko,” you said, unscrewing the cap and doing your fucking darndest to pinch your mouth from smiling at his slight hitch when you said his name, “I’m trying to get you to notice on whom he looks down and what that means for his personal social status.”
“Right,” he said a bit too quickly, a bit of a break in his voice on the word, “He’s debasing me for—oh, you’re brilliant. How the hell do you notice these things? He’s using basement dweller as insult, meaning he considers himself above that. Leave it to me.”
You muted yourself briefly to glug down water; you didn’t know how sensitive the mic was on your earbuds, but considering that you could catch onto Tenko’s occasional rustling of what sounded like plastic bags on his side or typing on his mechanical keyboard, as he was right now, you would prefer not to be emitting the same.
Tenkopeito: Your mom wishes you would come out of your room to talk with the rest of the family more often
You spluttered into your water bottle as the yellow text appeared above his head, and you unmuted yourself. “That is not what I meant for you to—”
“Was I being mean?” The mic caught the creak of Tenko’s chair as he leant back in it, and you could picture him defensive and pouting as he crossed his arms (and it struck you that you couldn’t imagine his face. Grimacing, you bit the inside of your cheek). “I wasn’t being rude. I could be so much crueller, but I thought this would be more of a devastating blow. Living on the same floor as your family isn’t the same as living in the basement, so I’m acknowledging his level of social power while still demeaning—”
Venomothman: i mean you right
Venomothman: lmao how tf did you know it was me
“I think we should log out,” you said, wiping the water off of your chin with the back of your hand and setting the bottle back on the bedside table.
Over Tenko’s microphone, you heard the shrill pitch of a custom ringtone and a startled but violent shuffle at the noise. “Hold on. I’m getting a call,” he said, voice coming through at a distance, as if he’d knocked his mic aside.
“Oh? Who is it?”
It took him a minute, but Tenko eventually replied, “A friend.”
That must be a damn good microphone, because you could still pick up on Tenko’s side of the conversation a few feet away. “Yes, hello?” he asked, a bit more brusquely than you’d heard him before.
“Oh. I didn’t,” he was saying, “How was I supposed to know that you’d—yes, that’s her. The one working with Aizawa-sensei.”
Very nice, you were thinking, as you unlocked your own phone to check your messages. Very good for him to have friends. Not that you would’ve pegged him as the absolute loner type, because he proved to be adaptable and quick on his feet, but since Aizawa’d recruited you for interpersonal help, you’d considered that he may not have friends. So, good on him for having at least one friend, it seemed, who cared enough to create an account on some stupid video game solely to annoy him.
“—cool of you to make an account to hang out with me. Stop fucking laughing; I am trying to be kind to you, shitstain. Okay. I don’t know. I haven’t been in contact with him in the past two days. I’ve been busy. Let me check.” Tenko leant back towards the mic to address you. “Do we have a schedule for the rest of the week? For instance, are we doing this again on Thursday?”
“I thought we were,” you said, scanning your room for your planner so that you could check your calendar, “Did something come up?”
“It’s not imperative that I go,” Tenko was saying into your ear, while you picked up your laptop to walk over to your U.A.-issued desk, “but another friend who’s been out of town will finally be back then. We might hang out.”
“Psh, go with your friends,” you said, delighted that he had more than one (fighting envy that it was so easy for them to meet up), “We can do this another time.”
“Understood,” Tenko said and backed away from the mic.
Venomothman: so have you sucked his dick yet
Tenko’s incensed shout of “Touya!” had you turning down the volume.
Venomothman: not to be the world’s worst wingman, but my dude is packing. and goes commando all the time.
Venomothman: and i would know. “i” sometimes “did” our “laundry”
You: what’s with all those quotation marks
Venomothman: and do you know the last time it was sucked? never
(Fucking hell. This Touya was walking you back into forbidden territory: the sexualisation of Tenko. After that first session, when you’d been turned on by his confident, rumbling voice as he’d given you an order, you’d felt guilty for sexualising him for the rest of the night. It was as if instead of friend-zoning him, you’d sex-zoned him, only able to see him as a sexual person/object. For the sake of your mission task, that felt unfair.
Or maybe you weren’t even sexualising him. Maybe your brain was appropriately interpreting what he’d done as sexual.
Whatever. Something in your gut was begging you not to see Tenko only through romantic or sexual lenses right now, and you couldn’t explain why.
And talking about Tenko’s apparently massive dick was not helping.)
Tenkopeito: Touya if you don’t ******* shut up I am going to tear off your other arm
Venomothman: no need, boss man
You heard Tenko sigh and say into his phone, sounding exhausted, “I’m not your boss anymore, Touya.”
Venomothman: no need, douchebag
***
Draped over the side of your bed, you dangled a shoelace in front of the gap in an attempt to coax Dango out from underneath. “Dango, sweetie,” you said, whipping the shoelace to the side, “Come out here so that I can look you in the eyes. Where is my planner, you whore?”
At a firm knock on your door, you shot up, dropping the lace. “Never mind,” you said, sliding off the bed, “Stay hidden.”
You opened your door on Aizawa, bare arm raised in mid-knock, wisps of hair plastered to his forehead by dried sweat, and a sweatshirt tied around his waist. He took two seconds to look over you before saying, “Get dressed. Civilian clothes. You have three minutes.”
Throwing on yesterday’s outfit, you rushed to follow Aizawa out of the dorm and off campus, nearly stepping on his heels while he wove through night pedestrians, pulling on his own sweatshirt to minimise skin contact once the crowd thickened.
You flipped up your coat collar to sneak a glance over your shoulder. “Is this a test?”
Aizawa combed his fingers back through his hair, gaze straight ahead. “Not for you.”
“Right.” You stepped more lightly, naturally falling back into patrol patterns: noting exits (narrow alleyways favouring the left side, underground into the subway station), checking vantage points (upper-storey windows in the resident buildings, non-industrial rooftops), honing in on light sources (yellow- and LED-tinted streetlamps, ambience from open businesses) and physical presence (close enough to brush shoulders with passerby [putting you on edge, because the slightest touch could be pivotal]). You had to consciously unclench your jaw, body flooded with stress it hadn’t felt in months. Swiping at the inner corner of your eye, you asked, “Does it have anything to do with the guy in the black hoodie and face mask following us?”
Aizawa laughed through his nose, once. “All right, then. What’s that ice cream place you and Shinsou went to all the time? Take us there.”
Bewildered, you changed directions to head towards Nekozawa’s, with Aizawa placing a hand on your shoulder to slow your pace, and by the time you pushed open Nekozawa’s glass door to the glowing, pink parlour, you were prepared to hold it open for your follower in the face mask. You watched his broad back as he ordered some ungodly, radioactive-blue ice cream with gummy bears before retreating to a table outside despite the dropping temperature, and Aizawa gestured you forward so that he could pay for the three of you.
Holding your ice cream, you hesitated at the door, swaying underneath the seasonal cat decorations dangling from the ceiling.
“Go on,” said Aizawa, retrieving the U.A. card from his wallet, “I’ve got to make a phone call, so don’t wait up. Don’t be too harsh on him; we’re here because he did a good job in the field today. Tailing you was extra practise.”
Nodding, you nudged open the door, bracing yourself at the cold, night air, and let it drift shut behind you as you approached the table, the farthest one from the pink lights.
Hood pulled up, Tenko bent over his blue monstrosity, face mask hanging by a loop over his left ear. Scuffing your boots on the concrete to announce your presence, you sat across from him, setting your cup on the cast iron before swinging your leg over the bench. You managed a cursory glance over what appeared to be a sketchbook before he closed it, and once he’d stowed it away, he swopped his spoon to his dominant hand to keep eating.
“You draw, Tenko?” To make him feel more comfortable, you kept your gaze towards Aizawa inside on the phone. “Do you think you’re any good?”
“Not yet. But I’m gonna be,” he said, clicking his pen and clenching it in his left hand, “I’ve got all these fucking artist’s gloves, so I might as well put ‘em to use.”
“Very nice,” you said, nodding, closing your eyes as you dipped your spoon into your ice cream, “But as a reminder, you don’t have to be good at something to enjoy it. I love doing stuff I’m absolute shit at. It reminds me of medieval bestiaries. They didn’t know shit about animals, but, boy howdy, did they have fun illustrating them. Did you know a weasel used to be called a polecat?”
Tenko huffed, his face mask fluttering. “It really is you.”
“Of course it is,” you said, beaming, and for the first time, you looked at him.
Tension flooded your teacup of a body and overflowed into the saucer and onto the floor. Heightened by the cold, a vein on the back of your hand strained and pulsed visibly, and, jaw locking, you lunged over the tabletop to grab him by the shoulders, shaking him.
“What the hell is wrong with you‽” You climbed over the table, pushed his ice cream out of the way (he shot out a hand to save it from toppling off the table, and he ripped off his face mask to set it aside before it fell to the ground), and planted your foot on his thigh and your elbows on his chest, caging him in as you forced him flat on the bench. “Why the fuck are you using your real name in your fucking Cipherstone username, you fucking moron‽ People could fucking track you!”
The man who had been Shigaraki Tomura eyed your fists in his hoodie and then his cup of ice cream. “You didn’t have a problem with it before.”
“I—” This idiot! “I didn’t know it was you. There are a lot of Tenkos.”
“Then there’s my logic,” he said, hands dangling by his sides, making no attempt to touch you—you didn’t know if you appreciated it or not. “I thought you knew who I was.”
“No, I fucking—I would have given you advice that was more specific to you, over the spiel I was giving interns.” Releasing your grip on his hoodie, you sat back up and scooted over on the tabletop. Though you wanted to keep holding him, to hug him after all he’s been through, he probably wouldn’t want that. “I’m—sorry about tackling you. I, uh—fuck,” you said, and, grimacing, you slid his ice cream back to him and reached across for your own, pretending with everything you’ve got that it was perfectly normal that you were sitting on a table next to Shigaraki Tomura, who’s been teaching you to play a video game, who’s apparently living at the end of the hall, who’s decorated his door with Eri’s silver tinsel for Christmas, who’s banned from drinking caffeine, who could rest his fucking head on your thigh if he wanted. Normal. Yeah.
“Again, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to keep doing that,” he said, fishing out a gummy bear like you hadn’t lunged at him, “Your reaction was reasonable.”
“It—it wasn’t, really,” you said, laughing nervously, “I wasn’t expecting you. I mean, no one knows what—what happened to you. Afterwards. It was really unclear.”
“It was that way on purpose,” said Tenko, “It was thought to be better to emphasise the total destruction of All for One instead of whatever happened to his leftovers.” He shifted a bear to his back molars to bite into the frozen gummy better. “Nezu-sensei decided it was better to keep it muddled for now.”
Muddled was a good way to put it. There’d been so much chaos at the end of the war that so much never was accounted for. You’d think that the location of Shigaraki’s body would be high on the list, but satisfaction was found simply in the splintered, spectacular remains of AFO. Shigaraki’s name wasn’t cleared, per se, but in the aftermath, Midoriya especially stressed that yes, Shigaraki committed atrocities, but he’d been abused, groomed, and literally bodily possessed by AFO to think that way. Didn’t excuse him, but wasn’t entirely his fault.
The locations of the other PLF members—well, the core of the League, really—were public, if not vague. Spinner was in the States at a rehab that specialised in heteromorph trauma; Toga was at a local women’s facility called Sakura Grove, and Dabi was living with his family—he must have been that Touya on the phone, holy shit.
So, here he was, sitting on the bench at the same ice cream parlour you visited with the same friends who fought him, hunched over in oversized, black clothes you suspected were Aizawa’s, broad shoulders and faded scars out of place in the pink lights, white hair pulled back in a blunt ponytail with his bangs flopping over his forehead, seemingly unbothered by the toe of your boot pressing against his denim-covered thigh.
God. He’s scratched at his neck so much that it looks like he’s been beheaded with a blunt axe.
Tenko’s eyes flickered up to you, their colour deepening to crimson in the tinted lights. “So. You’ve got questions.”
“Are you okay?”
Tenko swallowed with effort, scowling. “Don’t start with a hard one.”
“Right,” you said, throat drying, “Who knows you’re staying at U.A.?”
“Faculty and staff. My therapist. The police force. The ramen shop Aizawa-sensei and I go to. The intensive rehab I was at before. The top of the hero commission. Touya, Touya’s father, Spinner, Toga. Eri and Midoriya,” he said, tongue swiping over his lower lip, “You.”
Somehow both fewer and more than you’d figured. “What exactly…is the situation? Aizawa-sensei was vague.”
“Officially, I’m like Eri: a ward of U.A. My old rehab thought I was good enough to live off their campus, so I’m back here, where I can be watched by people capable enough to bring me down if I go crazy again,” he said, brow furrowed as he traced the side of his cup with his spoon, “I should resent that, but it’s not like I have anywhere else to go, especially somewhere as comfortable as this. This is fucking stupid to say aloud, but fucking—fuckin’ All Might is the closest thing I have to family now, along with Midoriya.”
“I’m not following.”
“My grandma was the holder of One for All before All Might had it.” He pointed at you with his spoon. “So you can make the connection from there. But it’s stupid; I’m stupid—” He was shaking his head and staring into his lap. “—because it’s like I have a brother in Midoriya and a goddamn father in All Might—and then Aizawa-sensei’s acting like a dad, too, to me and Eri, and Nezu-sensei? Nezu-sensei is so fucking cool,” said Tenko, dragging his hand down his face, “He’s got a driver’s license! I don’t even have one of those. And he can type fucking 210 words per minute with those little rat paws, and I’m still getting used to using all five fingers, fuck.”
Cute. You scraped the bottom of your cup. “Hey, I think you type well.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why it takes me so long to reply in the in-game chat function. Why I prefer communicating over voice call. Learning new habits, and shit.” Tenko stabbed his ice cream with his spoon. “Nezu-sensei has arranged for me to train as an aftermath-clean-up hero. I had been—” His fingers on one hand circled the thumb of the other. “—in discussion with him in rehab about what I could do, and we decided I could consistently help when there’s collapsed buildings after attacks; I could dust the wreckage so that we could find hostages or make it easier to clean up and rebuild, and Aizawa-sensei and All Might-sensei have been working with me to control what parts of what I touch gets dusted so that I could create pitfall traps for holding criminals. It’s…going. It’s going,” he said, curling his lips in his mouth to moisten them, and with narrowed, determined eyes, he took another bite of ice cream, the blue staining the inside of his lips.
“Tenko, that’s a really cool application of your quirk. I hope you can find more,” you said, tilting your head and smiling down at him, “but—I have to ask—aren’t you tired?”
Tenko rolled his eyes. “Of course. You’re part of the group ensuring I don’t have caffeine.”
“No, I mean,” you said, shaking your head, “I mean, you don’t have to be perceived as useful. You’re—you’re just fine if you wanted to rest. You’re worthwhile just as you, not as—as a job, as a, I don’t know, a redeemed hero or anything. You can just be Tenko.”
“I know. My therapist keeps reminding me. But one of the most vivid memories I have from when I was living in that house,” said Tenko, sneering, “is that I desperately wanted to be a hero and that I would pretend to be one a lot. While I’m aware that I can never atone for what I’ve done, if I did nothing but rest, I’d be alone with my thoughts. And with what I’m learning to do, as a hero, someday, someone might…need me. Need my help. I imagine that’s a good feeling.”
You sat back, leaning on your hands, the cast-iron pattern cutting into your palms, to survey him. “You’re very much re-writing my first impressions of you as my gaming buddy and as the post-war Shigaraki. You’re surprisingly well-adjusted.”
He snorted. “I shouldn’t think it’s surprising. I’ve had almost a year and a half in intensive rehab, and I’m still in therapy every day.” He started listing on his fingers, starting with his thumb. “I’m on antidepressants; I know where my next meal’s coming from and when I’ll get it; I consistently have a safe roof over my head, and I know my friends are getting that, too. I have mentors who care for me as a human person instead of as a tool. I get to stay in contact with my friends and get to make new ones,” he said, nodding curtly at you before quickly looking away, “I’m fucking away from that sadistic fuckface. He’s goddamn dead and burned away to nothing. That’s the main thing. Everything else is a bonus.”
Tenko sighed, bangs fluttering with the movement, his shoulders straining as he leaned onto both his elbows on the table. He sighed again and scooped the last gummy bear out of his cup, and you let the silence carry on while you finished eating.
“Long phone call,” Tenko said eventually.
An increasingly grumpy Aizawa was leaning against the glittery wall inside, phone between his ear and shoulder, and furiously scraping the inside of his ice cream cup.
“Yeah,” you said, “but it’s been good talking to you, Tenko. I really appreciate you telling me all of this.”
“I would’ve talked about it sooner, but I figured you knew who I was and didn’t want to address it,” said Tenko, tapping his fingers one by one on the table.
Pulling the collar of your coat closer to your neck, you frowned, hesitating on how to phrase it. You watched your breath cloud in the night air before settling on, “There’s an off-switch?”
Brow pinching very slightly, Tenko followed your gaze to his hand, with all five fingers coming to rest on the cast iron, and he tapped all five of them on it for emphasis. “Yeah. There always has been. All for One kept it from me. Power of belief kept me jittery and alert my whole life.”
“So long as you thought you’d destroy anything you touched, you would?”
He nodded. “That bitch.”
“Agreed. We should kill him.”
And Tenko laughed. Just for a moment, barely making any noise, but he smiled with his teeth, grin stretching across his face as he looked away and eventually closing his lips, the smile lingering for a few more precious seconds.
***
You closed your laptop to answer the phone at work, clearing your throat to ready your receptionist voice before you picked up. “U.A. University Administration; how may I help you?”
“I need you to fucking murder me,” Tenko spat through the phone, angry and panicked, “I need you to rip out my bones and suck out my guts through a straw. He fucking let me hold onto them, and I’ve fucking gone and lost such a fucking iconic piece of—”
“Tenko, please, take a breath,” you said, relaxing your customer service mode but clutching the phone to your ear, and after catching the eye of the woman with jars of strawberry preserves waiting to see Nezu, you slumped over in your seat so that she couldn’t see you over the desk’s overhang. “Tell me what’s wrong. We can fix it. Are you alone? Is everyone else busy? Do you need to come sit with me?”
“I—fuck,” he said, and you heard some deliberately slow breathing, but his voice still had an irate, twitchy edge afterwards. “During our practise patrol last night, Aizawa-sensei was talking about support equipment for me. I’d never given it much thought, because it’s always been just me and my hands. He leant me his Eraser Goggles for me to think about for my—and I don’t know where they fucking are,” he said, inhaling sharply on the last word, “I’d left them on my desk, but I’d taken them up to the roof to sketch them, and then I’d brought them back to my dorm—”
“And Aizawa-sensei must have swung by to pick them up since then,” you said, pushing yourself back to slide in your swivel chair to the back of the reception desk, “because he was here at the beginning of my shift to print something off, and the goggles are on top of the printer. Relax, Tenko.”
“Hooooooly fuck, you’re kidding,” said Tenko, audibly deflating, and you smiled to yourself as you slid their band around your wrist.
You kicked yourself back up to the front. “You’re okay. You’re not gonna get in trouble. I’ll bring them by at the end of my shift.” You sat up straight, and the strawberry preserves woman was shooting a concerned look in your direction. “I’m at work, though, so I think we’d better end the call soon. Anything else you need?”
Tenko hummed into the phone. “Not really. You can’t be that busy.”
You smiled again, feeling—feeling domestic, as if he were your boyfriend calling you during work hours. How strange, Shigaraki Tomura. How interesting. “Would you believe I was grinding in Cipherstone when you called?”
“And you don’t call yourself a gamer,” he said, clearing his throat multiple times, “What skills?”
“Woodcutting and firemaking,” you said, opening your laptop again, “Are you feeling under the weather? Your voice had a bit of a rasp there.” Sounded like his old voice for a moment.
“Further cementing that Aizawa-sensei’s right to be worried about you. He says your brain’s going haywire analysing any detail work you can get, because you’re not out in the field anymore,” said Tenko, clearing his throat again (?), “Am I your new project?”
“Tell me what’s wrong, lest I pick up some damn throat lozenges for you before I come home,” you said, and a voice in the back of your head screamed that that threat was extremely cosy and intimate, especially since you’re claiming both of you have a home in the same place—which, sure, you both lived on the same hallway, but so did Aizawa and Eri, and please shut up; Shimura Tenko needs a friend, not a lover right now. Besides, that stupid hallway wasn’t really home for either of you but was more like a temporary holding cell.
“Fine. I’ve been throwing up all morning.”
“Thank you,” you said, electing not to make a pregnancy joke, “Do you need to see Recovery Girl?”
“No, I’m used to it, and I’ve already talked to her about it. I threw up a lot out of anxiety and stress when I was growing up with All for One, and now I’m throwing up because my body can’t handle the amount of food it’s getting regularly, which is fucking ridiculous, since it’s still less than a normal person’s version of three meals a day.”
What. The fuck. How can he casually drop details of deep trauma like it’s nothing? How could AFO let a child keep vomiting out of stress for years and years and never interfere? Well. Yeah, he could. You supposed that Shigaraki’s voice, as you first heard it as the USJ incident, was the ultimate result of that heavy strain on his throat for years. Explains some things about his teeth back then, too.
God. If AFO weren’t dead, you’d strangle him. Keeping a child physically weak because he’d be easier to mould. It was known that AFO had been psychologically manipulating Shigaraki, but now that you thought about it, manipulating his physical growth would have served AFO, too, since he was planning to move into Shigaraki’s body.
And what did this guy do now that he’s got bodily autonomy? Oh. Just. Play some video games. Talk with his friends. Try out some new hobbies. Make crafts with Eri.
It’s a shame AFO didn’t have a grave, because you’d be skiving off work to drown it in acid.
“My stomach is killing me,” said Tenko, “I’ve got to hang up to drink something and go to sleep. Knock on my door when you get home. I want to start a new quest as soon as you finish work.”
Home. He’d said it, too. He probably didn’t mean it in the same, domestic way that you’d been entertaining, but it made your heart swell. “Okay, Tenko. See you then.”
***
His therapist had assigned him homework: go on a planned, public outing with a peer, and stay out for at least an hour.
It wasn’t exactly a picnic you were packing, you kept telling yourself, scooting behind Tenko to get to the spice cabinet in the dorm kitchen, because that’d be too close to a date rather than homework. But the two of you packed a meal to take, with Eri sitting on the kitchen counter while she nibbled at rabbit-cut apple slices, and she held the thermos of decaf tea in her lap until it was time to stow it away.
After a short train ride and a quiet walk through midtown, Tenko stopped you in front of the back gate to what appeared to be a restored, historical estate, judging by the golden shachihoko shibi on each corner of polished hip-and-gable rooftops of the extensively aristocratic—mansion? palace?—that you could make out in across the distance of its sprawling grounds, the immediacy of which was the excessively well-kept, traditional garden that you and Tenko were breaking into.
“Is this legal?” you asked as Tenko reached through the grate to unlatch the doorway.
“I have an in with the gardener,” he said, sweeping the gate open for you and gesturing brusquely for you to enter.
“No, that wasn’t a joke,” you said, taking the few steps inside, finding yourself planted onto a polished, level stepping stone, and staring down a squeaky clean tsukubai despite the thin layer of frost over the water’s surface as the whole bowl began to freeze, “You can’t be doing anything even vaguely illegal, Tenko.”
When you said his name, he closed his eyes, pausing for just a hair in his relatching the gate, before facing you and shifting the strap of his bag farther up his shoulder. “Prude. Yes, we have permission from the owner.”
He kept looking back over his shoulder at you as he led you through the gardens, hopping across stepping stones to pass over a carefully shaped brook that led to a tiny waterfall near stone lanterns, weaving through trellises with the wintry shells of wisteria vines and shaped evergreens. He tutted and rolled his eyes when you stopped at the waterlily-coated koi pond, its fish swimming and flicking their tails in the artificially heated water (for some, odd reason, what appeared to be a compact duck coop had been constructed near the pond’s edge, its wood new and un-bleached by the sun like the rest of garden décor). You’d been about to ask about it when Tenko had jumped out of his skin at the sound of a deer scare, bamboo tapping stone.
“Stop laughing,” Tenko said, cheeks burning (and you tried not to take too much pleasure in that, but you couldn’t help it).
“Oh, a sensitive boy, a delicate boy,” you said, grinning as you hopped onto the same stone as him, cool, clouding breaths mixing together in the proximity, and you yourself could feel heat rise to your face. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Good traits to have, actually. Means you’re feeling secure and comfortable in your surroundings, if you’re off-set that easily.” Feeling bold—it was the cold; it was how the proximity already flustered him; it was how his hands were full because of the bag; it was—whatever—you reached for his silly All Might scarf and re-tied the front, fluffing it up to cover more of his neck.
You made the mistake of making eye contact: full of caution, his eyes kept darting from your hands to your face, searching for something, his lips parted, otherwise completely fucking frozen.
Were you making him uncomfortable? You stilled, your fingers still in the fringe of his scarf, tension tightening in your chest and jaw (clenching).
Tenko noticed. And—and to this day, you can’t believe he fucking did this—he ran his tongue over his lower lip and lifted his chin, exposing more of his neck to you. He then was suddenly very interested in the koi pond, the ruddiness spreading from his cheeks to his ears.
Throat dry, you gave his scarf a final tug and patted it (?) to show (??) a job well done (???). “Yeah,” you said, smoothly, like a smooth person, like someone who adjusts scarves of hot, in-process-of-reformation villains on the regular, “Where are we going?”
Tenko spun on his heel and strode away, muttering what sounded like, “Right into my grave.”
You pretended not to hear it and let him lead you to the only building unattached to the main house: a small, traditional teahouse that had a recent addition to it in the back. The creak of the bamboo engawa when you climbed onto it was muffled underneath the bright pealing of windchimes strung across the covered porch. Tenko was already kneeling at the tearoom’s sunken fireplace inside, its handle carved into a fish, fiery as its kindling, and was unpacking the travel teacups from the bag as you closed the door behind you, shutting out the cold, enveloped by the comfortable heat trapped inside by the cushioned walls.
Tenko must have arranged for this space to have been prepared for you. A kotatsu with floor cushions was tucked near the fireplace, pre-heated, with two further space heaters in the unoccupied corners, cords trailing into what must be a hallway linking the traditional and modern rooms, the latter of which was shut off from view. Beside a red-tinted wooden dresser stood an oddly empty tokonoma, and instead of a scroll or painting, amidst bits of pieces of scotch tape hastily half-torn off the back was a shittily cut-out, paper heart.
Shaking your head, you took a step towards Tenko, and the floor chirped at you, freezing you in place.
“Yeah, I don’t know why they do that,” said Tenko, pushing on his knees to stand, “They just do.”
“These must be nightingale floors,” you said, crossing to the kotatsu, a bird under each step, “The chirping’s caused by the way the nails rub against the v-shaped clamps holding the floor together. Have you been to Nijō Castle in Kyoto? These are in the hallway—supposedly used as a security measure, but who knows.”
“You need a hobby.” Tenko ripped the paper heart from the back of the tokonoma, crumpling it in his fist. A shred of it remained under the scrap of tape on the wall, which he bent towards to scrape off with a blunt fingernail.
“I have several,” you said, easing down onto a cushion and unfolding your legs underneath the kotatsu blanket, the luxurious heat swaddling your legs and hips. You fought the urge to curl up underneath it entirely.
“How many of them involve getting your ass thrashed by me in Cipherstone?” Tenko retrieved the bag from the sunken fireplace before returning to the kotatsu, and he sat on your left, resting the bag between the two of you.
You took the thermos of decaf tea when he handed it to you. “Tenko, you’ve been playing that game for years, and I just began. Of course my ass is gonna be thrashed by—you know how the game works. You have all of this previous information about the game that I don’t have.”
Tenko scoffed and slid your teacup across the kotatsu’s surface.  “As if I could conceal any information from you. You’re too…eh.” He waved it off, shaking his head.
“I’m too what?” You unscrewed the thermos lid, and steam surged upwards, rising to caress the planes of your face.
“It’s been unfair of Aizawa-sensei to make me tail you,” said Tenko, leaning your way, all five fingers curled around his own teacup as he stretched across the tabletop. “I’d have a chance of success if it were anyone else.”
“I’ll give you that,” you said, pouring steaming, amber tea with slices of yuzu into Tenko’s cup, “You’re getting quite good at it, not that you were bad in the first place. But yeah, it’s a bit mean of him to test your tracking skills on me.” He’d never said to stop, so you poured until liquid almost overflowed at the rim.
He gasped at the heat but nudged his teacup back to his place at the table, unable to hold it in his palm anymore. “I think I would’ve preferred working with Hound Dog-sensei for that. He’s less detail-oriented. I could win, if it weren’t you.” Jutting out his lower lip, Tenko glared down at his tea for a moment before slumping in his seat to slurp at the tea without picking it up.
“Don’t feel bad about it. It was literally and actually my focus for hero work, profiling and detail shit and being aware of my surroundings. Information stuff. Infiltration stuff.” Setting the thermos on the far corner, you cupped your hands loosely around your teacup, appreciating the warmth and getting cosier by the minute.
Tenko was rooting through the bag for the other thermoses, full of sukiyaki for each of you. “It’s clear you’ve worked hard to hone your skills. Were you this talented as a student?”
You accepted the new thermos, fingers clenching tightly around it. “Uh. I think I may have been better back then. More focused. More passionate, anyway. I had to think about it really hard back then, make conscious decisions to notice things, and now I think I do it instinctively. I think I’m slipping because of that.”
“Hm,” said Tenko, tongue rubbing over his teeth behind closed lips, and he opened his mouth to say something but shut it, instead twisting off the cap to his soup thermos. He took the first sip of sukiyaki broth and—and was absolutely beautiful (you couldn’t make sense of it beyond that; he was a mess of details that you couldn’t fit together into a larger picture that made any sense: white eyelashes light against his cheeks as they fluttered shut, face muscles relaxed, scars overlapping with laugh lines, cracked lips becoming moistened by the soup, both hands cupped around his thermos like a child, no strain to his posture, baggy hoodie swallowing him up, kotatsu blanket yanked up to his hips to cover his crossed legs, scar on the corner of his mouth delicately shifting with his baffled smirk when he caught you staring, a strange pink rising to the tips of his ears). “What?”
Uh. Hm. You pinched the bridge of your nose and then moved to rub your eyelids. “What were you going to say about me?” you asked, and you withdrew your hand from your face to raise the soup thermos to your lips, taking a mouthful of noodles and the sweet, salty broth.
Tenko shook his head. “I’m trying to avoid thoughts that fall back into my old habits.”
“Try me,” you said, holding his gaze when he met it, “I won’t tell.”
Weary, he broke eye contact, and he fixated on fishing out a certain slice of green onion. “We needed someone like you back then.”
Back then? When he—oh.
Back in the League.
Though you attempted to hide your grin by taking a sip of sukiyaki, you caught his eyes flicker to it. “You would’ve taken me? You would’ve let me in?”
“Would you have joined?” he shot back, a bit too quickly.
“No,” you said, rolling your shoulders and settling down farther underneath the kotatsu, “Never. But since you shared something you shouldn’t’ve, I’ll do the same.” You set your thermos down to rub your eyes again—God, you couldn’t look at him for too long, lest your intrusive thoughts hand you your ass. “I thought about it. About joining you.”
You dragged your hand down your face, peeking between your fingers at a muted clink. Tenko was staring at you, something fucking unreadable in his scrounched eyes, and both hands lay five-fingered and flat on the kotatsu, steam from his open thermos fluffing up hair on one side of his head. “You’re not serious. You wouldn’t have.”
“Not in the way you think,” you said, tilting your head back, “but I often thought, in the aftermath of the Paranormal Liberation Raid, what I could’ve done, if I’d known what I know now. And as the rest of the war was unfolding, I only wanted it more.”
Tenko blinked, slowly. “Tell me what you would’ve done.”
“Oh, you would’ve hated me, down to the dregs of my very soul,” you said, shifting to sit on your knees, “I would’ve started after your fight with Re-Destro, after the PLF was established. When you were letting allllllllll those heroes in, the sidekicks, the nobodies, anyone who seemed like they were with the cause. I would’ve infiltrated. Slipped in without notice. Hawks did, with the Commission, but I would’ve been going in as a free agent.”
“No one notices a U.A. student slide in between the masses. Re-Destro’s lackeys wouldn’t notice you at the door like I would. You get in,” Tenko said, taking his thermos in hand again but still engrossed in you, “What then?”
“There was a short period of time between the PLF establishment and your procedure, right? Around a month? That’s when I go. I worm my way into the good graces of some of the nine lieutenants—I’ve decided my pipeline would’ve been Geten to Toga to you. You’d just come out of an enormous battle, with Re-Destro and that city and Gigantomachia for a whole month. I heard you were bandaged up, on crutches, that you’d lost fingers that you regrew in that regeneration tank,” you said, eyes on his hands, one in a fist in his lap and the other around his thermos, five fingers pressing onto the grip but the pinkie finger hitched farther up than the rest, “That you’d given a speech and made your appearances regardless. That you’d pushed yourself to your limit and then broke yourself a little more. And you would’ve loathed me, because I would’ve come in, earned my way to your side, and I would’ve put my hand on your shoulder, slid it up your neck to cup your cheek to ask Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to rest?” You smiled and huffed, shoving it down, and though his hard stare should’ve pinned you to your seat, you pushed on the corner of the kotatsu to edge yourself over to his side, a knee on his cushion. “I like to think that you’ve sighed, sulked a bit, reluctant to admit anything was wrong at all, because back then, you had no use for moonlight. But I would’ve made you look at me, taken you to a bed, made you lie down until your eyes fluttered shut and the tension swept through your body and left. And you would rest,” you said, finding yourself leaning over him very slightly, knees touching his, just enough so that he leant backwards just a fraction, “I would’ve made that month so soft for you. I would’ve taken care of you, when nobody was fucking paying attention to you in the way that they should’ve. I fucking—I wanted it.” You gripped the front of his hoodie, fist grasping more fabric than necessary to shake him. “I wanted it. I wanted to care for you. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know. And you were fucking alone, in an unfamiliar place, and it kills me to think about that.”
You ducked your head to wipe your watery eyes on your sleeve, taking a breath—and realising what you were doing. You loosened your grip, but before you could pull away, Tenko was cat-like quick to grab your sleeve—why won’t he touch you?
“I wouldn’t have accepted your help,” he said, quiet, controlled, holding you down with his eyes, hand shifting to curve under your sleeved wrist, signalling that you could escape at any time, “That was after the worst month of my life, fighting Machia, and I wouldn’t have accepted it. I had too much to do. I would’ve shaken you off.”
“No, you wouldn’t’ve.”
“I would’ve,” he said, a bare finger, featherlight, skimming over the tender, bare skin of the underside of your wrist (oh, wow), “I wouldn’t trust that easily in that short of a time. You’d have met me, and that’d be it. If you’d persisted, I would’ve ripped you to shreds and tossed you aside.”
“Tenko,” you said, both relief and tightness blooming from your wrist, “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”
The hallway shoji slammed open, somehow rattling as it slid in its tracks and shook the walls, and you and Tenko scrambled apart, with you jolting backwards on your hands, grappling for your seat cushion, and Tenko banging his thermos on the kotatsu, hastily wrestling with keeping it upright as he flung his body to the side.
“Hey, fuck you, Touya,” Tenko spluttered out, elbowing himself upright as—as fucking Dabi strode inside, hands in the deep pockets of his black sweatpants. “You said you’d stay in the main house.”
“Don’t mind me,” said Touya, cool as you please, raising both of his hands in defence, “I had to ensure you’re not fucking in my bed.”
“What is—” Tenko clambered to his feet to cross to him, chirping with each stomp, and whisper-shouting once he’d corralled Touya into a far corner. “I said we’d hang out later today, Touya. You swore you’d stay inside and watch Naruto this afternoon.”
The polite thing to do would be to appear fascinated by the tea. You returned to your cushion and poured yourself another cup.
“Yeah, but I’ve been told I’ve got shit to do later. I’ve got to go to this fuckin’—fuckin’ family stuff. I don’t wanna get into it,” said Touya, at full volume, “and I wanted to check that your girl was real. Y’know, she looks nothing like someone who’d have GinzengTea as her username. Have you given it to her already?”
“Shut the fuck up. I was just about to do that, if you hadn’t interrupted, cockhead.”
“Cool,” he said, a bird-note as he shifted his weight, “I wanna see what she thinks.”
“Hell, no—”
“I helped pick ‘em out. Let me watch and have an ohagi, and I’ll leave,” said Touya, chirping towards you before he finished the sentence, and Tenko followed him, muttering under his breath.
Touya sat on the bare tatami next to you, joints cracking as he yanked the kotatsu blanket up his legs, shooting you a small salute and a concerningly charming smile. “Hey,” he said, tilting his head, eyes half-lidded, smile stretching to show more of his even, white teeth, “I’ve seen you before, yeah? When was the last time you laid eyes on me?”
Tenko pelted him in the chest with a plastic-wrapped ohagi, cutting off the ooze of charisma. “Show-off,” he said, nudging another sweetened rice ball your way.
You nodded but didn’t move to unwrap it, since you were still working on your sukiyaki. “I’m surprised you remember, Touya,” you said, the name feeling strange on your tongue, “It must’ve been years since I elbowed you in the tit.”
Eyes lighting the fuck up, you snapped towards Tenko when he laughed into his plastic wrap: still not loud, still not making any vocalisation with it, but releasing a heavy, sharp burst of air with a wide, open grin. He hunched over to hide more of it, using both hands to unwrap his ohagi—and in the moment he realised he’d been unwrapping it with only his pointer fingers and thumbs, he dropped the rest of his fingers onto the rice ball, still smirking to himself.
Biting your lip in your own smile, you turned back to Touya (you caught his moment of mild alarm at how thrilled you were when Tenko laughed—or maybe it was alarm at Tenko laughing at all—but Touya relaxed his eyebrows and shut his mouth the second you faced him again). “God, yeah, it must have been before that last battle that we’d met in a fight, and I’d gotten close enough to hit you, and…” You shook your head. “Actually, I don’t wanna talk about that stuff. It’s not who we are now.”
“That’s fine.” Touya nodded towards Tenko and took a bite of his ohagi. “Shimura, don’t you have something to give her?”
Shimura. That was his last name, you supposed, but wasn’t it odd that Tenko called Touya by his given name and that Touya called Tenko by his family name? Tenko didn’t make you call him Shimura. Well, you supposed that there’s only one Shimura now, and because of the number of Todorokis, it paid to be specific—
“Here.” Tenko set a flat box in front of you, flipping the buckle of his bag back over. “I was going to give it to you with more formality, but since this bastard showed up, I’m doing it like this.”
Biting the inside of your cheek, brow furrowed, you unpacked a pair of pale blue headphones, soft to the touch with a mesh headband so that your head wouldn’t ache.
“Noise-cancelling,” Tenko said, gabbling, frowning very slightly, “Rechargeable. There’s a detachable microphone so it can function as a headset. I wanted to do something good for you.” His eyes darted towards Touya, and they dropped to his ohagi’s bulging filling, seeping out onto the plastic wrap. “You need them, anyway. I’ve been sick of hearing you through those shitty earbuds; their sound is terrible, and when you said you’d lost your only pair—which I don’t fucking understand how you can lose those things, because they just fucking show up in my shit all the time, like a goddamn plague—I thought you needed something quality—just to make it easier on my end, obviously, so that I don’t have to tell you to yell into that shitty, built-in micropho—”
“Tenko,” you said, reaching over to place your tea-hot hand over the back of his, fingers curving with his along ohagi’s edge, “Thank you so much. I adore them. I’m really grateful that you would think of me.”
Tenko froze, the same as he had when you’d adjusted his scarf. Unable to look you in the eye, like a prey animal, stiff, shoulders tense, colour rushing up his neck to his face and ears again—but this time, he lifted his hand just a hair from his ohagi to press back into your palm, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Hoo, boy,” said Touya, startling the both of you when he slammed his hands on the kotatsu to push himself up, “I’ve had enough. I’ve had my little snack. I’m leaving.” Once on his feet, he stretched, pressing his hands to his lower back and arching it, grunting.
“Good fucking riddance, cocksucker,” said Tenko, rising and grabbing Touya by the elbow to haul him to the door.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Touya, dragging his feet, chirping slurred and confused by his movement, and when Tenko had him at the wall, trying to shove him out, Touya, smirking under your watch, whispered something to Tenko while forcing something into his palm. Touya ducked out as Tenko looked at what he’d accepted and, letting out a yelp, dusted whatever it was before he hurried back to the kotatsu.
(When you left the teahouse half an hour later, you discovered that he’d decayed only the wrapper and not the condom itself.)
***
“One moment, please. Nezu-sensei is in a meeting right now, but he’ll be out momentarily. Please take a number—yes, the ticket puncher when you first came in,” you said to yet another impatient and pissed client in the admin waiting room, packed to the gills with parents, press, vendors, potential sponsors, and, for some reason, Mt. Lady’s entire representative team. “By the door. If you’ll take a seat, we’ll be with you shortly.”
God, you could punt Nezu for this. Not that there was anything wrong with establishing a new, annual event for U.A.—a cherry blossom garden-set, competitive scavenger hunt coming up in the spring—but because of his casual comment that it would rise to the same importance as the Sports Festival, you were swamped with those eager to invest early. Unable to take a break, you had to work with your head bowed, desperately hoping none of these people recognised you and your failure, when all you wanted was to reply to Tenko’s messages on Cipherstone that morning.
Tenkopeito: You’ll like the next quest. You can pet a dog in it
Tenkopeito: Come over to my room this evening so that we can talk in person
Was he intending to speak with innuendo or with such sincerity that it cut right through you? Moreover, was he aware he was even doing it? Based on what you’ve observed, Tenko had no idea what he was doing to you, nor did he know how hard you were trying not to act on your attraction, though you weren’t even doing a great job of suppressing it.
It’s strange: Tenko evoked some strange, unnameable emotion in you like nothing else. You wanted to coddle him; you wanted to play stupid video games with him; you wanted to sweep his hair out of his eyes, and though you kept telling yourself that you didn’t, you wanted him to tell you how to touch yourself, how to touch him. You brushed it off. Another time. Perhaps never.
“Oh, hi!” Former pro-hero Ragdoll squealed your family name, making you jump in your seat. “It is you. I couldn’t tell from farther back in the line.” Fuck, Ragdoll would recognise you, since she and the rest of the Wild, Wild Pussycats trained Class A, and she specifically spent time with you on your tracking skills because of her Search quirk.
Don’t cause a scene. “Hello, Shiretoko,” you said, doing your best not to let your face be seen from over the reception desk’s overhang, “It’s good to see you. How can I help?”
When she beamed, she was as bright as ever. “Oh! The Pussycats want to offer our services for the scavenger hunt! We wanna get back into charity and civilian events now that we’re back from our mission for—but wait, you know all about that!” You didn’t. But her cheerful voice carried, and people were already turning towards Ragdoll, part of a hero team ranked in the top thirty. “I wanna hear more about what you’ve been up to! Since you left the hero business, no one’s known where you’ve been! Gosh, have you been behind this dreary old desk the whole time?” Ragdoll leant over the overhang, flicking at a loose strand of your hair. “I thought you were sent out on missions out of the country! Like, really important, top-secret stuff. It’s weird seeing you in an office, especially since I consider you a mini me. Why are you back at your alma mater? Did your agency not want you anymore?”
She wasn’t meaning to be cruel. Her loud, blunt sincerity, though, drew the attention of onlookers, and their flashes of recognition, subsequent judgment, and turning away made your chest tight. “I needed a break. That’s all.”
A thin, blonde woman in a burgundy overcoat leaning against the wall immediately next to the reception had been evaluating you, scanning you from top to bottom during the exchange. She didn’t bother hiding her curiosity, and when you shakily handled the rest of the conversation with Ragdoll, she turned to the short, softly featured man beside her. “You know her?” She hadn’t even tried to quiet her voice; it jolted you from Ragdoll, but you steeled yourself and continued printing off a schedule for her—and from the depths of your brain came the woman’s identity: Uwabami, the snake hero, one who usually flaunted her celebrity status but currently dressed down, without her hair snakes (a rattlesnake, a yellow king cobra, and a Japanese rat snake, which—shut up! You don’t need this information right now! Can you be fucking sane, please?).
Her sidekick—no, an intern, a student at U.A., some fuckin’ twink in the year below you, name escaping you at the moment—had some iota of tact when he looked you over, slanting his body away, as if he weren’t staring. “Yes,” he said, trying not to let you hear, “She’s my former senpai and nothing more to me. We didn’t run in the same circles. She’s the one who made that rescue a few months back, the one that got a lot of online backlash.”
“No, seriously,” Ragdoll was saying, “Why are you back at U.A.? Don’t you have somewhere else to go?”
“My—” People behind Ragdoll in line were listening. Trying not to show it. Your throat ran dry, and you couldn’t think of a lie or a pleasant half-truth. “My flat was compromised. My address was leaked, and eventually, people were—look, Shiretoko,” you said, forcing the words out of your mouth, “I really don’t want to talk about this. Here’s the printed schedule. I’ll talk to you later.”
You slid the paper across the counter, and she took it, waving goodbye and still beaming.
“Is this what happens when a hero career doesn’t work out? They just shove you back where someone will take you? At any old office desk?” that fucking twink was asking Uwabami, “I can’t—it honestly scares me to think I could lose myself and be misplaced like that. It’s wasting talent, don’t you think?”
“How can I help you?” you asked the next person in line through gritted teeth.
When Uwabami lowered her sunglasses to glance over them, you inhaled sharply and swung your swivel chair so that you wouldn’t see her. “I don’t know about that. Maybe this dreadful administration office is where she’s meant to be.”
Biting his lip, he shifted his jaw and crossed his arms, slumping against the wall. “You’ll always have a place for me, right, Uwabami? I don’t want this to happen to me.”
“Yes, I can print you out a copy of the same schedule. If you’ll allow me a moment to print.”
“Of course, Kakeru,” Uwabami said, ignorant of how you were gripping a pencil so tightly that it could snap any second, “You’ll never be left behind.” But then she fucking stared you down, deliberately holding eye contact while you were at the printer, and she said, “You’ll never need a place to hide. I’ll make sure you don’t fail.”
“Hey, how about you shut up?” you hissed, ripping the printer-warm schedule from the tray and storming back to your current client to shove it into their hands. “Aren’t Japanese rat snakes supposed to be in hibernation this time of year, anyway?”
***
Someone in Mt. Lady’s group recorded it. Someone posted it.
wizardjenkins11: jesus christ who knew u.a. had its own island of misfit toys
emotionalsupportdynamightsweat: nice to see that she kept her snark, but what is she doing back at school?? don’t heroes have some sort of paperwork component to their work. why isn’t she still at an agency
blood-is-thiccer: lol ua’s the only one who’d take the bitch. she’s being rude as hell to an actual pro hero. lameass quirk anyway and ass flat as hell lmao she fucken deserved that guy lighting her mailbox on fire
LynchianTiddies: You’re encouraging domestic terrorism???
blood-is-thiccer: that’s not domestic terrorism
LynchianTiddies: Then what, pray fucking tell, is it??
blood-is-thiccer: wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalism
XylemPhloemBuckaroo: no but I get what that guy was saying about wasting talent tho. Out of everyone in that class a, she’s the only one not topping the fucking hero charts rn. She’s the only one who’s left hero work. What makes her weaker than the rest of her classmates? What happened to her to make her like this?
koiboi69: wouldn’t you quit if people were camping outside your house/work/grocerystore? And also FUCK, man, there’s no fucking need to say she’s fucking weak. that’s kicking her while she’s down
XylemPhloemBuckaroo: I’m not kicking her while she’s down. I’m stating facts and asking reasonable questions.
koiboi69: bro wouldn’t YOU feel down if you’d didn’t have a home to go back to??? going back to u.a. is like admitting defeat, like you couldn’t handle it on your own and need protection
mawatadaddysgorl: i love seeing updates on her bc it makes me feel so good about what i’m doing with my life
***
Uraraka and Shinsou texted you but couldn’t call, let alone come from across town. Aizawa was AWOL, and Dango was hiding under your bed, so you, blotchy-faced and damp, were crumpled on the floor outside of room 310, eating vending machine bullshit and waiting for Tenko to return home.
Exactly all the insecurities you’d been stuffing down for months and months, brought out to air in front of everyone. Instead of doomscrolling, you locked your phone and slid it across the hallway carpet, burying your face in your hands and stomach lurching to the thought that you might soon be plastered everywhere in sight, again. Another round of intensive laying low loomed on the horizon, especially now that your location was made public. Your little secretary job was good enough, and relocating elsewhere on campus would lead to more job training, which would be a bitch.
Where was Tenko? You needed him here to say something irreverent and vindictive. Something unhinged. Or you needed him to hold you, pull you into his lap, and bitch about the whole thing while watching a movie. Tenko had messaged you to come by after work, so why wasn’t he…?
The staircase door hissed open, Tenko pushing it with his back, reusable grocery bags on his arms, and—and wearing a cape? Who the fuck wears a cape casu—oh shit he’s in his hero costume.
You’d heard that he had one, designed by the same company that’d made Midoriya’s and Shouto’s, and the similarities were clear: a boxy sort of design due to thick fabric that still somehow hugged his chest, a minimalist utility belt, and sturdy, knee-capping boots, positively flaming scarlet in contrast to the dark greys of the rest of his jumpsuit. The most obvious connection with another hero, though, made your chest throb: his cloak fastened with the same clasp his grandmother’s had. His dust-blocking respirator lay around his neck for the moment, but what was most embarrassing for you was how your brain fucking wheezed like a boiling kettle at his bare arms, biceps bulging, every fucking inch of skin down to his fingertips completely on display like a goddamn slut.
Whore behaviour. Whore behaviour! You had to duck your head when he squatted next to you, because oh, now you could see the stretch marks on his upper arms, because he’d gotten large way too quickly to be healthy, and smell his fading Old Spice and sweat from being out on what must have been an emergency call, and he was setting his grocery bags aside, reaching out to graze your shoulder, and wow, he’d been complaining about how he didn’t have abs yet despite working out five days a week now that his stamina had increased, but that fabric clung to his lower abdomen, looking very, very flat.
Initially pinching the fabric of your sweater, he shifted his jaw and laid his hand on your shoulder. “Who am I dusting?”
“God, Tenko,” you said, trying to look anywhere but his arms, or his abdomen, or his fucking lips, but he was leaning so much over you that he occupied most of your line of vision, and the only way to avoid seeing anything besides wisps of white hair was to gaze at the popcorned ceiling. “You’re not supposed to do that anymore.”
“Oh, yeah? Who am I dusting?” He squeezed your shoulder, stretching his thumb out to rub at your collarbone.
“Unless you can dust everyone in the country, I don’t think decay will help.”
Tenko clicked his tongue. “I have been explicitly told not to do that,” he said, shifting to sit on his knees, “I have—” He dug into a grocery bag for a moment. “—this for you. You like this shit, right?” Tenko pressed a bottle of pink lemonade into your hands.
“Fucking. Fuck. I do,” you said, passing the condensation-coated bottle from one hand to another, chest tightening, blinking to keep the water levels low, “Thank you. You didn’t have to get me this.”
“I know that,” he said with a dismissive wave, and he paused, fists in his lap. “Would it help if I gave you a hug?”
(What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the—)
“Yeah,” you said calmly, like a calm person, and when Tenko opened his (muscular) arms, you crawled into them, wrapping your own around his back to rest between his shoulder blades. You rested your chin in a fold of his cape, cheek pressing against the side of his respirator, and you frowned as his embrace tightened, pulling you closer in a sloppy, unpractised sort of way, grounded by the steady rise and fall of his very solid chest.
(This felt…affectionate. Romantic, even.
But Shigaraki Tomura didn’t do romance, and you don’t—you’re not—you wouldn’t dream of being conceited enough to read someone’s perhaps thoughtless actions as flirtation, because why would someone be flirting with you? No one did that in general, and being U.A.’s humiliating problem child exacerbated the fact.
Moreover, why would the man who was Shigaraki Tomura, in the middle of his rehabilitation and re-discovery of self, even in the microscopic chance that he had the mental energy to experience romantic feelings, aim that romantic impulse towards you? It would make more sense if he liked someone he’d known for a while, like Touya or Spinner or Toga, and if his romantic feelings leant towards recuperative trauma-bonding, wouldn’t it be more apt to feel for someone at his rehab? His therapist, maybe? He’d idolised Aizawa before he’d met him, and even that would make more sense than latching onto someone as late in the process as you.
He’d gotten flustered when you’d tied his scarf, and Touya’s played terrible wingman. But still. You couldn’t know. You can’t read into this, even though reading into things had been your job, because—because no one would want you. You’ll have to…You’ll have to gather more evidence. You couldn’t be certain.)
Tenko hummed, chin digging into your shoulder, blowing strands of your hair out of his face. “I calmed a kid down earlier by hugging her. Is this working for you?”
(…oh.)
You sniffled and hid your mouth in his cape so that he couldn’t catch your pout. “That’s—that’s good that a kid allowed you to comfort her. What happened?”
“Pipes broke in an old apartment building in the Takoba district. The third floor collapsed under the pressure, and it trapped families in part of the building. I was called out to dust the rubble trapping them,” Tenko said, tapping his fingers high on your back in a ripple, “and they had me dust some other walls to help start the repairs. It was cool. And this one little girl who’d gotten out before the rest of her family was really nervous, and she was sticking to me, holding onto my cape. I was telling her that everything was gonna be okay, like you’ve taught me, and when I asked how she was doing, this fuckin’ kid extended her arms to me. So, I fucking hugged her. Picked her up so she could see what was happening better. It was weird, but it felt good.” Tenko sighed. “I hate how it wants me to be kind more.”
And fuck, fuck, that’s the last straw to this horrible day, and you’re crying, silently, controlling your breathing to keep Tenko from finding out, because goddammit, this idiot bastard man was surprisingly easy to love.
You buried your face fully in his shoulder, hoping he couldn’t feel any wetness through his costume, and you and Tenko sat in the quiet of the hallway for a minute, interrupted only by the A/C kicking in.
Tenko tried to part the two of you enough to look you in the face, but you doubled down, curling your fingers into the fabric of his jumpsuit and keeping your head bowed. Scoffing, he sat upright, making you follow his movements to stay hidden. “You gonna tell me what’s wrong yet?”
“Forget all that shit I’ve taught you,” you said, grumbling to his tits now that he’d changed positions, hating how stopped up you sounded already, “It doesn’t matter what you fucking do in the public’s eye, because there’s always gonna be someone who hates you. You can’t please everyone, so just fucking be yourself. That’s funnier, anyway.”
“Did you psychoanalyse some press member’s pathetic sex life, or something? Deduce an affair based on the way he knots his tie? Announce the state of his dick to the whole room because of the length of his pants?”
“Fuck off, Tenko. I’m not some pretentious-ass Sherlock Holmes bitch,” you said, pursing your lips and instinctively pulling back to glare at him—
And the moment you did, Tenko cupped your face in his hands, soft at the palm and strongly calloused along his fingers, keeping you facing towards him no matter how hard you tried to jerk away, struggling to stay upright. “You are crying.”
“No, I’m not,” you said, just as a falling tear touched his thumb. As you adjusted to his grip, your hands fell to his thighs, pressing against them in fists.
“Hm. Well, you don’t have to tell me,” he said, eyes on another tear trailing down the other cheek, “but you’re joining me to watch a movie with Eri. I got snacks on the way home.”
You sighed, taking in how big his hands were and how much of your face they encompassed, trying to memorise their feeling until they were snatched away forever. “I thought we were gonna start a new quest tonight. I was excited.”
Tenko balked and shifted into a sceptical grin. “You wanted to play Ciperstone tonight?” he asked, both thumbs rubbing your cheekbones and moving to swipe underneath your eyes.
You sighed again, shoulders heaving as Tenko released your face to flick tears off of his hand. “I didn’t want to be myself for a few hours.”
Tenko pushed on his knees to stand. “That’s actually related to what I originally wanted to talk to you about. Furthering the working-with-others mission,” he said, and he extended his hand to help you up. “What do you know about Dungeons and Dragons?”
***
“God fucking dammit!” Tenko slammed his palm to his forehead and leant back to balance on the kitchen chair’s back legs and then combed his fingers back through his hair, upsetting some strands from his ponytail. Groaning, he crooked his face your way, smushed his face against the chair back, and pointed towards his forehead, where a red splot was forming. “Hit me as hard as you can.”
“Being bludgeoned won’t change the fact that you rolled a three,” you said, nodding towards his d20, “I ignore his whining and continue to drain the fig tree to charge my spell.”
Behind the DM screen, Shinsou rolled his own dice, and once his eyebrows had shot up to his hairline, he turned to Midoriya. “I need you to roll two d12s and a d4.”
Tenko bolted upright, hastily sweeping his bangs out of his face. “Wait, what does Midoriya have to do with it? He’s across the fucking grove! He’s engaged in close-ranged combat.”
You turned away from Shinsou’s sly grin and towards Tenko, mouth nearly a straight line, yanking another cluster of grapes from the communal bowl, and shoving two grapes in his mouth. He pinched at his lower lip as he chewed, twisting and peeling at dead skin, frowning as he focused on his character sheet, scanning it for some sort of information he was forgetting and absentmindedly raising his knee to his chest, the heel of his foot propped on the seat of his chair (thank God his jeans were from Best Jeanist’s Moulded to Your Ass line: the denim strained with his muscles. Your eye twitched). In this particular morning, with the five of you squared off at Aizawa’s kitchen table, papers and dice strewn among grocery store bakery cinnamon rolls and coffee cups (Tenko’s was full of gatorade instead of coffee, much to his chagrin), as Tenko was throwing grapes into Touya’s mouth while Shinsou did math, the narwhal house slippers dangling off Tenko’s feet, it struck you that Shigaraki Tomura had become just some guy. One who went for walks to clear his head, who spent hours failing to do a kickflip on Present Mic’s skateboard, who used emoticons over emojis, who got nervous in fast food drive-throughs, who collected hero merch (of Aizawa fervently and Present Mic against his will), who was losing his sensitivity to foods like leeks and onions, a man who was growing more and more exquisitely mundane.
And goddamn, he’s clever and perceptive and patient and cheeky in a devastatingly attractive way, and he’s flustered easily, eager to do a thing correctly, and utterly, totally captivating in his endless discoveries of what it means to be alive.
You timed it so that the shudder and shock crossing his face could pass as response to Shinsou’s description of how Tenko’s enchanted crossbow bolt missed the Spirit Realm Necromancer entirely, instead sinking into the sacred Grand Oak and instantly shattering the tree as if it were glass, its elaborate root system holding up the floating grove splintering into thousands of tiny shards, the ground beneath your party’s feet crumbling at the slightest suggestion of the shifting of weight. But really he curled in his lips with a furrowed brow and stuttering breath when you reached underneath the table to graze the back of his hand, and when he forced himself to relax, shoulders slackening, frown fading, Tenko spread his fingers to cover more of his denim-clad thigh, which you took as a timid sort of consent. Biting the inside of your cheek, you eased your palm over the back of Tenko’s hand, lacing your fingers through his and going through the motions of reacting to Shinsou’s shattered earth. Neither of you looked at each other while Midoriya’s character suffered the Necromancer’s spell to increase gravity, each movement of Midoriya’s bulky, steel armour accelerating the fall of the floating grove. By the time each of you had had enough turns to land on solid ground, preserving little of the sacred grove but all surviving, Tenko finally squeezed your fingers back, curling his own to grip them more firmly, keeping your hand pinned to his thigh, steeling himself, sitting up straight, and proposing getting close enough to the Necromancer to drive a crossbow bolt directly into his skull.
Midoriya was already muttering to himself over the effectiveness of the action while Shinsou worked, and Touya irreverently flicked his dice at Tenko, chugging coffee with his other hand. “You plunge the bolt by hand into the Necromancer’s head,” said Shinsou, “but with your strength debuff still in effect, you only nick him.”
“I try stabbing it through his ear.”
“It goes through,” said Shinsou, nodding and running his hand back through his hair, which sprung back into place, “It doesn’t pierce the neocortex, so he can still summon another—“
“I stomp him to death with my hooves,” said Touya, picking at his teeth and running his tongue over the spot.
The rest of you turned to him slowly in various states of incredulity.
“You don’t have hooves, Touya,” you said, tilting your head at the same time Tenko rubbed his thumb over yours, prompting your breath to hitch and a strange warmth to travel through your body, making you feel dizzy.
Touya grimaced and reached for a cinnamon roll. “I take off my leather breeches and boots to reveal my hooves. I have been a satyr masquerading as a human this whole time.” He leant forward on his elbow, glaring at Shinsou and gesturing with his cinnamon roll. “I stomp him. To death. With my hooves.”
Tenko sneered, his teeth cutting into his lower lip, but he merely opened his mouth and closed it, poking his tongue into his cheek. “I suppose maiming a party member wouldn’t coincide with my character’s chaotic good alignment,” he said, heaving a huge sigh to—oh, that cunning rat bastard—to conceal how he flipped his hand over in yours to touch palms, weaving your fingers back together and squeezing again, planting them back on his upper leg, massaging between your knuckles with his thumb.
“What’d you just roll?”
“Nineteen,” said Touya, casting Shinsou a slice of his most charming smile.
Midoriya let out a little laugh as Shinsou bitterly plopped his head on his fist. “Fuck you, Touya. Congratulations. You clomp over to the Necromancer and stomp all over him. Stompy stomp stomp stompy stomp. It’s difficult to watch at the insane speed you’re going, so no one stops you from doing such a good job pounding him that he’s ground into dust. Bits of him drift away in the wind.”
Here Midoriya winced. “Weren’t we supposed to retrieve the soul crystal embedded in his gauntlet? We can’t get our reward from that Silver Age dragon rider if we don’t have it.”
“Correct,” said Shinsou, glancing down at his notes, “It has been stomped to smithereens. You can’t even make out what parts of the pile of dust were once flesh.”
Ready to bolt, Touya was getting up from the table and holding up his hands in defence, but before Midoriya could start a speech that would have been more apt for the number one hero to use on patrol rather than during a DND game, the door to Aizawa’s flat opened, and in he walked, covering his yawn with the back of his hand. He halted at the sight of the five of you around his kitchen table, taking in the scattered papers and remnants of breakfast before settling on your DM. “Shinsou,” Aizawa began, disappointment outweighing the exhaustion in his voice.
“You’re the only one with a table that could fit all of us,” Shinsou said, spinning in his chair to face him, “This dormitory doesn’t have a good common area like the student ones do. Would you really prefer us to—”
“We can find you a table; there’s plenty on campus.” Aizawa lifted his goggles over his head to set them on the counter. “Is this why Monoma kept slowing me down during patrol?”
“No,” you and Shinsou said, while Tenko said, “Yes.”
Aizawa actually smiled as he unwound his capture weapon from around his neck. “Look who’s the only one telling the truth.”
“Why would I lie to you, sensei?”
Touya smacked Tenko on the arm. “Suck-up.”
“You promise?” Tenko shot back, nose wrinkling with his grin.
“This coffee had better be amazing, because it’s the only thing keeping me from kicking you all out right now,” said Aizawa, rubbing a dry eye with the heel of his palm, other hand outstretched for someone to pass him a mug.
Tenko’s thumb bent inward to swipe the inside of your palm, a silent protest while he drank from his stupid little mug of gatorade, and when he noticed what was at the bottom, he flinched. It must have been Touya who’d put your dice in Tenko’s cup.
***
Following the video of you insulting Uwabami, you’re garnering an unnerving amount of attention again, but it’s clearly someone different than last time. Whoever your stalker(s) was this time around, they were careless and unsubtle—and this confidence to be careless left you jumping at the slightest sound when you were alone.
Furthermore, you legitimately couldn’t deduce your stalker’s motivations, because no clear message linked his actions. At first, you chalked it up to the dorm’s shitty dryer eating your bright blue thong, but when you couldn’t find your lip balm or trolley pass or eventually your favourite sweater, you concluded that something else was at play here, further cemented by more and more tiny things going missing—things that, if you were stalking someone, you would’ve selected as small enough not to miss.
But bizarrely, your stalker left shit of his own lying about. A phone charger appeared underneath your pillow; loose change and a travel pack of alcoholic wipes showed up in your bathroom sink. Hello Kitty band-aids, a hair clip that looked like one of Rumi’s ears, deep-moisturising hand cream, a tiny lizard keychain with a white hamburglar mask drawn on. You couldn’t wrap your head around it. What could your stalker be trying to say besides he could access your personal space with ease? Hoarding it all in the drawer with the GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK hentai, you were struck with the notion that this may have been going on even before the video.
God, you missed when this school felt more like home instead of a holding cell, back when Shinsou and Uraraka and the rest were all still living together with you, when you could simply turn the corner to the common area to demand who took your laundry detergent and get an answer immediately (you also missed taking Aoyama’s bougie food, though you suspected that towards the end he was buying extra specifically for you). You sent an email to Aizawa about the potential break in security, and he promised to monitor the situation, though there was no evidence of physical entry.
Evidence. It’s been on your mind.
Sure, Tenko’s done stuff that could be read as romantic: how he plops your hand onto his head to demand you play with his hair, how he hovers whenever Touya stands too closely to you, how he gets upset on your behalf when people glare at you in public.
(Tenko grabbed your elbow, breaking your focus on the clothing rank. “We’re going.”
“But we haven’t found you a red coat yet.”
He lifted the hangers from your arm and slid them back onto the rack, despite belonging elsewhere. “Don’t care. I don’t like the way the cashier’s looking at you,” he said, jerking his head their direction, and when you tilted your head to glance at them over his shoulder, Tenko tapped your chin twice, guiding you to look back at him. “You shouldn’t have to be on guard when I’m with you.”)
If you were reading into it—and you were—Tenko was being so careful with talking about the pro-hero scene around you that it was almost as if he��d gotten a mission task from Aizawa to distract you from anything that might make you feel bad about yourself.
(“I hear you’re causing a lot of paperwork for my old man,” said Touya, pulling out another floor cushion from the storage space in the teahouse wall, “He hates that you’ve had to dust so many structures near his agency. He’s a decrepit creature of habit, and now that his commute is different, he’s—”
“Hey, Touya, tell us what flower bulbs you planted this winter,” Tenko said abruptly, clamping the lid on the pot hanging over the sunken fireplace, “Tell us what your garden’ll look like in spring.”
You shut your book, even though you’d just opened it. “Wait, are you saying that Touya is the one who keeps this garden? That’s—”
“You like it, sweetheart?” Touya dropped his cushion next to yours, ignoring the way Tenko was glaring daggers into his back. “Think it’s impressive?”
“Holy shit; I thought we were in the back of some professionally restored historical site the first time we came here,” you said, smiling at how Tenko’s petulant stomps to his seat chirruped, even when he scooted his own cushion towards yours (adorable; you’d think he didn’t like you giving attention to anyone else).
“Well,” said Touya, propping his hands on the kotatsu so that he could get a better view of Tenko, “With enormous pride and a huge erection, I’m pleased to announce that this garden is all my hard work.”
“Stop that,” barked Tenko, jabbing a finger towards Touya, “Stop bringing up your cock.”
“I could talk about yours, if you want. His monster cock is excruciatingly leaky and so shaped.”
Groaning, Tenko clonked his forehead on the kotatsu’s tabletop before Touya could say anything else, arm still outstretched. He peeked out from underneath his bangs towards you, tension leaving his body at your burst of laughter.)
He’s also taken your comment about silent admiration to heart. Over the discord call (through very comfortable headphones), you’d made a dumb joke about not being able to play for long, and he’d shut up immediately. When you’d confessed to lying and hoping you’d scared him, he’d replied seriously: “I want to protect my time with you. I don’t like it being taken away. I feel better when you’re with me.”
You’d frozen in the middle of weaving bowstrings while his character continued stringing them onto bows. You’d never have gotten that sort of remark at the beginning of your relationship. Tenko must genuinely be listening to you.
Anyway. You decided in the event that Tenko was collecting evidence, too, that you would leave him some.
The first time you’d been in his room had been for a specific purpose, which was to help him rub in his new facial scar moisturiser (not to take them away, or anything, because Tenko wanted to keep them, claiming he wouldn’t recognise himself in the mirror if he didn’t have his scars—and you thought they were devastatingly attractive, anyway—but just to keep them hydrated enough not to itch), but now you were here just to spend time in the same space. You were reading on his bed (oh, hohoho, his bed), and Tenko was drawing in his sketchbook on his couch by the window. With his mouth pinched in concentration, he squinted down at his paper, swiping away eraser shavings with his artist-gloved hand.
Drawing by natural light. Tenko was in room 310 because of its wide windows. It had been his one request when U.A. was placing him.
AFO had deliberately raised him in a bedroom without windows. You’d kill him if he weren’t already dead.
Thankfully, AFO’s influence was absent from Tenko’s dorm: Naruto sheets from Touya, an old Nintendo DS on his bedside table with Nintendogs in the cartridge slot, Present Mic’s skateboard propped against the coatrack that held only a black hoodie, unfolded but clean laundry in a basket next to a dresser with prescription bottles atop it, a mirror that served more as a bulletin board of Eraserhead merch than as a way to check his reflection, red shoes by the doorway, books borrowed from everyone from All Might to Shinsou to the ramen delivery guy strewn across the room, on shelves, his computer desk, his rug. The thing Tenko’d had to explain to you was a therapist-assigned painting hanging over his desk: he’d painted a murky, purple-blue, abstract sort of thing, and you were strangely touched when he’d explained it was Kurogiri (and now that you were looking, among his bulletin board of Eraserhead, a few drawings of Loud Cloud were mixed in).
There’s a lot of people in Tenko’s life who care about him now, and you’re happy to be one of them. Setting your book aside, you got up to sit next to him on the couch.
He paused when you sank into the cushion next to—well, no, you were basically sharing the same cushion, especially since he unfolded his legs from underneath him so that you could get closer. You scooted over so that your shoulders touched (scandalous) and looked over his drawings.
He’s drawing your DND characters. While his sketches aren’t exactly good, you can clearly tell who’s supposed to be whom, and they’re fun to look at, so that’s all that matters. At the centre is your character, Ginseng—you named it after your Cipherstone account because why not—in the process of spell-charging. Your character relies on the traditional ritual of tea ceremonies, from the growing of the tealeaves to serving it, summoning whatever tools you needed, like the table and dishware, and if an enemy got caught by the conventions of politeness of the tea ceremony, they were trapped in it until they’d drunk their teacup dry. Tenko had drawn her early in the spell-charging process, with branches of tealeaves sprouting from underneath her skin, with her harvesting them from her forearm. It’s rather flattering, the way her determined expression lit up her face.
Next to Ginseng was Tenko’s character, Peito, also lifted from his Cipherstone character. He was sitting on the same log as Ginseng in the middle of camp, backs touching while he cut feathers as the first step in the fletching process. His carved-willow quiver leant against his knee-high boot, red even in a fictional universe. Peito’s hands were bare, five fingers pressed against his knife and arrows.
Further back in the camp (really just towards the top of the paper, since Tenko wasn’t good at foreshortening yet), Midoriya’s character, Jackrabbit, was holding up two hangers, one with his steel and the other with sleek, black leather armour. A nice touch, really, since Midoriya had swopped Jackrabbit’s primary armour to the more lightweight leather since the shattered grove incident, and wow, you could even tell it was leather based on the pencil strokes.
Seated nearby, Touya’s character, Granddaddy Slapkins, roared with laughter at him. His shoes lay next to him, his hooves out. For some reason, he’s not holding his pet duck; he’s instead cradling what looks like your character’s wild shape, a cat with the same chocolate-point markings as your real cat (your character’s shapeshifted form was just Dango, but Tenko didn’t know that. He still didn’t know Dango existed, because cats were still illegal in the dorms, and Tenko, that little brown-nosing shit, would probably tell Aizawa about her. Cute how he’s only a suck-up to Aizawa, though).
Your favourite detail, though, was how his character was smiling. Unabashedly. As if it were a no-brainer, as if doing anything else made no sense at all.
With a stab of affection, you nuzzled into Tenko’s shoulder, resting your chin there while he sketched loops of chainmail onto Granddaddy Slapkins’s shirt, and a shiver racked through him.
“Oh, are you cold?” you asked, sitting back up and heading over towards the bed, “Let me get your blanket.”
“Wha—no, I—sure,” said Tenko, setting his pencil on his sketchbook and the whole thing on the arm of the couch, eyes half-lidded as you returned with his throw blanket.
And without thinking, you moved on impulse, as if all higher orders of cognition had checked out for the night, because you behaved like you did in your head whenever you thought about Tenko: casually, intimately, and domestically. You wrapped the blanket around yourself and knelt on the sofa before swinging a knee over his lap, and you snuggled into his chest, clutching his shirt and nosing at his neck.
Your eyes snapped open.
(What the fuck?
If this had been a planned attack, then it would’ve been a thing of brilliance: casual, seeming to meet a physical need [heating a chill] in the name of physical closeness. But you fucked it. This wasn’t planned, and thus you don’t have a way out of it without otherwise betraying your romantically-motivated interior.
Thank fuck he’s frozen up, too. But how do you get out of this? God, you really shouldn’t be teaching him how to navigate interpersonal relationships when you get yourself into shit like this.)
You swallowed thickly, pulse pounding in your ears.
“I need your advice.” Tenko’s chest barely rose when he took his first breath since you climbed onto his lap. “What would be the socially expected response to this?”
“Uh. That depends on if you’re into it or not,” you said, forcing yourself to sit back in his lap to give him some space, “If you dislike it, then it’s to get me to get off of you, and if you welcome it, then, uh. Anything else.”
Tenko unclenched his fists at his sides and—a pause, shifting his jaw—he let his hands rest at a barely-there touch on your hips, dragging them upwards to your waist, applying enough pressure there for you to feel all ten fingertips through your shirt. “Is this,” he said, wetting his lower lip, and he couldn’t continue, instead swallowing saliva.
Gathering your nerve, you wove your hand through his hair to scratch at his scalp in the way he’d liked when you’d played with his hair, and at the familiarity, Tenko huffed, shutting his eyes tightly and pressing his forehead to yours in a rush, almost knocking them together. He took another breath, heat washing over your face, and you slid your other up hand to cup his cheek.
Tenko shivered again, and he clamped his hand over yours to keep it there. “Are you sure this is what you mean to do?”
He seemed receptive enough to it, but you couldn’t be certain. “Yeah,” you said, “If I’m reading it right.”
“But it makes no sense. I’ve got to be reading it wrong,” Tenko was saying, frowning, “No one would willingly like me—”
“For fuck’s sake, Tenko—”
Practically slapping your other hand to his cheek, you kissed him, pulling him closer, one of his hands still over yours with the other now gripping your waist as if he’d never let you go. Tenko grunted into it, surging forward to keep his rough lips (sticky from his freshly applied pineapple-beeswax chapstick) seared to yours. You felt, more than heard, his miniscule whimper at the back of his throat when he opened his mouth, sliding his tongue into yours, and you could hardly keep kissing him for smiling. But he needed a breath before you did, so you broke it, sensing he wouldn’t do it out of wanting to keep you nearby.
Panting, Tenko tried and failed to push your hair behind your ear in an attempt to be suave. “Now, I perceived that as romantic.”
“It was romantic, you muppet,” you said, thumping his chest with the back of your hand.
“Good.” He cleared this throat. “Cool. Excellent,” he said, shifting underneath you (with difficulty, under the constricting denim of his Moulded to Your Ass jeans), “I want it to be, when it comes to you.”
“Thank God, I really want that, too,” you said, sighing, “but, like, I really don’t know if it’s ethical to pursue a romance this early into your recovery—”
“The fuck is wrong with you? I want it. I want you.” Frustrated, Tenko grabbed your hips in an iron grip and ground up into you, slowly, and that tight-ass denim let you feel precisely where in the drag of his hips his cock touched you, letting you feel the shift in pressure at his tip, down his shaft, to the first curve of his balls. “I thought I was alone. I thought no one else would ever be able to understand me, having fallen from what I was raised to be. Fallen,” he said, spitting, “Such a nasty word for what we’re actually doing: we’ve been reborn together. We get to build our lives back up together. We get another chance at it. I wanna spend mine with you.”
He strained his neck upwards to kiss you again, insistent, moving with confidence when he took your lower lip into his mouth but only nibbling on it once, despite being posed to bite down with vigour.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about what anyone else thinks of you and what anyone else thinks of me. I—”
“That’s not true,” you said, your turn to catch your breath, “You care so much about what Aizawa-sensei—”
“You know what I mean,” he said, shaking his head, hair falling out of his loose ponytail, “You think of me as me, and that’s all that matters. If you’re really that fucking worried about me getting into a relationship too early, go talk to my therapist. She says you’re good for me. A good influence, anyway.”
“Holy shit,” you said, mostly in reaction to how Tenko started trailing frantic, dry kisses down your neck, and, realising you should probably be doing something back, you rolled your hips, feeling awfully warm under the blanket.
He bucked back up into you, more out of desperation to keep you close over a need for friction but still giving you a taste of what it would be like to have him thrusting into you. “Fuck,” he said, almost grumbling, “I’d say fuck being ethical about it, because I’ve wanted you for a long time. I got hard when you shook me by the shoulders outside of that ice cream shop; I thought my soul was gonna leave my body when you adjusted my scarf. Hell, I—” He cut himself off, grinning in a way that, back before you knew him, you might have described as maniacal. “I wanted you back during the war. I saw you fucking elbow Touya during that battle, and the way you made him crumple to the ground was so fucking sexy. And you recovered from when he swiped at you so easily; you slipped around his attacks like it was fucking second nature. I thought it’d be cool to have you by my side, having you—” He realised what he was saying, and he relaxed, smile fading into a curious, pensive sort of look while he brought his thumb to your kiss-swollen lips. “And now I get to.”
You kissed the pad of his thumb, blinking slowly.
“So. Yeah,” he said, dropping his hand to your shoulder as he broke eye contact, a little red, “I think it’d be cool to be with you, even if we have to be careful.”
“That’s the thing, Tenko,” you said, biting the inside of your cheek as you gathered your thoughts, “I’m scared, because while I know that we should, because that’d be safe, I don’t want to be careful. Since I’ve quit being a hero, every single thing about how I’ve been living has left me feeling empty and alone, because it’s like I’m wandering through limbo. Everything screams that whatever I’m doing now is temporary, that it’ll pass, that I don’t truly belong in this situation, because I’ll find what I’m supposed to be doing later and my real home is somewhere down the line, but—fuck.” You rubbed your eye with your fist. “You, Tenko. You don’t feel temporary. You feel forever.”
Underneath you, Tenko stretched to pop a crick in his back, and he tilted his head to lie on the back of the couch. His ponytail had come loose, and his hair splayed against the fabric as he stared at you, one hand idly rubbing at your waist.
“Well. You’ve got to belong somewhere,” he said eventually, and he tapped all five fingers onto your thigh. “It could be with me.”
***
Dango was missing.
Incredible how the best evening of your life preceded the worst day you’ve had in years. You called out of work and spent hours scouring the dorm and then campus. A gruelling, miserable sort of day, anyway, grey and rainy and cold, and the campus was swarmed with people setting up for the scavenger hunt event later this month, populating the area with non-U.A. personnel and construction. Your cat was out in that mess, and you didn’t even know where to search first. It’s loud, scary, and wet, so Dango would most likely be hiding and not come when she’s called.
Had Dango escaped your flat? Had your stalker stolen her? Had she been confiscated by U.A.?
You couldn’t call any faculty for help; they’d get onto you for having an illegal cat on campus—and Hound Dog, the one who’d be the most help, might just scare her to death. Too early in the morning to call any of your friends, and you doubted they’d alter their busy schedules to help you out of a situation you should be able to fix yourself. But damn it, how come your own tracking skills only worked on people?
You shook yourself, coming out of your spiral the best you could, and you were close to hyperventilating. You sat down on a curb.
You found yourself calling Tenko, despite it being too early in the day for him to be out of training, filling with dread about never seeing your cat again and having to clear out her stuff from your room. Pulling your soaked jacket closer, you wiped at your nose and waited at the dial tone.
“Hey, I thought you couldn’t call during work. Miss me that much?”
The second you heard his strangely chipper voice, you started crying into the speaker.
He inhaled sharply, tone shifting. “Tell me who the fuck I’m stomping to death with my hooves.”
Ducking your head, you managed a smile but continued to fucking sob. “You don’t—don’t have to kill anyone, Ten—Tenko. I’ve f—fucked up.”
“What’s wrong? Where are you?”
“I’m on cam—campus,” you said, unable to speak for a full sentence without having to cut yourself off to keep bawling, ugly and loud and getting snottier by the minute, “It’s my fucking fault that I haven’t been ta—taking my stupid sta—stalker seriously, and I should’ve reported it, but—but I—goddammit!” The rain picked up again, coming down in rapid, fat drops, and, shielding your eyes, you rubbed your phone screen on your sleeve, not that it did much. “Sor—sorry. Rain got heavier.”
“Where on campus?”
“No, Te—Tenko, I’ll get up. I’m coming to you,” you said, sniffling and pushing on your knees to stand, wet and hungry and ready to crawl into your sock drawer to sleep for days. “I—I’m just so fucking pissed at myself, because my cat is fucking lost, and I could’ve sto—stopped it if I hadn’t been so secreti—tive.” Hands shaking, you yanked your soaked hood over your head and trudged towards your dormitory, and you kicked gravel, rocks scattering over the path, before losing your footing on it and nearly falling. Fuck this.
“You have a cat,” said Tenko, losing his fervent. “What’s it look like?”
“Beautiful.”
“I need more than that.”
“She fucking—I based Ginseng’s cat form on her, okay? She’s this enormously fluffy thing, mostly whitish with a brown face and legs, and it makes her look like she’s wearing a mask and thigh-high socks like God’s sluttiest little jester,” you said, knocking on your dorm’s mailboxes for luck out of habit as you passed them, “And you can’t tell Aizawa-sensei about her, because if she’s taken away the moment I find her, then I—”
“I have her,” said Tenko, “She’s in my dorm with me.”
You ran the rest of the way to his room, panting and absolutely disgusting by the time you got there, and when Tenko opened his door, there was Dango, loafing on the back of the couch and watching raindrops race down the window.
“What the fuck,” you said, dropping your wet coat and toeing off your shoes, “How the hell did she get in here?”
Tenko shrugged and hung your coat next to his hoodie. “Can she open locked doors?”
“I hope to fuck she can’t,” you said, and you rounded the couch to wrap your arms around that dear little loaf, and Dango jumped off the couch to crawl underneath it before you could fully hug her. “Oh, good. She’s fine. Acting like normal.” You sat on the couch’s arm, adrenaline evaporating to render you boneless.
“She was in my room when I came back from training. We ended early today, since Aizawa-sensei has something.” Tenko stooped to yank two bottles of gatorade from their plastic rings and headed towards the sofa to offer one to you. “She didn’t seem upset or hurt. She’s been sitting there, napping on and off.”
You accepted it and twisted off the cap. “So, who put my cat in your room?”
“Why would anyone do that?”
“I don’t know,” you said, taking a shallow sip, careful not to overwhelm your agitated stomach, “They’d have to know about Dango in the first place, and I suppose my stalker would, since they’ve theoretically been breaking into my room.”
Tenko paused mid-sip, and he hastened to swallow. “Someone’s been breaking into your room?”
“Yeah,” you said, easing down the arm of the couch and onto its cushions, “I think. There’s no physical sign of entry, but my shit keeps going missing, and stuff that’s not mine keeps showing up. Let me tell you, I need some of that shit they’ve stolen; it’s hard to replace—”
Tenko touched your lips with three of his fingertips to quiet you, and he gestured for you to stay put while he scrambled over to his closet, where he stood on his toes to retrieve a wicker basket from the top shelf. He dropped the thing into your lap. “Are any of these yours?”
All of it was, missing things you blamed on everything from Dango to your stalker to your own forgetfulness: your favourite sweater, your trolley pass, lip balm, your shitty earbuds, your good pantyhose, your planner, your d10, and, among many smaller things, even that bright blue thong you’d lost in the wash (Well. It’s better to find your thong with your new boyfriend over finding them returned to your dorm coated in your stalker’s cum, you supposed).
“I was losing my goddamn mind,” Tenko was saying, “Stuff kept showing up. I thought it was a test at first—”
“I don’t have a stalker,” you said, absentmindedly rubbing the fabric of your thong between your fingers, “Your shit has been—you read that GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK shit? Tenko.”
“Oh, you have that?” Tenko scratched the back of his neck, but not in his self-harm way; it reminded you of Shinsou’s nervous habit more than anything. “Haven’t you read it? Isn’t that what you were naming your characters after?”
“Ah, ha, ha. Moving on. What is important, though, is why and how this is happening to us.”
“Yeah, I don’t…”
The two of you spitballed for a while, long enough for the both of you to finish your bottles of gatorade and for Tenko to start another, and neither of you came up with anything substantial.
“Hell with it,” said Tenko, standing to stretch, his movement disturbing Dango from her nap in his basket of clean laundry, “Let’s go ask Aizawa-sensei.”
Aizawa was not pleased when he discovered the both of you waiting in his kitchen, but he listened to the story, and when you were done, he stepped out of the room to make a phone call. When he came back, he looked even more exhausted than when he’d first come in.
“I’ve just gotten off the phone with Sakura Grove,” said Aizawa, wincing when his bones creaked as he sat in his chair, “Tenko, do you remember villain in-fighting within the PLF? In particular, I’m asking if you remember breathing in a pink dust cloud. It would’ve been in Deika City, in the month between your fight with Re-Destro and your body modification surgery. If our sources are accurate, you would’ve been with Touya.”
Tenko scrunched up his face. “Why would I have been—hm.” Frowning, he reached into the bag of popcorn you’d commandeered from Aizawa’s cupboards. “I know what you’re talking about. They were only letting me eat healthy stuff in the week before I went under. Touya was taking me to scrounge for something salty and shitty for me, because I couldn’t take it anymore. He started hitting on someone he thought was a waitress, and she—this is why I remember it—she compared the width of her hand to his thigh and said no thanks.”
“That’s Ito,” said Aizawa, sighing and crossing his arms, settling his chin into his capture weapon, “When did she use her quirk?”
“She shoved her hand on Touya’s face when he opened his stupid mouth again, and he passed out with swarming, pink particles floating around his head. She turned to me—and she must not have recognised Touya, but she knew me, because her face lit the fuck up. She never touched me, but I remember having to sneeze.”
“She never told you what her quirk did?”
“I woke back up in the PLF headquarters. I assumed whoever picked me up had killed her and that her death negated any effects.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why? What does it do?”
Aizawa let out a soft laugh, muffled through his capture weapon, and he jerked his head in your direction. “You tell him,” he said, snatching the bag of popcorn and heading towards his bedroom.
***
He’d been nervous about wearing a suit. They reminded him of AFO.
But you’d strayed away from dark colours and too much structure, so his light greyish-blue suit jacket stayed unbuttoned even as you leant across to the passenger seat to adjust his All Might tie for him (a Put Your Hands Up Radio tie had been offered, but Tenko had already closed his fist around the striped tie Midoriya would loan him). Part of his bangs had been pinned back to show off his annoyingly handsome face, especially in how his sharp, red eyes observed caught every movement of your terrible attempt to tie the tie based on the pictures Aizawa had sent you.
“We’re not gonna be late, are we?” Tenko drawled out, the corner of his mouth quirking upward, hand resting on the car ceiling as he angled his chest towards you.
“Shush; we are in the parking lot,” you said, looping the larger end. Or were you supposed to be looping the smaller one? “Besides, the world won’t end if we’re a few minutes late to my class’s annual reunion.”
A flimsy excuse for a party, one made because hero agencies needed some sort of named event as an excuse to dismiss your friends en masse. But it was spring again, and they were coming out of the winter blues, and they wanted to see you again, so, hey, why don’t we work something in around your schedule? If you can’t come to this date, then we’ll reschedule it until you can.
And, like. They knew. They knew Tenko was your soulmate. You suspected they all wanted to see what he was like now, too, because no one but Shinsou, Midoriya, and, apparently, Bakugou had known.
You undid the loose knot and tried again. “Are you nervous?”
“No,” he said, scrutinising the tacky balloons and streamers swaying in the night breeze outside of the otherwise intimidatingly elegant venue, “but those kids might be.”
“Those kids happen to be friends my age,” you said, “and I’m barely younger than you are. They know you’re coming. You’re fine.”
Tenko sucked in through his teeth, tapping the roof of the car one finger at a time. “The last time they saw me was as a thing. An object of destruction.”
“Well, they’ll definitely see you as a human person when I spill how you designed a unicorn DND character for Eri.” You pulled the fabric taut but kept it from lying closely to his neck (a boy didn’t like feeling constrained). “You know what? This tie is as good as it’s gonna get.”
He ducked his chin to examine its knot. “It’s shit.”
“It adds to your devil-may-care, reformed-bad-boy sort of charm,” you said, giving the tie a final smooth-down and poorly suppressing your smile when you felt his muscles through his shirt. “Mathematically, there are only 85 ways to tie a standard tie knot. I don’t believe we’ve reached any of them.”
“How do you know these things? You’re unbeliev—” Tenko jerked his face out of view of the window as Aoyama and Kouda, gesturing wildly, strode past the car and into the venue. “Listen,” he said, clearing his throat, “I know I don’t care and that you don’t care, but other people will. Your reputation is gonna plummet right into its grave if we’re out in the open together.”
You shook your head, letting your smile show. “So, I fucked part of a rescue job almost a year ago. So what. So I’m dating my soulmate. Am I supposed to do otherwise? Honestly, Tenko,” you said, curling loose strands of hair behind his ear, letting your fingers linger around his cheek and neck (he leant into the touch), “I don’t care. I would’ve chosen you even without the soulmate bond. You’re too endearing to pass by. You’re too…babygirl.”
Tenko had been guiding your hand to his mouth, and he snorted before it got there, warm air scattering in a short burst. “Don’t call me that,” he said, pressing his lips to the centre of your palm and waiting until you met his gaze to retract them.
A different warmth shot to your lower stomach, but you had to keep pressing, for the sake of the bit. “Oh, then what should I—darling? Honey? Pookie bear?”
He scoffed and nipped at your pinkie. “None of those are good.”
“Tenko.”
He breathed in, shoulders rising, eyes fluttering shut. Taking a moment to kiss the tiny bite mark on your finger. “Yeah,” he said, opening his eyes in a slow blink, catlike, “Feels good. Feels—like coming home.”
Beaming, you reached down to lace his fingers through yours. All five of them squeezed back. “Then let’s go.”
soulmate trope taglist: @bakugouspsycho, @pansexualproblemchild, @doonaandpjs, @sunsetevergreen, @the-coffee-is-on-fire, @liberace2, @ladymidnight77, @nonomesupposedto, @gooooomz, @kissmebakugou, @pachiibatt, @celestair, @tiredkittykat, @cheshireshiya, @90s-belladonna, @infjsnightmare
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rosyhoneydew · 3 months ago
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I Simply Say (Baby)
Written for @bucktommypositivityweek | Day 2: nicknames and terms of endearment.
“Uh, hey, I’m gonna take this for a sec, you want another beer when I come back, Eddie?” Buck asks, already en route to the kitchen. 
“Yeah, thanks,” Eddie says, a knowing smirk on his face.
There’s not really any need for the secrecy, Eddie saw the ‘Tommy ❤️’ contact light up on Buck’s phone, and even if he hadn’t, there aren’t many people Buck would pick up for on guys’ night. But, he still hasn’t quite gotten around to filling Chris in yet. It’s not like he tells the kid about everybody he dates, but this is Tommy and he’s their friend and it would feel too weird keeping that from him. 
Chris got back from Eddie’s parents’ place just over a week ago, and Eddie’s pretty intent on making things feel, as much as possible, like he never left. Buck gets it. Chris leaving was shitty for him, he can’t bring himself to think about how hard these past weeks have been for Eddie. 
“Hey,” he sighs out as he answers the call.
“Hey.” Buck can hear the smile in his voice and it fills him with warmth. He loves that smile. “How’s guys’ night?” Tommy asks. 
“Yeah, yeah it’s good.” Buck leans against the counter, ears tuning in to the light giggles he can hear from the living room. It’s felt like forever since he saw Eddie this carefree. “It’s nice. Feels like old times, you know?” 
Tommy hums a response. 
“Hey, you should come next time,” Buck adds. 
“Me?” 
Buck huffs a small laugh, “Yes, you.” He makes for the fridge, grabbing two beers and cracking them open with the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear. “I mean, Eddie would love it, Chris hasn’t seen you since he left, and that way,” he grabs his phone again, bringing it closer to his mouth like a secret, “I won’t have to miss you all night while I’m here.” 
“Oh yeah? Well, it’s hard to argue with that logic.” Tommy responds. 
Buck smiles, it feels good, flirting like this with Tommy. It’s so easy with the two of them, he’s not sure it’s ever gotten so good so fast with anyone else he’s dated. 
“You finished up your shift?” He asks, guessing the reason Tommy called. 
“Mmhm. Pretty smooth night. I’m headed home now, you going to be a bit?” Tommy asks. 
“Uh, maybe?” Buck reenters the living room, carrying their drinks, to see Eddie and Chris have put away the Xbox, but already queued up a movie. “Yeah,” he amends, “definitely gonna be a little while.” 
Eddie’s such a sucker for the kid right now, he’s probably planning on letting Chris stay up all night if it means spending as much time as possible with him. 
Tommy laughs on the line. “All good, sweetie, have fun, okay? Tell them I say ‘hi.’” 
“Buck! Hurry up, we’re hitting play,” Chris calls out.
“Okay, love you, baby,” Buck says to Tommy, quickly hanging up the phone.
He gets a few steps closer to the couch before he realizes he said all of that out loud and in front of Eddie and Chris. Oops. 
“Who was that?” Chris asks, teasing note in his voice. God, that kid is more and more like his dad every day. 
“Uh, that- that was Tommy. The pilot from Harbor station?”
“I remember Tommy,” Chris says. “You called him ‘baby.’”
“Yeah, uh, we’re sort of together now.” Buck sets their beers down on the coffee table for something to do.
“Like boyfriends?” 
“Yep.” 
“Oh,” Chris says. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 
Good question.
“Well, I guess I just… I didn’t want to surprise you too much?” He finally settles into his spot on the couch again. 
“I don’t care who you’re dating.” 
Buck laughs at that, finally feeling the tension break. There wasn’t much, Chris is a good kid, but he can’t help that knee-jerk reaction for a second when he’s telling someone new. 
“Well I do care who you’re dating and I’m happy for you and Tommy,” Eddie finally chimes in, smiling between the two of them. 
“You know, I thought maybe he could come over next week for guys’ night?” Buck offers. 
“Sure,” Chris says, “Tommy’s really cool.” 
“Yeah, he is, huh?” Buck says. Because Tommy might be the coolest, best person he knows. 
“Works for me,” Eddie says, leaning over to hit play on Close Encounters, “but we are not watching Star Wars with him, again.” 
Chris laughs and Buck rolls his eyes fondly as the music fades in on the TV. A few minutes later his phone chimes and lights up again with a message, I love you too, honey ❤️.
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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 3 months ago
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No Sugar Tonight 3
My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.
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Character: Brock Rumlow
Summary: A regular customer becomes more than just a familiar face.
As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging ❤️
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Your shifts are often tedious. Slow and dull. You like the night shift because it’s not as stressful. Or was.
That night you spend looking out the windows in expectation. For each customer that walks across the tiles with echoing footfalls, you wait in expectation. They come and get their treats and go. None of them are him. That stranger. The one who looms like a shadow in your mind as he had that day on the street.
Dayani is late. You give her the keys with a yawn. You get a day off and you’re more than eager for it. You’re relieved to leave shy of the dreaded encounter.
You head off through the front doors and turn down the street. The tree planted between the sidewalk blocks splits in too and as a figure emerges from the shade. Oh no.
You make to walk past the dark-haired man who prefers his coffee black. He simply turns and walks parallel to you.
You glance over at him warily. He doesn’t look back. He keeps walking, only reaching blindly to take your hand in his. You go rigid but don’t pull away. You’re jittering in terror.
“What are you--””
“You think anyone’s gonna mess with me?” He says flatly.
“No, sir, but--”
“Brock,” he says, then recites your name. “Now we know each other.”
Your mouth opens and closes. His hand is hot and a woodsy cologne wafts from his jacket. His skin is rough against yours. He squeezes as if he can sense your reticence.
“Brock,” you repeat. “Okay.”
“You got a day off.”
It’s a statement. It’s without a sliver of doubt. How does he know that?
“I told you, you’re easy to follow. You need to look around more.” He reprimands. “Too late to see me. I’m here.”
His tone is eerie. It makes your skin tingle. He drags you on but not towards your usual route. He also told you not to take the alleyways.
“Sir, er, Brock?” You murmur.
“Those muffins are too sugary. You need a full breakfast.” He insists.
“Right, that’s... okay. Erm...”
“It’s a nice place. You’ll like it,” he says bluntly.
You don’t know what to say, or do. You want to run away but can’t. His hand is a snare and you’re a helpless rabbit caught in it. You look down at his thick fingers. You don’t understand. He was always so silent. You were sure he hated you.
He takes you into a diner. You’ve never noticed it before. It’s quiet this early. He brings you to a booth and sits across from you. You fold your hands in your lap as you sit on the bench and wait. You could try then to escape but you wouldn’t want to make a scene.
“Coffee, black,” he orders as the waitress comes by. He looks at you for the first time and as you ask politely for a green tea, he doesn’t look away. His eyes bore into you. The waitress goes to get your drinks.
“Quit.” He says.
You frown, “huh? What am I doing?”
“Your job.”
“My job?” You utter.
“No need for it.” He says.
“Sir, Brock. I... I have to pay my rent.”
“No. You don’t.” He lifts his menu and drops his eyes to the laminated list. “You have to eat.”
You follow his lead, only to have something to do. You take the menu and read it. The waitress returns and puts down your drinks. He gets sausage, bacon, and eggs. You get a waffle. She goes and you’re alone again.
“Good.” He says.
Your confusion tautens in your cheeks. Good what?
“Call your boss.” He says, “then we can enjoy our meal.”
“I really can't afford to quit–”
“I didn't ask. In fact, I didn't ask a single question. I'm telling you.” He sneers.
Your heart flips and you bit your lip.
“I'm more than happy to tell him myself. He pays you shit. I'll take care of you.”
“I don't… what do you want from me?” You croak.
He snickers, the most humour you've seen in him. He reaches for his cup and drink. He grimaces at the taste. “That's dog shit.”
You sigh impatiently. You're getting frustrated by his terse way. Somehow he is straight to the point but you're completely missing it.
“You. Just you. That's what I want.” He sits back and pushes his shoulders wide.
“Me?”
He stares at you and nods.
“Are you asking me out?” You wonder.
“I don't ask,” he jabs his finger into the table with each word.
“I… I don't know you, I–”
“You're too old for roommates. The place is shit anyway. Those old wires will start a fire and the sprinkled are rusted.” He overrides you. Again.
“No.”
“No,” he echoes with a snort. “Again, no question marks here.”
“You can't do this.”
“Can't do what? It's done.”
“No.”
“Give me your phone,” he demands.
“No, you can't–”
“Give me the damn phone. Now. Or I'll burn down that box you call a home myself.” His eyes are black pools that threaten to drown you.
You reach into your purse and take out your phone. He snatches it before you can react. His thumb taps and drags quickly across the screen. He puts it to his esr as the waitress returns with your food.
You thank her quietly as he ignores her.
“Yeah, I'm calling on her behalf. She quits.” He doesn't wait for a response. He hangs up and dials again. “She's tendering notice. Moving out. Fill the lease.”
In a few fell swoops, he's cut every string holding your life up. It all comes crashing as he hands the phone back and turns his attention to his food. You're not very hungry. A glance from him changes that. You lfit your fork to ease the edge in his jaw.
“Good girl,” he says as he cuts into the sausage.
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unoislazy · 1 year ago
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Hellohelloooooooooooo!!!!! What little things do you think Mizu would do for her s/o? Fluff behavior.. hehe
Mizu Fluff Headcanons
A/n: What WOULDN’T this woman do for her s/o is probably an easier question to answer
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She is extremely touch starved but doesn't know how to ask for anything.
She seemed like the kind to not initiate any touch, unless in a sparring sense
That being said, if you just walk up to her and hug her or hold her hand she's not gonna stop you, in fact she encourages it.
The first few times she will react as if you’re someone trying to attack her so that’s something you definitely have to work on with her.
Given the fact the Mizu presents masculine out of sense of convenience, the longer shes around you, the more feminine she reverts back to being
She isn’t sure about it at first but you literally couldn’t care less what she wears as long as she’s comfortable.
You’ve offered to let her practice makeup on you and you do the same on her.
Totally wasn’t just a ploy on your part to get closer to her… whaatttt??? Noooooo
Her love language is primarily acts of service and quality time.
She enjoys quiet moments with you, it contradicts her usually very loud and violent life in a way she never ceases to cherish.
She hasn’t a clue in the world how to cook but she’d offer to help you when you were cooking
Usually she just sticks to chopping things
One time she was trying to help you cook and you asked her to help with ingredients. She grabbed the sugar instead of the salt.
She 100% is not an enjoyer of PDA unless it’s for the purpose of shooing other people away from you.
For the most part she's pretty good at hiding her jealousy, but it gets to a point where she becomes distant from everyone, you included.
You’d have to somehow sit her down and talk about it, but even that would take some time considering she’d probably try and get out of it being ‘going to train’
At this point she couldn't give a damn what people have to say about her, it's usually not very creative, they say one word about you? They're missing a finger.
She still goes off and constantly trains but she at least takes time to relax with you when she's done.
She doesn’t often get angry with you, but she does get sarcastic
If you start getting petty for whatever reason, her cure to that problem will be to just sit there and stare at you with an expression that says ‘is this really the route you wanna go down.’ and you decided whether to continue on with that behavior or not.
If you ever show interest in learning how to fight, she’ll indulge you, but she’ll obviously take it easy on you
Even if you knew how to fight she wouldn’t go all the way out of fear of having a repeat of Mikio
You would actually have to reassure her that your ego won't be bruised if she beats you.
In fact I’m sure most people would agree that they would find it incredibly attractive if she did anyways.
Sometimes, for no reason at all, she'll just grab your face and stare at you for a moment, plant a kiss on your lips and then walk away.
Catches you off guard every time
That's the exact reason why she does it.
She finds it funny hearing your reaction unfold as you process what had just happened as she walks away.
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lovelyo · 6 months ago
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Season 3 part 2 will be Ass. Let me Tell You Why.
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Cause in the end, Penelope, Lady Whistledown, the one who has left devastation in people’s lives will get all what she wants. The man that she wants, the attention that she wants, the family she always wanted to be(so envious of them she talked shit about them ), will get her best friend back, might have the heir for that dumbass Featherington plot line, might get the Queen’s pardon and above all else, will most likely not give up LW cause they made LW such an integral part of the show.(so in that case, she’ll be even more filthy rich)
And if we go by leaked spoilers, it is said that Colin will be mad at Penelope for like 1 episode until Kanthony talks some “sense” into him. So that just tells me Kanthony will be OOC because there’s no damn way Anthony would let that beast comment about his wife slide.
There are no stakes when it comes to this season cause we all know how it’s finna go down. If Penelope gets any type of consequences, then her very undeserved HEA is doomed so everything is going to have to go her way for the already idiotic plot to make some form of sense. It’s like the love triangle in part 1, what the hell was the point of Lord Debling when everyone and their ancestors knew Colin and Penelope were end game? So we can see Colin’s cringe angst? If we already know the answer to the love triangle, there’s no point. The “find you a husband” plot line was stupid as shit anyway, but it’s whatever now.
Ugh, then we have to sit through more awkward love scenes between asshat 1 and 2
Eloise threatening Penelope with her LW identity is going to amount to nothing cause we know Penelope isn’t gonna receive any comeuppance. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they made Eloise apologize to Penelope for…🤷🏾‍♂️🤷(let’s apologize to the toxic friend for not dealing with their toxicity)
For Penelope to have a happy ending, she has to get away scot free and that’s what boils my blood. I hate in media and literature when a character goes around, creates chaos and receives nothing for it or just a slap on a wrist. I’ve noticed an increase in it lately too. Also, I’m tired of writers not severing their bias from their writing. I’ve been encountering many series lately where the writer(s) have favoritism towards a specific character and gives them the easy route, bends the world for them and pull punches just because they like them so much. It’s really aggravating cause you see everyone else getting put through the wringer and then you see the favored character walking through Candyland. It hurts the story, the character, and frankly makes you hate the character.
Everyone around Penelope is gonna act brain dead in order for Penelope to get what she wants and I’m not here for it. Even the general audience ain’t for it. The only people cheering this madness are the asylum patients called Polin fans with delusions that Penelope deserves the world.
I’m not even looking forward to Francesca and John’s story cause of the Poolin fecal matter I’ll have to swim through to get there. At this point, I’m might just watch spoilers of part 2 cause it’s not worth it.
P.S. Watch Cressida get the short end of the stick cause she’s the “bully” of the show and Penelope is the “victim”. Watch them break Creloise because of the “I don’t want you hanging around Eloise” subplot which will ultimately fuel Eloise and Penelope becoming friends again. Also, Penelope and Cressida competed for Lord Debling just for Penelope to go “sike” and marry Colin so she wasted Debling’s time and made Cressida feel like shit because she wasn’t chosen. P.S.S- Polins are huge ass hypocrites cause they ragged on Eloise being privileged and having “everything” but are silent about Penelope being privileged. By the end of this season, Penelope will basically have everything, even more so than Eloise, but sure, Penelope is definitely not privileged 😑. Penelope is privileged inside the world and outside by production, why are we denying this?
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scoutswritingcorner · 7 months ago
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Hear me out. Chauffeur takes the vees out in one of their sports cars and someone on the road challenges them to a race.
What are the reactions from each of the vees?
Drag Racing
PolyVees x GN!Reader
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TW:Valentino and the mentions of some NSFW
A/N:YES YES- MORE CHAUFFEUR READER
Let me preface this with you know better than to listen to some demons who think they are better than the Vee’s but also..you know every back road and fastest route around Pentagram City. It’s like you have a digital map in your head, also it’s very easy to remember when traffic gets heavy.
Stick with me here cause I know nothing about sports cars or anything of the like and I’m not going into specifics cause I’m too stupid for that shit. But- all three have different tastes in cars, especially personal cars.
Vox likes the new high tech sports cars while he can appreciate the looks of old cars. I feel like he likes Lamborghini’s mostly. He has many of his signature colors, but if he wants more privacy (especially if he gets overwhelmed) I’m thinking he has an Audi.
Valentino Most definitely likes the classics but can appreciate the modern versions. He mostly does have classic cars like the cars made by the Morgan Motor company. It has that old classic look that he absolutely eats up all the time. But he does have a few Ferraris’ all of them having some sort of his signature colors to it. He doesn’t let ANYONE except you drive his cars cause he knows while it’s your job- that you do take care of them and if something comes up they are immediately fixed by the best people.
Velvette is a Mercedes-Benz girlie, she has the least amount of cars out of the three. She can appreciate the look of it and loves how the roof can collapse (if that's the word Idk). She can also appreciate BMW's. She's not a hater (yes she is..shhh).
ANYWAYS BACK TO THE PLOT-
You were driving the Vee’s around one day and a demon drove up next to the car, their vehicle tricked out to well..hell and back. Sadly for you, you had your window rolled down so you were able to hear all the curses and name calling before the taunts started. You looked over to the Overlord next to you, wondering what to do cause this person would not shut the fuck up. 
They all have different reactions from this but either way, they find it so fucking hot that you can easily beat someone’s ass in a race without having to gloat about it. Also the way your eyes lock in on what you're doing and how your jaw locks? If you weren’t kicking someone’s ass in the race all three would probably jump your bones.
If you're with Vox he’ll most likely tell you to ignore them which you do easily unless he’s in a mood. Then he lets you race the idiots trying to one up him, he’s not scared. He has more confidence in you winning than he does in himself. 
Valentino…is a different breed. He will allow you to race against someone and he will gloat about it, but the only rule is it can’t be in one of the Morgan cars cause he will actually fucking kill you if you race in that car, those are his relaxation around Pentagram City cars. The Ferrari's? He couldn’t give a shit about, don’t be afraid to mow people down if they get in the way too. He has his hand on your thigh the whole time as well.
Velvette  does care but if she’s annoyed enough by the person she will look at you and give you the go ahead, she will livestream the whole time too. Just don’t hit anyone or anything cause she will throw a huge fucking fit, that’s her car.
Once you win the race? Oh boy, get out a gloat for a bit cause the others surely will. Even if you didn’t demand money, they will. Most likely Valentino will kill them or destroy their car.
Vox will pull you in and tell you how he didn’t have any doubts about you losing. 
Valentino will more than likely use this as a way to get you to sleep with him or he will try to put moves on you the whole ride back to the tower.
Velvette is gonna be kissing up on your face and leaving lipstick stains all over your face and then going online to tell everyone how you were the best.
A/N: IF YOU WANT MORE PLEASE LET ME KNOW
Tag List: @aboyscriminalrecord, Come get some food bestie-
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mamayan · 1 year ago
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Ahem. Hotaru Haganezuka ask here. He is a virgin but he's good w his fingers.
Anything for you!♥️ I need to write more for him, he’s such a cutie. I totally screwed up and forgot the virgin aspect, but he’s 100% a virgin before marriage so… this is just some relationship fluff.
☆彡Break Time★彡
Hotaru Haganezuka x Wife! Reader
TW: Spanking (¿) • Couples Argument • Fingering (F) • Very light edging/overstimulation
It’s been days, and for the first time in his life, Hotaru felt guilty.
He knew his own passion and obsession for work worried his fellow colleagues, especially Kozo, who often would monitor and intervene if he was taking it too far and jeopardizing his health. He’d never expressed his gratitude properly, as he is forced to swallow the bitter medicine of experiencing this stress himself.
There you were, his adorable and sweet new bride, working still. Even now. Hardly eating, not sleeping, and while you’ve bathed that’s the longest you’ve pulled yourself from your work. He wanted to be understanding, because truly he too enjoyed the craft he’s dedicated his life too… but it’s different when it’s you throwing your health away. His hypocrisy lost on him though, as he only focuses on the rising anger at your carelessness for your health. Never mind how he treats himself, that’s not the issue here.
You hadn’t moved in eight hours, not even when he spoke or tried to touch you. Instead, you became enraged when he attempted to intervene or redirect.
Hotaru is not a patient man. If he hadn’t been busy with his own work, you wouldn’t have gotten away with this so long.
Your sass and attitude maxing out his boiling point, though not a difficult thing to do, when you’d snapped at him.
“Hotaru! You’re being a nuisance, please let me focus!” You huffed, your tired eyes and furrowed brows not cute enough to stop his explosion.
“Woman! You’re done! Time for a damn break,” you’re hauled into his arms, before being thrown over his shoulder as he furiously rambles at you.
“What’re you even thinking?! Do you want to die?! When was the last time you ate, huh?! Or slept?!” His mood coupled with being torn from your concentration and lack of sleep, ignites your own fiery rage.
You begin pounding uselessly at his wide back, kicking your feet and making his eye twitch as you shout back.
“Idiot! I’m not tired, put me down! Who’re you to judge?! Ah!” You jolt, crying out and cutting your tirade short when a large palm smacks your ass. He lands another on the other cheek even as he storms towards your home.
“I’m stupid?! If you’re not tired, that’s fine. I’ll help make you tired.” He’s fuming, but it’s not anything new with the hot blooded man.
You go to speak again, but a firm squeeze to your ass has you hushing, your gut instinct telling you not to rile him up further. He enters your home and goes straight for your shared bedroom, gently swinging you back to your feet and pushing you down onto your bed.
He tosses the mask and hair cover, revealing his irritated expression and dark gaze.
“You gonna fix that attitude and sleep or am I gonna have to make you?” His arms crossed over his chest expose his forearms as his haori slides up. The thick veins and muscles have you somewhat simmering down, your work becoming slightly less important as you peak up at your husband.
It feels like you’re losing though, as you pout and contemplate the best route to returning to work.
You could give in, but when has he ever made it easy to tear him from his work? You had to tickle him to disable him long enough for Kozo to drag him home. Even then, you had to threaten him within an inch of his life to make him settle and do basic hygiene and eat. You’d become familiar with his knives and throwing them.
Thinking about what a pain he is when it comes to overworking, you can’t help pushing back.
“This is unfair Taru, I’m nearly done anyway so just let me—,”
“Fucking stubborn.” He mutters under his breath, truly not seeing the irony. He drops to his knees, gripping your shoulders and manhandling you onto his lap, sitting your back to his chest while he snickers at your protests.
“You really don’t want to be good for me?” His gruff tone has you pausing in your fight, swallowing thickly at the implication.
You do want to be good for him, but he’s clearly rubbed off on you because you also don’t feel like listening. Being so sleep deprived, you worried if you did rest you’d lose all sense of creativity and your work would be ruined if you stopped now.
“I-I do, but Taru…oh,” you still as you feel his rough hands smooth over your clothes, before slipping beneath to feel your bare thighs.
“Not oh,” He mocks teasingly, leaning over you to lick the shell of your ear as you softly squeal and try to turn away. “You need to say ‘yes my darling Hotaru, my wonderful husband, always know best’.” He can’t see you rolling your eyes, but he knows you aren’t amused in your cranky state. “Don’t want to listen?” His question is foreboding but you just huff in annoyance, trying to wiggle your hips to make his hands either move where you want them or release you.
He lets his fingers dance over your skin for a moment, enjoying the feeling of you in his arms after so many days apart.
Hotaru lets one finger drag up your bare slit, groaning as he realizes you wore nothing beneath your yukata.
“Did you not miss me?” He whispers in your ear, and the moan you release as he lightly uses your slick to coat your clit is lovely. “Your work truly can’t wait? Even for this?” He presses into you, sinking one thick finger deep inside while you pant and grind down onto his hand. “Taru~ feels good,” you melt into his firm chest, letting him slowly pump his digit in and out of your pussy.
He chuckles, letting you get nice and comfortable before he removes his finger, your whine met with a harsh slap over your clit.
He laughs at your cry, back to rubbing soothing circles again. “Didn’t want you falling asleep, you said you weren’t tired right?” Your arousal spiked but annoyance ignited again, you wrap your arms behind you, around his own neck. He complies to your nonverbal demand by leaning further and kissing you, swallowing your moans as you open for him to invade.
Your mouth is nearly as hot as your pussy, his finger returning with another to sink inside you again.
You’re putty in no time. One arm around your waist to keep you still as you moan and cry for him, begging for him to go faster or harder because he’s just shy of doing enough make you cum.
“What’s wrong doll? Wasn’t I a nuisance earlier, but now you’re making so many demands. At least this mouth is cute and honest.” He’s doing it on purpose, keeping your peak just out of reach as you slowly unfold in his arms. The squelching of your pussy is noisy, especially when he picks up speed and intensity, only to drop back to an agonizingly slow and exploratory pace. He has nail marks in his arms, but he’s uncaring as he dedicates his full attention to making you as wet as possible without letting you have an orgasm.
His eyes track your face, tears finally bubbling over and spilling as you sniff and babble at him, begging for forgiveness and mercy.
“Look at you pretty thing, am I just so deep inside your pussy?” He’s not letting you answer, slotting his lips against your own again as he begins to increase his pace, slipping yet another finger inside you. You’ve been held on the edge so long you can’t hold back anymore, crying into his mouth as you finally cum.
Hotaru breaks the kiss in amazement as you jerk and try to claw out of his hold, whining almost as if in pain until he sees the fluids from your pussy squirting out.
“Taru, please, no, I can’t—” you nearly choke on the words, unable to hardly breathe because he just keeps going. Those rough calloused fingers filling you up and spreading you wide as they fuck you.
Unfortunately for you, he’s not paying attention. Too focused and enamored with how much you came, how hard and intense, and without even meaning to, you’re sent over the edge again. You nearly wail, the force of your muscles contracting as the pleasure explodes behind your eyes is enough to almost render you unconscious.
The way you shake and writhe in his arms finally breaks his focus as he looks down at you, so fucked out from his fingers alone you can’t keep your eyes open.
A part of him wants to make you do that again, but another acknowledges his wife needs rest like he originally intended to force.
Orgasms were good for sleep though, right? He always found his mood improving after he’s came, and clearly it worked well for you. Your soft nearly boneless figure in his arms proof.
“Sleepy?” He’s soft, kissing your forehead and cheeks, rubbing his nose against yours as you yawn and nod. “Mhm…” he doesn’t tease you further, laying you down properly on the bed, and getting up for a damp wash rag to clean up, and even making sure you drink some water. He was a bit worried of dehydration since you’d cum so hard.
He could go back to work, there’s another project he needs to start soon…
Your warm and sleepy figure in bed stops him though. He can’t resist stripping and climbing in with you, pulling you close and breathing you in.
While he’s not going to stop work for something measly like sleep or food, he’d never say no to this. Holding you. Sleeping beside you. Waking up with you.
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ofdreamsnwishes · 8 months ago
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Chronically online, that was a way that your boyfriend used to describe you. And he was correct, somewhat, since you’d never admit it.
Spending time on tiktok was one of your favorite ways to pass time; watching weird dance videos, beautiful arts, different makeup styles, those reddit videos (your favorite; being nosy about others life) and of course the couples trends.
Oh the couples trends.
You tried almost all of them with Mark, finding joy in his reactions; kissing him all over with a red lipstick, the “you better lock your phone” trend, hands heart trend, you name it. And now, you found a new one.
Mark had invited you to a casual hangout, drive around the city, go shopping, anything really, as long as you two were together. You took this opportunity to try your latest scheme.
Once you got in the car, he leaned over the central console, giving you a quick kiss on the lips. Exchanging greetings, he smiled at you and reached over to rest his hand on your thing, squeezing it gently as he started to drive.
Step 1 of your scheme: ask to get some food.
It was easy, considering it was almost lunch time and you were sure he hadn’t eaten yet, waiting to pick you up so the both of you could eat together. So, he relented easily, unsuspecting, as he changed the route to the nearest fast food chain for a quick bite. Once there, you insisted on eating in the car, saying how it was cooler inside because of the AC, as if the store didn’t have any AC, and how it’d be much easier to just eat inside the car, not even having to get up.
As always, he relented. Mark always did when it came to you.
Step 2 of your scheme: set the camera up without him suspecting anything.
It was somewhat easy too, as Mark didn’t really question what you were doing, specially after you said you wanted to film your reaction to the limited time food you ordered, with the intention of sending to a friend. Maybe he was just used to your antics at this point, but still, you considered it a win.
Step 3? Lights, camera, action!
“This looks so good!” You exclaimed, picking a piece of the extra cheesy fries, mouth salivating at the sight.
“Careful, it’s hot.” Mark warned you, sliding a napkin over your lap, just in case you dropped anything. This man… Always so thoughtful.
You shoot him a smile, before approaching the camera with the fries in hand, showing it off.
“Look! Mark got me these! He’s the best husband in the world, for real-”
You heard him choke on his drink, head snapping to the side, looking at you with wide eyes. He had a surprised look on his face, but you could also see the smile that was threatening to show on his lips, the tip of his ears already flushing red.
“What?’ He asked, voice soft as if in disbelief. ‘Husband…?”
You just smiled back, a giggle escaping your lips. “Yeah… Why? Does it bother you?”
“Well- That’s not- It’s- I’m happy, actually-’ He fumbles with his words, eyes darting all over the place. Then he looks back at you, a shy smile on his face, voice so incredibly soft you could basically melt in it. ‘I’m honored you’d call me your husband… I guess my heart just skipped a beat, not gonna lie…”
God, you loved him. You heart was doing somersaults, how could he look just so adorable?
Leaning over you kissed him once again and Mark eagerly reciprocated it, hand tangling up the hair at the back of your hand as he pulled you towards him.
Another trend done successfully.
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