#and if i have a bad hair day (shockingly common when your hair is both curly and short) no i don't. i wear it messy as a CHOICE

[lightfromlights]

thinking about how yesterday a girl complimented my """shaggy cut""" and asked me where i got it done like bro this is Not a shaggy cut this is what happens when i have unrestricted access to hair scissors

[caffiend-queen]

Oh, I could just EAT YOU UP! A Holidays in Hel Loki-Avengers tale.

I was re-reading this the other day when I should have been getting my new book "Captivated" finished. I'd forgotten how much fun it was writing the Holidays in Hel series... If you're in the mood for some creepy, sexy (not at once, thank god) Loki Halloween tale, look no further.

In which Loki and Mina realize that no holiday is safe from the epic round of truly bad luck that the Avengers have when celebrating the most innocent of times...

***

“You’re expecting me to do what?”

Loki was lounging - elegantly, of course - against a pillar in the huge common room where the Avengers tended to gather when not on missions or getting patched up in the Medbay. He was sartorial perfection in a bespoke Tom Ford suit in onyx. Mina paused from shoveling the candy into one of the massive bowls to smile at him, a little misty with appreciation over his sheer beauty. Her- not her boyfriend, the God of Mischief and Lies could never be called something so ridiculous, her beau? Her partner? Her… Apparently, Loki had been speaking to her because he’d paused, looking at her peevishly.

“Sorry, Loki. I was admiring how unreasonably beautiful you are in that suit, but yeah... just pass out some candy to the trick or treaters? For the media coverage? To make you look... uh... caring?”

Mina said the right thing, of course. The fine lines around his glittering emerald eyes faded away. “Of course you were, darling. This is understandable. I shall repeat myself. You cannot possibly…” He picked up a violently colored package luridly branded as “Unicorn Poop!” pinched between his thumb and forefinger, the way one might hold a dirty diaper. “...Expect me to touch these vile things, much less give them to children?” Loki’s sneer was quite credible, but Mina knew he was posturing. He liked children, though he would rather cut his hair than admit it. He had been shockingly kind to Amelia, Mina’s niece, last New Year’s when her skeevy brother and his wife dumped their daughter in her’s and Loki’s laps and hoofed it to the airport for a Caribbean vacation. 

“The candy is hideous,” she admitted, “but this is the crap kids love now, everything is ‘unicorn,’ or ‘poop.’ Or the blissful combination of both.” Loki tossed the lurid sweet back into the pile in the bowl. “Tony got a tractor-trailer full of the stuff from this candymaker he’s doing business with. The man is some sort of real-life Willy Wonka.” 

“Hmm,” Loki could even make a humming noise sound deeply disapproving. “Is that the bizarre little gentleman I’ve seen Tony squiring around the tower?"

As if he knew he’d been called, Stark strolled into the room, skirting the cases upon cases of candy piled high around the room. “I gotta admit, Horo, this is enough candy to trick or treat the entire state’s population of kids into a sugar coma.”

The man with him laughed, more of a high-pitched giggle that was startling coming from someone as hugely wide and tall as he was. In fact, his height and weight ended up forming a perfect shape of a square. He was dressed in a top hat and a bright candy-colored suit, with tufts of purplish hair sticking out at angles from his top hat.

“Remember when you watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with me?” Mina murmured to Loki.

“Indeed,” he said, folding his arms, “this creature has managed to take all the most unpleasant elements of Sir Wonka and made them even more troubling.”

“Reindeer Games!” shouted Tony, “Come and meet another magician!”

Mina watched as Loki’s entire form stiffened. “Did he just refer to me as a… a magician?” Loki spat. 

“Uh, I think Tony’s already a vodka bottle in for the festivities,” she soothed. “Just ignore him.”

Nonetheless, she pasted on a smile as Tony led the bizarre creature over. Bypassing his host, the man whipped off his top hat, sweeping it low into a courtly bow. “Horatio J. LaDreamy at your service!”

They spent some time sorting through the cases of candy, Horatio holding up each one and exclaiming over its merits like parents with a baby picture. Mina attempted to go through the plan of having Horatio himself pass out the first round of candy for the media coverage. “It’s a really nice thing, if you don’t mind, Mr. ah… Mr. LaDreamy. And the kids will be so excited to meet you.”

“You’re just so scrumptious,” Horatio said, his voice hoarser now, perspiration dotting his upper lip. Leaning in, he held onto Mina’s hand, “I could just eat. You. Up.”

Her revulsion at this freak in his pink-striped shirt and his unfocused, glittering eyes was too great to hide, but his grin only widened as she yanked her hand away. “I have to…” Horatio was still staring at her greedily, and Mina backed away, “...go over… here.” 

She speed-walked over to where Loki stood with a look of profound boredom and a very nice glass of Lafite Rothschild 1999. Taking the glass from him, she downed it in one gulp. The tall, beautiful god looked down at her with the same shock and disgust normal people would reserve for murder, or terrible train wrecks. 

“You just violated that Lafite,” Loki said with deep disgust, “you just spat on it and threw it into the gutter of your untrained palate.”

“Don’t care,” Mina managed, taking the last bit of liquid in the glass, “I needed it. That man is a freak. A total weirdo.” He merely gave her his long-suffering, “Yes, I know this already” expression. “He just told me,” she said, still looking over Loki’s expensively suited shoulder at Horatio, who was now plying an unamused Natasha with an awkward-looking magic trick involving a deck of cards and a very long scarf he kept pulling from his sleeve, giggling with excitement. “He grabbed my hand and said the weirdest thing, he said, “I could just eat you up.” Loki’s eyes narrowed, and she hastened to clarify, “He wasn’t hitting on me, it was creepier. Like he really was hungry.”

Loki thoughtfully eyed the man, who’d somehow gotten tangled up in the scarf he’d been using for his ‘magic trick.’ “Some of the vilest monsters I have battled were quite benign in appearance. I shall examine this creature more closely.”

But really, what happened next was no one’s fault.

***

“Three cheers for… uh...  the… Candy Guy!” Tony was deep in his cups and Mina was just happy he was still standing, thanks to an occasional nudge from Pepper behind him.

Horatio didn’t seem to mind, smiling benignly down on the happy Stark Tower employees, most of them waist-deep in Unicorn Poop.

“Thank you, Tony, my dear friend!” He spread out his giant arms to the crowd, “And to all of you, thank you for helping me bring joy to the children! They don’t want boring old chocolate bars anymore! They want bright, sparkly candy that will make their mouths tingle and their tummies tap dance with happiness! To be honest, friends, I could not do it without you.”

The crowd chuckled, smiling up at Horatio while slipping fistfuls of candy into backpacks, purses, and bulging pockets.

“No!” Horatio said earnestly. “I really couldn’t! The sweetest and kindest among you will guarantee that the next year’s production of the Unicorn Poop candy line will be bigger and better than ever! More than double this year’s output and keeping up to with demand. I just need one thing from you to make every child in the world hold a package of unicorn poop in their chubby little hands.” He looked directly at Mina and smiled, suddenly showing many, sharp teeth. “I just need you.”

There was a violent pink explosion, cotton candy shooting in all directions and sending a spray of crystalized sugar into the eyes and lungs of everyone in the huge room, coughing and wheezing until everyone could catch their breath.

“Where,” snarled Loki in his most severe, stentorian tone, “is MINA?”

“Wh- I do not see Jane!” protested Thor.

Natasha circled the room rapidly. “Bruce is missing!”

Tony suddenly seemed to sober up. “Hey, has anyone seen Pepper?”

***

“Wh- where the hell are we?” Jane gasped, hanging on to a sagging Shanice from Accounting, whose heaving chest showed she hadn’t weathered the abduction well.

Mina, leaning against a candy-striped pillar for balance, pulled away as she realized the pillar was clinging to her hand like the creepiest possible taffy, as if it was alive, wrapping tendrils of its taffy-esque substance up her arm. “Yuck!” she whined, trying to peel the substance off her new black blouse. “If I had to guess, based on the shittiest series of holidays ever over this last year, that that psycho candymaker from hell has somehow kidnapped us and we’re in his dungeon… factory… purgatory… of candy.”

“Right you are, sweet Mina!” Horatio happily approached the group, not seeming to notice how everyone cringed away from him. “You are all here as my very special guests! As the sweetest, nicest people I’ve met this year, you’ve won the Golden Pass to tour my candy kingdom!”

“A Golden Pass?” Mina tried not to laugh. The situation was too serious, but she couldn’t help herself. Horatio was wearing a top hat that looked suspiciously like the one Willy Wonka wore in the movie. “You mean a Golden Ticket?”

“No,” he answered cheerfully, sampling a flower that appeared to be made of lime green nougat, “a Golden Pass is even better! It’s a super-duper big honor!”

Looking around, Mina tried to find an exit. Please god, she thought, don’t let the Oompa-Loompa ripoffs come out singing and dancing!

Because it was an Avenger’s Holiday From Hel, it was worse.

“Are those…unicorns?” gasped Sun Lee, the sweetest girl in HR, who was always making cookies and bringing them to work.

Everyone turned together and sure enough, a herd of alarmingly cheerful candy-colored unicorns came trotting over to them, making some sort of unicorn-type greeting. Not neighing, exactly. More like a mean-spirited giggle, Mina thought dourly.

“Here are my babies!” Horatio held his arms out, greeting one unicorn after another with a kiss on the lips. 

Mina heard a faint “Ewwww…” behind her, it might have come from Maurice in Promotions and Marketing, who was edging away from a unicorn insisting on nuzzling into his neck with the same enthusiasm of a date on Prom Night. 

“Uh, they’re really… I didn’t know unicorns actually existed, though based on this past year you’d think I’d be more open-minded,” Mina said, edging away from the cotton-candy pink horn of the equine interloper trying to snuggle up under her arm.

Horatio beamed at her, oozing charm and a weird kind of faux innocence as he nudged another unicorn - this one a swirl of lavender and baby blue - at Mina, bookending her with mystical creatures. “Come, darlings, I’ll take you on a tour of Horatio LaDreamy’s candy factory!”

Mina could see Darcie gearing up to give him the Stern Talking To, and caught her eye, shaking her head. She’d been gripping her emerald pendant like it was Loki’s perfect cock since they’d popped in to this candy-caned striped hellscape. He’d find them and save the day, like always. She just needed to get them all to play along until he showed up. 

And when he did? She was going to suck his dick like she was mad at it.

***

“Here we are,” Loki raged, “in the - as Tony has repeatedly and tiresomely claimed - the most secure building on the planet, and yet once again, my Mina has been abducted. Again!” He was running his hands through his perfect ebony hair, and it unreasonably made it even more full and flowing over his expensively suited shoulders.

“Thanks, Severus Snape, but remember that my fiancée and another twenty Stark employees also got snatched?” Tony was furious and embarrassed, which served to make him even more annoying. He was attempting to drum some discordant rhythm on the granite bar top with spoons, and it was so unbearable that the even-tempered Steve was the one to reach over and snatch the silverware from his jangly hands.

“Everyone calm down!” Steve was at his most stern and Captain-ish and Loki watched cynically as the rest of the - as Mina called them - the Spandex Squad immediately obeyed. His handsome, stern gaze turned to Tony. “Where did you meet Horatio? How is it that no one knows the location of his factory? Everyone needs employees. Can we track him through the IRS? How did he get the kind of tech that could move that many people at once? Loki, is this magic?”

Loki was pacing around the last location of the lunatic candymaker as he disappeared from Stark Tower with his Mina. “I do not recognize the energy signature, but it feels more as seidr than technology. But all seidr… it leaves a trace. I cannot find one here.” 

Thor was absently swinging Mjolnir, nearly braining one of the waitstaff trying to clear up the candy carnage. He was desperate to smite someone- anyone at this point. Loki glared at his brother after another close pass from the hammer. “Brother, do contact Heimdal and ask for his assistance.” 

“I shall do this immediately!” Thor roared happily, striding masterfully to the elevators.

“A good idea,” approved Natasha.

Loki sneered elegantly. “I contacted Heimdal the moment they all disappeared. He knows nothing. But it will keep my idiot brother occupied while we work.”

Rubbing her forehead, she allowed herself to look vulnerable, just for a moment. “Then how are we going to find them in time?” Looking at him with troubled blue eyes, she said, “I feel like time is ticking down to something. Do you feel it?”

Looking out the window as the sun headed to the horizon, the afternoon light sending them all into sharp focus, Loki fought down an unfamiliar sense of panic. “If one looks to most of the pagan legends, sunsets are often associated with human sacrifice.”

“You don’t-” the blood drained from Natasha’s pale complexion, leaving her sheet-white. She thought of Bruce, his gentle smile and his kind way with those smaller and weaker than himself. “We have to get them out of there.”

“I assure you, my ocharovatel'nyy ubiytsa,” he said grimly, “I am quite in agreement.”

***

Every holiday, Mina thought as the unicorn prodded her in the back with his horn, every goddamned holiday. Would it really be too much to ask to get Halloween off from the Avenger’s holiday fuckups? My favorite holiday? Her self-pitying thoughts were interrupted as Horatio waved grandly and the massive pink and lavender doors before them began to slowly open.

“You may ask,” he puffed, “how my candy is so sweet? So perfectly formed and flavored? How it can be so addicting?” He beamed at the sullen group behind him. “Meet my secret weapon!”

Mina gulped and she heard a shrill scream from Carla from Banqueting and Events as she passed out. It was another unicorn. A gigantic-ass, monstrous unicorn whose horned head nearly brushed the top of a room the size of an airport hangar. She was violent splashes of aqua, purple, and fuchsia. But her eyes were the blazing red of hell and when she opened her big, horsey mouth, she roared, a thunderous strike that hit the group like a fist, making everyone cringe and cover their ears. There was steam rising from the floor, which was liberally splashed with red and dotted with… bits of something horrible. And popping rapidly out from under her striped tail, were- Mina squinted. “Oh, my god,” she groaned, “is that unicorn poop?”

“An A+ for the pretty lady in the front row!” Horatio said happily, “Yes, this is my sweet angel and the producer of the entire Unicorn Poop line! Glow in the Dark Unicorn Poop, Candy Corn Unicorn Poop, Peppermint Striped Unicorn Poop, and Fudgy Center Unicorn Poop, though that last one isn’t selling the way I thought it would.” His mildly puzzled expression cleared as another giant pile of candy flew from Big Mama Unicorn to be separated and packaged by some listless robots in the bright candy wrappers. “Anyway!” he continued, “So my beloved is such a good girl, producing pile after pile of delicious treats, day after day, 24/7. But a girl’s gotta eat, right?”

“What…” Jane’s expression told Mina she’d already put two and two together, “what do you feed her?”

Horatio’s eyes glowed, “Why, only the sweetest and kindest folks ever! After spending the week at Stark Tower and getting to know everyone, I knew I was picking the sweetest, nicest people there! And it’s perfect timing,” his giggle was alarmingly high-pitched, “because my girl is hungry.”

Big Mama Unicorn let out a terrifying bellow, and all the smaller unicorn guards nickered in agreement as the humans huddled closer together.

Loki was still pacing the spot where that candy-coated monstrosity had disappeared, taking his Mina and so many others with him. He had some hopes that as one of the captives, Bruce, at least, might still have the capacity to shift into his larger, angrier form. But he could feel the energy behind the seidr the top-hatted lunatic had used to steal Mina and the others. It was demonic. Straightening his tie, he turned to the others. “I shall return.”

“Wha- hey!” Tony turned to the others. “He shall return? What the hell did Mr. Wizard just say? Where is he going?”

Such was the haughtier and gravitas of Loki, Prince of Asgard and Rightful King of Jotunheim that not a demon dared approach him, the hounds of Hel whined nervously and hid under the furniture as he passed, still sleek and perfect in his ebony suit.

“Oh, it’s you.” The woman, clad in an equally dark suit and a sullen expression was lounging on an ostentatious throne, made of the bones of thousands of different creatures.

“Is that any way to greet your dear, dear father?” Loki plucked a bit of something off his impeccable sleeve, flicking the offending bit away in a flash. 

If her black eyes had rolled any further back, they’d be wedged against her brain stem. “Let’s dispense with the pleasantries, Loki. What do you want?”

“A bit of conversation, darling.” Hitching his trousers, Loki sat gracefully on a chair made of human bones and sinew. “We’ve a bit of an issue at the Avenger’s Tower with abductions.”

She shrugged, idly poking at one of the cringing shades with the toe of her sharpened steel boot. “And this concerns me how?”

“Hela.”

The one word was spoken in a tone so low that the granite foundations of the Queen of Hel’s throne shifted slightly.

Leaning forward, Loki’s eyes flashed a searing green-gold. “Do not feign innocence with me. That vile candymaker could not have managed this level of power as a mere mortal. What was your bargain?”

Hela sniffed, tossing her long black hair over one shoulder in a flounce clearly inherited from her sire. “Oh. That irritating little man was constantly bleating about his unicorns and how they got… what was the word? Oh, ‘hangry,’ and he needed the power to move large groups of people to the factory to feed them, and-”

“What did you say?” Loki shot out of his chair, face even paler, “Feed mortals to... his unicorns?” 

Hela shrugged, “His tiresome obsession with those silly creatures… though the monstrous procreator is quite ferocious. She would be an excellent addition to my Helhounds.” She chuckled heartlessly. “Perhaps I shall take her, along with his pathetic soul when it is due.”

In an instant, her furious sire was leaning over her, so close that her throne tipped back. “If a single hair is disturbed upon my Mina’s head, I shall tie you to the hack of one of your beloved Helhounds, and create a seidr that will force him to run through your pits of flaming tar and leave you upside down beneath the surface of one of them. For your continued good health, I do hope no harm comes to those abducted from the Tower.”

For once, his daughter didn’t have a scathing retort.

***

It was hard to come up with a plan, what with all the screaming, Mina thought, dazed and jostling to keep her co-workers away from that giant fucking unicorn from Hel. I mean, it really does look like Loki’s daughter spawned it, she thought a little spitefully. 

She stilled for a moment, ignoring the prodding from the unicorn’s pointy horn wedging just under her right shoulder and shoving hard enough to leave a crater in her back. “That’s it!” Mina gasped. Elbowing past her pink and blue guard, she shouted, “Hey, Horatio! You’re wrong! You think we’re the sweetest people in the building?” 

The candymaker was busy trying to shove Mario from Accounting closer to the gaping maw of Mama Unicorn. Horatio looked over his polka-dotted shoulder red-faced and petulant. “You just hold right there, little miss! It’ll be your turn in a minute!” 

“I’m not sweet!” Mina tried to pitch her voice higher than Mario’s screaming, but it was close. “I have a mouth like a sailor, you asshole! I really didn’t like Aama here-” she pulled over her startled co-worker in the Developmental Science Division, “because she’d always steal the good lab coats and I’d end up with one of the acid-stained ones. I ‘forgot’ to invite her to one of the employee lunches-”

“Hey! Really?” Aama said, looking deeply wounded.

“Sorry, Aama,” Mina said, patting her back absently. “Anyway, I am not sweet! Also, if you saw the kinky stuff Loki and I get into? I’m gonna give that lavender pony from Hel heartburn!”

“I knew you two were into some weird shit!” gloated Darcy.

“Oh, please!” Mina retorted, “You wrote the book- hell, you wrote an entire Wikipedia on kink!”

Her eyes widened pleadingly, and Darcy caught on. “Oh, yes I did! One guy, two guys… once there was a wheel of cheese in the room and a duck, and…”

Even Mario had stopped screaming to hear this.

“Also,” Darcy continued defiantly, “I - I shoplifted some peanut butter and cigarettes from the bodega down the street because I forgot my purse…” She’d come back the next day with a batch of cookies, an apology and the money, of course. Also, the son’s owner really liked her and had given her the peanut butter and the pack of extra-long menthols, but that didn’t help the story. “I’ve drugged Jane’s sandwich before! More than once!”

“You did?” Jane gasped, “You’re- why? Why did you do that?”

Her best friend sputtered a bit, she’d done it to force Jane to get some sleep after working in the lab for three days straight. “Uh… because I’m jealous of you and I’m… uh… stealing all your research! Yeah!”

Jane was bug-eyed with shock for a moment before she recognized Darcy’s wildly twitching eye was a wink and not a muscle tic brought on by sheer terror. “I don’t care, Darcy! Because… because… I’ve been selling it to HYDRA! So there! And I cheated on my taxes! Three times!”

“I stole my roommate's boyfriend!” chimed in Sun Lee, though they’d been broken up for over a year and her roommate didn’t even care, but… she had to top the HYDRA whopper and distract the crazy candymaker while everyone caught on. “And I pulled the last shopping cart in the queue away from an old man who was trying to put his oxygen tank in it!”

Even Mama Unicorn had stopped that endless bellowing, watching with a wrinkled muzzle as the weird confessions got wilder and more offensive as each of the desperate prisoners started chiming in.

“I stole my mother’s wedding ring!”

“I cheated my way through college!”

“My family disowned me after I burned my grandparent’s house down!”

“I- I- I ATE A BABY!”

They all turned - even Horatio and Mama Unicorn - to stare at Kevin from Ground Security, who was not a super inventive guy. “Too much?” he asked humbly, wringing his hands. “But anyway,” he continued, “I’m gonna give that lavender bitch food poisoning, so HAVE AT IT YOU CANNIBALISTIC FREAK!”

“There’s no reason to be rude,” Horatio said repressively, “and you’re upsetting my sweet mama here, her nerves are delicate!”

“We’re going to make you puke cotton candy for a week, you one-horned psycho!” Mina shouted above the others, “You are gonna suffer, lady! And- and- and-” She smiled evilly, “Mr. LaDreamy, your candy tastes like ass. And now we know why. Your Unicorn Poop really is complete and utter shit.”

“Shit! Your candy is shit!”

“Everyone’s laughing at you and your weird turquoise friend!”

“Your candy sucks!”

“Halloween’s going to be canceled if this crap gets out because Manhattan will be covered in kid vomit!”

“That’s ENOUGH!” screamed Horatio, his purple hair sticking out in tufts. “You’re trying to distract me from our sacred purpose here, putting a smile on EVERY CHILD’S FACE AND I WILL NOT HAVE YOU-” He broke off, face almost as purple as his hair and wheezing.

And Pepper delivered the killing blow. “Mr. LaDreamy, I intend to file suit with the FDA regarding your use of hazardous materials and a deeply, deeply unsanitary workspace. I hope your mama… thing there has other talents because she will be paying for your fines into the next century. I am very vindictive,” she added with a dark smile, “and I love making little men like you twist on the hook like a gutted trout.”

Everyone stirred uneasily. This was essentially accurate.

There was an ominous, low rumbling and it seemed like the blood-soaked factory walls were closing in on them. Horatio chuckled, a mean little gurgle that sounded like a truly beastly child’s. “Hush, now. Since you’re not nice, sweet people at all, since you lied to me- Well, there’s only one thing to do.”

Mina stumbled slightly, was that rumbling getting louder? It felt like the pink and red striped factory floor was shifting under her feet.

“I’d planned on waiting until the new year to debut my latest line of sweets....” He smoothed down his ratted fringe of hair and put his top hat back on. “But it’s time, thanks to you-” he said spitefully at Mina, “to introduce my new brand, Devil’s Food Delights.”

There was a bellow. A howl. The combined sound of a million souls suffering and the sound rose and shook the rafters as something burst through the floor.

“Aw, goddamnit,” sighed Mina.

***

“Can’t this thing go any faster?” groaned Bucky, who was hovering over Loki’s shoulder in a truly provoking way, nudging him absently with his vibranium arm and making him yearn to send his own godly elbow into the Soldier’s face. The pleasant thought distracted Loki for a moment and the seidr shimmered ominously. 

“If you don’t take yourself to the back of the jet and stay there,” he snarled, “the seidr will collapse and we must begin again.” He studied the aggressively pink cotton candy tone of his spell. “Due north.” 

***

The Stark employees clutched at each other, trying to keep from toppling into the pit now spreading on the factory floor, an ominous red glow glaring out from the hole. The screaming started up again as a massive spider placed all eight of its horrible, clawed appendages on to the crumbled concrete and hefted its pulsating, plump black carapace out of the pit. All eight of its beady crimson eyes were focused on Mina, who found herself shoved in front of Dante from Armaments and Darcy, who’d started hurling packages of Unicorn Poop at the monstrous thing. This was, unfortunately, the thing that turned its attention to their little huddle and it began scampering over the ruined ground toward them.

Their rescue came - by cynical fate - from Mama Unicorn, who was not happy about her potential dinner being taken away. With another rafter-rattling roar, she hauled her huge pink and blue bulk from her corner, stomping toward Horatio’s latest creation, which reared back with a shrill, chittering sound. From the back of the spider came shooting smeared charcoal and fuchsia eggs. “They’re wrapped in licorice-flavored cotton candy!” Horatio screamed over the angry whining from the smaller unicorns. “With a surprise inside!” he cackled as one of the bundles writhed and broke open, a teal-colored arachnid pulling free from its spun sugar cocoon. 

A blast shook the factory as one of the outside walls exploded, various Avengers pouring through the dust to the rescue. Spinning two wickedly sharp blades, Loki turned in a circle, looking for Mina. He found her - of course - standing in front of a group of cowering office personnel and looking rather nauseated.

“Darling!” Loki was on her in an instant, cradling her face. “You’re not hurt? Whose blood is this?”

“Uh… I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s mine.” It’s not that Mina was not extremely happy to see her princely suitor, but she could not take her eyes off the supernatural train wreck happening right in front of her. 

Steve was turning right, then left, trying to figure out who to throw his shield at. Wanda was rearing back, trying to pull away her scarlet pulse emanating from her hands, while repeating “Ew! Ew! Ew ew ew ew ewewewewe!” Bucky had Darcy slung over one broad shoulder and was pointing an extremely large gun at random angry unicorns.

Tony’s mask came up on his suit and his angry brown eyes scanned the melee. “Who should I shoot? I mean, what the hell…”

Really, it was a toss-up. Mama Unicorn and Big Ugly Scary Spider Thing were tearing at each other- oozing lime-green blood and chunks of both being tossed into the air during the battle. Horatio was screaming at them, “Stop it! You will get along, do you HEAR ME?” But it was clear those two were having none of that nonsense. 

Ducking a flying bit of Big Ugly Scary Spider Thing, Loki turned to find Mina gone. She was writhing like an infuriated eel, trying to escape the surprisingly strong grip of Horatio J. LaDreamy, infamous candymaker and a man currently Losing His Shit.

“This could have been so simple!” he howled, “Your sacrifice would have meant the happiness of children all over the world! But no…” Horatio hissed the word, gripping Mina’s neck tightly and putting something to her throat, something scary enough that she stiffened. His maddened orange eyes met Loki’s. “But there’s always a backup plan!” He was chuckling, but it sounded more like gargling with a mouthful of tar. “You know the significance of the setting sun, don’t you, you insufferable Asgardian?”

Mina corrected from habit, “Oh, Loki is actually both Jotunn and Asgardian.”

“Shut UP!” Horatio screamed into her ear, “I will have my candy empire and if I can’t feed you to Mama Unicorn I will still close the deal with my dark mistress with a sacrifice in her honor. Ah, ah!” He pushed the thing - which turned out to be the tip of the currently disemboweled Mama Unicorn’s horn harder into Mina’s neck. “You’ll stand back, Mr. Friggasson!”

Loki’s hands gripped his knife handles, knuckles white with fury. If that candy-striped lunatic stabbed Mina with that cursed unicorn horn it was over. He knew there was no seidr that could reverse the effects of such a weapon. But with a casual flick of his fingers to the right, he very carefully began circling the two. “You don’t need Mina. Not when you have a god to offer himself in exchange. Come, now. Take the horn away from her neck. I shall drop my knives and surrender to you.”

Oh, Horatio liked that idea, he could tell from the creature’s excitable little wiggle. Mina was silently shaking her head, but Loki’s gaze darted right and back again. She tilted her head, nodding. And to the backdrop of the dying screams of Mama Unicorn and Big Ugly Scary Spider Thing, the candymaker began to rage about the unfairness of life. The excellent quality of his candy. His visionary status. And how cruel it was that Loki’s hair was more luxuriant and silky than his. But the time he’d started on how boring Loki’s ebony suit was next to his magnificently colored ensemble, the irritable god had thrust forward with three fingers and a crisp command: “forsvinn!”

Mina ducked. Horatio stumbled backward and fell on his ass in a rapidly spreading pool of taffy in violent shades of red and yellow. The tipped cauldron rolled back and forth in the corner. “Do not touch it!” commanded Loki as the other Avengers stepped closer, “You will never get free.” Indeed, the candymaker was on his back, kicking and squalling like an overturned beetle as the taffy spread around him in a viscous flood. 

Loki straightened his tie and put an arm around Mina as she handed him the unicorn horn. “So the guys have rounded up all our co-workers and they’re ready to get out of this candy-coated hellhole. But what do we do about the baby spiders and the leftover unicorns and him?” She nodded at Horatio, who looked he might actually be dissolving into his own creation of corn syrup and evil.

Pressing a tender kiss to her temple, Loki smiled unpleasantly. “It shall all… be taken care of. Come along, darling. I shall bathe away that disgusting scent of unicorns and perspiration from you.”

The lit-up monolith of Stark Tower had just appeared in the quinjet’s windshield when Mina stiffened. “Oh, crap! What about all of the kids coming tonight to trick or treat? We can’t give them the unicorn shit.” 

Natasha was flying the aircraft, but she looked behind her with a raised brow. “Do you mean the Unicorn Poop candy?”

“No,” said Loki and Mina together, and she heaved a bit. “It’s actual shit, Natasha. Unicorn shit. Big Mama Unicorn was pooping it out. Piles and piles of-” Putting her hand over her mouth, Mina turned away.

***

“Here at Stark Industries,” Pepper said smoothly, to the reporters clustered around the first group of costumed toddlers, “we’ve been concerned about good nutrition and the amount of sugar the average child consumes every year. So we decided to set a new precedent this Halloween by giving out toys instead.”

Steve and Bucky were tearing open boxes of Avenger’s action figures, stuffies, promotional t-shirts, and more that had been hastily pulled from the merchandise warehouse. Darcy and Jane were happily handing them out to the stream of children. 

“Thank you so much,” recited a five-year-old fairy princess, she looked down at the Iron Man figure she’d been handed. “Could I have a Loki doll instead?”

Tony yanked the doll away from her. “Here’s a towel, kid. Keep moving.”

***

“Where are we?” Mina gasped as Loki pulled off her blindfold. They were on a platform in a massive tree in the middle of a field, dotted with the last of the season’s pumpkins and filled with fireflies, lighting the branches and crisp red and orange leaves with a surreal glow. The platform held a huge mattress with many plump pillows and silky throws and blankets. A low table ran alongside the bed, piled high with bottles of wine and tempting platters of meats and cheeses, fruit, fresh-baked rolls. “And no sugar,” she sighed gratefully. She felt her skin tingle as he ran his fingers down her side and gasped as she looked at the delicate lace and silk concoction he’d “poofed” on to her. It was long, with a high slit in the skirt and a shamelessly low neckline.

“Spin for me, darling.” Loki made a twirling motion with one long finger and enjoyed the sight of his Mina happily spinning in her new dress. It flared out around her ankles and the twinkling light of the fireflies shone through the sheer fabric over the taut line of her thigh, the softness of her luscious bottom. Oh, how he loved her pert behind.

When she spun around again, Mina found Loki reclining elegantly on the bed, sipping a glass of wine and holding one out for her. “Come, darling. The dance is about to begin.”

“What dance?” she asked, gathering up her long skirt to make the awkward crawl across the slippery expanse of the cushions to relax against his long, cool body. Loki nodded to the edges of the field and Mina gasped.

Women, clad in black, walked from the cover of the surrounding forest to meet in the center around the tree. A bonfire surged up, lighting their serene faces as they began their song, moving around each other in a complex web. 

“Um, are we allowed to be here?” Mina whispered, terribly excited but a little nervous. She knew what this was- Samhain. Which meant they were in Ireland, which meant this was one of the most secretive and powerful of the ancient pagan clans. The women dancing ignored them and their luxurious platform, but it was clear she and Loki had been given a nearly unheard-of opportunity.

“Shhhh…” he murmured, and she settled back. 

Following the complex braid of movement was so fascinating that it took Mina a bit to realize that there were new dancers in the circle- shadowy forms that danced in and out of the circle made by their living sisters. “Oh... “ she gasped. The living and the dead twined back and forth as their song grew louder, almost a chant and suddenly the fire was burning hotter or something because she felt like every part of her was wildly overheated. She needed something to cool her, and- “Thank you Loki,” Mina moaned happily as he pulled her to her knees, resting that bottom of hers that he’d praised so often on her heels. Kneeling behind her, he pressed his broad chest and a very promising, prominent bulge against the small of her back. The chill radiating from him just made her skin prickle more desperately. She needed him! Why won’t he help her? 

“Patience,” Loki soothed, “watch the ceremony, sweet one.”

Mina blinked hard. The swirl of color and sound vibrated through her skin and settled into the base of her spine, spreading through her and making her gasp, pushing back against his hard, cool chest. Dimly, she felt his cool fingers spread her thighs, circling lightly around her wet furrow, the rough pads of his fingertips sliding back and forth, back and forth in a lazy way that made her half-insane as he circled her entrance, dipped lightly inside and moved back to lightly bat her clitoris. Finally, finally, he lifted her, the tip of his cock slick and wet from her.

“Put your arms behind my neck,” he urged, giving her shoulder a quick, sharp bite, enough to startle her into obeying him. The position made her arch her back, breasts thrust out as she strained to watch the movement of the dancing circle. Still, the women below seemed to ignore them as they continued their delicate dance between this world and the next. The heavy weight of Loki’s cock sliding into her made her clench down, enjoying his groan as it slowed his movements through her. It burned and stung a bit, just as it always did when Loki fucked her, but Mina relished it, craved it as part of the feeling of this god deeply embedded inside her. But the feel of cool lips suckling her clitoris made her let out a startled screech.

“Easy, darling,” purred Loki, lounging gracefully before her, examining himself buried inside her with interest. “I so rarely get to enjoy this lovely view as I take you. So sweet.” His diabolical tongue tickled her again, then lightly nipped one of her swollen lips. “Such a perfect, dark treat. And displayed so perfectly.” From behind her, Loki’s hands began toying with her breasts, pinching her nipples and pulling gently as the Loki below returned to his efforts, suckling her wet center, tongue stroking and fluttering along his cock sliding in and out of her channel. 

The sheer outrageousness of it - the intensity of two Lokis toying with her was too much and Mina’s head flew back, hitting his shoulder as she came. 

Trying to focus as the Loki below doubled down with chilly lips and teeth while seizing her bottom and moving her faster on his clone’s cock, she watched the night sky split, silver light streaming through and coalescing into shapes and shades of the Otherworldly.

“I have missed the play of nug-a-nug…” whispered one.

“Fadoodling they are, and so nicely…” sighed another.

“That’s putting the devil into hell!” shouted one of the more substantial spirits, and they all laughed in agreement, drifting lightly around the three joined together so closely that even the spectres could not see where one began or the other ended. But all the circling souls shuddered and sighed as the Lokis and Mina came together, glowing brighter and holding form for one perfect moment before fading into whisps again.

When Mina came back to some general form of awareness, she was wrapped in a velvety soft blanket, held in Loki’s arms as the other Loki waved down to the witches, still casually nude.

“Thank you for feeding our sisters!” called up the High Priestess. “To have them back with us again… our circle is complete. Farewell then.” She gave a sly wink to Mina. “And perhaps we’ll be seeing you again next year.”

Loki chuckled behind her, squeezing her gently. “There are so many haunts to explore,” he whispered in her ear, “enough for a thousand All Hallow’s Eves.”

Kissing his chiseled jaw, she said with deep satisfaction, “And no more creepy man-eating unicorns.”

***

Horatio J. LaDreamy sat in the smoking ruins of his factory, Big Ugly Scary Spider Thing and Big Mama Unicorn had torn each other to pieces and the resulting scuttle of remaining spider offspring being devoured by the few surviving unicorns. The acrid scent of burnt sugar stung his nose along with the strawberries and cream scent of unicorn blood covering his candy-striped suit. 

“How could this happen?” Horatio said peevishly.

“Because, you vile little man, you deserved it.” The smooth, cultured tone made him freeze in horror, and measured footsteps circled from behind him. Hela was strolling through the wreckage, hands on leather-clad hips. “How did you manage such a catastrophic failure in such a short time?” she mused, kicking at a severed unicorn hoof. “I did expect you back in my realm sooner than later, but even for you, this is simply pitiful.” Her elegant nose wrinkled a bit as she eyed his quivering form.

“B- b- but my beautiful unicorns!” Horatio wailed, “And my Devil’s Food darling and Mama Unicorn eating each other instead of those silly people! Hela, oh Dark Mistress, please-”

“None of that, mortal. Come along now.”

Horatio J. LaDreamy was a creature designed to strike terror into the hearts of the unwary, and a monstrous wave of empathy for the innocents he’d victimized slammed into him like a tsunami as Hela’s elegant hand rose, then clenched into a fist, tearing his soul from his body - leaving a withered, desiccated husk that collapsed into a pile of pink and purple dust.

***

Darcy lay on her back, panting and staring at the ceiling. “Holy shit, Bucky,” she wheezed, “if I knew getting kidnapped would turn you on like that I’d have done it sooner! I think I had an out-of-body experience on that fifth orgasm…”

She turned her head to look at him, he had his metal hand resting on his chest, still heaving from exertion.

“You know you’re some kind of sex demon with that tongue of yours,” she teased.

Bucky gave her a smile. Just a little one, a slight curve of those full lips that for him was the equivalent of tearing off his shirt and strutting around the tower singing “I’m The Man.” Then his head lifted abruptly, looking sharply in one direction, then the other.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?” hedged Darcy, trying to yank her undies up her thighs.

His blue eyes narrowed. “I heard something. Like a neighing sound- “ He was across the room before she could blink, ripping the closet door off its hinges. 

“YOU BROUGHT ONE OF THOSE ASSHOLES BACK HERE?”

A little mauve and aqua-speckled unicorn cowered behind a stack of winter sweaters, whinnying in fear as Bucky towered over it.

“Stop it, you’re scaring him!” Putting her arms around the petite creature’s neck, Darcy looked up at him, her big, big, brown eyes tearing up a little.

He looked between the unicorn and his girlfriend. “Darce- honey are you insane? Are you remembering what these little bastards were going to do to you? Why would you do this!”

Sniffling prettily, she hugged the unicorn tighter. “Maurice didn’t do it! It was the big ones herding us to Mama Unicorn, he was-”

“You NAMED it?” he paced back and forth, pulling at his hair and absently wishing he hadn’t cut it so short. “We can’t keep a- wait, what is this? A mystical or mythical, or-”

“Arcane?” she offered helpfully.

“Enchanted?” He paced some more, watching the tiny creature burrow into Darcy’s generous bosom. Sighing, he sat down on the bed. “You can keep it for tonight. Tomorrow, you have to take it-”

“It’s not an it, it’s a Maurice!”

“You’re taking Maurice to Banner for a full examination.”

Throwing herself onto him, Darcy chirped, “Okay. Thank you, baby! You’re the best…” She proceeded to show Bucky just how much she appreciated him, and their moans were so loud that even his keen Soldier’s hearing didn’t catch the vicious little chuckle from the closet.

[blazehedgehog]

I WILL CHOKE ON THESE SOUR GRAPES TIL I'M IN MY GRAVE

I left this open in another tab, meaning to watch it like a week ago. It's an official video published and promoted on the Youtube Studio dashboard, about common misconceptions around their recommendation algorithm and what the truths really are. .

And now, finally watching it, that white haired dude, Mr. "Youtube Liason", is the guy who told me the algorithm ignored one of my videos because "maybe it just wasn't very good."

Famously, and something I will never ever shut up about when given the chance to mention it, I put out a video about Jurassic Park games just before Christmas, expecting it to slot in and do decent numbers, just like all of my other videos do. Since Youtube earnings tend to spike around the holidays, this was going to be how I paid for Christmas presents that year. It was something I'd done at least twice before. Instead, the algorithm completely ignored the video because it was outside my usual wheelhouse of Sonic content.

This is shockingly relevant to the very first topic they cover: whether a single "off-topic" video actually matters with regards to how the algorithm sees your channel, and the general answer from the Youtube technician is "No." You don't gotta tell me.

When I put my full weight behind a video, it easily breaks 10k views, even 50k or 200k+ views. Some of my most popular videos have cracked the multi-millions!

So when this dude spells out in plain english that the algorithm effectively ignores one-off videos? Yeah, no shit. I'm living proof of that. Across the first two years, that Jurassic Park video struggled to break even 2000 views. Only by paying out of my own pocket for multiple promotional campaigns and constantly complaining about its lack of performance has it struggled to hit just over 5000 views, some four years later. The algorithm knew it was way outside my regular wheelhouse and treated it like poison.

And this liason clown had the balls to tell me "well maybe the video was just bad, sorry bud" only to, two years later, sit down with this technician that spells out exactly what I was knew was happening and was trying to explain to him.

Except now, of course, it's being spun as a positive: "don't worry, a one-off won't hurt your regular content" as opposed to the "we didn't notify anyone about your one-off and it became stillborn" I experienced.

I have sat down and thought very intently about this Jurassic Park video. Obviously, if I make a stink about its performance, tell people the algorithm made a poor judgment call, I'm going to get patted on the back and comforted that yes, the video is good. Don't worry. The mean old algorithm is just dumb. Right? And Youtube unflinchingly believes in the power of their algorithm as this perfect shining golden standard to drive viewership, the thing that can never, ever be wrong about guys like me.

I appreciate the comfort and support of friends and colleagues and even random strangers who are inherently distrustful of the algorithm. But I also know that feels like an echo chamber.

So then what, do I trust Youtube? Absolutely not. At the end of the day their algorithm still made an unfair judgment call and despite their claims above that any old video can get picked up by the algorithm at any time, my video has never recovered. I've tried more interesting thumbnails, I've spent almost $100 on Google Adsense promotion -- one of which, I should note, was the same week that Jurassic World 3 released, and the other being E3. Both should have been extremely lucrative times to run ads. And I got crickets.

I like the video. I stand by the fact I think I did a good job on it. I remain proud of it. It's as good as any real-effort-content I've put out in the last five years. The echo chamber tells me it's a good video, too, even if I literally can't buy views.

So my only recourse is to sit here and stew in my bitterness towards this algorithm. The shining, ultimate example as to why you should never let a computer make a qualitative judgment call. And I will be frustrated and angry about this until I draw my last breath.

[absolutelyfizzing]

unwanted feelings

james potter x reader

description - You'd had a crush on James Potter for years and when he kisses Lily Evans in front of you, you are heart broken. Later you find that he didn't actually feel as you expected and he explains himself.

warnings - some angst, unsure reader, fem pronouns, self doubt, negative self talk, not eating for a day cause reader is avoiding someone

word count - 2800

A/N - so this one isn't my best work by far but i wrote it so looks like its getting posted. i don't know why all of my reader inserts lately are so fem and sort of bubbly, i guess it's sort of what i'm aiming for for myself right now but i'm sorry if it maybe isn't coming off as relatable.

MASTERLIST

Your throat tightened in anxiety as you watched James zoom around the pitch. He was reckless when he was playing quidditch and it was one of the things that made him great at the game and an excellent captain. It was also the thing that nearly gave you a heart attack every time you watched him play. You went to every one of his games and you always wore something of his with his colors when you were in the stands. You were stood up on your seat and a slightly bored looking Remus sat to your right, reading from a book you didn't recognize. You'd thought that Sirius playing would be enough to keep him interested but sports was just not something he enjoyed watching. You were usually that way as well but whenever James was playing, suddenly you were the most intent spectator in the stands.

You were more worried than you should have been. More worried than what was appropriate for a friend to be. That's what you were, friends. That had been reinforced many times by the shaggy haired boy and you tried desperately to get it through your head before you embarrassed yourself one of these days. Sometimes though, you just couldn't help it.

Really you might have thought he reciprocated if you didn't know any better. You often got comments on what an attractive couple you guys were but each time it was quickly corrected by James. Normally along the lines of 'Oh god no, we are just friends. Purely platonic' , sometimes followed by a shudder or a gag even. It upset you every time to no end but you played along. You rarely, if ever, contributed to the shooting down of any feelings but that was never noticed by the man you had feelings for.

You'd had a crush on him since you were probably in your second year and now you were coming to the middle of your seventh. There were a million times that you almost said something but every time there was a reminder that you were not the one he had eyes for. It usually took the shape of disgust at the thought of dating you or commentary as he pined over the Evans girl who you felt you could never compete with. How could you when she was just perfect. You saw her to the left of you as she stood in the stands as well and your hands shook with insecurity before looking back toward the game. Your heart raced nearly as quickly as James did around the pitch and you prayed that the snitch would be caught soon so that you could get rid of the stress surrounding you. You felt a hand on your right shoulder and you looked over to find Remus had stood and was looking at you caringly.

"Are you alright, Y/N?" He asked softly and you tried your very best to soften your gaze and calm your stance so you appeared less concerned with someone that you shouldn't have that much interest in in the first place.

"Of course I am. When am I not?" You smiled before looking out at the pitch.

"When youre watching the guy you're in love with play a dangerous game that you don't like." He stated simply in response to the question you meant to be rhetorical and your eyes widened.

"I don't know what youre talking about." You nearly whispered and Remus smiled.

"I'm not gonna tell anyone Y/N but its not exactly subtle. It probably doesn't help that I know the look on your face because it's how I feel too watching Sirius play." He was still smirking but your anxiety was far from eased.

"Oh god, does he know?" You asked scaredly, terrified that the answer would be yes and you would have to stop spending time with him.

"Shockingly, no." You sighed out in relief but Remus continued. "You should tell him though or else he might end up moving on."

"What do you mean? There's nothing for him to move on from. Everyone knows he's in love with Evans and he has made it pretty clear that he is opposed to being anything more than a friendly relationship with me." You choked out, struggling with the words leaving your lips but knowing them to be true.

"I mean he has a minor crush on Evans but it's nothing compared to the annoyingly huge crush he has on you. He's probably just overcompensating for the fact that he's insecure and doesn't want you to reject him."

"Why are you telling me this?" You asked sincerely. You were friends with Remus as you were with the rest of the marauders but it was nothing compared to the friendship they held within their group. You knew Remus was more loyal to James than to you so you couldn't understand why, if it was true, Remus would be telling you at all.

"Because he is trying desperately to move on seeing as he is under the impression that you aren't into him and I'd hate to see him throw something away that could be really good for him." Remus smiled gently and you looked at him gratefully.

"I really appreciate you telling me and all but I just don't think I can believe you. I can't even count how many times he has made a big show of not liking me. I love him too much to ruin what we have and I know that if I confessed and it went bad that I would lose him all together. I would rather have him in my life in a way that hurts than not have him in it at all." You stated sadly and Remus sighed but nodded in understanding.

"I get it but just know that I'm being honest and pretty soon he is going to give up on it. I just want to see you both happy but if its too big of a leap, I understand. That's exactly the excuse he tells the rest of us too."

Suddenly cheers erupted from the stands, cutting your conversation with Remus off as everyone ran to rush the pitch. The snitch had been caught and gryffindor won. You were excited for James but you were also a little terrified to walk onto the pitch to see him with the now conflicted thoughts running through your head. Your thoughts were stopped by the image in front of you which was causing the whole crowd to cheer. James had pulled Lily Evans into a kiss in his excitement and your heart stopped. You felt nausea rise in your throat and Remus caught your eye with a sympathetic look. You didn't look at him for longer than a second and you ran off the pitch with tears streaming down your face. You found your way up to your dorm, pushing yourself to get there quickly before the common room filled with students celebrating their victory. James was always one to love attention so he would be getting crazy after the game which he did just about every time they won.

When you made it to your bed, you hurried under the covers, throwing the shirt you were wearing which belonged to James onto the floor. You felt your heart clench at the despair you felt. You wanted to be upset at Remus for getting your hopes up but you knew he was sincere in his want to help. Still you felt that you would probably not be able to face James in the weeks to come. Maybe, given a little time, you could be around him and not be upset at the world for taking away your chance with him. As you laid in your bed, you stared at the ceiling. You felt tears streaming down your face and you grew angry at yourself. He didn't owe you anything, he wasn't into you. That wasn't his fault and it was so unfair of you to expect anything more from him when your feelings were not his responsibility.

You weren't sure how long you laid there but you could hear the party start and end in the common room. It must have been late. Sleep wouldnt come though, you could just feel your heart continue to break and you were stuck in a loop of self pity. You made the decision that the following days would be spent away from James if you could at all help it. That was probably what he wanted anyway and it was the only way that you would get over the pain you were feeling. At some point your roomates entered your dorm and sleep overtook you for a few restless hours.

When you woke up, the sun was barely on the rise. You hurried up and got dressed and ready. You were planning on getting to breakfast early to avoid running into any of the marauders. You found your plans were not going how you wanted when you entered the great hall to find a head of red hair next to a mop of black. Your throat tightened and you quickly moved to turn and head out of the great hall. You heard a familiar voice call your name but you rushed out before you could give it too much thought. You knew that if you let him try to convince you, you would end up having a very upsetting breakfast with your best friend and his new lover. You would rather avoid breakfast.

Throughout the day, avoiding James was proving to be harder than you had thought it would be. You had many of your classes with him and you even sat next to him in a few. He was insistently trying to get you to open up about why you were suddenly so closed off to him but you remained shut off, reassuring him that nothing was wrong and you were just a little tired from the game the day before. You avoided lunch for the same reason as you had avoided breakfast and you felt yourself starting to get a bit lightheaded. Your afternoon was spent avoiding James but soon he was preoccupied with Lily anyway.

You were hid in a corner of the library when a cough alerted you of someone's presence. You looked up to find the very eyes you hadn't wanted to see.

You pushed it down with a gulp and smiled a bit at him, trying desperately to keep the tears at bay but they were growing harder to hold back after keeping everything pent up all day. It probably didn't help that you were hungry and therefor a bit more emotional. You could feel the tears sitting in your eyes, waiting for something to go wrong so they had an excuse to escape you.

"I don't know what I did wrong." He mumbled while looking at the floor in front of you and you took a deep breath.

"There's nothing wrong James, I promise. It's just been a long day." You smiled and your heart picked up speed.

"Since when did we lie to each other?" He questioned and your heart stopped. You were left unsure how to respond.

"Since the truth would cause more damage than good." You spoke honestly. At this he looked up at you and your eyes met. A tear left you and James immediately moved to comfort you but you tried to move away, standing quickly to evade him. You regretted it as spots filled your vision, the lack of food catching up to you. You know that you turned a bit green for a moment because James looked slightly scared.

"Y/N I dont know whats wrong but you look like you should be getting to the hospital wing. You don't look well."

Before you could answer you felt your vision blacken and your legs give out before your consciousness left you completely.

When you woke up, you knew you were in the hospital wing. It smelled sterile and the bed was stiff underneath you. When you started to wake madam pomfrey came to check on you.

"You can't go around with an empty stomach like that again, do you hear me?" She scolded, though her eyes were soft. You nodded solemnly. "I was alerted that you hadn't been to the great hall to eat all day, you have to know that isn't good for you. I'm gonna have a prefect watch out for you the next couple days to make sure you're eating at meal times. Understood?" She asked again and once more you nodded before leaning back and sighing. You looked at your surroundings and were surprised to see the black haired boy next to your bed fast asleep. Your heart took off again and you felt trapped by your environment. As anxiety swirled around in your chest, James had woken up a bit.

"You're awake." James sighed, laced with relief. You still wouldn't make eye contact with him.  You felt the bed dip as he sat on it and you looked up to watch him put his head in his hands as he leaned over. You felt guilt fill your chest more than it already had from hating that you felt any claim over the man in front of you. You knew you were in the wrong and the last thing you wanted was to cause him any pain. "Remus talked to me." He almost whispered.

At that moment, you wished you could have apparated to anywhere else in the world. You looked back down at your lap and tears were once again brought to your eyes. You felt betrayal that Remus would reveal your feelings to James.

"I'm sorry." You apologized and you fiddled with your fingers.

"Why are you the one apologizing, I'm the one whos behaved poorly." He assures and you shake your head.

"That's not fair to yourself. You're allowed to want to be with whomever you want and my feelings should have no effect on that. You've made it clear for years that you weren't interested in me and it is my fault that I couldn't take a hint. I'm so sorry." You gushed out and tears started to fall from your eyes. You felt James get up from your bed and you prepared him to leave but instead you felt arms wrap around you and a kiss came to your head.

"Y/N I have had feelings for you for years. I was just always too scared for myself to even consider that you might feel the same." He whispered out but you felt only a different kind of pain. Even though he had now admitted his feelings, he was still dating Lily. Not you. Almost as if he could hear your thoughts he spoke quietly. "I broke it off with Evans." You pulled away immediately.

"What? Why would you do that?" You asked quickly and before he had a chance to answer you feared the worst. "Oh god is it because of me? James please dont let my feelings have any bearing on who you want to date, I can't stand the thought of being the reason you broke up. Even if we do have feelings for each other, you deserve a chance with Lily if that's what you want."

"It was mutual, actually. She understood that I had feelings for you and she said she had a crush on someone else. It just seemed like I had kissed her a bit rashly on the quidditch pitch and we agreed that we shouldn't have gotten together in the first place. It was only a day anyway." He reassured as he explained himself and you calmed a bit.

"So what does this mean." You got out, almost inaudibly.

"It means that, if you'll have me, I'd like to take you out on a date." He stated as if it were the simplest thing in the world and you almost couldn't believe your ears. Before you were even thinking you were nodding quickly, causing spots to once again fill your vision and James grabbed your shoulders to stabilize you before you both laughed. He pulled you by your shoulders toward him and he caught your lips in a kiss that somehow expressed all of the years of repressed feelings. When he pulled away he smiled at you and sat back on your bed. He spent the rest of the day with you in the hospital wing talking about all of the places he was going to take you in the coming weeks.

[aimfor-theheart]

COIN TOSS– PART II

(18+ MINORS DNI)

PART I

PAIRINGS: Tomura Shigaraki x Reader, a little Shouta Aizawa x Reader

SUMMARY: As you fall asleep, you wonder faintly, almost sadly, if you’re the first thing he’s fully touched without losing in a long time.

You are Eraserhead’s troubled protege with a Quirk that cancels out others the moment they touch you. Tomura Shigaraki takes great interest in you.

(Enemies to lovers, a lot of angst, some hurt/comfort)

WARNINGS: Unhealthy/complicated relationships, age gap/power struggle, violence, gore, Tomura’s trauma specifically, (in later chapters) murder, heroes’ abuse of power, smut, some blurred lines, rough sex, a smidge of a spit kink, a smidge of somnophilia (let me know if I’ve missed anything!)

If you are under the age of 18, you should not be reading or interacting with this!

A/N: again, thank you @randomrosewrites for beta-ing!! and thank you guys for the support and comments on the first part! here is your part two!! it's tomura heavy, but for those who love shouta, there's a lot of him in the final part! i hope you enjoy! let me know what you thought!

i also am obsessed with making playlists for when i write and i spend far too much time organizing it all and making sure the songs blend together so if you'd like to take a look at the playlist i made for this fic, it's here!

Read on Ao3

***

Shouta, like the responsible adult he is, soothes things out with you. Well, it doesn’t feel very soothed to you, but Shouta’s made his position clear and you’ve both returned to some semblance of normalcy.

He keeps his distance.

You try not to overstep, but you’re aching and furious.

(You’re holding a secret, too, letting it tear apart your insides, letting it turn circles in your mind until all you can think about is the chill of rain, the bite of a desperate kiss).

You hate that Shouta has retreated from you now. You hate that he’ll stop his hand before reaching out to touch you, like he always has to make sure, like he has to decide if that will be good for you. If you can handle it.

You feel shockingly alone.

You lash out at him more, bicker and argue over things you never used to. You don’t even know why you do it, can’t stop yourself from trying to dig into him. You regret it every time when all he gives you is impassiveness, levelheaded coolness. An adult speaking with an unruly child. He’s good at that, unfortunately.

Some days you want to beg him for answers. Why can’t you love me the way I love you? Is it me? How would you have me? If I was older? I can be more mature, I can be better and better and better–

His undercover work grows greater, draws him away from both you and Shinsou more. Shouta seems to ghost around your life now, drawn away from you, keeping a very careful space between you both.

But there are nights where he tells you to train with Shinsou alone now. You feel responsible. Mature. You glow with pride that he can trust you with one of his students, that you could be a mentor to Shinsou, too.

You grow closer to Shinsou because of this, too, when it’s just the two of you in the gym.

There is one evening in particular, when you’re both sprawled out on the floor taking a too-long water break because Shouta isn’t around when he admits that he used to be– still is sometimes– feared for his Quirk.

He tells you everyone expected him to be a villain.

“I used to be a thief,” you admit, “I was a petty villain, I guess.”

Shinsou looks at you and if he’s surprised, he doesn’t entirely show it, except for the lifting of his brows. You don’t sense judgement from him, though, when he asks, “Really?”

You take another swig of water, humming in affirmation. You swallow, “I was homeless, had no money, nothing. I was stealing from a supermarket when Shouta caught me.”

“You were just trying to survive,” Shinsou adds, like he’s trying to justify the crime, like it soothes him to know there was a good reason for a misdeed.

“Sure,” you reply, fiddling with your water bottle, “But I stole things I didn’t need, too. Just things I wanted.”

“But you’ve changed,” Shinsou says and you can’t tell if he’s trying to reassure himself or you more. “You’re a hero now.”

“Only because my circumstances changed. I was given a roof over my head, food to fill me. Clothes of my own that fit and weren’t torn. I was accepted.” You explain, “If it hadn’t been for Shouta, I would never have become a hero.”

Shinsou is silent, watching you.

“I’d probably be in jail. Or still a thief, in the least, if any other hero would’ve caught me.”

You don’t know why, but you think of Shigaraki suddenly. You think of how young some of the League of Villains are. You wonder if it had been them who offered you food and a home, if you’d be with them now, and not here, sitting on the floor of a nice, sparkling gym attached to U.A.’s dorms.

Something strange grows inside you, something a little bitter. It simmers with sympathy for them, for their lives. For kids like Shinsou with their villainous quirks. You wonder if he’d been poor, if he’d been alone, would he be here, too? Or somewhere else?

“But you were good before,” he says, and it almost feels naive, “I know you’re good.”

You shrug, “Good is relative, you know? I thought I was good because I didn’t kill people, I didn’t steal from other poor people, but society didn’t think I was good. I was still a thief.”

“But you were only a thief because you needed to survive.” he says again, “When given the chance, you changed and became a hero.”

“Exactly.” you say, “How many villains do you think just needed a chance?”

Shinsou goes silent now. His brows furrow in thought, pinching together in a way that makes him look a little too old for his age. You think all of the kids at U.A. grow up too quickly, all of them with too much on their small shoulders.

They’re only kids.

You’re barely older.

Shigaraki is barely older than you.

You push him out of your mind, toss your water bottle aside, and rise to your feet again. “C’mon,” you offer Shinsou your hand to help him up, too, “Shouta would kill me to know I let you lay around so much.”

This seems to pull him from his thoughts and he snorts, taking your hand.

You pull him up. And you both stare at each other a moment. You think he looks at you in a different light now and it isn’t bad, no, he seems to be pondering you more.

(And you’ll realize later that he’s become more sympathetic, that he sees you in villains now, reminds himself they’re people, too, with lives and needs and wants–)

It gives you a strange hope, as you begin to train with him again, to know that he’s the future of hero society.

***

Tomura spots you while he’s out stealing with Toga. Usually it’s Twice or Magne with her, but Twice was onto something else and Toga had decided to latch herself onto him for the day. He’s grown to tolerate her.

Besides, she’d managed to steal him a jean jacket, dark, rough, and worn with holes but it keeps him warmer while still being able to keep the hood of his sweatshirt up to hide himself. To blend in. She’d stolen herself something, too, as the weather begins to get colder and they still don’t have a base, wandering aimlessly.

(He feels stupidly responsible for them. But he’s learned good leaders are, in some way, responsible for their people. They don’t have to care in any way that is emotional, but they have to care in some way, make the group feel important to them. And begrudgingly, they are important to him–)

You’re with a boy around Toga’s age. Wild violet hair. You’re laughing at something he’s saying and you’re sharing street food, he thinks, something that’s warm, steaming up into the air.

He feels a vicious surge of jealousy for a moment. It’s so sharp and jarring that he reaches up to scratch at his neck, tearing into his skin.

But the boy looks too young and you tousle his hair like he’s a younger brother, not someone romantic. While there’s familiarity between you two, it’s not overly intimate.

Toga, unfortunately, follows his line of sight.

She looks between him and you. She tilts her head and Tomura can practically see the gears turning in her strange little mind.

“Do you know them?” she asks, almost innocently.

He doesn’t know why, but he says, “Just her.”

Toga looks back at you. She watches as you talk with the boy– the sun through the autumn leaves cast you in tangerine light, all golden and warm.

When she looks back at Tomura, a smile creeps onto her face. One that he knows is going to give him a migraine.

“She’s so pretty,” she trills, eyeing him too closely.

Tomura scratches at his neck again, harder, wincing a little when he feels a cut reopen.

“Do you have a crush, Tomura?” Toga sings, dancing in front of him to force herself into his line of sight.

“No,” Tomura snaps, bristling, which only seems to encourage her.

“Let’s say hi!” she says, about to bound off and Tomura catches her by the scruff of her jacket like a kitten. He’s wearing his partial gloves, but he still keeps a finger away from her.

“No,” he hisses, firmer now, pulling her back towards him. “They’re heroes. Don’t get distracted.”

Toga twists in his hold, wide-eyed for a moment, before her face settles into another enormous and excited smile. “You’re in love with a hero, too?!”

Tomura grits his teeth, snarling out, “I’m not in love with anyone.” He shakes her then and she yelps a little, “Now focus. We need food and I don’t want to deal with them.”

Toga finally squirms her way out of his hold, pouting at him, “You’re no fun.” she whines and all he does is shoulder past her. He stalks ahead, trying not to look at you again, if only to not draw your eye.

“Do you want to starve?” he asks waspishly, glancing at Toga over his shoulder.

She huffs, rolling her eyes, before hustling to catch up to him. She hums a strange little tune the rest of the time, knocking into his side, throwing him new looks as if to suggest they share some sort of commonality or secret. He grits his teeth but suffers through her torment.

When they return to the rest of the League with what they’d stolen, Toga announces to the whole group, “Tomura is in love with a hero, too!”

The migraine that had begun earlier in his temples reaches full force now. He doesn’t bother trying to deny it. He decides he doesn’t care.

Dabi’s laugh grates on him, though, “Is that so? Which little hero?” he asks Toga, and just as she’s skipping past him, he snags her, snatching the granola bar she’d had in her hand from their little raid.

She turns to grab it back and he pulls it out of her reach, “I don’t know! Give that back!” she squawks, clawing at him.

She must really dig at him because Dabi hisses, “You little twerp–” Just before Magne snatches the outstretched granola bar from Dabi’s hand. She hands it back to Toga, who quickly rushes off with it now.

And thankfully, for Tomura’s sanity, you’re not brought up again.

But he hadn’t noticed you– hadn’t noticed the way you’d seen him with Toga, too. Just a girl Shinsou’s age, following after him like an eager puppy.

Shinsou had trailed beside you like that, too, when you’d both walked back to U.A. with full bellies and new coffees in hand, warm and content.

***

There is a night where Shouta is out doing work undercover and you’re left to patrol on your own. You can’t take Shinsou yet, since he hasn’t earned his provisional license. You don’t mind these nights, by yourself, when you stick to shadows and rooftops, watching the city from above.

It’s cooler now and you tuck your face into the high collar of your hero uniform to hide from the wind that brushes past.

It’s been a quiet night so far. There are other, flashier heroes patrolling, too, meandering around the sidewalks to deter petty crime.

You check the time on your phone, noting that you have a little less than an hour until your shift is over, until you can go home and take a hot shower in an attempt to warm yourself up– especially your fingers, the tips of your ears.

You stretch, standing on one of the low roofs of a building. You’re stiff from crouching, so you decide to move around, change position. You use a grappling tool to shoot it onto a higher roof of the next building. You scale the bricks easily and once safely up, retract your grappling hook.

You look out over the quiet city, the golden light of lampposts, the meandering of cars through the streets. Some restaurants and bars are still open, their windows look warm and inviting with the flush of people inside.

You waste most of the last hour of your shift trying to remain warm, keeping a careful eye on the world below.

Towards the end, you notice a familiar figure in one of the alleyways down below. You don’t even see his face, just the back of his hoodie, just the angle of his shoulders.

Just the way he walks.

The thought should frighten you– that you know him like this, that you’re familiar with just the movement of his body.

Shigaraki Tomura walks away from the soft light of the main city, slips away into alleyways and darkness. You glance at the time. Your shift is nearly over.

This counts as hero work, doesn’t it? Silently following after him?

You drop down onto a fire escape– leap off to latch onto a lower window sill, until you’re dropping silently on to the ground a distance away from him.

You are careful to keep away from him, to use everything Shouta taught you about stealth to remain hidden. And you know Shigaraki is observant, you know he’s always looking over his shoulder so you have to stick to hidden places– behind dumpsters, ducking into alcoves of buildings.

He heads back to the part of the city you grew up in, where everything is falling apart, where there are plenty of abandoned buildings for hiding, plenty of places for runaway teens and homeless to sleep. The cheapest apartments, the streets that are the least patrolled by heroes and police alike, where parts of the Yakuza groups are bolder.

These streets are familiar to you. It’s a strange trip down memory lane.

You think of the last time you saw Shigaraki and flush darkly– it was around here, too, what happened that night.

Still, you follow him because you think you still have some upper hand. Maybe he’ll lead you to the rest of the League of Villains. For a heartbeat, you wonder if you’ll tell Shouta, if you’ll tell the Hero Commissions– you’d have to, right? That isn’t some little squirmish. That’s important information.

But he doesn’t lead you to the rest of the League.

He leads you to an apartment building, small and falling apart on the outside. A window is boarded up poorly. There are stray cats that linger around the side, where the trash is. You’re sure there are rats and bugs, too. You’re sure the building is one bad day away from falling apart.

Shigaraki pauses by the door that is nearly falling off its hinges.

He glances over his shoulder, “Are you following me in, too?”

Your heart kicks up, hammering against the inside of your chest. You swallow hard, internally cursing.

For all your effort of stealth, he still noticed you?

Well, there’s no use lying about it now.

You step around the corner you’d been hiding behind, moving towards the glow of a street light that flickers in and out of power to reveal yourself fully to him.

“When did you notice me?” you ask, peering at him, at the shape of him in the dark.

You catch the lifting of his scar when he smiles, just a baring of teeth, “I saw you on the roof.”

Damn, you curse again, you’ll have to work on that, “That bad, huh?”

He shrugs gracelessly, lifting of his shoulders only for them to fall unevenly, “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known. You were silent otherwise.”

It feels like a compliment– a generous one, coming from him. You don’t know why you have to hold off a smile.

He turns back to the door, shouldering it open. He walks through the archway without another word. He leaves it open and it seems there is no light on the inside, just a blackness that swallows up your vision. He disappears inside.

You stand there, beneath the light that flickers in and out, eyeing the doorway. You could go now, run back home to Shouta, to the Hero Commission and tell them you think you know where he stays, you have a lead on him. You look behind you, glance at the alleyway you came from with it’s’ dull, fluorescent lights that splash against the concrete, that barely fight against the shadows.

You look back towards where Shigaraki had been, the entrance to the building.

You’d probably even get extra little hero points for it from the Commission.

Shouta would be proud of you.

For bringing them to this dilapidated, shabby little apartment complex that rests on the streets of the place you used to call home.

You swallow hard, flex your freezing fingers.

Then you step towards the doorway, peer inside carefully. You hold your breath and the door creaks quietly when you cross it’s threshold, into the darkness.

Tomura is mildly surprised when he hears the door creak behind him. He can feel you, even in the dark of this hallway, the tentative steps you take after him. They’re almost shy.

But you followed him, didn’t you?

You followed and followed and followed him– and of course you did, he thinks, you had kissed him back, hadn’t you?

He supposes you could be playing a part, trying to get close to him but his intuition tells him differently, not with the genuine reaction you’d had. Your sudden guilt for giving in to him. Still, he’ll be careful around you.

He’ll probably have to move again, which would be a shame, since he has already killed the tenant of this apartment– he’d been sure they wouldn’t be missed by anyone, made sure he’d have time. He did the work to get it, thought he’d have it for just long enough until the League made another move.

He almost wants to test you, see if you’re going to run and tattle on his location. He wonders how far you’re willing to follow him.

Tomura walks steadily down the hallway, to the apartment he has taken claim to. He unlocks the door, hands in his partial gloves, shoving it with his shoulder to then enter. He leaves it open for you.

The apartment is a studio, shabby and the heat isn’t amazing, but it has hot water and a lack of bugs in this particular room. It has furniture– a bed, specifically, was all he had cared about. There’s empty wrappers of food and cans of energy drinks on the counters because he doesn’t really bother to pick up after himself but otherwise, the space isn’t his. There’s nothing else of his, besides some spare clothes on the floor.

And still, you follow him here, too. But you stand at the doorway, peeking inside.

He glances at you and is reminded of a fox, something with clever eyes but wary, a little skittish– would bite if he got too close too soon.

So he gives you space, just like he let you leave.

If there’s one thing Tomura has learned, it’s patience. Any good plan takes patience. The reward is always sweeter. The longer and harder the level, the greater the wins.

He ignores you, puts even more distance between the two of you as he wanders further in. He flicks on lights. He takes off his shoes, shrugs off his jean jacket and throws it over the couch. He gives the appearance of carelessness, of letting his guard down. Non threatening.

And you take your fist shy step inside. The door behind you remains ajar, though, for escape.

Tomura has to fight a terrifying smile, fight the sudden twisting in his heart, the inhale of his breath.

“I don’t know how wise it was of you to bring a hero to your home.” you finally speak, cutting through the silence. You’re trying to be witty, but he can tell you’re nervous.

“This isn’t my home,” he answers.

Home, with it’s round and warm syllabus, is not what he thinks of this place.

You eye him some more, but before you can respond, he says, “I don’t know how wise it was of you to follow a villain into his home.”

“I thought it wasn’t your home,” you quip and he only gives you a dry look.

Your bravado is wavering, especially when the door clicks shut behind you, your hand finally falling to your side.

And the two of you are sealed away from the outside world.

“Why did you bring me here?” you ask him and your voice is deceptively quiet. Small.

“Why did you follow me?” he asks in return.

You inhale like you’re trying to steady yourself, “Because I’m supposed to.”

Tomura smiles now, something lazy, almost amused. He knows it’s a lie, can feel it slide along his skin, can see the floundering, desperate look in your eyes.

“Why did you follow me?” he asks again, forcing himself not to move, not to step towards you in his budding excitement. Patience, he tells himself, be patient.

“Why did you kiss me?” you ask instead and the question is raw, as if it’s plagued you, haunted you like an insistent ghost. Crept around in the back of your mind, growing teeth and fangs and spindly, lampshade bat wings large enough to terrify you.

The idea that he’s taken root in your mind in the same way you have infested his is near dizzying.

Tomura weighs his answers carefully. He’s silent for a long moment and it’s heavy, charged with something that he can’t name– has never felt before.

When he speaks, his voice is just a rasp of breath, a little more honest than he’d like, a touch annoyed with the truth, “Because I wanted to.”

Another long stretch of silence where you watch him carefully, where he can see your chest rising and falling too quickly. He can see that frightened look in the rounding of your eyes, the high flush in your cheeks.

And when you speak again, it’s hardly louder than a whisper, like it’s all you can manage,“Do you want to kiss me again?”

It is far too gentle of a question for what he wants– it almost feels innocent, juvenile. Out of place between the two of you. But he’ll take it, he’ll take whatever you give him and then some.

He takes a step towards you. You don’t flinch away so he takes another, then another, until he is standing in front of you. You’re close now– so close that he has to force air into his lungs. He reminds himself of patience, of waiting–

He could take whatever he wanted from you now, he supposes, but he doesn’t want to have to wrestle you for it. He wants it given freely, he wants you to kiss back, like you had before. He wants you to willingly submit and it’s taken longer but it’ll be sweeter, so much sweeter.

“Are you going to run away again?” he asks and he can feel his heart quicken, the squeezing of it awful and tight.

You look up at him in a way that reminds him of his dreams, the ones he pretends to hate, where you make those small, soft noises. Where you let him touch you and taste you and have you.

And you shake your head no, just fractionally, the barest hint of movement but it’s enough for him.

The force of his kiss slams you back against the door. You make a surprised noise against him as he crushes himself to you. It’s just as violent as the first, but this time you take back what he gives. You get your bearings quicker, like you’ve learned a lesson already. He grins into the kiss, opening it, when he feels your little hands clawing at his shoulders, at his back.

He groans when you part your lips for him, when you lick tentatively into his mouth. He possesses you, bears onto you, pinning you to the door as his hands, still gloved, curl around your sides, your hips.

Your hero costume is tight, fits the curves of you snugly and in a way that’s making him nearly insane. He isn’t careful, doesn’t care if he’s moving too fast now as his hands roam and grab and squeeze. There’s layers between you, he naturally keeps a finger lifted away.

One of your hands tightens in his hair, pulling when he bites your bottom lip.

But you don’t seem to mind, either, with the way your breath is hitching, with the way you’re trying to pull him closer, desperately fuse him to you.

Your lips are so soft, he notices, even with the forcefulness with which you’re kissing him back.

It feels surreal for a moment, like one of his dreams, when he parts from your mouth only to slot his lips against your jaw, your neck. A whine is loosened from you, which breaks when he sets teeth to the vulnerable line of your throat.

Your hands are in his hair still, body arching into him eagerly. Youthful in your earnestness.

You’re better than anything he could’ve ever imagined, so alive and rosy and warm beneath his hands, beneath his mouth, which is making a mess of your neck. A particular hard suck over the sensitive line of your pulse makes you pull at his hair.

“Don’t leave a mark,” you hush and he thinks you meant to sound more threatening, but it’s softened by the desperation in your voice.

He scoffs into your throat, dragging teeth roughly along your skin.

“Shigaraki–”

“Tomura.” he corrects without thinking, finally pulling away to look at you, which is almost a mistake because you–

You’re flushed, lips kiss stung and pink, all swollen. Your head is tipped back, exposing the column of your throat, hair mussed with being pressed to the door so roughly. Your eyes are hazy and fever pink with your Quirk activated, like spring flowers, glowing in the low light.

He thinks of paintings and colors and dreams, something like beauty, if he knew anything about that.

And he’s so hard it hurts, teeth grinding together as he looks at you because he can’t even fucking stomach this feeling.

Then you repeat his name for him, “Tomura.”

He’s never heard his name like that, bedroom soft, more of a lullaby and less of a tragedy. He feels like he’s going to shake apart, his body to become just old ruins– he feels as if it’ll collapse inwards, topple over to crush his heart.

Where he’s usually seething and livid and clawing ruthlessly, the festering feeling in his chest is replaced with a new energy; something bursting and squirming and warm. His Quirk lies dormant and docile inside of him with your hand in his hair, your other now at his neck, fingers pressing lightly at his jaw.

It’s terrifying, he realizes, to not feel his Quirk at the edges of his fingers.

(It’s freeing, too, he’ll come to find, to not feel it’s weight, it’s demand that had been encouraged and shaped in him.)

You’re both trying to catch your breaths, looking at each other now. His fingers, still gloved, flex and squeeze at your waist, like he’s scared you’ll run off again.

You inch forward instead, rock onto the tips of your toes to press your lips to his again– softer this time, but no less heated, no less desperate.

He thinks you must be starving, too, with the way you pull him close. His mouth slants over yours, demanding more, a little rougher.

You squirm against the door, the slightest rocking of your hips– he can feel it against his thigh, against his waist. It makes him hiss out a breath against your lips, makes him grab harder at your waist, force you to do it again, harder this time.

You whine and it’s the snapping of his patience.

He reaches for the zipper at the back of your hero uniform, gives it a rough tug, pulling it down some. And then you’re pushing at him, nudging him away from the door and it’s a flurry of movement as you yank at his hoodie while he pulls at your clothes. You’re both stumbling further into the room, towards the bed pushed back into the corner.

Tomura feels young suddenly– feels his age. He feels like a twenty something year old with a girl in his apartment who wants his hoodie off. Who's kissing him hard in between every article of clothing that manages to come off.

He sits back on the edge of the bed to ease the rest of your cat-suit down. He watches with interest as you wiggle your hips to help him get the fabric down over you– and it’s nothing romantic, he doesn’t kiss the newly revealed skin, he doesn’t gently run his fingertips over you, but you grow shy under his gaze.

You’re still in undergarments, athletic slips of fabric, but his eyes fly over your face. You’re nervous, he can nearly feel it, with the way you shift, with the way you catch your bottom lip between your teeth and worry it.

A thought strikes him.

“Have you done this before?” he rasps, hooking his hand in the crux of your knee to drag your forward so you nearly fall into his lap.

“Yes,” you grit out, arms coming up to his shoulders to steady yourself. “Once.” you then shakily exhale.

He doesn’t particularly care– your answer wouldn’t have changed how he’d treat you. He’s not going to be gentler nor slower because you’re less experienced.

“Have you?” you ask, eyeing him, fingers nervously toying with the ends of his hair.

“Yes,” he says, perhaps too sharply, but he gives no other information and you don’t press him, which he’s thankful for. He doesn’t have the patience for useless questions.

Rather, he pulls you down harder, so your bare thighs finally settle into his lap. He slides his gloved hands up the notches of your ribs to hitch beneath your bra. That comes off, too, and then he’s got his hands on you more. You gasp, arching into his touch when his fingers curl around a breast, fingers roughly brushing over the peak.

He doesn’t think anymore, just acts, just moves and does as he pleases. All the things he’s done in dreams or in his mind– he sets lips and teeth to your breast, tongue laving over your nipple. He forces your squirming still with an arm banded around your torso, keeping you flush to his eager mouth.

You yelp in pain when he uses his teeth too roughly, trying to jerk away from him but you can’t with his hold on you. He grins, mouth opening, spit slick and wet against your breast again. He groans against you when you pull on his hair.

But then he twists you, throws you down onto the bed only to crawl over you. He yanks at your panties just as you pull him down for another kiss– maybe to distract yourself, to settle your nerves. When you pull away, you’re on your back and he’s over you, your legs hitching over his narrow waist. His hands are on your thighs and you–

You suddenly grab for his hands.

“Take off your gloves,” you get out, breathless, and before he can respond, your fingers are sliding against his wrist, up to his hand, beneath the glove and against his palm.

It makes him shiver, makes him grit his teeth. You pull off one, then the other.

For a moment, he just looks at you all spread out and bare for him, his hands now open and uncovered, too.

You squirm under his scrutinizing gaze.

“C’mon,” you coax and he thinks you’re trying to find your bravado, “Touch me.”

There’s nothing between his hands and your skin now and he settles his palm on your stomach, beneath your breast.

He naturally keeps a finger lifted away.

“Tomura,” your voice is pitched, almost pleading, “You’re not going to hurt me– c’mon.”

He tenses for a moment, eyes flashing over your face. For a moment, his heart stumbles, he grows wary. He thinks of you slipping away beneath his touch, falling away into nothing and all he’d have is a bed of ashes.

But your eyes are bright with your Quirk.

His final finger comes down. Nothing happens, except you smile a little, except you arch up into his touch– alive and vivid and furiously warm.

He feels like he can’t breathe, can’t even function.

He catches a groan behind his teeth, falls forward as his hands become feverish and possessive, suddenly confident, suddenly brash– touching and squeezing and grabbing at you.

His teeth clank with yours as he tumbles into another kiss. You’re needier now, making those higher pitched noises that used to haunt him.

It drives him insane, makes him feel half feral, overeager and desperate. His fingers wander lower, seeking and searching, just as the kiss grows in intensity again. It’s messier, all open mouth and tongue.

When he pulls away, a string of spit connects the two of you and he lets more of the saliva pooling in his mouth drip down with it, letting it fall between your open lips, some on your bottom lip, too. It’s depraved and dirty and his eyes simmer as he gazes down at you.

Your face scrunches up as you go to wipe at your mouth, and he hates it because all he can think of is how cute that face is.

“Gross,” you mewl, but his fingers finally move between your legs and–

And all he finds is that you’re hot and slick for him.

He has to grit his teeth to keep from moaning.

But you nearly cry at the touch, a pathetic little noise, hips jolting like you’re not sure if you want to go towards his touch or away.

“Gross, huh?” Tomura asks, voice low, the pad of his finger sliding easily, teasing you slowly before he goads, “Why are you so wet then?”

He sinks a finger in suddenly– just because he can. Just because he wants to watch your face screw up again, which it does, your mouth falling open, eyes squeezing shut.

“Hm?” he hums, amused with the way you’re gasping beneath him. He starts a slow but deep rhythm and–

And he’s had sex before, a handful of times, but it’d always been for him. He hadn’t cared how the other person felt, hadn’t cared to try and get them off. But now he suddenly wishes he had learned, if only for you, now. He wants you as obsessed as he is, wants you to feel as maddened as he feels.

Thankfully, you’re so expressive. And he doesn’t have to worry about his fingers. He can find the spot inside you that makes you toss your head back into the sheets and moan for him, he can focus on the way you keen when he finds your clit with his thumb.

You’re a sensitive little thing, clawing at his bare shoulders, whining into his neck. He forces in another finger and you start rocking your hips, growing more desperate until–

“Fuck,” you gasp, “Fuck, I’m going to–”

He curls his fingers harder, watching your face as you fall apart, as you try and twist and squirm beneath him. He forces you through it, isn’t gentle, but selfish, wringing everything he can from you.

And when he’s finished watching you whimper and feeling you flutter and gush around his fingers, he takes them out only to force them between your lips.

Once more your face screws up, but you close your mouth around them and he groans low and raw. You look hazy, drooling all over his fingers, lashes fluttering prettily.

He uses his other hand to fumble with his belt, to work his pants down low enough for his cock, aching so bad that he swears he’s going to go insane–

He pulls his fingers from your mouth, watching the mess that comes with it, so wet and slick and shiny. He can’t help the growl he gives, before covering his mouth with yours again.

As you kiss, sloppy and desperate, Tomura slides the head of his cock against you and you’re so slippery and soft and molten for him that his next moan tapers off into a whine.

You pull away fractionally, “Shouldn’t we–”

He thinks maybe you were about to ask about protection of some kind, but he shoves inside you hard, breaches your body and watches as your eyes roll back, just about to cross as your nails turn sharp against his back.

You moan, low and drawn out.

He can’t help the absurd laugh that is wretched from him, his head dropping onto your neck as he snaps his hips forward. He can’t believe he’s actually gotten you here, in his bed, beneath him– let him inside where you’re so warm and soft.

“Fuck,” you gasp, maybe laced with pain, clawing at him, raking your nails down his back.

“Does it hurt?” he hisses, excited, his teeth coming down to close over your exposed neck.

“Yes,” you get out, almost a whimper, “Feels good, too.”

He snaps his hip forwards roughly, grinding deep as he laughs again when you just about sob into his shoulder.

You latch your teeth onto the vulnerable juncture between his neck and his shoulder, where you’d already laid claim to him once before.

He wrestles for your wrist, the one he broke, and forces it down onto the bed.

“Look at you,” he almost snarls, voice low and gravely, “Little hero letting me fuck her.”

You gasp when he angles his hips, when his other hand reaches beneath you, to fist a hand in your hair and pull so your neck is arched and exposed to him.

“I used to dream of this,” he admits roughly, the confession like a curse being spit out of his mouth, “Wanted to stalk you or possess you or–” he groans because he can feel how you’re throbbing around him, how slick you are for him, “Wanted to fucking ruin you–”

He pulls at your hair more, tries to get you to look at him through your wet lashes. The flash of pink meets red and his smile is more a cruel bearing of teeth.

“And you feel so much better than I dreamt– fuck, so much tighter–” he babbles as he ruts into you hard and quick. You keen, high and broken, just as he feels you flutter around him again and he almost loses his mind because–

“Are you going to fucking come again?” he growls, pulling harder on your hair.

“Yes,” you groan, “Please, fuck, please, c’mon–” your voice is high and wrecked and all he has to do is angle his hips a few more times before you’re shattering, nearly breaking apart, squeezing down on his cock so tightly that he shudders, that he let’s go of your hair just to focus on his own pleasure.

He doesn’t even realize he’s drooling into your neck, not as he loses his rhythm, as he shoves himself as deep into you as he can and comes hard. Pleasure races up his spine, turns him white-hot and sensitive, making his eyes roll back into his head, too.

You’re both breathing hard when he collapses on top of you. Your fingers, which were once scratching down his back to cause sharp shooting pain, are now surprisingly gentle, slipping back into his hair.

You squirm, fussing slightly– no doubt sore, no doubt aching with him still inside you but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t want to.

He mouths at your neck, feels you sigh, before he moves to cover his mouth with yours again. He kisses you languidly now, slow and deep.

You’re making breathy little noises against him, content and surprisingly soft, your other hand tracing over his side.

(He doesn’t like how much he enjoys this part, the afterglow, all that violence slipping away, expelled from you both–)

Tomura feels his cock twitch inside of you again, feels your hips arch up a little, and before he knows it, he’s moving his hips again. It’s a slow rocking, your lips still attached to his, heated and gentle.

“Gross,” you say again, just a breath against him as he fucks his cum further into you, feels himself harden, feels the mess he made of you. But you still hitch your leg over his hip, pull him deeper into you.

He grins lazily against your lips, “You like it,” he says and it’s not a question, rolling his hips until he gets you to shut your eyes and moan against him.

“Yeah,” you reply, nudging your cheek against his, rubbing like a cat until he returns the gesture. Until he’s humming because he’s sensitive and you feel so good, better than anything he’s ever felt in this miserable fucking life–

You whine a little, ‘Touch me again?”

He doesn’t deny you for whatever reason, doesn’t even have something smart to say as he slides his hand down your torso, down to where you’re both slick and connected. He rubs unpracticed, messy circles around that sensitive bundle of nerves until you’re sighing.

He’s no expert but he doesn’t really care and you don’t seem to mind this time, either. It’s unhurried now, lazy.

This time your peak is a fluttery, soft thing, and he watches as you gasp, as you blink away tears. She’s pretty, he thinks, feeling stupidly young again, she’s pretty like this. Like his dreams.

Tomura spills inside you again soon after, groaning against your collarbones, and this time you force him to slip out of you. Force him to lay beside you as you both catch your breath again.

And he’s not expecting it, but he has the vicious need to be close to you, desperately wants to feel your skin against his. It’s a new feeling– usually after sex, he wants to be as far away from someone as possible. Usually he can’t leave or kick them out fast enough.

But there’s something about you now, hazy and pleasure-drunk, fucked out and dazed, that makes him want to stay close. Maybe it’s just that you’ve soothed all the festering that usually squirms in his chest. Maybe it’s just that you’ve made everything in him quiet for once.

He expects you to find some sort of your regret now, he’s sure that you’ll feel guilty, collect your clothes and go. But you don’t. You stay in bed with him. And it’s strange but he knows he wants to touch you, so he does. He doesn’t deny himself, why would he? He’s always taken what he wanted.

He curls around you, shivering a little with the skin to skin contact after the fog of sex has cleared from his mind. His hands slide over you, touch you fully and without restraint because he can, because you won’t disappear beneath his touch.

And for a moment, as he traces along the dips of your waist, he thinks maybe you were made for him– cut from his rib, isn’t that how the story goes?

He doesn’t know, only that there’s no one else in the world he can touch like this.

You’re surprised.

You’d figured after Tomura had his fill of you, he’d kick you out, send you away. You figured you’d feel guilty, that you would rush out of here and try to wish the whole thing away. But your hero suit stays on the floor and you’re still in his bed.

You didn’t think he’d be a cuddler, you assumed that he wouldn’t want nor care for any sort of contact after. But his arms are wrapped around you now, one of his hands sliding curiously over the curves of your body. All five fingers down, pressing into your skin.

But you suppose, for someone who has to be so careful with touch, that he would like this. That he might want this. You wonder if he ever gets to touch anyone like this, if he ever allows himself intimate touch like this– tender and for no other reason than to soothe or comfort.

You get the impression that he doesn’t, that touch is just a means to an end for him; sex is probably just an itch to scratch. You can’t imagine that he’s very relaxed or enjoying himself when he’s worried about decaying the person he’s with.

But all his crackling, restless energy now seems subdued, sated, as he walks his fingers over you. His hair tickles your bare skin as he nudges closer, nose running along your jaw.

Once more, you feel your age. You don’t feel like a hero, but just someone young, maybe on the cusp of being old. He looks young now, too, with his vivid eyes shut and relaxed, nothing to crease his brow. He doesn’t seem like a villain, either.

You brush a finger over his cheek, touch lightly at the scratches beneath his eyes, drag your thumb down to touch the scar at the corner of his lips.

His eyes flutter open to watch you, half lidded, squinted almost like a cat.

But he allows you to run your fingers over his face, doesn’t protest or jerk away from your touch.

No, his eyes fall shut again. He lets out a deep sigh that you think he has held inside him for years.

He doesn’t have a gentle face, but one that shows it’s angles and sharp edges, the scars and cuts that trail down onto his neck. You’d noticed some on his chest, too. Proof of an uneasy life lived, proof of violence and pain.

You imagine he’s seen horrors, kept them trapped inside for fear of letting them spill out, like maybe it’ll be as gruesome as the memories.

His body hasn’t been handled gently, you can tell, with it’s indents and scars and scratches. You don’t know who was the last person who touched him without wanting to hurt him. And you shouldn’t but you think of yourself when you were a child– desperate for love and affection, desperate for any scrap of attention like the scavenger you always were.

Maybe still are.

So desperate that you’d end up in the bed of your enemy– all because you couldn’t end up in the bed of your ally. So hungry that you’d eat out of a hand that has harmed and killed and destroyed.

Hands that haven’t known gentleness, a body that hasn’t known peace. But he’s being gentle with you now, isn’t he?

So you try to give gentleness to him now, too, with your careful touch. You keep your fingers kind and sympathetic.

Even your own eyes drift shut for a moment, still tracing idle patterns into his skin.

You only slip away from him for a moment, to use the bathroom, to clean up. Your reflection in the mirror looks strange; raw and flushed with color. Honest in a way that makes you turn away.

You slip back into bed with Tomura, let him latch onto you again. You drag your fingers gently over his ribs, over his sides.

You let your eyes fall shut, too.

There’s a sudden, loud buzzing from the floor that cuts through the quiet, which makes your eyes startle open. It’s insistent and you realize after a moment that it’s your phone, caught up in your hero suit on the floor.

You never came home after your shift. You curse softly, almost certain you know who's calling.

You squirm out of Tomura’s hold again, which he huffs at in irritation, but eventually allows you up.

“Where are you going now?” he asks, annoyed, when you climb out of bed to find your phone. Once found, you hold it up to him.

It’s still buzzing in your hand, lit up with Shouta’s contact.

You think the guilt should hit you now.

It doesn’t and that’s what you feel worse over. You swallow hard, frown down at your phone.

(Horribly, you even feel somewhat spiteful, as if you’re trying to prove something to Shouta. Maybe to yourself.)

You don’t answer.

And then you see the several texts from him, wondering where you are. They’re all bland, but you can tell he must be worried. It’s unlike you to not tell him where you are.

“Are you going to leave?” Tomura asks and there’s something strange in his voice, something you can’t place.

“Do you want me to?” you ask in return.

He doesn’t answer right away. But he does eventually give an annoyed drawl, “Do what you want.”

You take that as a no, don’t leave, since you’re certain if he wanted you gone, he would’ve told you.

You send a text to Shouta;

Sorry. Staying with an old friend for the night. Be back tomorrow.

It’s not unheard of, for you to spend time with an old friend from the foster care system.

You get a dry “okay” from him in response. You fight the urge to roll your eyes for some reason, tossing your phone away again.

You end up staying the night with Tomura Shigaraki, one of the most wanted villains in all of Japan.

Its not romantic— he isn’t sweet or funny or caring. But he holds you tight, leaves no room for distance. And it is the first time you’ve ever slept with someone like this, tucked away into a bed, bare, and wrapped up in each other.

Is this what it always feels like? You press yourself into the crooks of his body. You wonder if you’re supposed to fit this well together.

And it’s the first time since his Quirk developed that he hasn’t needed to wear his partial gloves to sleep in fear of decaying something.

He won’t admit it but it’s the best he’s slept in a long, long time.

You won’t admit it, either, but you think you could get used to this, too; this closeness, being held as if you’ll slip away, being held like he doesn’t want you to.

The morning brings rosy sunlight that slants through the windows. Neither of you talk much. You try to tell yourself this won’t happen again, can’t happen again.

But you had kissed him goodbye before you’d left, like he was a boyfriend and not a criminal, and you’d been in a surprisingly good mood for the rest of the day.

Like you had a crush, puppy love you never got as a teenager because you were too busy trying not to starve, only to realize you’d been starving in other ways, too.

But you’re sugar soft and excitable, dropping into bed that night alone, and allowing yourself to admit, in the quiet and privacy of your own thoughts, that you wish you were in his again.

***

One time turns into two which turns into three which turns into so many times you’ve lost count. That little, rundown apartment that isn’t really Tomura’s has turned into another world entirely, some harbor away from the rules of society. It’s almost too good to be true, a dream, a place for a secret as bad as this one.

When you’re here, you don’t talk of heroes and villains. You urge him not to; you think you’ll keep some part of your innocence in this affair if you don’t actually know anything about him or the League of Villains. You’ll feel too guilty, if you know any part of their plans and don’t tell Shouta. And telling Shouta anything about Tomura is beginning to feel like a betrayal, too.

You don’t know anything substantial about Tomura Shigaraki and that’s the way it needs to stay.

You know he likes sour candy, though, and drinks too many energy drinks– they’re sickly sweet and you think kissing him might make your teeth ache. You know he likes video games but no longer has a console. He has trouble sleeping at night. You’re familiar with the scars on his skin, the jagged ones across his neck, the one on his lip. The beauty mark on his chin. You know his moods; from the prickly ones to the downright vengeful ones. You even know the calmer ones, the quiet, contemplative ones.

(In this way, he seems like a normal twenty-something-year-old. In the quiet moments, when you’ve convinced him to watch a cheap horror movie on the tiny, staticky TV in the apartment, he could be anybody. When he’s got his bare hand up your shirt as someone onscreen screams and begs for their life, he’s not the heir to an underground empire. He’s just Tomura, with his face buried in the crook of your neck).

He pretends to get annoyed with you, huffs and scoffs against your lips when you’re being cheeky. You wear his worn down hoodies, slip your thumbs in the holes at the sleeves. He eyes you when you wear them, pulls you to him by the collar.

(He likes to fuck you in them– pushes the hoodie up your stomach to watch you ride him. But he likes things bare and raw, too. Skin to skin. So close it’s terrifying, so close you feel like he’s trying to tear you apart from the inside out. He likes it dirty, you think, because it makes it more intimate.)

You soothe him. You know you do because when he’s festering and angry, all it takes is your hand on his wrist, pulling it away from his neck. Sometimes, when he can’t think straight and there is too much on his mind, he forces you to lay on top of him until his breathing slows and his head is clear.

He can’t talk to you aloud about what’s plaguing him, but you must quiet some part of him. He likes to use you to think, runs his long fingers through your hair as you lay atop him. He pets you until his thoughts aren’t as jumbled, but smoothed out and sharp. Or until he doesn’t want to think anymore at all and he drags you into languid makeouts that always end with him surrounding you, inside you, possessing you.

You bicker sometimes, flash your teeth to make his eyes spark ruby and excited. Mostly, you act your age with him.

You don’t know when his birthday is or where he grew up. You don’t know what his childhood was like or what memories shaped him, don’t know where he’s been or where he’s going to be. You only know him now, in this moment, in this little world you’ve created for each other.

He’s what you imagined first boyfriends are supposed to be; excitable and often immature but fun and new. You never had the luxury of first loves, just odd first kisses with strangers and an uncomfortable loss of virginity with a friend of a friend of a friend who jammed his tongue too far down your throat. You hadn’t had anything stable until–

Until Shouta.

Shouta has grown suspicious of this old friend of yours and how much time you now spend with him.

He questions you about him and you wish you felt worse for lying. The rebellious part of this affair is thrilling, though. Feels like you’re sixteen and sneaking out from under your dad’s nose to be picked up by the boyfriend you’d know he’d hate. Feels like swiping liquor too young and getting sick off it, smashing the bottles and laughing with your friends because sometimes things just need to break.

“Will you at least tell me his name?” Shouta had asked one morning, when you’d let yourself into his apartment after another night at Tomura’s. You had your own hood pulled up around your face to hide the rose blossom hickeys against the skin of your neck.

He’d still poured you a cup of coffee. You’d watched his careful, large hands as they made it the way you liked it.

You’d given him a lie, fed it to him the way he feeds you breakfast, “Shinta. Are you happy?”

He’d slid the mug to you, let you catch in the cradle of your palm. He’d shrugged, but you think his eyes had flashed to you, “You know you can bring him around, right? You don’t always have to go to him.”

You’d had to bite back a painful laugh. It wasn’t funny. It had hurt strangely in the pit of your chest.

You had shaken your head, tried to brush him off, “It’s not like that.”

“Alright,” he’d said, but he hadn’t believed you. “You’re training alone with Shinsou again tonight, I’ll be busy with a job.” Then he’d given you a stern look, “And don’t cut it early to go see Shinta.”

“I’ve never done that!” you’d protested, perhaps a little too defensively. But it was true, you’d never do that to Shinsou, wouldn’t dream of it. The only time you’d cut training early was to share takeout with Shinsou, not ditch him for–

This comment had rubbed you wrong, scratched up against something abrasive and surprisingly fragile inside of you. Maybe because he was questioning your dedication which already felt so flimsy, even if he hadn’t been entirely serious, even if maybe he’d just been trying to take a dig at you. At this new boyfriend.

Shouta had grown cold then, shrugged impassively, took his mug of coffee and brushed past you to keep getting ready.

It had angered you enough to bring it up later to Tomura, when you’re falling into his lap and he’s squirming his cold, fluttery hands beneath your shirt to touch skin, to make you hiss through your teeth.

His lips tilt into a small smile as you fidget while he warms his frigid fingers on your body.

“Eraserhead asked about you yesterday,” you tell him, letting your nose brush against his, “Told me I could bring my friend around– don’t always have to go to him.”

Tomura snorts, eyes falling half-lidded when your lips skim over his. The night is plum dark, presses into this little apartment that’s tucked away from the world.

“How’d you get out of that one?” he asks, fingers walking over the dips of your spine. He likes tracing the bone beneath your skin, likes making you shiver.

“Told him it’s not like that.” you respond, your own hands wandering to his neck. You're careful over the ridges of flesh there, skim lightly to get to his jaw.

“No?” Tomura asks, pulling you closer, pressing his chest to yours, “Don’t want to bring me home to meet Eraserhead?” he sneers and there’s something underneath his voice, lurking, with its hackles raised.

You think maybe it’s jealousy, the same flash of his eyes like Shouta’s when he’d said Shinta.

But then he kisses you deep and drags your hips against his, forces a warbly, surprised little moan from you.

Most of your thoughts melt away then, most turn to something base and desperate, all desire and need. You can’t help but think about it, though, how you can’t ever take him home to Shouta. You can’t ever expect anything more than whatever stays in this room. He kisses you hard, your teeth clinking against his like clashing with the truth of it all.

There’s no happy ending here.

It’s like smashing bottles because sometimes things just need to break.

***

Tomura thinks you would be a good edition to the League of Villains.

You’re clever and capable. He comes to find you’re not just a good thief and pickpocket but an excellent one. You swipe everything from his pockets, right from under his nose, just to play with him. You’re stealthy and sharp; he could use someone like you at his side.

Your Quirk could be useful, though he doesn’t like the idea of you getting so close to people while in battles. You have a reckless streak, but he thinks he could temper that. All you need is a little guidance.

You were a thief once. You give him clues of your past; you didn’t grow up like the other heroes, didn’t come from a warm home with dreams of saving the world. Your head wasn’t filled with fantasies of rescuing the downtrodden. You were the downtrodden. And you learned that there was no one who was going to save you, except yourself. So you stole and fought and survived a world that was willing to forget you.

You’re like him, a very quiet part of him thinks, no one saved you. Not until you were too old, all grown up with sharpened teeth and claws, eyes that see in the dark. That could be now used and extorted by the heroes.

He thinks they’ve leashed you, taught you how to sit and stay and sic ‘em.

He wonders if he’d have gotten to you first, if you’d be with him and not your heroes.

Tomura doesn’t dwell on it, though. He refuses to imagine it. What would be the point? It didn’t happen.

Besides, he is certain he is capable of slowly swaying you to them still. You possess a startling amount of compassion for villains which, perhaps wouldn’t help you as a villain, but that’s fine.

(You’d have him. No one would touch you if you were at his side. You could be as stupidly compassionate as you wanted.)

You meet members of the League with him by accident, times when Toga and Twice’s meeting with him overlap with you arriving. Toga goes on endlessly about you, it seems. Dabi drops by once in the middle of the night, bloody and demanding a place to sleep because he’s tired of sleeping on the streets.

It’d been one of the more insufferable nights, perhaps one of the worst ways for Dabi to find out about you. You’d already been asleep, cocooned beneath blankets and Tomura’s body, just in one of his loose shirts.

Tomura had already been lying awake, listening to your even breathing when he’d heard the handle of the door shake roughly. He’d gotten up then, slipped into clothes, melted into the darkness by the door and waited for the intruder to try and step inside.

The lock had been picked.

He had nearly decayed Dabi by accident before realizing it was him.

A ridiculously quiet but terse argument had ensued then, before Dabi had asked, in a regular speaking voice, “Why the fuck are we whispering?”

Tomura had almost winced when he heard you stir from the bed before your small, sleepy voice had murmured into the darkness, “Tomura?”

You’d said it too soft, too sweet. It’d been for his ears only and something about Dabi hearing you, seeing you, being in this space that had been for you and for him had made Tomura suddenly livid.

He had watched Dabi’s mouth fall open in shock before you’d switched on the bedside lamp to flood the room with artificial, golden light.

Dabi’s face had been near horrific in the light, one side of it all bloody, the stitches mangled or falling out. Part of his face almost looked like it was melting, his eye squinted shut with the damage.

But he’d thrown his head back and laughed when he’d seen you, sitting up in the bed, blinking sleepily at them. Tomura hated a lot of things, but he’d hated nothing more than the sound of Dabi’s rasping laugh in that moment.

You’d narrowed your eyes when you had realized who it was.

“I had no idea you had it in you, Tomura.” Dabi had said.

“Why the fuck are you here?” Tomura had hissed instead, fighting the urge to tear into his neck, fingers twitching agitatedly.

Dabi had gestured to his face with a lazy flourish, “I need medical attention and I’m crashing on your couch.”

Tomura’s teeth had ground together, “Get. Out.”

“No, I’m sick of sleeping on the streets when you’re here playing house with your little hero bitch–”

Before Tomura could even react, though, you had found the small supply of first aid from beneath the sink in the tiny bathroom. You had come up beside them near silently and offered it up, asked, “Do you want help?”

And there it had been– that compassion of yours. Even for the likes of Dabi.

In that moment, he’d wondered how you had ever survived with it. He’d thought that you’d lose your hand if you kept extending it.

Dabi hadn’t let you touch him but you’d gotten a cool rag for him to clean up the blood, watched as he tried to patch up the wound. It was made worse by a mangled staple in his cheek, jutting out strangely.

“Does it hurt?” You’d asked but with the way you were looking at him, at his marred skin up close, Tomura could tell that you weren’t just referring to this one injury.

Does it hurt? You’d asked, like you were asking if it all hurt. You weren’t just seeing a singular part of Dabi, but a series of tragedies that was proudly presented in large, rippling scars against his skin.

“Of course it fucking hurts,” Dabi had spit out, all venom and bitterness. But you hadn’t even flinched.

Tomura had tried to kick him out again once his wound had been treated.

“It’s fine,” you’d said, resigned, tired and rubbing at your eyes.

(Later you’d shrug and tell him, I know what it’s like to not have somewhere to sleep).

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Dabi had drawled, already pulling off his heavy boots, prying the coat from his body to toss onto the floor. “Just don’t do any weird shit.”

And you’d gotten back into bed with Tomura, fit yourself against him, ducked your head down beneath his chin and pressed your hands against his sides, felt the notches of his ribs.

Sometimes he wonders if you can feel the missing one, the one you took from him, the one you’d been made out of.

It had occurred to Tomura that either you didn’t fear Dabi or you trusted him enough to know he’d never let Dabi harm you while sleeping.

Both were acceptable to him, both would aid him in converting you. And they were true, too. You shouldn’t fear Dabi, especially not with him around.

Tomura had brought his hand up then, suddenly covered your mouth with his large palm, letting all five of his fingers come down against your pretty face.

You’d furrowed your brows in confusion, not fear, which made something inside of him grow warm and hungry.

Then he’d slid his other hand down your body, between your legs, just to spite Dabi.

He’d watched as your eyes went wide in the dark, cheeks flushing beneath his hand. He could feel his smirk, smug and sharp, fitting across his teeth like a muzzle.

You’d tried to shake your head, tried to squirm away from his touch, but he’d been persistent and soon enough you were sighing against his hand, melting into the bed he pressed you into. Soon enough you were trying to hold back whimpers, all slippery and soft beneath his fingers, silently begging with your eyes.

He hadn’t denied you that night; no, you were being good, walking the steps he wanted for you. You were moldable and sweet beneath him so he’d give you what you wanted.

He watched in satisfaction as you came hard around his fingers, face scrunching up in that way he loved, fingers easing you through it. He was gentle with you then, taking his hand away from your mouth slowly, letting you nudge closer and cling to him.

(He loved when you clung to him).

You’d wanted so much affection that night and he had indulged you, letting your nose brush against his, or rubbing your cheek against his chest while his fingers wound through your hair.

You’d fallen asleep all tied up in him.

The next morning, you were gone before Dabi even woke up.

Dabi had asked, “What the fuck are you doing with her?”

“Mind your business,” Tomura had snapped, fingers already seeking out his neck again when they couldn't find you. He hated that he wanted your presence so badly now. (Hated that he missed you, but he would never say that, never even dream of it). Then he’d added,“And find someone else’s doorstep to show up on.”

Dabi had scoffed, “Whatever. Just don’t get distracted.” He’d pulled out a cigarette from his jacket still on the floor then, much to Tomura’s annoyance, and lit it with a spark of his fingers. Smoke curled into the air with his first drag. “I’m not about to watch all our efforts fall apart because you wanted to play Romeo and Juliet with some braindead little hero.”

He’d torn into the skin of his neck then. Wished he could tear into you instead.

“Violent delights and violent ends and all that shit,” Dabi had said then, his smile just a curled stitch, smoke pouring from his lips, evidently amused with himself.

But Tomura has never read that play and he doesn’t know anything about poetry in the same way he doesn’t know anything about art or beauty, just that you’re the only thing he’s bothered to compare to a painting.

***

You put Tomura into your phone as Shinta and when you’re too busy to visit him between missions and training, you text him. Though short, he is surprisingly witty over text, something that has you biting back grins and distracted, feeling like a schoolgirl as you try to hide the screen of your phone from the rest of the world.

You grow distracted with hero work, with Shouta. You pay less attention to your life at U.A. You don’t visit Shouta for lunch as often. You haven’t spent a quiet night with Shouta in weeks. You tell yourself you don’t care.

It’s better than fighting with him. It’s better than trying to beg for his love and affection.

Early tomorrow morning you’re supposed to shadow Shouta on a brief mission.

The Hero Commission is trying to train you into espionage and underground work, trying to mold you in the shape of Shouta.

But at night, when you’re alone in your bedroom, tucked away into your own apartment and not with Tomura, he calls you.

You let yourself say his name into the receiver of your phone, hushed and excited.

He doesn’t say I miss you or when will I see you again?

He says, “Touch yourself.”

And you don’t say I miss you, too, or hopefully soon.

You do as he says, let your fingers fan out over your stomach like they might be his. You listen to his breathing turn ragged over the phone. You moan softly for him.

You do what he says in the navy dark of night, bite back frustrated whines because you’ve gotten too used to his touch.

“–Wish it was you, fuck, it’s not fair,” you gasp, tilting your hips up into your fingers desperately.

You can hear the hiss of breath he takes, “Did I ruin you?” he croons into the phone lowly, his voice slithering through to you, making your thighs clench. “Can’t even touch yourself without needing me?”

You groan, high and defeated, fingers slipping against yourself. You’re aching and empty and bereft without him, “Yes, yes–”

He rambles about what he’s done to you, almost seething by the end, when he demands you tell him that you’re his, that he’s the one who made you this way. He’s the only one who can soothe you now. You need him.

He isn’t wrong, you realize, when you still aren’t satisfied after your climax. When it doesn’t feel as good as when you’re with him. You realize you hate sleeping alone now. You miss the press of his body to yours. You coo into the phone about it, lay on your stomach, arms curled around your pillow with your ear still to your phone.

It never gets overly sentimental. You don’t want to scare him, especially as you grow terrified of your own feelings. It doesn’t feel as fun anymore, you realize, only because your attraction to him has now grown serious.

Your crush has grown teeth and claws, ready to tear apart the vulnerable, fleshy parts of you.

But he talks with you until you fall asleep, phone still in hand, heart still on the line.

***

There’s a stray kitten that hangs out around Tomura’s apartment– he thinks there must be a colony of strays in the area, since it’s not the only one. But this one is scrawny, just a messy tuft of grey fur. It’d be sleek and pretty, if it wasn’t so malnourished, if it wasn’t missing clumps of fur or full of scars and scratches.

The kitten likes Tomura a great deal for some reason. It rubs itself against his legs, follows him around outside of the apartment, much to your utter delight.

You coo and fawn over it, scoop the little thing up into your arms and hold it up to Tomura’s face.

He hates it, the face you give him. The face the kitten gives him. He hates that the corner of his lips twitch upwards.

“He’s so cute,” you gush and he can hear now that the little thing is purring furiously in your hands. You wiggle the cat a little bit in front of his face and Tomura finally reaches up to stroke the back of his knuckles against the kitten’s head, if only to appease you.

Your smile is crooked– an excited curve of your lips, your eyes alight.

You’re always so expressive and he used to be livid about it, wanted to teach you a lesson in the worst way possible, but now he just wants to keep you from learning them.

He has to turn away from you at the thought, heads towards the door of the apartment building. You follow after him dutifully, coming up to nudge against his side. He’s become too comfortable with you there, knocking into his elbow.

You’re still smiling down at the kitten in your arms and he wants to look away because some part of this is starting to sting.

The kitten is excitedly looking around, green eyes all round and bright. It’s purring happily.

“Put it down, it’s not coming in with us.” Tomura tells you, his voice rough and soft.

You stop in front of the door with him. Your bottom lip pulls out into a pout. Your eyes get round like the kitten’s.

He gives you a cold stare.

You hug the kitten tighter to your body, “C’mon,” you whine, “It’s just a baby.”

“I’m not taking care of a cat.”

“I’ll take care of it!”

“No,” he responds, harsher, voice a little sharper.

Maybe, in the beginning of this little affair, you would’ve headed the warning in his tone, but now you don’t even bat an eye at him.

“Yes,” you respond indignantly.

You both glare at each other. The kitten’s purr still rumbles on.

Tomura can tell you’re not giving this one up, he can tell by the set of your jaw, the way you’re clinging to that little creature. There’s a determined flush to your face. Your eyes are bright and fiery.

All over this little stray.

“You’re a brat,” is all Tomura says and you take that as a win, because your face immediately morphs, brightens up completely. You duck past him, into the apartment building with the kitten cradled in your arms.

He heaves a deep sigh, following in after you. “I’m kicking it out when you leave.”

“Don’t be mean,” you reply, waiting at the door, and the irony is not lost on him. He comes up behind you, his chest to your back, crowding you against the door.

“I think you need to remember who you’re speaking to,” he says, his voice just a rasp against your ear and maybe at some point, it would’ve sounded threatening, but now you just lean back into his chest. His heart beats against the curve of your back.

Something soft is growing between the two of you, he can feel it. It has no place here, though, in this world. In the two of you. His ugly infatuation with you, all that anger and vitriol he had for you has melted, turned spring soft inside of him after an unforgiving winter.

He unlocks the door, he lets you in.

The kitten ends up coming and going. He opens the window to let it in and out, let’s you feed it. You call it Ryuji. It lives partially in this new little world the two of you have built.

He thinks of it like the pause screen in a video game, somewhere to return to when he’s frustrated or tired or done. Idle, soft music and the freezing of his screen. A moment away from the turmoil or struggle of the game.

But he’ll have to unpause eventually.

He can’t stay here forever, he knows it, but he just has to be sure he plays it right– he doesn’t think he’ll be able to start over this time, with you.

And he wants you there at the ending, at his side like in his dreams.

The ones where it’s all in ruins, the world nothing but his, destroyed, but he gives you his hand to have, and you take it in yours to hold.

***

The distance between you and Shouta stretches and grows until it snaps in the form of a blowout argument. Which, is mostly just you, shouting, crying furiously, and Shouta stone-faced and cool.

It had started with an offhand comment from him about how you’re not focused anymore. You’re getting sloppy. You’re distracted. And usually, you take his criticism with a stiff upper lip and a determined glare.

But you and Shouta haven’t been the same since you tried to kiss him.

You blame yourself, maybe, but part of you feels angry with him, too. Bitter. You thought, in some way, he reciprocated your feelings. He’d acted like it. And when he’d rejected you, he’d pulled away, been more careful with you.

(You wonder if this proves your point, that he was toeing a line with you then.)

And maybe your lies are starting to eat at you, too, starting to rot away on the inside of you. If you focused on them too hard and all that Shouta’s done for you, you think you’d start crying every time you looked at him.

But Tomura has also thrown all you know into question. And you’d already been critical of the life you were afforded by becoming a hero.

You look at all of Shouta’s students and you just get angry. You look at Shinsou, so determined to prove he can be a hero, that he’s good and you are livid. You look at Toga, with her villainous Quirk. She’s near Shinsou’s age and something about it just makes you ache, it makes you sick.

You look at her and see who she could’ve been as a hero– you wonder if they would’ve stuck her in espionage, with the likes of you and Shouta. You wonder if she would’ve gone to U.A. You wonder what it would’ve taken to change her fate.

Even Tomura, you look at him and in the safety and privacy of your own heart, you dare to wonder what he would’ve been like if he hadn’t been a villain.

(He could’ve been a rescue hero, you think, and he could’ve decayed debris to save people. This version of him lives in the quiet, tentative parts of you. It grows soft and underground, a seedling that has sprouted on the inside of your chest, and one day you think this little dream of yours will grow so large inside of you that it’ll breach skin and show the world it’s horror.)

It feels like a coin toss, almost, like the difference between a hero and a villain sometimes is one flip away from changing.

You don’t bother to wonder what would’ve happened if it hadn’t been Shouta that found you, but someone like Tomura. Or All For One. You know if you’d been given somewhere to sleep and a warm meal, you would’ve done what they wanted.

You wish you could say you were a noble, starving person, that there was something shining and golden inside of you. But all you were was starving.

Shouta says you’ve been underperforming lately. He says he’s considering limiting the nights you patrol until you can get it together.

The Hero Commission was supposed to come observe you to see if you’d progressed enough to begin accepting your own missions. He tells you he doesn’t think they should come any longer. It feels like a dig, too, like he’s reprimanding you somehow.

And you snap, “Well maybe I didn’t want them to observe me!”

He looks taken aback for a moment, before he asks, “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know! Maybe I’m tired of being observed and used and watching all of these kids be observed and sought after and–”

“Alright,” Shouta sighs, and it makes your teeth grit because he sounds like he’s trying to parent you, “It’s one thing to be upset yourself, but I don’t see how this has anything to do with these kids.”

Your nails dig into your palms as you try to find the words to get him to understand you.

But he speaks before you can, almost patronizingly, “Clearly, you’re struggling through something, so it’s probably a good thing we’ve put this off.”

Tears well up hard and fast. It hurts to be dismissed like this. It hurts to look at him, to think that he’s a part of the ever growing issue that has been itching beneath your skin. You’re a part of it, too, but you have the sudden urge to run. To get out.

Still, you swallow down all of that turmoil and say, “I hardly know what I want now, so how do you expect children to know that they want to be a hero?”

“What is this about?” Shouta asks.

“It’s about the Hero Commission and U.A. and the entire fucking system. That’s what it’s about.” you seethe, looking up into his eyes, trying to find something there.

“It’s not just about you?” he asks, unperturbed.

“Why can’t it be both?” you respond, trying to keep your voice from going high, from going hysterical. There’s so much you want to say, so much that it’s making you sick, that it’s turning your stomach. “I’m– I’m barely older than them!” you say, because all you keep thinking about is how they’re just kids. And you were just a kid. And at one point, Tomura was just a kid.

He’s barely older than you. Closer in age to Shouta’s students than to him.

“I didn’t invent the system,” Shouta says and he sounds weary, “I just try to give my students the best opportunity at surviving being a hero. I try to teach them everything to keep them alive.”

They’re just kids! You want to shriek, kids that were chosen or forgotten or accepted or shunned.

Looking in the face of the system now feels so massive that it’s hopeless; a system that produces shiny heroes from children with their perfect and acceptable Quirks and discards the rest. Even you and Shouta, with your Quirks that aren’t as flashy, are pushed into the shadows to do the Hero Commissions business. And what business is that? You have to wonder their intentions, too, with all the money that’s pumped into it. Into all of these heroes. A system that forgets anyone who doesn’t fit into it’s perfect mold.

“But you see how it’s wrong, right? And just because you didn’t invent the system doesn’t mean you get to throw your hands up!” You say, voice raising.

Shouta levels you with a cool look. He lets loose a sigh. “What would you like me to do?”

You don’t have an answer, it’s too big of a question.

(You see the appeal suddenly, in wanting to get rid of it all, in destroying it since it’s such a mess.)

But you hate his aloofness, you hate that he doesn’t care. You hate that you feel crazy.

“I don’t know!” you shout, tears finally falling down your angry and flushed face. “I don’t know!”

“Are you done?” Shouta asks and it makes you want to scream more. You just want a reaction from him, you realize, you want something more than his impassiveness. You think of trying to shout more, to try and say something cutting or powerful or enough to make him wince.

But nothing comes to mind and you’re just stubbornly trying to keep back a sob.

So you shoulder past him, rush out of his apartment, rubbing at your cheeks and trying to keep back your hiccuping cries.

You have every intention of going to Tomura’s.

But you realize when you’ve nearly made it to his door that it might be foolish to go to someone like Tomura with tears in your eyes. What is the leader of the League of Villains going to do? You have a feeling you might just get your feelings hurt more.

So you pause, rub at your eyes again, try to dispel all the turmoil inside you. It doesn’t work, so you turn away from him, too, and you start moving.

Your feet carry you to the train station, carry you across town, to a warehouse you used to vandalize and hide in when you were young and alone.

You haven’t been here in years.

It feels strange, loping around the side of the building. The alleyways are cast in garnet light with the fading sun. It makes it look prettier than it is. You enter through the same hole in the wall that you used to when you were young; you’re bigger now, though, need to duck lower, curl yourself up to get through it.

You think of yourself scurrying around, knowing the ins and outs of this dilapidated building the way most children know their childhood home.

It’s strange, stepping back into a place you haven’t been to in years. You know, in some way, it has to have changed. It’s falling apart more, there’s larger holes in the ceiling, letting in auburn light, setting everything ablaze. There’s a lot of debris; from torn tents to discarded sleeping bags to spare junk, it’s all spread out throughout the place. Graffiti covers every corner of the walls. You used to look for a face painted in pink, it’s eyes dripping down it’s face in the back corner of a wall. When your eyes slide along all the artwork, it’s nowhere to be found now. No doubt covered up by the years, but you know it’s there, somewhere beneath all that color and paint.

There are a lot of empty bottles, glass laying around that crunches beneath your shoe.

You pick up a glass by the spout, watch as it catches in the light, murky gold and sunkissed.

You feel small again, fragile like the bottle in your hand. You stopped crying at least, but all that’s left is the aftertaste. Just the lingering frustration, the bitter aloneness that settles over you as cold as Shouta’s stare.

Your fingers squeeze around the glass, curling tight, before you suddenly hurl it at the wall.

It bursts on impact, explodes into thousands of shining, glittering pieces that spark in the sun.

It feels good, so you pick up another glass– this one’s mint green, pretty like the sea, reminds you of spring and the stems of flowers.

It breaks prettily, too, the sound ringing and sharp in your ears, your eyes trying to catch all the splinters of it. It explodes in the light. It’s cathartic, letting all your aching frustration and hurt rush out with each breaking, with each smashing.

You don’t get through many more, not before you hear footsteps behind you.

You can’t say you’re surprised to find Tomura, but you can’t say you were expecting it either. Quickly, you turn away, try to school your features. You try to rub at your eyes again, as if this will somehow dispel damp lashes and splotchy cheeks.

“Are you stalking me?” you ask, but there’s no bite to it as he comes to stand beside you.

He doesn’t answer.

You think he might be, but you can’t find it in you to care.

The sound of the distant city is just a hum between you two. Glass sparkles on the floor like stars in the fading, ruby light.

You turn to face him, don’t bother trying to look up into his face, just shove yourself into his chest. You bury your face into his hoodie, rubbing your cheek against his chest. “Creep,” you mumble, “What are you doing here?”

His hands come up, one at the back of your head, the other along your back. He has his gloves on. Not that it matters.

“I followed you from the apartment,” he admits and his voice is quiet, but it seems to echo in this open space. Then he says, “You should be more watchful.”

“Don’t start,” you grumble, letting your fingers curl in his jacket, “Been scolded enough today.”

The hand at the back of your head tugs at your hair lightly, lifting your head from its hiding place against his chest so that he can look you over carefully.

The light casts him in maroon and russet, saturating him, making the dark of him stand out sharply. It makes the silver of his hair seem peach, brands him in all the sun’s honey and whiskey glory.

His eyes are vivid, maybe the most true shade of red you’ve ever seen in your life.

He takes in your face, perhaps your bloodshot eyes, your damp lashes. You aren’t a fool; you’re certain he can tell you’ve been crying. You have the urge to squirm away, to try and hide from his gaze.

But all he asks, in a surprisingly gentle tone, is “What happened?”

You shake your head fractionally, “Nothing. Got into an argument, that’s all.”

He hums lightly, tracking your expression. You want to glance away from him, but he holds you still for a moment longer.

When you can’t take his scrutinization any longer, you ask, “Wanna break some shit with me?”

He lets you go finally, let’s you step out of his arms despite not responding. You pick up another glass, this once an icy blue that reflects light that reminds you of the color of morning skies.

You watch as it explodes against the wall, flashing like a little firework. Glass rains down onto the ground, some of it flinging up into the air or back towards you. Tomura pulls you away from it by the back of your jacket, yanks you back into his chest as glass shards fly past you.

He glares at you somewhat and you can tell he wants to scold you, but he doesn’t. You squirm out of his grasp to do it again.

Glass showers down as you break another bottle. It rains in shards of tangerine and pale yellow, bright pops of cherry in the light. It feels good, to watch it all burst apart in the sunlight, like watching little stars burst and explode at your hands. It’s so pretty, for such a violent act.

You hand a bottle to Tomura, offering him the chance to also act out. Instead, he pulls off one of his gloves– tugs it off with his teeth, the glint of sharp white against flesh pink. You watch fascinated for a moment, catch his eyes, blazing and barbed.

When he takes it with all five fingers, you watch as it first cracks in your palm, before fluttering away into dust. Into nothing.

You make a face, “That’s not as exciting as breaking them.”

He rolls his eyes, but you catch the way the corner of his lips hike up. He takes another glass, this one icy silver, caught peach in the honey light, though. He keeps a finger lifted away delicately as he lifts it up to the beams of scarlet sun that flare through the rafters.

And in that fiery patch of dusk, with the glass reflecting iridescence onto the angular plains of his face, your heart gives a violent lurch, like it’s trying to burst free from your chest.

I think I love you, you think, unbridled, and so suddenly that it feels as if the thought has slammed into you the way a body might fall from the ledge of a roof.

I think I love you, you think again, because you can’t quite believe it, as he lobs the bottle at the wall. It fractures into a thousand little beams of glass and light, like an exploding comet. You feel as fragile as that, like he’ll do the same to you. Maybe you’ll be nothing but shards by the end of this, nothing but dust slipping through his fingers.

He turns to you, no doubt to say something snarky, but you’re already taking quick steps to him. He doesn’t get the chance to speak, not when you collide with him, hard and reckless, throwing yourself up onto your toes to kiss him with a new violence.

He makes a surprised noise, soft, but catches you otherwise. His hand is already up, worming beneath your clothes to press chilled fingers into the bare skin of your upper waist. He likes the way you hiss into his mouth, and you like the way they dig roughly into you. He forces you closer, melds his mouth to yours, rough at the edges, slick and warm at the center as the kiss blossoms into slow simmering heat.

And by the end of it all, when the light has given way to violet darkness, the press of indigo shadows that stretch tall in this abandoned warehouse, there is too much glass on the floor. Everything is shattered or decayed. Your lips are stinging from sharp-toothed kisses and the desperate press of his mouth to yours. You’ve turned molten, fallen apart the way glass does.

You walk home together, hand in seeking hand.

Your eyes flush pink with your Quirk, brightening up in the dark.

You knock into his side like you’re a kid, eagerly trailing beside him. He has the hood of his sweatshirt up, hidden, as you rush into the next train back to the part of town that holds the little, distant world of his apartment.

You sit beside each other on the train, knees pressing into each other. He leans over to crowd you against the cool glass as the world streaks past you in a wash of darkness. He ducks his face to yours, his hood hiding the both of you from any onlookers as he seers his mouth to yours again.

You feel like a teenager, kissing in front of strangers, beneath the flickering light of the train car. You feel young and reckless, letting him have you like this, while the city burns like a blurry halo behind you. But you feel older, too, older and in love, like you finally know the secret of the universe, the one that every adult knows and has only learned in the burn of a kiss, in the messy squeezing of your heart.

He licks into your mouth slow, you curl your small hand into his worn hoodie. If people stare, you don’t know, don’t care.

He pulls away from you, forcing you up when your stop is announced, leaving you a little dazed and dizzy, but you eagerly follow after him. Your hands bunch into the back of his jean jacket. You stumble behind him a little, feet tangling with his as you duck beneath his arm to come to his side.

Ryuji finds the two of you on your walk home the closer you get, follows you both inside, happily chirping at your coos. But he paws at the window to be let out again a short time later, after you’ve fed him something. Tomura opens the window for the cat, but not before you catch him rubbing a knuckle against the kitten’s fuzzy cheek, brief but gentle.

You think he likes Ryuji more than he lets on. You think he loves all this more than he lets on.

Tomura takes his time with you that night, surprisingly languid for once, like you’re not on borrowed time. Like this is an entirely new planet, a version of the two of you that is not bound by pasts and future expectations. No strings puppeteering you both, no invisible hands holding you both back.

He pulls you down into his lap, to sink onto him, fill yourself with him as you please. You twine your arms around his slender neck to pull him close, eyes half lidded and pyretic pink, fiery and soft with the way your Quirk reacts to his. It always hums somewhere inside of you, brushes against his until it quiets, until he’s soothed and relaxed.

“Do you feel powerful?” he murmurs against your lips, eyes flickering up to find yours.

The question takes you by surprise for a moment, pulling away fractionally from his parted lips. And with the way your heart squirms in your chest, looking down at him like this, you want to say no, I feel terrified and new and desperate.

But he drags nails down your back, makes you gasp and roll your hips down onto him, which startles a groan out of him. The sound of it turning your stomach in the best and worst ways, making you flush, making you squirm to try and sink lower onto him. Greedy and desperate, you wiggle your hips to make his breathing come out ragged.

It makes you realize you have one of the most dangerous villains beneath you, as desperate as you are.

You roll your hips again, slow, take what you want of him. You fist your hand in his hair, tilt his head back and watch as his eyes flutter. His cheeks are flushed.

Pretty, you think faintly.

“Yeah,” you breathe, gliding your lips along his, heart a storm in your chest to have him looking up at you like this, “I do.”

His lips tilt into a knife-sharp smile, enough to gut you.

And he lets you take what you please of him that night, and the thief that you are, you take and take and take. You steal from him with deft hands and a smile that he thinks he’d destroy the world for. You take all the love that you want from him, gorge yourself on it until you feel sick.

Until you feel as if you could rot with it, carrying your love for him in the pits of you, coveting in the safe, secret parts of you, for no one else to find.

Just you and him, like this, hand in seeking hand.

***

PART III

[young-dumb-and-vaccinated]

Cult Girl: Doctorate (Hannibal x Female!Reader) pt. 2

Oils

Cult girl socializes at the opera and receives an unexpected call. 

Note: I tagged this as “anti mlm” as in multi-level marketing and not men-loving-men. 

Trigger warnings: Discussions of cults and emotional manipulation

It wasn't until after the opera was over that people began to notice you may have had a little fun during intermission. Hannibal's hair wasn't in its usual perfect side part and his jacket was slightly wrinkled in places. You could cover most of his love bites with your stole, but nothing could hide that post-orgasm glow.

Most opera-goers stayed to socialize for hours after the show concluded, making an already long night even longer. It was like clubbing, but for rich old people.

"So you're the future Mrs. Hannibal Lecter?" A woman with silvery hair said. She dragged her husband into the conversation by the arm. "I've heard so much about you."

You were about to say something witty, but noticed the way she was looking at you. Scanning you up and down. Looking for anything out of place to grill you about.

"Only good things, I hope." Hannibal said in your silence. His voice was vaguely threatening. "She is a doctoral student, in her second year of her graduate studies in clinical psychology."

The husband, who, up to this point, hadn't spoken a word, perked up. "Is that right?"

You smiled, excited for the chance to talk about your passion. "Yes sir. I've still got quite a ways to go, but I love my work."

"You should be proud." The man praised, looking at Hannibal. "You've got yourself an ambitious wife."

"Oh, we're not married yet." You corrected.

"So when can we expect an invitation?" The woman asked.

"Six months from now, isn't it?" Hannibal answered. "Memorial day weekend. Then I'm taking her to Italy for a lengthy honeymoon."

The woman threw her head back and sighed. "That sounds heavenly."

"You young modern girls are always so intuitive." The man commented. "I'll bet you tricked him into marrying you."

You wanted to call this guy out for his sexist bullshit, but he wasn't far off. It was Hannibal who tricked you, though.

Technically, he proposed to you within the first six months. You just didn't know it. It took until shockingly recently to find out.

It was during a ballroom dancing lesson of all places. You were sweaty, but loved the feeling of your lover's hands gently guiding your movements. You stepped away from the lesson to get some water, and innocently asked when he would propose to you.

"I believe I already did." He said with enough conviction to blur the lines of seriousness and sarcasm.

"You pretended to." You corrected. "Remember? We were just pretending to be engaged for Anna's wedding."

"But it didn't end after the wedding, did it?" He observed. "You kept calling me your fiancé long after that weekend passed."

You paused, then threw your head back in exasperation. "Oh my god, Hannibal."

Hannibal laughed. "I told you. Someday it won't be a lie."

"You're a piece of shit, you know that?" You pressed your fingers to your temples. "So we've been engaged this whole time?"

"What can I say?" He said, gently. "I knew you were my one and only even then. It was just a matter of circumventing your inhibitions."

"I'm not complaining." You folded your arms. "But a little notice would have been nice."

"Well, if you insist." He laced his fingers between his own. "[F/N] [L/N]. Will you be my wife?"

Even though the question was truly just a formality, you were still as giddy as a schoolgirl to hear those words.

"Yes, Hannibal Lecter." You said, cheeks stinging from smiling so hard. "I will marry you."

Then you just went back to the dance lesson like nothing happened. It was shockingly in-character for both of you.

"No." You shook your head. "We killed someone together and took a blood oath to never separate."

The couple laughed. Hannibal looked down at you with pride.

“So [F/N].” The man said. “Have you given any thought to your doctoral dissertation?” 

“Oh, Charles.” The woman rolled her eyes. “I’m sure she didn’t come here to be grilled about her studies.” 

“No, it’s okay.” You smiled. As long as you were talking about school, you weren’t being interrogated about the thirty-year age gap between you and Hannibal. “I have been thinking about my dissertation. There are plenty of fascinating topics to choose from, but I can’t not write it about, well, the reason I began to study psychology in the first place.” 

“And that is?” The man raised an eyebrow.

“Cults.” You said, grinning ear to ear. “Understanding them, their leaders, their followers, why people join them. How they evolve and grow more insidious as time passes. What form they’re starting to take in the digital age.” 

“That is interesting.” The woman’s voice rose, connoting genuine engagement. “And what form are they taking in the digital age?” 

You looked up at Hannibal, as if to ask for permission. Permission to rip into her and burn that bridge for good. He answered in the affirmative. 

“Ma’am, could I take a look at your bracelet?” You asked, already knowing exactly what she would say. 

Her face lit up. “Oh, do you like it?”

She pulled it off her wrist and handed it to you. You brought it to your nose and took a whiff, confirming your theory. Then you handed it off to Hannibal, whose sense of smell was much more refined. He took one breath, then recoiled. 

Hannibal covered his mouth and nose with his hand and coughed. “That is... quite strong, Mrs. DeMarco.” 

“It’s Affirm, by doTERRA.” She revealed, her voice growing defensive. “It helps you ground yourself and remember your worth.” 

You handed the bracelet back to her. “Do you sell doTERRA, Mrs. DeMarco?” 

“Well, now that you mention it...” A small smile appeared on her lips. “Why? Would you like to buy some?” 

“I hate to be the one to tell you this, ma’am, but...” You lied. “You’re actually in a cult.” 

She had nothing to say to that. She just stared at you with her mouth agape, urging you to explain yourself. 

“Multilevel marketing companies employ a host of cult manipulation tactics to con people out of their savings.” You explained. “Just because the promise is financial independence instead of a spot in paradise, doesn’t mean it’s not a lie. Research conducted by the Federal Trade Commission shows that the vast majority of participants actually lose money. The statistics are just a google search away, yet thousands of people still insist on the legitimacy of the companies they sell for.” 

“Well, I-” She protested, but couldn’t find the words to defend herself. “I’m there for the community, really. For the first time in years, I have a sisterhood of like-minded women who love me!” 

You smiled through a cringe. “That’s another pretty common cult manipulation tactic. They appropriate familial language to make people feel more connected to the group than they really should be.” 

Although you didn’t expect her to, she looked to be genuinely considering it. 

“Next time you see your ‘sisters’,” You began. “Pay attention to how they talk about people who are not in the group. Or, better yet, tell them that you’re considering leaving. You’ll see how conditional their love is.” 

An awkward, deafening silence followed. The woman looked at her husband, as if willing him to do something. To stand up to the evil twenty-something grad student who had the audacity to cite her sources. 

Instead, the husband just burst out in riotous laughter. 

“Miriam!” He nearly shouted, heaving like he was about to collapse. “I told you that oil business was up to no good! No honest company makes their employees pay to work!” 

The woman’s face turned red. You almost felt bad for her. The feeling vanished when the man put his hand on your shoulder. 

“Seriously, Dr. Lecter, you’d better keep this one.” He said, wiping a tear from his eye. “She’s an absolute godsend.” 

“No divine intervention was involved whatsoever, Dr. DeMarco.” Hannibal smiled to himself and brought a glass of champagne to his lips. “She is a woman of her own making."

"Oh, we all know that's not entirely true." The woman snapped, slipping into passive-aggression. She glanced at Hannibal. "How much are you spending on this mouthy little know-it-all? Isn't it about $80k a year?"

You, of course, brought this on yourself. You threw down the gauntlet by going after this girlboss's side hustle, so now nothing was off-limits.

"I wouldn't worry about that, Mrs. DeMarco." Hannibal said, calmly. "My soon-to-be wife's education is a much better investment than that overpriced napalm you wear on your wrist."

You couldn't help but laugh at that. It was a laugh you shared with the man. Hannibal looked down at you, admiring how your face lit up.

"You'll forgive my wife's rudeness." The man requested. "Please, Ms. [F/N], tell me more about your dissertation."

"Well," you laced your fingers together. "I'm planning to write my dissertation on the cult of academic elitism."

"I would tread lightly, dear." The woman warned, eyes darting to Hannibal. "You wouldn't want to bite the hand that feeds you."

You adjusted your stole, giving them a quick glance at the love bites along your neck.

"I assure you." You said. "He quite likes it when I bite."

Your clutch started to aggressively, audibly vibrate. You could have sworn you'd put your phone on silent, but it buzzed nonetheless.

"Probably just, y'know-" you stuttered, embarrassed. "An amber alert or something."

"We are expecting a snowstorm, I believe. I was warned of it a few minutes ago." Hannibal said, always ready to cover your ass whenever needed. The couple nodded along in understanding.

You pulled your phone from your clutch. Your eyes widened and your face turned sickly pale at the sight of a caller you thought you’d never hear from again. Without thinking, you slid the deny icon across the screen. 

“Right.” You said, tucking your phone and your secrets back into the clutch. “Winter Storm... Theresa is headed this way.” 

Hannibal cleared his throat. “In that case, [F/N] and I must take our leave before we get snowed in. It was very nice catching up with you. I will see to it that [F/N] and I have you for dinner very soon.” 

[nagitoandkokichioneshots]

damn peko okay i see you... could i get some dry humping with nagito?👀👀👀👀👀

If it’s your order, master. I live to serve. I had a lot of fun with the set up of this. I love creating little scenarios around the smut lol.

Contains: Explicit Sexual Content, Post-SDR2, Future Foundation Reader, Fem Reader, No Pronouns Used

It should be illegal how good Komaeda looks in his Future Foundation uniform. The way the dress pants cling to his narrow hips. The way the blazer accentuates his already broad shoulders. Whatever demon possessed him to pull his soft white hair up into a high ponytail should be slain, if only to stop the way your palms are sweating every second you look at him. 

Presently, he’s standing tall, legs shoulder width apart as he practices firing his new hacking gun. Face awash in blue light as he unloads five break shots into the target on the other side of the room. You can see the singe marks, all bullseyes or complete misses, nothing in between. The determined set of his jaw, the intensity in his eyes, the way his chest heaves. You are standing in the corner of the room, resisting the urge to rub your thighs together just from watching him. 

“You’re doing well, Komaeda-san!” You call out, disappointed at the way your voice noticeably wavers. 

He turns to face you, slinging the gun over his shoulder, “That is debatable, but i am grateful for your attempts to comfort me.” he smiles at you, and it might just be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, “It isn’t necessary, but it is very kind of you.”

“We can stop for the day if you would like, we’re already late for lunch.”

“Ah.” he says, “I am quite hungry” 

You motion for him to put the gun away and follow you out of the training room. He dutifully follows behind, maintaining an even pace with you as the two of you head to the dining hall. You glance over at him, choking on any words you might have said when you realise how nicely the dim overhead lighting catches in his pale eyelashes. You swallow. It must have been a joke by your superior to assign you as Komaeda’s training partner. You were not subtle in your interest in him, outright talking to coworkers about how desperately you wanted to pull one of his sharp hip bones into your mouth and suck. 

He has his hands in the pockets of his dress pants, tucking the front of his blazer behind his wrists, your eyes are drawn to the snug fit of those pants. Specifically the way the fabric pulls taught over his crotch. You can hear the telltale thump of your heart in your ears, your bones feel like they might melt with the intensity of your feelings at this moment. All you can think about, is what terrible, awful, fireable offences you could commit right now. Right in this hallway. 

“Is everything alright?” Komaeda asks, pulling you from your semi trance. He’s stopped walking now, and the two of you are standing just by the door of an empty conference room. He’s a lot taller than you, a fact you try very hard not to focus on.

“Oh, I’m fine. Just a little distracted.”

“Ah.” Komaeda says, the sound laced with knowing. His eyes hooded and lips quirked up in a very subtle smile, “You have been a very diligent trainer,” he breathes, head inclined just a little bit to the side, “Anything i can do to repay you would make me very happy. If you would even accept repayment from such common garbage as myself.” 

When he says anything...does he really mean anything? You can feel your stomach turning, “No need to repay me, Komaeda-san. I’m just doing my job.”

“If you are turning down my offer due to genuine disgust I fully understand.” He says, laughing breathily, “However. If you are turning it down due to a concern for my well being, or a respect for me as a person. Know that is unnecessary.” his voice has dropped down an octave, and you have the distinct feeling that he is toying with you, “I offer myself to you fully, if you are willing to accept.”

Your eyes can't help but flit from Komaeda, to the door of the vacant conference room, and back again. The knowledge that it’s  only 1:15, and that the room will be empty until 2:30 is unbearable. Irresistible. 

“What i feel for you…” your mouth is dry, your hands are shaking, “Is the exact opposite of disgust.”

He chuckles, hiding his mouth with a palm, “How unfortunate for you.” his hand drops to reveal a smile that can only be described as hungry, “but how very fortunate for me.”

Any resilience you had snaps. You’re barely even conscious as your hand wraps around Komaeda’s wrist and you tug him into the conference room, slamming the door shut by shoving him up against it as you crush your lips together. He moans audibly, thin arms coming around you tight. You bury your fingers in the mess of his white hair, tangling through the delicate strands, you notice he chokes on a moan when you tug a little too hard. The sound spurs you on. 

“You like when I pull your hair, pretty boy?”

He whimpers, opening his lips under yours and gently licking into your mouth. His tongue feels like heaven. Twisting and tangling with yours before breaking away to trace your upper row of teeth. You bite down tentatively, and a bolt of warmth shoots down to your sex when you hear him cry out. It isn't a pained noise, you can tell he liked it. It’s even more obvious how much he liked it when his hips grind up against yours, you gasp at the feeling, he’s completely hard in his pants and while you desperately want to pull him out and have your way with him. That might be just a little too daring. What you do instead, is not that much better.

“Can you lie down for me?” You whisper in his ear, one hand buried in his hair, the other on his cheek, tracing his lips with your thumb. You squeak when he takes your thumb into his mouth, sucking gently on your skin and swirling his tongue around. You can't help slipping another two fingers in. He was practically begging for it, what were you supposed to do? His big green eyes stare down at you, cloudy with desire as you slowly thrust your fingers in and out of his mouth. Watching drool pooling in the corners of lips while he keens and moans around your digits. 

Without ever pulling your fingers from his mouth, you guide him away from the door and slowly encourage him to drop down onto the floor with you. The little hitch in his breath when you straddle his narrow hips is to die for, “you’re doing so good, sweetheart.” you coo at him, running a hand through his soft hair, he closes his eyes, relishing in the feeling as he sucks hard on your fingers. You smirk, and grind up against his hard cock. Even with your fingers in his mouth, his moan is shockingly loud. 

When you press down against him again, his hips buck upward to meet yours. Desperate to reciprocate the delicious friction, licking, sucking, drooling and moaning around your fingers as you drag your hips across him over and over. A moan cutting loose from your lips as his hardness bumps up against your clit, you can feel yourself getting wet through your panties and right through your tight uniform pants. It’s disgusting, it's sweaty, and it's desperate. Komaeda is writhing underneath you, pushing himself up off the ground with his heels, doing anything and everything to grind his cock harder against you, his hair has long escaped the confines of his ponytail and is spread out behind him in a tangled white halo. 

“You’re so beautiful, Komaeda-san…” you purr, admiring the blush coating his cheeks like rouge atop porcelain, drool escaping the corners of his mouth and running down his chin. He makes a pleased noise and bites gently down on your fingers, bringing up his hands and gripping tight on your hips, pushing you down harder onto his throbbing cock and letting out a strangled sob as your hips pick up the pace. You’re both going to cum in your pants. On the conference room floor. It’s reprehensible, despicable, and so fucking hot. You must be ruining the front of Komaeda’s pants, there's no way your wetness hasn’t seeped the whole way through, and you can't help imagining the state of his cock. Is it red? Is dripping with pre-cum? You’re almost furious that you don't get to see.

“I...I’m...close…” Komaeda slurs around your fingers. Whimpering and moaning, cock twitching so furiously in his pants that you can feel it. You hiss at the sensation of his wriggling hips beneath you, finally pulling your fingers out from his mouth so you can replace them with your tongue. You’re close too, the warmth in your stomach is almost boiling, it feels like you’re going to overflow. His tongue tangles and curls against yours, exploring every crevice of your mouth as he continues rutting up against you, making adorable little noises of exertion. 

You’re hot all over, it feels like you’re going to melt if you hold on any longer. Hips moving so quickly that your abdominal muscles are starting to burn. You’re getting close to the edge and you can feel yourself about to tip over, “Cum for me, baby.” you pant into Komaeda’s ear, opening your mouth wide and biting down hard on the side of his neck. Anything to silence the moan you can feel racing up your throat. Bad idea. You did not anticipate how much Komaeda would like being bitten. The noise that he makes is closer to a shriek than anything else, his hips bucking up into you with an unbridled desperation as he finally heaves a shaky breath and cums, hard. You can feel it through the front of his pants, moaning and writhing as white explodes behind your eyes, sucking harder and harder on Komaeda’s throat as you finally topple over the threshold. Hips gyrating slower as you tentatively come back down, nuzzling your face in Komaeda’s shoulder, overcome with both exhaustion and embarrassment. 

Your pants are soaked. And so are his. 

When you finally manage to push yourself up off him with your wobbly arms, you cup a hand over your mouth in shock at the state of his neck.

“Is something wrong?” He asks, he doesn’t seem concerned, his expression is positively giddy.

The side of his throat is marked red and purple from your sucking and biting. One particularly big bite even has visible teeth marks, like you were trying to take a chunk out of him. You can’t deny you feel a little egotistical looking at it, at the way you have thoroughly ruined him. 

“I think I was a little too rough with you…” you say nervously

Komaeda chuckles, “hardly.” 

“Your uh—“ you gesture to his throat, “—everyone is going to see.” 

“Ah, I see.” Komaeda smiles, but it doesn’t look happy, “I can make up some sort of lie if you are concerned that people will assume we are involved.”

“Oh! That’s not it at all! I’m just worried that we’re going to get in trouble...for doing this at work.” You laugh to yourself, “plus, I figured you would be a lot more embarrassed about it.” 

“Embarrassed, why?” He brings up a hand and gently touches the teeth marks on his throat, “The fact that you wanted to claim someone like me as your own—“ he visibly shudders, a whiny noise escaping his mouth, “it is exhilarating.”

You swallow, “Don’t say things like that! I...I just came, Komaeda-san…give me a few hours to chill, jeez.” 

“The storage closet on the third floor is pretty roomy, if you’re free after lunch.”

You bark a laugh and cross your arms, “you’re incorrigible. But yes, I will see you there.”

[astringofmadhousefloozies]

Lil is Old

Got the idea for this one day at work and tapped it out when I came home!

Lilia has a bad day, and talks to an unprepared Yuu. Takes place some point soon after Silver’s birthday. Contains coarse language and a brief instant of mortal terror.

Please check out my Twisted Wonderland Fanfiction tag for more! And send me a message if you liked it.

~*~*~*~

Lilia's moods were rare, but unmistakable. You caught him in the corner of your eye on the way out the Diasomnia door, and decided to make a pit stop instead of leaving straight for home.

He was splayed over one of the fancy common room chairs, one leg over the arm of the chair, one hand absently swirling a wine glass full of tomato juice. He had on the open poet shirt and tight black pants combo of period romance heroes everywhere, shockingly in its charm even with an orange-red spill upon the blouse.  He hadn't noticed you yet, and didn't move when you called out to him.

"Lil. Cover up, you're indecent."

He managed to flip you off with the same hand holding his glass, but otherwise didn't move from his contemplating the ceiling. You settled in the closest chair. "What's up, Lilia."

He let out a sigh, took a breath, and let out another sigh before finally telling you. "I'm just feeling my age."

Huh. "Can't be that bad."

He turned slightly to narrow his eyes at you. "You can't possibly know. You're still young."

"Oh, I know. But you look younger than I do." You leaned over, set your head in your hands. "Isn't a lot of aging dealing with new pains and wrinkles and stuff? What's aging to the ageless?"

He let out another sigh. "I get those. Pains, anyway. But it's your head, too." You raised an eyebrow, and he continued. "It feels like yesterday I picked Silver up. Someone just left him in the woods to starve, you know? A toddler. He wasn't crying, I just caught his hair through the branches. Pure luck." His free hand fisted in the fabric of his shirt. "I wasn't going to let him go, but Malleus... I thought he'd be jealous. But Silver reached up and tried to pull his horns off and he was in love, too."

You'd never heard this from him. Hell, you hadn't heard much of it from Mal, or Silver, either. 

"And now he's growing up, and you all move too damned fast. It feels like the blink of an eye. And everyone here! What was I thinking!" He let his glass hit the ground with a ringing chime. "You're all so young and stupid and I can't be everywhere making sure you're all okay and in another blink you'll all be gone."

Oh. Oh. You stand up to grab at his free hand and squeezed it. "Hey, hey..." How the fuck do you comfort someone having a combo platter panic over parenting and mortality? You're not particularly an expert on either.

"This isn't your job, you know."

"Hey, someone's gotta try." You thought for a moment. "Is that part of why you act youthful? To fight against..." You gestured with your free hand.

He snorted. "Well, sure. But I come by it naturally. If you're young and cute you get away with everything."

You couldn't deny that. "How old are you actually, anyways?"

He looked away. "You don't want to know."

"I'm a nosy bitch, we both know I want to know."

He rolled his eyes, and sighed again. It went on and on, longer than a breath should take, and he straightened up, slowly, before looking your straight in the eye and making you regret ever asking.

How couldn't you have been able to tell? Even if he was still smooth and unlined, the strip of bare skin on his torso never marred by a hair, the weight of eons rolled off of him like waves pressing you into the surf, too powerful to catch your breath. He was tired, weary yet satisfied in the way only a long life can bring, and the shining red eyes you'd always found so sweet were ancient and knowing. This ancient boy, this antediluvian beast pretending to be your peer, he blinked at you and the sheer frightful knowing of what he truly was had you scrambling crabwise over the back of your chair so quickly you flipped it onto the floor.

"Hey, hey, it's alright, Yuu -" He knelt beside you, back to his regular self as if nothing had happened. "I shouldn't have shown you that, it's a lot for mortals."

You were wheezing as you tried to steady your thrumming heart. "Y... Is this an act?"

He shook his head. "I have to think hard on that for it to show. This is all genuine." He pulled you to your feet, looking up - without his heels, you could look straight ahead and see over the top of his head - and lightly patted your cheeks. "You alright?"

You took a deep breath. "Yeah, yeah." You reached out and squeezed him tight to you, him making a noise of surprise before returning it with equal enthusiasm. His hair smelled pleasant, lilacs and rosemary, sulfur and the clean musk of cat's fur. "Don't be a stranger when you're feeling down, okay?"

He looked up at you, all mischief and warm eyes. "Five AM with bagpipes, then. That’ll cheer me up."

"No, you geriatric gremlin!" But the thought had you laughing too hard to stop.

[wannabe-fic-writer]

Natasha Romanoff x Reader : Prove Me Wrong

Summary: She can trust you, even if she doesn’t know it yet.

Warning: 18+ Mental Health, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Violence, Smut

Chapter 9

******

“-and it’s always been like this so I figured it was normal. With him being my closest, and at times only, friend I thought maybe that’s how best friends are supposed to feel.”

Nodding, you set your pen and notebook aside,“ Bucky,” waiting for him to look up at you and feeling you heart drop at his teary eyes,“ there is nothing abnormal about how you feel. And I know it can be hard to believe and process because of the time you grew up in but I can assure you that it’s normal.”

He still frowns, no doubt warring with it in his head.

“I’m saying this as your friend and a woman who is dating a woman, your feelings are okay and, if I’m being honest, most likely reciprocated.” 

Brown eyes widen as he looks back up at you.“ You think Steve-” he cuts himself off.

Smiling softly, you ease to the edge of your seat to be just a tad closer to the man,“ you can say the words Buck. I think it’d really help.”

“I have feelings for Steve,” he runs a hand through his long hair,“ romantic feelings.”

“You love him?”

“I do.”

Moving to stand, you walk over and place a hand on his shoulder,“ so tell him. I know it’s easier said than done but you won’t lose him because of it. Best case scenario he loves you just the same.”

“And worst case?”

You shrug,“ I wouldn’t call it worst case, but, there’s a chance he doesn’t hold romantic feelings for you. He’d still be your friend. Your best friend. And he’d still love you.” 

Behind you, your alarm goes off for a third time. 

This session with Bucky has stretched two whole hours past it’s usual time. He’d come in looking pretty distraught and after twenty minutes of silence he’d spilled what was on his mind. 

Recently he’d been feeling a certain way when around Steve. It was very obvious what those feelings were but you’d waited for him to say it himself. Which he’d only just done.

Bucky has always struggled with explaining his feelings so you know this is equally hard and important to him. 

“You don’t have to rush it but it should be done Bucky.” 

Nodding, he pushes himself up off the couch.

Shockingly, he pulls you into a hug. His arms hold you close and he whispers a thank you to you. You smile and return, playfully telling him it’s part of the job. At the same time, you give him a bit of your calm in exchange for his anxiousness. 

The second he leaves, you lean against your desk and drop your head. The received anxiousness flows through you making your thoughts run a mile a minute and you try your best to calm them.

“Looks like you could use another tea.”

Her voice while calming also startles your already frazzled state and she sees you jump just a little.

Frown on her face, she moves over to you, and places a hand on your arm. 

“Y/n what’s wrong?” 

It takes a minute for you to push away the feeling and you smile reassuringly at Natasha afterwards, standing up straight and holding the hand on your arm,“ I just stood up too fast and I haven’t eaten so, head rush.” 

Green eyes search yours unsurely, and you think she knows your lying, but she nods softly,“ then lets go get you something to eat.” 

You feel bad for lying to her, especially after all your worries of her not telling you things but this was different.

Taking on these emotions and dealing with them is apart of your job and Natasha has proven to be a bit protective of you since you’d started dating. You know there’s a chance she won’t think you can handle this, that it’s too much for you and you can’t risk your job helping them. 

You’d tell Natasha, just not yet. You need time to think of the best way to do so.

“So,” you slide on to a stool at the island,“ what have you been up to all day?” 

Natasha’s brow furrows as she combs through the cabinets,“ recruit training,” she huffs,“ this may not be SHIELD but with the way Tony and Fury are running things it may as well be.” 

You quirk an eyebrow, head tilting at her tone,“ am I correct in guessing you don’t want another SHIELD like organization?”

Finally she pulls out a box of spaghetti noodles,“ it’s not about what I want.” 

“Maybe not in the bigger picture but I care about what you want.” You tell her, beginning to get confused by the ingredients she’s pulled out.

Those are definitely mac ‘n’ cheese ingredients but she also has spaghetti noodles and meatballs? Those don’t go together.

“Organizations like SHIELD, HYDRA, the-” her head shakes,“ they don’t last. If that’s what we’re becoming here then, we’ll end just like those organizations.” 

You lift your head, understanding what she means. So you push yourself off the stool and round the corner. 

Just in case she doesn’t want the physical contact, you move slowly while reaching for her hands. Taking them and tugging her to face you, then giving her a reassuring smile.

“Your fear is well placed. But the Avengers have survived those organizations-”

“Barely.” She includes.

Nodding you say,“ there were challenges but you all got through it. This is a family Tasha and I know you know that. Which means you’re stronger than some organization or outside threat. All of you have each other even if you don’t have anyone else.” 

Green eyes bore into yours and a smile pulls at the corner of perfect pink lips. 

Using your linked hands, she tugs you closer, and leans in slowly. Even though this isn’t the first time she’s kissed you, you get a little nervous. But that quickly fades when her lips press to yours.

You swear if you could kiss a cloud this is how it would feel. You hadn’t gone around kissing a bunch of people but you’re almost positive Natasha has the softest lips. 

When she pulls away she can’t help but giggle at the way your eyes remain closed longer. But they snap open the second you hear that soft little sound come from Natasha. 

“Did yo-” you try to fight the smile coming but can’t. It spreads across your face brightly.“ You just giggled.” 

Instead of denying it, Natasha just rolls her eyes and chuckles. 

“Do it again.” You say jokingly while playfully poking her side. An action that successfully elicits the sound from her again. 

Mentally, Natasha is cursing. She can’t believe she’s being so goddamn soft with you. Giggling, letting you tickle her? 

“Y/n stop.” She speaks through laughter, bending her body away from your light touches, and reaching for your hands.

Her fingers wrap around your wrists and she holds them behind your back. Which leaves your chests pressed together, both of you breathing heavily from laughter. And then realizing the position you’re in. 

Natasha’s tongue pokes out and runs across her bottom lip, the next words she speaks are a whisper,“ still hungry?” 

You nod and even though you mean it in two different ways, you know this will only end with you eating whatever pasta Natasha plans to make.

And then she nods. Moving away from you seemingly reluctant.

"So,” you clear your throat,“ what’re you making?” 

Bodies brush as she stands right beside you,“ I- don’t know. I’m not the best cook.” She sheepishly admits. 

“Luckily I am.” 

After a gentle nudge, you comb through the ingredients she’s pulled out, putting away the mac ‘n’ cheese stuff and starting on spaghetti. 

Taking your place at the island, Natasha rests her chin on her crossed hands, and watches you move with ease. All the while making conversation with you. 

She asks about your day, about your past, and just your likes and dislikes. Things that wouldn’t seem worth interest but she hangs on to every word. And it carries through your meal until you’ve both gotten comfortable on the couch. 

It’s then that your nervousness resurfaces. 

As Natasha looks for something to watch, you sit at her side, wanting nothing more than to move closer. Except you aren’t sure if she’d be okay with that. 

Noticing this, and definitely wanting to be closer to you, the redhead scoots over. Her arm slides around your shoulders and she pulls you into her. She smiles at your smile and without a thought, kisses your temple. 

Heat rises to your cheeks and you duck your head. That shyness disappears the second you look up and see Bucky entering the common room, his hand in Steve’s.

“Hey Doll.” Steve nods to you, then Natasha.“ Nat.”

You wave, pulling your eyes from their hands,“ hi Steve. Buck.” You then look to the brunette man. 

Bucky smiles softly and mouths a thanks before following Steve out of the building. Once again leaving you alone with Natasha.

“Are they-” you nod.“ Did you have something to do with that?” You nod. 

Natasha smiles,“ you keep surprising me Y/Ln.” 

“I could say the same Romanoff.” You wink at her, because it’s completely true.

******

taglist: @username23345 @muffliat-o  @aaron-despair @natasha-danvers​ @wildhoney32 @criminallyhamilton @fayhar @nat-km-mh @chicken-wang09 @trikruismybitch

[fandom-pardes]

According to halacha, which actions are Azula liable for?

Reposted from my Tumblr.

One of my favorite ways to study Jewish texts is to take a fictional character or situation and examine it through the lens of Jewish text and tradition.

I’ve done this before with ABC’s Once Upon A Time. Now I’m going to take up this exercise again with Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Before I begin, a few things to keep in mind.

I’m not a Talmud scholar.

There is no definitive Jewish Opinion™ about any issue pertaining to halacha. Unanimous opinions on halacha are so rare that when we find one, we assume something went wrong in the process..

Azula is a morally polarizing character in AtLA fandom. Regardless of who you ask, you’re bound to get some strong opinions about exactly what she’s done, the extent to which she’s responsible for it, and what this says about her morality or lack thereof. I’m not going to rehash those arguments. I think I’ve made it clear that I care less about whether people approve of her behavior than I do about how their statements about her reinforce harmful messages about women, people of color, LGBT people and mentally ill people.

Nevertheless, she’s incredibly interesting, and studying Jewish text is fun, so here we are.

Why examine Azula’s actions through the lens of halacha?

Halacha gets a lot of flack because it comes off as excessively legalistic. But, in my opinion, that’s based on a misunderstanding of what halacha is. Usually translated as “Jewish law,” the word halacha actually comes from the root word that means “to go/walk.”

Halacha is not a collection of rules for the sake of having rules. It’s meant to take us somewhere. You can write a library of books about exactly what that is and what it means. But for the sake of simplicity, halacha is how we show that we recognize the holiness of everything in creation. So we aim to do right by one another, by the land we live in and by the creatures we share this world with.

Before we can launch into examining the halachic ramifications of the things Azula does, we need to establish some boundaries.

Only the show counts. It’s the common frame of reference universally accepted by the vast majority of fandom. Fandom’s stances on the comics, novelizations and other tie-in materials are too variable to base an analysis on.

Word of God is immaterial. While some would use the phrase Death of the Author, Jewish tradition has a more entertaining take on it. In the Talmud, there’s a dispute between Rabbi Eliezer and some of his peers. In that story, Rabbi Eliezer says that if he’s right, this or that miraculous thing would happen, and those miraculous things do happen. But the other rabbis still reject it because we don’t determine halacha by miraculous signs. Eventually, God parts the heavens and says, “Rabbi Eliezer is right.” But another rabbi responds, “The Torah is not in heaven,” meaning that the Torah was meant for human beings on earth to interpret for themselves. And God’s response? To smile and say, “My children have defeated Me.”

Now, let’s begin.

Is Azula bound by halacha?

She’s not Jewish, so no. However, all human beings are bound by the Noahide laws. For the sake of argument, let’s say that the Noahide covenant applies to all humans on all worlds. According to the Talmud (Sanhedrin 56a.24):

Since the halakhot of the descendants of Noah have been mentioned, a full discussion of the Noahide mitzvot is presented. The Sages taught in a baraita: The descendants of Noah, i.e., all of humanity, were commanded to observe seven mitzvot: The mitzva of establishing courts of judgment; and the prohibition against blessing, i.e., cursing, the name of God; and the prohibition of idol worship; and the prohibition against forbidden sexual relations; and the prohibition of bloodshed; and the prohibition of robbery; and the prohibition against eating a limb from a living animal.

What is Azula’s legal status?

In any case, we know the rules, and now we have to decide whether Azula broke them or not, right?

Not so fast.

First, we have to determine if Azula is of the appropriate legal status to be held accountable for upholding the Noahide laws. In other words: when she committed certain acts, was Azula an adult capable of making rational decisions?

Clear your mind of the idea that being an adult is the same as being a grownup. Instead, think of it as a term that defines when people can make legally binding decisions.

As far as I can tell, the Talmud doesn’t say when a gentile becomes an adult. However, we can use halacha as a guide.

Now for a warning.

If frank talk about the physical development of adolescents makes you uncomfortable, you might want to skip this next part. There’s nothing graphic or titillating about what I’m going to discuss, but if breasts and pubic hair squick you out, skip this part until I say it’s safe in bold like this.

According to halacha, a girl reaches adulthood when she’s twelve years and one day old and has two pubic hairs. Yeah, you read that right. Twelve and two pubes are the requirement. Before this point, nothing she does is legally binding, even if she’s really smart and claims to be fully aware of what she’s doing. After this point, her actions are legally binding, even if she says she had no idea what she was doing.

On the show, we see Azula in a range of ages. In “Zuko Alone,” we see her at roughly eight years old. In “The Storm,” she’s about eleven. In all the other episodes she’s in, she’s fourteen. So, from a legal standpoint, flashback!Azula is too young for her actions to be legally binding. At that point in time, the responsibility would fall to her parents.

Um, I’m not willing to speculate about the genitals of an underage cartoon character, so for the sake of argument, I’m assuming that 14-year-old Azula meets the two pubes requirement. Thus, 14-year-old Azula is responsible for her actions.

If you skipped that last part, it’s safe to continue now.

OK, we’ve established that flashback!Azula is too young for her actions to be legally binding, but in the main story, Azula is legally an adult and responsible for her actions.

We good? Alright.

Which Noahide laws does Azula actually break?

This is both easier and harder than it seems.

The laws about idol worship, cursing God, and forbidden sexual acts don’t apply to her because neither religion nor sex are portrayed as such on the show. Also, the law about establishing courts of justice is a communal obligation, not one that falls on a single individual, so that’s another one we don’t have to concern ourselves with.

That leaves the prohibitions against bloodshed, robbery and eating a limb cut from a living animal.

First up: bloodshed.

The connotation of the prohibition against bloodshed is not for general acts of violence, but actual murder.

Here’s where I think I’m going to throw a lot of people for a loop. Azula doesn’t kill anyone on the show. She tries. She comes close. She wouldn’t lose sleep over it if she did. But nobody’s dead because of her. She doesn’t even take lives as collateral damage.

One could argue that zapping Aang with lightning counts as killing, but when the Sages talk about death and dying, I assume they mean the kind where the dead stay dead, not people who are revived by magic spirit water. Furthermore, if someone’s about to kill you (and I think entering the Avatar State qualifies here), you are halachically obligated to save your own life, even if it means killing that person.

Second: robbery.

We’ll come back to that.

Third: eating a limb from a living animal.

This prohibition is often expanded to incorporate all forms of animal cruelty.

The show does portray animal cruelty. We see a prime example with the circus in “Appa’s Lost Days.”

But what about Azula? We don’t see her interact with many animals on the show, but there are two notable examples: Appa the sky bison in “Appa’s Lost Days” and Bosco the bear in “The Crossroads of Destiny.”

How does her behavior measure up? Despite her earlier behavior of terrorizing turtleducks, Azula does not harm either Appa or Bosco.

On the show, Mai and Ty Lee are seen spending time with Bosco in the throne room while the Earth King is imprisoned. So, at the very least, they treat the bear well.

So, Azula is not liable for animal cruelty.

*hands Azula her Not As Big A Jerk As She Could Have Been award*

Now, let’s revisit that prohibition against robbery.

Given the prescribed punishment (decapitation), the connotation seems to be taking the rightful property of another through violent means. That being said, the prohibition against robbery is often extended to include all sorts of theft.

This one might have some legs. On the show, does Azula take the rightful property of another, and does she use violent means to do so?

Absolutely.

A major example is stealing the clothes of the Kyoshi Warriors after defeating them in combat.

But!

The show takes place during a time of war, and the Kyoshi Warriors, as allies of the Avatar, are enemies of the Fire Nation. So does beating them up and taking their uniforms fall under the prohibition against robbery, or are the Kyoshi Warrior uniforms considered the spoils of war and thus free for the taking?

Halachically speaking, it might actually be the latter. When fighting the Kyoshi Warriors, Azula acts as a military commander during a time of war and achieves a decisive victory against an elite combat unit. Thus, she is entitled to take their stuff.

So, back to the original question: which actions does Azula commit during the show that she’s halachically liable for?

The answer, shockingly, may be: none.

On the show, we’re encouraged to think of Azula as a Very Bad Girl who does Very Bad Things. She’s calculating, ruthless and deceptive. She’s also full of herself. She’s not someone who inspires warm, fuzzy feelings in most people. But when you put her actions under the microscope, she exercises remarkable restraint compared to what she’s capable of.

Don’t worry. No one’s going to nominate her for a Nobel Peace Prize just yet. This is Azula we’re talking about. She’s not acting out of an overwhelming love for humanity. But it is interesting that despite her threats to kill, maim and destroy, she doesn’t participate in wanton destruction or wasteful loss of life.

[gwoongi]

best years

jeon jeongguk / reader genre: best friend au, bff-to-lovers au, fluff, angst, guk is pining rating: general words: 2.6k warnings: its a short little fic, sort of like one chunk of a big chocolate bar and im gonna slowly feed u one chunk at a time until you’re sick and full a/n: a squint into the mind of bff jeongguk who will star in an eventual “idol best friend” series that i routinely dream about but have always felt it disrespectful to write about but at the end of the day everything i write is fiction and jeongguk would probably be less offended by a “canon divergence bff au” than he would reading my drug addicted rockstar au so :-) read it & weep folks

Jeongguk’s always been scared of the rejection he might receive from you. He might be a dream for fans across the world, but there’s a split second where Jeongguk feels like he might not be good enough for you. He’s the world to other people. But you deserve the whole galaxy, and he’s afraid that’s something that he might not ever be, even with the money, and the fame, and the doubts he tries to hide.

Jeongguk was taking a pretty big risk, he knew that. It was risky taking any step out of his house at any moment, even on the days where it was pouring outside; he’d think he was safe until he made it to the end of the road, earphones snug in his ears, and the flash of a camera behind the shrubs in the corner of his eye blinds him back to his front door in a twisted shame. 

Granted, he’d expected it to be worse as he booked a plane ticket and made a rather hasty, in-the-moment journey to the airport and on a plane with no layover. Usually when Jeongguk takes a journey overseas, there’s at least one or two fans hiding in the corner of the suites waiting for him, or someone on the plane who’d recognise his face. For this, he’d suck it up and take a photo. It was better to have good PR, and be a little bit pissed off that he’d been discovered, than to have bad PR and to be known as the member of BTS who didn’t give a damn when the ‘real’ reasons for travel were taken away.

But Jeongguk thought the risk was worth it this time. The plane touched down in Manchester, and from there, it was an hour long train journey to a station he didn’t know anything about to meet a friend of yours he’d only seen in Instagram pictures. You were at University now, a face he saw on a screen rather than a face he quite literally woke up next to months before. It had been four months since Jeongguk had seen his true best friend, and fuck anybody who was going to make him wait a second longer before seeing you again.

You were his greatest risk, but it was worth it. You were worth it.

“Fuck, it’s insane to actually be meeting you right now.” Frank is a good guy, ginger with circle glasses rested on the end of his roundish nose. He led Jeongguk out of the train station, offering to pull his suitcase for him. “I mean, I’m a huge fan.” Followed by a sigh and a quiet, “Who isn’t…?”

Jeongguk smiled at him, squinting in the sun as it hit his eyes in the direction of Frank’s face. “Thanks. I hear a lot about you, too.”

Frank grinned, whipping his head towards Jeongguk. “All sexy and scandalous things, I hope. You know, none of us believed Y/N when she said she knew you. We thought the pictures were Photoshopped, you know how she is.” They both paused by the side of the road going one way only, “Shit, she’s gonna freak out when she sees you.”

That was three minutes ago, but Jeongguk’s still playing that sentence on a loop. He walks alongside Frank down one of the streets, past a redundant furniture store that quirks his brows. A man stands in the doorway, a cigarette out of his mouth and ash dropping to his toes bare in sandals. It smells like doughnuts, and weed, and he smiles brightly. He’s missed the UK, and how unbelievably shockingly awful it is when you’re not looking at picturesque photos of London online.

“I thought you’d know that Y/N’s my best friend,” Jeongguk says thoughtfully. He pauses as Frank does as a car zooms past when they’re about to cross. “I mean, people know. The photos got leaked, all of them.”

“Hey, give me a break,” Frank says dramatically. “I only became a fan three months ago. And yeah, I figured. Finally, I understood why all the white girls studying Korean here wanted photographs with her and to be her best friend…”

Jeongguk frowns. “Is it bad? She doesn’t tell me this stuff on the phone. I mean, they go crazy on Twitter when she posts pictures and we interact, but I didn’t…”

Frank shakes his head and grins at Jeongguk until the words die out. “Nah, don’t panic. It’s not that bad. If anything, she might get a kick out of the fame. Trust, there’s always gonna be the girls who hate her because she’s friends with you and that’s like, what, threatening to their fantasy? But she loves you a lot, and a friendship like yours...it’s kinda like family, you know?”

Jeongguk feels his stomach flip, kind of like butterflies. These butterflies are sour, his heart racing that extra bit quicker. He likes the sound of family. He doesn’t like the way Frank implies it, because if Jeongguk is ever going to consider you as family, it won’t be as his sister. You’ve never been his sister, even when you were part of his family growing up. There were times you came to all of his Korean family events, the times his family called you their own, but you were never his sister. It was different to that, you both knew it but never acknowledged it.

Frank makes small talk until they make it to the student accomodation you currently live at, and because Frank knows basically everybody, a student comes to the gate to let them both in. They’re nice, big and pretty-skinned, wearing an Aston Villa shirt that Jeongguk remembers looks a lot like your Dad’s back in the day. Might be the same, might be a vintage.

He smiles at him, because maybe this guy knows Jeongguk, but the guy just turns back into the common room and doesn’t come out again. Frank doesn’t live here, he lives in a flat of his own around the corner, but Frank might as well be a resident here. He lets himself in towards the lift and shoots a text to one of your flatmates.

“Apparently she’s in the shower,” Frank says casually. He locks his phone, taps his foot as the lift rises, “Let’s hope she doesn’t stride out completely stark naked as you’re in there.”

He almost blushes, “Ha, yeah.” He declines to mention the times you two have showered together, the time you went skinny dipping together when you were fifteen. Those were things that might end up getting misunderstood, and those are his memories he’d like to keep hidden and secret. He says nothing, nothing but a thank you when he enters your flat with Frank and takes a different turn to the left as Frank goes right, towards the kitchen.

Your room is at the very end, your name on the door in stickers from a set you got from the 99p store, and from inside, he hears the music in the bathroom. The door opens silently and closes with the same volume, and Jeongguk manages to wheel his suitcase to the end of the bed and plonks himself down. As expected from pixels on the screen, your room looks better in person- white walls and a bed set that’s white with a peony pattern. Above your desk, Jeongguk recognises all your photos together, new polaroids of you and the friends you’ve made at University who Jeongguk always felt kind of threatened by. He smiles to himself, and rests his neck at a strange angle against the wall your bed is literally attached to. From here, he can see the bathroom door in the mirror on the opposite wall, but he knows you’ll only see his feet when you come out.

Speaking of which; the Fleetwood Mac song ends suddenly and the shower water has stopped running. Jeongguk hears the toilet flush and his heart starts to race. Four months of falling asleep on Facetime and texting when there was no time left in the day, and now, here he is, on your bed, waiting for you to step out and...and, then what?

Maybe you didn’t even want him here. Maybe you were happier now that Jeongguk was in Korea and you were still at home, in a new city with new friends and a new life. Maybe the memory of Jeongguk was burdensome. Worse, maybe he was something you felt you had to remember but didn’t really want to.

Jeongguk’s always been scared of the rejection he might receive from you. He might be a dream for fans across the world, but there’s a split second where Jeongguk feels like he might not be good enough for you. He’s the world to other people. But you deserve the whole galaxy, and he’s afraid that’s something that he might not ever be, even with the money, and the fame, and the doubts he tries to hide.

The bathroom door opens and in two seconds, the light is shut off and he hears you sigh.

“Frank, you gotta stop letting yourself in here without telling me,” your voice says. “Good thing I’m semi-decent. Usually I’m not.”

“No fun,” Jeongguk teases, and silence follows. There’s a pause in the room, and Jeongguk cocks his head with his left cheek on his shoulder, waiting for you to click and appear in front of him. Suddenly, there’s small but quick thuds across the carpet and Jeongguk feels his chest tighten with a nostalgic feeling as you come into view with wide eyes, damp hair and nothing but a bra and those stupid black worn leggings you refuse to throw out.

The grin that reaches Jeongguk’s eyes now aches as he laughs at you, at the way you gape in his presence. It takes a moment, a moment of what feels like could be the rejection that Jeongguk absolutely fears, but then you smile so wide that Jeongguk feels it in his stomach.

“Holy shit!” you exclaim loudly, bringing a hand to your mouth as you hurry towards the bed. It dips beneath your knees and Jeongguk rises up to a sitting position. “What the fuck!”

He laughs out loud, and when you’re next to nothing away, Jeongguk wastes zero time in bringing you into his arms, tightly hugging you.

“Careful, my hair’s all wet,” you squeak.

“Don’t care.”

He really doesn’t. There’s probably going to be a damp spot on his clothes after, but that’s okay. You groan loudly with happiness as you hug him in return as tightly as he is hugging you, your weight on his lap and your arms around his neck. Jeongguk smiles so wide, sighing with content into your neck. Here, he smells the marshmallow wash on your skin, the fragrance of your hair that kind of reminds Jeongguk of cabbage patch babies.

“You smell good,” he mutters. You laugh quietly, squirming when his nose sniffs across your neck like one would kiss. “I don’t.”

“You do, you always smell good,” you reply. One sniff, he laughs, “See!”

“Mmm,” he plays along, “the sweet smell of planes and trains and jetlag.”

That makes you laugh, and at the mention of jetlag, Jeongguk realises he could probably fall asleep like this given the chance. He has missed this, missed you, so fucking much. The emotions are overwhelming. 

Jeongguk kisses behind your earlobe, and just underneath your jaw. That’s new. Jeongguk was a cheek-kiss kind of best friend, but never this. You’re not complaining. Your head drops to one side, almost giving him more access to the space free, and he occupies it. Those fucking butterflies; Jeongguk feels sick with nerves as he kisses you, under your chin and across your neck, on that spot on your collarbone you found out tickled after Seven Minutes in Heaven in Year 8. Maybe your fingernails in his hair are a way of you telling him to stop- it’s something he can think about tonight if he can’t fall asleep, something he doesn’t care to think about when he kisses on your actual jawline, to your cheek and the corner of your mouth, your cupid's bow.

He moves away with a blush that matches your own, but maybe you can’t see his in the colour of your fairy lights. He plays with the confusion as he moves the hair that's across your face around your ears, smiling and raising his eyebrows. Jeongguk convinces the role of casual to perfection and bites back a sour taste when he notices you’re the same. Casual, unmoved, maybe even like it didn’t mean a thing.

“Your hair is so fucking wet,” he sniggers boyishly.

“I told you,” you shrug. You shrink, relaxed, “Fuck, Guk, why are you here? I mean, I’m literally so happy, but...Are you gonna get in trouble for this?”

“I dunno,” he admits. “Maybe, probably. I mean...the guys know I’m here. Hoseok drove me to the airport with Jimin.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Jeongguk sighs loudly. “Yeah, I know. Frank told me all about the girls.”

“Little fucker. Is he here? I’ll punch him for mentioning it to you. It’s honestly fine. Girls will be girls.”

“You’re my best friend for life, it’s important to me that you’re not uncomfortable by it-”

“I’m not,” you assure him, hands trapped in his hair. “Damn, this got long. Didn’t look long over the phone.”

“Was growing it out,” Jeongguk replies. “Heard you fancied Keanu Reeves, couldn’t handle the competition.”

“Ha!” you retort. “Simp.”

“For you,” frowns Jeongguk dramatically.

Conversation fizzles comfortably, to the point where you both forget that Jeongguk’s underneath you and your legs are wrapped like a koala around his middle. The fact that this is normality for you both is ignored. You’ve done worse things together. Jeongguk even knows that the bra you’re wearing now is one he bought for you. That could be why Jeongguk feels the way that he does, why this confusion wraps around his body and traps him. Jeongguk knows that the butterflies in his stomach don’t just appear because you’re his best friend he hasn’t seen in a while. He knows what they mean when they flutter when your name pops up when you’re calling him, when an interviewer tries to catch him out by bringing you up in another interview that you don’t need to be mentioned in.

Jeongguk knows that coming here was worth the confusion, and the nerves, and the fact that this will be a headline when it gets out. JEON JUNGKOOK GOES TO UK TO VISIT HIS BEST FRIEND...BUT ARE THEY MORE? Or worse, NETIZENS HAVE PROOF THAT BTS JUNGKOOK IS DATING HIS BEST FRIEND Y/N…

He doesn’t want to hurt you. That’s how he feels scared. For you to be scandalised by an article online that caught him out in his feelings, he knew it wasn’t fair. Jeongguk might be too afraid to say he’s in love, and too afraid to find out if you feel it too, but he’d risk those feelings and the headlines if it meant spending one more day with you.

Jeongguk’s got a week and a half with you. Something’s gotta give within this week. He doesn’t want to go back to Korea with more regrets than he came with, and for now, he’ll just have to swallow those butterflies back down when they pour out of his mouth. Right now, he can’t afford to be caught out. It has to be known on his own terms, when the timing is perfect. It has to be perfect, because it’s what you deserve. It has to be perfect, because if it isn’t, then Jeongguk doesn’t think it will be worth it.

Losing you to a headline and a butterfly is out of the question. One tries to escape when you hop off him and shrug on a jumper from out of your wardrobe. If you noticed his unease you didn’t mention it. He wants to cry, wants the confusion to go away for the night so he can enjoy it.

Fuck.

For now, he thinks as he follows you with an arm around your shoulders out of your bedroom and towards the kitchen to meet the others, he’ll just have to fake it til he makes it. Just like always. Put on a face, put on a show, until it all feels worth the spillage. He can’t let the butterflies escape yet.

It has to be perfect, and he’ll have to be patient.

[justcallmefox89]

The Bakery Fallout

Spoiler warning: if you haven’t read the book 3 demo, this fic does contain a small spoiler for Mason’s route.

Adam has to rescue the detective as they attempt to comes to terms with Mason’s statement in the bakery.  Their adversarial relationship transforms into something softer as they realize they have more in common than they first thought.  

I tap angrily on my keyboard in an attempt to finish my final report of the day as the scene from the bakery this morning plays on a loop in my mind.

Just seeing each other naked......

“What a smug, condescending........”  My thoughts trail off into an inaudible growl as shove myself away from my desk.  My office chair turns me in a lazy circle as I consider why I’m angry.

Fact - Mason had warned me that this would just be a bit of fun on his part.

Fact - I had agreed to those terms.

Fact - Somewhere along the way I lost my good sense and started to fall for him.

Fact - This morning he ripped out my heart and left it on that table at Haley’s.

I’ve spent the day stewing in my office, slamming filing cabinet drawers and dodging phone calls from the mayor.  I’m pissed at Mason, but downright disgusted with myself.  I glance at the clock hanging on my office wall.  

Close enough to quitting time.

Now there’s only one thing to do for my sour mood.  I catch Tina by the hand as she scampers past my office.  “We’re going drinking.”  

She doesn’t hesitate, just lets out a cheery laugh.  “Lead on then Detective!”

-------------------------

Adam strides purposefully into the bar, eyes narrowing as he searches the dim establishment for Detective MacKenzie, nose wrinkling against the smell of cheap beer.  He huffs in irritation when he is unable to immediately locate them.

He’s beginning his second scan of the bar when a pair of hands yank down on his arm.  Officer Poname is gazing up at him blearily, holding his arm for balance as she stretches up on her tiptoes.  

“They’re over there!”  She points to a far corner of the room and shouts in an attempt to be heard above the din of the bar.

Adam winces as her voice attacks his hypersenses and steps away quickly, pulling his arm from her grip as he does.  His gaze flicks in the direction of Officer Poname’s extended arm and catches a glimpse of the detective’s riotous black curls as they brush their hair over their shoulder, shaking their head and laughing as their long hair tickles their bare skin.  

The detective’s tattoos are usually covered, but tonight they have removed their flannel shirt and Adam is momentarily fascinated by the colorful ink and pale skin revealed by the detective’s sleeveless undershirt.

“They seem to be enjoying themselves,” Adam observes, wondering for the tenth time since he left the warehouse why he was called to save the detective from their bad decisions.

“Yeah, about that........” Officer Poname slowly drawls.  “There’s something going on.  They won’t tell me what it is, but I haven’t seen them this bad since......”

“Since?”  Adam prompts, impatient.

Officer Poname shakes her head and waves a hand, as if shooing the thought away.  “If Kieran wants to tell you about it, they will.  They point is, they’re drunk and in bad shape, and I’m not in any state to help them out right now.”

“I’m sure Specialist Agent Mason would have been happy to assist Detective MacKenzie,” Adam remarks dryly.

A strange look crosses Tina’s face.  “They told me not to call him,” she admits. “They said to call the.....” She trails off and her face flushes momentarily.  “They told me to call you.”

Adam furrows his brow, confused as to why Kieran wouldn’t want to call Mason, and even further confused at the small fluttering in his chest at the revelation that they had insisted he come to their aid.

“Well, uh, I’ll leave you to it then.”  Tina pats his shoulder and clumsily meanders off in search of another drink.

He shoulders his way towards the dark corner Detective MacKenzie is ensconced in, stopping in surprise when he sees they’re not alone.  Kieran is sitting with the reporter, more accurately, seated in his lap, both hands braced on his muscular chest as their fingertips toy with the buttons of his shirt.  Bobby’s fingers run through their hair, tangling in their curls and playing with the silver and leather hair beads scattered through the thick locks.

Pushing down a sudden surge of irritation Adam moves directly behind the duo’s chair and loudly clears his throat.  Bobby is the first to look up at him, eyes widening in surprise quickly followed by curiosity, undoubtedly wondering why Adam is there instead of Mason.

“Looks like you’ve got a visitor, angel.”  He smirks as he twists one of Kieran’s curls around his index finger.

“I’ve come to escort you home,” Adam announces, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Kieran twists to look at him over their shoulder.  They look angry, brows furrowed, lips parted to make a sarcastic remark, as per the usual course of their relationship with him.

As Adam braces himself for a confrontation he glances down to meet Kieran’s gaze.  Their eyes are glassy, pupils blown so wide the black nearly obscures the vivid emerald color of their irises.  Despite the fury that twists their features, their eyes are pained..........sad.

Adam takes a sharp breath, momentarily disconcerted by the pain that emanates from Kieran’s very being; washing over them in waves and threatening drown them.  He exhales shakily, overwhelmed by the sudden, intense urge to dive in and save them from the undertow.

Kieran inhales deeply and blinks several times in rapid succession, and when they meet Adam’s eyes again he’s relieved to see their usual smirk is back in place. 

“If you insist, Commanding Agent Du Mortain,” Kieran purrs.  They lean in and whisper something in Bobby’s ear.  Adam is only able to parse out a few words over the clamor of the other bar patrons, but whatever they say puts a large smile on the reporter’s face.  

Kieran places both feet firmly on the floor and stands, wobbling slightly.  Unthinking, Adam reaches out to steady the detective with one large hand on their shoulder.  As soon as he touches bare skin his body tenses.  Their skin is soft and so, so warm.  For some reason he had imagined that the tattoos would feel differently, that maybe the ink would texture their skin somehow, but all he can feel is smooth, unblemished skin.

“Hey!  Du Mortain!”  Adam gasps, startled out of his shockingly personal thoughts about the detective, and realizes that his hand is still firmly touching them.

Kieran gives him an infuriating smirk and a quick wink.  “Looking’s free, but touching will cost ya.”

Adam snatches his hand away from the detective and imperiously looks down his nose at them.  “Never fear Detective MacKenzie, I have no desire to touch you any longer than absolutely necessary to ensure your safety.”  

His stomach clenches and he frowns.  His words sounded so certain, but why did it feel like he was telling a lie?

Kieran shrugs into their flannel shirt and gives him a coy look.  “That’s what the pretty ones all say at first,” they murmur, patting his chest softly.  

Adam’s eyes widen at the casual touch and he huffs out an involuntary rush of air.  “Time to leave detective.”

Kieran turns to blow Bobby a kiss, then lazily waves a hand towards the bar’s exit.  “Lead on then, Du Mortain.” 

The chill of the outside air and a soft mist are a welcome change from the sour, fermented air of the bar and Adam inhales deeply to cleanse his lungs.  Next to him, Kieran has closed their eyes and tilted their head back, lips curled in a soft smile as the mist touches their skin.

Adam has never seen the detective look so happy.  No, not happy.  Unguarded.  Kieran has nearly as many personal defenses in place as he does, and to see them simply be is something he wants to savor.  He allows himself a few moments more before catching the detective’s attention.

Adam coughs loudly, prompting Kieran to open their eyes.  “If you’re quite through Detective MacKenzie, we need to proceed to your apartment.”

Kieran rolls their eyes and shoulders past him.  “Whatever you say, Du Mortain.”

“If you find my company that distasteful you could’ve called someone else to retrieve you,” Adam snaps, matching his steps to their.  “I’m sure Agent MacKenzie or another member of Unit Bravo-”

“Bleeding Christ, no,” Kieran snorts.  Adam blinks, taken aback by their vehemence.  “Those four are the very last fucking people I want to be around right now.”

Adam’s eyes widen.  “You want to be around me?”

“Shocked the shit out of me too, Du Mortain,” they chuckle.  “Nate and Felix would just look at me like I’m a wounded puppy and want to talk about how I feel.”  

They blanch, a faintly sickened look on their face at the very thought.  Adam feels a faint pang of empathy; the thought of having his feelings subject to the scrutiny of either Nate or Felix is enough to make him feel ill as well.  

“And we both know that they only time Rebecca has anything to do with me is if she needs something or when we have a case.  And Mason is only interested in what’s in my pants, not helping me out.”  Kieran glances over at him, anticipating his rebuttal.  

Adam opens him mouth, knowing he should put forth some form of token argument, but he can’t deny the truth of Kieran’s statement, so instead he asks, “Why call me then?”

“Because,” they sigh.  “You leave things well enough alone.  You don’t pick or prod trying to get me to open up about things I don’t want to talk about.  You just let me be.  And I appreciate that.  You’re the only one who does.”

The rest of the walk continues in silence as Adam ponders the detective’s statement.  He hadn’t considered it before, but he appreciated them for the very same reason.

The rest of the walk to Kieran’s apartment passes in a companionable silence.  Once they have the door unlocked they lean against the doorjamb and rake an appraising glance over Adam.  

“Wanna come inside?”  They ask, jerking a thumb towards their living room.  “We could have a proper sleepover, make hot chocolate and friendship bracelets and everything.”

 Adam’s eyes bulge in surprise and he takes a startled step back.  “You cannot be serious, detective.”

“Sure I am.  I’ve got a crafting kit left over from the last time I watched Verda’s girls.”  Kieran waits a beat then dissolves into giggles.  “You should have seen your face, Du Mortain.”

Adam’s shoulders sag in relief, but for the second time this evening a faint pang of disappointment resonates in his chest.  He quickly shakes the feeling off.  “I trust you can handle yourself from here, Detective MacKenzie?”

Kieran smirks and gives him a lazy salute.  “Absolutely, Commanding Agent Du Mortain.”  They sober for a moment.  “But seriously, thanks for coming to walk me home.  You’re a regular knight in shining armor.”

Adam rolls his eyes in annoyance and turns to leave.

“Hey Adam?”  Kieran’s voice is soft, hesitant.

He turns, an eyebrow quirked in curiosity.  “Yes, detective?”

Their eyes are hazy now, glassy with unshed tears.  “Why don’t they want me?”

Adam’s brow furrows as he attempts to work out who Kieran is talking about.  A few moments too late he works out that they’re referring to Mason and Rebecca.  

Kieran has taken his silence as something other than momentary confusion, and nods as they smile sadly.  “Yeah.......I wouldn’t want me either.”

“Detective,” Adam begins, his throat clenching as they roughly rub the cuffs of their shirt over their eyes in attempt to stop their tears from falling.

They shrug in a half-hearted attempt to reassure him.  “Goodnight, Adam.”  They silently withdraw into the darkness of their apartment and shut the door.

He stands motionless outside the detective’s apartment, and for the first time since he’s known them, Adam feels a rush of pure rage towards Mason and Rebecca.  Damn them.  Damn them both. 

[zelskzerker]

Mangadex went down so I read alot 1/7

Lets review a bunch of isekai and related stuff I binged because mangadex went down. The scale will be a single thumbs up to a single thumbs down in terms of how much I would consider recommending it in general.

Legend

Chapters 1-51 Pretty straight forward in most aspects. For the best. Nothing crazy bad or good happening, making it surprisingly straight forward for an isekai. [Insert isekai startup here] but this time the MC is given a super magic body and the knowledge of ancient magic. Which he promptly uses to create a griffon buddy. Gets a THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER for just being a nice, believable stay in a world, but I have read some stuff that really has interesting sparks the way this doesnt. MC is brutal at times and General Princess is cute. They make a good pair for each other.  Although there are no ecchi situations, that artist really knows how to slide in the lewds, whether its mid combat flourishes or pre chapter artwork.

The Black Create Summoner: Revolt of Reincarnated

All Chapters

Truly is revolting. A resounding THUMBS DOWN.  Apparently this was just an advertisement manga, which means that its intentionally incomplete and unsatisfying. Ontop of that, the sketchy artwork was generally rough and got worse to look at the more it went on. [Insert isekai startup here] but this time he has a grimoire that lets him summon stuff he draws. The power isn’t used that much though or in that creative of ways. Characters didn’t really leave an impact except maybe the elf little sister that is stubborn yet knows she is incompotent and recruits a dragon out of stubbornness. 

Minotaur’s Sweetheart

Chapters 1-16

So what if a minotaur accidentally seduced the adventurer that was assigned to kill him? This is a good romance manga deserving a THUMBS UP because the pure-hearted minotaur boy and the unmarriageable adventurer girl actually develop a relationship and progress as people. The manga is ultimately about monsters and humans interacting and is fresh due to having a plot that evolves the situation a lot beyond the initial setup of the manga.

Moon-led Journey Across Another World

Chapters 1-64

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time the god of the new world calls the MC ugly and banishes him to the edge of the world to die off. In order to help out the MC, the god of our world (Tsukuyomi) gives him a bit of power. The MC is funny to watch once you realize that he is an incredibly cautious pureboy and expecting every common street thug to potentially end him but in reality he is a god-rivaling cataclysm himself and never realizes. He is so powerful that he recruits the blue haired mist dragon, Tomoe, and accidentally turns her into a weeaboo. Tomoe can read minds and access pocket space with her mist ontop of her sick weeaboo katana skills. She really shines as the most mature person in the story, gaining information that no one else in the story has and carefully withholding it from the MC in order to protect his innocence. She is a DAMN good tomboyish waifu and sarashii is a blessing. Other main girl is yandere spider, Mio, which has shockingly good and well conveyed bouts of emotion. She has an extremely rare “can’t cook at all” joke that is explained due to her “eat literally anything” nature. In terms of plot, the MC hates the god of the world he is in and pretty much plans to do everything she doesn’t want him to. Which means mingling with humans, and eventually, god slaying/usurption. Odd think about this manga is that it’s heavily Japanese-inspired. That may sound odd because its a manga, but generally isekai are most medieval/western skinned than this one which leans in on Japanese mythos. Just look at the god of our world in the manga.

THUMBS UP.

The Unsuccessful yet Academically Unparalleled Sage ~A Cheating S-Rank Sorcerer's Post-Rebirth Adventurer Log~

Chapter 1-10 So lets set up this genre here. This is a part of the “reincarnation” genre, which is a spinoff of isekai. They generally depict a very capable mage who reincarnates themselves into the future of their own world. At which point they realize that although they were pretty strong in their day, they are now practically a god in the deteriorated modern day. This genre will hereby be indicated by [Insert reincarnation startup here]. For this manga in specific, [Insert isekai startup here] but this time the MC could only use lightning magic and was the best at it but failed the gene gacha then [Insert reincarnation startup here] and he fails gene gacha again but is still the walking thunder god. These kinds of manga are always precious when the MC can walk through the world and see the fruits of their past labor. Specifically through Merlin, the MC’s adopted demon daughter who has grown up to be his heritor and bridge human/demon relationships. Truly adorable and heart warming. Lacks a bit of spice from themeing or ongoing plot due to its short length however. THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER.

Older Elite Knight is cute only in front of me

Chapters 1-17.1

THUMBS UP. This is an oneshota manga where shota is a chad with incredibly good tastes. A really good ecchi manga with a light hearted story featuring Haru(the shota) knight that joins Karen’s(the oneesan) knight crew. As with all good romance manga, the main plot isn’t romance. Knight shenanigins are always happening, with a big (and lewd) bad entering recently. Top tier variation on the lewds, even including a princess loli in on the fun. Must read for all oneshota fans.

Lonely Attack on A Different World

Chapter 1-91

[Insert isekai startup forma de classroom here] but this time the MC gets leftover garbage skills and has to learn to survive. Learning to survive thus makes him the most op and he can magic trick his way out of literally anything. Strong start as the whole classroom first tries to get their footing, but after the starting arc is done this manga starts spinning it’s wheels. The manga is kinda lacking in themes, overarching plot and end goals, so stuff just happens to make this a sort of slice of life trap room escape manga. Magic “just works” in this universe so its not very dramatic when the MC pulls out a new trick out of his bag of million tricks. Just kinda stagnates too much for my liking. THUMB IN THE BOTTOM CORNER.

The Unwanted Undead Adventurer

Chapters 1-34

Rentt Faina, the MC, is a good guy with no talent who aspires to be a legendary adventurer. But then he gets turned into a skeleton, giving the chance to evolve his way to greatness, kinda like in Spider isekai or Dragon isekai. The MC is most like Goblin Slayer in his serious and knowledgeable approach to the world, how characters that know him revere him. End goal so far is just him seeing how far he can evolve as he comes across other vampires and vampire hunters. Really want to see him go to the top. Fuckin great art. Girls drawn perfect. Like the hat on the guild girl, but nothing beats the witch Lorraine. THUMBS UP.

Teihen Ryoushu No Kanchigai Eiyuutan

Chapters 1-13

THUMB IN UPPER CORNER. Pretty funny comedy about a lord of a poor land who wants to be a stereotypical evil lord but can only use healing magic. Therefore he bumbles his way into accepting a heretical cult nun, beast men who hate humans, etc. All the girls are to crazy for him to want to sex them(weak. give the assassin nun your babies). Most interesting parts are aforementioned nun, his fujoshi assistant, and the MC’s willingness to use his power to commit heretical and immoral warcrimes. 

The Undead Lord of the Palace of Darkness

Chapters 1-11

Art average, don’t come to this one for spectacle. It’s strength is in the subertfuge that it’s recently-necromanced-back-to-life MC goes through to get his Master killed and to later, probably, evolve into a vampire. MC isn’t evil though, just wants to survive. Main girl on cover was born and raised to hunt vampires but has a compassionate heart. Obviously she goes easy on and relates to MC. Story is still kinda in it’s first arc so the overall trajectory of the story is a bit hard to gauge and not quite satisfying enough by its own right. Probably a thumb up with more chapters but for now THUMB IN THE UPPER CORNER.

The Reincarnated Inferior Magic Swordsman

Chapters 1-38

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time.... uh... THUMB SIDEWAYS. Usually I am patient, but 31 chapters with no goal and just barely plot? Wow. Saving grace is uh... I guess the world of “other isekai people existed but they sucked because they didn’t level uncap like MC” could go somewhere but. I take it back, lowering this one to a THUMB DOWN.

The Invincible Sage in the Second World.

Chapters 1-12

[Insert isekai startup here] but this time a pro mmo player in a game called “Broken Balance Online.” Guess what his class, the sage class, was considered in the game? Not far along enough to really pop off but it isn’t horrible. MC is moderately cautious to a healthy degree which is actually rare in most isekai. THUMB IN BOTTOM LEFT CORNER. 

The Dark Queen and I Strike Back

Chapters 1-29.5

Although technically an isekai, no isekai startup here. This a battle manga with a big mystery on the backdrop of a war. That is to say, the MC gets teleported to a world to kill the demons but he ends up defending them from the humans with all he’s got. Of special note is the complete seriousness of this manga that whiplashes into debauchery like tentacles, the above cover, oneshota, and even really dark jokes in some of the omake. That tonal lash effect will be either make or break, and it is a HUGE make for me. I love when a single piece can have both absolute serious scenes and utterly lighthearted and fluffy ones. Or in this case utterly lewd ones. May the average-human-amount-of-perverted MC one day slam some demon lord loli. THUMBS UP.

Chillin' in Another World with Level 2 Super Cheat Powers

Chapters 1-24

THUMB SIDEWAYS. Has the feeling of a nerfed slime isekai. Nerfed in all ways except romance. Art surprisingly good.

[rogue-barnes-16]

THE PROTEGE (part XVII/?)

Summary: The reader is captured by Hydra in the middle of WWII, when she was a child. Whilst being put through experiments with the tesseract, she briefly crossed paths with Sergeant Barnes. Little did they know they would meet again.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x enhanced!Reader

Genre: angst (with some fluff)

Tags:

The protege: @shane-knight @dormousse @nicholasbich @mscoloneldanvers @spooky-scary-spiderling @lovenaturefirst @marydragneell @bubblycypress87 @eminem-owns-my-asshole @annielovebug22 @gucciofthenorth @thetimidsarcasticcat @k-n-e @existingovertherainbow @superhero2552 @goth-pigeon @daniellajocelyn @to-the-road @shirukitsune @n7siha @the-ayo-lit @v3nusc3 @calwitch @booboobella01 @extisi @michellebarista @ayannaboo1111

Permanent taglist: @notexactlythatgirl @thisismysecrethappyplace @sofreakinmanyfandoms @pizzarollpatrol @bubblycypress87 @1a-girl-has-no-name1 @loislp @lovenaturefirst @dyanna-corona @2ptonpt @goodnightmode @disneyprincessbuffyannesummers @mannls @cutie1365 @catch22inareddress @mybooradley @sebastianisasnack @butifulsoul125 @unlikelygalaxygiver @angelh1 @randomparanoid @welovecaptainamericaass @gabbie-is-sad @amisutcliff @andy497

Warnings: language and fighting (?)

A/N: slowly picking up the pace, I think I already have an ending and it's definitely not pretty lmao.

The protege masterlist

Due to the immense chaos that had been caused no one really stopped Natalia to ask her who the hell I was in our way to the place where she and her friends were heading before their unfortunate brief encounter with me.

"What happened?" The redhead inquired, stalking as fast as she could to reach a tall, blond haired woman.

"Power went off." The woman responded "probably was a pulse, not sure though." as we walked out of the control room, she gave me a double check with a confused glance.

"She's with me." Natalia clarified. "What about Barnes?"

"The boy's causing serious trouble down there." the man who I recognized as Tony Stark replied, jogging towards us and consecutively motioning the three to follow him.

"Tell me you brought a suit."

"Yes, I did." the billionaire replied. He was lying. "And it's a lovely Tom Ford three-piece two-button." Okay maybe he wasn't lying. "Who the fuck is this-"

His stop made the blond woman bump into him and consequently, made me and Natalia stop.

"You."

"What?" I questioned, appearing to him as confused as possible.

"You're the girl- she's the girl" he bumped the redhead's arm. "What's she doing here- What were you doing with her? What the fuck-"

"There's no time for this." I spoke, walking past the three people. Though before I could take the first step, the brunet gripped my forearm. "let go."

"Tony-"

"She's here to help him escape." he spoke, digging his eyes in my form. "She could've done this."

"Tony," Natalia put her hand on Stark's shoulder and gave him a gentle yet firm tug. "she's here to help. Let go of her."

"Listen to your friend or I'll break your arm."

"Yeah that sounds super friendly to me." his sarcasm sounded like poison to me. "What do you think Carter?"

"We really don't have time for this." The blond agent replied. "But after this you're coming with me." She added. "C'mon now."

Not even three minutes passed before we could hear the shots, hits and the screams.

"Okay Romanoff, with Carter, trouble girl with me." we moved fast in order to stay as covered as possible until we could easily get close enough to James without getting killed in the crossfire. "your name?" I shot him a glare. "what? Give me something girl."

"Y/n." I replied, getting my gloves out of my pockets to put them on at the same time as he turned his watch into a hand weapon.

"I hope you know that I have questions."

"Too bad you won't get answers." I responded staring at him with the ghost of a grin in my gaze.

"you worked with him?"

"You could say so, yeah." I lifted my chin, prompting the billionaire to look behind him. "You first, Ironman."

Stark's fight was good enough to keep up with The Asset's training for the time that it took me to get ready.

Stark was down, Carter entered the game.

I knew the Black Widow had the intention to follow her colleague's lead, but she took a peek at me first and gave me the cue to accompany her in the task.

Her knee went straight to his abdomen, pushing him back. She kept moving, well aware of the fact that the moment he caught her she was done.

I slid in their direction with my foot before me; Natalia twirled out of my way just in time for me not to break her leg.

The Asset fell back and I rolled a couple of feet away to be able to push myself up without getting knocked out by him.

The blonde, in an attempt to lend a hand, kicked Him in the back, just for his metal fist to grab her leg and violently slamming her against one of the tables.

Stark got up and stalked to the Soldier in order to get him off the poor girl, but Natalia —I supposed she had caught up on what I was about to do— threw herself over her friend.

"Y/n do it!" She shouted.

When my name was heard, the soldier turned around so fast, almost as if he remembered me.

Did he?

Not the time for that, I reminded myself planting my feet firm on the cold floor and getting both my hands up.

"мне жаль" I murmured an apology, hardly loud enough for him to hear.

With a groan, I brought my hands to my chest as the sphere formed between them, and in a split second, my arms shot the concentrated energy to the Soldier and threw him yards away from us.

To my luck, that was just where the stairs were.

"What the FUCK?" the billionaire yelled, looking at me in awe and fear at the same time. "What are you." in the meantime, The soldier had recovered from the impact and was currently moving upstairs.

I ignored his question, running upstairs, chasing after the soldier.

I lost him for a couple of seconds, which led to take the wrong turn.

The fact that I ended up in the same rooftop he was in, didn't make it any better; not only had he gotten a helicopter, but we now were accompanied by a very stressed out Steve Rogers, who, apparently, had no common sense. Before I could sprint to try to stop the soldier, Rogers grabbed the goddamn helicopter and tried —and shockingly seemed to succeed, somehow— to pull it back to the rooftop.

"Rogers!" I shouted his name when he started to look like he was about to get ripped in half. "Let go!"

The blond man, more confused than anything else, relaxed his muscles, but right when I was about to pull the helicopter back, the soldier lashed out against the captain.

My first instinct was to focus on the propeller and, using the energy, pull them towards me right before making a small energy rift appear just a couple steps before me.

Before the propellers could reach me, I threw myself on my knees and quickly slid into the rift, teleporting myself to Steve's side, who looked at me quite shocked.

"We need to get him out." I spoke attempting to make him react. "My name is Y/n, and I want to help James as much as you." That seemed to slap him out of the surrealistic moment he had just witnessed.

"Okay... Okay, help me open the-" he was cut midsentence when a metal arm crashed through the glass in front of us to choke the man besides me.

I was just getting my hands between the two men in an attempt to pull them apart when I felt the helicopter falling off.

I let go and jumped back to the rooftop, but they obviously didn't. "Fuck..." I muttered to myself, getting up to see the helicopter sinking in the water. "Okay..." I looked behind me to check the door didn't open while I took a couple of steps back, so I could be able to run up.

I literally took a leap of faith and prayed for me not to die in the fall.

Once in the water, considering that Steve had just managed to get an unconscious James out of the aircraft, it all went pretty smooth.

I only had to grab them both and throw them with me into one of my rifts.

I hadn't counted on the effort that would supposed to drag two people with me through a rift I had to create under the water, after a free fall.

When we crashed against the pavement in the shed I was planning on teleporting after all of this had happened, I felt myself dizzying very quickly.

I planted my hands firmly against the pavement as I tried to regulate my breathing. "Hey you okay?" Steve's voice sounded distant to me, even though he was right besides me. "Y/n? Are you alright?" I felt a pair of strong hands helping me incorporate and guiding me to sat with my back against the wall.

"I'm fine." I assured, this time with words. "I just- it was a lot and I didn't do that since... I don't know." I closed my eyes and opening them again when finally managed to control my breathing. "I just need a moment."

"Listen, I don't know who you are." Steve started, taking a look at James, who was still unconscious. The blonde had laid them against the opposite wall to us. "But you put your life on the line for us twice in a day." he sat in front of me with crossed legs. "I don't know how to thank you."

"Don't worry." I simply replied with a shake of my head. "we have to tie him to somewhere before he wakes up."

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

"Did you call your friend already?" I inquired from the inside of the shed loud enough for Steve to hear while he got back inside."

"He's nearby but stopped to get us some clothes." he informed me, stopping in the gates from were he could check up on his friend.

"what happened back there?"

"Someone wanted really bad to have a talk with Bucky."

"Bucky." the nickname rolling out of my tongue felt as if I was naming an old friend that I had never really met.

"How do you call him?" The curiosity had to come out at some point, I thought.

"James."

"For... For how long have you known each other?"

Wow, the questions were going to be one hell of a headache.

"Uhm... For as long as I can remember." the answer was a vague one, yet somehow very accurate. "he... Kind of trained me."

"You're like him?" I denied and he nodded, and then we fell in another heavy silence. "I... I have to ask. Did he... Uh..."

"Remember you?" I finished while my brain buzzed trying to order my damaged memories. "I, myself, can't remember much but I think he mentioned you a couple of times."

I was lying, but it was a white lie- the whitest lie I would ever tell. His face lit up when I said it, and that somehow made a spark of happiness lighten my dark, cold heart.

"What you did back there- was it Hydra?"

"Yeah." I confirmed, staring at my gloves that now rested on an item belonging to the place we were in. "The tesseract. They experimented with it and... this came out."

Another heavy silence.

"Steve?" both our heads spun to the entrance, where a man was standing with a bag in his hand.

"Sam." Steve turned around to walk towards the third man, who also stepped in Steve's direction and consequently, in mine. "He's still unconscious, she's with us." He pointed at me. "Her name's Y/n."

Once the sun stopped hitting his backs, I was able to see the stranger's face, who was already looking at me with a frown.

"Wait, I know you." He stated stopping Steve by his arm. "She was at the helicarrier back in Washington."

[agirlwithadreamandapen]

a summer spent apart (jo march x reader)

—2272 words 

Setting off for the March house was usually filled with joy and happiness. This particular journey was drenched in sadness. You were going to tell Jo you weren't going to be spending the summer in Concord. Your mother thought it was a wondrous idea to tell your great aunt that you would spend the summer with her. She also thought it was a great idea to tell you a mere week before you have to leave. 

When your mother told you the news, you nearly lost your mind. Jo and you had so much planned. Picnics in the park, trips to the markets, days at the beach, everything you could possibly dream off. Jo has been talking this summer up so much. She was determined to make this summer the best one you two have spent together yet. Now, all your plans were ruined.

The thought of spending the whole summer with your great aunt was already causing a headache to form. Your mother believed that it would brighten up the old lady's life, and give her something to do. She lives in a huge house down south with no one to fill up the bedrooms besides herself and the occasional guest. You did feel sorry for her in a way but not sorry enough to give up a summer with Jo for a summer with her.

There was no backing out of it now. Your mom signed, sealed, and delivered the letter before ever asking your opinion on the whole matter. That stupid letter is what put you in this dreadful positon, walking over to your loves house to break to news.

----------------------------------------------

Sitting with Jo in the attic for the past 2 hours has been amazing but you knew you needed to break the news at some point. Putting it off any longer was only going to pain you and her more. You set down the book you were reading and gather as much strength as you possibly can. You clear your throat, causing Jo to look up from her writings.

“Jo, can we talk about something?” Jo sets down her pen, “Of course, anything specific on your mind?” she huffs, pushing herself out of the wooden chair making her way over to the bed. She plops down next to you and grabs your hand.

“I have been trying to find the courage to tell you this but it seems like I just haven't been able to muster up enough.” you squeeze her hand. “Before I say anything else I just want to say, please don't be mad at me. This choice was not my own, and if I could I would reverse it.”

Jo lifts her eyebrow, confusion fills her face. She grabs your other hand, resting them in your lap. “If I’m being honest, you're starting to worry me with all this seemingly sad talk. Hopefully this isn't a breakup speech.”

A smile breaks out across your lips and you shake your head fiercely, “No, no nothing of that sort. I guess I should just come out and say it, I am making it seem pretty dreadful aren't I?” you squeeze her hand again to reassure yourself. “It is a dreadful situation don’t get me wrong but… jeez okay I’m just going to say it. Jo, I can't spend the summer with you.” you look away, not wanting to see her face.

“What? What do you mean you can't spend the summer with me, you live not even a 10 minute walk away.”

“I know, I know. My mother, god you know she can be so infuriating. My mother wrote to my great aunt to inform her I will be spending the summer with her. She didn't even ask me, she just wrote to her without even questioning my opinion on the whole situation.”

“Oh.” Jo lets go of your hands and slowly stands up from the bed. You look up as she begins to walk towards the window, stopping right in front of it. She stares out, one hand on her hip, the other resting on her chin. You rise from your spot and stand still, not sure what to do.

“I’m truly sorry Jo. If I could, you know I would spend the summer here with you. I've already argued with my mom over this all night and into this morning. She's stubborn and won't budge. I have to go, I don't want to but I have to. Please don’t be mad,” you start to make your way over to her. “I know how excited you were for this summer.” you say wrapping your arms around her waist, resting your face against her back. You take in her perfume, it's the one you bought her for her birthday last year. God, you're going to miss this woman.

Jo gently rests her hand on top of yours, “I know. I know you can't do anything about it. I've met your mother, she's a strong headed woman, I admire her for it yet I resent her for it in situations like this. I was just really looking forward to spending time with you.” she turns around and rests her hands on your cheeks. You smile sadly, wrapping your arms around her waist once more.

“I’m going to miss you so much Jo.” tears start to form in your eyes.

“I’m going to miss you too darling.” she whispers before softly pressing your lips together.

-----------------------------------------

The last two months have gone by surprisingly fast. You were not expecting to have this much fun at your aunts. She shockingly has been quite the partner in crime. You also have gotten extremely close with the neighbors daughter, Eleanor. She was just a year older than you and had so many common interests. You both loved painting, you both adored fashion, and you both hated parties. Although your aunt and her parents did force you two to go to a couple. You won't publicly admit it but you did enjoy them. The only bad thing was not spending your time with Jo.

You found yourself dozing off during the day, dreaming of laying in the meadow with her. You tried not to think of her too much as it saddened you but it was hard not too. You both wrote each other letters everyday, although it wasn't the same as seeing her in person, it was better than nothing at all.

My dear Jo,

Oh how I’ve missed you. I know I tell you this in every letter but my feelings never change. I wish you were here with me and that I could hold you in my arms. I miss the scent of your hair and your beautiful smile. I long to kiss your lips and caress your skin. I keep reminding myself, “Three more weeks and I will be in Jo’s arms.” Nothing eventful has happened since our last correspondence. Eleanor and I spent the day together again. This morning she came over for breakfast, then we gathered our art gear and walked to the park. It's nice having someone to paint with. She understands the struggle of being an artist. I got to paint a lovely lake scene today, my favorite thing to portray. Eleanor actually painted me. It was interesting. It took her a little while to convince me but I finally caved. I wish you could see her paintings, she is quite talented. I admire her a lot. Anyways, I hope you are doing well my love. Hopefully these weeks fly by fast and I can hold you in my arms again soon.

Yours truly,

Y/n

To my darling Y/n,

I have missed you too my love. Do not worry, it’s nice to be reassured you miss me too. I am praying these three weeks speed by quickly. Holding and kissing you is the only thing on my mind these days. I’m glad to hear you are doing well. It's interesting how you spend all your time with this Eleanor. You two seem to be growing quite close. She might understand the struggle of being an artist but you know I can in a way too. You forget artists and writers are not too different. I wish I could see this painting she painted of you. I'm sure you look lovely. Don’t flatter her, she is definitely not as talented as you. I don't even have to see her work to know that. I am doing as well as I can without you. I will be better once you're here again. I love you. Say hi to your great aunt for me.

Eternally yours,

Jo March

-------------------------------------------

Finally, the summer ended and you are on your way home. The summer flew by faster than expected but you're glad you finally get to go home. And most of all, you're glad you get to see Jo. She promised she would meet you at the train station, as you both are eager to see one another. You try to pass the time by reading but you find yourself too distracted. You end up staring out the window most of the train ride, daydreaming about the weeks to come with Jo.

It feels like an eternity passes before your train finally pulls into the Concord station. You gather your things, pick up your trunk, and head toward the train door. Stepping on to the platform, you begin to set your belongings down. You packed way too many things to begin with and your aunt insisted on sending you home with many new trinkets. You begin to look around, trying to find Jo’s face amongst the crowd. As you’re scanning the area, you feel a pair of arms forcibly wrap themselves around your waist. Jo crashes into you screaming with joy. You manage to turn around and you embrace each other for what feels like hours. She finally pulls away and you get a good look at her. You smile stepping back a bit, not wanting to look suspicious and gather stares.

Jo finally speaks up, “I feel like I have so much to say, but I’m currently speechless. Oh, how I’ve missed you.” She steps forwards and embraces you again. You laugh squeezing her tight once more.

“I’ve missed you too, Jo. I have a lot to tell you too.” you step back again and go to grab your things, signaling that it's time to leave. Jo immediately grabs your trunk and insists on carrying it back to your house. As you're walking home, Jo and you talk about your days so far. She explains how hectic her day has been already. Telling you that Meg’s children painted all over the living room wall and how she had spent all morning covering it.

You finally come upon your house, Jo insists on helping you carry all your things to your room. You stop and briefly greet your parents, explaining in short your time with your great aunt. You convince them to let you spend the rest of the day with Jo.

Jo and you head to the meadow, your favorite spot to sit and talk. Jo practically sits on top of you. She’s barely able to keep her hands off of you. “You know, I haven't asked you much about your summer, I've been rambling on about my day.” Jo says, rubbing your back.

You giggle, “It’s fine, I enjoy hearing you talk.” you squeeze her leg. “I don’t think there is much for me to talk about. I've basically told you everything in my letters.”

“I know but It would be nice to hear you talk about them in person. How about you tell me about that girl you were always hanging out with.” a hint of callousness in her voice.

“Eleanor? She was amazing. We got on well right from the start, and you know how hard that is for me, being shy and all. She's just a really sweet person, very selfless, you know? I promised her I would write to her as often as I can.”

Jo pulls back from you, “Wow, she seems great. I’m glad you got to spend the summer with her.”

You look at her, confused on why she's being so curt. “Is something wrong? Did I say something?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I'm just saying I'm glad you had a good summer with this girl. She sounds like a lot of fun.” Jo remarks.

Realization falls over you, you wrap your leg over her and hoist yourself over her body so you're now straddling her.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Jo struggles underneath you.

You lean in close to her face, “I think someone is jealous.”

Jo acts shocked, “I'm not jealous. I just find it odd the way you speak about her. You're always talking about how amazing she is and how much you admire her.”

“Oh, so you're definitely jealous.” you begin to laugh.

She huffs, rolling you guys over so she's now on top, “For the last time, I’m not jealous. I was just stating my opinion.” she declares.

“Whatever you say.” you giggle. “I mean she was kinda hot.” a smirk escapes your lips.

“Oh shut up!” Jo smacks your chest. “You're just being unfair now.”

“I was just playing, calm down my darling. I could never think of anyone in that way, besides you.”

Jo smiles, “Oh, well I know that. I wouldn't let you leave me for anyone even if you tried.” She leans down and gently places a kiss on your lips. “You're all mine, Y/F/N.”

“And you're all mine, Josephine March.”

[carlyraejepstein]

potentially upsetting topics: sui, gender dysphoria, abuse and parents, sex

Elliot Page’s coming out rescued an awful day. Its wording is unbelievably powerful, a comment I have made once before and will continue to do so. In it, he so strongly encompasses the fears, the sorrow, the rage, but most importantly the determination and the defiance of not only him but every trans person. I hesitate to use the word “community” because it implies a certain connection that might just not be there; I play a bit of Counter-Strike but I don’t consider myself part of the Counter-Strike community; yet when I read Elliot’s words I feel solidarity, I feel a pull to the trans community that I often don’t feel I pay my dues to, and it feels good, really good. Like I said on Twitter once, other trans people being, existing, living, is just rad. Inspiring, even, despite how that word has been worn out by cis people.

However, there’s a certain something that Elliot didn’t write, for Elliot never wrote “I am a man”; only his name, and pronouns, how he wishes to be referred to. Of course, we cannot possibly know what this omission means or does not mean to Elliot, but it’s something that concurred with a shift in how I perceive my own gender.

I remember first properly ruminating on gender in 2012 or 2013. My understanding was primitive, coming from Wikipedia. Once I knew what transgender or, given the time period, transsexual, the curiosity never really went away. I knew at this point about transition, and I knew about deed polls because of my resentment of my parents, I knew about HRT and I even knew about the GICs. I felt compelled to be an ally in that turbulent period in both my life and in the online culture I immersed myself in from around 2015 to 2017. At this time a friend was going through their own transition and seeing them gave me pause for thought; partly pride, partly worry but a small kernel of imagination, wondering if that could ever be me. It was when I went to sixth form, with its environment permitting greater yet still constrained self expression, that I felt gender dysphoria hit me with its full weight. Thinking, wondering, worrying about being transgender has been the central dialogue of my internal and external monologue ever since. Not a day passes where I don’t think about the dysphoria I feel over my continued closet-dwelling and the malignantly gendered properties of my body. On a January morning in 2019, at my very lowest point, motionless under the covers, I gave myself a choice between transition and death, and I chose transition.

It’s been a complex journey. When I was 13 I shortened my gender neutral name to make it more masc (which I have now happily embraced as my middle name). I leant into the deepening of my voice because I thought it gave me authority, conditioned through the harsh words of people from public Team Fortress 2 servers. I’ve done almost everything under the sun that gets people to say “I’d never have known!” when you come out to them; I worry that I still do and that nothing has changed. I’ve gone and cross-dressed when my parents were out, and I’ve been traumatised by Susan’s Place. I am autistic, no one who has met me can escape that fact; not that I would want to, and as a consequence I am so much more confident in my presence on the internet than I ever have been in the flesh, despite me still not knowing how to make friends; hence I’ve ended up trying to piece my transition together through 4chan (I know, bad) and Reddit and Twitter.

Perhaps the biggest reason I am not out is the time when I decided I would come out to my mother as trans. When we were in Munich we had walked past a pride parade, and when we got back to the apartment I revealed off hand that I was bi. My mother chided me for not telling them before hand since it was “polite” to do so, as if it were not my choice to make because, as I still believe to this day, it’s not a big deal and it’s none of their business. But I decided this time it was important, and that I could trust her. It turns out that just like every other time, trusting my mother is a bad idea that is guaranteed to cause me pain every time I make that mistake. She told me that because she “knows more about [me] than [I] do”, that she thought that I was just straight up wrong, couched it in rhetoric about how she thought that I was too weak to be trans, and quoted the shockingly offensive “autism is extreme male brain” theory to me. It was really devastating at the time and I think it still affects me to this day, especially as she constantly tries to worm her tendrils back into my life after I moved out.

But enough about my mother; she is a fucking flat out abuser. She has emotionally abused me, and undoubtedly my brother, all our lives. I was relieved that my dad chose not to react aggressively as she did, but with a modicum of respect and agreement not to make such a big deal out of it, something I would never expect my mother to match. In the middle of writing this piece I had to decide that I could not do it any longer, and I would never let her back into my life again.

Where that conversation in late 2018 relates to Elliot Page’s statement is my mother’s purported belief that “you don’t have to define yourself as a man or a woman”. Going past the fact that she is lying, since her tolerance for all trans people is thinner than the grey hairs on her head going on the basis that she couldn’t bring herself to say one positive thing to her own daughter that afternoon, it struck me recently that I can more eloquently describe my gender through elimination rather than a label. I am happy to call myself a woman, a trans woman, and I don’t feel as if I really am wavering in or around the binary. But what I can say for definite is that while I have been a boy for almost all my life, and am holding onto that, I am not, and never will be, a man.

Where that leaves me is that I am not a man, but must I be a woman? If I am perhaps not a woman, am I non-binary? No; it doesn’t feel right. However, if I attach just a convenience to the label woman, I can give myself that flexibility in how I feel and how I present myself, and perhaps the biggest example of that is how in recent months I have made peace with my voice. It is not really a femme voice; I hit vocal fry just speaking normally. But I know how to be expressive with it; it is my voice that I have honed over 19 years after all. One day I want to find someone who will help me upgrade my voice (and yes, upgrade) but keeping it means I fulfil one cool thing about being trans, and that is saying fuck you to the very existence of the gender binary. I keep this voice out of necessity, but I’m still trans femme, I am still a woman and I still want my facial hair zapped off.

As well, I reserve the right to say I used to be a boy. Not a man, but a boy. That’s why they call it boymoding, right? How else can I describe the first 17 years of my life? I can be a boy all the same now, although I may be pushing it aged 20, and at the point at which I am really stretching that concept which at this point I am adhering to solely for my safety and comfort, I shouldn’t need to use it anymore. Wishful thinking, of course.

I think we should consider why we use “man” and “woman” in the first place. From my perspective they are simply words to describe people with two different sets of primary and secondary sexual characteristics, convenient because, well, being cis is unavoidably common. But they are not discrete, as we so often have to reiterate using intersex people as an unwilling crutch, where one does not occur in the other they are so often analogous and often they overlap! Supposedly 60% of teenage boys develop further breast tissue, and 40% of women have some form of facial hair. Thinking that the two are discrete gives rise to the idea of “biological sex”, a concept developed by cis people either to misgender trans people in a way they think is philosophically rigorous, or to reconcile their tenuous support for trans people with a continuing belief in the gender binary. Personally I would like to smash the concept of biological sex to bits because it is not useful to us. At the very least it may describe one’s primary sexual characteristics but bottom surgery exists, and I don’t happen to think that it is “mutilation”. I don’t need to argue that “biological sex can be changed”; they are not discrete categories, and I don’t need to move between them, or seek validation for having moved between them. It is not a helpful generalisation for bodies, diverse as they are.

I must add that as a trans woman the fact that I may have a penis doesn’t mean that I use it in the same way as a man. I use mine to pee, primarily, and it’s definitely not going inside anyone except myself any time soon; a whole zine was written about how trans women fuck and use their bits to fuck, so I definitely don’t need to anyway.

Another bullshit concept is “biological destiny” or “biological reality”, although I will give less breath to this one because at it’s core it is fundamentally misogynistic, and it so often is divorced from any sensible definition of reality. It’s like if I had to have my arm amputated and then someone came up to me and said “you’ll always have two arms, you were born with them and you’ll die with them”.

I’ve heard and thought a lot about gender abolition but it seems to me that its proponents expect that like the state, gendered differences will just disappear over time. But I don’t want that to happen. If the binary is done away with I don’t want gender to disappear I want it to flourish! Because gender is beautiful, men are beautiful, women are beautiful, and everyone in between or outwith are beautiful. On the other hand, me and you don’t need to be men, or women, or call ourselves non-binary to be beautiful. Being trans is about cultivating your own beauty and your own identity. When cissiety demands that the only identity and presentation we’re allowed is one that corresponds to what they decided was between our legs when we were born, why give ourselves only one other choice?

I don’t really know how to end this piece because I wrote one half of it one day and the other half a couple of weeks later. At the very least I’m glad I can attribute my peace with not necessarily being a woman but a femme to Elliot Page, and not my rotten bastard mother.