#Toshinori Has to Shoulder a Lot of Weight

[aheckinmess]

Atlas [Toshinori] (Angst)

(One-shot 20/? in a collection of My Hero Academia one-shots posted regularly on Saturdays - and sometimes Sundays.)

Read on AO3.

Tags: Toshinori Yagi, All Might, Smol Might, Original Female Character(s), Ichijiku Aoki, Protective Toshinori, Protective All Might, All Might-centric, Young Toshinori Yagi, Toshinori Has to Shoulder a Lot of Weight, But Not Just Because He's a Hero, OC Shoulders a Lot of Weight Too, But She's Worried about Being a Burden, A Lot of Angst in This One, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst and Feels, We Weren't Made to Be Atlas, Don't Carry the Weight of the World on Your Shoulders, It's Okay to Ask for Help, OC is Sad, OC is Tired, I Mean Aren't We All?

Word Count: 2,052 words

Summary: After a long day hanging out with a friend, Ichijiku gets frustrated because she feels like she's not contributing anything but also like she's contributing too much at the same time. Toshinori comforts her because he knows exactly how she feels.

Ichijiku (Tigress)

“It just feels like she’s always watching over my shoulder, waiting for me to mess up.”

“I felt that way when I left home. I thought I saw all of my so-called friends around me, too, telling me what a screw up I am.” Hanoku says. 

“I don’t see Grandma everywhere, I’m just in a constant state of fight-or-flight. It makes me second-guess myself. I get hypervigilant and anxious.” I elucidate, trying to keep the focus on the point I’m trying to make.

Irritation coils in my limbs as I try not to be mean. I get that you’re trying to relate, but you always try to remind me your life was worse than mine. Why can’t I say anything without feeling overshadowed when I just needed a safe place to feel…? I take a few deep breaths, trying to remind myself that my friend isn’t at fault. My weary psyche needs a safe place to land, but the only place it's ever had is my own arms.

“Well, what have you tried so far to help with the anxiety?” She asks. It’s a simple enough question, but in my tired anxiety, all I hear is, Clearly, you’re not doing enough.

“Soft music in my earbuds so I don’t have to hear the sounds all around me. It helps me sleep.” I explain, fidgeting with the fabric of my shirt, unable to look at her.

“So, that method helps, but you still aren’t sleeping well? What if you played around with the lighting instead? Then, you’d be fine!” Hanoku suggests. You’re not doing enough to prevent it. You haven’t considered all of your options. God, it’s so annoying listening to you be so stupid.

“Well, I’m doing better than last week. Without the earbuds I barely slept at all.”

“Well, that’s good. Oh!” She dismisses the tired look on my face as I look up at her and surges forward. “Maybe you could try aromatherapy!” She looks at me with a proud smile. “You can train your body to know you are safe and it’s time to sleep!” It’s obvious that this had a simple solution all along, dumbass.

In my insecurities, I force a smile even as I internally crumble. I don’t have much energy left in my reserves after the past few weeks. Between anxiety and fighting villains, all I want is a place to share my woes without being out-traumatized. 

With a solution shoved into my lap, I can only assume I’ve overstayed my welcome on the subject of anxiety. I just want someone to listen to me. But…they have their own problems to deal with. Adding mine must be an extra burden. Guilt makes me straighten up and look ahead, avoiding eye contact as I give her a nod.

“Yeah, I use my pillow mist. It helps since it smells like Toshinori.” I admit, kicking a rock out of the way as we walk.

“Ah, okay. What if I sent you scary stories before bed?” She giggles. “Maybe then your anxiety would have a reason to stay and then go away on its own?”

My brows furrow as I immediately reject that idea. But I shove it away with a laugh and a shrug; I don’t want to bother her anymore than I already have. I turn to her with a smile and nudge her with a wink.

“If your goal is to keep me awake to talk to you about them, then sure. But those are likely to fuel my anxiety more.”

“Ugh! Fine.” She groans, further solidifying that I’m just an irritation. She looks across the street at a couple playing with their kid. “On a more serious note, is there anything I can do to help you?”

“No.”

. . . . .

“You bastard! How dare you cheat on me with that whore!” The sound of breaking glass on the TV echoes through the living room as I step through the door, feeling defeated and exhausted despite only walking once around the park with Hanoku. “Can you feel what you’re doing to me? Can you feel the way you break my heart, you cheap piece of ass?!”

“Ichan?” Toshinori calls, his eyes glued to the television set. “Did you enjoy your walk?”

“Yeah, it…was fine.” I give him a believable smile. He’s busy watching his show. I’ve already bothered one person today, anyway. I shuffle my shoes onto the carpet and hang my jacket on the coat rack. “I’m gonna lay down a bit.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Everything’s fine, don’t worry.” 

Everything is not fine. I pad down to our room and curl up under the blankets, inhaling and exhaling the scent of my husband to ground myself. Though I shouldn’t check my phone when I know I’m going to be disappointed even further, I can’t stop myself from scrolling through all of my conversations hopefully.

A few writing friends promised to read my story yesterday since I’ve finally gotten a solid outline written out, but I’m not surprised to see nothing has been touched. Don’t go down that hole. There’s no reason to be upset. I scroll through Hana’s posts in the same collection just to be sure it’s not me. Both Sayuri and Hanoku left comments within the last two hours. A painful feeling bubbles in my gut, so I should close my phone. 

But I don’t.

I enter the rabbit hole of counting just how many conversations I can stop just by existing. Six conversations in my messages alone had steady responses until I said something. They just got busy. It’s not just you. I keep telling myself.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt so much if it wasn’t so consistent.

When tears make seeing my screen difficult, I finally turn off my phone. The blanket wraps around me until the only opening is around my nose for breathing. Ungrateful brat. I’m not trying to be ungrateful. I want my friends to like me. They only talk to me when I’m alone with them, but in the middle of our friend group, I’m not as important as other people. I get talked over and dismissed. My problems aren’t as big, so they don’t matter. And I know they have lives, but…I don’t want to be the center of their world, I just want to be a part of their constellation.

Tiger roars in the back of my mind, fighting to try and be heard, but I don’t want to hear her for the time being. I just want to feel my emotions and be swallowed by them for a little while, seeing as I so frequently shove them deep, deep into the abyss.

“Ichan,” Toshinori’s soft tones caress my ear as his weight shifts the bed. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just tired.” I lie, too scared to bother him. He’s the Symbol of Peace. He’s already got enough on his shoulders. I can’t add anymore weight.

“Are you saying that because you think you’re going to bother me, or are you really just tired?” He hums, and when I hesitate for a second too long, he squeezes me tight. “Talk to me, Ichan. I can carry it for both of us.”

“But you shouldn’t have to.” I whimper. “You already carry so much. It’s not fair if I let you carry me, too.”

“It is my privilege to carry you.” He chuckles, before abruptly sweeping me up - covers and all - and spinning me around. “You’re light as a feather!”

I squeal and hide my face in his chest.

“Now, tell me what happened.”

“I’m tired.” I sniff, decorating his shirt with salty stains as I choke on a sob. “I’m tired of being ignored. I’m tired of everyone treating my problems like they’re not as bad as theirs. I just wanna sleep and never wake up.”

“Hey,” He coos, sitting back on the bed and pulling me closer. It feels like he’s trying to wring out all the sorrow from my bones. I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t at least partially work. “You’re allowed to be tired of that. Even if you take a nap and realize you were just tired, you’re allowed to feel that way.”

“But I feel bad!” I cry, fingers grasping at him as I grow more certain he’ll leave, disgusted with every uttered word. “I’m not supposed to want things from them! They’re doing their best and I know they are–”

“Except you need them.”

“Except…I…” It hurts to admit. I can’t say it. I can’t need them. They need me to carry them. “But they’re all trying their best and I have no right to ask them for anything. It just feels like if I stopped talking to them altogether, nobody would notice I was gone. Nobody would notice that anything was wrong because I’m Ichijiku. And Ichijiku is always okay. Even when Ichijiku is suffering, she’s strong and she’ll get through it because it’s Ichijiku! Ichijiku can figure shit out on her own because they have to take care of themselves first and Ichijiku will be fine because she knows what they’re going through and they’re having a hard time. They can spend time with all of their other friends because Ichijiku will always be around. Ichijiku will never leave. Ichijiku would never get mad that they’re too busy for her. They can throw another brick on top of the pile because like Luisa, Ichijiku might buckle and bend but she’ll never break. She can handle it. She can fix her own problems.” My muscles clench and clench and clench until they’re sore.

“But Ichan,” Toshinori rubs my shoulders as he forces them to relax with his superior strength. “Sometimes, you can’t handle it.”

“I HAVE TO!” I roar, baring my teeth as I throw my head back to look at him. “I have to be able to handle it! Because if I don’t then who’s going to help everyone else?”

“Ichan,” Toshinori caresses my cheek, thumbing away tears. “That’s not your job.”

“But it is.” I cough, rubbing my eyes and shaking in my exhaustion. “They say it’s not, but every time I ask for help, they redirect me to their problems. It is because I can’t leave them to deal with it on their own like they can with me. I can’t leave it be because I’m scared they’ll get hurt. They’ll get sad. And no one will be there for them. So I’m here, Mr. Symbol. I AM HERE.” I huff, raking my fingers through my hair. If anyone understands that, it’s you. “And that’s fine. I don’t mind that. I would break myself in half a hundred times and cry every night and give limbs and organs and whatever other bodily instrument they need to keep them safe. To keep them happy. To keep them protected and of sound mind. But…” I open my mouth, unable to find the words.

“But there’s no one to do that for you.” Toshinori breathes, eyes glistening as I look at him. An understanding that breaks me and sews me back together reflects in those pretty blue eyes. “Someone’s always too busy. Everyone else has problems at the same time you do. Someone always needs your strength to help hold them up even when you’re tired and don’t know if you can…but you do it all the same.”

“Y-Yeah…” I shrivel back into his arms, heart aching as guilt weighs heavy.

He knows all about it because he does it every day. And here I am whining about it. Adding stress to one of his few rest times.

“Toshi, I’m–”

“Don’t you dare apologize to me.” He growls, gripping my jaw to make me look at him. “What did you tell me when I first met you? Before you ever knew I was All Might? You told me that you wished you could take the burden of every hero and carry it for a while. And when you learned I was All Might you did.” He kisses my lips, slowly carving out every soft crevice of my skin. “So don’t you dare apologize for letting me do the same.”

Silence hangs in the air like drying laundry as he holds me, breath heavy as he bears the brunt of my sadness for me. And for once, I let him.

Want More Toshinori? Try: The Straw

[nerdranttheories]

Okay I’m going to geek out about Toshinori’s costume designs because I’m an English major and analyzing tiny details in text is what we do and also I love??? The designs! And each one tells us so much about All Might and his focus during each costume.

Costume 1 (Young Might):

So first off, despite young All Might’s longtime dream of being a hero, his suit is mostly black. A stark difference from comics books and his later self which tend to be bright primary colors. The few dashes of primary colors he has are desaturated, even in the second instance where we see this costume. This would have likely been the only costume Toshinori designed himself, as David became his designer in college.

Obviously, others have pointed out the similarities to Nana’s suit, just like how Izuku copied AM’s, so I don’t think it will be necessary for me to point that out. But this suit is also very practical. Something the flashy All Might isn’t really known for, but let me point the details out. He has boots, gauntlets, as well as what appears to be protection for his upper torso, and even for his neck. A decent balance between more protection and more weight, which would slow a hero down. Also, unlike Nana’s suit, his extends completely down the arms. The only skin surface available is that of his hands, something that stays the same through all of his costumes and as such, must be something he personally insists on. In media, gloves often represent someone with secrets, or a guarded personality. All Might not wearing gloves shows how open he is, not just with his friends but strangers too. And it’s humble, too. It’s not an unfeeling, covered hand extending to you when you’re in danger, it’s the bare-handed reach of a friend, and I fully believe that’s why Toshi goes without gloves. Also it’s possibly a sensory thing for him as well, which goes with my canon-supported theory that this man has ADHD, but that’s a nerd rant for another time.

The colors are important because while obviously they mimic Nana, you can practically see through the color choice that Toshinori is not in his right mindset here. While later the oversaturation of colors serves to show how his own heroism has made him into something Else, and outside of his own head, leaving the man inside to shrivel away, these muted colors show that Toshinori has not yet blossomed. Also in the brief scenes we see of him when he is younger, Toshinori is very solemn. The one scene we get of him smiling when he’s young is when Izuku is comparing them at the same age, and even then, it’s more of a smirk as opposed to the signature All Might grin we all know and love. Black also is just a reasonable color for something like crime-fighting. Black shows the least grime/dirt, so he could reasonably spend more hours out in this costume without having to come home and wash it/trade it out. (Which is something that I love that this series includes, by the way!)

Costume 2-ish:

Toshinori adds some shoulder pads for the fight with AFO, probably expecting to stand side-by-side with his mentor. I could give a more full-body image but this is really the only difference I could pick out.

Costume 3 (College Might):

This is the first costume of All Might’s that is designed by David Shield.

First off, props to David. He’s an awesome designer. He not only made a new design, but incorporated several choices from AM’s previous suit, and definitely conferred a lot with Toshi on how he wanted his suit to look while still ensuring its functionality.

Black is traded for a dark, unsaturated blue, giving AM a more peaceful look, as navy blue is considered to be a calming color. (Even Endeavor wears it! But maybe copying AM and not wearing it for the same purposes?) All Might’s cape is also changed from red to blue, taking away the dark look and making it the color of the sky, again adding to that Symbol of Peace idea that is Toshinori’s dream. The gauntlets and boots remain, but the chest-piece has been removed, offering up more mobility. The yellow of his belt has been brightened, and added in place of the blues on his gauntlets and boots, giving him an overall more friendly look as opposed to the more subdued one he had before with the blue accents. The red has been removed as well, and by moving it to his body, it gives the impression of veins and the blood that is pumping away through the heart of this hero, which is fantastic for someone who cares as much as Toshinori does. White was also added vertically on the sides of the suit, thinning out the very intimidating form of Toshi and making him more approachable, while adding a more pure look to his overall form. This appears to be in part, a stylistic choice on David’s end that follows through to the other suits, though it’s hard to know if it remains on the Bronze Age Suit as well.

Overall the brighter colors telegraph that Toshinori is doing much better mentally at this point. He now has A Friend, and for the time being, is safer from the troubles at home, until he has to return.

Costume 4 (Bronze Age):

We don’t even get a full look at this suit, indicating that its time in use was likely short-lived. As I’ve seen others suggest, it seems very likely that when All Might returned to Japan, he went straight down to business and began doing vigilante work as he tried to track down AFO. However, possibly due to a combination of not finding him and All Might’s rising popularity, he seems to abandon this track and move on to a different form of heroism, which his suit symbolizes. I’ll briefly point out that Toshinori returns to the primarily black suit he had as a teenager, as well as the shadows of his face that add to the idea that as soon as he got back to Japan, he reverted to the mindset he had when he left.

Costume 5 (Silver Age):

This suit indicates to me that this period was All Might’s prime, despite his later suit being considered the Golden Age of All Might. (And even though it’s my least-favorite design.) He has the typical cape of a hero, and the bright colors are now fully of typical comic book style. The circular design on his chest indicates a target, but with being cast in white and surrounded in red, gives the impression that he himself is not the target, but the villainy around him is. Or at least, that is likely the thought process for this design. Other than the dashes of white here and there, the colors are very solid, possibly indicating a more stable, but single-minded train of thought, something AM is notorious for. No offense to Dr. Shield, but I would have mixed the colors better in here, and the cape connection is too bulky for someone who’s as jacked in the shoulders as Toshinori is. Alas, I am not the designer. We shall move on.

Costume 6 (Golden Age):

I love this suit. Plenty of analysis has been done on it already, but I think it’s a fantastic representation of how Toshinori’s been crushed under the very image he had originally wanted to create. His shadows are darkest and most severe here, reminiscent of how body-builders dehydrate themselves to get the best appearance of their musculature. His posing is also more inward, as opposed to the silver age, with the angles of his elbows being less directly out and more in, and instead of appearing confident, it’s more of how a cat puffs out its hair to make itself appear larger when it’s scared. I had a long bit to go with this but it was eaten by the Tumblr gremlins. Basically I believe this suit was made post AFO-battle. All Might is declaring he’s not finished yet, all while knowing his time is running out. This suit has several callbacks to the original suit David designed for him, with the navy, though more saturated base and the red lines running throughout the form, though the gauntlets and boots from before have been integrated into the suit itself. This could reflect David’s mindset as well, as he reminisces about the days when Toshinori was healthy and happy, when now Toshinori’s health is rapidly fading.

Anyway, here’s my costume analysis! I think it adds a little more insight to Toshinori’s mental state and situations in the years outside of the show as well as in them, and I hope you enjoyed this read! I’d love to hear other ideas too, if anyone has them!

[imagineanime2022]

Heroes With An S/O W/ Powers Like Hawkwoman

Keigo Takami X Fem!Reader, Toshinori Yagi X Fem!Reader, Shota Aizawa X Fem!Reader

Requested: Anon

Request: Hello everything is fine? I saw that requests are open! I would like to know if you can write headcanons for bnha (hawks, all might and aizawa) with a s/o who is a professional heroine and is like hawkwoman from dc? (she has super strength, speed because of her wings, resistance, etc.)

Keigo Takami

🪶 Alright let’s be honest there is going to be a lot of bird behaviour from this individual, lucky you're both derived from hawks so you understand each others behaviours pretty well. 🪶 Keigo is forever puffing up his feathers when you first met, making himself look bigger and more suitable, it did catch your attention by nature. 🪶 Miriko made fun of him every time. 🪶 Hawks by nature mate for life, so when he decided that he was in, he was 100% in, there was nothing that could change his mind. 🪶 He’d spend a lot of time measuring wings and wrapping his wings around you, you’d do the same to him and sometimes you’d make a cocoon just for the two of you by having your wings meet in the middle. 🪶 He sings all the time, another bird thing but if you ever sing along with him, it will make him the happiest person in the world. 🪶 You guys go for flights all the time, he’d dive low to grab you anything that caught his or your eye. 🪶 You guys were two of the fastest heroes, you learned to work together covering whatever the other couldn’t and that became even more needed after his fight with Dabi. 🪶 You massaged his shoulders when he was healing, you helped him to get back up but he never stopped missing his wings. 🪶 You refused to fly without him and you were the one that helped him to relearn how to fly when he got his prosthetics. 🪶 You both have heightened senses so he’d often give you his shirts or blankets so that you would always feel him near (even if he was rarely more than 2 steps away). 🪶 You were a hero couple that was feared by villains and loved by civilians but neither of you cared about that. The only thing that was important is how much you loved each other.

Yagi Toshinori

🦸 The moment that Toshinori saw you he was enamoured, honestly he’d have seen your wings and the speed and strength that you displayed. 🦸 Challenged you to races all the time, he wanted to be the fastest but he had to admit that you had him in that department. 🦸 Toshi was playful and he had yet to be able to sneak up on you either so he tried that too, but given your enhanced senses, you could hear and smell him coming when you couldn’t see the flashy costume. 🦸 When you guys actually started dating it was a secret to no one, it was lucky that you were as good at defending yourself as you were because there were just as many villains as fans trying to get your attention. 🦸 Toshi came very close to ending the relationship when a villain came after you to get to him, you had to tell him that you weren’t having it and literally slapped him round the back of his head to get him to listen. 🦸 Toshi would literally carry you anywhere the extra weight from your wings didn’t bother him at all but he did love being wrapped in them when you both had the time. 🦸 Gran Torino would sometimes enlist you to get Toshinori to do something because you both knew that it was better for him. 🦸 You were the only one that could get him to sit still after he was injured by One For All. 🦸 Toshi spent all of this time bringing you presents, anything that you could ever want, even things you didn’t know you wanted like kids (Midorya and Bakugo). 🦸 Now with his smaller stature he loved your wings even more, he hid in them when he didn’t want to be seen, made sure that they were groomed and taken care of. 🦸 Toshi made sure that you always laid on top of him, even after he was injured (much to your protest) because he would not have you lay on your wings no matter how many times you tell him that you can support your own weight. 🦸 Definition of a celebrity couple, you guys were what everyone strived to be, happy together, playful, easy and completely dedicated to each other.

Shota Aizawa

🐛 Shota was probably the last person that anyone expected you to take an interest in but after one mission he couldn’t seem to get rid of you and to be honest he didn’t mind having you around. 🐛 You were the one that did most of the work, just trying to get him to look at you for more than a second but once he really looked he was a goner. 🐛 You used your wings to shield him from the sunlight while he was sleeping during the day or the cold in the winter. 🐛 Shota is a mindful human and often found himself dancing around you in the first few months of your relationship, making sure not to touch your wings and apologising when he did, it took a long while to convince him that it was okay. 🐛 The first time that you asked him to help with grooming your wings, you thought he was going to faint. 🐛 He teaches you how to use a capture weapons and you taught him how to use your weapons. He took to yours faster than you took to his. He's unbelievably adaptable but he admired the strength and agility that came with your power. 🐛 You were well into your relationship by the time that 1-A came along, so a lot of them knew of you but they didn’t know that you were dating/married to their teacher until the first villain attack when you made yourself known. 🐛 Neither of you had ever talked about having children but you ended up with 20 the day that you saved them. 🐛 You moved into the dorms with Aizawa and basically mothered the entire class, scolded them, praised them and protected them no matter what. Aizawa loved watching you with them. 🐛 When he brought Eri back, you both became her sworn protectors and he didn’t even have to ask when he put you both down as her legal guardians. 🐛 While Shota was teaching you were out doing hero work so when it came time to fight you were always called on and he always worried about you while you were gone. 🐛 You were a large mismatched family but it centred around the two of you, anyone could see that you loved each other and protect your little flock.

Request Here!!

[ao3feed-erasermic]

Betrayal by a friend is like a dagger thrust into the heart (it leaves wounds that bleed not only from the flesh but from the soul)

Use the related link post to read Betrayal by a friend is like a dagger thrust into the heart (it leaves wounds that bleed not only from the flesh but from the soul) on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/60080044 by TJP_00 “-Unfortunately due to the circumstance at the moment, the evidence that you’ve been seen with a member of the league of villains after you requested specifically to leave campus over the weekend in the guise of seeing your mother, leaves that section of the law null and void.” Toshinori cut off the rat. Izuku’s head snaps up, meeting his mentor’s eyes for a moment before the feeling of ice washes down his spine at the look he gave him.   It is not his fault he’s the target of some century old wrinkly supervillain due to the giant weight dropped on his shoulders by his mentor! He was tired. All he wanted was a break away from his responsibilities.   Izuku could only look at Yagi in a mix of terror and misery for one moment before his mentor looked away and he was being led out of the office and towards Heights Alliance. He knows All Might isn’t the brightest and knows how his head clouds whenever there's a threat. He should be happy. They're only trying to protect the students. He knew they were just doing their jobs.   But why did it hurt so much?   - or - Izuku gets labeled as the U.A. traitor Words: 1096, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Fandoms: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Categories: Gen Characters: Midoriya Izuku, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Midoriya Inko, Bakugou Katsuki, Yagi Toshinori | All Might, Nedzu (My Hero Academia), Class 1-A (My Hero Academia), League of Villains (My Hero Academia), Past One For All Users (My Hero Academia) Relationships: Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead & Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Inko & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Shigaraki Tomura | Shimura Tenko, Midoriya Izuku & Past One For All Users Additional Tags: Suspected Traitor Midoriya Izuku, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Tags Contain Spoilers, Good Parent Midoriya Inko, BAMF Midoriya Inko, Hurt Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku Needs A Hug, Protective Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Protective Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Protective Midoriya Inko, Protective Shigaraki Tomura | Shimura Tenko, Protective League of Villains (My Hero Academia), league of villains dont actually want to hurt Izuku, crazy i know, Parental Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead | Dadzawa, Parental Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, One For All Quirk Haunted by Past One For All Users' Ghosts (My Hero Academia), Past One For All Users as Family (My Hero Academia), Protective One For All Quirk (My Hero Academia), past users don't agree with toshinori, Yagi Toshinori | All Might is a Bad Teacher, Yagi Toshinori | All Might Being an Idiot, Yagi Toshinori | All Might Being an Asshole, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Protective Bakugou Katsuki, Bakugou Katsuki Redemption, he still gets consequences though, Midoriya Izuku Has Trust Issues, Midoriya Izuku Has a Quirk, Midoriya Izuku Has One for All Quirk, yagi fucks up, Quirkless Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku Does Not Have One for All Quirk, yeah the vestiges are rightfully angry at toshinori, Yagi Toshinori | All Might Bashing, I love you Toshinori but All Might bashing has my heart, Midoriya Izuku Needs A Break, Tired Midoriya Izuku, Tags May Change, Tags Are Hard, don't question my tag decisions, Other Additional Tags to Be Added Use the related link post to read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/60080044

[echo-of-sounds]

waking up

Small headcanons of how waking up with Aizawa, Toshinori, Hizashi, Fatgum, Gang Orca, and Hound Dog would be like.

Warnings: nothing incredibly explicit, but a couple of these talk about sex

Aizawa Shouta

Waking him up: Most days, Shouta wakes early. His body’s used to rising early, so it naturally does on the weekends as well, as much as he absolutely hates it. To make up for the early rising, he chooses to lay in bed until the absolute last minute. Your body is often his pillow while he stews about the oncoming day.

If you need to wake him, expect lots of pushback and grunts and swears. Watch out for his hands. They might try to pull you under the blankets, halting your attempts and keeping you tight in his arms. That would be great if his work didn’t start in ten minutes. To help, have coffee and a muffin ready. The quick breakfast drives him just enough to get up and get dressed.

Waking you up: Don’t expect anything romantic. The guy can barely wake himself. Shouta goes with an ‘easy’ shoulder nudge. It could turn into a shove or squeeze if you’re a heavy sleeper. He isn’t mean about it though. He has no want to be your rude awakening. 

When you’re both able to sleep in, free from any tasks and jobs and errands, Shouta’s mind forgets about waking up, more preoccupied with staying beside you. He loves, but won’t admit, how much he loves when you’re facing each other and you hold him in your arms. Lips press over your chest. Legs languidly rub against yours. Brush his hair with your fingers, kiss his forehead, and whisper him back to sleep. He’d stay snuggled together like that all day if you let him. And it’s easy to do just that once you see him finally sleeping restfully. 

Yagi Toshinori

Waking him up: Toshinori doesn’t get the necessary amount of sleep. He’s also a fairly light sleeper, and stress and anxiety keep him restless. On the off chance he isn’t woken up by you getting up, usually, all it’ll take is a shoulder tap. It’s better to wake him with a cup of green or ginger tea in hand. The warmth eases his mind. And he enjoys enjoying the morning drink beside you.

It’s seldom for him to spend an entire day relaxing. When it finally happens, just leave him be. You can hear him tossing and turning, but restless rest is better than none. Eventually, he may stagger into the living room with groggy eyes and a drowsy smile. Invite him to lay on your lap. As your fingers comb through his hair, he nods off, motionless and content under your care.

Waking you up: Toshi, no matter if you slept in and need to rush out the door, gently kisses your forehead, welcoming you awake. His chilly hands are a shock but his warm lips compensate for it. He nestles close, continuing his butterfly kisses over your shoulders and neck. Your weak, half-asleep laugh is one of his favorite sounds.

If you had a bad night or he’s in a particular mood, he makes your preferred breakfast before waking you. While it’s preparing, Toshi crawls over you and lovingly massages your back. His whispers of your beauty touch your ears. His kisses on your neck rouse you. The kneading travels lower and, when you roll over to return the kisses, skims into your underwear, softly stroking you for the perfect morning orgasm.

Yamada Hizashi

Waking him up: You’re going to have to be quite stern with Hizashi. He’s a heavy sleeper. An alarm doesn’t work that well. Sunlight doesn’t faze him. Use food. Bribe him. Egg Benedict with extra sausage always works like a charm. The smooches he gives you in thanks are also nice.

Sometimes his sleep isn’t the quality it should be. Fidgeting and hyperactivity keep his mind from fully resting. You can tell by his eyes when it was one of those nights. He’ll stumble out of the bedroom at six in the morning, barely able to focus (mentally and physically) on anything. Brew some chamomile tea, hunker down on the couch, and, hopefully, he’ll doze off, resting on your tummy.

Waking you up: An alarm clock is the best way to wake up, so you don’t have to deal with the rude awakening that is Hizashi. He belly-flops on the bed and shouts your name. The morning is supposed to be a cheerful time. But he doesn’t understand (or just really doesn’t listen/care) how some need a more peaceful alarm than him.

Rainy and snowy mornings are excellent for staying snuggled in bed together. The covers are only opened for bathroom breaks or a snack run. Other than that, you remain cuddled up, making out during the commercials of old cartoons and dumb B movies. 

Toyomitsu Taishiro

Waking him up: Taishiro always manages to wake up in a great mood. It’s kind of weird. You could pour water on him and he’ll bid you good-morning with a laugh. But don’t do that. He doesn’t deserve it, and it’s a pain to dry the sheets. The sweetest way is to climb onto his stomach and kiss him awake. He sighs into your mouth, mumbling he loves you.

Since he only has one job, he can sleep in much more than the other guys. That means you’re getting cradled and fondled all morning. His joyful mood rubs off on even the grumpiest person. His kisses comfort even the saddest person. And since he favors sleeping naked, the petting generally leads to morning sex. His lovable and attentive fingers play with you, however you so desire.

Waking you up: It’s normal for you to come to, or at least stir a little, when he gets out of bed. The shifting weight is very noticeable. But it’s easy to adjust to. If he ever accidentally fully rouses you, he hushes you to sleep by stroking your head and softly whispering a lullaby. Despite his voice not being topnotch, it’s deep and soothing, ideal to drift off to.

Every once in a while, Tai treats you to a big breakfast. The smell of perfectly sizzled bacon and rising pancakes drifts into the bedroom, waking your stomach before your brain. And by God, his pancakes are immaculate: golden brown, round, fluffy, and buttery. They’re topped with peanut butter and drizzled in real maple syrup. It’s to die for.

Gang Orca

Waking him up: Kugo doesn’t sleep in. Once it hits five in the morning, he’s up. He enjoys the quiet time, watching the sunrise, and drinking coffee while reading a book. If he isn’t awake by the time you are, something’s wrong. He’s either sick, recuperating after a strenuous fight, or having an off mental day.

Don’t disturb him. Simply lay with him. He may wake from your touch, but it’ll also lull him back to sleep. Whatever he’s struggling with is alleviated with your presence. The covers are a small sanctuary that only you two get to experience. 

On the rare chance Kugo has the day off and chooses to stay in bed, he lifts you onto his chest. The downtime together is savored. It’s okay that you’re sleeping through it. Feeling your body, watching your face, and hearing your breathing is more than enough. Whenever you begin to rouse, he holds you close, stroking your back, assuring you your morning is as calm and gentle as can be.

Waking you up: Most often, you’ll need to rely on an alarm clock. Kugo’s out the door and working before you need to get up. Days when he’s home, he turns off the alarm and runs his fingers over your forehead and cheeks, calmly greeting you as your eyes flutter open. Your sleepy smile at him warms his heart. It keeps him coming back to you every morning, tenderly waking you for another day.

Hound Dog

Waking him up: This is a chore. If Ryo doesn’t want to get up, Ryo doesn’t get up. You can try ripping off the covers, rolling him over, bouncing on the bed, and playing loud music. He just doesn’t care. Like Hizashi, the easiest way is to draw him out with food. The instant you step through the door, carrying breakfast burritos stuffed with eggs, ham, bacon, sausage, salsa, and a plethora of vegetables, he’s bounding out of bed. 

Another surefire way is to give him a blowjob. His hormones are akin to a teenager. Morning wood is common and sucking him off, riles him up. The arousal overpowers any sleepiness.

Waking you up: Ryo enjoys licking your cheek. The sudden wetness is plenty to wake someone up. And it tickles as he nibbles behind your ear, especially with his cold, twitching nose. The more reluctant you are to wake up, the more his tongue prods. Don’t make his fingers join in. 

Ryo isn’t a snuggly guy, so snuggly mornings don’t happen often. Soak it up when your waist remains bundled in his arms. He’s big and warm and superior to any giant teddy bear. You may feel an occasional lap of his tongue. Your natural taste is the strongest in the morning, and he wants to lap up all of it. Your smell is similar. It’s possible it’ll draw his licking downward for the full experience, leading to sleepy, relaxed morning sex.

[plush-rabbit]

Corruption Kink + All Might - Headcanons

Request: Hey! I dunno if you're still taking requests for all might, but if you are and you have space, could i request a pre-injury all might x f!reader fic? I was thinking the reader could be significantly younger than him, with like a bit of a corruption kink and a lot of guilt for Toshi. I thought that one shot you wrote for him was adorable! Take care, bunny :)

A/N: Headcanons seem easier for me since I’m still new in writing Toshi (im also not sure if this is entirely corruption but i hope you like it)

-

To the public, All Might is the Symbol of Peace, he’s everything that children and heroes want to become. However, you know him better than that. Or at least, you know him in a way that others don’t and some that possibly wish they did. Toshinori is much older than you, everything about him screams of authority and power that you wish for. The public can approach him, ask for pictures and smile beside him. They can hold his hand and stand beside him, but you, on the other hand, can't do that. What you can do is more intimate, more than what anyone can wish for.

He’s an older man, and he’s a hero. He’s supposed to know what’s best; he’s supposed to be the responsible one in whatever relationship he’s in. You’re the complete opposite from him- you don’t have to worry about the status of being a hero, you don’t have these gruelling responsibilities that he has. While you two are together, he has yet to formally announce to the public about the relationship, which you don’t particularly mind. You know how it would look if he was seen out with a much younger partner. You could already picture the headlines and the comments that would appear, the slander that would go towards your partner. You’re okay with just playing the secret partner; if you were to be honest with yourself, you actually welcome the secrecy, the little bits of love and knowing that you’re the only one to see him in such a light that is anything but the hero face that he shows.

Due to the secrecy in the relationship, most dates are held at home. However, the idea of at-home dates that you both have are quickly depleted and repeated. Frustration plays a part, something heavy and thick in the air. You both are consenting adults, one that is just frustrated at being stuck at home with their partner and the other that holds the weight of the country on their shoulder. It’s only natural that the frustration would turn into something more primal and raw, that you two would comfort each other and become stress relievers to each other. You’re both still fairly young- despite the age gap that puts you at a much younger age than him- and couple that with stress and ansty feelings about the relationship, it leads the two of you to explore a rather more sexual aspect.

The Symbol of Peace is something that is untainted in the eyes of the public. He isn’t necessarily pure- often asked about the features that he seeks out in potential partners- but he is someone who is held to a high standard. He’s a savior to the people, the reason for the lack of crime. He’s the Symbol of Peace and you get to corrupt that. You get to twist his image behind closed doors. He comes from heroism, he holds the image of the golden boy well. On the other hand, you don’t have to worry about the image you hold, you can only hope to make time for your personal life and not make a bad impression on the people you meet. You get to see him in other ways that people could only dream of; you get to see him beg on his knee, his iconic grin ruined, stuffed with a gag and drool covering his chin as he bows before you.

His shoulders are weighed down by the country, by the responsibilities that he has to bear. He’s so used to being admired, to be the number one hero, that when you come along and tilt his head, your lips curved into an almost sadistic smile, he’s willing to listen to you. Even when he's on top, he’s doing what you tell him, listening to every command that you have to say, he’s opening his mouth and suckling on your breasts whining with your pert nipple his mouth as his hand desperately latches onto your body. His cock will be naked, rubbed against your thighs as he begs for release, whimpering about how it all hurts too much. He lets you take the lead, he does whatever you tell him to do, too drunk on lust to actually do anything more than whine and buck his hips into your greedy cunt.

Always in his All Might form, he has yet to reveal his smaller size to you. Perhaps it comes from trust issues or that he wouldn’t know how to bring it up so far into the relationship, but he’s always big around you. At first he felt a twinge of guilt of having you take him in his bigger form, to thrust his cock inside of your cunt and hear you yelp in pain, but if he were to be honest the sound of you in pain added with how your nails would dig into his skin, turned him on in a way that he hadn’t ever thought about. While he gets drunk off of lust from having you take control over him, he also has this more lustful nature to take control over you. He wants to witness as his bulging cock enters you, to hear you cry his name and arch your back to fill his hand with your soft breast and wipe the beading tears away from your eyes. He wants to know that he’s the reason that you’re crying, that it’s because you simply couldn’t handle his cock.

Corruption isn’t something that he wants to say- it leases a bitter taste on his tongue that doesn’t wash away so easily. He doesn’t want to admit that he’s corrupted, he doesn’t want to think what that word means when he’s out on patrol. He wants to rescue people, to help others and be the hero that he want to be rather than think about how soft the inside of your sex is and how it seems to mold to his shape. On certain nights, he’ll visit you when he’s supposed to be out on patrol. He’ll knock on your door and claim that he’s doing an inspection- something that he says for him, just to find a worthy excuse to actually leave his patrol- and he;l lock the door behind him. His moans aren’t loud enough to drown out your words, how you claim how he’s grown idle in his responsibilities- that he would prefer to have his cock sucked on rather than go out and patrol the area. But he is your hero, and you have to at least thank him for taking care of you for the time being that he is there, asking him with his cock in your hand and a devious smile played on your lips if you’re just special or if he does the same with others.

As a hero, he has built his stamina and you welcome that with eager arms and lips. Even after he’s reached his climax, he’s still hard, thrusting lazily into you, begging you to make him release once more. He’ll hold you close to him, his arms thick with muscle and littered with scars, his lips pressed against yours, his tongue thick as it fills your mouth. He wants to keep you close, to hold you and keep his cock buried inside of you until either you or him are too overstimulated to actually continue. You welcome it, you want him to say, to have him pleasure you and think about your needs for the day. Your lps will press against his neck, leaving a bright make in its place. Your words are alluring, asking him to stay the day with you, to ignore his responsibilities for the day and stay nestled inside of you. You promise him that if he were to stay the day, that you would try whatever he wanted, tightening around him and kissing his lips.

You encourage him to stay home by playing on his status. The streets are much safer thanks to him, he’s the reason for everything good right now. Just the mere sight and mention of him is enough for criminals to stop in their tracks and return home with their tails between their legs. He’s allowed to stay home, he’s allowed to take a bit of time for himself to just rest his cock between your thighs and fuck himself between your thighs. It’s during these times that you’ll grip his hair and have him kiss at your sex, pressing your thigh against the side of his head. You’ll tell him how he’s such a good boy, doing all the dirty work that other heroes would rather not do, running your hand through his hair and telling him nothing but sweet things.

There’s pleasure that you take, having him nestled so close to you, almost dependent on emptying himself inside of you. You were the one to reduce the number one hero into a puddle of goo. You were the one to see Toshinori as a sweaty mess, to have him nurse on your breasts and suck on your sex as if it held the sweetest nectar that he would ever have. You convince him to stay. You sit naked on his thigh as he wears his hero outfit, your sex pressed and leaking in heavy arousal onto him. You know that when he goes out, he’ll carry your mark on him. He’ll remember the way that you taste, how you bite into his shoulder and how he humped your leg like a dog, his semen dirtying the inside of a costume. You were the one to reduce the hero to nothing but some sort of lust-filled man who can only muster the thought that he had to release himself inside of you, to fill you with his cock until you’re leaking with his seed.

[hxwks-gf]

— pretty boy 

summary: you’re best friends with the new up-and-coming hero, toshinori yagi. pet names are a force of habit for you, and toshinori happens to be “pretty boy”.  despite the nickname, he shows you how serious he is about becoming a hero

pairing: young all-might/toshinori yagi x reader

w/c: 1.9k

warnings: creepy dude grabs the reader against their will, but that’s about it 

requested by: @lady-latte​ (ty for sending this in love!! i need some more toshinori in my life) 

“Hey there, Pretty Boy!” 

The nickname came as smoothly as silk does, falling from your lips and out into the warm summer air like honey dripping from its comb. It was a nickname that had always felt natural, despite its embarrassing nature. If it ever bothered Toshinori Yagi, he never showed it. 

He grinned as you strolled up to him. His blonde hair was sticking out in its usual unruly manner, with the two pieces of bangs that never seemed to lay flat arched over his sweaty forehead. Magnificent blue eyes pierced through your own in the twilight of dusk, cutting straight through the dim glow from the street lamp nearby. 

“What are you doing out here this time of night?” he asked, stretching his bare arms above his head, the muscles bulging in his biceps. 

“Wanted to see what you were up to,” you replied with a matching grin, and you leaned against the fence. “Working out again?” 

“Yeah,” he said, leaning down and picking up a barbell that lay at his feet. He lifted it with ease and began rhythmically curling it into his chest. “School starts again in a few weeks, and I want to make sure I’m absolutely ready for it. Since my Quirk finally activated, I’ve got a lot of training to make up for.” 

You pursed your lips and looked down at the concrete. A dandelion weed was pushing through a crack in the sidewalk, stretching itself and its little yellow petals up towards the darkening sky. You glanced back up to Toshinori and smiled again. “I know you’ll be amazing,” you encouraged, your eyes following the barbell in his hands: up and down and up and down. “I heard you got a new mentor.” 

“I did,” he said, straining against the weight. A drop of sweat slid down his face as he set the barbell down. “She told me to keep it on the low for a bit, so--sworn to secrecy.” He made a show of locking his lips with an invisible key before tossing it out of sight. 

You laughed. “I wasn’t going to ask anyways, dummy. I’m sure you’ll tell me who this amazing new teacher is when the time is right.” After a few seconds, you bit your lip with uncertainty and studied him before asking, “Right?” 

Toshinori wiped his brow again and looked at you. “Of course I’d tell you. You’re my best friend.” 

“Don’t you forget it,” you chuckled, playfully punching his shoulder. Man, he really put on some muscle over the summer, you noticed, rubbing your knuckles as you pulled your arm back. As he stretched his arms up over his head again, you tilted your head to the side. And a good couple inches. “How...how tall are you, now?” you tentatively asked. 

Toshinori relaxed and glanced down at himself. “Dunno,” he said with a shrug. “Haven’t measured myself lately.” 

“You really grew over the summer,” you half-heartedly joked, crossing your arms. “Are you...okay?” 

His disposition shifted at the question, and for a moment you saw how tired he really was--but the moment passed, and he was back to being Mr. Walking Sunshine. Toshinori flashed you a toothy grin and gave a thumbs-up, “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be? All of my dreams are coming true!” 

“Alright, alright,” you conceded. “Just checkin’, Pretty Boy. We wouldn’t want anything happening to the world’s next #1 hero, would we?” 

“You really think I can do it?” he quietly asked, bending down to pack up his weights. His face was hidden from you, but you could hear the doubt in his voice. 

You reached out and placed a hand on his warm shoulder, feeling the muscles flexing beneath your fingertips. “I know you can do it, Toshi.” 

He stood up tall and grinned down at you. “Heh. Thanks, y/n. I know I can always count on you to believe in me.” 

“Race you to the end of the block?” 

“You know you’ll never be able to beat me.” 

“Hey, you’ve got a literal weight to hold you back,” you laughed, already jogging towards the street. “C’mon, that new movie is playing at the theater--loser has to buy the popcorn.” 

“I don’t know why you insist on doing this to yourself, y/n!” Toshinori called out from behind you as you started running. He seemed pretty far back, and you used this as motivation to run faster and harder down the city street towards the movie theater. The summer air sung with cicadas as the early stars came out to twinkle in the sky above you. But just as you were getting into a good rhythm, you heard his thundering footsteps on the sidewalk behind you. 

“I’ll take my popcorn with extra butter!” he shouted at you as he sprinted by, his blonde hair flying in the wind. 

“One day I’ll figure out how you’re cheating!” you shouted back, your lungs already gasping for precious air. 

Toshinori’s face was adorned with a triumphant smile as he flew down the length of the street, his duffle bag full of weights strapped to his back. “--and some yakitori to go with it!” he called over his shoulder at you before disappearing around the corner. 

You slowed down to a jog, and then to a walk, and you breathed heavily to regain your composure. No matter how many times you challenged him, or how many times he insisted on giving you a headstart--he always beat you. Always. 

“You’re going to be the greatest,” you murmured under your breath, deciding to walk the rest of the way to the theater. He usually came back to make sure you were okay, even after beating you. It was almost unfair. 

But before you could make it to the next block, an uneasy feeling crept over your skin, and all of the hairs on the back of your neck stood on end. Suddenly, the quiet street seemed dark and menacing--nothing like it had been only a few minutes ago. The shadowy corners of the alleys shifted and moved out of the corners of your eyes. It felt like you were being watched. 

Your feet began to move quicker down the sidewalk, and you tried to keep yourself within the glow of the street lamps as much as you could. Just a few more feet and you would turn the corner and see Toshinori standing there with that smile on his face, and you’d be safe--

“Where ya goin’ this time of night?” a gravelly voice chuckled from behind you, and you felt calloused hands roughly grip your arm. “Pretty thing like you should know better than to be walking around this part of town all alone.” 

You froze in fear, your wide, unblinking eyes staring at the end of the block--waiting for Toshi to appear. Any moment now, and he would come charging to your rescue. 

“Hey,” the villain growled, his grip on your arm tightening. “I asked you a question.” 

“Let go of me,” you managed to whisper, still staring at the street corner. “Please.” 

“Yeah? Heh, or what? What are you going to do?” 

You winced in pain as his nails dug into the skin of your arm. “Please,” you said again through gritted teeth. “Let go of me.” 

“I don’t think I will,” the villain chuckled, and began pulling you towards a dark alley. “I want all of your money, and maybe I’ll reconsider.” 

You knew if you used your Quirk in a public setting, you’d get reprimanded by the school and have to face consequences--but you were never taught what the punishment was, if there was any punishment at all, for using your Quirk in self-defense. You didn’t want to lose your shot at a hero’s license--but then again, you also didn’t want to lose your life. 

Just as you were about to activate your Quirk while he dragged you into the alley, you saw Toshinori appear from around the corner. He looked confused, like he wasn’t sure what was taking you so long, or where you even were. But when his eyes landed on you in the grasp of a villain, that confusion was replaced by pure rage, and he charged towards you with a wild snarl on his face. 

“Let go of her!” he bellowed, and for a moment you were taken aback by the sheer anger that exploded out of him. You had never seen him this way before. 

“Hey, hey, take it easy!” the villain stuttered, immediately releasing you and taking a few stumbling steps backward. Toshinori surged past you and grabbed him by the collar, and shoved him up against the building wall. 

“You think you can just weasel your way around here and get away with grabbing people?” Toshinori snarled in the villain’s face. He looked at you over his shoulder. “Did he hurt you? Did he do anything to you?” 

You quickly shook your head. “No, no--he just grabbed my arm. I’m f-fine, Toshi.” The wavering pitch in your voice gave yourself away. 

He narrowed his eyes at you and he turned back to the villain, who was struggling against the iron grip at his throat. 

“If I ever see you bothering anyone in this city again,” Toshi spoke to him, his voice dangerously calm, “I won’t be this nice.” With that, he released the man and looked down at him with disgust. “Now get lost.” 

The man wasted no more time scrambling to his feet and taking off in the other direction. Toshinori immediately went to your side and took your face in his large hands. 

“When you didn’t show up, I got worried,” he said, searching your eyes. That anger and rage was gone; it had now been replaced with concern and fear. “You promise he didn’t hurt you?” 

You swallowed the lump in your throat and shook your head. “He just grabbed my arm and asked for money, that’s all.” 

“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion as he pulled you into his chest for a hug. “I shouldn’t have left you like that, I’m so stupid. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” you said, your voice muffled by his shirt. “I’m okay. You saved me, Pretty Boy.” 

He pulled away and looked down at you, his blue eyes filled to the brim with unshed tears. With a shaky breath, he put on a reassuring smile and tenderly touched your cheek. “I’ll always be there to save you, alright? I promise.” 

“You’re going to be a great hero,” you whispered, returning the smile. 

He pulled you in for another hug, his eyes glancing down at the bruises forming on your arm from where the man had grabbed you, a reminder that he wasn’t there for you, and he couldn’t protect you. Toshinori Yagi knew, in that moment, that you would never be harmed by anyone else ever again. 

“I like that name, by the way,” Toshi said as the two of you started walking together towards the movie theater. He kept you tucked under a protective arm as he gave you a sideways glance. “You think I’m pretty?” 

You rolled your eyes and smacked him. “You know you’re pretty.” 

He chuckled. “Yeah, but I like hearing it from you.” 

“Alright, fine, you’re pretty.” 

“That’s my girl.” 

[get-shiggy-with-it]

*°:⋆ₓₒCollab Masterlistₓₒ⋆:°*

Pairing: All Might x Gn!Dom!Reader (Theme for this month was sex work au!)

Word Count: 6.2k

Warnings: 18+ this is a dark fic, both dubcon/noncon, straight up, forced submission, bit of mind break, dom/sub dynamics, sub!All Might, dominant All Might later in, dark All Might, violence against reader, bodily harm, face fucking, spanking (for Toshi), thigh riding (for Toshi), blackmail, minor mentions of blood, bondage/rope play, reader is gender neutral, no pronouns used

Summary: You work as a popular dominant for pro heroes who need to give up control once in awhile and Yagi Toshinori is one of your best clients. But when word gets out to the media about your involvement with pros, you decide to take matters into your own hands. Though you quickly discover All Might does not take kindly to anyone who threatens his reputation. 

It was all about the exchanging of power. 

About the relinquishing of control—about letting go and the freedom that came with it.  

And you?

You were just there to facilitate, to take over, to release all those bottled up years of stress that the camera’s weren’t supposed to see. 

But you did. 

You saw all of it. 

It was about trust too. Trust in you to give them what they need and trust in them to do exactly as you instructed. And most of all, trust that everything stayed confidential. That the things said through tears and whimpers and sighs were kept quiet. Trust that they would show you the same respect and privacy you showed them. 

You took these rules very seriously. They were the foundation your business was built on and it had earned you quite a lot of credibility. You prided yourself on it, as you should. Professionalism was key in your line of work. It made the clients feel a bit more comfortable—counteracted the sense of taboo that was usually associated with people like you. 

People in “your line of work,” was the common way of referencing it. But you preferred to be clear and upfront, not skirt around the edges as though your job was something shameful.

Language was important too. 

“Client,” “session,” etc...all added a buffering degree of separation for those you serviced. It was a crucial part of the balance which has allowed you to be so successful. They needed to be able to remove themselves from who they became once you were alone together. You’d learned that some amount of plausible deniability was key to achieving the complete relinquishing of authority. They had to be able to convince themselves after they’d walked away, that the crying, begging mess they’d become wasn’t who they really were—wasn’t actually a part of them, just something you’d done.

And by them, of course, you meant the heroes you served so dutifully. 

And by serve, you meant completely and utterly dominate. 

Contradictory to most common misconceptions, your job wasn’t always about sex—though it could be and was at time—but truly, it was about release. 

And above all, it was about power and who got to hold it. 

When that structure was broken—when the rules were strayed from—that’s when things got murky. But you were good at what you did, so luckily, that hadn’t been much of an issue. 

What more could one expect from someone whose services are sought out by the Symbol of Peace himself?

Hm. 

You really ought to get that put on your business cards. 

***

It was late when he came to you, though that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Occasional hero work coupled with a teaching schedule and numerous media appearances left one very little free time. Fortunately, you conducted most of your business during the small hours of the morning, so Yagi Toshinori showing up at your door as the clock ticked its way past two wasn’t a shock. 

You fell into the usual rhythm of things easily. 

Toshi was one of your newest, but most favorite clients. You came highly recommended from many of his coworkers, and after an initial meeting over drinks to discuss his needs, you struck up a routine that worked for the both of you. 

Of course he paid you handsomely for your time. 

Constantly being in the public eye, acting as an unwavering representation of hope for the future was tiring. You were more than happy to take the weight off his very broad shoulders for once. 

And bend him over your knee instead. 

“Five,” he panted, whimpers of thanks and your name spilling out around his loose tongue as your hand connected sharply with the meat of his ass again. 

You always asked to be called by name, no frilly titles to get in the way and complicate the dynamic. When they walked into your space, they set aside their hero personas and you afforded them the same intimacy. 

Names meant something. Names were power and so they mattered, particularly in this game you played together. Equality had to be achieved before domination. 

“Good boy Toshi, you’re doing so well,” you cooed and brought your palm down twice, watching the skin on the backs of his thighs bloom pink like sakura in the spring. 

“S-six, seven,” there was a wet spot forming under his mouth on the sheets and on your lap where his cock was bare and leaking. “Ah, please—harder!” 

You raised your brow as he turned his head to look at you with those teary, dark eyes and you could never resist a look like that. 

“You want it harder, why’s that?” you wound back and smacked roughly over the raised welts that made him hiss and sob. “Is this what you deserve for being so weak?”

He may have been thin now, skeletal compared to the face he showed the public, but you didn’t mind. He trusted you enough to let his guard down, and his weight was still thick and full across your legs. It was invigorating to see a man like All Might, reduced to this. Whatever pent up guilt he carried inside, you were here to help let it all out in the best way you knew how. 

“Yes!” Toshi cried and buried his face into the plush fabric of your comforter as you delivered the last three harsh blows of the punishment he paid you for. “Fuck yes, I’m weak and I’m a failure and I deserve this—!”

“That’s right, you’re a piss poor excuse for a hero and you haven’t earned your title,” you wrapped two thick locks of his hair around your hand and yanked hard till he craned his neck to face you. “What would the world say if they could see what a sobbing mess you are when no one’s looking?”

He opened his mouth to speak, hips twitching and grinding uselessly against your thigh. The second that plush pink tongue dipped past his lips, you were rearing back to spit straight between his teeth. 

Toshi’s face was always priceless in these moments. You’d almost be willing to do it for free if you only got to see the way his brows shot up and those red rimmed eyes blew so wide as you steeled yourself and looked him dead on. 

“Now, swallow like the little bitch I know you are.” 

And he did, of course he does, because behind your bedroom door Yagi Toshinori was your good boy. So you got to watch his throat bob as your spit slid down and he moaned so pretty at the awful things you said to him. 

Your palm kneaded against the red, raw flesh of his ass and you watched how he squirmed at the sting. The room was filled with the scent of sweat and expensive cologne. Your head was spinning from the smell alone and the high of the control you wielded over this man. His hands fisted hard in your bed sheets and you let him helplessly rut against you a few times before running your free hand up the graceful curve of his spine. 

“Oh, you really are so disgusting Toshi,” you mused as your nails dig into the planes of muscles to drag angry red lines over the skin. “Did you really get that hard from me slapping this tight little ass of yours?”

He groaned pathetically and nodded, not bothering to hide how his dick had been oozing obscene amounts of precum every time you etched a new welt on his skin. The blush that crept up his chest and painted his cheeks had spread between his legs too. The unfairly massive cock that Toshi sported was flushed a dark angry red at the tip and you couldn’t help but have mercy on him. 

Well, only a little bit. 

You weren’t here to be nice tonight, even if a part of you might have liked to be. 

“Do you want to cum, Toshi?” you asked, lacing your voice with the false sweetness you knew he loved. “Have you been aching for it all night?”

He keened, crying your name and rutting his hips harder against you. It sent a rush of warmth between your legs despite your better efforts to remain unaffected. This wasn’t about you, this was about ownership and his pleasure. 

“Mhmm,” his voice was little more than a rasp, “wanna cum so bad, please!”   

You laughed, but it was a cruel thing and you knew he could feel the rumble of it in his scarred chest. 

“You did so perfectly taking your punishment,” you raked your nails over the raised handprints again just to hear him cry out. “I suppose I’ll let you cum, but you’ll have to work for it.” 

Toshi’s breathing was ragged as you helped him up to straddle one of your legs. His swollen cock rested on the plushest part of your thigh, the tip nudging your hip and drawing choked gasps from the man towering above you. 

He stared down at you, confused when you didn’t move to stroke him. 

“Go on, then,” you smiled up at him, resting your weight on your palms so you could lean back and watch the show. “I said you’d have to work for it, didn’t I?”

You punctuated your question with a bounce of your knee that rocked his length against the fabric of your pants. It didn’t take long for him to catch on, eyes squeezing shut against the waves of shame and embarrassment that just made it so much hotter as he slowly began to ride your thigh. 

He might be paying you to be ruthless, but Toshi was kind to a fault from what you’ve learned of him and he ke[t most of his massive weight held on the balls of his feet so you weren’t crushed below him. Under any other circumstances, you might have actually enjoyed that quite a bit, but his face—cherry red with spit-slicked lips held parted with the force of his pants—was enough for now. 

His cock was so heavy you almost couldn’t believe it was real. You nearly didn’t the first time he’d stripped for you, but even just the drag of it through your clothes was delectable. It was so long and thick you needed both hands to wrap fully around it, and he gushed like a fucking gieser when you got him under your metaphorical boot. 

With every rock of his bony hips, his length was forced up against the curve of your stomach and he whined at the glistening strands of slick that connected his tip to you.   

“Come on, Toshi,” you clicked your tongue disappointedly at him, letting a hand fall to the puckered skin at his waist, squeezing harshly. “I know you can do better than that.”

He was beyond words now, you could tell by the way his jaw was loose and his teeth clacked with every thrust, but he did gasp out a long, high pitched moan that made up for it. The speed of his humping increased, becoming erratic as he hunched on the bed, hands beside yours. He loomed over you but anyone could tell just by the composed, serene smile playing at your lips—and the absolutely wrecked noises spilling from Toshi—just which one of you was really in control. 

“You’re so close, aren’t you?” 

You knew he liked it when you spewed filth to him right before he boiled over and you were more than willing to oblige. 

“You’re gonna cum like a fucking teenager humping his pillow, isn’t that right?” you snarled the words up at him and he really did cry then, big fat tears dripping down onto your shirt. “All Might, the number one hero is gonna cum all over my lap like the slut he is.”

He nods frantically. You know his balls were tensing up as he sobbed and spluttered—completely ruined. Just the way he needed to be. 

“Then cum.” 

You finally wrapped your fist just around his aching tip and he exploded into your palm. Rope after rope of sticky, white release coated your arm and dripped onto the bed. He kept grinding his hips, working himself through the climax, cock still pulsing and leaking in your grip. You didn’t mind the mess. 

He always tipped a bit extra if he left stains anyway. 

Such a gentleman.

When the last wave of his orgasm had petered out, Toshi collapsed to the side with his face buried in your pillow and his long legs still strewn across your lap. He didn’t usually ask for much in the realm of aftercare, preferring that you cleaned him and let him rest for a bit before he suited up and rushed off into the night. 

You gave him a minute before you got up to wet a warm cloth in the sink. He looked so destroyed, you couldn’t help but admire your handiwork. As you palm his ass once more, fingers spreading him so his pink hole was on display, you slipped your phone silently from your pocket, and snapped a few shots of the nasty red hand marks and smears of cum as he groaned deeply at the touch. 

His voice was lower as he grunted and you could tell he’s coming out of the subspace you’d thrust him into hours before. Quickly you slid the device smoothly away before lifting his legs from you and settling them gently on the bed to work on tidying up your mess. 

You didn’t feel particularly good about keeping this kind of collateral, but as much power as you hold in the four walls of your bedroom, you were frustratingly weak once you left them. These men you worked with, while generally professional, were also top heroes. Top heroes who really didn’t want their embarrassing private lives getting out. Top heroes who thrived off reputation and who would willingly throw you under the bus in a second to protect that. 

You liked Yagi Toshinori. 

But you didn’t know him. 

Smacking someone’s ass or stroking their cock every few weeks didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. 

So you kept your personal insurance that would be there should one of your clientele decide to forsake you in favor of their public image. And you would never use it unless you absolutely had too. 

After all, this was about trust and power and the exchange of those two things. Or at least it was supposed to be. Trust was quite a subjective thing. 

The general citizenry trusted All Might to protect them against the growing evil in Japan’s underground. But behind the scenes, you knew his failing health had caused him to seek you out as the intense guilt of his lie came crashing down on him.

Toshi trusted you to relieve his pain and indulge in his degrading fantasies, and you hadn’t failed him yet. 

But your trust was not easily bought, and none of your customers ever paid much mind to whether your perceived belief in them was genuine. 

After so many glimpses into the messes of pro-heroes personal lives, you knew you’d have to be your own protector. Hence, the photos remained in a locked folder hidden away as you sat yourself down next to the dozing hero and wiped away as much evidence of your meeting as you could. 

“How are you feeling?” you asked quietly, lathing the warm cloth between his legs and softening length. 

“Good, all things considered,” he responded, voice returned to it’s normal, deep baritone. 

“I sincerely hope you won’t have to do much sitting tomorrow,” you quipped and it earned you a chuckle. 

“I’ll manage.” 

You rolled him gently and finished clearing the rest of his spend from the flat expanse of his stomach. Toshi mumbled his thanks and you gave his thigh a friendly squeeze before retreating from the room to shower and change yourself. 

He’d be gone by the time you got out, notification of payment on your phone and a sizable tip left on your dresser as a parting gift. 

And as long as Yagi Toshinori was just as good a boy on the outside as he was here, then the world would never need to know what their Symbol of Peace got up behind your closed doors. 

***

“All Might! Mister All Might, sir!” 

The grating voice of that shithead reporter echoed through the speakers of your headphones over and over again. Your hand shook as the train stuttered to a halt and a wave of passengers burst out onto the platform. 

“All Might, are the rumors true!?” 

Your stomach sank as the reporter shouted your name above the ruckus of microphones and camera flashes and roaring bodies. Their voice was like chalk on your tongue, dry and cracked and clamoring to know whether the Symbol of Peace was involved with the recently revealed ‘seedy’ and ‘scandalous’ sex ring between yourself and multiple top ranking heroes. 

You’d been out having a relaxing lunch with friends in the city when everyone’s phones blew up. It wasn’t that you hid the general details of your job, but by the looks on their faces were enough to make your face burn. The judgement was clear—what you did was abhorrent, disgusting and by extension, so were you. Reporters had caught you on camera with a certain second ranking pro and very quickly deduced exactly who you were and what services you offered. 

The tabloids took it and ran, dragging your reputation behind them. 

Call after call and text, dms on your social media pages, all from news outlets requesting interviews or quotes or hero fans calling you a ‘shameless whore’ for going after pros—hell death threats had even begun to fill your inboxes. 

Hero fans really were ride or die, you supposed, although the ‘die’ in that scenario seemed to refer more to you than themselves. They would never believe their precious big boy crush had ever associated with the likes of you, had ever willingly kneeled for you—had ever enjoyed it. 

They couldn’t understand the things you did, all they saw was some false emasculation.   

And if it came out that Toshinori had any contact with you, his career would be ruined. 

You had hoped from the little you’d learned about him in your sessions, that he’d simply deny knowing you existed at all. That he’d have mercy on you, treat you like the thousand helpless civilians he pulled from burning buildings or whatever the hell heroes did these days. 

But you’d been right before to say that you didn’t know Toshi. 

And now you certainly didn’t like him either. 

“Are you one of the pros involved?” the reporter hounded again as All Might’s massive form panned into frame. 

“As your Symbol of Peace, I certainly do not partake in such degenerate behavior,” his words rang out, deep and resonating. “I would never associate with someone who’s actions border on criminal.” 

The dark, soulless pits he called eyes stared mockingly from your tiny screen as his signature laugh reverberated through your ears along with the train’s clacking breaks. You ripped the headphones from your ears and closed out of the app, ducking your head and pushing towards the door. Everyone’s eyes were drilling into you, worming deep under your skin and making you squirm like so many of those heroes had done on your silk sheets. 

Rationally, you were aware not many people would have seen the story yet. Tabloid trash took a day or two to disseminate into the general social media outlets and for people to take notice. Your friends only knew because your name stuck out to them, but you were hardly recognizable in your typical citizen attire. Even still. 

Your life, your work, all of it was on display. 

And he’d called you a degenerate. 

The infallible All Might had taken your name and tossed it in the guttered, likened you to a villain and single handedly destroyed everything you’d built in the process. 

Years of effort and crawling your way up the ranks of society all for nothing.  

All so some washed up hero could keep his fantasy of success going for just a little longer. Toshi trusted you with his secrets, his weakness, his body, and you’d defended that at every turn. The only thing he had to do was pay a small fee for your time and discretion. 

But no amount of money could fix your toppled character. Nothing could reverse your place as a disgusting slut in the eyes of literal millions of people. 

Bold of Yagi Toshinori to underestimate you so thoroughly, to think that you’d sit back in the rubble as he rescued cats and little kids and lived his delusion of perfection.

This was about trust and power. 

When those lines were crossed, that’s when things got messy. 

And you’d make sure to leave so big a mess, Toshi would never dream of coming back from it. 

***

Your apartment building was thankfully free of any press when you arrived home. It had been a few days since All Might instigated your public slander, but the mass media hadn’t managed to track you down after you went into a short period of hiding. 

You needed time to let all your other clients involved in the scandal play their cards. 

There would be no use in condemning one just to have them warn the rest of their equally impending doom. That way you could be assured they’d all come crashing down with you. Especially the blonde poster boy of hero society himself. 

His would be the sweetest fall. 

It had been long enough now that you could start compiling. You locked the door behind you, shrugging off your coat and settling on the couch. The plush cushions sank as you fell back, pulling out your phone and scrolling through your contacts. Toshi was there, two red and blue hearts on either side of his name. You pulled up his text thread. 

You’d thought about going public of course. 

Of course you had.

Your entire career had been trashed, you’d been shamed by the number one hero himself and your personal life was blasted over social media. 

But you were human, so you were weak. 

And you had liked Toshi. 

Well, you hated him now—a deeply dark, burning resentment—but before that, he’d been so sweet to you in a way that most were not. Respectful and nice and you were unused to it. So, you couldn’t quite bring yourself to eradicate his credibility in the same outright manner. 

No, you had decided you’d give him a chance.

Because you were better than him. 

A chance to atone, come clean, apologize the way you’re sure he would if his public image wasn’t so goddamn important to him. So you didn’t reach out to any of the media outlets that had been hounding your socials for the past week, and didn't offer them the inside scoop quite yet. Instead, you stared at the handsome contact photo of your hero client and slowly typed him up a message he couldn’t ignore. 

It was short and sweet, polite but firm. You acknowledged he most certainly did not want to speak with you—in fact, you weren’t very inclined to speak with him ever again either—but you happened to be in possession of some fairly compromising photographic evidence of your time together. And if that evidence were ever to, say, end up in the pocket of the exact scandal rag that sent voice clips of All Might all but denouncing you as a whore to the nation, well. Things would certainly not end well for him. 

But, you were nothing if not professional. 

He knew that. 

You never wanted to use these, but he had forced your hand. Of course you were more than willing to work out a deal with him. 

He was your favorite client after all. 

In any case, he knew how to reach you, and he had a generous 48 hours to give you an answer to your proposition. 

Oh and you were kind enough to provide a little snapshot of just exactly the type of evidence you meant. 

Your thumb hovered over the little blue arrow to send. The phone clacked against your nails as it shook in your grip, slick from sweat and frayed nerves. You couldn’t quite tell if you were anxious or angry or some awful combination of the two, but your heart was in your throat as you shut your eyes and pressed send. 

There was no going back, and if this all came tumbling to the ground, you promised yourself that you would shatter gracefully. 

Letting the screen go dim, you stared in silence at the small check mark confirming the message had been delivered and your fate sealed. You pulled yourself to your feet and made your way to the bedroom. 

He’d get back to you soon, or maybe he wouldn’t. You couldn’t know for sure whether or not Toshi would simply ignore your texts and be blindsided when the deadline passed and you destroyed him all over again in a far less enjoyable manner than you used to. But whatever the case, it was out of your hands for now. 

With aching feet and tired eyes, you stripped slowly and stumbled towards the bathroom. Turning the water to just below scalding, you did your best to scrub away any pesky remaining guilt that clung to you in a thin, suffocating film. 

You told yourself that there was no other choice. That you would have found another way if there was one. That this was how business often went. You had seen it before when you first entered in the field of sex work and you’d see it again. So you scrubbed yourself raw and let all your doubts trickle down the drain. 

Tonight, you would sleep restlessly, but it was a fair enough burden to carry for your honor. 

You were foolish to believe the cost of revenge wouldn’t bear a heftier price. 

***

You woke slowly, trapped momentarily in the strange limbo between sleep and consciousness that fooled you into thinking the strange tightness at your wrists was nothing more than a leftover side effect of a dream. 

The reality was so much worse.

It wasn’t until you felt the blunt, radiating sting of knuckles backhanded against your cheek that the haze of sleep fell away, and you could truly appreciate the scene before you. 

Which was to say, you could take the opportunity to scream before Yagi Toshinori’s fingers were shoved down your throat to muffle the noise. He was large, shirt seams full to bursting, and sporting an expression you’d never seen before. His eyes, while always dark, were like holes now and they filled you with an unfamiliar sense of dread. 

He’d called you a villain before, and now he was looking at you like one too. 

“Oh no,” Toshi hissed. His voice was impossibly deep, reverberating against your ribs painfully, “I don’t want to hear anything out of you.” 

One quick bout of struggling made it very apparent he didn’t want you moving either as your wrists had been bound behind your back and your ankles were similarly immobilized. The fingers in your mouth pressed hard on your tongue, his thumb pushing below your chin to make you choke and splutter. 

“You really let all that power get to your head, didn’t you?” Toshi’s voice was buzzing in your ears and mingling with the pain in your jaw. He put one massive knee on the mattress and hooked his fingers behind your teeth, forcing you to sit up from the bed.

You could feel your face burn as he looked down at you, drool slipping passed your lips and coating his fingers. The straining bulge in his pants looked even bigger than you remembered now that he was no longer the slip of a man you’d come to know as Yagi Toshinori. 

No this was All Might, the Symbol of Peace. 

And you got the feeling that whatever was about to happen, it was not going to be peaceful for you.  

He had you tied and trussed like a piece of meat, and he would treat you like one. You’d seen this before, you’d tied these knots—he’d been where you were now, but he’d asked for it. The loss of control was never something you’d delighted in on a good day, and now the rising pressure in your chest and the sensation of walls closing had panic coursing through you.  

“Did you really think that I’d come back here willing to grovel at your feet?” he jeered, the trademark smile on his face more snarl than grin. 

He shook your jaw violently in his grasp, listening to the joints pop as they tried to stretch around his thick fingers. Your name left his mouth in a mock coo, just as you had done to him so many nights before. “Remember, you might get to call me a bitch but it’s only because I let you.”

Your hands trembled violently against the bonds which tore the delicate skin and rubbed it raw. Toshi’s free hand traveled along his thigh to rub himself through his pants, his knuckles brushing your nose as he bucked into his palm. 

“But now you’ve stepped out of line,” he mused and clicked his tongue as though you were a student who’d done poorly on his latest exam. “And I’m going to make sure that whore mouth of yours never utters my fucking name again.” 

Eyes wide with horror, you watched as Toshi’s fingers fumbled with the button and zipper of his slacks until his cock had sprung free, monstrous in length and girth, dripping onto your forehead. 

You’d seen it before, but it seemed bigger now. So big that you’d never been able to take it, and Toshi had been staunchly against you ever trying lest he quite literally split you in two. But any kindness he’d shown you before was clearly off the table. His fingers pumped in and out of your throat as if preparing you somehow to take the stretch. It wouldn’t help. You knew that. He knew that. 

Toshinori smiled as he removed his fingers in favor of digging the spit slicked digits into the joints of your jaw, ensuring you wouldn’t bite down on him as he pressed the spongy tip to your lips. The panic that had set in—making your blood rush and your limbs shake—was constricting your chest and the pressure of Toshi’s dick pushing past your teeth made your breathing even more erratic. 

You whimpered loudly, trying to wrench your head away as the strong salt and musk flavor of his pre cum spread across your tongue, but that only made him thrust forward harder. His length quickly hit resistance back of your throat as you gagged and tears burned at the corners of your eyes. 

The ache in your jaw was already unbearable and your bottom lip was being rubbed raw by warm spit and the friction of Toshi roughly fighting to sink his dick fully into your mouth. 

“Mm, that’s it,” he groaned as you inadvertently licked over his tip, trying to force him away. “You look so much better like this.” 

He ran a falsely sweet hand across your cheek, collecting the stream of tears and using the moisture to slick the rest of his length. Your chest heaved in a mixture of gags and increasingly violent sobbing. You were stretched painfully wide as he rolled his hips again, pushing the thickest bit of his cock into your mouth and forcing your teeth to dig painfully into your upper lip. With the next thrust, he was able to sink another excruciating inch deep into your throat. Blood rushed from where you bit yourself and caused crimson streaks to form as Toshi fucked slowly into your mouth. 

Your mind was slipping. 

You’d had so little time to process the encounter, so instead your brain had secluded most of your consciousness into a precious little box, away from the intense burning in your throat as Toshi finally sank all of his innumerable inches completely into you. Your throat bulged and protested, tightening in an attempt to force him out. 

It only made him moan loudly and dig his fingers into your hair. 

“See?” he huffed, pulling out at an agonizing pace only to ram his length in roughly to the hilt. “I’d never lie to my public, you really are just as much of a slut as they say you are.” 

You shrieked around his cock, though it was muffled so badly by the lack of air and the wet slap of his constant thrusting that no one but you could hear the screaming in your own head. The pain was unbearable, this awful friction burning sensation that had your stomach churning and your chest wracked with stifled cries. Your bound legs kicked and your fingers grasped useless at the sheets as Toshi fucked your mouth reckless abandon. 

Time blurred along with your vision, whether from the lack of oxygen or the tears you weren’t sure. 

And most horrifyingly of all, was the pleasure that grew as your mind drowned the pain in darkness. You felt as though you were floating, disgusted but euphoric and the slide of him against your lips became delicious. Heat rose in you and built between your legs accompanied by a distant and unfamiliar ache to please, to be touched, to taste him, to obey.

You wondered if this was how he felt when you forced his mouth on you. If he slid into this strange space where your mind was a separate entity and the only thing that mattered was the pain and the pleasure and the release. 

Because somehow, in the midst of your struggle and revulsion, he’d made this strange, incorporeal part of you enjoy this. 

All the fight had drained out of you, letting your jaw hang slack and your tongue flick up to catch his tip on every backstroke. Your eyes flitted up to look at him through the haze of tears and sweat, hoping strangely that he’d be pleased with you. And the groan you earned yourself was delectable. 

You gave in, then. Let yourself be swept away by the rushing of blood in your ears and the rhythm of Toshi tearing you apart.  

At some point, you could distantly feel his thrusts becoming more erratic, turning into a rough grinding in your mouth. 

You couldn’t even taste it when he came, his cock was too obscenely deep in your neck, but the warmth of it burned your bleeding throat and filled your belly with a hot finality. 

You weren’t even afforded the dignity of spitting his seed onto the floor where it belonged, ignoring the searing voice in your head that revealed in being rewarded with his essence. 

When Toshi finally pulled out and tucked himself away, your head fell limply to your chest. A series of violent coughs erupted from you as a thick, viscous mixture of blood and spit and cum dripped from your tongue. 

Those impossibly large hands gripped your chin once again, forcing you to look up into those piercing black eyes. 

“Now, you’re never going to speak about me again,” he wasn’t asking but you glared up at him as his hand fumbled in his pocket, pulling out his phone. 

The device was comically small in those hands of his as he aimed it at your ruined face and snapped a picture—the flash blinding you while he reached around and roughly undid the knotted rope keeping you in place. 

“Because if you do, I’ll make sure those reporters know everything I said about you was nothing but the truth.” 

The loudest part of you wanted to scream, to punch and bite and tell him it wasn’t. That you were a professional, with self-respect and dignity and you were good and your job, but— 

But when you opened your sore and aching jaw to shout, nothing came out. 

No sound, no yell, no words. 

Just this awful rasp that made your throat feel like pins were sticking into the abused flesh. 

“Well, looks like I might not need this after all,” Toshi dangled the phone in front of your face before pocketing it once again. “Looks like you won’t be saying much of anything for a good long while.”

And then Yagi Toshinori left. 

He turned on his heel and walked out as you toppled off the bed behind him, trying so hard to scream despite the pain and the ripping in your chest—whether they were curses or cries for him to stay, you weren’t sure.  

But there was nothing either way. 

So you sat and screamed in silent agony at his retreating form until the sound of a door slamming rang out through your home. 

It seemed that in all your years of playing this game, you’d finally been toppled off your tightrope. 

Because you were good at your job, so you knew. It was all about the exchange of power, and yours had just been thoroughly stripped away. 

[that-bi-bitch-writes]

Not The Forgiving Type

[Name] was a kind kid. He was poised to be number one until shit hit the fan. But he wasn't gonna let his dream die no matter who got in the way.

Or

The one where All Might neglects his son a little. The son eventually goes apeshit and hurts the people that wronged him on his journey to becoming the Number One Hero

Warnings: Major Character Death, Vengeance, Murder, Blood Mentions, Religious Themes/Imagery, Christianity is not portrayed in a good light, All Might is compared to God, There is no good guy, sad ending.

The thing that [Name] hates most is his smile.

Christians believe that every human was born with sin. As such, you spend every day of your life abstaining from further sins as you try to erase the red from your ledger. You’re encouraged to do acts of service, not to win the favor of God but from the kindness of your heart. Because you care about people. Yet not doing those acts of service puts you years behind if you aim to present God with a clean ledger.

[Name] was kind. It wasn’t something that came natural to him nor was it particularly easy all of the time but he made the effort. Be kind to others, the family motto. His father was like God to the people he saved. Keeping a smile on his face as if at the shine of his teeth all life’s problems would flash away. And he’d give grand speeches for no other reason than he could.

“Power” his father would say grandstanding “is for the strong to be able to protect the week” [Name]’s father had the kind of power that made the weak feel untouchable. All might would save them. They were sure of it. [Name] was sure of it too.

‘Daddy’s so strong’ [Name] thought ‘I’m gonna be strong too.’ It was a shared thought between the two actually. He was the son of the number one. The son of God. Destined to bear the weight of everyones sins. The reincarnation, who stretches himself thin for the sake of saving others. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Strong should his resolve be, lest that head roll off of his shoulders.

[Name] was four when he got his quirk. Yagi was ecstatic. There was a slim chance that the boy would be born quirkless like Yagi himself and [Name]’s mother wasn’t in the picture. A one night stand who was paid off after she showed up on his doorstep with a baby. There was no way to be completely certain what would happen, but he believed. Hoping for all hope his little boy would be strong. At the proud look on his dad’s face, [Name] smiled. He would continue to make his father proud.

At the age of nine [Name] had all but mastered said quirk. He was a prodigy who’d trained with heroes like Nighteye, and Eraserhead practicing both combat and battles of quirk. Within the next year All Might finally thought [Name] was ready. And sometime after [Name]’s 10th birthday Yagi sat him down to talk about the possibility of him being the next person to wield One For All. [Name] was more than shocked to hear that his dad had been quirkless and possessed a rare, powerful quirk. In his nervousness all he could manage was a smile, a wide confident smile that masked all his hesitation and surprise.

“I’ll be the next number one hero dad” [Name] said “And i’ll make you proud”

Yagi gave his son a matching smile “You already have. And I can’t wait to see what you will do in the future my boy”

At age 13 [Name] took down his first villain. It was illegal of course, but things are easily swept under the rug when you’re the child of God. But why should he have been punished? He was doing good for the sake of good. Saving others with a smile on his face. That was the family motto. It mattered not that the streets were stained with the villain’s blood. No, he was a hero. Heroes saved the day by defeating the villain and giving hope to the people. His actions should please God.

“He’s not ready”

“He’s my son”

“And that’s why you can’t be impartial. Take a break, spend some time with [name] and teach him how to be a hero”

[Name] creeped closer to his bedroom door at the sound of the furious whispers trying to figure out who was talking about him and why. He leaned his head against the door not risking the chance that if he opened it to take a peak he could be seen or heard.

“He’s a great kid, with a powerful quirk. He cares about stopping injustice, and he gives people hope. Like I did. He’s primed to be my successor”

“All might you know I think of you as a great hero. But he’s too much like you”

‘Nighteye’ [Name] realized

“I think he spends too much time trying to be like you that he doesn’t know the true meaning of heroics. You’re right he’s a great kid but I don’t think he’s ready for the kind of responsibility that comes with One For All.”

“Who else if not him?”

Nighteye paused, and answered cautiously “I met a kid. Resembles you in looks, a little more than [Name] does. He has a strong work ethic and made his debut into class 1B at UA. His quirk isn’t exactly strong but he’s made it so. Give him a chance”

Toshinori gave a hesitant “maybe” and the conversation ended there.

Betrayal felt like a sharp stabbing sensation. Nighteye, his precious mentor doesn’t think he’s ready enough. Doesn’t want him to succeed. Wants his father to mentor another kid because he doesn’t believe in [Name]. Ouch.

The next morning, [name] is quieter. More unsure of himself as he asks his dad to stop training with Nighteye. The relationship between All Might and Nighteye is frayed and [Name] knows that. He’s the glue keeping them together so to get back at Nighteye, [Name] will sever the connection between idol and fan. He doesn’t need Nighteye, he just needs to please his dad. He’ll train on his own and become number one. Praise be to God.

Hands gliding through the air, [Name] played with a bright red colored mist that flowed through his fingers and gathered in the palms of his hands. He would flex them, some fingers pointing down, others curled inward as if he were grabbing something with that finger only. Depending on the weight of the object he moved, his arms would flex too.

In a fight his stance became wider, more sturdy almost as if actually shouldering the weight of the object. His knees bent when he planted himself into the ground, resisting the push and pull of gravity as he lifted things with a thought and a flick of his hands. He was powerful. The kind of powerful that makes you smirk at your opponent, not because you underestimate them but just because you know you’ll win. It’s a long hard road to becoming that powerful and [Name] was damned if he wasn’t going to show it. The perfect venue was coming up too. The UA Entrance Exams.

[Name] unconsciously used his quirk to stop something from landing in the koi pond he’d been walking past. “Poor fishies” [Name] thought as he grabbed the floating book. It read ‘Hero Analysis For the Future’  He casually flipped through it, silently asking for forgiveness. He’s not a snooper; he just needed a little guidance if he was going to be the best. It was a little burnt but thorough. He heard the noise of a bunch of boys walking by and he looked up. At the sight of Bakugou [Name]’s eyes flashed red. Bakugou looked away and scowled knowing he couldn’t beat the son of the Number One hero. Not yet.

“Oh [Name]-senpai you found my book”

“Izuku-kun. I came to you for advice. But also just because I wanted to see you.”

“Of course! We’re friends you can ask me anything”

“I’ve been training a lot on my own recently because I wanted to surprise my dad with my progress but pretty soon I think I’m gonna ask him to personally train me. The UA entrance exams are pretty soon. And I want to make him proud”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine! You’re a great hero already with an amazing quirk. I think he’ll be proud of you no matter what you do”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive”

“Thanks. I’ve gotta go train, my exams are way sooner than yours. You’ve still got about 10 months right?”

“You honestly think I can make it senpai?”

“I don’t know. But I like you and you’ve got the right attitude so I want to support you. Who knows maybe you’ll make history as a quirkless hero.”

[Name] smiled and bid Izuku farewell as he headed off in the opposite direction intending to train even harder to become the number one. Everything in his life was primed so he would be the best. He was Icarus chasing after the sun on his man-made wings. But he was determined not to fall, not to drown and he refused to fail even if the sun burned him up upon first contact.

[Name] passed his entrance exams and was ranked number one in the incoming first year class. His first number one. The sports festival being his next goal, and once he finally had One For All, there’d be no one to stop him. He was sure of it. And that’s what he wanted to tell his father the day Yagi came home and excitedly told him he’d met and befriended a young boy from Mustafu called Izuku Midoriya. [Name] smiled brightly happy that the two of them had met and instead promised himself to bring the topic up the next morning.

The opportunity never came considering All Might had gone missing from the house every morning before [Name] woke up and he’d come home deflated and exhausted. [Name] would just smile at the exhausted Yagi and make the two of them dinner or tuck Yagi into the bed when he’d fall asleep on the couch. It was pretty easy for a telekinetic to tuck their dad into bed without waking him. Sometimes [Name]’s eyes and hands would glow and he’d flutter his fingers near Yagi’s temple sending him sweet dreams. After about two months of this [Name] decided to confront Yagi, and he camped out on the couch that faced the front door. When Yagi tried to sneak out [Name] spoke up

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got some work to do early this morning”

“Everyday for two months?”

Yagi’s eyes widened, not knowing [Name] noticed his habits. And that was a part of the problem. [Name] paid attention to everything, he was a strategist who had a degree in All Might. It was how he and Midoriya became friends in the first place and why they continued to get along so well

“I’ve been training”

“For what” [Name] asked and at the slight downturn of his father’s smile he realized he’d been asking the wrong questions. “Where?” He received silence

“Who are you training dad? And don’t lie to a mind reader”

“I’ve been training Young Midoriya”

“For his entrance exams? Why not invite me? The two of us are friends and I can teach him how to spar”

“It’s just between the two of us, no need to wear yourself thin. Focus on training for the sports festival”

“I’ve been trying to ask you to train me. This is the perfect opportunity”

“Perhaps later my boy”

The disappointment barely got a chance to sit on [Name]’s face before he smiled “Have fun dad. Tell him good luck for me, yeah?” Yagi nodded and headed out the door, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. [Name] was a good kid.

[Name] returned to training alone, and cleaning up after his dad, and going to school, and listening to his dad lie, and smiling. But the feeling that he was missing something took over him and set him on edge. So he went for a walk. And who better to find than Izuku Midoriya and his dad training on a beach. [Name] reached up a hand to wave at them before realizing this is what was setting him on edge. His dad was paying more attention to his quirkless kohai than his own son. He felt another stabbing sensation similar to when Nighteye had betrayed him but this time the pain was in his chest and didn’t go away. It was accompanied by the desire to cry. And so [Name] stood there hysterical with a smile on his face and tears streaming down his cheeks. The taste of snot reaching his tongue through his teeth.

[Name] waited for them to finish training before he followed Izuku pretending to just casually bump into the boy. “Oh wow Izuku you’re shaping up. My dad says you’ve been training lately” [Name] knew the boy was horrible at lying and would probably nervously blurt out the truth between the two, and if he didn’t there was always the option of reading his mind.

“Hehe, yeah” Izuku chuckled nervously

“So what’re you training for exactly? I know you’re aiming for UA but what’s your strategy for passing the exams? Just regular old strength training?”

“Actually All Might’s been training me for something else entirely. I’ve got to go but I’ll talk about it more with you later okay?” Midoriya screamed behind him as he put some distance between the two. He was smart, smart enough not to look in [Name]’s direction anytime he lied, a strategy that kept him safe for months. All good things must come to an end.

[Name] showed up on the beach one afternoon and demanded to know what was happening. His expression was serious and his eyes glowed the moment they tried to placate him.

“I’ve been training Young Midoriya to be a hero” All Might started

“Yes I know that”  

“More accurately his successor” Midoriya finished

“Wait what” [Name] frowned

“I knew you approved of Young Midoriya becoming a hero and when I saw him save Young Bakugou from the attack I saw myself in him”

“I’M supposed to be your successor. You don’t see yourself in me? Your son?”

“Bubs-”

“Don’t Bubs me. And You!” [Name] whipped around furious, hurt in his eyes as he faced Midoriya “I told you all I ever wanted was to be like my father and make him proud. I befriended you and protected you when I could. On the day of the attack I told you I wanted to train with him and you stole him. You took him right from under me.”

“I’m sorry” Midoriya stuttered out “But you have a quirk. You don’t know what it’s like being powerless and picked on. He gave me a way out”

[Name] looked at Midoriya sympathetically, simultaneously wanting to reach out and hug the boy but also wanting to make him suffer. At [Name]’s conflicted silence Midoriya continued “Senpai, please. Can’t you just be happy for me? I’m finally getting to live my dream”

[Name] looked at him apathetically “Why would I be happy you sacrificed my dream for yours?”

“Please” they begged and oddly enough, they begged in harmony “Don’t go. Forgive us, we didn’t mean to hurt you” Their eyes were pleading almost as if they knew the second he turned his back on them, it would be the end of their relationship. [Name] got a high off of their suffering. It was the first time in months he’d truly felt happy. They got a taste of what he’d been feeling.

‘This is karma’ [Name] thought ‘God’s in his heaven and all's right with the world’ He looked at the two of them and smiled. A reassuring smile. They let out breaths they didn’t know they were holding in as he laid a hand on the side of each of their heads. “I’m sorry” he said sickeningly sweet “I’m not the forgiving type”

Neither All Might nor Midoriya had time to react before [Name]’s eyes glowed and he sent them into a nightmare where they were abandoned and lonely calling out for help only to be betrayed. [Name] walked home with his head feeling more clear than it had in weeks. He’d always thought of his father as God. And if he were God that would make [Name] Jesus.

God made Judas, and All Might made a hero out of Midoriya.

Things were awkward in [Name]’s house after that. Yagi and Izuku were still training, and so Yagi would come home to a dark house and no son to greet him. If [Name] was around when Yagi got home, he’d pretend not to notice or leave the room immediately and have his things float up to his room. Yagi knocked on his son’s door one day and though he got no response he knew [Name] was listening.

“You can still be a great hero my boy. I know you’ll do great things”

“There’s no room for me to be Number One while One For All exists”

Yagi was disheartened and walked away leaving it at that. The day of the entrance exams was coming up and Izuku would finally receive One For All. He hoped they could take it one day at a time from there, considering they’d all be attending the same school for the next few years. Midoriya went on to pass the entrance exams and earned a spot in class 1A. Yagi was ecstatic and Midoriya got a taste of what it felt like to be a hero.

The UA Sports Festival made for a grand spectacle where Izuku Midoriya had called out to the world and said “I Am Here”. He showcased an amazing power but also his poor control over said power. About a week after the festival, Izuku was attacked by villains who believed the key to his strength was in his DNA. They knew he wouldn’t sit still and let them pluck hairs, so the easiest way was to make him bleed. They ambushed him, subdued him and took him to a second location where he was bled and beaten to death. His body was found a week after his disappearance. Broken arms, legs and lacerations all over his body. The police suspected most of his injuries came from him trying to escape.

The villains couldn’t remember why they took him. The harder they tried to remember the worse their heads hurt and their eyes would glow red. Even Naomasa with his lie detector couldn’t pick up the truth. All the villains knew was that his blood was supposed to give them a boost, like some of the other illegal quirk boosters on the market. The suspects were released on bail and disappeared several hours later.

All might of course felt responsible and was weighed down with guilt. He had killed Young Midoriya through his own negligence. Heavy is the head that wore the crown. Yagi was strong enough to keep his head on his shoulders but he could not move from the position he was in.

He recalled a conversation between himself and [Name] a day or two after Midoriya’s disappearance. The boy who hadn’t smiled once since their fight on the beach gave a twisted smile as he asked “How’s your successor doing? Have they found his body yet?

Yes, All Might had done this to Young Midoriya himself. He played the part of instigator and now he was the secret keeper. He was to bear the sins of his son and himself as he prayed that unlike [Name], Young Midoriya up in heaven was of the forgiving type.

[nonobadcat]

YANDERE ALL FOR ONE X FEMALE READER

Rating: For readers 18+ only Entire Story TW: Noncon/DubCon, gore (non-reader directed), numerous kinks. Highly mentally and sexually abusive relationship. This story is absolutely not for minors and readers should consult the warnings/tags at the top before reading. This chapter’s TW: Angst, Gore

Read the entire story at: Archive of Our Own

Chapter 48 Excerpt:

Gran Torino glanced at the dark circles under Nana's long, black lashes. “How’s Toshinori’s training coming along?” She swallowed and set the food on the plate. “He’s good. Better than I was. Using One For All is so effortless for him.” Nana sighed and shrugged. “Honestly, he makes me feel a bit jealous.” “Is he seeing the vestiges yet?” She shook her head. “Not that he’s told me. I’m starting to think I dreamed them up.” “Well, considering the last dreams you had turned out to be real, that doesn’t mean much.” The black-haired beauty nodded, resting her chin upon her hands. “I hate to say this, but I wish Mental was back from his trip already.” Gran Torino frowned. “So you can check on her again?” Nana nodded, her eyes staring through the metal tabletop. He slipped his hands behind his head and stared at her through one squinty eye. “You’re worried he’ll move her, aren’t you?” Her foot jiggled against the floorboards. “He moved the first One For All user a lot so that no one could find him.” “And yet the second and the third did, right?” Brown eyes looked up. The tension in her shoulders loosened just a little. “You’re right.” “So why are you still so worried?”

“Toshinori has been having nightmares that he doesn’t remember. This is the closest we’ve come to fighting him since En died. I know this sounds crazy but…” She paused and took a deep inhale. “I think One For All is restless.” Her hand clasped over her heart. “As more and more of it leaves me, I think he can sense its will; its desperation to stop All For One. To carry the hopes of seven others on your shoulders...” Her brows drooped at the edges and she fixed her friend with a sad smile. “I worry that I’ve asked too much of him.” The jet hero raised an eyebrow. “You took One For All because there was no other choice. Toshinori made his own decision freely. That newbie might be a bit of an airhead at times but he wouldn’t have accepted the quirk if he didn’t want that on his shoulders.” He lifted his chin and flashed her a bitter grin. “That’s what heroes do, right? We stand even when that weight threatens to crush us.” He paused. His small black eyes stared into her very soul. “Do you regret what that has cost you?” The refrigerator began to buzz loudly as its cooling cycle started up. Nana leaned back into her seat, feeling the vibrations humming up her body. Somehow, it sounded like voices crying out from far away. Her fist tightened until her knuckles ran white. She shook her head. “No.” Her teeth gritted tight behind a determined grin. “No matter the cost, All For One has to be stopped.” The grey-haired hero sighed and rested his cheek into his hand. His thin, somber smile did little to soften the deep lines on his brow. “I was worried you’d say that.” “Why?” He frowned. “Because I’m pretty sure you’ve already made up your mind as to what this is going to cost.”

Read the Rest At Archive of Our Own

@shigashig @shig-a-shig-ah @weo0o @feral-creep @raygard-elvets @awkward-confused @vizhi0n @dokoni-mo @the-lady-writes-what @all4one @avelaste @diowithagun @yeunsstuff @river-to-swim-forever @lizthewitchh @0-ddball @catalystgaming27 @cityscapingly @imdatingyourdad @gxmblinqueen @villaincxmdump @yandereloveraw @seijohmilktea @kermitthekrog-blog @toughbook @fgkween @averydrunksatyr

[allmightluver]

I decided to send you a fun ask and you don't have to answer them all with huge paragraphs, but here you go:

Your honest opinion on all the Might ships listed?? (Some of them are cursed and I added some of my opinions too :D)

EraserMight (OTP, it's a comfort ship and has a lot of emotional connection and potential, beautiful, so sad it's not cannon)

PresentMight (Eh, okay, but my ears are bleeding just thinking about these two. Doesn't really click to me)

ToshiInko (Adorable! One of my first ships, Dadmight confirmed)

NightMight (Night Eye is too young in my opinion, but cute.)

MidnightMight (I don't know the official ship name with Midnight but SPICY)

AllForMight (Wtf??? This man almost ripped poor Toshi's heart out, and not in a romantic way!! But this would be hilarious in a crack fic for some laughs.)

DekuMight (HURRK-! 🤢 Dadmight version tho 😏)

ShieldMight (Cute, friends to lovers vibe. Not my thing, though)

Nana x Toshi (WHYYY???)

Endmight (This one is okay, Endeavor is married tho... 😬)

You can add any other ships that you want but these I'm pretty sure are the general ones. I hope it's fun to give your opinions!

I love most Might ships so I’m excited >:3

EraserMight: beautiful. Two broken people helping put each other together. I love this so much. Toshi being there as a listening ear to Aizawa’s past, something that he rarely speaks about, and provides comfort when the memories become too much. Aizawa helping Toshi through his own physical struggles, but also helping the man realize the weight he carries, and his fragile state of mind. They’re made for each other 😭

PresentMight: adorable! I imagine pm would be eager to show off different things to Toshi that the older hero hadn’t had time to enjoy. And likewise! Toshi would reel Hizashi in when he got too overly excited, and Hizashi would help Toshi keep his confidence up when he questions himself.

Toshinko: These two 😭 adorableeee. Not including their mutual interest in Izuku, I feel the two would have a lot in common. They’re both in bodies and situations they didn’t plan for, and are adjusting in that reality. They can both be insecure at times, but are also ready to stand up for each other and others at a moment’s notice.

NightMight: also cute. Funny you mention him being young?? Nighteye was is 38, and therefore probably one of the closest age wise to All Might himself. I do think the two have chemistry. Nighteye was obviously an obsessed fanboy, but it was clear how much he cared for Toshi’s wellbeing beyond that, even so much as to recommend retirement. Nighteye was Toshi’s only sidekick, and learning to put trust in another person must have taken Toshinori some time. He undoubtedly grew closer to Nighteye as a result.

MidMight: Sexy. Oh the thoughts I have with these two 🤤 mainly involving Midnight dominating Toshi and showing his completely inexperienced tush the ropes. I love these two together and I wish we could have more interactions between them! I love their dynamic! I also choose to believe that Midnight was bluffing about not liking older men hnnnngh

AllForMight: ...my secret guilty pleasure. It’s dark, sick, and twisted, and yet I can’t stop thinking about it. AFO initiating, and Toshi disgusted by it, yet also having conflicting emotions spiraling within him, and can’t help how his body reacts. wow i’m sick

DekuMight: Father/Son? YES! I just want them both to be happy and together as a family!! 😭 As for the couple...Given the controversy surrounding it, and knowing I’ll cause negative reactions no matter what I say, I won’t comment. I want to keep things neutral and peaceful here.

ShieldMight: Ah college sweethearts💕 I love how David admires Toshinori so intensely. Toshinori most likely feels humbled by it, but also probably awkward/intimidated. It wouldn’t affect how and what he does, but when David speaks so passionately about it afterwards, there’s certainly that anxious fear in the back of his mind about screwing up and ruining the perfect image David has in mind for him. I do love their dynamic and want to see more of them.

NanaMight(?): I prefer seeing them as mother/son. I see their relationship as a mother taking in a child just a little older than her own son, and raising him to be the hero that can save everyone, including the son she can’t. I imagine she sees him as “weird” considering his conviction at such a young age, but also inspired by him as well. Toshinori most likely is incredulous a hero would even listen to somebody a nobody like him. He’d inspire to do better every day, proving himself to her and expressing his appreciation at being listened to, considered, cared for.

EndMight: Ooooh another guilty pleasure. They’re rivals, Endeavor most likely holding some form of hatred for All Might, while also respecting the power the man holds. All Might having nothing against Endeavor, except how aggressive he is about being better than him. Endeavor completely shocked and confused at All Might’s sickly body, and perhaps secretly terrified at realizing the weight of the responsibility on his shoulders. All Might ashamed of his body, especially around his rival who always hated him for his strength. He’s unsure how to act around Endeavor now, weak and slowly dying. Endeavor demands answers, and lets himself enjoy dominating All Might, something no one’s had the pleasure of doing before. All Might submits, lets him feel in control and regain his confidence. All Might doesn’t take crap though, and makes sure Endeavor knows that as he lets Endeavor have his way with his ruined body.  💦

[paper--moons]

Regressor!Yagi Headcanons

(with cg!Inko)

Self-sacrificing in every way, as the Symbol of Peace, he put off his regression for years. It wasn't healthy nor was it ideal, but he believed that he had to. So once he officially steps down Toshinori starts out with a pretty wide age range when he firsts starts regressing, anywhere from babyspace to twelve. This is mostly because of two factors. One: he doesn't want to slip at all. He doesn't have a cg, and it's a slippery and scary slope when you're all alone. And two: he has no idea what he's doing because he's been neglecting that part of himself for so long.

Despite this, he wasn't exactly seeking out a cg. It's not something he can so easily do, especially once his identity—his true form, rather—goes public. Trusting someone enough to be your cg is a big deal for anyone, but add the fact that they could expose that side of you to the media for cash? Makes it a bit more difficult to trust someone else with something that already requires a whole lot of trust. Plus, there's his underlying self-worth issues; why should someone take care of him when he can no longer take care of the world? Then he meets Inko, and suddenly understands where Izuku's heart came from.

The first time they meet is almost bad. Not only did he have to apologize on behalf of the school and explain the dorm situation, but afterwards once things calm down Toshinori finds himself feeling almost too relaxed. Inko reminds him so much of Nana that it has his stomach doing flips with the overwhelming sense of deja vu. Not just her appearance, but moreso in the way she carries herself—in how much she genuinely cares. He finds himself nearly slipping on the spot, but manages to swallow it down like he always does. They keep in touch after that, just to keep her up to date on Izuku at first, but they quickly find out they got along rather well.

After carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders since his teens, he finally cracks. It was bound to happen, but he hates that it had to happen while he was over having tea with her. And all over him losing his grip on his cup during a coughing fit, causing both the cup and his hold on his big headspace to shatter. Toshinori knows he should help clean it up, apologize, something, but all he manages to do is cry. For her part, Inko doesn't even worry about the cup and instead is by his side in seconds as her mom instincts kick in. She knows what the cry of a child sounds like all too well to not know what's going on.

Inko pulls him into a tight hug and doesn't let go until his crying dies down to sniffles. Once they do, she sets about dabbing away the blood from the corners of his mouth. She's all soothing, calming words and caring touches as she checks him over. "It's okay now, sweetie. It was only a cup. I've got you. It was awfully loud, wasn't it? Did that scare you?" And though it borders on rambling, she's clearly going over some sort of mental mom checklist. Toshinori can't respond though, suddenly the tiniest he's ever been under her affection and care. All he can do is nod and whimper—it was scary, but what was more scary was his coughing. The nod is all it takes for Inko to pull him in for another hug.

Needless to say, once he came back up a couple of hours later, Toshinori quickly apologized and excused himself. He might have even avoided her for a little while after that, fearing that she no longer would want anything to do with him, but Inko is stubborn. She makes sure that they talk about what happened, and she makes it a point to explain how it was perfectly alright as far as she's concerned. One thing leads to another during their conversation, and by the end of it she's offering to be his cg. And to his own surprise he doesn't even hesitate, despite feeling like he doesn't deserve such kindess.

From there, Inko arranges evenings for him to come over and regress. Together they figure out that Toshinori's actual regression age settles pretty solidly at about a year. They find out a lot of other things about little Toshi too. Like how he giggles at her airplane noises but won't open up for the train ones, or how his favorite animals are giraffes, or that nothing settles him down when he's fussy on a bad pain day better than a warm bath followed by oversized sweaters and snuggles. Things are so much easier when he's with Inko, and Toshinori can't seem to remember to worry about anything related to being the Symbol of Peace while he's with her.

[the19thduckpotato]

@allmightluver  I didn’t want to spam you and I figured a few others might enjoy this as well, so here is that fluffy dream snippet I promised to share.  <3  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Toshi made a soft noise in his sleep.  The arm draped about Izuku tensed for a moment, as if trying to protect the boy.  Then it fell away, no longer a hindrance. "Nnnu... wakeup....." Izuku slumped against Toshi's chest, sticky eyelids closing. One last dissatisfied grunt, and he lost the battle to sleep far quicker than he should have. Toshi unknowingly returned the grunt, but it was a pleased, almost victorious grunt.  He shifted, Izuku's weight settling against him.  Satisfied, his breathing evened out. Golden afternoon sun painted the wall over their heads.

. .. ... .... The child clutched his backpack, eyes wide and nervous.  The roads didn't make sense here.  They should have.  They seemed almost familiar but each time he turned a corner, expecting to see home, the roads turned unfamiliar.  Home felt farther and farther away the more corners he turned. Unsettling fear crept in.  He just wanted to go home.  He looked about for help, trying to quell his panic. Everything was glaringly, dishearteningly, unfairly devoid of people.  The world loomed far too large and the child bit back a cry of terror. One more corner Surely someone is here. Please please His sneakers pounded the pavement as he rushed the next corner, as if hoping to catch the world in the act before it shifted on him again. However, he had also squeezed his eyes shut, scared that this new corner would also look unfamiliar.  So he didn't notice the big kid until he thudded off of him. "The hell?" the big kid snarled.  Behind him, two other big kids watched as the first grabbed the child by the front of his shirt and shook him.  "Why doncha watch where you're going?!" I know you The child's blue eyes lit with fear, trying not to glance at his backpack. please don't please don't please please One of the other big kids yanked the backpack from the child's hands, ignoring (or enjoying) the whimper. "What's the lil nerd got?" "Comics!" the third remarked, barking laughter.  He held up one.  "Wondorous Woman?!  That's a GIRL'S comic, you lil dweeb!" someone please "You don't need to read this crap!" PLEASE The third big boy gleefully tore the first page off, a messy diagonal rip.  The child screamed angrily and swiped at him. "Oh HO, the lil nerd's got spice!" the first one sneered.  "Let's show him what we think of that."  He pulled one meaty fist back. someone please help me!

A small figure barreled out of nowhere and shoved the bully out of the way. A (very) young voice screeched angrily "YOU LEAVE HIM ALONE!!" A freckled face that couldn't be more than six years old scrunched up with anticipation  of coming pain and righteous anger. The face flickered, as if reality was glitching, being replaced with an older, more tired version of itself. Eyes of thirteen years old glared out, far more subdued and cynical than they had any right to be. Jaw locked, arms up to guard his face. Daring the boys to come closer. Another, stronger flicker, and the small body grew taller, more muscular, green lightning flickering around. Standing as tall as his five foot six body would allow, broadened shoulders yelling a silent get lost, anger contained for fear of injuring the attacking children. One last flicker, a blurry form glitching into being. Six feet tall, eyes glowing powerfully. Blue(?) wings drooping heavily to the ground, a lion's growling half-roar cut off with a choked gasp as the apparition looked at his hands. A final, somehow loud flicker occurred, and the boy dropped to his knees, his form hovering indecisively between the ages of thirteen and eight. Whh-- wuuh....

"What the hell?!?"  The first bully dropped the blond child and backed up, unsure how to react to this new threat.  Beside him, his cohorts threw the backpack on the ground (spilling issues of Wondorous Woman everywhere) and bolted.  The first bully, dismayed at being abandoned, pointed a finger at the blond--"next time, you lil punk.  Freak," he added then quickly followed his friends. The child turned about, studying this new person-apparition with naked curiosity.  One hand reached out--whether to help or just touch, he wasn't sure.  He didn't seem scared but merely waited patiently for the newcomer to decide on a form.

The flickering boy's wide eyes turned to the outstretched hand, his own hand starting to reach out. The eyes focused on the face attached to the hand, suddenly becoming wider and more uncertain. Warped sounds of stressed whimpers carried through the air around him, and he pulled his hand back, wrapping his arms around his head protectively and curling into a ball, hiding from the world around him, until-- Quiet. A child of five years old peeked out from behind his arms and unfolded himself, looking up with soft round eyes at the curious blond sunburst.

A young Toshi gazed at an even younger Izuku I know you and the ten year old continued to hold out a helping hand, this time with a dazzling delighted grin. "HI there!  I'm Toshinori!  But you can call me Toshi if ya want.  That was pretty cool what you did just now.  You look really str--" He paused, remembering a moment ago the little kid had looked like some avenging angel, enveloped in crackling energy.  But his hand didn't waver. "--SUPER strong!  Plus Ultra Strong!  How did you do that?  Is it your Quirk?  Is this your all the time shape or just what you're ok with right now?  Sorry," he added with a sheepish grin, "I ask a lot of questions."

The small Izuku didn't speak, just made a soft noise, big eyes still staring. He took the outstretched hand in both of his, pulling himself up.

Toshi felt a warm glow within, his sheepish grin growing back to that brilliant delighted smile. I'm helping someone! At his feet, the torn Wondorous Woman comic fluttered and he blushed.  "Oh no, hang on a sec--!"

Izuku reached down and picked up one of the issues that had spilled, opening it curiously.

"That's Wondorous Woman!" young Toshi exclaimed.  "She's amazing and powerful and she can fly--i think--and she has this Quirk that makes an energy field that traps bad guys and make them tell the truth and--" He paused amid his fanboy gush and blushed more, twisting one bang nervously.  "Well, -I- think she's cool," he mumbled almost defensively.

A pudgy little finger poked at a picture of Wonderous Woman, then a whole hand brushed over the smooth page. Izuku looked up at Toshi again and nodded, agreeing that she was cool. He wondered if the blond boy had ever heard  of his favorite hero. "...All Might?"

Toshi's brow furrowed, as if almost remembering some lovely dream.  Then he shrugged.  "Never heard of them.  That's an awesome name, though--did you make that up?  All Might," he said, testing the name out and unconsciously posing, fists on hips and chest puffed out.  "If I was a hero, that'd be a great name!  But..." He laughed lightly and messed his own hair up.  "I bet you'd make a great hero with that Quirk of yours!"

Izuku's face dropped, and he seemed to shrink into himself, mouth shut tight.

"You don't like talking about it?  I'm sorry!"  Toshi sat on the ground next to the little boy, then hugged his knees to his chest.  "Is there something you do like?"  The young blond smiled cheerfully.

Izuku's eyes flicked around nervously, still not talking. He mirrored Toshi's pose, sitting down and pulling his knees up. He held out the comic, offering it back if Toshi wanted it.

Toshi grinned again.  "Go ahead, you can keep it--wait!"  He dug into his backpack where a few issues remained.  "Let me get you my favorite one--and it's not torn or dirty.  Here!"  He almost bounced in glee but instead contained himself.  "This one is super important.  This is when Wondorous Woman goes up against her arch nemesis--that's a super awful bad guy," he explained to the little boy.

Izuku leaned closer, interested.

"And he's kidnapped all her friends and hidden them away and he's fighting Wondorous Woman but making her think no one is coming to help." He remembered the first time he read this particular issue.  Hiding under his blanket with a flashlight so as not to bother his roommate at the foster home.  Scared of being caught and made fun of... but even more scared for Wondorous Woman.  Whispering tiny words of encouragement to his favorite hero with each page turn, praying she wouldn't give in or give up. "And just when all hope seemed lost," he said in a dramatic voice.  "Just when it looked like she was going to lose the fight, her friends showed up!"  His eyes shone, whether with love for Wondorous Woman or for her faithful companions coming to her aid or both, it was hard to tell.  "And they beat the arch nemesis and saved the day!" And everyone went home happy. Young Toshi ran a hand over the comic fondly then passed it to the little green haired kid.  "Here!"

The small boy shook his head, pushing it back gently. "Noo... yours!"

"It's a thank you gift!" Toshi insisted.  "Please take it."

"But..." He looked at the comic in his hands, brows wrinkling sadly. "S'your favorite... dun wanna take it away...."

"But it would make me happy sharing with you and maybe you'll like her, too!"

The boy made an uncertain face, cradling the comic to his chest. His face showed a hint of a flicker, and he breathed in sharply, reflexively clutching tighter.

Young Toshi smiled.  "Thank you," he said.

Wide green eyes stared back, as if to ask what comes next? What now?

Toshi gathered the rest of his comics and put them in his backpack... then held that out to the kid as well.  He quickly looked away before he could regret it, instead looking about for the kid's parents. "Do you want to go home now?" where is home?

Izuku took the heavy bag with a grunt of effort, eventually letting it rest on the ground. Okay, I'll carry it for you... it's kinda heavy though. He looked up at the question. "...What?"

"Home?  Where you live?  Your parents?"  He tilted his head at the kid struggling and shouldered the backpack himself, then held out a hand to the little boy.  "Wouldn't they be worried you're out alone?"

Izuku's eyebrows wrinkled more, genuinely confused. "Parents?" He wrinkled his nose, vague memories of green hair and soft noises floating through his memory, but not much taking shape. A...alone? Something cold and frightening started to scrape at his heart.

"They're big people that  love you.  They feed you when you're hungry and play with you when you're bored and take care of you when you're sick and--" Toshi's brow furrowed and he brushed his free hand over his eyes.  Then he smiled sunnily down at the little kid.  "I bet you have parents looking for you right now!"

Izuku shook his head, eyes sinking towards the ground. "No." He was sure without really knowing why.

"No?  That can't be true!  You have a great Qu--" His heart hurt to see the little kid he just met so sad.  He knelt down, squeezing the small fingers twined with his. "--what I mean is, if you want, I can be uh--" a dad?  Not old enough.  Family?  But they just met.  Brother?  Maaaaybe? "--we can stick together till we find someone, ok?  How's that?  Much nicer than being alone."

Izuku looked up wonderingly. Then down at the hand that held his. He stepped a little closer, leaning against Toshi in something like a hug. I like you.

Toshi was wide eyed for a startled moment.  Then the biggest grin yet spread across his face.  And some warm feeling glowed in his chest again, happy that the little kid felt safe around him.  "C'mon," he said.  "Lemme show you my favorite spot by the river and we can read all the comics!"

A small smile sprang to life on Izuku's face, then grew to a big grin. "Okay!!" He wrapped his arms around Toshi's neck, ready to be picked up.

"Oompf!!"  The kid's weight, coupled with his backpack, made Toshi stagger and he wished for a moment that he was stronger.  But the little kid's smile fueled his energy and Toshi proudly carried both kid and comics.

Little Izuku giggled, happily looking about from his new vantage point.

Toshi giggled too then wrinkled his nose as his bangs got caught in his mouth.  He didn't want to put his little friend down.  "Cou' you ge' my 'air?"

"Huh?" Izuku took a second to get it. "Oh, uh-huh." He pulled Toshi's bang out of his mouth and dropped it, wrinkling his nose and grinning. "Eeeeeeww."

Toshi laughed even harder, his heart swelling with joy.  He jogged along the river bank, trying not to jostle the kid.  "Yeah, eating hair isn't smart," he snickered.  "Extra not my hair--it's loooong!"

Izuku took hold of the other bang, looking at it intently as he bounced along. "Shiny. Like it."

Toshi blinked as the bang's end got in his eyes.  "Thanks.  Could you hold it out of the way so I can see, please?"

Izuku held it up above Toshi's head, still gazing at it and rubbing the strands between his fingers, fixated on how gold it was in the sunlight.

The pair trotted merrily along, soon at Toshi's favorite tree.  He knew he was supposed to put the kid down now but somehow, doing so felt like losing a part of himself. weird, huh? "Uhm," he said.

"Mm?" Izuku dropped the bang and started patting Toshi's head, smushing the floof.

Toshi scrunched his face happily.  "Kid!" he said, squatting down and letting small feet touch the ground.  "Thanks, I think?"  He felt his hair, a bit messier than usual but smooshed with love.

Izuku sat down on the ground, looking up at Toshi. His gaze drifted up towards the tree branches, and he laid down on his back, staring up at them and smiling. One hand reached up as if to touch them.

Toshi flopped beside him, grinning. home? And the grin flickered to confusion for a moment.  What? h o m e? He looked to the little kid he just met, the little kid who had saved him, and Toshi felt an overwhelming desire to protect this small person with his small but powerful smiles. He too reached one hand up toward the branches.

[saint-eridell]

A Silent Prayer (Midoriya Izuku/F!Reader)

I… honestly don't know how this happened. The words just kinda came out. I didn't start out intending to write a slow burn saga, but that's apparently what my brain decided to do with it. Might continue the series at some point, to be honest; this whole universe has its hooks into me.

Collab piece for @lemonlordleah-shinzawa-kitten​'s Citrus Dome server collaboration. 15k, completed, proofread, no beta. Pairings: Dryad!Midoriya Izuku/Human!Reader, Human!Toshinori Yagi/Dryad!Midoriya Inko Prompt: Gods Content warnings: Background character death, non-con (very brief, not explicit)

Read on AO3

Quick Guide (ctrl-F to jump)

Prologue

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

---

Prologue

Your village's clearing, while spacious enough to afford room for a small population, is essentially cut off from the outside world by the dense verdant wall that circles it on all sides. One of two paths out leads toward a well-maintained temple where the locals (and rare traveler) leave offerings to the Fae that populate the forest, and one leads out to the nearest trading post… which lies a week's away ride on a speedy horse. This clearing of hand-built homes and ancient looking shops is the only thing you've known. Your studies as a temple attendant began young, before you could even comprehend what you were training to do, and have kept you attached to the village with zero chance of travel.

That has suited you just fine so far. From what the hunters talk about seeing in the forest… you'd rather stay alive than "sightsee".

The first thing you're taught in your village is to respect the forest. Even the youngest of your people know not to step in Fae circles, or follow strange sets of eyes in the dark, or listen to any voices that come trickling out of the treeline on quiet nights. The Fae could be immensely giving, but they're fickle creatures on a good day and absolutely dangerous at their worst. Contact with any roaming Fae, regardless of the type or how friendly it seems, has long been banned among your people. Your job as an attendant, despite a common misconception that you have direct contact with beasts and monsters, is to maintain the temple, greet travelers, and meditate among the many gardens built within the temple walls.

Worship is a part of your daily routine. Each season you place the fruits of your labor at the altar. Every day you pray. It’s human nature, seeking answers from the Gods.

But you never expected one to answer… much less three times.

---

Part 1

The first time is after a terrible fire that razes half of the village during your first year of training. A roaming wyvern tears through the fields surrounding its back half in a fury, razing an entire cluster of homes and over half of the summer crops already suffering through a prolonged drought. The village finds itself in disarray amid the smoldering remains: one half wants to burn the temple in retaliation, seeing the wyvern as an omen that some Fae lord is on the warpath, while the other seeks to gather what remained of the crops as one final beseechment to whoever or whatever they'd angered.

Having just been initiated, your young mind goes directly to one of your first lessons: true offerings are of the heart. In your barely school age mind, that means offering something that means a lot to you. After some consideration you narrow it down - your favorite doll, a gift from a mother you never had the chance to know - and take it to the temple. You find a quiet altar to lay the doll down upon, and as soon as you find your knees to begin praying before it you catch sight of a boy hovering behind the marble pedestal.

His head is wrapped in emerald linen, but it rounds off enough to suggest there's densely packed hair underneath. A single curl peeks out at the center of his forehead, somehow even deeper than the rich dyed fabric over it, its point resting between huge green eyes that seem to peer right down to your very soul. It would be eerie if he wasn't smiling at you with a gap where one tooth should be, a bright beam of sunshine in an otherwise rather gloomy marble-lined room.

"Is that a doll?" he asks, and his voice chirps with the same excitement of the first few birds that poke out of the melting winter snow. You nod, frozen with trained hesitation that wars with your naive curiosity - he doesn't look familiar, nor does he look like the child of anyone who had recently come through the village. But he doesn't look dangerous to you. He's barely as tall as you, and he smiles too nice to be a threat… right? 

You open your mouth to call for your matron but the boy holds both hands up suddenly, his eyes somehow widening even further with a bolt of fear. "Wait," he whispers. "I'm not supposed to be here. I heard people praying and snuck away from my mother." He tilts his head. "Did you sneak away from your mom, too?"

You shake your head in response. "I live here," you explain quietly, matching his hushed tone. "I'll work in the temple one day. I came here to offer my doll so our fields will come back."

The boy's face splits into a grin. "Does that mean I'll get to see you again?"

You aren't given time to answer: a sharp voice echoes into the room from somewhere beyond the open door, growing louder by the second as someone approaches. You turn your head to listen until a quiet shuffling brings your attention back to the boy, who's moved around the altar and taken the doll in one hand. He quickly tugs off the linen wrap covering his head and thrusts it toward you. You struggle to grasp it, shocked by a pair of tiny antler nubs that poke through the curls on the top of the boy’s head... or Fae’s rather. There’s no mistaking the point of his upper ears. "Here," he whispers urgently. "It's my favorite, so be careful with it. Wrap it around some ashes from your burned crops and bury it in the middle of the field." He waves as he steps back with another one of those beaming smiles, your doll clutched tight to his chest. "I promise I'll keep your doll safe. Maybe we can play next time!"

You blink, and as quick as he appeared he's gone. Matron Elspeth, a short and round woman with more than enough years in the temple to justify her limited patience (and the woman in charge of your temple training), appears behind you the second he’s gone. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she snaps as she grabs you by the upper arm and hauls you toward the door. “We’re convening the-

You dig your heels into the floor. “Wait!” you exclaim with all the assertiveness your tiny voice can muster. “I have something!”

The matron stops to glare down at you. You hold up the linen like it’s a prized tapestry. “A boy appeared in here and gave this to me. I brought my doll as an offering and he gave this to me.”

The matron’s brows knit deep between her eyes. “And you took it?”

You nod eagerly, but you aren’t prepared to see such a terrifying old woman blanch like she just witnessed a murder. She stops you both in the hallway, all sense of urgency abandoned, a wrinkled hand held to the wall as she breathes out a long, ragged sigh. “Oh, child,” she murmurs. “I don’t think you realize what you’ve just done.” She gives you a smile that’s softer than anything you’ve ever seen from her, and it’s disarming enough to have you stunned silent. Isn’t she supposed to be rapping you across the knuckles with her willow switch? “He was Fae, wasn’t he?”

You nod slowly, your excitement slowly twisting into pangs of dread. “I didn’t give him my name,” you burst out after a sudden realization - of course she’s worried, she thinks you just signed yourself away to the forest. What was the first thing she’d taught you? You wave your hands in front of you defenselessly, the scarf flapping back and forth. “I only said the doll was my favorite, and that I’d brought it as an offering. He said this headscarf was his favorite and that I should bury it in the field wrapped around some ashes from the crops and -”

“Eeeeeeasy,” Elspeth chides gently. She lowers herself to a knee to put herself on eye level with you, both hands wrapped around your shoulders. “You did the right thing. I wouldn’t have expected someone so small to learn our ways as quickly as you have.” She holds her hand out for the scarf and you hand it over. She turns it over gently, running her fingers over the seams with a pensive hum. “And you say he told you to bury it?”

“In the field, wrapped around ashes from the burned crops."

“And you absolutely did not give him your name?”

You shake your head fervently. “He didn’t even ask for it.”

Elspeth’s frown deepens. “Curious.” She rises slowly to her feet with a wince as both knees audibly crack under her shifting weight. You grab her arm to help her stay upright as she rests a hand on the wall once again with a low groan. “I’m getting too old for this,” she grouses. “You need to hurry up and grow already so I can hand off the robes.” Her wrinkled hand takes one of yours as she leads the way toward the temple’s main hall. “Tell me more about the boy.”

You go through everything you can remember - same height, pale freckled skin, lots of green curls, big eyes… “Oh, and horns,” you add on.

Elspeth stops you both at the end of the last hall. Several groups of people in various temple garb hover in the large foyer beyond, but your matron turns your back to them with both hands on your shoulders. She bends low at the waist to stare you down from only a few inches away. “Horns?” she hisses.

You nod, confused by the sudden change in her demeanor. “Tiny ones,” you reply. “Like when the young bucks grow their first set at the beginning of summer. I didn’t see them or his ears until after he gave me his scarf.”

Elspeth goes quiet for several seconds, her gaze averted to the throng behind you, and just as you open your mouth to question if she’s okay she’s steering you around and through the crowd with a purpose. “We need to speak to the temple Ascendant,” she urges quietly. “This is beyond both of us now, little one.”

---

Part 2

You hadn’t been approached by just any run-of-the-mill forest creature. If you really had experienced the entire moment (which the linen basically proved without a shadow of a doubt despite your own dumbfounded disbelief), you’d come across a young dryad. Or rather, he’d found you, which is an incredible occurrence in itself: dryads are known for being among the most reclusive of Fae, preferring to live in their heavily altered pockets of the forest where only their kind can survive. According to the ancient lore they’re protectors of a vast plane beyond the one humans live in, a vanguard of Fae hidden among life-providing vegetation and deceptively thick forest floor in wait for someone or something to come along and threaten their territory. The tomes in the temple library are filled with tales from “survivors” of attacks by wandering dryads, all telling of razor sharp teeth and sickly green skin and a heathenly worship of the old gods that on its own warrants avoiding them at all costs.

But in the whirlwind following your encounter with the young Fae, something becomes glaringly obvious: no one wants to talk about who had provided the linen that saved them all, despite it successfully bringing back their fields during a single earth-shaking rainstorm and assuring a solid harvest that would more than provide through the winter. All the villagers flock to the temple with offerings by the basket, but no one wants to acknowledge who had actually saved them. That reality sticks with you like a sharp thorn, as does the dryad boy’s hauntingly sweet voice as you grow older within the temple walls, your studies growing more intense by the year. By the time you reach adulthood, you’re actively involved with just about every aspect of temple life. You’ve grown popular among your fellow attendants and the temple-goers alike, even the ones who seem reluctant to be there at all. Your easy-going demeanor and disarming smile is able to diffuse even the staunchest of cynicism. You have, for all intents, and purposes, become the shining example of everything Matron Elspeth raised you to be. Nothing in this world makes you prouder than knowing you're on the way to earning her robes… and maybe, at some time in the future, the temple Ascendant's.

You remain faithful to your doctrine, but in the dead of night every full moon you pray that he’ll come back. You’ve had years to think about it: if you give him a “given” name, he’ll have to use that. It’s not yours, so he won’t own you. Dryads are attracted to beehives, presumably for the same reason pixies are attracted to berry bushes (an almost impulsive sweet tooth) so you’re ready with a clump of the temple’s finest honeycomb every time the moon reaches its largest point.

But despite your increasingly saddened prayers and offers over the years, no sign of him or any other dryads appear. There are rumors of the occasional peculiar looking traveler with big green eyes, but your temple work prevents you from wandering into the village unless it’s on a designated supply pickup day. Elspeth tells you to forget him and focus on your studies every time she catches you quietly moping: “We can’t have our future Ascendant being wooed away by some doe-eyed boy, regardless of if he’s human or not.”

On the evening after your confirmation and the following party, once you’ve returned from the village and gathered up your usual prayer supplies, you make your way to your favorite altar in the temple as the moon finds its highest point in the sky above. The room’s roof has been removed to give a full view of the sky for astral worship, but you prefer it for the way it allows moonlight to fill the center with a skirt of fading dark that swallows the edges of the room. It’s easier to focus here, to lay yourself bare before whatever force that lays beyond the clearing’s edge and let it speak through the beams of light emanating from above.

Elspeth disapproves of your “fixation”, but doesn't argue back when you request privacy for the rest of the evening. Your birthday this present is in the form of your matron keeping all wandering staff away from your prayer room, and that seems perfectly fair to you. You’ve already made plans to repay her empathy with a few of her favorite lemon pastries.

You lay out the contents of the basket hanging from your arm across the marble altar’s polished surface: green and gold candles, several lengths of high quality gold pendant chain, a large bowl of fresh, sticky honeycomb and an ornate goblet full of a rare winterberry mead you were given by the lead hunter’s son (“For the day you get free of that prison and decide to marry”, he’d boasted... his mistake, you’re keeping the mead and he can choke on the cork).

In the center goes a hand-sized velvet pillow upon which you set an emerald big enough to fill your palm. It had taken three years to save up enough for it, but in your eyes it’s the best thing you’ve ever bought. The moonlight dancing off the lines of the gem’s depths flicker and dance exactly like the Fae’s eyes had so many years ago. You pause to take in the sight, transfixed by the shifting planes that white themselves out before immediately shifting to deep green and then to inky black when you tilt your head.

A slight breeze rattling through the room snaps you from your reverie. You glance upward where the moon hangs directly overhead, a wide white circle set deep into an array of scattered stars and inky skyspace beyond. A vivid memory of pale skin dotted with freckles flashes across your mind’s eye and you have to force yourself to redirect to the present, shaking your head hard as the breeze fades away. “Focus,” you murmur to yourself. You don’t have long before the moon will move away from the center of the open roof.

Once the candles are lit, several cones of musky incense set into miniature cauldrons come next, wisps of pungent smoke permeating every dark corner of the room within seconds. You kneel before the altar once everything is in place with your plain white robes folding neatly under you. As you take your first deep breath, the incense fills your nose and drowns out anything beyond it; a hazy blanket hovers thick and heavy in your sinuses, even after you exhale.

This is an easy process for you. You've long mastered how to find your own meditative headspace through years of disciplined practice. You let the chirping of bugs beyond the temple echo around your ears, your breathing slow and light. You tilt your closed eyes up toward where you can vaguely tell the glow of the moon is strongest. "I have no crisis," you say in your head. "I seek no power, no glory, no riches. I only wish to see my friend again." A deep sense of peace radiates down to your bones as you let out a slow breath. The entire room comes to a standstill, even the wind seemingly reverent of your descent toward the lowest floor of your headspace. If you go any further, you feel like you could slip right through the floor.

"We're friends, eh?"

Your eyes fly open as a shriek tears through you, every semblance of calm shattered. You kick yourself backward and the cushion you'd been kneeling on flying forward to bounce off the ornate carving set into the front of the pedestal. You skitter in the opposite direction, prepared to take off running down the hall and find the first guard you come across, when you stop dead with your hands planted to the cold marble floor.

It's him.

The dryad boy is standing in the same spot he'd appeared in last time, smiling at you with that same beaming grin. Or… it looks like him, at least. He's taller now, but he still looks to be around your height, maybe just an inch or so taller. It's obvious he's been up to something strenuous: his tunic sleeves cut off around defined upper arms, where you can spot an array of thin scars set into his pale, freckled skin. He's dressed in emerald traveler garb, a linen wrap identical to the one he'd given wrapped loosely around his neck, and as you look further up you choke on a gasp.

You hadn't been hallucinating all those years ago. The tiny antler nubs he'd been sporting before have grown fivefold and now branch over his head in tall, proud spikes that circle his hair like a jagged halo. He seems to catch what your eyes lock onto and he dips his head, a scarred hand reaching to clutch at the fabric draped around his neck like he wants to throw it up over his head. "I'm sorry," he says quietly, and you're immediately floored by how achingly familiar the lilt of his voice is. You've heard it in your dreams enough to know it's him. "I didn't mean to scare you that bad."

You push yourself up to your feet with an indignant huff. "Scare me that bad?" you grumble back as you dust yourself off and right your robes.

He laughs again, light as air. Your anger slips away at the sound despite your best attempt to hold onto it. You're not some shrinking violet, dammit. "I had to take the opportunity when it presented itself," he replies through a fond smile. "Couldn't help myself."

You huff your disapproval, which gets you another chuckle. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry," he says as he takes a step forward with his hands raised in a show of surrender. "No more scares, I promise." He fixes you with another beaming smile. "Happy birthday. I'm here now."

Your heart flips sideways into your ribs. He'd really heard you. But if he could hear you tonight…

"Why didn't you come any other time I prayed?" you ask before you can consider the implications of your query. You slap a hand over your mouth. "I'm sorry," you say quickly from behind your palm. "I don't mean to say I expected you to listen or appear, I just…"

The dryad fixes you with a concerned frown. "You just what?" he asks back without a trace of anger, which catches you off guard. "I'm not gonna cut your tongue out or anything. You didn't offend me."

You let out your held breath in one hard burst. Thank every god in existence. You pause, waiting to make sure he really isn't angry and just playing head games, then proceed with only a tiny tremble: "I just hoped you would."

Something akin to pain dances across his face and you immediately regret your admission for reasons you can't quite figure out. "I'm sorry," you exclaim again, but he holds up a finger before you can try to babble through a reason why.

"It's not easy for my kind to survive here," he says with a solemnity that draws the entire room to a standstill. "The air is too dry for ones who haven't acclimated to it. I'll admit, the first time I tried I got incredibly sick upon returning home." His gaze flicks to the span of marble between your feet. "But I've been practicing. I should be able to stay a few hours now." He finds your eye again and the sincerity behind them smashes into you like a cannonball. How could anyone ever say his kind are hideous? Is it the antlers? 

"If you'll have me, that is."

Oh gods above, below, and in gran's cookbooks. "Of course," you breathe back without hesitation.

His smile returns, wide and genuine, bright enough to narrow the room to just him alone. "I was hoping you would say that." He bows politely, his traveler's cloak brushing the floor as it sweeps back. "I'm sorry, I didn't have a chance to introduce myself before. May I have your name?"

A caustic jolt rushes up the length of your spine. Every hair on your body raises at the root as you cut a glare in his direction. Oh no no no, you didn't go through an entire childhood of Matron Elspeth's lectures to fall for his ruses that easily, no matter how hard he makes your stomach flutter. "No you may not," you say back with practiced ease. He sits up abruptly to give you another wounded look, but you're too on guard for it to work. "I'm sorry." You really aren't.

He huffs a laugh. "Fair play. I should have known better. May I have a name to address you by?"

You've trained for this your entire life. In no way is he going to get you. "No you may not," you say again. "But I was born under a sparrow's first nest." A meaningless fact that would at least lead him toward something you'll answer to without naming you directly. Elspeth is going to be so proud.

He hums, seemingly picking up your subtle lead. "Sparrow, then," he confirms. "It suits you."

You clear your throat as the collar of your robe shifts against your reddening neck. You can't hold eye contact and keep your flush contained so you opt for the former while your hands clasp respectfully behind your back. You're an anointed temple servant. You won't be reduced to a pile of girlish mush in your own temple. "Thank you," you reply with a polite bow. "And is there a known name I may refer to you by?"

"Deku," he chirps back. "You could have just asked. I'm not as picky with my known name as you humans seem to be."

You straighten up with a placid smile. "Can you blame me?"

Deku shrugs. "I mean, a little," he replies with an honesty that almost knocks you backward again. "I've seen the records humans keep on us. The way your "beastmasters" talk makes us sound like feral crypt monsters." 

You catch the bitterness in his tone and squirm on the spot. You hadn't meant any insult. "We've had a lot of people killed by dryads over the years," you reply as gently as you can. "And even more that have disappeared around the same time one was seen. The people here are just fearful."

"Fear doesn't excuse ignorance." His jaw flexes and your frame draws tight with tension. He takes a slow breath as he pauses, and his anger visibly recedes. "But you haven't taken off running yet, so I guess it's safe to assume you're not as ignorant as the others."

Your voice drops to a murmur when you respond. "I remember what you did for us. We would have starved the winter after that fire if you hadn't brought our crops back."

"Thank my dad for that. It was his idea. He couldn't make the trip himself, so he sent my mom and I with instructions."

The pieces click into place with a weight that knocks the wind from your lungs. Deku watches you ponder as he steps around the altar and perches on its edge. "You didn't just save us. You risked your life to do it. But… why?"

"Because you asked me to-" He plucks the goblet and gives it an appreciative sniff. "-And you brought a worthy offering to go with it." He sips the mulled wine with a deep groan of approval. At least the idiot who'd been hitting on you throughout the entire celebration has good taste in booze. "Winterberries?" You nod, and he takes a longer sip before offering you the goblet. You take it with pride as he traces his thumb over his lower lip to catch a stray drop (don't stare don't stare don't stare don't stare). "Gods, this is fantastic. I hope your meadery has put in offerings, because they deserve whatever they were asking for."

You go to take a sip as he continues his praise, but another bolt of anxiety keeps you from raising the cup all the way to your lips. This isn't a directly outlawed interaction (you can't recall a rule that says you're not allowed to share an offering, as far as you can remember); however, something still feels… ominous about accepting such an offer. Or maybe you're just being paranoid. The lore books also said dryads instinctively kill humans on sight.

His features darken at your hesitation. "I can guarantee that I've already got a tolerance if you just tried to slip me something," he spits out with a mix of anger and raw hurt. The venom in his tone paralyzes you with fear and for a long moment all you can do is stare at him with wide eyes. You swallow around your dry tongue as you struggle to formulate a disarming response.

"It's not like that," you finally say back with the goblet held in both shaky hands. You raise it for a prolonged sip and make a display of showing that you actually took a drink, which seems to assuage his anxiety as much as it does yours, the mead warming your throat and chest as it settles in a warm ball somewhere deep in your core. The Hammerbar meadery doesn't mess around with the efficiency of their products, apparently. "See? If there's something in it now you'll know."

Deku shakes his head. "Then let's hope it's just mead. I'm sorry. I don't think you'd do that." He turns away to pick at the honeycomb and pops a corner into his mouth, which is received with another appreciative noise from deep in his chest.

The conversation is light and easy from the very beginning. He's young for his kind with double your lifespan ahead of him, maybe longer if he "ascends" (a term that has you both laughing in solidarity as you commiserate on your respective mentors). After a good hour of chatting a silence finally lapses between you, the buzz of cicadas filling the space as Deku picks up the last chunk of honeycomb. You sit at the altar's base, just within touching range of the leg he has dangling over the edge of the pedestal, his eerie green eyes trained on you with the sharpness of a royal blade.

He's ethereal in close range. The air around him carries a drift of something wild and feral, like an inaudible drumbeat that thumps in time with your heart.

"Do I make you nervous?" 

That feels like a loaded question if you've ever heard one. He seems to pick up on your hesitation once again and tilts his head, his lips parted slightly around a faint smile that makes your heart skip a beat. "No," you reply, but it's a hollow projection. Deku raises a brow, a clear sign he caught your lie.

"Uh… maybe a little. You said it yourself, human understanding of your kind is apparently woefully inaccurate." Which bothers you a lot. You're one of the people responsible for interpreting every tome in the archive. How much else do humans have wrong?

Deku nods. "I know it's not very helpful, but we don't hate humans. The elders pity your lack of connection to wild magic, but that's a sentiment that's fading with the younger generations."

"And what do you think of us?" 

The Fae pauses, his head tilted askew as he ponders your question. You have the urge to take it back before he replies suddenly, his teeth flashing in a grin that makes your stomach flip and promptly fall into your feet:

"I don't care about other humans. I care about you."

You swallow hard. You're completely unprepared for the weight of his tone. It's all you can do to remember to breathe normally as panic and excitement go to all-out war. You're vaguely aware that you've been warned about this: Fae rely on glamour magic to conceal their true selves while among humans. The closer you are to one and the longer you spend there, the more likely you are to fall for it. This isn't him, you say to yourself in a firm tone. You're seeing a spell. And yet you remain rooted to the spot amid the molasses-thick silence, his emerald eyes transfixed on you like he's trying to bore himself right down to your soul. Logic is no longer enough to make yourself move, to speak, to do anything but watch him with deep fascination. Part of you doesn't want to move at all, and you're vaguely aware that your lack of fear should probably be some kind of warning sign.

He suddenly pushes himself off the altar and lands on his feet, cat-like and eerily graceful, his hand extended to help you up as well. You take it and are immediately shocked by how rough his palm is under your fingers. He doesn't look old enough to have gone through years of hard labor, but his hands tell a completely different story. You frown at your palms where they're flattened together, his weathered fingers draped gently around the side of your hand. He radiates heat like a stone dock in summer. Even with a foot or two between you, you have to wrestle down the urge to step closer and draw yourself into the warmth that surrounds him.

He leans far enough to get your attention and flashes you another dazzling smile (you're not insane, he can't feel even warmer now how is that even possible). "I have a present for you," he chirps. A hand disappears into his satchel and reappears a moment later with a long piece of rich emerald silk. You can't help but beam until your cheeks ache: the delicate gold embroidery along its edges is identical to what is on the linen scarf you've held onto for all these years. The delicate silk threads are woven into a river of shiny deep green that pools around your fingers in feather-light ripples. It's clearly worth more than anything you've ever owned and everything you currently own combined, adding an extra level of surreal that has your head slightly spinning.

"I embroidered it myself," he says, pride radiating through his words. He holds it up with an encouraging nod toward you. "May I?"

It takes your brain a few seconds to catch up with what's happening, but when it does you nod slowly. He closes the gap between you in one slow step and oh, you aren't ready for the scent of earth and pine that radiates from him and the crackle of something intangible that hits you like a mallet once you're nearly standing chest to chest.

The scarf is draped over your shoulders in a single flourish. He secures it in an ornate knot at your throat, his knuckles dragging little brushes of electricity across your skin as you do your best to stay still. Gods, whatever glamour he's using is powerful because he's absolutely breathtaking this close. The freckles you remember from so many years ago are still there, softened by the slight tan of his cheeks but still a pronounced constellation under his soft eyes as he smiles down at you with a mind-nymbing warmth.

"Green is your color," he murmurs close enough for you to feel his breath ghosting across your throat. Your heart flies upward and, on a whim you can't wrestle down, you reach for his hand once again to deftly slide your fingers between his. Deku jumps, clearly startled, but he makes no move to pull away or retreat. In fact, he gives your hand a squeeze in return that makes every hair on your body stand on its end. He draws even closer, pressing out every bit of air between you. Your interwoven hands are guided to between your chests, the breeze and ambient noise from outside coming to a dead standstill.

"I never forgot you," he rumbles, eyes half-lidded from the close proximity. "Not for a second."

"I dreamed about you," you whisper back, and the last few inches between you are gone in an instant. You draw in synchronized inhales as a surprisingly strong set of arms wraps around your back. Your own thread around his waist to clutch at the Fae and keep him pressed close with a sudden flash of desperation. He seems to be of the same mind: he kisses you with a ferocity you've never known, demanding and insistent enough that your lungs' cries for oxygen go willfully ignored. When you finally rip apart it's with another unified inhale and a wonble as the world spins on its ear. You can feel yourself grinning despite the shock still numbing out your brain. 

A Fae kissed you… and you kissed him back without hesitation. There's something unsaid in the room now and it hangs heavy in his stare, which has once again fixated upon you with trickles of gold dancing along the edges of deep green. You quietly gasp. You've never seen feral magic this close. Shouldn't you be afraid by now?

"Come with me," he breathes out of nowhere. Your knees just about give out from shock. What?

"I'm serious." He holds both your hands under his chin. "I can give you things you don't even know exist. Anything you want, I'll make it happen."

You gape back. It's the sort of dramatic offer you read about in children's books, but never in a thousand years did you think you'd really be offered something like this. "Deku…"

"I know it's a lot," he blurts out. "You've spent your whole life here and I would never want to separate you from the world you know, but if I can find you in the same spot twice I'm sure we can find a way to go back and forth -" 

Something in you decided the second he asked. There's no question what your heart wants. You press in again while he's rambling to cut him off with another firm kiss. Deku grunts into it as he's forcibly quieted before a hand gently cradles the back of your head.

You pull away with less ferocity this time and hover in his space, hazy with giddiness. "I didn't say no," you whisper, unable to bring yourself to speak any louder. "But there are things that need to be done in the meantime. I have duties here, Deku."

"We can figure out how to do both," he replies with rapidly growing excitement. The thin gold veins around his irises have begun to overtake the emerald. Your heart thunders as his excitement edges on feral. "Please just consider it. If you want, I can come back this same time next year and we can figure it out from there."

A year seems long enough to your addled brain. "Sure," you wheeze. "One year from tonight."

"One year." Deku nods furtively, but as he lets go of you it's obvious you're not the only one who hates having to do it. He looks to the floor, then to the darkest corner of the room where he'd appeared, then back to you with a smile too heavy for the ones you're used to. "I'll be watching over you. The embroidery of that scarf is kind of powerful, so I'd be careful wearing it around anyone or anything that might pull it."

You look to the fabric tied around your neck and your frown deepens. "What's that supposed to -"

Too late. By the time you look up again he's gone, and the altar in front of you is empty.

---

Part 3

You hold his promise close to your heart and don't breathe a single word of it to anyone, even your mentor. Elspeth would have an absolute fit if she figured out you're planning on not only leaving the temple, but running off with a dryad of all things. And besides that, she doesn't deserve the disrespect of knowing all her years of effort might go to waste. You can't bring yourself to face that very real chance just yet.

You stick to your studies and daily duties as your matron's hearth declines through the year, and nearly a year to the day since Deku's last visit the inevitable comes. Matron Elspeth passes in her sleep with you at her side, holding her hand while humming her favorite hymns until you see her chest rise and fall for the last time. She lived to a blessedly old age, but that doesn't help the fierce tear of grief that rips you open when she's finally gone. Elspeth was essentially your mother along with being your mentor.

And beyond that, if it hadn't been for her, you would have never met Deku.

You head up the organization of her final ceremonies, as is your place. Her pyre is constructed along the edge of the clearing's small lake, a neatly organized stack of wood and highly flammable fabric from the temple with a gap in the middle for her remains. You make sure to include clippings from her favorite lavender box as a final personal farewell.

The pyre is set ablaze with your own torch. This is how it has to be. It's how she sent her mentor off, and it will be how your mentor sends you off as well. You can only hope you've given her the honor she deserves, every decision you've made considered.

You make your way back to the temple alone at sunset while the other attendants remain behind. You need time to think. You've spent every quiet moment that day crying alone. If you don't get a second of true isolation you're going to break in front of half the temple. Elspeth wouldn't like that. You're stronger than your grief, at least for the moment, so you make a beeline for your preferred prayer room and let your feet move in that direction on autopilot, emerald scarf drawn up around your cheeks. You hold it close and will yourself to remain calm until there's a door between you and the rest of the world.

You're running by the time you throw yourself into the altar room and shove the door closed behind you. It lands in its frame with a thunderous BANG that muffles the broken sob that cracks from between the hands you have clutched over your face, along with the shuffling of a second person in the room that had gone unnoticed while you were trying to escape everyone else. A boot heel slides along the marble floor and you whirl around, eyes wide as you peer through the strands of summer dusk that pour through the room's open roof. Your heart flies into your throat with a burst of excitement. "Deku?" you call out, shaking with the urge to throw yourself toward the person as he emerges from the darkest shadowed corner.

But it's not Deku. Elation flips to horror as the lead hunter's son appears with a lecherous grin. He's still a good ten feet away, but you can smell strong booze radiating odd him in nauseating waves. "Why are you here?" you demand. "Only temple attendants are allowed in the prayer spaces alone. You need to leave."

"Do I?" he asks back derisively. Ice floods your veins with his first step. You instinctively shuffle back toward the door. "Because I'm pretty sure I can do what I want. Your temple wouldn't have food without me."

"Without your father," you clarify in a sharp tone. All manners have already been abandoned: this is not the day, and you are not the attendant to bother. You don't want to deal with calling guards or causing a cacophony. You just want to be left alone with your grief.

Your comment makes him clench his jaw. "Without." He takes another heavy step forward, and as he draws closer it becomes apparent how much of a size advantage he has. "Me." He takes another heavy step as your bones ice over. You want to take off, but you're terrified that any sudden movement will just propel him toward you faster, and you're not strong enough to shove the heavy stone door open without a few seconds of effort.

"You're drunk," you point out in hopes of derailing his train of thought. You can feel your pulse thumping hard and fast in your throat. "Go home and sleep it off. I won't tell anyone you were here."

"You think I give a shit f'anyone knows I was here?" he slurs back with increasing volume. "You fuckin' demon worshippers are all th'same, so far up your own ass you wouldn't know a good offer if it kissed you right on th'mouth."

A realization hits you like a brick. "Is this about what happened at my birthday last year?" you ask, using his off-kilter focus to your advantage as you slowly begin to step backward toward the door. "You pushed yourself onto me and wouldn't let me go until I kissed your cheek, then you threatened to drop me off the roof if I didn't accept your marriage proposal on the spot. Do you…" You cut yourself off. Of course he doesn't remember. He'd been just as off his head back then as he is now.

"I was only joking!" he retorts. "Why would I drop m'future wife off a roof? Thasstupid. Y're nuts for thinking I'd actually go through with it."

You successfully baby-step your way to within reach of the carved inlet that serves as the door handle. Just keep him rambling. You can hit him with the door before you take off. "And you're nuts for thinking anyone would immediately accept a marriage offer from someone who reeks like the bottom of an ale barrel."

You know the second you shoot off your mouth that it wasn't a good move. He tenses on the spot, both hands drawn into club-like fists at either side, his stony features pinched with disgust.

"You sayin' you're too good for me, bitch?"

He rushes forward, too fast for you to get the door more than a crack open before he throws a massive shoulder against it to slam it shut once more. You scream as he grabs the front of your robes, praying it echoes down the hall with your heels dug against the floor in a fruitless effort to prevent him from bodily dragging you toward the empty altar. He's far too strong to break away from. Your nails digging into his wrists seems to not even register, even when blood wells under them. "Let go," you plead, wide eyed fixed on the pedestal as he drags you toward it clawing and kicking the whole way.

Nothing seems to faze him. He forces your upper half over the marble pedestal with enough force to knock the wind out of your lungs. You wheeze under the weight of a forearm that presses hard into your upper back, reinforced by extra weight that's too heavy to roll out from under. You struggle the entire time, unwilling to stop, with everything in you that isn't trying to escape screaming toward the Aether for someone, something, anything to see what's going on and intervene. You've spent your whole life serving this temple… why would the Fae abandon you now?

As you flail, a small brown sparrow lands on the edge of the open roof and peers down directly at you two. It chirps once, clear as a bell, and the sound hits something deep and instinctive in your chest.

You aren't given enough time to ponder. He grabs your scarf from behind without warning and the knot instantly digs into your windpipe as he yanks the garment back in an attempt to rip it off of you. You sputter and flail your hands to signal for him to let go, to warn him of the danger that lingers in your head with Deku's last warning, but it's not enough.

You hear a piece of embroidery thread snap somewhere in his closed fist. A gust of humid air blasts across you and the weight above you disappears immediately, followed by a nauseating crunch of bones breaking amid the shatter of cracked marble. You wail in fear, clutching to the warmth that had drifted through you with both arms over your head as you sob into the marble. You can't bring yourself to move yet.

Where are you? You said you'd be watching out for me…

You finally force yourself upright once you begin to lose circulation in your arms. You wipe your face, sniffling quietly as you turn. You nearly collapse as a petrified shriek rips itself out of your chest: the hunter had been thrown back against the marble wall next to the door with enough force to crater it inward. His unmoving frame is slumped over in the center amid a splash of red that drips heavily off the jagged edges around him.

It isn't the wall that grabs your attention, though: his tunic has been ripped with several round puncture wounds arranged in a rough circle, the apparent source of the blood pooling at his sides. You tremble from head to toe despite the summer breeze coursing through the room. The longer you stare at the hunter's chest wounds and the way they're arranged, the more they begin to look like… 

"Antler wounds."

You smack a hand over your mouth like you'd just hexed someone. He really had been watching out… somehow. What kind of magic had gone into your scarf's embroidered edge? You run your fingers over it, seeking out the thread that snapped. The wind dies out in time for you to hear another set of feet shuffling in the room. It's almost too much; you nearly faint with the panic that latches around your throat. You sway back toward the altar to use for leverage as your knees once again threaten to buckle and are bolstered by a rough set of hands that press against your shoulder blades to keep you upright.

You're too strung out to do anything but gape as Deku - the real one, the same one from the year before with his antlers and freckles and big, terrifying green eyes oh gods he's finally here - steps around and immediately yanks you against his chest. You cling back with both arms circled tight around his ribs and let out another ragged sob into the soft fabric of his cloak.

"Are you okay?" he rumbles. You can only nod back and clutch him like he's keeping you anchored to the ground. You feel his head turn above yours, toward the cracked wall and what remains of the hunter, and a low growl vibrates through him. "I'm sorry," he murmurs. "I tried to get here as fast as I could." You feel his arms tighten around your upper half, boxing you in and insulating you from the sight behind him.

"You saved me," you manage to choke back. "You don't have to apologize for anything." You step back far enough to wipe at your eyes and clear your sinuses, trembling like a leaf in the circle of his arms. "What was that? What attacked him?" 

Deku's mouth draws into a tense line. "I can't tell you," he replies. "But I know someone who can." You blink, confused by his ambivalence. "Have you considered what we talked about last year?"

…What? "Of course I have," you retort. Your head hurts. Where's that spiced wine when you need it? "But I hardly think this is a time to talk about-"

"No no no, think about it," Deku cuts in hurriedly. "I don't mean this in a threatening way at all, but the people of your village are going to get suspicious when someone turns up dead with a set of puncture wounds to the chest."

Your entire body numbs out with panic. He's right. Your gaze snaps to the top of his head, where a set of now fully grown antlers jut out of his wild verdant curls. You begin to count how many points they have, but shove the impulse away with disgust. You don't want to know. Even if you did, it's probably for the best to remain ignorant for now.

Voices echo through the open roof from somewhere beyond, possibly the temple courtyard. "I have to go," he says with a hint of genuine hurt. "They can't find me."

This is too much. The decision to leave was always supposed to be planned out. You've had an entire year to get everything ready, only to have your plans shattered into jagged chunks of broken marble by a drunk hunter and some creature powerful enough to kill him with velocity alone. You clutch yourself to his chest again as panic grips your throat with white-hot claws. "We'll find a way to come back, right?" you whisper with a silent prayer of hope to the entire cosmos.

He nods. "I swear it on my name." He pushes you gingerly by the shoulders so he can look you in the face again, his own tense with mounting anxiety. "We have to go now, my sparrow. Please… I'm begging you, come with me. I don't want to go back without you again." His hands tighten over your shoulders as tears well up along the edges of his wide green eyes. "Please."

It feels like your heart has been ripped out of your chest and flung out through the open roof. You open your mouth to blurt out some pained apology for making him assume you'd say no, the voices outside growing louder and clearer in the pause, but can only choke around a whimper as everything you want to say jams in your throat. Instead you simply nod, a single weak incline of your head.

That's all it takes for him to scoop you around the waist again and drag you both sideways toward the corner where he appeared. "You might be kind of shocked when we get through," he warns as he hurls you both toward the marble seam you're convinced is going to split your head open on contact. "Hold your breath!"

The command is sharp enough to make your lungs draw in a deep inhale without conscious thought. Your eyes snap shut as your forehead approaches the shadowed corner; it meets only an icy wall of air as the lights beyond your closed eyelids pitches black. You can feel Deku holding you around the waist, an anchor that keeps you tethered to your own sanity as he rushes you through the dark at breakneck pace. The icy rush whipping against your face seems to deplete the lungful of air you're still stubbornly holding onto and within seconds they're screaming for relief. Deku smacks a hand over your mouth just when you think you're going to break and try to take a breath, and a second later you're both tumbling across the stone floor of an unfamiliar but warm kitchen.

---

Part 4

The second your head stops spinning long enough to see again, you realize there's a woman standing between you and Deku. You weakly recognize the faded emerald of the hair she has trimmed neatly at her shoulders. You glance her over and realize with a jump that the skin you can see around her modest summer dress is a pale shamrock green.

"By the gods, who's chasing you now?"

You blink from where you've landed in a sprawl sprawl against an ornately carved kitchen cabinet, too dizzy from the rush of air that fills your lungs when you take a greedy inhale to answer immediately (even though the question was clearly directed at Deku, who landed upside down with his long legs arched over his head against a stone hearth in a corner of the kitchen). You take another breath, but the bottoms of your lungs feel heavy like they've been filled with a thick gas. Deku slumps over to right himself and immediately looks to you. You're beginning to breathe faster as exhaustion gives way to panic.

The woman turns, fixing you with a look of shock that probably rivals your own. She's a spitting image of Deku, down to the ear points that poke out of her silver-streaked hair and the way her eyes go impossibly wide with genuine emotion. "You're human!" she exclaims.

You nod back, too panicked to form proper words. "Oh… oh, you're human!" 

She jumps into motion like she'd just been zapped by a bolt of lightning. She procures a large wooden bowl from a cabinet and fills it with a few handfuls of herbs snatched from dried bundles hanging over the hearth, then steaming water from a kettle that she carefully pulls out from its resting place in the coals. She mutters something in a lilt you can't follow as the bowl is set on the floor in front of you, the woman following suit to kneel on the other side. "Lean down and breathe through the steam," she instructs gently, tilting down to encourage the motion. "The air here is different from the other side. You need to coat your lungs before they start rejecting the pollen floating around."

You tilt forward with a choked noise of panic and take as deep of a breath as you can with the steaming water wafting up across your face. Relief finds you immediately: you can draw a breath all the way to the bottom of your lungs, which takes the edge off your panic enough to finally slow down your respiration rate.

"There you go," the woman encourages gently. She rests a small, comforting hand between your shoulders that's shockingly cold for how warm the kitchen is. "You should be fine now." She turns to give her son an exasperated look. "You brought a human back without giving her anything to prepare?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Deku pleads back. "It was that or risk an entire war on their side-" 

The woman holds up a hand to stop him and Deku immediately obeys. "Hold on," she says slowly, turning back to look at you with both brows raised. Her gaze drops to your neck and freezes. "You're the temple girl, the one he's been going to see."

The room goes silent, spare the crackling of the fireplace and your own rapid heartbeat. The older dryad watches, still as stone as she takes you in with one long look before staring at the fabric around your neck once more. All you can do is nod back. something akin to pain flashes across her face and she sits up with a fond smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but I think it might be best if you let my son explain a majority of them over some tea. You look exhausted."

My son. "So you're Deku's mother?"

The dryad wrinkles her nose. "Yes," she replies stiffly. "Though I very much dislike his chosen name. It's undignified." She turns to Deku again. "You haven't given her your name yet?"

Deku waves his hands in front of him and goldfishes for a response before you cut in. "It's not his fault," you quickly counter. "I didn't want to offer mine. I was raised in a temple that had some pretty strict rules against that in particular."

"Understandable. Though I can't say I'm thrilled at the prospect of my own son having courted someone for nearly an entire year-" (Courted, what!?) "-Without even having offered his name."

"I did offer it!"

His mother chuckles. "I have to fetch someone who will be of much more significant counsel than I, but that will give you two some time to settle in."

You nod in acknowledgment, but her words don't really process in your brain. Now that you're breathing normally again, exhaustion has begun to creep into your bones. You'd been going on fumes before the hunter decided to ambush you, and now that you've quietly literally been flung through a Fae circle it's hard to do anything but lean against the cabinet. The dryad brushes her hand over your shoulder as she passes on her way out. "My name is Inko" echoes through your own head with the contact, jarring you into a sharp yelp, which only makes her chuckle in the same light-as-air way as Deku.

"Well… this is a hell of a way to meet someone's parents."

Said dryad has found his feet and is watching you with a sheepish smile, a hand absently scratching at the base of an antler. "At least it's over now?"

Your head thumps back against the cabinet. This is too much. You need to sleep. If you don't find somewhere to lay down soon, your body is going to give out. "Could we just…" You glance around the kitchen and into the room beyond, where another hearth flickers around a circle of ornately carved wooden den furniture. Perfect.

He follows your line of sight and seems to catch on without you having to finish your request. He moves toward you, arms extended to help you to your feet. When you wobble upon standing he immediately seams your sides up to take a gentle lead toward the sitting room. The furniture all looks hand-carved, the seats made up of soft animal hides that look older than both of you. He lays you down on the longest bench with a small blanket under your head for a pillow, the deerhide that's draped over the back of the sofa gently pulled across you for a proper blanket.

"We can talk later." He leans down to press a kiss to your temple. You groan as he turns to move away, an arm shooting out from under the hide to grab his tunic and hold him in place.

"Wait," you plead quietly, fatigue tugging heavily at your eyelids. "Please stay with me, at least until I fall asleep." You have no idea where you are or how long you'll be out. All you know is Deku being gone means you're here alone and you absolutely cannot bear that thought.

A soft smile breaks across his face. "Of course," he murmurs back. "Anything you need, just like I promised." You scoot to make room and he steps over to fit himself between you and the back of the sofa without prompting. This is what you really needed: a space heater behind you, a fire in front, and a strong arm draping itself over your midsection to hold the knotted ends of your scarf as you both drift off. If nothing else, Deku has more than proven he'll kill anything that comes near you… or at least has access to something that can.

He's still there when you come to. The lighting in the room hasn't changed when you open your eyes to peer around, and it isn't until now that you notice neither the kitchen nor den have any windows. The fire has burned down to a low pile of flickering embers, which means you were at least out long enough to burn through what had been there earlier. With no view of the sun, however, it's impossible to tell how long you were out.

Your stirring rouses Deku, who grunts in his sleep and pulls you back into his chest. The arm cradled under yours has turned an eerie cold. When it registers you sit up to face him, concerned until it snaps into another bolt of shock.

You yelp and fall off the edge of the sofa. Deku's skin has turned a shade of green identical to his mother's, his freckles standing out in sharp contrast. He bolts upright as well, looking around for the source of the panic before he spots you on the floor, half covered by the deer hide you'd accidentally tugged with you. "What's wrong?" he asks urgently, glancing around again.

"You're…"

He gives you a puzzled look, then glances down to where you're staring at his forearms. "Oh!" His hands rub absently at the opposite forearm as his cheeks flush ever so slightly. "Uh… yeah. I told you you might be a little shocked."

Shit. You did it again. You push yourself up to scoot onto the end of the sofa near his feet, and he respectfully folds his legs up to his chest to give you room without having to make contact. It's a gesture you appreciate, but not one you (or him) necessarily need. You sidle up to his shins, where you lean your side with your hands acting as a chin rest on his knees.

"Surprised is more the word," you clarify before poking your tongue out at him playfully. "A little advance notice would have been nice."

"Hey now," Deku chuckles. "I tried. We had a solid plan going there for a minute." He reaches a hand forward and, with a twitch of hesitation, shifts a lock of hair off your forehead and behind an ear. His fingertips are ice cold, a sharp juxtaposition to the warmth in his tone and the care with which he brushes across your skin. "I'm glad you're here, regardless of how it came to be. I've thought of you every single day since my last visit."

How had anyone mistaken dryads for monsters? If the others are a fraction as kind as Deku and his mother, then they've been handed a grave injustice when it comes to human comprehension of their kind. You lean your head toward his hand and he opens his fingers. Your cheek brushes against his weathered palm, eliciting a shiver that courses down your back as the temperature of his skin clashes against the warmth of the den. For a long moment you simply exist, anchored by the green stare fixed upon your own and the callused thumb that smooths over your cheek. Whatever it takes for you to keep this kind of tenderness around will be well worth the effort. You've already decided (long ago, you silently realize) that he is the only one you ever want to be this close to you.

"Do I make you nervous?"

You're taken back to the altar room for a moment as you recall the image of Deku sitting on the pedestal, bathed in pale light with the cicadas humming behind his ethereal laugh. "No," you reply truthfully, hushed and reverent in the slowly disappearing space between you as you both lean forward. Both your eyelids lower as you both lean closer. It's a chaste contact when Deku leans in to kiss you, as soft as his tone and the way he brushes the rest of your hair from the side of your face. Within a few seconds, the soft contact is enough to have you melting against his hand.

A deep male voice breaks the reverie from somewhere behind Deku: "Ah, excuse us…"

This time you both jump hard enough to nearly land on your asses. Deku pushes himself back until he thumps against the arm rest of the sofa as Inko enters the room, followed by what can only be described as a mountain of a man with wild goldenrod hair and deep-set sclera black eyes, their vivid contrasting pupils locked directly on you as he and the dryad approach.

"I hate to be a bother and intrude on such a formative moment, but Inko was insistent upon checking to make sure you're both still alive." He bows his head in deep apology. You're startled by how easily he seems to hold himself level with the massive antlers jutting out of his hair; they're taller than his head and several inches wider on either side. As you force yourself to not take count of the antler points, you vaguely wonder to yourself how he fits through doorways or in anything less than giant-sized.

Deku rises to his feet, and you quickly follow suit. "Ahh, this is my father," he says quickly. "I get the feeling you two are going to be fast friends."

"If you're willing to risk traversal sickness for her, she's got to be worth her weight in gold," the man booms back. He approaches with a hand the size of a serving platter toward you, the deep lines of his face bent around a beaming grin you recognize on the spot. "My name is Yagi Toshinori. Don't worry, it's safe to introduce yourself to me. I'm not Fae."

You twitch your head to the side but take his hand to shake it anyway, suddenly flummoxed. "But the antlers…"

"A by-product of the life I've found for myself." He lifts an arm as Inko steps up to his side and lays it over her back. It's kind of amusing to see such a small woman under the arm of a moving mountain, but the care with which he moves about her is heart-warmingly familiar. "All by choice, zero regrets."

The two of them take a seat on a smaller bench in the den, and you and Deku take your seats once they're both settled. "The drop in is rough, eh? That ice tunnel is awful."

You frown back. "How did you find this place?" 

"I didn't find this place." He puts his arm behind Inko's neck, who leans into him with an appreciative hum. "I found my wife first. She's the one who brought me here."

You can't help but laugh, and mercifully the other three join in. "That sounds familiar," you reply through a chuckle.

"It happens less than it used to, but it's not unheard of," Inko adds. "I had a feeling my son would be following in my footsteps."

There's just enough flatness to her words that you squirm on the spot. "I hope that's not a bad thing," Deku says as he draws himself closer to your side. "Unless my logic is severely flawed, there wouldn't be a son to follow in your footsteps if you hadn't done it first."

Yagi lets out an undignified snort. Inko tries to frown, but it breaks around a smile as she nods in defeat. "All the same, I wish this hadn't been so sudden," she adds. "Not that I'm upset you're here now-" She holds a hand up quickly toward you. "-It was just rather abrupt. I wish we could have had time to prepare a proper welcome."

You glance down to your lap. "Deku saved me from something terrible," you respond quietly. "We didn't really have a choice in the matter." You look up again to offer the older dryad an encouraging smile. "Though rest assured he's been nothing but respectful the entire time I've known him." You bow your head politely. "Your hospitality is much appreciated. Thank you for giving me shelter."

Something behind Inko's eyes softens enough to make your heart twist. She watches you for a long moment, studying you as you do your best to not squirm. "The door has been opened for this place to potentially become your home," she replies to break the silence. "No need to speak of it as a foreign place. You already belong."

You feel Deku draw in a sharp breath. When you glance up to him he's hastily wiping his eyes on the back of his free hand. "Don't mind me," he chirps with a slight tremble. "This is normal. Been a crybaby since I was a sapling."

"You are not a crybaby," Yagi jabs back as he casually swipes a thumb under one of his eyes. "You have a heart."

And I wonder where he gets it, you think to yourself as you lean into Deku's side to comfort him.

The situation that brought Deku's parents together is so similar to your own it's almost eerie: Toshinori had been a well-known hunter from another village who found himself "lost" during an extended journey into the forest; in reality, he'd been lured away from the village so a team of rogues could take him out and claim his hunting grounds. He reached out for Inko, who'd already been coming around in a similar fashion to Deku responding to your meditation, and she answered by snaring the entire group in a wave of venom-thorned vines before sweeping him through a circle and away from the chaos. They were married within a year, and Deku came along a few years after that.

"It's oddly romantic, when you take out the death-by-murder-vine part," you offer to keep the mood light. All three of them laugh, especially Inko, who chortles behind her hand until her cheeks turn pink.

Something is digging at you, though. You can't let the entire moment go without at least trying to ask. "You said you're human," you repeat to Yagi. "But you also say the antlers come from magic. I thought we couldn't access magic."

"We can't," he replies casually. Thank goodness, you'd been incredibly nervous about broaching such a personal subject. "Not by default, at least. Humans haven't earned the right as a whole. However, sometimes things happen and the magic itself chooses someone who might be worth it." He nods toward the scarf tied around your neck. "Not just anyone can affect a connection through something like that. It takes something predetermined by forces beyond our control for that connection to be forged at all."

The air in your lungs evaporates. "So this was fate."

Yagi nods sagely. "Yes, as was me coming here. We aren't the first, and we won't be the last." He jabs a finger at Deku, who's taken to clinging to your side like a newborn bear cub. "His antlers, however, come from a direct blood connection to feral magic. He's full dryad, and it'll be even more apparent once he's eventually the most powerful one."

The world screeches to a halt amid Yagi's beaming pride. You feel Deku go very, very still next to you. "Um… I beg your pardon?"

"The Ascendant," Inko answers. "There is a thread of feral magic more concentrated than anything else recorded in our history. It chooses who it resides within, and whoever that force chooses is essentially the most powerful being in our charted world." She inclines her head toward her son. "And one day that will be him."

You look between the two of them, then back to Yagi. "So that means you're the Ascendant."

"For the moment. My time is coming to an end soon. I've served my purpose, so it's time for the next cycle to begin."

"You don't mean…"

Yagi's eyes go wide. "Oh no no no, I'm not going to die, dear," he booms. "It's time for me to pass along my power. I'm fortunate to have a successor in time, and it would seem like this little excursion is a good indicator he might be prepared for it."

"We don't know that," Deku cuts in, and it isn't until now that you notice how flushed his cheeks are. "It'll happen if it's meant to happen, right?" You lay a hand on his knee that's immediately covered by one of his own. He sags into your side in quiet gratitude.

Inko nods. "And it hasn't happened yet, so we won't fret about it for now." Her tone is soft, but there's a comforting finality ronit that effectively ends the subject for discussion.

You're given a tour of their house, which Deku fervently clarifies is not the place where he's lived for several years (Inko replies with a smug "And yet there's almost always a third plate at the table", which seems to be more than enough for him to take a back seat with his dad and let Inko lead them around). She walks you through the lower floor, where several cozy bedrooms are situated around a circular pit set into the floor. The center is full of a myriad of cushions and pillows in an eye-catching pile of patterns and colors all jumbled together in a space wide enough to fit at least three Yagis with extra foot room. "You can pick any of the empty rooms for yourself," Inko says to you sweetly before shooting a pointed look toward her son, who drops his head and shuffles anxiously on the spot. "But I ask that you remain in yours. I know you're grown, but this is my-"

Deku squirms harder. "Yep, got it," he confirms hastily. It's clear there's literally anything else he'd rather be talking about. "Can we start dinner? I'm starving."

Your stomach audibly rumbles at the mention of food. Yes, that's an excellent idea for more than one reason. When is the last time you ate? If you can't remember, it's probably been way too long. Yagi sweeps everyone toward the stairs with both arms stretched to herd them forward. You silently thank him with a smile as he squeezes your shoulder on the way past.

Four people working at once means dinner is made with a quickness, something you're intensely grateful for when you finally sit down to ea. Your stomach hurts from lack of food so much it almost hurts more to eat until you've got enough sustenance in you to level out. You see to the tableware afterward as Deku cleans what remains of the kitchen mess. The other two take their leave for the night with one last round of greeting, Inko's eyes trained on her son as she warns him about "straying past boundaries" on the way toward the stairs, her husband chortling the whole time.

You and Deku wait in silence until a door audibly opens and closes again. "Well," Deku chirps as he turns to face you with an equally cheeky grin. "I guess I'll bid you goodnight here as well. I'll show you where I live tomorrow, once we've both had a chance to sleep." He takes your hand and kisses the back of it with a dramatic bow. "Sweet dreams, my sparrow."

You snort and take your hand back, but not before giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. "Good night, Deku." His grin turns sly as he moves off to his own room, leaving you to find the smallest unoccupied bedroom for yourself.

---

Part 5

The next morning both Inko and Yagi see you both out, the former not allowing her son to leave the house before he's verbally promised to come by soon (and in a hushed whisper to keep you safe). It isn't until you're outside that the lack of windows is explained: the front of Inko's home is set underneath the roots of a gargantuan tree that juts straight up toward the sky in a massive straight line. You peer upward toward the canopy, but it's so far above the other trees the bare trunk is swallowed by the forest crown on all sides with no way to see beyond. The house sits at the head of a narrow trail with more angled trees visible down the road. "The sooner we get there, the sooner we can get settled," he reminds, offering you a bent elbow.

You smile and slip a hand onto his forearm. You take the short walk to his home in lockstep, Deku's skin cooler in the open breeze where it brushes under your fingers. The air is heavy with humidity and the chill of a light fog that hovers over the trail as you walk down it, bugs chirping and creaking from the grass on either side of the path. It's… idyllic.

Deku's house is almost identical to Inko's, but it's only a single floor and houses, much to your delight, a natural spring under the kitchen. He waves you toward it with a grin and something about a fresh tunic, but that devious little glint in his eye is back when he meanders off to change his clothes as you see yourself downstairs.

The hot spring is a deep pool in its own room with a shallow end that slopes up to the water's edge. The torch-illuminated rock wall behind it shimmers with a stream of water that runs down from somewhere above and down into the pool in a soft, trickling wall, next to a sitting area has been carved out of the rock to the right side of the pool. You dig out a couple of towels and a robe made of butter-soft material from a cabinet before ridding yourself of your dirty temple garb and every garment underneath it, your prized scarf folded lovingly on top of the pile before everything gets placed in a basket next to the edge of the pool. You can't bring yourself to leave the scarf somewhere out of arm's reach, and your robes are the last real thing you own.

The water is hot when you step onto the shallowest shelf, not enough to burn but definitely enough to pull a groan of satisfaction from you as you eagerly step in until you're submerged to your bare chest. Every muscle in your back begins to unclench themselves within seconds. You sink lower into the water, past your chin with a slow inhale and all the way down until your knees touch the stone floor of the pool. Everything goes quiet in a rush of water: it fills your ears and drowns out everything else but the odd bubble of warmth you've found below the water's surface. Your nerves balm themselves over for the first time since flying through the ring amid the trickling quiet. I's just you here, with no one else to drop another surprise on you. You stay submerged as long as you can before pushing back up to breach the surface with a satisfied gasp, your head clearer than it's been for days.

You wipe at your face to clear your eyes of excess water and the first thing you see is Deku hovering at the edge of the shallow bank, a towel slung low over his hips. You yelp and jump back amid a slosh of water, partially out of shock and partially to keep yourself from immediately staring at his bare torso. It isn't enough to stave off the newfound knowledge that he's built like a sprint courier and that he's very, very much naked under the towel. "Gods, you've got to quit startling me," you whimper as you swipe a wet hand over your face.

Deku laughs. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. To be fair, you were underwater when I opened the door."

You grouse back, but it has no heat. He's right.

"Can I join you?"

Your playful frown turns genuine. "I thought that was understood."

"You didn't say I could come close. You're vulnerable right now. If you tell me to stay out, I will."

"You're very polite for someone who's already stripped down."

His cheeks flush bright pink. "I was hopeful," he replies in an obvious attempt to be aloof, but it doesn't quite mesh with the way he keeps jerking his gaze away from the surface of the water (and, you realize with a bolt of mortification, a clear enough view of your naked form for him to definitely see). "But I meant what I said."

The urge to test him and see what happens flashes through you, but it doesn't seem worth the effort. At the end of it all, you do want him to come closer. You step toward him, willing yourself to keep moving as the water lowers enough to expose your chest. Deku seems equally dead-set on keeping his eyes raised, your flushes a matching shade of garish pink now and getting deeper as you come within arm's reach of him and offer a hand.

"Please?"

His hesitation snaps in an instant. Deku throws the towel aside and hurtles toward the pool, only giving you barely enough time to step aside and avoid the splash of water that cascades over you. He resurfaces and shakes his hair out before turning to face you, grinning from ear to ear. "Am I dreaming? Is this really happening?"

Given your own doubts, there's only one real way to tell. You take the initiative and glide toward him in two long steps and snake your arms around his neck. As soon as you're in reach he pulls you in by the waist and kisses the air right out of your lungs. You break away for a breath, but as soon as you've gotten it he tugs you again and the kiss quickly grows sharper with edges of teeth that clack together every time one of you readjusts your head. A hand pushes into your hair to cradle the back of your head; when you tilt into the angle of his hand he presses his tongue past your lips and all bets are off.

The delicacy with which he's touched you so far is gone. Deku kisses like he's been starved of contact for years on end. You give back everything you're given with enthusiasm until you're both struggling to inhale. A dam has been broken: every bit of excitement, fear, doubt, and loneliness that's eaten at you over the years rushes forth in a tidal wave and it's all you can do to cling to him and hope you're not going to wake up in your own bed at any second.

You finally separate with a wet pop. The both of you hover close enough to brush together as you struggle to regain some composure. Deku sighs quietly, his chest still rising and falling hard enough to disturb the water around him. "So I'm not dreaming," he says quietly. "Good. I dunno if I could have handled waking up without you again."

His admission wobbles around a thread of genuine hurt that has you pulling him into a tight hug, your arms wrapped around him tight. You circle your fingernails over the backs of his shoulders in lazy circles. "You don't have to," you murmur into his ear. "We're both here now." Which, wow that's a wild truth, but it's a truth nonetheless.

Deku clings back with his face buried in the crook of your neck. A silence lapses with only trickling water to fill the gap. There's no need for either of you need to say anything: there's a wealth of communication in the reciprocal drags of his nails, the tiny ghosting pecks he leaves under your ear, the little sighs when you drag your nails up toward his neck. You're more than aware of the fact that there's something hard pressing into your lower stomach that definitely isn't his abs, but your curiosity can wait.

He doesn't seem to agree. The pecks along your throat lengthen into full kisses as he settles above the thump of your pulse. A faint drag of teeth makes you jump and he muffles a laugh into your neck. "So jumpy," he purrs.

You give him a nip to an earlobe in retaliation. He jumps on the spot as you chuckle into his ear: "Who's jumpy?"

That seems to hit a switch. You're pulled up and out of the water in one unceremonious grab as Deku hauls you over a shoulder. Your yelp echoes off the walls but he pays them no mind, spare a wet smack to your bare ass. He doesn't leave you with any other real option besides being hauled out of the spring and up the stairs once again.

His room is somewhere deep in the house. It's impossible to ascertain exactly what anything looks like while you're slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, so when he shuts the door of a bedroom warmed by a crackling floor pit it's a bit of a shock.

You fully expect to be thrown down, but instead he braces you under the knees and neck to set you on an impossibly soft blanket stretched across his bed. He steps back, a look of apprehension on his features when they come back into view. "As much as I want this," he says as your sense of gravity corrects itself. "I won't touch you unless you want me to. That was rather… abrupt, and I apologize for it."

It takes a second for you to realize why he's even apologizing. The guilt twisting across his face is what makes it click: you hadn't told him to pick you up. It's your turn to frown as you lean toward him. "I'm not mad," you offer gently. "But I appreciate your apology. It's okay. I want to be here."

Deku's apprehension ebbs, but doesn't completely disappear. "You give me your word?"

You nod without hesitation. His smile returns immediately, radiant amid the firelight, and your stomach flips with elation as he eagerly closes the distance between you.

He settles low between your spread knees, a solid weight that keeps you in place without much room to breathe, let alone think. You're dizzy with the intensity, but you kiss him back with every bit of fervor you're given. Deku groans against your flattened tongues. "Can I taste you?"

You nod without opening your eyes and the weight above you slides downward. It's definitely for the best that you hadn't watched him move: a long, hot tongue drags up your slit and draws your back up off the bed in a graceful arc. He seizes you around the waist with a muffled groan.

He takes you apart with a ferocity that's almost scary. Sharp dives of his tongue punctuate the moments he's not wrapped around your core, alternating every time your wails start to get louder or shake apart. You grip at the blanket above your head for an anchor, but abandon it in favor of the verdant curls on top of his head when a cruel twist of his tongue has you pushing nearly all the way off the bed.

His name flying past your lips mixes with a weak moan from the juncture where his face is buried. "Watch the horns," he whimpers (gods, it shouldn't be so hot to hear someone's voice crack). "But do that again."

You tighten your grip obligingly. His head pulls ever so slightly against your grip when he returns to devouring you with a newfound focus. Something thick prods past your folds and you jerk your head up in surprise, but it's a critical mistake. You're afforded a full view of him with his tongue pressed flat to your core and two thick fingers burying themselves to the thickest knuckle and it rips you right over the edge before you can even draw a breath.

He coaxes you through it, drinking you down with your thighs wedged directly over his ears. When you can finally move them away, you're almost concerned you might have hurt him. But then he sits up, his chin shining in the dim light with a wet grin planted just above it, and there's absolutely no doubt he was just as into it as you were. Your own grin edges on feral. "You gonna stop there, or are you gonna take care of yourself as well?"

Deku snorts with an edge of derision that has you shivering. "You think I'm done with you?"

Oh.

He's back in position with one sharp swoop. This time he throws either leg over his own, splaying your knees wide around his ribs. A wave of self-awareness punches you square in the gut as he drags his eyes down the length of your exposed frame. "Incredible," he breathes. "I've never seen anything as beautiful as you."

You squirm, but will yourself to remain still. It's almost too much. There's so much tenderness behind the wild thrum shaking through him you're not sure how you even deserve it. Thankfully, his patience seems to run out just as your resolve to remain still snaps. He kisses you again as something thicker presses into you, drawing out a prolonged moan from both of you that breaks off when your laps settle together. "Hang on," Deku grunts hard against your lips. "N-need a second."

He's shaking under your arms where they're circled around his neck, but that could very easily also be you. "Yeah. Gods, Deku, you're-"

"Izuku."

The entire room goes still. He locks eyes with you, his own blown wide with only a ring of gold-flecked emerald left. Fear jumps across them while his throat bibs around a hard swallow. "That's my name. I just want you to have it. You don't have to give me yours."

Fear twists your heart for just a beat before it's replaced by a heavy warmth. You reach a hand up toward his face where it hovers just above yours, tentative and soft, the finger that curls his hair behind an ear ever so gentle. "Soon," you whisper back.

Izuku beams. "I'll wait as long as it takes."

Your lips crash together again, both of them curved upward around matching smiles. Izuku sets up a pace that keeps you close while still allowing him to take the lead and kiss the air out of your lungs, skin softly popping together with shallow thrusts without stopping. He has each hip in hand again with a grip that slowly increases with his breathing. Before long you're both panting into each other's ear, your head thrown back while he worries your throat with his teeth and grunts with barely restrained need.

"Won't last long," he rumbles.

You nod your acknowledgment. You've been a puddle since the second he laid you on the bed and took you apart like a prized garment. It's only fair he ends up just as boneless as you. You set your knees around his ribs to lift yourself into him, but both knees are pushed to the bed just as quickly. Izuku is watching where your bodies meet with a feverish focus. He doesn't seem entirely aware that he's got you completely splayed open but he thrusts hard and deep anyway, guttural noises punching out of him in time with the snapping of wet skin.

He finds an angle that seems to hit right up into your midsection and it's all over. He rips a wail out of you before your mouths are sealed together again, his pace unrelenting. You fall apart hard enough to make your entire frame quake under his grip, which has tightened enough to leave deep bruises where his fingers dig into your thighs. Just when it feels like you might actually have to tap out or risk going unconscious he thrusts in one more time with a sharp growl, then another, then a final one deep in his chest as he rolls himself into your hips and finally paints your insides white hot.

You're both trembling like leaves when he finally collapses on top of you again. You run your nails through the damp curls over his temples as he returns the favor along your hips, idle and tender despite the harsh bruises you can feel blooming along your inner thighs. Your breathing comes back slowly as you lazily kiss through the aftershocks, hands never ceasing in their wandering. It's a perfect feedback loop of calm and relief with only the fire to witness in the otherwise empty house.

As your breathing returns to normal you nudge Izuku up enough to meet his eyes. They've gone back to their normal emerald, the flicker of the fire catching hair-thin veins of gold. With the curved points of his horns looming overhead and flush-kissed shamrock skin, he should be some kind of intimidating. Instead, you can't stop staring at him. He's ethereal, more so than anything you've ever seen in any tome or heard in any story. He's real. He's flesh and bone and big, soft eyes and a heart entirely too warm for a creature who could take down minotaurs bare-handed.

And yet he looks at you like you're made of Faerie porcelain.

The corners of your mouth curl upward. You beckon for him to lean forward again and he does so, seemingly as transfixed as you. You pull him down so your lips can brush the shell of his ear and, after a ghosting kiss to his cheek, you whisper your name.

[echo-of-sounds]

first time having anal

Small headcanons about your first time having anal sex with Aizawa, Toshi, Hizashi, Fatgum, and Gang Orca.

This was asked about sometime in January. Sorry it took so long to get out!

Aizawa Shouta

Aizawa isn’t averse to anal sex. It isn’t some sex dream he’s always had, nor does it pique his interest. Compared to vaginal sex, it takes a bit longer when you factor in preparation before you can even start, then stretching you enough to make it pleasurable. Not to mention the health factors. That’s a lot of things to go through when you can simply have vaginal sex. That’s much easier for him. It’s also very pleasurable, so he doesn’t understand all the ‘hype’ around having anal.

However, that doesn’t mean he won’t indulge you. He’ll talk with you, asking what exactly it is about anal that interests you so. And, like any good partner, he’ll read up on the health risks and proper preparation.

Shouta starts sex like usual. Kissing, grinding, maybe some oral, then he fucks you till you orgasm. The more aroused you are, the looser you’ll be. From there, using your own wetness and some added lube, his focus shifts to your ass, biting, fingering, occasionally spanking if you ask. His rough fingers take a gentler approach. They edge in one at a time, fitting snuggly and stretching carefully.

For penetration, he’s going to struggle a little on slowing his pace. He’s so naturally hard. His body just does it. For this, he’ll let you choose the position. It’s best to ride him, allowing you to guide the pace and depth, staying relaxed as you move. His hips might jerk now and then. Dig your nails into his bicep to keep him still.

At your say-so, Shouta grips your ass, spreads them, and thrusts up. He’ll gain speed as you both adapt. He may also continue his spanking if you’re up for it. The slap of pain coupled with how warm and full you feel, your orgasm won’t be far away.

Yagi Toshinori

Most definitely, you’ll have to be the one to mention it. Toshi certainly won’t. His interests are more vanilla, and he relies on you to guide where you’d like your sex life to go. He’s never done anal. Unlike some guys, he’s never had the desire or fantasy to have anal sex. Vaginal is perfectly pleasurable.

Whenever you two try anything new, he usually prefers if you lead. But with this, and after reading enough information, he decides the best position would be you laying on your stomach, a pillow propping your hips up, with him straddling your thighs for slow, guided penetration. He worries if you’re on top, you may sink too deep, or the positioning would cause too much pressure, discomfort, and/or pain.

Just like with everything he does, Toshi prepares you so tenderly, fingering you while your mouths are connected. He’s still affectionate, cooing how beautiful you are, and sympathetic to any expressions and whines signifying trouble. He asks questions about every little thing, how you’re feeling, if anything’s uncomfortable, if you want to continue, etc… He just wants the experience to be everything you wanted.

The first few minutes he’s inside, he lays absolutely still. His hands rub along your back and sides, kneading any muscles you’re holding too tight. He gently kisses along your shoulders and whispers for you to breathe through any pressure.

And when it comes time to move, Toshi’s hands are on either side of your head as his hips lovingly and passionately thrust. They never bring pain. They never sink too fast. They’re perfect, filling you enough to moan and bite into the pillow. His warm breath on your neck is the little cherry on top.

Yamada Hizashi

Hizashi will undoubtedly be the first to mention it, probably before you two even start having sex. He just loves it. And he’s quite vocal about it (for better or for worse). Plus, he has the most experience. You don’t need to worry about him fumbling, rushing into it, thrusting too hard, or squicking out at any of the less sexy parts. He understands all the steps and how important they are. When you’re ready, he’s over the moon.

You’re going to have at least one orgasm before he even touches you there, most likely by him eating you out. It’s to assure your body is plenty relaxed. Next, one out of the plethora of anal toys he’s collected will be used to slowly stretch you. But since it’s your first time, he’ll recommend a simple, smooth silicone plug. It’s lathered in lube. You’re positioned on your back, also lathered, and he’ll gently work it in, letting you adjust to all the new sensations.

For penetration, Hizashi keeps you on your back, legs bent and open, sliding a pillow under your head and hips. He doesn’t need to see everything because of his experience. This also helps him when he talks you through his head entering, the sudden stretch, and weight, reminding you to breathe and relax your muscles. And this way, he can watch your body, rub your clit, and kiss you.

Hands softly stroke your stomach while you adapt. When your all set, Hizashi instructs you to move your hips, testing everything. He has you keep humping back and forth, barely sliding him out, until you’re good and ready to be fucked.

Once there, Hizashi’s thrusting into you in long, deep, eye-rolling thrusts. The faces and sounds you make when his thumb strokes your clit as he sinks balls deep in your ass are incredibly sexy and arousing. He wants as much as he can get.

Toyomitsu Taishiro

Taishiro isn’t a complete stranger to anal. He’d sometimes thumb his partner’s ass while in doggystyle or lightly explore there during oral. But penetrative anal is a different story. He has to prepare you remarkably well for vaginal sex. The endeavor of penetrative anal sex is a lot, mentally and physically.

To start, he lays you down and eats you out, giving you a solid two orgasms. He doesn’t want you to be too tired, but your body needs to be as loose and aroused as can be. His mouth continues, just lower, gradually wetting and easing the muscles. One finger, slicked in lube, edges inside. After you can experience that without discomfort, a second joins. Then a third. They spread and scissor you open because if you can’t take three, then you definitely can’t take him.

For positions, it’s more about you and where/how you feel most comfortable. He knows certain ones can stimulate some like crazy and have no effect on others. It’s all about you. Due to his size, the best ones would be doggystyle and you on your stomach. And it’s going to take a great deal of trust when he’s thrusting.

But before that, Tai coats himself in lube and gels you up as well. His head is the first big challenge. He tries to gradually push in, but it’s more like an abrupt pop. His girth is the challenge. He’ll kiss you through the gasping. Compliments and praises fall from his mouth in hoards, admiring how well you take him.

When you’re ready and moaning, Tai delicately pulls out and even more delicately pushes back in, watching for signs of pain. As the pressure disappears, he holds your hips to thrust at a better angle, just waiting for you to cum again, shuddering on his dick.

Gang Orca

When it comes to the most vanilla sex possible, Kugo’s already nervous. Size isn’t always a good thing. Sometimes it just leads to discomfort, cramps, and pain. For anal, the nerves are doubled. The main concern is him being able to move smoothly because the anus isn’t self-lubricating like the vagina. But to get there, he first needs to fit.

Kugo, bless his heart, goes at it like it’s some kind of work project. He reads. He researches. He scrolls through all the online smut articles there are to guarantee you’re as safe, prepared, and pleasured as possible. Remind him that it’s supposed to be fun for both of you and worrying nonstop, as endearing as it can be, isn’t always the best. It says something to just relax and take it slow.

After your support and trust, he’s finally ready. He feels the same as Toshi does. He typically likes you riding him, but when it comes to anal, he’ll lay you on your stomach, a pillow under your hips, and straddle your thighs. He doesn’t want you bent unpleasantly. This position also lets him watch everything.

Preparation will take a while. His tongue may start it if you ask. He won’t be able to deny your aroused, pleading face. It’ll lap around before tasting you, using your wetness and his saliva to inch past the muscles. It’s long and broad. It’ll wriggle fairly deep, stretching as he goes, waving along inside you, rousing numerous moans from both of you.

Because of his more claw-like fingers, he opts for a silicone toy to yield the muscles further. With plenty of lube, it pushes all the way in, needing to see how much you can actually take. All the preparation is ample to give you a few orgasms.

Following them, it’s finally time for Kugo to enter. Thumbs spread your cheeks open and he intently watches as his head bloats, strains, and then disappears within the ring of muscles. Despite how exciting it is, he won’t ever push all in, even if you beg. He couldn’t handle hurting you. But just a couple of inches is amazing, and he’ll do anything to assure you’re pleasured.