#i would prefer they were both allowed to live obviously

[papysanzonew]

It can't be Christmas without Merlin content, am I right????

Read it an AO3 My general idea of this story is this:

Gwen and Merlin are together at the beginning of it all, they are a happy, smiling, warm couple and everything Arthur would ever have wanted in life. Arthur knew Gwen by sight and had a crush on her but in the end between his father pestering him and his various work commitments and Morgana teasing him he never did anything to hit on her, then Gwen changed companies and the two never saw each other again, at least until many years later when Morgana invited Gwen to a Christmas party and Gwen showed up with Merlin, her boyfriend.

Arthur was even more defeated.

But at the party, relations were re-established, even though it was not his intention, Arthur got on well with Merlin and his small talk, and the three of them started to see each other from time to time outside work. One thing led to another, and at one point it was Gwen and Merlin who asked Arthur to become an item.

Arthur wouldn't let them say it twice.

It was not easy with Uther spouting venomous comments passing them off as (almost) compliments but everyone knew what Uther was like and, for Arthur's sake, left the subject alone.

In the meantime Morgana got involved with Gwaine and there Uther couldn't shut his mouth and tell her how unsuitable Gwaine is for her, that he's a loser, that he's a scoundrel who doesn't even know what he wants to do with his life, and Morgana, in response, left without ever looking back, leaving the company and the house she was living in to go and stay in Gwaine's mini-apartment and talk about their future.

Uther didn't take it well and started to lash out even more at Arthur.

Until Gwen became pregnant.

All three were at the height of joy at the idea of having a child and Arthur thought that nothing could spoil such a beautiful moment.

Obviously he was wrong.

Uther started railing and telling him that everything was perfect until it became serious, until Arthur still had the chance to leave that depraved couple and finally find himself a decent girl and get married and have a family with this hypothetical girl.

Then the racist and homophobic invectives began and for the first time Uther openly said what he thought of Gwen and Merlin.

As a result, Arthur was at his wits' end and for the first time in his life raised his hands against his father.

Fortunately Gwen and Merlin were there for him when he returned home.

The two did not speak to each other for years.

In the end it was Uther himself who came crawling back to both his children and asked for forgiveness. After spending birthdays and Christmases alone, without receiving a single call and being left in a huge house completely alone, he realised what the really important things in life are.

That wasn't easy either.

It wasn't easy to accept an apology from such a man because there was always this anxiety that Uther had ulterior motives or, God forbid, wanted to put strange ideas into his grandchildren's heads.

Grandchildren he was not allowed to see even when he apologised and Morgana and Arthur made an effort to talk to him again.

However, when he was allowed to see the grandchildren, both Morgana and Arthur were amazed because Uther literally cried tears of joy (even though he tried to hide them), he had no preference for one or the other and showered them with love (Morgana and Arthur still find it hard to accept this because "UGH who is this man who is good with children?") and after many years they are all happy and celebrate all holidays together.

Uther gets along very well with Hunith (and Merlin is very worried about this) and the house is always full of people coming and going.

Uther no longer lives in a house that is too big and too quiet.

Anyway, Merry Xmas/Happy Holiday everyone ❤️❤️❤️

[essycogany]

Rare But Not So Rare Sonic Moments

Sonic Swooning Over Amy

So, Sonic’s been kind of the driving force of Sonamy recently. Let’s analyze that.

I’ll show Sonic having feelings for Amy in almost every media aside from Fleetway and the two cartoons she isn’t in. I’ll also present the “whys” in more detail then just “Amy calmed down.” While that’s part of it, I’d like to add my own can of worms. And possible headcanons too. Bear in mind I never grew up with Sonic, so forgive my mixed opinions.

While I love Amy having a crush on Sonic like the energetic sugarplum she is, nowadays Sonic’s oddly been the drive of their dynamic. Any examples of it beforehand? Let’s look outside of the games first.

Sonic X

This Sonic takes more time to himself. He’s introverted, so his feelings for her isn’t displayed as obviously as the others. In fact, most people think he didn’t like her in this show because of how much he runs away. He even manipulated her by flirting in one episode. In my opinion this show has Sonic running away from Amy more often than not. Hot take: Sonic and Amy never had a real conversation either. They don’t…talk like they do now. Unless you count,

“Oh, Sonic I love you!” “Ah! C’mon, Amy. Knock it off!” No, it wasn’t constant but still common.

From my point of view, the conversations were short lived to none existent. It was the same in the earlier games too. Compared to how they talked to other characters or now, you might be able to notice. At least until Sonic And The Black Night were he talks to both The Lady Of The Lake and Amy. The two would also have visual gags of Sonic getting aggressively hugged by Amy. Or Amy falling on her face while trying. Aside from one moment in Sonic Riders where Sonic put Amy in danger, it wasn’t good or bad. Just cartoony for lack of a better term.

Maybe I’m just insane. You decided.

Anyhow, their dynamic in X is clearly built on actions. Like Amy giving Sonic a seashell bracelet and Sonic giving her a rose. Those little things. While I do prefer them being able to hold longer conversations, I don’t mind how X handles them. But let’s get to Sonic’s crush. I assume in Sonic X Sonic is conflicted. He’ll run away from Amy or try to pull from her on most occasions and others Sonic would constantly hold onto her when he doesn’t have to. For a long period on time no less. Amy’s the same way. One moment she’d be head over heels and other she’s bashful. Goes to show how young they were I guess. I have no clue as to why Sonic liked her back because there wasn’t much to go off of. Except the bracelet moment or her general kindness like feeding him one time. She was a bit much to him and most characters back then.

It’s possible Sonic just liked her and that was it, but I’d imagine due to all of the hand holding and small reciprocated gestures were enough to convey something was there. Straight forward and simple like the show itself. I headcanon this Sonamy being where the boyfriend gets dragged into a relationship and is fine with it. This version of Sonic’s attraction seems to be chaotic pink hedgehogs apparently.

Sonic Boom

Should I even explain it? Might as well because not only do I have something different to say, but these two haven’t been brought up much. Sonic and Amy’s romance mostly is played for laughs. Not saying their love for each other means less because of that, but the humor is the main reason they exist. Much like why in the main canon they started out the way they did. Regardless, I’ll dive deeper into Boom!Sonic’s affection for Amy to the best of my ability.

Boom!Sonic is egotistical, so whenever he thinks Amy’s crushing on someone else, it bothers him. Apparently he’s the only one she’s allowed to like. No “Radical Speedsters” or “Celebrities” can take her attention away from him. Like in Sonic X he tries to keep his crush to a minimum. Even though both him and Amy are terrible at it.

The moment in “Fortress Of Squalitude” a episode where everyone is a bit rude to Amy, close to the end Sonic says, “We may have a hard time saying it Amy. But…well you know.” Then she responds with, “Yeah, I know.” It’s such a sweet moment. Not as powerful as most moments with them but for Boom it’s very nice. Sonic and the others still value her as part of the team, but it’s Sonic who expresses it out loud. Goes to show how much he cares about her for even attempting to open up in this instance. Didn’t even have to finish the sentence. Amy understood perfectly. I also noticed how much he tries his best to impress her. When he needs to returned her book back, finds her hammer in Archie, (Vector did it in the show and Sonic got jealous) shows off randomly or dreams about her, and stopped racing to get her some eggs in one episode.

The funny thing about this Sonic is how much of a people pleaser he can be. Especially since the towns people are very spoiled and ungrateful. He wants to be needed and that’s possibly why he goes out of his way to do special things for Amy like go out on picnics, implied dates, and comforts her. She’s very take charge in Boom and Sonic has no problem calling her out when he needs to. Much like Amy in the show and games. Sonic will even put effort into doing things he doesn’t feel like doing for her. How honorable of him. Sure, sometimes he tries to make her jealous and isn’t perfect, but he tries. I believe Sonic likes Amy because again like Sonic X Boom isn’t canon, so more outright reciprocated feelings are allowed in this case. Not to mention the dude likes being shipped with her in the show. Which is a win in my book.

Sonic enjoys bugging Amy much like a playful boyfriend. He probably admires her leadership, but I’m saying this by observation. It could be for anything. Maybe he thinks she’s cute when she’s mad and finds her temper amusing. It could also be for her stubbornness. Some people like each other because of how much they can relate to their partner and in Sonic Boom’s case they’re two cuts of the same cloth. Although still different, due to the show’s theme, they carry the same condescending, slightly self centered, hotheaded, stubborn, and humorous traits. But they’re still good hedgehogs with a heart of gold and usually makes reasonable decisions. Not to mention they’re both equally shy about their crushes. In Sonic Boom, Sonic and Amy is that married couple who doesn’t get along much, but when they do you’ll understand why they stay together.

Reboot Archie Sonic

I haven’t read the comics (unless you count watching a few dubs and internet reviews) but I’ll give my limited thoughts. Luckily there’s not much to say. Although most people believe it was unintentional, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch that someone from Archie thought it was a fun idea to have Sonic crush on somone in this reboot. Maybe it’s unintentional but it doesn’t seem that way.

I’m basically using this part of the post to ramble about how Reboot Archie’s Sonic still manages to be a casanova. He’s like a mixture of his old self and how he is in the games. That’s also why he acts the way he does around Amy. Could it also possibly mean he’s meant to like her canonically too? Reboot Archie did have to follow a more accurate way of writing Sonic after all. Anyways, let’s run down the list of Game!Sonic if he was allowed to be down bad for Amy like they’re already dating. Which is how I view this continuity. It’s basically if Boom and X had a weird fusion and this version of Sonic’s crush was the result. Except here he manages to be more bold and upfront. He knows what he’s doing. Here’s a run down.

First of all, THIS. No joke, more of these interactions would send me to the moon. I would explain why but the panel speaks for itself.

Sonic says, “I was worried about you.” Which he hasn’t admitted to her before this to my knowledge. He states this by giving her a side hug. Along with other out of nowhere physical affection and flirting. Not to single out Sonally fans. Sonic and Sally clearly have a close connection people appreciate and I respect that. In any case, Sonic and Amy in Reboot Archie also matches energies so much. They’re both clearly running off the same brain cell. You’d think they were together. They’d be a chaotic couple that’ll do the most outlandish things and somehow manage to survive them. After willfully risking their lives they’d do it again because being normal and safe is boring. I promise you, this version of Sonamy would be a huge force to be reckoned with.

-I’d also like to mention my friend Salty showed an example of Sonic being jealous of Knuckles coming with Amy on a mission and it’s brilliant. Dude gets all bratty about it too. Archie!Sonic does not play around. The post in question.

Sonic Prime

Already talked about this in another post, but I want to mention it again. Prime!Sonic is the most sensitive version of the character, so it’s no surprise he displays his admiration for Amy freely and out loud.

This moment says enough on its own. Sonic’s like this throughout the entirety of Prime and even changes the tone of his voice when speaking to or about her. It’s so authentic and adorable and makes him stand out against other variants.

Amy’s crush on Sonic in Prime is up to interpretation, but I don’t think she likes him in that way personally. Like other characters, Amy tends to be done with Sonic’s childishness. Guess she thinks he’s probably too immature to be boyfriend material whether she has feelings or not. Sonic on the other hand, acts how you wouldn’t expect. I personally see him as his own interpretation, so I’m fine with it. If he wants to have goo-goo eyes for Amy in Prime, it’s cool.

Prime!Sonic has it bad and I wouldn’t be shocked if he’d be the one wanting to go out on dates. Maybe he’d cook dinner for her sense he cooks in the show. I’d imagine Amy declining at first, but does it after his constant begging. They’d be swapped version of most emotional to least emotional. Prime!Amy would be a girlfriend who feels more like a parent than a partner.

Unleashed/Black Night

No one can bring up Sonic Unleashed without the lovely Amy meeting the Werehog scene. I love how Sonic didn’t like Amy hugging him, but right after she left he solemnly mopes around for probably the first and last time. He’s never in any game slowly moped around disappointedly before. Proving he only has certain reactions when it comes to Amy Rose. At least in some continuities. Unleashed gives you a choice to go on a date with Amy or not. Then the next game Sonic Team followed through with it, but ended up having Amy mad at Sonic for missing it. At least Sonic tried. Not to mention his reaction to The Lady Of The Lake and him flirting is fun to watch.

See how Sonic still likes her back but it isn’t because she’s “calmed down?” She’s still the same excitable love strucked Amy. There must be something more to it. Other than the obvious answer with Sonic Team wanting to do something with the pear. I have no idea why but having multiple hints even in the past must’ve been done for the fun of it. “We created this love interest but then railed back to Sonic not reciprocating her feeling. But we still want to market them as a couple in some way.” This franchise never cease to confuse me.

Amy encouraging Sonic in one of the cutscenes could’ve been where he started liking her back. Not in the way he does now, but he admired her none stop compassion and might’ve wanted to return the favor. “Eh, she’s sweet. Maybe a date won’t be so bad.” The fact he went out of his way to get her a chilidog and flirted with a different version of her should tell you enough. Of course it would take a while before anything else happened. 

IDW/Sonic Frontiers

Yeah, after issue 2, Sonic’s never felt the need to run from Amy. From the comics to Sonic Frontiers there’s a lot of moments of Sonic being somewhat emotionally candid. Not by much, but close. I believe Amy’s the reason for that in a way. Sonic’s not afraid to hang out with her anymore. He even hugs her back on some occasions. “Ames” was a nickname from fanfics and Boom which became canon over time and he occasionally calls her that.

Sonic wishes to share an umbrella and spend more time with her. He also gets excited to see her more often. It’s like Reboot Archie but slightly toned down. At least up until the hard to trigger lines from Sonic Frontiers. The same game where he outright admits to being worried about Amy and smiles back at her with a Coco looking between the two. Then he supports Amy’s decision to leave etc. We all know where we are now.

Crazy how the more you look into this franchise the more tiny details you notice. It’s also crazy how much Sonic’s been into the love interest he originally was already supposed to love. To me, Sonic had a crush on Amy in Unleashed but fell in love with her in IDW. What makes Sonamy gripping though is how unique it is compared to most romantic relationships. Leaves it to be more entertaining whenever something unexpected happenes. It keeps you engaged.

Why Sonic Crushes On Amy?

1. Amy doesn’t want to slow him down. Obviously because of IDW issue 2’s love confession with Amy saying “I can’t change you. I don’t want to change you.” Amy joins Sonic and he includes her more often because of that. His speed is no match for her persistence anyways.

2. She shows compassion and love for those around her. Not just to Sonic, but everyone. She’s the definition of soft hearted. Even for people Sonic and his friends would be weary about. Think about now in the recent comics and games where Sonic’s trying it out. I do think it should be more of Amy’s thing then Sonic’s but it just goes to show how much she probably inspired him. Who knows? Even in the past he had respect Amy for her tenderheartedness.

3. Amy’s energy matches Sonic’s. Though sometimes she can be overly enthusiastic compared to him. Even before now, Amy’s always been adventurous and that’s probably something Sonic liked from the start. Not in a romantic way, but in a respectful way. If he were to have a partner he’d need someone to keep him grounded and be on the same level. No exceptions.

4. Her loyalty. No matter what Sonic does (including times she disagrees) she’s one of Sonic’s most loyalist companions. Obviously other characters are too, but Amy has her being a long time childhood friend/Sonic 06 and Unleashed going for her. 06 for trusting Sonic over Silver and Unleashed for still loving Sonic despite his transformation. Heck, before she knew who the Werehog was she wasn’t disgusted. Amy’s commendable for that.

From all these points here physical attraction isn’t included. What I like about both characters is their crushes don’t stem to how they look. Though it is worth mentioning Sonic has called Amy “Radiant” in TMOSTH, but that’s probably the closest we’ll ever get to an outright physical compliment. From Sonic at least.

- Side note thanks to @saltynsassy31 again, Sonic and Amy’s dynamic can be summed up as not a relationship but rather a situationship. Yes, it’s a real word. What does it mean? Basically two friends who has crushes on each other but doesn’t do anything about it. Just a fun detail for you guys.

Why Did Sonic Run From Amy In The Past?

I’ll make this quick, but the reason Sonic ran from Amy wasn’t because he didn’t like her. On the contrary. Sonic always could’ve ran at his normal speed to get away from her. Sonic’s the fastest thing alive. Why would he let someone he “didn’t like” catch up to him? I personally think he enjoyed the thrill of the chase. It’s why I believe he misses it nowadays. Though I do understand Sonic didn’t often treat Amy like a friend. Not in a way I can understand at least. Not that I think their relationship was bad, but from what I’ve seen, it was more told then shown due to Sonic and the gang not including her on missions. Amy normally had to catch up with them which was a running gag. Especially in SA2. It might be why some prefere her in stuff like Reboot Archie, Boom, IDW, and Frontiers. Because Amy’s friends includes her on adventures now. At least in my opinion. Correct me if I missed anything.

Final Headcanon

Since Sonic in the games has been the one to push the Sonic side of Sonamy much more then Amy does for herself, I’d like to think in most cases (especially as their dynamic grows) Sonic would start carrying other versions of him traits like trying to mess with her.

He’d want to get her to chase him more often and Amy would probably ask once or twice, “What’s going on and why are you acting weird?” He’d definitely play it off as him fooling around. Sonic doesn’t know much about romance, but he does know what Amy likes. Maybe he’d ask her out or go on a bunch of traveling missions. Anything to get her to pay attention to him again. After all, there’s been examples of the guy feeling ignored by her in and out of canon. It’s possible.

-There’s also a consistent detail where Sonic’s finally ready to open up but has to deal with Amy doing her own thing. Or when he’s face with different variants of her, he’s flirtatious with them. For the fastest thing alive, he has terrible timing when it comes to making his mind up.

Conclusion

Welp, there you have it, darlings. Examples of Sonic crushing on Amy more than some would think. It’s a Sonic character analysis and Sonamy post all in one. I know there’s more, but I think this gathers examples from the actual content.

Stay Creative! 💜

[delulujuls]

the mad dutchman and the fearless dutchess | mv33

summary: one dutchman is a lot so now imagine putting two dutch teenagers in one team and tell them to not kill each other

warnings: car crash, some cussing, (they sometimes can't stay each other but at the end of the day its just them against the world)

pairing: fem!redbulldriver x max verstappen

Max and Y/N had known each other since the times when they still had scrapes on their knees and wobbly milk teeth. They met at a go-kart school - he had a helmet that was much too big for him, she wore a patched jumpsuit from her older brother. Both didn't know exactly what they were doing or what goal they were pursuing; the most important thing was to be the best - for the joy of their parents and an endless supply of sweets.

However, go-karts quickly turned into racing cars and minor races transformed into Formula 1.

All the way to the top, Max and Y/N's relationship was very dynamic. From exchanging candy together after winning the podium, through years of rivalry and mutual dislike. Despite countless arguments and mutual hatred, Y/N always sided with Max and defended him with her always smaller body. She might not like him and get angry with him to the point of turning red, but no one could tease him or raise their voice against him. This applied to both other kids in the paddock and adults, too.

Both Max, Y/N and certainly Jos Verstappen himself probably remember how after one of the collisions at the end of 2008, Max's father went into a pure rage. While young Verstappen could argue and quarrel with anyone, he lost that ability when his father intervened. Seeing tears on the flushed face of the boy, Y/N firmly clenched her fists and stood between the father and son. Jos's voice caught in his throat when the almost half his size eleven-year-old girl looked him in the eyes and said that she wouldn't allow him to shout at Max like that.

Y/N Y/L/N was fearless both on and off the track. And although Jos Verstappen never admitted it, he was impressed by both her skills and incredible courage.

After the years of intense relationship of Max and Y/N, the unbreakable friendship was born when they both joined Christian Horner's team at the age of eighteen. Red Bull had been following their actions for many years, looking forward to taking them under their wings after their promotion to Formula 1. There was no doubt here - Horner had to have these Dutch duo in his team.

The first victories began to come the moment both Y/N and Max realized that they no longer had to compete with each other. When it became clear that they were playing for one goal and that now it was two of them against nine other teams. There was no first or second driver at Red Bull. There was Y/N and Max, Max and Y/N. There were two crazy Dutch teens, who were focused only on the best possible results. Christian never showed favoritism to any of them, because he knew that by doing so he would waste all those difficult months trying to win them over.

The team's tactics were also amazing, because the race strategy was revealed only after the starting signal. There were no plans or schedules, no strict rules. Whoever had better speed and performance in a given race became the leader. This was not subject to any protest or discussion.

Y/N and Max had known each other practically their entire lives. They had been on the same team for over 6 years, and despite Christian's breakneck efforts, there were still days when there were tensions between the pair. Obviously, there is no good relationship without an argument from time to time, but when it came to a Dutch-style quarrel, few preferred to participate.

"Do you have to be so damn stubborn?"

The girl asked, taking off her helmet and balaclava.

"If I hadn't been stubborn, the fucking Haas would have overtaken us at turn eight."

He replied, unplugging his headphones. His tone was still calm, but there was a trace of irritation on his face.

"He would have overtaken us because we were giving him the tunnel, which wouldn't have happened if you had let me through."

Y/N growled. She had no intention of arguing, but the weekend had been hard and she was exhausted. Max's temperament was absolutely unhelpful in this situation.

"I didn't get an order to let you through."

Verstappen responded by wiping his face with a towel.

"You see me in the fucking mirror and you have to wait for an order? Stop talking nonsense, Max."

He sighed and tossed the towel aside.

"Or maybe you were worse than me, hm? Didn't it occur to you that maybe you just fucked up today?"

The girl clenched her jaw. She felt anger begin to rise within her.

"Out of the two of us, you're the one who fucked up today because you acted like a complete idiot!"

Max snorted and tilted his head back. The button that started the argument clicked into place.

"Do you have anything else to say?"

Y/N pressed her tongue against her teeth. She wanted to unleash hell, but she didn't have time for an idiotic argument and to waste her energy on him.

"Fuck you, Max."

The girl growled and grabbed her things, heading deeper into the garage. She didn't feel like being around him, at all.

She unzipped her jumpsuit and grabbed some water, sitting on an empty crate. The situation from the last race kept replaying in her mind, as did his words. Analyzing and cluttering her thoughts was not good, especially when another training session awaited them, and staying focused was crucial.

"I heard some Dutch swearing," Christian started, standing next to her, "Is everything okay?"

The girl just nodded.

"Max just needs to feel at home sometimes"

Christian squeezed her shoulder and patted her on the back.

"Another half an hour and you won't have to look at him for the rest of the day."

Y/N sighed and rubbed her face with her hands. Despite the adrenaline pumping through her veins, she was exhausted. The upcoming Grand Prix was making her sweat a lot.

After a while, she received the order that the car was ready and she could go out on the track. She prepared for the drive and took her place in the car. As she left the garage, she noticed Max, who was also getting ready to start. She showed him the middle finger, to which he, of course, did not remain in debt.

Y/N took her place at the starting line, gripping the steering wheel tightly and focusing on the starting lights. When they went out, she raced with screeching tires and sparks flying. The previous session and Max's words kept playing in her mind. What if he was right? What if she really messed up and was worse than him?

The girl cursed under her breath, aggressively tackling the turns. She wasn't worse than him, she wasn't worse than anyone. She had worked hard for her position and everything she had achieved was well-deserved.

"Max started, in a moment the pit lane will be clear of the last Alpha Tauri and we'll have a complete set. Don't rush, focus on management and dynamics,"

"Do you really think they called me the fearless Dutchess for no reason?"

"Just be careful, Y/N. It's just practice; you don't have to prove anything to anyone."

"I don't have to, but die verdomde idioot maakt me gek."

"I have no idea what you just said but please, focus on driving; everything else is not important."

The girl tightened her grip on the steering wheel and accelerated. Everything else was important because she wasn't worse than anyone. And she would prove it, even if she had to—

Darkness.

Y/N only remembered losing consciousness during the accident. She found out about falling off the track, somersaulting through the gravel and still hitting the metal barriers at 120 kilometers per hour only after the fact.

On the track, only one Red Bull car remained, but Max wasn't focused on driving; he was engrossed with the past argument he got with his friend. However, a voice from the radio snapped him back to reality.

"Y/N had an accident on turn eleven. Be careful on the surface in that area."

"What happened?"

"It's hard to say, but it didn't look good."

Max pressed harder on the gas, wanting to pass the accident site as quickly as possible and ensure the situation was under control. When he saw the wrecked car, smoke billowing and no rescue personnel nearby, Max's adrenaline froze his veins.

He parked his car at a distance from the accident, hastily releasing himself from the safety harness. When he got out of the car and saw the fire, he didn't think too much; he ran towards the friend's car, shouting her name, but there was no response.

Max fought against time. Besides him, there was no one to extinguish the fire and he had no idea what temperature the fuel in the tank was. He quickly pulled Y/N out of the wrecked car and, holding her in his arms, ran towards his own car. Hiding behind it, he laid her on the ground and, as gently as he could, removed her helmet and balaclava. He checked her pulse and fortunately, it was there. The impact force must have caused her to lose consciousness.

After some time, the appropriate services arrived at the scene and an ambulance took the girl to the hospital. Max knowing he couldn't finish the race, jumped into the ambulance and squeezed his friend's hand. He was furious with her, but now all the emotions were overshadowed by concern and fear. He hoped that the accident only looked serious and that she was just bruised. Max would never forgive himself if something happened to her, especially because of some idiotic argument that ultimately had no meaning.

Y/N woke up just before the ambulance reached the hospital. She was surprised to see paramedics around her, even more so by Max's worried face, which, as soon as their eyes met, calmed down a bit.

"I never thought I'd be so happy to look into those deceitful eyes of yours." Verstappen said, smiling and squeezing her hand.

"What happened?"

The girl asked with difficulty. Her throat hurt terribly; the hot smoke and vapors had taken their toll.

"You had an accident and you passed out. We'll be at the hospital soon."

"An accident is an understatement," one of the paramedics interjected, removing her drip from the hanger. "You did a Grosjean from Bahrain 2020."

Y/N blinked a few times, and it took her a moment to connect the dots. Judging by the man's comparison, her accident must have indeed been unpleasant.

"What's the condition of the car?"

"Just needs a wipe," Max said, smiling.

The girl rolled her eyes at her friend's words, but started coughing. She quickly put her oxygen mask back on.

"Don't worry about the car," Max said, still keeping her hand between his, "The most important thing is that you came back to us."

"At what cost? At least, being unconscious meant I didn't have to look at you."

Y/N said sarcastically, but she smiled. Everything hurt terribly, but she was grateful that, after this whole situation, she could see a familiar face. Even though it was red and sweaty from the race, it had a genuine smile and tenderness in his eyes.

"I guess she's fine, gentlemen. You can take her back to the track; she'll be able to finish the race for sure," Max said loudly, turning around. Y/N laughed quietly at his words and he returned her smile, squeezing her hand tighter.

The girl didn't realize that the fucking idiot sitting next to her was not just her friend, occasional rival and someone she sometimes wanted to tear apart. Max Verstappen, the mad Dutchman, turned into her guardian angel that evening. And she, the fearless Dutchess, started falling in love with him.

[dashielldeveron]

soulmate trope | shigaraki tomura

Shigaraki’s route of soulmate trope.

"post-canon shigaraki? canon isn't even finished as of when this was posted on 4 january 2024!"

yeah. thank god. gives us time to write our own endings. and obviously i will be wrong about some things. i recommend you read at least one other route, preferably dabi’s, before reading this one. warnings: female reader. manga spoilers up to around chapter 390-411ish, based on language used by others to describe shigaraki and his trauma. bodily consequences to his trauma (some things are intended to read as AFO having forced an ED on shigaraki, but this is not made definitive). sexual content. stalking. gore (in a game). reader is experiencing a type of gifted kid burnout.

~28k

There’s a hentai book lying on your bed.

You’ve never seen it before.

Flipping through it, you winced at the positions the large-titted, ponytailed woman was manhandled into, and though you were frankly impressed that she managed to wear such intricate lingerie underneath her everyday business attire, the protagonist only just got home from work; let her decompress for, like, ten minutes before railing her against the window, please.

Whom did you know who would read volume four of something called GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK?

Unfortunately, you were burdened with knowledge about your friends’ sexual habits, and some of them, therefore, were already ruled out: Shinsou only read erotica because he preferred his own imagination to any images hentai or live-action could provide, and Monoma only read hentai in which the woman’s eyes had hearts in them to let the reader know she’s enjoying it—not to mention Monoma wouldn’t buy a hard copy of it, let alone a story that didn’t have more plot and character development to it. There wasn’t enough drool for Sero to be interested, and the male protagonist wasn’t enough of a twink for Kaminari to project onto, so whose was this?

Moreover, who the fuck would come all the way back to your old school’s campus to break into your room to leave it on your bed? (Shinsou would be your best bet for that part, but whenever he finished a patrol nowadays, he went directly to sleep, and his and Monoma’s flat was across town.)

You cat, Dango, jumped onto the bed, slithering up next to you and bumping her head on your elbow affectionately.

“Is this yours?” you asked her, and she sniffed the book before climbing into your lap.

You tossed the book aside to pet your cat with both hands, and you resolved not to think about it any longer, even though the cringy way the mangaka depicted the female orgasm was burnt onto your brain.

***

Hopping to put your heel back into a ballet flat, you held the phone between your ear and shoulder while you struggled towards the lift. “I’ve got to cancel on you, Ochaco,” you said, flipping the back of your blazer collar down and adjusting the lapels, “I’m, fuck—I’m not gonna be able to make it this evening, so just go without me.”

Uraraka sighed on her end. “Okay. I know a lot of us were excited to see you after so long—there’s a card Tsu’s made us all to sign, and everything—but we’ll manage. ‘Spose we’ll just have a routine night at the bar and reschedule when you can make it. I miss you,” she said, “and I’m pretty sure I can say the same for everyone.”

The elevator door slid open, and you entered. “All of you are so clingy. I’ve only been away from the agency for around two months, and you know where to find me.” You mashed the button for the ground floor. “In fact, it’s embarrassingly easy to access me.”

“Well, we’re very busy,” said Uraraka, “People are very eager to conscript us for missions, even if they really could be done by the police. U.A. alumni have somehow upticked in their popularity even more since we graduated—”

“Ochaco, I know. I was there. Allow me to weep for your success. I am playing the world’s tiniest violin.” You shifted your bag’s full weight onto your shoulder and exited into the commons. “But listen. I’ve got to go; I’m running late this morning. I couldn’t find my pantyhose even though I laid them out last night, and they weren’t in any of my cat’s usual hiding places. I had to turn my flat upside down and still never found them.” The outside doors slid open when you approached, and the harsh, morning wind upset your hair on impact. “Give everyone my love, O. Tell Todoroki to smile in his next interview.” Eyes darting across your surroundings for any witnesses, you shrank in on yourself and bit the inside of your cheek. “And tell everyone I’m sorry, okay?”

By the time you arrived at U.A.’s administration building, the wind had been joined by a light drizzle that would probably morph into a storm within the hour, a prediction compounded by a plethora of faculty umbrellas in and beside the stand by the sliding doors. The front office was gloriously vacant, though, so you were able to slip behind the front desk without someone rebuking you for being—you shook the computer mouse to wake it up, the clock popping up in the corner—seventeen minutes late.

(You’d graduated with the rest of the class six months ago, and you’d founded the all-girls agency uptown, with most of the women in the graduating class joining to form an instant powerhouse of the industry.

Founding an agency appealed to a good deal of graduates, but you were the only one to go the distance: you were the one to actually make the calls, fill out the paperwork, get aggravating shit done, and by the time to move into the building, it had pleased you to no end that Midoriya had asked you for help on kickstarting his own.

And then two months ago, you’d pulled off, frankly, what was supposed to be an impossible rescue. For the first time, you were getting enormous amounts of attention, from civilians, from press, from other heroes—and you were being followed, never having more than a moment to yourself—always being watched, either from well-wishers or nay-sayers—and sometimes, the analytical critic, eager to point out your faults in the rescue mission to try to drag you out of the hero scene.

You hated yourself for this, but they won.

Too many expectations. All sinking down on you, as if no other hero existed while the light shone in your direction. [And you hated yourself for even daring to consider this—what reprehensible audacity, but—but was this how All Might had felt?]

You’d had something next door to a panic attack when a convenience store, a regular stop in your weekly routine, filmed your reaction to how they’d auctioned off your signed receipt for over nine hundred thousand yen. Breaking their cameras, Shinsou had to escort you out of there in a rush and call Aizawa for help.

Sobbing into Shinsou’s phone on the soggy concrete of a darkened alleyway, you did something you never fathomed you’d ever do, something you could never see any of your friends ever doing, something that seemed as alien and unthinkable as sticking your hand into a pit of needles: you begged Aizawa to get you out of the hero business.

You’ve been handled with care and relocated into a surprising covert secretarial job in the U.A. admin, Nezu’s logic was that you’d adjust to one person needing you at a time, say, over email or at the desk, and if you only answered the phone with only a shortened version of your name, then no intruding civilian would be the wiser.

The job was easy, anyway. Paid well for what it was, but perhaps that was simply standard for U.A. Nowhere nearly as well paying or exciting as working as a hero, but you were adjusting into mundanity. Some days had stretches of hours in which you didn’t interact with anyone, sitting at the front desk without a task, and you even had a few days in which you’d gone in, piddled around at the desk for your whole shift without seeing another soul, and gone home.

Your friends were always so busy. The two times you’ve been able to meet with them contained nothing but conversation about hero work, or else everything was somehow tangentially related to it, and you found yourself unable to contribute to the conversation. Both times, you’d left early, a little overstimulated, leaving Shinsou to make your excuses.

And Shinsou, bless him. Not avoiding you on purpose. In fact, you knew he’d drop almost anything for you to hang out, but you knew his schedule and how little rest he got. So, it was more of a self-imposed boundary on your side, taking into account that he needed sleep more than he needed to spend time with you.

So, yes, some of it was directly your fault, but you were achingly, astonishingly lonely, with an ever-lowering threshold for tolerance of outside stimulation, ultimately feeling like you didn’t belong here.)

Pens aligned. Coaster. Check the school email for—good, no emails. No voicemail. Get out your planner and write your hours in it to look busy. Hey, your water bottle’s nearing empty; maybe you could go fill it or even waste time brewing coffee. But where’s your work mug? You probably left it on the cleaning rack next to the office sink. You should go check.

“Hey,” said Aizawa out of nowhere, ignoring how you jumped out of your own skin, “Good morning. Are you doing a specific job at the moment?”

You gripped the arms of your swivel chair to ground yourself. Is this a test? “I was about to take a moment to make some coffee,” you said, because never let someone in a position of authority know that you were doing jackshit, “Is there something I can help you with, Aizawa-sensei?”

Frowning, he dipped his chin into his capture weapon, still tucked closely to his neck to shield him from the wind, and he shifted his weight to one leg, his fingers tapping in a ripple on the reception desk. “You don’t have to call me that anymore.”

“I’m gonna,” you said, “How can I help?”

Please don’t need anything. Please don’t need anythi—

“Permission has just cleared for me to assign you a long-term task.”

Shit, you thought, internally wincing at how he used the term task and not mission, as if you’d be plunged into the ice-cold water of a panic attack at the word. The kid gloves that everyone handled you with somehow both ingratiated and insulted you.

“You’ll be paid for it,” Aizawa continued, “and it’s low stakes interaction, not even face-to-face. It’s all online.” Aizawa clasped his hands on the desk and hunched over the top of it, the ends of his scarf trailing down onto your keyboard. “You’ll recall moving some boxes into room 310.”

“Of course.” Early in your first month back at U.A., you’d helped clean out and move some boxes into 310 in the same hall that housed Aizawa, Eri, and now you—you’d unofficially dubbed it as U.A.’s drawer to shove social rejects. “Is someone about to move in?”

“He’s been moved in for a while,” said Aizawa, pulling his capture weapon away from his neck, “Keep all of this quiet. You’re allowed to know because I’ve advocated for you, because I trust in you and in your ability to do this well.” Aizawa paused, the silence dragging on much longer than usual. His eyes glazed over, as if considering how to phrase his next proposal.

You waved your hand, prompting him to continue.

His eyes focused again. “The new person is a ward of the school, but All Might and I are his primary—caretakers isn’t quite the right term, and nor is supervisors, so perhaps it’s better to—”

“No, I get it,” you said, “This person is an adult, but they’re not quite independent. Go on.”

Aizawa paused, brow furrowed just slightly as he scrutinised you again, but he nodded slowly after a moment. “I’ll allow him to introduce himself to you. He doesn’t need me to set up expectations. What’s important for you to know, regarding your own participation, is that he’s very new to the hero scene and is receiving his hero training later in life than usual. He won’t be attending class but will be trained personally by select U.A. faculty, mostly All Might, Nezu, and me.”

“Is he officially a student?”

 “On paper.” Something strange passed across Aizawa’s face, but you couldn’t name it. “Where you come in is his socialisation. He’s spent most of his life in disciplinary isolation. Because of the adults raising him, his instincts trend towards distrust and animosity.”

So, Aizawa wanted you spend time with him until he was no longer bad with people, like spending time with feral cats at animal shelters until they’re ready to be adopted. “So, he’s distrustful. Hostile. Angry,” you said, scratching the side of your head, “Is he—do you think he’ll bring up bad stuff I’ve done to use it against me?”

“He doesn’t know who you are, aside from someone trusted by U.A. with hero experience,” said Aizawa, shaking his head, “and you can choose what information you give him.”

“Does he,” you said, sucking in through your teeth, “Does this guy know about how you’re going about this? I think—wouldn’t he be insulted if he knew about how you’re socialising him like an animal?”

Aizawa looked over his shoulder at the empty office, but he bent farther over the desk and spoke softly, anyway. “Recently, when I was training him at night, he expressed that he never knows what to do when someone wants to talk to him after mission, whether it’s successful or not. He froze entirely when a senior citizen thanked him last week, and that’s when we decided something tactile needed to be done. Since he’s grown used to me, you’re the solution.”

Okay. A volatile man, someone who couldn’t go to U.A. at the average age but for whom Aizawa, Nezu, and All Might were making an exception, even going so far as to personally take him out at night to practise hero work.

Hm. Fishy.

But if the good, good men who took care of you wanted you take care of another misplaced person, then you’re going to do it to the best of your ability.

“I hope I can live up to your expectations,” you said, making a note in your planner, “What am I doing?”

“I need you to learn how to play a video game,” said Aizawa, “and I need you to be absolute shit at it.”

***

For you to help some loser with socialisation, he would be teaching you how to play some janky, twenty-five-year-old MMORPG called Cipherstone—and not even the current, polished version of it; you had to sign up for an account on the version preserving the game exactly as it was in 2007. Nostalgia reasons, apparently.

You nudged Dango out aside to check your bedside clock. The discord call would start in five minutes, and you were making your Cipherstone account, completely unable to come up with a suitable username.

“Don’t connect it to your other online accounts or your actual identity,” Aizawa had said that morning.

Dango’s tiny prance across your stomach was not helping, and you couldn’t use Dango in your username, because if someone knew about your cat (and hopefully no one did, because cats were not allowed in the dorms), then a Dango username could be linked back to the real you. You plopped your head back on your pillow, knocking against the headboard. What’s something that couldn’t be traced back to you? Slumping, you let your head fall to the side and sulked.

The hentai book peeked out from underneath a jacket on your dirty clothes chair.

GinsengTea

That username is unavailable.

Well. You couldn’t use your birthdate as added numbers. You kept typing.

GinsengTea69

That username is unavailable.

You’re not about to try Lustful Ballsack. Maybe if you put aside your secretarial propensity for being correct for a moment.

GinzengTea

Username available!

Oh, thank God. You sorted out your password and started customising your character, though you couldn’t do much with the negative six billion pixels you were dealing with, and oh, is that the noise discord makes for a call? You plugged in your earbuds and clicked the answer button.

“Hello?” you asked into the microphone on your earbud cord, narrowing your eyes at his profile picture of a rotund, cartoon mouse. Username Tenkopeito. Looks like he ran into the same spelling trouble you did.

“Greetings and salutations,” he said, his tinny, rasping, just-got-out-of-bed, gruff-from-lack-of-use voice striking you with about fifty psychic damage, “I am Aizawa-sensei’s pupil, here to teach you about the intricacies of Cipherstone. It will be my pleasure—”

“Cut that shit out,” you said, narrowing your eyes at his profile picture: actually, that mouse was so round because it had just swallowed an enormous piece of konpeito whole, with the little star spikes jutting out underneath its fur. “No one talks like that. You sound fake as fuck.”

“I see,” he said after a beat, tone deflating to sound resigned (and though he’d relaxed, it somehow sounded as if talking this way took more effort, like it physically strained his vocal cords). “Am I not supposed to be nice?”

“You weren’t exactly being nice. You were using a customer service voice—which is being polite, not nice. Not even kind. Politeness is usually some sort of put-on affectation of niceness, forced for the situation. I understand if that’s what you think you need to do when you talk to people as a hero, but in hero work, since the stakes are high, you need to be genuine, or at least sound like you are.” Dango crawled across your stomach again, but you lifted her off before she could settle into a loaf on your keyboard. “In the field, it’s often hard to be kind because of how involved you get as a hero; being kind takes effort and drains you emotionally. Kindness implies there’s some sort of reciprocity, some sort of ongoing relationship. You can choose to be kind if you want, but it may wear on you in the long run. What will probably be healthiest for you, on your side, is if you aim to be nice, meaning being honest in a gentle way, framing situations positively but realistically for listeners. The public doesn’t want to be lied to and told everything’s fine, but telling them the harshness of reality doesn’t go over well. Kills morale.”

“Holy shit.” He was scratching something close to his microphone—it must be a fairly good mic, since you could deduce short fingernails against a dry surface. “That’s…a lot.”

“It is. But you can do it. All it takes is practise, and that’s what I’m here for,” you said, moving Dango from your keyboard again, “And I didn’t mean to overwhelm you with all of that; it just came out—I, uh, I happen to know a lot about the way heroes present themselves.” Swallowing thickly, you ran your tongue over your lower lip. “Why don’t we begin with what you were saying before? But in the actual way you talk, please. You need to be comfortable in your own voice.”

His mic picked up the distant noise of slurping through a straw, against what sounded like the bottom of a metal cup, which clinked when he set it back down. “Have you played Cipherstone before?”

“Total newcomer. Though I’ve seen some screenshots in memes.”

“Cool,” he said in a way that was clear it was not cool, “I can’t add you to my in-game friends list until you get off Tutorial Island. Share your screen with me until then.”

All right. You can be bad at this. You can be so bad at this. “What’s a screen?” Not that bad, idiot! “I mean,” you said, fumbling, “How do I share my screen with you?”

The scratching grew louder. “Bottom left. Screen button. Right click. Share option.”

“Ah.” You should probably lure him into thinking you’re competent while there was a literal tutorial onscreen so that he would be more frustrated with you later. “Gotcha.”

For a few seconds after your avatar popped onscreen for the first time, nothing came through but the 8-bit tutorial music. “Is that what you look like in real life?” he finally asked.

“No,” you said, not exactly lying. The character had her hair down in her face (which you wouldn’t normally do when you were on patrol, since it could get in the way of physical hero work), and, hoping to endear yourself to this weirdo, you’d chosen the sluttiest shirt: while none of the horrible pixelated options showed any boob whatsoever, the poor rendering still managed to convey that the top was off-shoulder. Again, not great for hero work. “In real life, I’ve much, much more panache.”

Another silence, during which you assumed he was looking up the word. “So, you click on the screen to go where you want to walk, on either the overall game interface or in the mini-map in the corner. Your destination will show up—”

“Wait, what should I call you, screwboy?”

“—as a red flag,” he said, frown audible, his rasping voice screeching to a stop the way brakes are slowly applied to the wheels of a train. “Not screwboy.”

“I’m not calling you by your handle. Not only is it cringe, but you won’t have to answer to it anywhere else in your life. If you don’t want to give me your name, that’s fine. I could call you by your hero name, if you like; it’d help you get used to answering to it. But no, I’m not calling you your username,” you said, shoulders slacking once Dango finally settled in a ball at your hip, “Especially since you couldn’t even get the correct spelling of Ten Konpeito.”

“It’s—it’s not supposed to say that,” he said, sputtering with a groan coming in at the end, “It’s a play on my name, and including the n makes it harder to say aloud. I think these things through; I have to be aware of my public image and branding now; that’s the whole point of this stupid—my name is Tenko, you asshole.”

“Oh, you’re gonna call civilians asshole?” You clicked your tongue. “Bad. Bad and evil. Speaking from experience, people don’t like that.”

“Just fu—just click on the map.”

“Fine. But you can’t fool me with your medieval, point-and-click game,” you said, clicking to pick up a fishing net, “Incidentally, the oldest known fishing net is the net of Antrea, crafted of willow and dating back to 8300 B.C.”

Tenko paused. “What would be the socially expected response to that?”

Your avatar fished for shrimps. “Oh, usually people yell at me. Get mad for bringing up total non sequiturs. My friend Bakugou is fond of telling me that I’m a collection of those bottle caps with facts printed on the inside.”

“Would…would you like me to get angry? Am I supposed to? I was under the impression I was supposed to curb my anger. To be nice.”

Your inventory filled with shrimps.

“You only need one shrimp,” said Tenko.

“You’ll thank me when we have food later,” you said, continuing to fish for shrimps.

“It’s the tutorial,” he said, frown creeping into his voice, “You won’t keep any resources from it. You should go chop the tree down to light a fire.”

“Well, hell. I want my shrimps.” You clicked away from the fishing spot and onto a tree. “Nothing’s happening.”

Tenko cleared his throat. “You need to talk to the woodcutting tutor first. She’ll give you an axe.”

“I thought this game had magic,” you said, guiding Dango’s head away from blocking the screen, “Can’t I just get logs with magic?”

“No, it’s—you must want me to get angry. As a test.” Scratching. “Magic comes later. Not for getting logs.”

You interpreted that as a sign to make the rest of the tutorial go smoothly. You followed the instructions for a few silent minutes, proving to him that you could read, and when you reached the end of the tutorial, a wizard teleported you to the crossroads of a town centre.

“Ah,” you said, genuinely surprised as other players’ avatars, decked out in what must be high-level gear, dashed past, “I don’t know where I am.”

“You can turn your screen-sharing off now.” Tenko typed on what sounded like a mechanical keyboard. “I’m over here. I’ve got—by the fountain—white hair, all black clothes. I’m not—there you are.”

Dozens of other players were running past the two of you, the only bare, new players in the area. Tenko’s pixelated avatar waved at you. Cheeky bitch. He’s so poorly animated and so very 2007 that it gave no indication what he could look like in real life. But he’s chosen to have a black t-shirt as his default, so he has to be a slut.

You resisted the urge to ask to feel his pixelated bicep. “You don’t have any equipment. I thought you’ve played Cipherstone before?”

“My main account is max-ed out. I started a new account to grow at the same rate as you. Before anything else, notice where we are,” said Tenko, “We’re in the centre of the city of Renfield. Get familiar with it. Think of it as home. It’s where you’ll always come back to when you get lost.”

It’s a barely animated town centre, with a short path up the stairs to a castle door and a few market stalls split between fountains.

“I have no idea what that means, Tenko.”

“It means that—that,” Tenko said, and stopped.

You couldn’t stop grinning, biting at your lower lip to keep from laughing—he’d let out a flustered huff, sounding a little strangled, because you’d said his name for the first time—and, judging by how long this delicious silence was dragging on, Tenko was probably his given name, not the family name. Beautiful, really, that a guy his age (however old he was, but he’s at least the same as you, since he couldn’t attend U.A. at the usual time) could get this nervous over a woman calling him by his name.

Tenko recovered in a way that showed he didn’t: “It means that you are always able to cast one spell, regardless of magic level,” he said in a rush, “It is a homing spell that teleports you back to this spot, so even if you get lost, you can always get back to Renfield. You can teleport other ways, too, but that’s for another time, and I need a cup of coffee.” He inhaled sharply.

It's only the first day, so you should go easy on him. Let his moment of awkwardness go.

However, Aizawa gave you a mission.

Excuse you, a task.

“Do you plan on getting flustered every time a civilian calls you by name?” you asked, petting between Dango’s ears, “Or are you planning on avoiding as much publicity as possible by being an underground hero like Aizawa?”

“I don’t—they’re not going to—it’s different with you. I can already tell,” said Tenko (you froze, fingers curled into Dango’s fur), “because I’m going to have some sort of working relationship with you. I assume you’re here to stay.”

Putting it that way made your heartbeat throb around your ears. You decided you could ask directly. “Tenko’s your first name, then?”

“Yeah.” He must have covered his hand with his mouth, muffling his voice at first. “But people usually—people have been calling me something else.”

“Then I can call you something else, if you like,” you said, getting back to petting Dango behind her ears and resolving to treat him with the same tenderness—he must need it, since no one in his life knows him well enough to call him by his given name.

“No, I think you should,” he said a bit too quickly, “Call me that. Tenko. I’m tired of that other stuff. Click on something to keep from logging out, by the way. There’s a timer.” Mechanical typing noises. “No, Aizawa-sensei wants me to be better. Of all things, I need to learn to respond to my real name.”

You squinted at your screen, as if the methodical rise and fall of his avatar’s chest could betray how he was feeling. Something had to have happened to this guy to make him feel this way about such a basic part of his identity, to make other people avoid his real name so universally. Aizawa couldn’t’ve have assigned you this task just to socialise him; something else was unfolding here. How did you enter the equation? If you’re supposed to guide someone who’s also lost their direction in life, you’re a hell of a bad candidate.

But what if you fuck up Aizawa’s plan, whatever it was?

Your recent history is riddled with things going downhill. What if you somehow screwed over Tenko? You’d be dragging someone else down with you, down to…the beginning again, a humiliating re-start, back at your fucking school, when the rest of your friends were out living the dream you’d all crafted together, the dream that apparently could go on without you in it.

Well. Enough of that. Distract yourself. Distract Tenko, too. “Got it. I want a hat.”

“What?”

“I want a hat,” you said, clicking the space around the fountain for your avatar to walk, “My head is cold. How do we get a hat? Hats. You should get one, too.”

“Hats. Very well,” said Tenko, clicking to face you across the shitty fountain, “Do you want one that’s purely decorative or one that has some sort of stats? Decorative ones we can get within a minute, with good RNG, by killing goblins across the bridge. There’s a low chance we could get a low-tier wizard’s hat doing that, too.”

“Then it will be a pleasure killing goblins with you, Tenko.”

“Mm,” he said at the back of his throat, “First, we’ll need to obtain some sort of weapons, since bare-handed punching them will take forever. We could either talk to the melee tutor to get a temporary sword or start wi—actually, we should talk to the melee tutor. Melee will probably be the easiest fighting style for you right now, and it’ll be the simplest, since you won’t have to worry about running out of ammunition or runes.”

“Sure,” you said, leaning back in bed, “Do we go starboard or port?”

“You can just call them east and west, y’know. And we go north.”

To be obstinate, you clicked the opposite direction that Tenkopeito was going, and the moment you ran offscreen, Tenko spoke in a low, grumbling voice into his microphone. “No, don’t run away from me. Come back here.”

The rumble in his voice shot warmth straight to your lower stomach, the nature of the encounter between the two of you changing in a second. Your avatar kept running to her destination, your hand frozen and hovering above the tracking pad. You blinked, your throat drying. Snapping back into it, you ran back to Tenko, who seemed unaware of what he just did to you—and he almost negated your arousal in the way he kept talking about sword upgrades and something called RNG.

Uh.

“—now, it’ll take about ten minutes, but it’ll seem like two hours of hard labour. Follow me across the bridge. Follow—there’s a follow mechanic, if you’ll right-click on me.”

Oh, you’ll right-click him, all right. You needed to know more about Tenko—why you’ve been paired off, what Aizawa’s planning for him, what—a tinge of shame soured at the back of your tongue, because what currently gripped you were minutiae: more about him, what he looks like, what he likes, what he does for fun, if you’re…the sort of person he’d get along with in real life, if you hadn’t been forced together.

God, get over yourself. You spend two months away from men your age, and now, you’re thirsting over someone you don’t even know because he said one hot thing. You needed to be socialised—no, stop. This isn’t about you. Stop thinking about what his hands would feel like on you, what he’d sound like grunting into your ear as he ground against you—

“You’ve been quiet for a minute,” said Tenko, slashing the first goblin, “Are you all right?”

A very heroic question when you haven’t been thinking too heroically. The thought of his voice muttering against your neck still grasped you tightly. “I’m having—technical difficulties.”

***

Poking your head outside of your dorm/apartment door, you scanned the hallway for witnesses. You gripped the handle of Dango’s carrier, still hidden behind the door inside your dorm, and you nodded back at her when she meowed at you.

“I know, baby,” you said, listening for footsteps, “We’ll be outside soon enough. Gotta check for people, though.”

Okay, nothing coming. You shifted Dango’s carrier out of your dorm and pulled out your key, sticking it in the lock at the same time as a door opened down the hall.

Too fast—you had to prod her carrier back inside, your foot stuck in the crack between wall and door, just as—as Midoriya strode down the hall. Keys jangling. Civilian clothes (a Froppy hoodie, in fact).

“Oh, hello!” Midoriya only seemed to notice you once you were struggling to close the door despite the carrier being the way, and hopefully you thrust it fully inside swiftly enough for him not to catch the flash of burgundy. He trotted up to you, hands in the pockets of his worn cargo pants. “I didn’t think you’d be around. Do you not have work today?”

Dango meowed mournfully through the door, and you stepped in front of it. “It’s my lunch break. I’m going for a walk.”

Midoriya nodded, and he glanced over his shoulder back to the room he’d left. “Gotcha, gotcha. Good weather for it, especially after that storm earlier this week.” easy smile stretched across his face as he faced you again, but his gaze weighed down on you, as if the number one hero’s attention magnified your failures in comparison to his rise to the top—and the fact that he didn’t mean to pressure you only exacerbated the feeling.

“Uh,” you said, stuffing your keys in your backpack and setting it on the ground, as if you’re not waiting to go back inside, “May I ask what you’re doing here? Don’t you have better—aren’t you busy?”

Chuckling, Midoriya scratched the back of his neck (and oh, in that laughter, he was hiding something). “I make time. I’m just visiting,” he said, jerking his head back towards the end of the hall, “A friend. I want to take care to see him regularly. I didn’t know you lived on the same hall.”

“If you can call it living,” you said, and for some reason, Midoriya frowned, took a step closer to you, and said your name under his breath, eyes fucking wide and too damn concerned for your comfort. Fuck, you only meant to make a self-depredating joke, not make the situation serious. 

“You—you know that you can reach out to us. I mean that. If you’re scared you’re gonna burden any of us—”

You’d squatted down to go through your bag, just to have something to do, to have an excuse to not look him in the eyes. If you were going to cry—which you were not!—then the number one hero’s not going to get to witness it.

“—then reach out to me, at least. I’ve got time, or else I can make it.” Midoriya was kneeling next to you, and you kept your eyes on the inside of your backpack. “If it makes you feel less like you’re bothering any of us, I could check in with you when I come see my friend. I’d already be on campus. I wouldn’t be going out of my way.” He sighed to fill the space when you didn’t answer. “What are you looking for?”

“I can’t find my planner,” you invented, and, acting like you were upset, you zipped your backpack again. “I think I need to go back inside to locate it.”

He shifted his jaw, and he glanced down at your bag and back at you. “Come with me to the vending machines, at least?”

The new symbol of peace, asking to spend time with you. You didn’t deserve it, so you shook your head. “I don’t have much time left in my break. I think I’d better let you go.”

Shifting his jaw, Midoriya tilted his head at you, his eyes glinting. “All right,” he said slowly, “You know yourself better than anyone else. Do what you need to. Rest up.” He started walking backwards towards the stairs. “And I want to see you more—we all do. I’ll see you the next time I come around. Maybe the three of us could hang out?”

“Sure,” you said, shoving your key in the lock to let a thrashing Dango out of her misery.

***

“The church. It’s the one with the altar icon in the minimap.”

You clicked enough so that your avatar would backtrack. “How am I supposed to know that’s the church? Is that icon supposed to be an altar? It looks nothing like an altar. It looks more like a steaming cup of tea.”

“That’s fair,” said Tenko into his headset, “but this is the easiest quest in the game. How are you having this much trouble with it?”

“Oh, stop that,” you said, reaching his character in front of the priest, “It’s intuitive to you because you’ve been playing this for years. Do we kill this guy?”

“What? No. He’s going to give us each the key to a dungeon underneath the church.”

“How can he give us both a key if there’s only one?” You clicked through the dialogue with the priest, and a key appeared in your inventory. “Also, how accurate is this dungeon? Because if this is a broadly medieval game, then the dungeons will be closer to underground bathrooms rather than, like, creepy and wet with shackles and bones. That was popularised by Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.”

“How the hell do you know that,” Tenko asked flatly, “Ne—never mind. It doesn’t matter. Follow me to the trapdoor outside.”

You did, and it was locked. “Are we allowed to do this?” you asked, clicking on the key and then the lock, “Will we get arrested for trespassing?”

“Wha—no. No, we’re supposed to in order to progress the quest. In fact, our characters do a frankly criminal amount of breaking and entering throughout the game and never get checked for it. Hey, don’t go down there without me.”

Your character had only just gone down the trapdoor, prompting a blackout loading screen, but you popped back up to the surface before you could get a good look around. Your character stood next to Tenko’s, still next to the trapdoor. “What’s the holdup? I thought the only step was to use the key on the door. Did I skip something?”

“No, I—huh,” said Tenko, cutting himself off with a tinge of frustration creeping into his voice, “I lost the key.”

Raising a brow, you tilted your head. “What? How’d you lose it?”

“I don’t know. It was in my inventory one minute, and now it’s not. I didn’t touch it.” His mic picked up light scratching. “You’re not supposed to be able to lose the key, but I guess I can go back to the priest to get another. You wait—”

“Hold up,” you said, brow furrowed, “I have it. It’s in my inventory.”

“The hell? Are you sure it’s not just your own key?”

“Positive. I have two of them now. Same key, right next to each other. Want me to share my screen?”

“No, I—I believe you.” Tenko took a moment. “I’m not familiar with this sort of glitch, where an item from one player’s inventory randomly transfers to another’s. This doesn’t even happen, in my experience, but maybe it’s because this is one of the earliest quests coded into the game. It’s twenty-five-year-old code at this point, and it might have glitched because we’re both trying to perform the same quest actions on the same game tick.”

“Sure,” you said, “So, what do I do? Do I drop the key for you to pick up, or?”

“It disappears if you drop it. Trade me. Right-click, trade option.”

Once the key was traded, the two of you went down the trapdoor and wove your way back into the underground headquarters of a low-level cult, vacant for the moment but with evidence of rituals on the walls and floors, particularly in front of their bloodstained altar.

“Okay, we’re in their headquarters,” you said, making your character walk up the aisle, “What now? Priest guy didn’t give us any instructions.”

His avatar followed you and sat on the only programmed-to-be-sittable seat in the pew, his black cape (that he stole from a highwayman’s corpse) folding under his legs. “Actually, he did. You just clicked through his dialogue.”

“Because you’re here to tell me what to do, Quest Man.”

“Click on the—” Tenko heaved an enormous sigh, microphone sparking. “You figure it out. What’s clickable in this room? What has examine text?”

You hovered your mouse over most of the room, and nothing popped up with the examine option, except for something on the altar. “It’s this weird-looking, severed hand, isn’t it? This thing standing up on a slice of wrist by itself?” Your character walked nearer to it, fingers splayed widely enough to hold an in-game apple. “Weirdest ring-holder I’ve ever seen.”

When Tenko didn’t say anything, you glanced towards his character, but he was still sitting on the pew.

“Is this whole quest a pun? Because it’s one of the easiest quests, so they’re giving us a lot of guidance, so it’s like they’re holding our hands to get it through?”

That broke his silence: he scoffed into the mic. “I doubt it,” he said, “You need to grab the hand for the quest to keep going.”

“Fine,” you said, clicking the hand, and the instant your avatar touched it, a zombie spawned from the altar and began to attack you. “Dude! Did you know that thing was gonna jump me?” you asked, clicking away a few spaces but turning around to stab at it with your stupid bronze dagger, “And you just sat there? You could’ve warned me.”

“I did, and the priest did, and the duke who gave us this quest did. That’s why we went and baked all those pies in your inventory, yeah? For you to eat during this fight?”

Your character kept missing hits. “Yeah, but—like! I didn’t know the fight would be now.”

“Hey, relax.” Tenko’s voice sounded muffled, like his mouth was smushed as his fist dug into his cheek. “It’s only a level 12, and you’re level 9. Not too big of a difference. With your armour and weapon, you out-level it.”

The miss sound effect spoke for itself.

“You’ll kill it eventually. You won’t always hit zeroes, so it’ll pass.”

Though your character dealt her first damage, you frowned. “That’s…that’s actually really good advice, Tenko. The stuff you just said would work well if you were trying to calm someone down—reminding people of reality and emphasising perseverance over luck or natural talent are some of the better ways to encourage people.”

“Is that so,” he asked flatly, trying to put off a yawn and failing, “I haven’t—I wasn’t thinking about hero work. Just thinking about the game.”

“Well, it was nice,” you said, “and it seemed like it came naturally. Mind if I ask if something caused it?”

He yawned again, but he must have leant away from the mic so that you wouldn’t hear anything besides the initial inhale. “Nothing special happened today, but I’m too tired to get irritated. Therapy took a lot out of me today.”

Therapy. Therapy. Okay, so he’s got an official diagnosis somewhere. The word today implies that it’s a regular thing, and for some reason, this session was more intense. Intense emotionally? Physically? What kind of therapy? Well, they offered cognitive behavioural therapy on campus, but considering his non-traditional student status, his might be outsourced. Plus, if you, a former hero but technically a civilian, are being implemented into his care plan without being informed directly—

“You usually don’t go this long without saying some inane non sequitur,” said Tenko, that same, strange scratching picking up on the mic, “Snap out of it. You’re gonna get killed by the easiest quest boss in the game.”

Making an undignified noise, you shook yourself and spam-clicked on a cherry pie for your character to eat until she was healed completely, and then you clicked on the zombie to attack again.

“Why’d you pause when I said therapy? Surprised I’d go? Think that sort of thing is below me?”

“Of course not,” you said, trying to seem like you were focused on the fight so that he wouldn’t get nervous about sharing personal information, “Therapy good. Therapy great. Everyone needs to go to therapy.” Since he appeared to be taking this casually, you could probably ask after the type without it seeming too intrusive. “What kind? CBT? That’s what—”

“You think U.A. would arrange for me to get my cock and balls tortured? That wouldn’t qualify as therapy for me, certainly, and there’s no way that U.A. would pay for—”

“Not fucking cock-and-ball torture, you muppet; cognitive behavioural therapy. The sitting-down-with-therapist-to-talk-about-your-trauma-and-restructuring-the-way-you-think-through-practise type. You fuckin’ pervert,” you said, grinning at his avatar onscreen.

“Good to know. I didn’t know the name for it.”

“It’s good that you made this mistake with me instead of with Aizawa-sensei.”

“He’s probably more inclined towards bondage. Congratulations on killing your first boss,” said Tenko, and you blinked in surprise at your character: you’d defeated the zombie while staring at him. It fell to the ground, dropping bones and some sort of arrows.

“Take those. Check to see if they’re iron or steel. All right, equip them in your ammo slot for now so that they don’t take up an inventory space.”

You did so. “Why didn’t it attack me with the arrows if it were holding them?”

“There’s no logic to it besides that arrows are on its drop table. It’s coded to attack by punching you in the face, which doesn’t involve arrows.”

“Sure. Now, let’s get out of the cult basement; I wanna bake more pies until we can make apple ones. Did you know that the first record of fruit pies was around 1600? That means these fruit pies are anachronistic, since this game pitches itself as medieval.”

“Is that…” The hesitance had you beaming, daring him to actually ask it. “Is that not medieval?”

“Tenko, get your head out of your ass. For reference, 1600 is arguably the year the Azuchi-Momoyama period ended and the Edo period began. The game frames itself as medieval European, and 1600 is hard Renaissance-slash-Early-Modern. That’s Shakespeare times, screwboy.”

Only silence on your headphones. Character still on the pew. You made your character walk over to his to perform the curtsy emote, and in real life, you frowned. “Did I go too far there? Bit too annoying? I’m really sorry if I’m bothering you with this sort of thing; my friends say that I—”

“Nothing’s wrong. I needed a moment,” came Tenko’s voice, quiet and steady, “I could hear you smiling, and it was—it was good.”

Inhaling sharply, you pressed a fist to your mouth. Great. Fucking fabulous. Goddammit, you hadn’t aimed for it to go this way, but were you now the one getting flustered at something as simple as—

“Do most people consider a long pause in conversation rude? Did I fuck up with that?”

“No! No, of course not,” you were saying, trying to recover but still startled at how he was able to flip the vibe of your conversations in so few words, words that seemed so casual to him but grabbed you by the throat/cunt, “Especially since you followed-up with a check-in of how it might be strange; a lot of times, people will be comforted by checking to see if something’s okay with them personally…”

Frowning, you trailed off when another avatar entered the cult’s sanctuary and strode up the aisle. You hovered over the new guy’s stupid frog mask to see his username was Venomothman.

“Fucking great,” grumbled Tenko, “Here comes someone else to break our immersion. Ignore him. I’ll go ahead and fight the zombie so that we can get out of here.”

“The zombie’s dead. You don’t have to fight him,” you said, as Venomothman sat directly on top of Tenkopeito, with both avatars glitching as they took up the same space on the pew.

Tenko made some sort of noise in the back of his throat. “No, I have to kill it, too. It’s like each of us is the only one doing the quest, so in your version, the evil has been defeated, but in my version—it’s this thing called an instance—”

Venomothman: wow a couple questing together

Venomothman: bet ur one guy on two accounts

Venomothman: roleplaying that he can get a gf

The new guy’s in-text chat appeared in yellow font above his avatar’s frog-faced head, and somehow, the boggly, green eyes made his words more irritating.

Venomothman: leave the basement sometimes ya incel

“Some people are assholes recreationally,” said Tenko, making his avatar stand to go to the altar as the clatter of mechanical typing came through the mic, “Let me get rid of this fucking scumba—wait.”

 Venomothman: ur doing too much work to stare at pixelated ass

“Would it be correct for a hero to insult someone online?”

You shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it. “Eh. You’re not on duty, and you’re not under any persona connected with your public branding. I would say go for it, but since you’re trying to be better with people, you may want to practise.”

Venomothman: somehow this is even more pathetic than never knowing the touch of a woman at all

“Then I’ll shut him down. The shit-talking isn’t bothering me so much as his breaking our immersion in the game,” said Tenko, grabbing the hand on the altar to start his instance of the fight, “I’m trying to cultivate a particular experience for you, and he’s a fucker who won’t stop yapping. Give me a second.”

Venomothman: is this what does it for you??

Venomothman: why no response

Venomothman: hard to type with one hand, isn’t it, ******* shithead

You laughed through your nose. “Cipherstone censors the word fuck?”

“It censors fuck; it censors cunt,” said Tenko, avatar casting a weak air spell at the zombie, slowly, slowly draining its health, “Everything else is fair game.”

“Will it censor variations of cunt? Like, if I typed in cuntbag? Or—actually, let’s find that out later,” you said, tapping the buttons on your earbud cord to turn up the volume, “Let’s practise navigating difficult social interactions. What’s our goal here in this conversation? Is it to continue to engage?”

“No.” His spell missed, and the zombie landed a hit on his character, prompting him to eat half of a pie. “It’s to close the interaction. Therefore, I need to say something concise that invites no response, right? I’m assuming that a simple fuck off is unacceptable.”

“You’re getting better at this, y’know?”

“Is that condescension I detect?”

“Only a little.” You slumped back against your headboard and reached for the bottle of water on your bedside table. “Actually—no. No condescension. Genuinely, Tenko, you’re picking up on this stuff easily, and it’s impressive. You’ll be able to walk little old ladies across the street with style and flair in no time.” 

“Hilarious,” he said, voice restrained and tight at the mention of his name (too easy—he gives himself away aurally so freely; who knows what you could read off of him when you had a visual?), “I’m sure no one wants me touching them. Can I—hm.” He sounded like he was pressing his fist against his face somehow. “Why you keep bothering to compliment me? Most people bitch down to me like I’ve spat my own cum in their coffee.”

“Wha—how about because you deserve to be complimented? Listen,” you said, electing to brush over his vivid simile, “Silent admiration rots. By keeping in appreciation or gratitude, you’re not doing anyone any good. Kind regards are meant to be shared. Like, now, if I held back any positive thoughts concerning your growth, then you might not feel encouraged to keep going.”

“Like I’m gonna go around fucking complimenting ev—”

“I’m not saying you have to,” you said, “but consider trying it more often. See if anything turns out better. And be sure to be sincere about it—obviously.”

“This is bullshit.”

“Just consider it. So. What has he told us about himself based on how he’s insulted you?”

“He’s so low-level that it looks like he just created his account. His stats are even lower than ours,” said Tenko, speaking more quickly now that it was a subject he was more comfortable with, unequipping his wand to punch the zombie instead, “But he’s gone out of his way to get the frog mask.”

“His words, Tenko,” you said, unscrewing the cap and doing your fucking darndest to pinch your mouth from smiling at his slight hitch when you said his name, “I’m trying to get you to notice on whom he looks down and what that means for his personal social status.”

“Right,” he said a bit too quickly, a bit of a break in his voice on the word, “He’s debasing me for—oh, you’re brilliant. How the hell do you notice these things? He’s using basement dweller as insult, meaning he considers himself above that. Leave it to me.”

You muted yourself briefly to glug down water; you didn’t know how sensitive the mic was on your earbuds, but considering that you could catch onto Tenko’s occasional rustling of what sounded like plastic bags on his side or typing on his mechanical keyboard, as he was right now, you would prefer not to be emitting the same.

Tenkopeito: Your mom wishes you would come out of your room to talk with the rest of the family more often

You spluttered into your water bottle as the yellow text appeared above his head, and you unmuted yourself. “That is not what I meant for you to—”

“Was I being mean?” The mic caught the creak of Tenko’s chair as he leant back in it, and you could picture him defensive and pouting as he crossed his arms (and it struck you that you couldn’t imagine his face. Grimacing, you bit the inside of your cheek). “I wasn’t being rude. I could be so much crueller, but I thought this would be more of a devastating blow. Living on the same floor as your family isn’t the same as living in the basement, so I’m acknowledging his level of social power while still demeaning—”

Venomothman: i mean you right

Venomothman: lmao how tf did you know it was me

“I think we should log out,” you said, wiping the water off of your chin with the back of your hand and setting the bottle back on the bedside table.

Over Tenko’s microphone, you heard the shrill pitch of a custom ringtone and a startled but violent shuffle at the noise. “Hold on. I’m getting a call,” he said, voice coming through at a distance, as if he’d knocked his mic aside.

“Oh? Who is it?”

It took him a minute, but Tenko eventually replied, “A friend.”

That must be a damn good microphone, because you could still pick up on Tenko’s side of the conversation a few feet away. “Yes, hello?” he asked, a bit more brusquely than you’d heard him before.

“Oh. I didn’t,” he was saying, “How was I supposed to know that you’d—yes, that’s her. The one working with Aizawa-sensei.”

Very nice, you were thinking, as you unlocked your own phone to check your messages. Very good for him to have friends. Not that you would’ve pegged him as the absolute loner type, because he proved to be adaptable and quick on his feet, but since Aizawa’d recruited you for interpersonal help, you’d considered that he may not have friends. So, good on him for having at least one friend, it seemed, who cared enough to create an account on some stupid video game solely to annoy him.

“—cool of you to make an account to hang out with me. Stop fucking laughing; I am trying to be kind to you, shitstain. Okay. I don’t know. I haven’t been in contact with him in the past two days. I’ve been busy. Let me check.” Tenko leant back towards the mic to address you. “Do we have a schedule for the rest of the week? For instance, are we doing this again on Thursday?”

“I thought we were,” you said, scanning your room for your planner so that you could check your calendar, “Did something come up?”

“It’s not imperative that I go,” Tenko was saying into your ear, while you picked up your laptop to walk over to your U.A.-issued desk, “but another friend who’s been out of town will finally be back then. We might hang out.”

“Psh, go with your friends,” you said, delighted that he had more than one (fighting envy that it was so easy for them to meet up), “We can do this another time.”

“Understood,” Tenko said and backed away from the mic.

Venomothman: so have you sucked his dick yet

Tenko’s incensed shout of “Touya!” had you turning down the volume.

Venomothman: not to be the world’s worst wingman, but my dude is packing. and goes commando all the time.

Venomothman: and i would know. “i” sometimes “did” our “laundry”

You: what’s with all those quotation marks

Venomothman: and do you know the last time it was sucked? never

(Fucking hell. This Touya was walking you back into forbidden territory: the sexualisation of Tenko. After that first session, when you’d been turned on by his confident, rumbling voice as he’d given you an order, you’d felt guilty for sexualising him for the rest of the night. It was as if instead of friend-zoning him, you’d sex-zoned him, only able to see him as a sexual person/object. For the sake of your mission task, that felt unfair.

Or maybe you weren’t even sexualising him. Maybe your brain was appropriately interpreting what he’d done as sexual.

Whatever. Something in your gut was begging you not to see Tenko only through romantic or sexual lenses right now, and you couldn’t explain why.

And talking about Tenko’s apparently massive dick was not helping.)

Tenkopeito: Touya if you don’t ******* shut up I am going to tear off your other arm

Venomothman: no need, boss man

You heard Tenko sigh and say into his phone, sounding exhausted, “I’m not your boss anymore, Touya.”

Venomothman: no need, douchebag

***

Draped over the side of your bed, you dangled a shoelace in front of the gap in an attempt to coax Dango out from underneath. “Dango, sweetie,” you said, whipping the shoelace to the side, “Come out here so that I can look you in the eyes. Where is my planner, you whore?”

At a firm knock on your door, you shot up, dropping the lace. “Never mind,” you said, sliding off the bed, “Stay hidden.”

You opened your door on Aizawa, bare arm raised in mid-knock, wisps of hair plastered to his forehead by dried sweat, and a sweatshirt tied around his waist. He took two seconds to look over you before saying, “Get dressed. Civilian clothes. You have three minutes.”

Throwing on yesterday’s outfit, you rushed to follow Aizawa out of the dorm and off campus, nearly stepping on his heels while he wove through night pedestrians, pulling on his own sweatshirt to minimise skin contact once the crowd thickened.

You flipped up your coat collar to sneak a glance over your shoulder. “Is this a test?”

Aizawa combed his fingers back through his hair, gaze straight ahead. “Not for you.”

“Right.” You stepped more lightly, naturally falling back into patrol patterns: noting exits (narrow alleyways favouring the left side, underground into the subway station), checking vantage points (upper-storey windows in the resident buildings, non-industrial rooftops), honing in on light sources (yellow- and LED-tinted streetlamps, ambience from open businesses) and physical presence (close enough to brush shoulders with passerby [putting you on edge, because the slightest touch could be pivotal]). You had to consciously unclench your jaw, body flooded with stress it hadn’t felt in months. Swiping at the inner corner of your eye, you asked, “Does it have anything to do with the guy in the black hoodie and face mask following us?”

Aizawa laughed through his nose, once. “All right, then. What’s that ice cream place you and Shinsou went to all the time? Take us there.”

Bewildered, you changed directions to head towards Nekozawa’s, with Aizawa placing a hand on your shoulder to slow your pace, and by the time you pushed open Nekozawa’s glass door to the glowing, pink parlour, you were prepared to hold it open for your follower in the face mask. You watched his broad back as he ordered some ungodly, radioactive-blue ice cream with gummy bears before retreating to a table outside despite the dropping temperature, and Aizawa gestured you forward so that he could pay for the three of you.

Holding your ice cream, you hesitated at the door, swaying underneath the seasonal cat decorations dangling from the ceiling.

“Go on,” said Aizawa, retrieving the U.A. card from his wallet, “I’ve got to make a phone call, so don’t wait up. Don’t be too harsh on him; we’re here because he did a good job in the field today. Tailing you was extra practise.”

Nodding, you nudged open the door, bracing yourself at the cold, night air, and let it drift shut behind you as you approached the table, the farthest one from the pink lights.

Hood pulled up, Tenko bent over his blue monstrosity, face mask hanging by a loop over his left ear. Scuffing your boots on the concrete to announce your presence, you sat across from him, setting your cup on the cast iron before swinging your leg over the bench. You managed a cursory glance over what appeared to be a sketchbook before he closed it, and once he’d stowed it away, he swopped his spoon to his dominant hand to keep eating.

“You draw, Tenko?” To make him feel more comfortable, you kept your gaze towards Aizawa inside on the phone. “Do you think you’re any good?”

“Not yet. But I’m gonna be,” he said, clicking his pen and clenching it in his left hand, “I’ve got all these fucking artist’s gloves, so I might as well put ‘em to use.”

“Very nice,” you said, nodding, closing your eyes as you dipped your spoon into your ice cream, “But as a reminder, you don’t have to be good at something to enjoy it. I love doing stuff I’m absolute shit at. It reminds me of medieval bestiaries. They didn’t know shit about animals, but, boy howdy, did they have fun illustrating them. Did you know a weasel used to be called a polecat?”

Tenko huffed, his face mask fluttering. “It really is you.”

“Of course it is,” you said, beaming, and for the first time, you looked at him.

Tension flooded your teacup of a body and overflowed into the saucer and onto the floor. Heightened by the cold, a vein on the back of your hand strained and pulsed visibly, and, jaw locking, you lunged over the tabletop to grab him by the shoulders, shaking him.

“What the hell is wrong with you‽” You climbed over the table, pushed his ice cream out of the way (he shot out a hand to save it from toppling off the table, and he ripped off his face mask to set it aside before it fell to the ground), and planted your foot on his thigh and your elbows on his chest, caging him in as you forced him flat on the bench. “Why the fuck are you using your real name in your fucking Cipherstone username, you fucking moron‽ People could fucking track you!”

The man who had been Shigaraki Tomura eyed your fists in his hoodie and then his cup of ice cream. “You didn’t have a problem with it before.”

“I—” This idiot! “I didn’t know it was you. There are a lot of Tenkos.”

“Then there’s my logic,” he said, hands dangling by his sides, making no attempt to touch you—you didn’t know if you appreciated it or not. “I thought you knew who I was.”

“No, I fucking—I would have given you advice that was more specific to you, over the spiel I was giving interns.” Releasing your grip on his hoodie, you sat back up and scooted over on the tabletop. Though you wanted to keep holding him, to hug him after all he’s been through, he probably wouldn’t want that. “I’m—sorry about tackling you. I, uh—fuck,” you said, and, grimacing, you slid his ice cream back to him and reached across for your own, pretending with everything you’ve got that it was perfectly normal that you were sitting on a table next to Shigaraki Tomura, who’s been teaching you to play a video game, who’s apparently living at the end of the hall, who’s decorated his door with Eri’s silver tinsel for Christmas, who’s banned from drinking caffeine, who could rest his fucking head on your thigh if he wanted. Normal. Yeah.

“Again, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to keep doing that,” he said, fishing out a gummy bear like you hadn’t lunged at him, “Your reaction was reasonable.”

“It—it wasn’t, really,” you said, laughing nervously, “I wasn’t expecting you. I mean, no one knows what—what happened to you. Afterwards. It was really unclear.”

“It was that way on purpose,” said Tenko, “It was thought to be better to emphasise the total destruction of All for One instead of whatever happened to his leftovers.” He shifted a bear to his back molars to bite into the frozen gummy better. “Nezu-sensei decided it was better to keep it muddled for now.”

Muddled was a good way to put it. There’d been so much chaos at the end of the war that so much never was accounted for. You’d think that the location of Shigaraki’s body would be high on the list, but satisfaction was found simply in the splintered, spectacular remains of AFO. Shigaraki’s name wasn’t cleared, per se, but in the aftermath, Midoriya especially stressed that yes, Shigaraki committed atrocities, but he’d been abused, groomed, and literally bodily possessed by AFO to think that way. Didn’t excuse him, but wasn’t entirely his fault.

The locations of the other PLF members—well, the core of the League, really—were public, if not vague. Spinner was in the States at a rehab that specialised in heteromorph trauma; Toga was at a local women’s facility called Sakura Grove, and Dabi was living with his family—he must have been that Touya on the phone, holy shit.

So, here he was, sitting on the bench at the same ice cream parlour you visited with the same friends who fought him, hunched over in oversized, black clothes you suspected were Aizawa’s, broad shoulders and faded scars out of place in the pink lights, white hair pulled back in a blunt ponytail with his bangs flopping over his forehead, seemingly unbothered by the toe of your boot pressing against his denim-covered thigh.

God. He’s scratched at his neck so much that it looks like he’s been beheaded with a blunt axe.

Tenko’s eyes flickered up to you, their colour deepening to crimson in the tinted lights. “So. You’ve got questions.”

“Are you okay?”

Tenko swallowed with effort, scowling. “Don’t start with a hard one.”

“Right,” you said, throat drying, “Who knows you’re staying at U.A.?”

“Faculty and staff. My therapist. The police force. The ramen shop Aizawa-sensei and I go to. The intensive rehab I was at before. The top of the hero commission. Touya, Touya’s father, Spinner, Toga. Eri and Midoriya,” he said, tongue swiping over his lower lip, “You.”

Somehow both fewer and more than you’d figured. “What exactly…is the situation? Aizawa-sensei was vague.”

“Officially, I’m like Eri: a ward of U.A. My old rehab thought I was good enough to live off their campus, so I’m back here, where I can be watched by people capable enough to bring me down if I go crazy again,” he said, brow furrowed as he traced the side of his cup with his spoon, “I should resent that, but it’s not like I have anywhere else to go, especially somewhere as comfortable as this. This is fucking stupid to say aloud, but fucking—fuckin’ All Might is the closest thing I have to family now, along with Midoriya.”

“I’m not following.”

“My grandma was the holder of One for All before All Might had it.” He pointed at you with his spoon. “So you can make the connection from there. But it’s stupid; I’m stupid—” He was shaking his head and staring into his lap. “—because it’s like I have a brother in Midoriya and a goddamn father in All Might—and then Aizawa-sensei’s acting like a dad, too, to me and Eri, and Nezu-sensei? Nezu-sensei is so fucking cool,” said Tenko, dragging his hand down his face, “He’s got a driver’s license! I don’t even have one of those. And he can type fucking 210 words per minute with those little rat paws, and I’m still getting used to using all five fingers, fuck.”

Cute. You scraped the bottom of your cup. “Hey, I think you type well.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why it takes me so long to reply in the in-game chat function. Why I prefer communicating over voice call. Learning new habits, and shit.” Tenko stabbed his ice cream with his spoon. “Nezu-sensei has arranged for me to train as an aftermath-clean-up hero. I had been—” His fingers on one hand circled the thumb of the other. “—in discussion with him in rehab about what I could do, and we decided I could consistently help when there’s collapsed buildings after attacks; I could dust the wreckage so that we could find hostages or make it easier to clean up and rebuild, and Aizawa-sensei and All Might-sensei have been working with me to control what parts of what I touch gets dusted so that I could create pitfall traps for holding criminals. It’s…going. It’s going,” he said, curling his lips in his mouth to moisten them, and with narrowed, determined eyes, he took another bite of ice cream, the blue staining the inside of his lips.

“Tenko, that’s a really cool application of your quirk. I hope you can find more,” you said, tilting your head and smiling down at him, “but—I have to ask—aren’t you tired?”

Tenko rolled his eyes. “Of course. You’re part of the group ensuring I don’t have caffeine.”

“No, I mean,” you said, shaking your head, “I mean, you don’t have to be perceived as useful. You’re—you’re just fine if you wanted to rest. You’re worthwhile just as you, not as—as a job, as a, I don’t know, a redeemed hero or anything. You can just be Tenko.”

“I know. My therapist keeps reminding me. But one of the most vivid memories I have from when I was living in that house,” said Tenko, sneering, “is that I desperately wanted to be a hero and that I would pretend to be one a lot. While I’m aware that I can never atone for what I’ve done, if I did nothing but rest, I’d be alone with my thoughts. And with what I’m learning to do, as a hero, someday, someone might…need me. Need my help. I imagine that’s a good feeling.”

You sat back, leaning on your hands, the cast-iron pattern cutting into your palms, to survey him. “You’re very much re-writing my first impressions of you as my gaming buddy and as the post-war Shigaraki. You’re surprisingly well-adjusted.”

He snorted. “I shouldn’t think it’s surprising. I’ve had almost a year and a half in intensive rehab, and I’m still in therapy every day.” He started listing on his fingers, starting with his thumb. “I’m on antidepressants; I know where my next meal’s coming from and when I’ll get it; I consistently have a safe roof over my head, and I know my friends are getting that, too. I have mentors who care for me as a human person instead of as a tool. I get to stay in contact with my friends and get to make new ones,” he said, nodding curtly at you before quickly looking away, “I’m fucking away from that sadistic fuckface. He’s goddamn dead and burned away to nothing. That’s the main thing. Everything else is a bonus.”

Tenko sighed, bangs fluttering with the movement, his shoulders straining as he leaned onto both his elbows on the table. He sighed again and scooped the last gummy bear out of his cup, and you let the silence carry on while you finished eating.

“Long phone call,” Tenko said eventually.

An increasingly grumpy Aizawa was leaning against the glittery wall inside, phone between his ear and shoulder, and furiously scraping the inside of his ice cream cup.

“Yeah,” you said, “but it’s been good talking to you, Tenko. I really appreciate you telling me all of this.”

“I would’ve talked about it sooner, but I figured you knew who I was and didn’t want to address it,” said Tenko, tapping his fingers one by one on the table.

Pulling the collar of your coat closer to your neck, you frowned, hesitating on how to phrase it. You watched your breath cloud in the night air before settling on, “There’s an off-switch?”

Brow pinching very slightly, Tenko followed your gaze to his hand, with all five fingers coming to rest on the cast iron, and he tapped all five of them on it for emphasis. “Yeah. There always has been. All for One kept it from me. Power of belief kept me jittery and alert my whole life.”

“So long as you thought you’d destroy anything you touched, you would?”

He nodded. “That bitch.”

“Agreed. We should kill him.”

And Tenko laughed. Just for a moment, barely making any noise, but he smiled with his teeth, grin stretching across his face as he looked away and eventually closing his lips, the smile lingering for a few more precious seconds.

***

You closed your laptop to answer the phone at work, clearing your throat to ready your receptionist voice before you picked up. “U.A. University Administration; how may I help you?”

“I need you to fucking murder me,” Tenko spat through the phone, angry and panicked, “I need you to rip out my bones and suck out my guts through a straw. He fucking let me hold onto them, and I’ve fucking gone and lost such a fucking iconic piece of—”

“Tenko, please, take a breath,” you said, relaxing your customer service mode but clutching the phone to your ear, and after catching the eye of the woman with jars of strawberry preserves waiting to see Nezu, you slumped over in your seat so that she couldn’t see you over the desk’s overhang. “Tell me what’s wrong. We can fix it. Are you alone? Is everyone else busy? Do you need to come sit with me?”

“I—fuck,” he said, and you heard some deliberately slow breathing, but his voice still had an irate, twitchy edge afterwards. “During our practise patrol last night, Aizawa-sensei was talking about support equipment for me. I’d never given it much thought, because it’s always been just me and my hands. He leant me his Eraser Goggles for me to think about for my—and I don’t know where they fucking are,” he said, inhaling sharply on the last word, “I’d left them on my desk, but I’d taken them up to the roof to sketch them, and then I’d brought them back to my dorm—”

“And Aizawa-sensei must have swung by to pick them up since then,” you said, pushing yourself back to slide in your swivel chair to the back of the reception desk, “because he was here at the beginning of my shift to print something off, and the goggles are on top of the printer. Relax, Tenko.”

“Hooooooly fuck, you’re kidding,” said Tenko, audibly deflating, and you smiled to yourself as you slid their band around your wrist.

You kicked yourself back up to the front. “You’re okay. You’re not gonna get in trouble. I’ll bring them by at the end of my shift.” You sat up straight, and the strawberry preserves woman was shooting a concerned look in your direction. “I’m at work, though, so I think we’d better end the call soon. Anything else you need?”

Tenko hummed into the phone. “Not really. You can’t be that busy.”

You smiled again, feeling—feeling domestic, as if he were your boyfriend calling you during work hours. How strange, Shigaraki Tomura. How interesting. “Would you believe I was grinding in Cipherstone when you called?”

“And you don’t call yourself a gamer,” he said, clearing his throat multiple times, “What skills?”

“Woodcutting and firemaking,” you said, opening your laptop again, “Are you feeling under the weather? Your voice had a bit of a rasp there.” Sounded like his old voice for a moment.

“Further cementing that Aizawa-sensei’s right to be worried about you. He says your brain’s going haywire analysing any detail work you can get, because you’re not out in the field anymore,” said Tenko, clearing his throat again (?), “Am I your new project?”

“Tell me what’s wrong, lest I pick up some damn throat lozenges for you before I come home,” you said, and a voice in the back of your head screamed that that threat was extremely cosy and intimate, especially since you’re claiming both of you have a home in the same place—which, sure, you both lived on the same hallway, but so did Aizawa and Eri, and please shut up; Shimura Tenko needs a friend, not a lover right now. Besides, that stupid hallway wasn’t really home for either of you but was more like a temporary holding cell.

“Fine. I’ve been throwing up all morning.”

“Thank you,” you said, electing not to make a pregnancy joke, “Do you need to see Recovery Girl?”

“No, I’m used to it, and I’ve already talked to her about it. I threw up a lot out of anxiety and stress when I was growing up with All for One, and now I’m throwing up because my body can’t handle the amount of food it’s getting regularly, which is fucking ridiculous, since it’s still less than a normal person’s version of three meals a day.”

What. The fuck. How can he casually drop details of deep trauma like it’s nothing? How could AFO let a child keep vomiting out of stress for years and years and never interfere? Well. Yeah, he could. You supposed that Shigaraki’s voice, as you first heard it as the USJ incident, was the ultimate result of that heavy strain on his throat for years. Explains some things about his teeth back then, too.

God. If AFO weren’t dead, you’d strangle him. Keeping a child physically weak because he’d be easier to mould. It was known that AFO had been psychologically manipulating Shigaraki, but now that you thought about it, manipulating his physical growth would have served AFO, too, since he was planning to move into Shigaraki’s body.

And what did this guy do now that he’s got bodily autonomy? Oh. Just. Play some video games. Talk with his friends. Try out some new hobbies. Make crafts with Eri.

It’s a shame AFO didn’t have a grave, because you’d be skiving off work to drown it in acid.

“My stomach is killing me,” said Tenko, “I’ve got to hang up to drink something and go to sleep. Knock on my door when you get home. I want to start a new quest as soon as you finish work.”

Home. He’d said it, too. He probably didn’t mean it in the same, domestic way that you’d been entertaining, but it made your heart swell. “Okay, Tenko. See you then.”

***

His therapist had assigned him homework: go on a planned, public outing with a peer, and stay out for at least an hour.

It wasn’t exactly a picnic you were packing, you kept telling yourself, scooting behind Tenko to get to the spice cabinet in the dorm kitchen, because that’d be too close to a date rather than homework. But the two of you packed a meal to take, with Eri sitting on the kitchen counter while she nibbled at rabbit-cut apple slices, and she held the thermos of decaf tea in her lap until it was time to stow it away.

After a short train ride and a quiet walk through midtown, Tenko stopped you in front of the back gate to what appeared to be a restored, historical estate, judging by the golden shachihoko shibi on each corner of polished hip-and-gable rooftops of the extensively aristocratic—mansion? palace?—that you could make out in across the distance of its sprawling grounds, the immediacy of which was the excessively well-kept, traditional garden that you and Tenko were breaking into.

“Is this legal?” you asked as Tenko reached through the grate to unlatch the doorway.

“I have an in with the gardener,” he said, sweeping the gate open for you and gesturing brusquely for you to enter.

“No, that wasn’t a joke,” you said, taking the few steps inside, finding yourself planted onto a polished, level stepping stone, and staring down a squeaky clean tsukubai despite the thin layer of frost over the water’s surface as the whole bowl began to freeze, “You can’t be doing anything even vaguely illegal, Tenko.”

When you said his name, he closed his eyes, pausing for just a hair in his relatching the gate, before facing you and shifting the strap of his bag farther up his shoulder. “Prude. Yes, we have permission from the owner.”

He kept looking back over his shoulder at you as he led you through the gardens, hopping across stepping stones to pass over a carefully shaped brook that led to a tiny waterfall near stone lanterns, weaving through trellises with the wintry shells of wisteria vines and shaped evergreens. He tutted and rolled his eyes when you stopped at the waterlily-coated koi pond, its fish swimming and flicking their tails in the artificially heated water (for some, odd reason, what appeared to be a compact duck coop had been constructed near the pond’s edge, its wood new and un-bleached by the sun like the rest of garden décor). You’d been about to ask about it when Tenko had jumped out of his skin at the sound of a deer scare, bamboo tapping stone.

“Stop laughing,” Tenko said, cheeks burning (and you tried not to take too much pleasure in that, but you couldn’t help it).

“Oh, a sensitive boy, a delicate boy,” you said, grinning as you hopped onto the same stone as him, cool, clouding breaths mixing together in the proximity, and you yourself could feel heat rise to your face. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Good traits to have, actually. Means you’re feeling secure and comfortable in your surroundings, if you’re off-set that easily.” Feeling bold—it was the cold; it was how the proximity already flustered him; it was how his hands were full because of the bag; it was—whatever—you reached for his silly All Might scarf and re-tied the front, fluffing it up to cover more of his neck.

You made the mistake of making eye contact: full of caution, his eyes kept darting from your hands to your face, searching for something, his lips parted, otherwise completely fucking frozen.

Were you making him uncomfortable? You stilled, your fingers still in the fringe of his scarf, tension tightening in your chest and jaw (clenching).

Tenko noticed. And—and to this day, you can’t believe he fucking did this—he ran his tongue over his lower lip and lifted his chin, exposing more of his neck to you. He then was suddenly very interested in the koi pond, the ruddiness spreading from his cheeks to his ears.

Throat dry, you gave his scarf a final tug and patted it (?) to show (??) a job well done (???). “Yeah,” you said, smoothly, like a smooth person, like someone who adjusts scarves of hot, in-process-of-reformation villains on the regular, “Where are we going?”

Tenko spun on his heel and strode away, muttering what sounded like, “Right into my grave.”

You pretended not to hear it and let him lead you to the only building unattached to the main house: a small, traditional teahouse that had a recent addition to it in the back. The creak of the bamboo engawa when you climbed onto it was muffled underneath the bright pealing of windchimes strung across the covered porch. Tenko was already kneeling at the tearoom’s sunken fireplace inside, its handle carved into a fish, fiery as its kindling, and was unpacking the travel teacups from the bag as you closed the door behind you, shutting out the cold, enveloped by the comfortable heat trapped inside by the cushioned walls.

Tenko must have arranged for this space to have been prepared for you. A kotatsu with floor cushions was tucked near the fireplace, pre-heated, with two further space heaters in the unoccupied corners, cords trailing into what must be a hallway linking the traditional and modern rooms, the latter of which was shut off from view. Beside a red-tinted wooden dresser stood an oddly empty tokonoma, and instead of a scroll or painting, amidst bits of pieces of scotch tape hastily half-torn off the back was a shittily cut-out, paper heart.

Shaking your head, you took a step towards Tenko, and the floor chirped at you, freezing you in place.

“Yeah, I don’t know why they do that,” said Tenko, pushing on his knees to stand, “They just do.”

“These must be nightingale floors,” you said, crossing to the kotatsu, a bird under each step, “The chirping’s caused by the way the nails rub against the v-shaped clamps holding the floor together. Have you been to Nijō Castle in Kyoto? These are in the hallway—supposedly used as a security measure, but who knows.”

“You need a hobby.” Tenko ripped the paper heart from the back of the tokonoma, crumpling it in his fist. A shred of it remained under the scrap of tape on the wall, which he bent towards to scrape off with a blunt fingernail.

“I have several,” you said, easing down onto a cushion and unfolding your legs underneath the kotatsu blanket, the luxurious heat swaddling your legs and hips. You fought the urge to curl up underneath it entirely.

“How many of them involve getting your ass thrashed by me in Cipherstone?” Tenko retrieved the bag from the sunken fireplace before returning to the kotatsu, and he sat on your left, resting the bag between the two of you.

You took the thermos of decaf tea when he handed it to you. “Tenko, you’ve been playing that game for years, and I just began. Of course my ass is gonna be thrashed by—you know how the game works. You have all of this previous information about the game that I don’t have.”

Tenko scoffed and slid your teacup across the kotatsu’s surface.  “As if I could conceal any information from you. You’re too…eh.” He waved it off, shaking his head.

“I’m too what?” You unscrewed the thermos lid, and steam surged upwards, rising to caress the planes of your face.

“It’s been unfair of Aizawa-sensei to make me tail you,” said Tenko, leaning your way, all five fingers curled around his own teacup as he stretched across the tabletop. “I’d have a chance of success if it were anyone else.”

“I’ll give you that,” you said, pouring steaming, amber tea with slices of yuzu into Tenko’s cup, “You’re getting quite good at it, not that you were bad in the first place. But yeah, it’s a bit mean of him to test your tracking skills on me.” He’d never said to stop, so you poured until liquid almost overflowed at the rim.

He gasped at the heat but nudged his teacup back to his place at the table, unable to hold it in his palm anymore. “I think I would’ve preferred working with Hound Dog-sensei for that. He’s less detail-oriented. I could win, if it weren’t you.” Jutting out his lower lip, Tenko glared down at his tea for a moment before slumping in his seat to slurp at the tea without picking it up.

“Don’t feel bad about it. It was literally and actually my focus for hero work, profiling and detail shit and being aware of my surroundings. Information stuff. Infiltration stuff.” Setting the thermos on the far corner, you cupped your hands loosely around your teacup, appreciating the warmth and getting cosier by the minute.

Tenko was rooting through the bag for the other thermoses, full of sukiyaki for each of you. “It’s clear you’ve worked hard to hone your skills. Were you this talented as a student?”

You accepted the new thermos, fingers clenching tightly around it. “Uh. I think I may have been better back then. More focused. More passionate, anyway. I had to think about it really hard back then, make conscious decisions to notice things, and now I think I do it instinctively. I think I’m slipping because of that.”

“Hm,” said Tenko, tongue rubbing over his teeth behind closed lips, and he opened his mouth to say something but shut it, instead twisting off the cap to his soup thermos. He took the first sip of sukiyaki broth and—and was absolutely beautiful (you couldn’t make sense of it beyond that; he was a mess of details that you couldn’t fit together into a larger picture that made any sense: white eyelashes light against his cheeks as they fluttered shut, face muscles relaxed, scars overlapping with laugh lines, cracked lips becoming moistened by the soup, both hands cupped around his thermos like a child, no strain to his posture, baggy hoodie swallowing him up, kotatsu blanket yanked up to his hips to cover his crossed legs, scar on the corner of his mouth delicately shifting with his baffled smirk when he caught you staring, a strange pink rising to the tips of his ears). “What?”

Uh. Hm. You pinched the bridge of your nose and then moved to rub your eyelids. “What were you going to say about me?” you asked, and you withdrew your hand from your face to raise the soup thermos to your lips, taking a mouthful of noodles and the sweet, salty broth.

Tenko shook his head. “I’m trying to avoid thoughts that fall back into my old habits.”

“Try me,” you said, holding his gaze when he met it, “I won’t tell.”

Weary, he broke eye contact, and he fixated on fishing out a certain slice of green onion. “We needed someone like you back then.”

Back then? When he—oh.

Back in the League.

Though you attempted to hide your grin by taking a sip of sukiyaki, you caught his eyes flicker to it. “You would’ve taken me? You would’ve let me in?”

“Would you have joined?” he shot back, a bit too quickly.

“No,” you said, rolling your shoulders and settling down farther underneath the kotatsu, “Never. But since you shared something you shouldn’t’ve, I’ll do the same.” You set your thermos down to rub your eyes again—God, you couldn’t look at him for too long, lest your intrusive thoughts hand you your ass. “I thought about it. About joining you.”

You dragged your hand down your face, peeking between your fingers at a muted clink. Tenko was staring at you, something fucking unreadable in his scrounched eyes, and both hands lay five-fingered and flat on the kotatsu, steam from his open thermos fluffing up hair on one side of his head. “You’re not serious. You wouldn’t have.”

“Not in the way you think,” you said, tilting your head back, “but I often thought, in the aftermath of the Paranormal Liberation Raid, what I could’ve done, if I’d known what I know now. And as the rest of the war was unfolding, I only wanted it more.”

Tenko blinked, slowly. “Tell me what you would’ve done.”

“Oh, you would’ve hated me, down to the dregs of my very soul,” you said, shifting to sit on your knees, “I would’ve started after your fight with Re-Destro, after the PLF was established. When you were letting allllllllll those heroes in, the sidekicks, the nobodies, anyone who seemed like they were with the cause. I would’ve infiltrated. Slipped in without notice. Hawks did, with the Commission, but I would’ve been going in as a free agent.”

“No one notices a U.A. student slide in between the masses. Re-Destro’s lackeys wouldn’t notice you at the door like I would. You get in,” Tenko said, taking his thermos in hand again but still engrossed in you, “What then?”

“There was a short period of time between the PLF establishment and your procedure, right? Around a month? That’s when I go. I worm my way into the good graces of some of the nine lieutenants—I’ve decided my pipeline would’ve been Geten to Toga to you. You’d just come out of an enormous battle, with Re-Destro and that city and Gigantomachia for a whole month. I heard you were bandaged up, on crutches, that you’d lost fingers that you regrew in that regeneration tank,” you said, eyes on his hands, one in a fist in his lap and the other around his thermos, five fingers pressing onto the grip but the pinkie finger hitched farther up than the rest, “That you’d given a speech and made your appearances regardless. That you’d pushed yourself to your limit and then broke yourself a little more. And you would’ve loathed me, because I would’ve come in, earned my way to your side, and I would’ve put my hand on your shoulder, slid it up your neck to cup your cheek to ask Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to rest?” You smiled and huffed, shoving it down, and though his hard stare should’ve pinned you to your seat, you pushed on the corner of the kotatsu to edge yourself over to his side, a knee on his cushion. “I like to think that you’ve sighed, sulked a bit, reluctant to admit anything was wrong at all, because back then, you had no use for moonlight. But I would’ve made you look at me, taken you to a bed, made you lie down until your eyes fluttered shut and the tension swept through your body and left. And you would rest,” you said, finding yourself leaning over him very slightly, knees touching his, just enough so that he leant backwards just a fraction, “I would’ve made that month so soft for you. I would’ve taken care of you, when nobody was fucking paying attention to you in the way that they should’ve. I fucking—I wanted it.” You gripped the front of his hoodie, fist grasping more fabric than necessary to shake him. “I wanted it. I wanted to care for you. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know. And you were fucking alone, in an unfamiliar place, and it kills me to think about that.”

You ducked your head to wipe your watery eyes on your sleeve, taking a breath—and realising what you were doing. You loosened your grip, but before you could pull away, Tenko was cat-like quick to grab your sleeve—why won’t he touch you?

“I wouldn’t have accepted your help,” he said, quiet, controlled, holding you down with his eyes, hand shifting to curve under your sleeved wrist, signalling that you could escape at any time, “That was after the worst month of my life, fighting Machia, and I wouldn’t have accepted it. I had too much to do. I would’ve shaken you off.”

“No, you wouldn’t’ve.”

“I would’ve,” he said, a bare finger, featherlight, skimming over the tender, bare skin of the underside of your wrist (oh, wow), “I wouldn’t trust that easily in that short of a time. You’d have met me, and that’d be it. If you’d persisted, I would’ve ripped you to shreds and tossed you aside.”

“Tenko,” you said, both relief and tightness blooming from your wrist, “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

The hallway shoji slammed open, somehow rattling as it slid in its tracks and shook the walls, and you and Tenko scrambled apart, with you jolting backwards on your hands, grappling for your seat cushion, and Tenko banging his thermos on the kotatsu, hastily wrestling with keeping it upright as he flung his body to the side.

“Hey, fuck you, Touya,” Tenko spluttered out, elbowing himself upright as—as fucking Dabi strode inside, hands in the deep pockets of his black sweatpants. “You said you’d stay in the main house.”

“Don’t mind me,” said Touya, cool as you please, raising both of his hands in defence, “I had to ensure you’re not fucking in my bed.”

“What is—” Tenko clambered to his feet to cross to him, chirping with each stomp, and whisper-shouting once he’d corralled Touya into a far corner. “I said we’d hang out later today, Touya. You swore you’d stay inside and watch Naruto this afternoon.”

The polite thing to do would be to appear fascinated by the tea. You returned to your cushion and poured yourself another cup.

“Yeah, but I’ve been told I’ve got shit to do later. I’ve got to go to this fuckin’—fuckin’ family stuff. I don’t wanna get into it,” said Touya, at full volume, “and I wanted to check that your girl was real. Y’know, she looks nothing like someone who’d have GinzengTea as her username. Have you given it to her already?”

“Shut the fuck up. I was just about to do that, if you hadn’t interrupted, cockhead.”

“Cool,” he said, a bird-note as he shifted his weight, “I wanna see what she thinks.”

“Hell, no—”

“I helped pick ‘em out. Let me watch and have an ohagi, and I’ll leave,” said Touya, chirping towards you before he finished the sentence, and Tenko followed him, muttering under his breath.

Touya sat on the bare tatami next to you, joints cracking as he yanked the kotatsu blanket up his legs, shooting you a small salute and a concerningly charming smile. “Hey,” he said, tilting his head, eyes half-lidded, smile stretching to show more of his even, white teeth, “I’ve seen you before, yeah? When was the last time you laid eyes on me?”

Tenko pelted him in the chest with a plastic-wrapped ohagi, cutting off the ooze of charisma. “Show-off,” he said, nudging another sweetened rice ball your way.

You nodded but didn’t move to unwrap it, since you were still working on your sukiyaki. “I’m surprised you remember, Touya,” you said, the name feeling strange on your tongue, “It must’ve been years since I elbowed you in the tit.”

Eyes lighting the fuck up, you snapped towards Tenko when he laughed into his plastic wrap: still not loud, still not making any vocalisation with it, but releasing a heavy, sharp burst of air with a wide, open grin. He hunched over to hide more of it, using both hands to unwrap his ohagi—and in the moment he realised he’d been unwrapping it with only his pointer fingers and thumbs, he dropped the rest of his fingers onto the rice ball, still smirking to himself.

Biting your lip in your own smile, you turned back to Touya (you caught his moment of mild alarm at how thrilled you were when Tenko laughed—or maybe it was alarm at Tenko laughing at all—but Touya relaxed his eyebrows and shut his mouth the second you faced him again). “God, yeah, it must have been before that last battle that we’d met in a fight, and I’d gotten close enough to hit you, and…” You shook your head. “Actually, I don’t wanna talk about that stuff. It’s not who we are now.”

“That’s fine.” Touya nodded towards Tenko and took a bite of his ohagi. “Shimura, don’t you have something to give her?”

Shimura. That was his last name, you supposed, but wasn’t it odd that Tenko called Touya by his given name and that Touya called Tenko by his family name? Tenko didn’t make you call him Shimura. Well, you supposed that there’s only one Shimura now, and because of the number of Todorokis, it paid to be specific—

“Here.” Tenko set a flat box in front of you, flipping the buckle of his bag back over. “I was going to give it to you with more formality, but since this bastard showed up, I’m doing it like this.”

Biting the inside of your cheek, brow furrowed, you unpacked a pair of pale blue headphones, soft to the touch with a mesh headband so that your head wouldn’t ache.

“Noise-cancelling,” Tenko said, gabbling, frowning very slightly, “Rechargeable. There’s a detachable microphone so it can function as a headset. I wanted to do something good for you.” His eyes darted towards Touya, and they dropped to his ohagi’s bulging filling, seeping out onto the plastic wrap. “You need them, anyway. I’ve been sick of hearing you through those shitty earbuds; their sound is terrible, and when you said you’d lost your only pair—which I don’t fucking understand how you can lose those things, because they just fucking show up in my shit all the time, like a goddamn plague—I thought you needed something quality—just to make it easier on my end, obviously, so that I don’t have to tell you to yell into that shitty, built-in micropho—”

“Tenko,” you said, reaching over to place your tea-hot hand over the back of his, fingers curving with his along ohagi’s edge, “Thank you so much. I adore them. I’m really grateful that you would think of me.”

Tenko froze, the same as he had when you’d adjusted his scarf. Unable to look you in the eye, like a prey animal, stiff, shoulders tense, colour rushing up his neck to his face and ears again—but this time, he lifted his hand just a hair from his ohagi to press back into your palm, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

“Hoo, boy,” said Touya, startling the both of you when he slammed his hands on the kotatsu to push himself up, “I’ve had enough. I’ve had my little snack. I’m leaving.” Once on his feet, he stretched, pressing his hands to his lower back and arching it, grunting.

“Good fucking riddance, cocksucker,” said Tenko, rising and grabbing Touya by the elbow to haul him to the door.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Touya, dragging his feet, chirping slurred and confused by his movement, and when Tenko had him at the wall, trying to shove him out, Touya, smirking under your watch, whispered something to Tenko while forcing something into his palm. Touya ducked out as Tenko looked at what he’d accepted and, letting out a yelp, dusted whatever it was before he hurried back to the kotatsu.

(When you left the teahouse half an hour later, you discovered that he’d decayed only the wrapper and not the condom itself.)

***

“One moment, please. Nezu-sensei is in a meeting right now, but he’ll be out momentarily. Please take a number—yes, the ticket puncher when you first came in,” you said to yet another impatient and pissed client in the admin waiting room, packed to the gills with parents, press, vendors, potential sponsors, and, for some reason, Mt. Lady’s entire representative team. “By the door. If you’ll take a seat, we’ll be with you shortly.”

God, you could punt Nezu for this. Not that there was anything wrong with establishing a new, annual event for U.A.—a cherry blossom garden-set, competitive scavenger hunt coming up in the spring—but because of his casual comment that it would rise to the same importance as the Sports Festival, you were swamped with those eager to invest early. Unable to take a break, you had to work with your head bowed, desperately hoping none of these people recognised you and your failure, when all you wanted was to reply to Tenko’s messages on Cipherstone that morning.

Tenkopeito: You’ll like the next quest. You can pet a dog in it

Tenkopeito: Come over to my room this evening so that we can talk in person

Was he intending to speak with innuendo or with such sincerity that it cut right through you? Moreover, was he aware he was even doing it? Based on what you’ve observed, Tenko had no idea what he was doing to you, nor did he know how hard you were trying not to act on your attraction, though you weren’t even doing a great job of suppressing it.

It’s strange: Tenko evoked some strange, unnameable emotion in you like nothing else. You wanted to coddle him; you wanted to play stupid video games with him; you wanted to sweep his hair out of his eyes, and though you kept telling yourself that you didn’t, you wanted him to tell you how to touch yourself, how to touch him. You brushed it off. Another time. Perhaps never.

“Oh, hi!” Former pro-hero Ragdoll squealed your family name, making you jump in your seat. “It is you. I couldn’t tell from farther back in the line.” Fuck, Ragdoll would recognise you, since she and the rest of the Wild, Wild Pussycats trained Class A, and she specifically spent time with you on your tracking skills because of her Search quirk.

Don’t cause a scene. “Hello, Shiretoko,” you said, doing your best not to let your face be seen from over the reception desk’s overhang, “It’s good to see you. How can I help?”

When she beamed, she was as bright as ever. “Oh! The Pussycats want to offer our services for the scavenger hunt! We wanna get back into charity and civilian events now that we’re back from our mission for—but wait, you know all about that!” You didn’t. But her cheerful voice carried, and people were already turning towards Ragdoll, part of a hero team ranked in the top thirty. “I wanna hear more about what you’ve been up to! Since you left the hero business, no one’s known where you’ve been! Gosh, have you been behind this dreary old desk the whole time?” Ragdoll leant over the overhang, flicking at a loose strand of your hair. “I thought you were sent out on missions out of the country! Like, really important, top-secret stuff. It’s weird seeing you in an office, especially since I consider you a mini me. Why are you back at your alma mater? Did your agency not want you anymore?”

She wasn’t meaning to be cruel. Her loud, blunt sincerity, though, drew the attention of onlookers, and their flashes of recognition, subsequent judgment, and turning away made your chest tight. “I needed a break. That’s all.”

A thin, blonde woman in a burgundy overcoat leaning against the wall immediately next to the reception had been evaluating you, scanning you from top to bottom during the exchange. She didn’t bother hiding her curiosity, and when you shakily handled the rest of the conversation with Ragdoll, she turned to the short, softly featured man beside her. “You know her?” She hadn’t even tried to quiet her voice; it jolted you from Ragdoll, but you steeled yourself and continued printing off a schedule for her—and from the depths of your brain came the woman’s identity: Uwabami, the snake hero, one who usually flaunted her celebrity status but currently dressed down, without her hair snakes (a rattlesnake, a yellow king cobra, and a Japanese rat snake, which—shut up! You don’t need this information right now! Can you be fucking sane, please?).

Her sidekick—no, an intern, a student at U.A., some fuckin’ twink in the year below you, name escaping you at the moment—had some iota of tact when he looked you over, slanting his body away, as if he weren’t staring. “Yes,” he said, trying not to let you hear, “She’s my former senpai and nothing more to me. We didn’t run in the same circles. She’s the one who made that rescue a few months back, the one that got a lot of online backlash.”

“No, seriously,” Ragdoll was saying, “Why are you back at U.A.? Don’t you have somewhere else to go?”

“My—” People behind Ragdoll in line were listening. Trying not to show it. Your throat ran dry, and you couldn’t think of a lie or a pleasant half-truth. “My flat was compromised. My address was leaked, and eventually, people were—look, Shiretoko,” you said, forcing the words out of your mouth, “I really don’t want to talk about this. Here’s the printed schedule. I’ll talk to you later.”

You slid the paper across the counter, and she took it, waving goodbye and still beaming.

“Is this what happens when a hero career doesn’t work out? They just shove you back where someone will take you? At any old office desk?” that fucking twink was asking Uwabami, “I can’t—it honestly scares me to think I could lose myself and be misplaced like that. It’s wasting talent, don’t you think?”

“How can I help you?” you asked the next person in line through gritted teeth.

When Uwabami lowered her sunglasses to glance over them, you inhaled sharply and swung your swivel chair so that you wouldn’t see her. “I don’t know about that. Maybe this dreadful administration office is where she’s meant to be.”

Biting his lip, he shifted his jaw and crossed his arms, slumping against the wall. “You’ll always have a place for me, right, Uwabami? I don’t want this to happen to me.”

“Yes, I can print you out a copy of the same schedule. If you’ll allow me a moment to print.”

“Of course, Kakeru,” Uwabami said, ignorant of how you were gripping a pencil so tightly that it could snap any second, “You’ll never be left behind.” But then she fucking stared you down, deliberately holding eye contact while you were at the printer, and she said, “You’ll never need a place to hide. I’ll make sure you don’t fail.”

“Hey, how about you shut up?” you hissed, ripping the printer-warm schedule from the tray and storming back to your current client to shove it into their hands. “Aren’t Japanese rat snakes supposed to be in hibernation this time of year, anyway?”

***

Someone in Mt. Lady’s group recorded it. Someone posted it.

wizardjenkins11: jesus christ who knew u.a. had its own island of misfit toys

emotionalsupportdynamightsweat: nice to see that she kept her snark, but what is she doing back at school?? don’t heroes have some sort of paperwork component to their work. why isn’t she still at an agency

blood-is-thiccer: lol ua’s the only one who’d take the bitch. she’s being rude as hell to an actual pro hero. lameass quirk anyway and ass flat as hell lmao she fucken deserved that guy lighting her mailbox on fire

LynchianTiddies: You’re encouraging domestic terrorism???

blood-is-thiccer: that’s not domestic terrorism

LynchianTiddies: Then what, pray fucking tell, is it??

blood-is-thiccer: wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandalism

XylemPhloemBuckaroo: no but I get what that guy was saying about wasting talent tho. Out of everyone in that class a, she’s the only one not topping the fucking hero charts rn. She’s the only one who’s left hero work. What makes her weaker than the rest of her classmates? What happened to her to make her like this?

koiboi69: wouldn’t you quit if people were camping outside your house/work/grocerystore? And also FUCK, man, there’s no fucking need to say she’s fucking weak. that’s kicking her while she’s down

XylemPhloemBuckaroo: I’m not kicking her while she’s down. I’m stating facts and asking reasonable questions.

koiboi69: bro wouldn’t YOU feel down if you’d didn’t have a home to go back to??? going back to u.a. is like admitting defeat, like you couldn’t handle it on your own and need protection

mawatadaddysgorl: i love seeing updates on her bc it makes me feel so good about what i’m doing with my life

***

Uraraka and Shinsou texted you but couldn’t call, let alone come from across town. Aizawa was AWOL, and Dango was hiding under your bed, so you, blotchy-faced and damp, were crumpled on the floor outside of room 310, eating vending machine bullshit and waiting for Tenko to return home.

Exactly all the insecurities you’d been stuffing down for months and months, brought out to air in front of everyone. Instead of doomscrolling, you locked your phone and slid it across the hallway carpet, burying your face in your hands and stomach lurching to the thought that you might soon be plastered everywhere in sight, again. Another round of intensive laying low loomed on the horizon, especially now that your location was made public. Your little secretary job was good enough, and relocating elsewhere on campus would lead to more job training, which would be a bitch.

Where was Tenko? You needed him here to say something irreverent and vindictive. Something unhinged. Or you needed him to hold you, pull you into his lap, and bitch about the whole thing while watching a movie. Tenko had messaged you to come by after work, so why wasn’t he…?

The staircase door hissed open, Tenko pushing it with his back, reusable grocery bags on his arms, and—and wearing a cape? Who the fuck wears a cape casu—oh shit he’s in his hero costume.

You’d heard that he had one, designed by the same company that’d made Midoriya’s and Shouto’s, and the similarities were clear: a boxy sort of design due to thick fabric that still somehow hugged his chest, a minimalist utility belt, and sturdy, knee-capping boots, positively flaming scarlet in contrast to the dark greys of the rest of his jumpsuit. The most obvious connection with another hero, though, made your chest throb: his cloak fastened with the same clasp his grandmother’s had. His dust-blocking respirator lay around his neck for the moment, but what was most embarrassing for you was how your brain fucking wheezed like a boiling kettle at his bare arms, biceps bulging, every fucking inch of skin down to his fingertips completely on display like a goddamn slut.

Whore behaviour. Whore behaviour! You had to duck your head when he squatted next to you, because oh, now you could see the stretch marks on his upper arms, because he’d gotten large way too quickly to be healthy, and smell his fading Old Spice and sweat from being out on what must have been an emergency call, and he was setting his grocery bags aside, reaching out to graze your shoulder, and wow, he’d been complaining about how he didn’t have abs yet despite working out five days a week now that his stamina had increased, but that fabric clung to his lower abdomen, looking very, very flat.

Initially pinching the fabric of your sweater, he shifted his jaw and laid his hand on your shoulder. “Who am I dusting?”

“God, Tenko,” you said, trying to look anywhere but his arms, or his abdomen, or his fucking lips, but he was leaning so much over you that he occupied most of your line of vision, and the only way to avoid seeing anything besides wisps of white hair was to gaze at the popcorned ceiling. “You’re not supposed to do that anymore.”

“Oh, yeah? Who am I dusting?” He squeezed your shoulder, stretching his thumb out to rub at your collarbone.

“Unless you can dust everyone in the country, I don’t think decay will help.”

Tenko clicked his tongue. “I have been explicitly told not to do that,” he said, shifting to sit on his knees, “I have—” He dug into a grocery bag for a moment. “—this for you. You like this shit, right?” Tenko pressed a bottle of pink lemonade into your hands.

“Fucking. Fuck. I do,” you said, passing the condensation-coated bottle from one hand to another, chest tightening, blinking to keep the water levels low, “Thank you. You didn’t have to get me this.”

“I know that,” he said with a dismissive wave, and he paused, fists in his lap. “Would it help if I gave you a hug?”

(What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the—)

“Yeah,” you said calmly, like a calm person, and when Tenko opened his (muscular) arms, you crawled into them, wrapping your own around his back to rest between his shoulder blades. You rested your chin in a fold of his cape, cheek pressing against the side of his respirator, and you frowned as his embrace tightened, pulling you closer in a sloppy, unpractised sort of way, grounded by the steady rise and fall of his very solid chest.

(This felt…affectionate. Romantic, even.

But Shigaraki Tomura didn’t do romance, and you don’t—you’re not—you wouldn’t dream of being conceited enough to read someone’s perhaps thoughtless actions as flirtation, because why would someone be flirting with you? No one did that in general, and being U.A.’s humiliating problem child exacerbated the fact.

Moreover, why would the man who was Shigaraki Tomura, in the middle of his rehabilitation and re-discovery of self, even in the microscopic chance that he had the mental energy to experience romantic feelings, aim that romantic impulse towards you? It would make more sense if he liked someone he’d known for a while, like Touya or Spinner or Toga, and if his romantic feelings leant towards recuperative trauma-bonding, wouldn’t it be more apt to feel for someone at his rehab? His therapist, maybe? He’d idolised Aizawa before he’d met him, and even that would make more sense than latching onto someone as late in the process as you.

He’d gotten flustered when you’d tied his scarf, and Touya’s played terrible wingman. But still. You couldn’t know. You can’t read into this, even though reading into things had been your job, because—because no one would want you. You’ll have to…You’ll have to gather more evidence. You couldn’t be certain.)

Tenko hummed, chin digging into your shoulder, blowing strands of your hair out of his face. “I calmed a kid down earlier by hugging her. Is this working for you?”

(…oh.)

You sniffled and hid your mouth in his cape so that he couldn’t catch your pout. “That’s—that’s good that a kid allowed you to comfort her. What happened?”

“Pipes broke in an old apartment building in the Takoba district. The third floor collapsed under the pressure, and it trapped families in part of the building. I was called out to dust the rubble trapping them,” Tenko said, tapping his fingers high on your back in a ripple, “and they had me dust some other walls to help start the repairs. It was cool. And this one little girl who’d gotten out before the rest of her family was really nervous, and she was sticking to me, holding onto my cape. I was telling her that everything was gonna be okay, like you’ve taught me, and when I asked how she was doing, this fuckin’ kid extended her arms to me. So, I fucking hugged her. Picked her up so she could see what was happening better. It was weird, but it felt good.” Tenko sighed. “I hate how it wants me to be kind more.”

And fuck, fuck, that’s the last straw to this horrible day, and you’re crying, silently, controlling your breathing to keep Tenko from finding out, because goddammit, this idiot bastard man was surprisingly easy to love.

You buried your face fully in his shoulder, hoping he couldn’t feel any wetness through his costume, and you and Tenko sat in the quiet of the hallway for a minute, interrupted only by the A/C kicking in.

Tenko tried to part the two of you enough to look you in the face, but you doubled down, curling your fingers into the fabric of his jumpsuit and keeping your head bowed. Scoffing, he sat upright, making you follow his movements to stay hidden. “You gonna tell me what’s wrong yet?”

“Forget all that shit I’ve taught you,” you said, grumbling to his tits now that he’d changed positions, hating how stopped up you sounded already, “It doesn’t matter what you fucking do in the public’s eye, because there’s always gonna be someone who hates you. You can’t please everyone, so just fucking be yourself. That’s funnier, anyway.”

“Did you psychoanalyse some press member’s pathetic sex life, or something? Deduce an affair based on the way he knots his tie? Announce the state of his dick to the whole room because of the length of his pants?”

“Fuck off, Tenko. I’m not some pretentious-ass Sherlock Holmes bitch,” you said, pursing your lips and instinctively pulling back to glare at him—

And the moment you did, Tenko cupped your face in his hands, soft at the palm and strongly calloused along his fingers, keeping you facing towards him no matter how hard you tried to jerk away, struggling to stay upright. “You are crying.”

“No, I’m not,” you said, just as a falling tear touched his thumb. As you adjusted to his grip, your hands fell to his thighs, pressing against them in fists.

“Hm. Well, you don’t have to tell me,” he said, eyes on another tear trailing down the other cheek, “but you’re joining me to watch a movie with Eri. I got snacks on the way home.”

You sighed, taking in how big his hands were and how much of your face they encompassed, trying to memorise their feeling until they were snatched away forever. “I thought we were gonna start a new quest tonight. I was excited.”

Tenko balked and shifted into a sceptical grin. “You wanted to play Ciperstone tonight?” he asked, both thumbs rubbing your cheekbones and moving to swipe underneath your eyes.

You sighed again, shoulders heaving as Tenko released your face to flick tears off of his hand. “I didn’t want to be myself for a few hours.”

Tenko pushed on his knees to stand. “That’s actually related to what I originally wanted to talk to you about. Furthering the working-with-others mission,” he said, and he extended his hand to help you up. “What do you know about Dungeons and Dragons?”

***

“God fucking dammit!” Tenko slammed his palm to his forehead and leant back to balance on the kitchen chair’s back legs and then combed his fingers back through his hair, upsetting some strands from his ponytail. Groaning, he crooked his face your way, smushed his face against the chair back, and pointed towards his forehead, where a red splot was forming. “Hit me as hard as you can.”

“Being bludgeoned won’t change the fact that you rolled a three,” you said, nodding towards his d20, “I ignore his whining and continue to drain the fig tree to charge my spell.”

Behind the DM screen, Shinsou rolled his own dice, and once his eyebrows had shot up to his hairline, he turned to Midoriya. “I need you to roll two d12s and a d4.”

Tenko bolted upright, hastily sweeping his bangs out of his face. “Wait, what does Midoriya have to do with it? He’s across the fucking grove! He’s engaged in close-ranged combat.”

You turned away from Shinsou’s sly grin and towards Tenko, mouth nearly a straight line, yanking another cluster of grapes from the communal bowl, and shoving two grapes in his mouth. He pinched at his lower lip as he chewed, twisting and peeling at dead skin, frowning as he focused on his character sheet, scanning it for some sort of information he was forgetting and absentmindedly raising his knee to his chest, the heel of his foot propped on the seat of his chair (thank God his jeans were from Best Jeanist’s Moulded to Your Ass line: the denim strained with his muscles. Your eye twitched). In this particular morning, with the five of you squared off at Aizawa’s kitchen table, papers and dice strewn among grocery store bakery cinnamon rolls and coffee cups (Tenko’s was full of gatorade instead of coffee, much to his chagrin), as Tenko was throwing grapes into Touya’s mouth while Shinsou did math, the narwhal house slippers dangling off Tenko’s feet, it struck you that Shigaraki Tomura had become just some guy. One who went for walks to clear his head, who spent hours failing to do a kickflip on Present Mic’s skateboard, who used emoticons over emojis, who got nervous in fast food drive-throughs, who collected hero merch (of Aizawa fervently and Present Mic against his will), who was losing his sensitivity to foods like leeks and onions, a man who was growing more and more exquisitely mundane.

And goddamn, he’s clever and perceptive and patient and cheeky in a devastatingly attractive way, and he’s flustered easily, eager to do a thing correctly, and utterly, totally captivating in his endless discoveries of what it means to be alive.

You timed it so that the shudder and shock crossing his face could pass as response to Shinsou’s description of how Tenko’s enchanted crossbow bolt missed the Spirit Realm Necromancer entirely, instead sinking into the sacred Grand Oak and instantly shattering the tree as if it were glass, its elaborate root system holding up the floating grove splintering into thousands of tiny shards, the ground beneath your party’s feet crumbling at the slightest suggestion of the shifting of weight. But really he curled in his lips with a furrowed brow and stuttering breath when you reached underneath the table to graze the back of his hand, and when he forced himself to relax, shoulders slackening, frown fading, Tenko spread his fingers to cover more of his denim-clad thigh, which you took as a timid sort of consent. Biting the inside of your cheek, you eased your palm over the back of Tenko’s hand, lacing your fingers through his and going through the motions of reacting to Shinsou’s shattered earth. Neither of you looked at each other while Midoriya’s character suffered the Necromancer’s spell to increase gravity, each movement of Midoriya’s bulky, steel armour accelerating the fall of the floating grove. By the time each of you had had enough turns to land on solid ground, preserving little of the sacred grove but all surviving, Tenko finally squeezed your fingers back, curling his own to grip them more firmly, keeping your hand pinned to his thigh, steeling himself, sitting up straight, and proposing getting close enough to the Necromancer to drive a crossbow bolt directly into his skull.

Midoriya was already muttering to himself over the effectiveness of the action while Shinsou worked, and Touya irreverently flicked his dice at Tenko, chugging coffee with his other hand. “You plunge the bolt by hand into the Necromancer’s head,” said Shinsou, “but with your strength debuff still in effect, you only nick him.”

“I try stabbing it through his ear.”

“It goes through,” said Shinsou, nodding and running his hand back through his hair, which sprung back into place, “It doesn’t pierce the neocortex, so he can still summon another—“

“I stomp him to death with my hooves,” said Touya, picking at his teeth and running his tongue over the spot.

The rest of you turned to him slowly in various states of incredulity.

“You don’t have hooves, Touya,” you said, tilting your head at the same time Tenko rubbed his thumb over yours, prompting your breath to hitch and a strange warmth to travel through your body, making you feel dizzy.

Touya grimaced and reached for a cinnamon roll. “I take off my leather breeches and boots to reveal my hooves. I have been a satyr masquerading as a human this whole time.” He leant forward on his elbow, glaring at Shinsou and gesturing with his cinnamon roll. “I stomp him. To death. With my hooves.”

Tenko sneered, his teeth cutting into his lower lip, but he merely opened his mouth and closed it, poking his tongue into his cheek. “I suppose maiming a party member wouldn’t coincide with my character’s chaotic good alignment,” he said, heaving a huge sigh to—oh, that cunning rat bastard—to conceal how he flipped his hand over in yours to touch palms, weaving your fingers back together and squeezing again, planting them back on his upper leg, massaging between your knuckles with his thumb.

“What’d you just roll?”

“Nineteen,” said Touya, casting Shinsou a slice of his most charming smile.

Midoriya let out a little laugh as Shinsou bitterly plopped his head on his fist. “Fuck you, Touya. Congratulations. You clomp over to the Necromancer and stomp all over him. Stompy stomp stomp stompy stomp. It’s difficult to watch at the insane speed you’re going, so no one stops you from doing such a good job pounding him that he’s ground into dust. Bits of him drift away in the wind.”

Here Midoriya winced. “Weren’t we supposed to retrieve the soul crystal embedded in his gauntlet? We can’t get our reward from that Silver Age dragon rider if we don’t have it.”

“Correct,” said Shinsou, glancing down at his notes, “It has been stomped to smithereens. You can’t even make out what parts of the pile of dust were once flesh.”

Ready to bolt, Touya was getting up from the table and holding up his hands in defence, but before Midoriya could start a speech that would have been more apt for the number one hero to use on patrol rather than during a DND game, the door to Aizawa’s flat opened, and in he walked, covering his yawn with the back of his hand. He halted at the sight of the five of you around his kitchen table, taking in the scattered papers and remnants of breakfast before settling on your DM. “Shinsou,” Aizawa began, disappointment outweighing the exhaustion in his voice.

“You’re the only one with a table that could fit all of us,” Shinsou said, spinning in his chair to face him, “This dormitory doesn’t have a good common area like the student ones do. Would you really prefer us to—”

“We can find you a table; there’s plenty on campus.” Aizawa lifted his goggles over his head to set them on the counter. “Is this why Monoma kept slowing me down during patrol?”

“No,” you and Shinsou said, while Tenko said, “Yes.”

Aizawa actually smiled as he unwound his capture weapon from around his neck. “Look who’s the only one telling the truth.”

“Why would I lie to you, sensei?”

Touya smacked Tenko on the arm. “Suck-up.”

“You promise?” Tenko shot back, nose wrinkling with his grin.

“This coffee had better be amazing, because it’s the only thing keeping me from kicking you all out right now,” said Aizawa, rubbing a dry eye with the heel of his palm, other hand outstretched for someone to pass him a mug.

Tenko’s thumb bent inward to swipe the inside of your palm, a silent protest while he drank from his stupid little mug of gatorade, and when he noticed what was at the bottom, he flinched. It must have been Touya who’d put your dice in Tenko’s cup.

***

Following the video of you insulting Uwabami, you’re garnering an unnerving amount of attention again, but it’s clearly someone different than last time. Whoever your stalker(s) was this time around, they were careless and unsubtle—and this confidence to be careless left you jumping at the slightest sound when you were alone.

Furthermore, you legitimately couldn’t deduce your stalker’s motivations, because no clear message linked his actions. At first, you chalked it up to the dorm’s shitty dryer eating your bright blue thong, but when you couldn’t find your lip balm or trolley pass or eventually your favourite sweater, you concluded that something else was at play here, further cemented by more and more tiny things going missing—things that, if you were stalking someone, you would’ve selected as small enough not to miss.

But bizarrely, your stalker left shit of his own lying about. A phone charger appeared underneath your pillow; loose change and a travel pack of alcoholic wipes showed up in your bathroom sink. Hello Kitty band-aids, a hair clip that looked like one of Rumi’s ears, deep-moisturising hand cream, a tiny lizard keychain with a white hamburglar mask drawn on. You couldn’t wrap your head around it. What could your stalker be trying to say besides he could access your personal space with ease? Hoarding it all in the drawer with the GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK hentai, you were struck with the notion that this may have been going on even before the video.

God, you missed when this school felt more like home instead of a holding cell, back when Shinsou and Uraraka and the rest were all still living together with you, when you could simply turn the corner to the common area to demand who took your laundry detergent and get an answer immediately (you also missed taking Aoyama’s bougie food, though you suspected that towards the end he was buying extra specifically for you). You sent an email to Aizawa about the potential break in security, and he promised to monitor the situation, though there was no evidence of physical entry.

Evidence. It’s been on your mind.

Sure, Tenko’s done stuff that could be read as romantic: how he plops your hand onto his head to demand you play with his hair, how he hovers whenever Touya stands too closely to you, how he gets upset on your behalf when people glare at you in public.

(Tenko grabbed your elbow, breaking your focus on the clothing rank. “We’re going.”

“But we haven’t found you a red coat yet.”

He lifted the hangers from your arm and slid them back onto the rack, despite belonging elsewhere. “Don’t care. I don’t like the way the cashier’s looking at you,” he said, jerking his head their direction, and when you tilted your head to glance at them over his shoulder, Tenko tapped your chin twice, guiding you to look back at him. “You shouldn’t have to be on guard when I’m with you.”)

If you were reading into it—and you were—Tenko was being so careful with talking about the pro-hero scene around you that it was almost as if he’d gotten a mission task from Aizawa to distract you from anything that might make you feel bad about yourself.

(“I hear you’re causing a lot of paperwork for my old man,” said Touya, pulling out another floor cushion from the storage space in the teahouse wall, “He hates that you’ve had to dust so many structures near his agency. He’s a decrepit creature of habit, and now that his commute is different, he’s—”

“Hey, Touya, tell us what flower bulbs you planted this winter,” Tenko said abruptly, clamping the lid on the pot hanging over the sunken fireplace, “Tell us what your garden’ll look like in spring.”

You shut your book, even though you’d just opened it. “Wait, are you saying that Touya is the one who keeps this garden? That’s—”

“You like it, sweetheart?” Touya dropped his cushion next to yours, ignoring the way Tenko was glaring daggers into his back. “Think it’s impressive?”

“Holy shit; I thought we were in the back of some professionally restored historical site the first time we came here,” you said, smiling at how Tenko’s petulant stomps to his seat chirruped, even when he scooted his own cushion towards yours (adorable; you’d think he didn’t like you giving attention to anyone else).

“Well,” said Touya, propping his hands on the kotatsu so that he could get a better view of Tenko, “With enormous pride and a huge erection, I’m pleased to announce that this garden is all my hard work.”

“Stop that,” barked Tenko, jabbing a finger towards Touya, “Stop bringing up your cock.”

“I could talk about yours, if you want. His monster cock is excruciatingly leaky and so shaped.”

Groaning, Tenko clonked his forehead on the kotatsu’s tabletop before Touya could say anything else, arm still outstretched. He peeked out from underneath his bangs towards you, tension leaving his body at your burst of laughter.)

He’s also taken your comment about silent admiration to heart. Over the discord call (through very comfortable headphones), you’d made a dumb joke about not being able to play for long, and he’d shut up immediately. When you’d confessed to lying and hoping you’d scared him, he’d replied seriously: “I want to protect my time with you. I don’t like it being taken away. I feel better when you’re with me.”

You’d frozen in the middle of weaving bowstrings while his character continued stringing them onto bows. You’d never have gotten that sort of remark at the beginning of your relationship. Tenko must genuinely be listening to you.

Anyway. You decided in the event that Tenko was collecting evidence, too, that you would leave him some.

The first time you’d been in his room had been for a specific purpose, which was to help him rub in his new facial scar moisturiser (not to take them away, or anything, because Tenko wanted to keep them, claiming he wouldn’t recognise himself in the mirror if he didn’t have his scars—and you thought they were devastatingly attractive, anyway—but just to keep them hydrated enough not to itch), but now you were here just to spend time in the same space. You were reading on his bed (oh, hohoho, his bed), and Tenko was drawing in his sketchbook on his couch by the window. With his mouth pinched in concentration, he squinted down at his paper, swiping away eraser shavings with his artist-gloved hand.

Drawing by natural light. Tenko was in room 310 because of its wide windows. It had been his one request when U.A. was placing him.

AFO had deliberately raised him in a bedroom without windows. You’d kill him if he weren’t already dead.

Thankfully, AFO’s influence was absent from Tenko’s dorm: Naruto sheets from Touya, an old Nintendo DS on his bedside table with Nintendogs in the cartridge slot, Present Mic’s skateboard propped against the coatrack that held only a black hoodie, unfolded but clean laundry in a basket next to a dresser with prescription bottles atop it, a mirror that served more as a bulletin board of Eraserhead merch than as a way to check his reflection, red shoes by the doorway, books borrowed from everyone from All Might to Shinsou to the ramen delivery guy strewn across the room, on shelves, his computer desk, his rug. The thing Tenko’d had to explain to you was a therapist-assigned painting hanging over his desk: he’d painted a murky, purple-blue, abstract sort of thing, and you were strangely touched when he’d explained it was Kurogiri (and now that you were looking, among his bulletin board of Eraserhead, a few drawings of Loud Cloud were mixed in).

There’s a lot of people in Tenko’s life who care about him now, and you’re happy to be one of them. Setting your book aside, you got up to sit next to him on the couch.

He paused when you sank into the cushion next to—well, no, you were basically sharing the same cushion, especially since he unfolded his legs from underneath him so that you could get closer. You scooted over so that your shoulders touched (scandalous) and looked over his drawings.

He’s drawing your DND characters. While his sketches aren’t exactly good, you can clearly tell who’s supposed to be whom, and they’re fun to look at, so that’s all that matters. At the centre is your character, Ginseng—you named it after your Cipherstone account because why not—in the process of spell-charging. Your character relies on the traditional ritual of tea ceremonies, from the growing of the tealeaves to serving it, summoning whatever tools you needed, like the table and dishware, and if an enemy got caught by the conventions of politeness of the tea ceremony, they were trapped in it until they’d drunk their teacup dry. Tenko had drawn her early in the spell-charging process, with branches of tealeaves sprouting from underneath her skin, with her harvesting them from her forearm. It’s rather flattering, the way her determined expression lit up her face.

Next to Ginseng was Tenko’s character, Peito, also lifted from his Cipherstone character. He was sitting on the same log as Ginseng in the middle of camp, backs touching while he cut feathers as the first step in the fletching process. His carved-willow quiver leant against his knee-high boot, red even in a fictional universe. Peito’s hands were bare, five fingers pressed against his knife and arrows.

Further back in the camp (really just towards the top of the paper, since Tenko wasn’t good at foreshortening yet), Midoriya’s character, Jackrabbit, was holding up two hangers, one with his steel and the other with sleek, black leather armour. A nice touch, really, since Midoriya had swopped Jackrabbit’s primary armour to the more lightweight leather since the shattered grove incident, and wow, you could even tell it was leather based on the pencil strokes.

Seated nearby, Touya’s character, Granddaddy Slapkins, roared with laughter at him. His shoes lay next to him, his hooves out. For some reason, he’s not holding his pet duck; he’s instead cradling what looks like your character’s wild shape, a cat with the same chocolate-point markings as your real cat (your character’s shapeshifted form was just Dango, but Tenko didn’t know that. He still didn’t know Dango existed, because cats were still illegal in the dorms, and Tenko, that little brown-nosing shit, would probably tell Aizawa about her. Cute how he’s only a suck-up to Aizawa, though).

Your favourite detail, though, was how his character was smiling. Unabashedly. As if it were a no-brainer, as if doing anything else made no sense at all.

With a stab of affection, you nuzzled into Tenko’s shoulder, resting your chin there while he sketched loops of chainmail onto Granddaddy Slapkins’s shirt, and a shiver racked through him.

“Oh, are you cold?” you asked, sitting back up and heading over towards the bed, “Let me get your blanket.”

“Wha—no, I—sure,” said Tenko, setting his pencil on his sketchbook and the whole thing on the arm of the couch, eyes half-lidded as you returned with his throw blanket.

And without thinking, you moved on impulse, as if all higher orders of cognition had checked out for the night, because you behaved like you did in your head whenever you thought about Tenko: casually, intimately, and domestically. You wrapped the blanket around yourself and knelt on the sofa before swinging a knee over his lap, and you snuggled into his chest, clutching his shirt and nosing at his neck.

Your eyes snapped open.

(What the fuck?

If this had been a planned attack, then it would’ve been a thing of brilliance: casual, seeming to meet a physical need [heating a chill] in the name of physical closeness. But you fucked it. This wasn’t planned, and thus you don’t have a way out of it without otherwise betraying your romantically-motivated interior.

Thank fuck he’s frozen up, too. But how do you get out of this? God, you really shouldn’t be teaching him how to navigate interpersonal relationships when you get yourself into shit like this.)

You swallowed thickly, pulse pounding in your ears.

“I need your advice.” Tenko’s chest barely rose when he took his first breath since you climbed onto his lap. “What would be the socially expected response to this?”

“Uh. That depends on if you’re into it or not,” you said, forcing yourself to sit back in his lap to give him some space, “If you dislike it, then it’s to get me to get off of you, and if you welcome it, then, uh. Anything else.”

Tenko unclenched his fists at his sides and—a pause, shifting his jaw—he let his hands rest at a barely-there touch on your hips, dragging them upwards to your waist, applying enough pressure there for you to feel all ten fingertips through your shirt. “Is this,” he said, wetting his lower lip, and he couldn’t continue, instead swallowing saliva.

Gathering your nerve, you wove your hand through his hair to scratch at his scalp in the way he’d liked when you’d played with his hair, and at the familiarity, Tenko huffed, shutting his eyes tightly and pressing his forehead to yours in a rush, almost knocking them together. He took another breath, heat washing over your face, and you slid your other up hand to cup his cheek.

Tenko shivered again, and he clamped his hand over yours to keep it there. “Are you sure this is what you mean to do?”

He seemed receptive enough to it, but you couldn’t be certain. “Yeah,” you said, “If I’m reading it right.”

“But it makes no sense. I’ve got to be reading it wrong,” Tenko was saying, frowning, “No one would willingly like me—”

“For fuck’s sake, Tenko—”

Practically slapping your other hand to his cheek, you kissed him, pulling him closer, one of his hands still over yours with the other now gripping your waist as if he’d never let you go. Tenko grunted into it, surging forward to keep his rough lips (sticky from his freshly applied pineapple-beeswax chapstick) seared to yours. You felt, more than heard, his miniscule whimper at the back of his throat when he opened his mouth, sliding his tongue into yours, and you could hardly keep kissing him for smiling. But he needed a breath before you did, so you broke it, sensing he wouldn’t do it out of wanting to keep you nearby.

Panting, Tenko tried and failed to push your hair behind your ear in an attempt to be suave. “Now, I perceived that as romantic.”

“It was romantic, you muppet,” you said, thumping his chest with the back of your hand.

“Good.” He cleared this throat. “Cool. Excellent,” he said, shifting underneath you (with difficulty, under the constricting denim of his Moulded to Your Ass jeans), “I want it to be, when it comes to you.”

“Thank God, I really want that, too,” you said, sighing, “but, like, I really don’t know if it’s ethical to pursue a romance this early into your recovery—”

“The fuck is wrong with you? I want it. I want you.” Frustrated, Tenko grabbed your hips in an iron grip and ground up into you, slowly, and that tight-ass denim let you feel precisely where in the drag of his hips his cock touched you, letting you feel the shift in pressure at his tip, down his shaft, to the first curve of his balls. “I thought I was alone. I thought no one else would ever be able to understand me, having fallen from what I was raised to be. Fallen,” he said, spitting, “Such a nasty word for what we’re actually doing: we’ve been reborn together. We get to build our lives back up together. We get another chance at it. I wanna spend mine with you.”

He strained his neck upwards to kiss you again, insistent, moving with confidence when he took your lower lip into his mouth but only nibbling on it once, despite being posed to bite down with vigour.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about what anyone else thinks of you and what anyone else thinks of me. I—”

“That’s not true,” you said, your turn to catch your breath, “You care so much about what Aizawa-sensei—”

“You know what I mean,” he said, shaking his head, hair falling out of his loose ponytail, “You think of me as me, and that’s all that matters. If you’re really that fucking worried about me getting into a relationship too early, go talk to my therapist. She says you’re good for me. A good influence, anyway.”

“Holy shit,” you said, mostly in reaction to how Tenko started trailing frantic, dry kisses down your neck, and, realising you should probably be doing something back, you rolled your hips, feeling awfully warm under the blanket.

He bucked back up into you, more out of desperation to keep you close over a need for friction but still giving you a taste of what it would be like to have him thrusting into you. “Fuck,” he said, almost grumbling, “I’d say fuck being ethical about it, because I’ve wanted you for a long time. I got hard when you shook me by the shoulders outside of that ice cream shop; I thought my soul was gonna leave my body when you adjusted my scarf. Hell, I—” He cut himself off, grinning in a way that, back before you knew him, you might have described as maniacal. “I wanted you back during the war. I saw you fucking elbow Touya during that battle, and the way you made him crumple to the ground was so fucking sexy. And you recovered from when he swiped at you so easily; you slipped around his attacks like it was fucking second nature. I thought it’d be cool to have you by my side, having you—” He realised what he was saying, and he relaxed, smile fading into a curious, pensive sort of look while he brought his thumb to your kiss-swollen lips. “And now I get to.”

You kissed the pad of his thumb, blinking slowly.

“So. Yeah,” he said, dropping his hand to your shoulder as he broke eye contact, a little red, “I think it’d be cool to be with you, even if we have to be careful.”

“That’s the thing, Tenko,” you said, biting the inside of your cheek as you gathered your thoughts, “I’m scared, because while I know that we should, because that’d be safe, I don’t want to be careful. Since I’ve quit being a hero, every single thing about how I’ve been living has left me feeling empty and alone, because it’s like I’m wandering through limbo. Everything screams that whatever I’m doing now is temporary, that it’ll pass, that I don’t truly belong in this situation, because I’ll find what I’m supposed to be doing later and my real home is somewhere down the line, but—fuck.” You rubbed your eye with your fist. “You, Tenko. You don’t feel temporary. You feel forever.”

Underneath you, Tenko stretched to pop a crick in his back, and he tilted his head to lie on the back of the couch. His ponytail had come loose, and his hair splayed against the fabric as he stared at you, one hand idly rubbing at your waist.

“Well. You’ve got to belong somewhere,” he said eventually, and he tapped all five fingers onto your thigh. “It could be with me.”

***

Dango was missing.

Incredible how the best evening of your life preceded the worst day you’ve had in years. You called out of work and spent hours scouring the dorm and then campus. A gruelling, miserable sort of day, anyway, grey and rainy and cold, and the campus was swarmed with people setting up for the scavenger hunt event later this month, populating the area with non-U.A. personnel and construction. Your cat was out in that mess, and you didn’t even know where to search first. It’s loud, scary, and wet, so Dango would most likely be hiding and not come when she’s called.

Had Dango escaped your flat? Had your stalker stolen her? Had she been confiscated by U.A.?

You couldn’t call any faculty for help; they’d get onto you for having an illegal cat on campus—and Hound Dog, the one who’d be the most help, might just scare her to death. Too early in the morning to call any of your friends, and you doubted they’d alter their busy schedules to help you out of a situation you should be able to fix yourself. But damn it, how come your own tracking skills only worked on people?

You shook yourself, coming out of your spiral the best you could, and you were close to hyperventilating. You sat down on a curb.

You found yourself calling Tenko, despite it being too early in the day for him to be out of training, filling with dread about never seeing your cat again and having to clear out her stuff from your room. Pulling your soaked jacket closer, you wiped at your nose and waited at the dial tone.

“Hey, I thought you couldn’t call during work. Miss me that much?”

The second you heard his strangely chipper voice, you started crying into the speaker.

He inhaled sharply, tone shifting. “Tell me who the fuck I’m stomping to death with my hooves.”

Ducking your head, you managed a smile but continued to fucking sob. “You don’t—don’t have to kill anyone, Ten—Tenko. I’ve f—fucked up.”

“What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“I’m on cam—campus,” you said, unable to speak for a full sentence without having to cut yourself off to keep bawling, ugly and loud and getting snottier by the minute, “It’s my fucking fault that I haven’t been ta—taking my stupid sta—stalker seriously, and I should’ve reported it, but—but I—goddammit!” The rain picked up again, coming down in rapid, fat drops, and, shielding your eyes, you rubbed your phone screen on your sleeve, not that it did much. “Sor—sorry. Rain got heavier.”

“Where on campus?”

“No, Te—Tenko, I’ll get up. I’m coming to you,” you said, sniffling and pushing on your knees to stand, wet and hungry and ready to crawl into your sock drawer to sleep for days. “I—I’m just so fucking pissed at myself, because my cat is fucking lost, and I could’ve sto—stopped it if I hadn’t been so secreti—tive.” Hands shaking, you yanked your soaked hood over your head and trudged towards your dormitory, and you kicked gravel, rocks scattering over the path, before losing your footing on it and nearly falling. Fuck this.

“You have a cat,” said Tenko, losing his fervent. “What’s it look like?”

“Beautiful.”

“I need more than that.”

“She fucking—I based Ginseng’s cat form on her, okay? She’s this enormously fluffy thing, mostly whitish with a brown face and legs, and it makes her look like she’s wearing a mask and thigh-high socks like God’s sluttiest little jester,” you said, knocking on your dorm’s mailboxes for luck out of habit as you passed them, “And you can’t tell Aizawa-sensei about her, because if she’s taken away the moment I find her, then I—”

“I have her,” said Tenko, “She’s in my dorm with me.”

You ran the rest of the way to his room, panting and absolutely disgusting by the time you got there, and when Tenko opened his door, there was Dango, loafing on the back of the couch and watching raindrops race down the window.

“What the fuck,” you said, dropping your wet coat and toeing off your shoes, “How the hell did she get in here?”

Tenko shrugged and hung your coat next to his hoodie. “Can she open locked doors?”

“I hope to fuck she can’t,” you said, and you rounded the couch to wrap your arms around that dear little loaf, and Dango jumped off the couch to crawl underneath it before you could fully hug her. “Oh, good. She’s fine. Acting like normal.” You sat on the couch’s arm, adrenaline evaporating to render you boneless.

“She was in my room when I came back from training. We ended early today, since Aizawa-sensei has something.” Tenko stooped to yank two bottles of gatorade from their plastic rings and headed towards the sofa to offer one to you. “She didn’t seem upset or hurt. She’s been sitting there, napping on and off.”

You accepted it and twisted off the cap. “So, who put my cat in your room?”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“I don’t know,” you said, taking a shallow sip, careful not to overwhelm your agitated stomach, “They’d have to know about Dango in the first place, and I suppose my stalker would, since they’ve theoretically been breaking into my room.”

Tenko paused mid-sip, and he hastened to swallow. “Someone’s been breaking into your room?”

“Yeah,” you said, easing down the arm of the couch and onto its cushions, “I think. There’s no physical sign of entry, but my shit keeps going missing, and stuff that’s not mine keeps showing up. Let me tell you, I need some of that shit they’ve stolen; it’s hard to replace—”

Tenko touched your lips with three of his fingertips to quiet you, and he gestured for you to stay put while he scrambled over to his closet, where he stood on his toes to retrieve a wicker basket from the top shelf. He dropped the thing into your lap. “Are any of these yours?”

All of it was, missing things you blamed on everything from Dango to your stalker to your own forgetfulness: your favourite sweater, your trolley pass, lip balm, your shitty earbuds, your good pantyhose, your planner, your d10, and, among many smaller things, even that bright blue thong you’d lost in the wash (Well. It’s better to find your thong with your new boyfriend over finding them returned to your dorm coated in your stalker’s cum, you supposed).

“I was losing my goddamn mind,” Tenko was saying, “Stuff kept showing up. I thought it was a test at first—”

“I don’t have a stalker,” you said, absentmindedly rubbing the fabric of your thong between your fingers, “Your shit has been—you read that GINSENG TEA X LUSTFUL BALLSACK shit? Tenko.”

“Oh, you have that?” Tenko scratched the back of his neck, but not in his self-harm way; it reminded you of Shinsou’s nervous habit more than anything. “Haven’t you read it? Isn’t that what you were naming your characters after?”

“Ah, ha, ha. Moving on. What is important, though, is why and how this is happening to us.”

“Yeah, I don’t…”

The two of you spitballed for a while, long enough for the both of you to finish your bottles of gatorade and for Tenko to start another, and neither of you came up with anything substantial.

“Hell with it,” said Tenko, standing to stretch, his movement disturbing Dango from her nap in his basket of clean laundry, “Let’s go ask Aizawa-sensei.”

Aizawa was not pleased when he discovered the both of you waiting in his kitchen, but he listened to the story, and when you were done, he stepped out of the room to make a phone call. When he came back, he looked even more exhausted than when he’d first come in.

“I’ve just gotten off the phone with Sakura Grove,” said Aizawa, wincing when his bones creaked as he sat in his chair, “Tenko, do you remember villain in-fighting within the PLF? In particular, I’m asking if you remember breathing in a pink dust cloud. It would’ve been in Deika City, in the month between your fight with Re-Destro and your body modification surgery. If our sources are accurate, you would’ve been with Touya.”

Tenko scrunched up his face. “Why would I have been—hm.” Frowning, he reached into the bag of popcorn you’d commandeered from Aizawa’s cupboards. “I know what you’re talking about. They were only letting me eat healthy stuff in the week before I went under. Touya was taking me to scrounge for something salty and shitty for me, because I couldn’t take it anymore. He started hitting on someone he thought was a waitress, and she—this is why I remember it—she compared the width of her hand to his thigh and said no thanks.”

“That’s Ito,” said Aizawa, sighing and crossing his arms, settling his chin into his capture weapon, “When did she use her quirk?”

“She shoved her hand on Touya’s face when he opened his stupid mouth again, and he passed out with swarming, pink particles floating around his head. She turned to me—and she must not have recognised Touya, but she knew me, because her face lit the fuck up. She never touched me, but I remember having to sneeze.”

“She never told you what her quirk did?”

“I woke back up in the PLF headquarters. I assumed whoever picked me up had killed her and that her death negated any effects.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why? What does it do?”

Aizawa let out a soft laugh, muffled through his capture weapon, and he jerked his head in your direction. “You tell him,” he said, snatching the bag of popcorn and heading towards his bedroom.

***

He’d been nervous about wearing a suit. They reminded him of AFO.

But you’d strayed away from dark colours and too much structure, so his light greyish-blue suit jacket stayed unbuttoned even as you leant across to the passenger seat to adjust his All Might tie for him (a Put Your Hands Up Radio tie had been offered, but Tenko had already closed his fist around the striped tie Midoriya would loan him). Part of his bangs had been pinned back to show off his annoyingly handsome face, especially in how his sharp, red eyes observed caught every movement of your terrible attempt to tie the tie based on the pictures Aizawa had sent you.

“We’re not gonna be late, are we?” Tenko drawled out, the corner of his mouth quirking upward, hand resting on the car ceiling as he angled his chest towards you.

“Shush; we are in the parking lot,” you said, looping the larger end. Or were you supposed to be looping the smaller one? “Besides, the world won’t end if we’re a few minutes late to my class’s annual reunion.”

A flimsy excuse for a party, one made because hero agencies needed some sort of named event as an excuse to dismiss your friends en masse. But it was spring again, and they were coming out of the winter blues, and they wanted to see you again, so, hey, why don’t we work something in around your schedule? If you can’t come to this date, then we’ll reschedule it until you can.

And, like. They knew. They knew Tenko was your soulmate. You suspected they all wanted to see what he was like now, too, because no one but Shinsou, Midoriya, and, apparently, Bakugou had known.

You undid the loose knot and tried again. “Are you nervous?”

“No,” he said, scrutinising the tacky balloons and streamers swaying in the night breeze outside of the otherwise intimidatingly elegant venue, “but those kids might be.”

“Those kids happen to be friends my age,” you said, “and I’m barely younger than you are. They know you’re coming. You’re fine.”

Tenko sucked in through his teeth, tapping the roof of the car one finger at a time. “The last time they saw me was as a thing. An object of destruction.”

“Well, they’ll definitely see you as a human person when I spill how you designed a unicorn DND character for Eri.” You pulled the fabric taut but kept it from lying closely to his neck (a boy didn’t like feeling constrained). “You know what? This tie is as good as it’s gonna get.”

He ducked his chin to examine its knot. “It’s shit.”

“It adds to your devil-may-care, reformed-bad-boy sort of charm,” you said, giving the tie a final smooth-down and poorly suppressing your smile when you felt his muscles through his shirt. “Mathematically, there are only 85 ways to tie a standard tie knot. I don’t believe we’ve reached any of them.”

“How do you know these things? You’re unbeliev—” Tenko jerked his face out of view of the window as Aoyama and Kouda, gesturing wildly, strode past the car and into the venue. “Listen,” he said, clearing his throat, “I know I don’t care and that you don’t care, but other people will. Your reputation is gonna plummet right into its grave if we’re out in the open together.”

You shook your head, letting your smile show. “So, I fucked part of a rescue job almost a year ago. So what. So I’m dating my soulmate. Am I supposed to do otherwise? Honestly, Tenko,” you said, curling loose strands of hair behind his ear, letting your fingers linger around his cheek and neck (he leant into the touch), “I don’t care. I would’ve chosen you even without the soulmate bond. You’re too endearing to pass by. You’re too…babygirl.”

Tenko had been guiding your hand to his mouth, and he snorted before it got there, warm air scattering in a short burst. “Don’t call me that,” he said, pressing his lips to the centre of your palm and waiting until you met his gaze to retract them.

A different warmth shot to your lower stomach, but you had to keep pressing, for the sake of the bit. “Oh, then what should I—darling? Honey? Pookie bear?”

He scoffed and nipped at your pinkie. “None of those are good.”

“Tenko.”

He breathed in, shoulders rising, eyes fluttering shut. Taking a moment to kiss the tiny bite mark on your finger. “Yeah,” he said, opening his eyes in a slow blink, catlike, “Feels good. Feels—like coming home.”

Beaming, you reached down to lace his fingers through yours. All five of them squeezed back. “Then let’s go.”

soulmate trope taglist: @bakugouspsycho, @pansexualproblemchild, @doonaandpjs, @sunsetevergreen, @the-coffee-is-on-fire, @liberace2, @ladymidnight77, @nonomesupposedto, @gooooomz, @kissmebakugou, @pachiibatt, @celestair, @tiredkittykat, @cheshireshiya, @90s-belladonna, @infjsnightmare

[batifresa]

Tashi is the eldest child of her family. We know for a fact that she has two younger brothers; we see them with her parents at the Adidas party. We also know her family was very supportive of her, and that Tashi is described by Zendaya as family-oriented.

But what about Art and Patrick's families? Here's what I think.

Patrick 100% has siblings! My take is that the only reason his parents didn’t care about him throwing his life away and being a disappointment, is because they already had another child perfectly trained and poised to take over the family business and carry on the Zweig name proudly. A boy, the eldest. And just in case the eldest failed, a backup, another boy, or a girl. The heir, the spare, and Patrick.

He was un unruly child, I'm sure, so they just sent him away to boarding school to be raised by someone else. More trouble than he was worth. His rejection issues (possibly) come from his parents always preferring his siblings over him. Abandoned and overlooked. The wound reopened, ugly and festering, when Art and Tashi married each other instead of him.

If Patrick were an only child, there is absolutely no way his parents would have allowed him to just fuck off into the sunset to play tennis. In my opinion, Patrick gives middle child energy, though he could be the youngest as well. That being said, he's obviously not close to his family at all. Given his current lifestyle, it's evident that at one point his parents either, cut him off, or he stopped accepting their financial support.

It's worth noting that, while Tashi's family was present at her match for the 2006 US Open (and quite supportive, complete with signs and video cameras), the families of Patrick and Art were nowhere in sight. Which brings us to:

Art. He's a tricky one cause, in my opinion, not only does he give strong "Only Child Syndrome" energy, but also "divorced parents" energy. His grandma clearly adored him and doted on him, but his parents were very much absent from his life. And no, I don't think they're dead. On top of Art's boarding school expenses, we know his grandma was in a nursing home, which are also very, very expensive. So who was paying for all of this? An uncle? Possibly, but I don't think so.

It seems to me that his parents divorced, but neither of the two wanted to deal with the living, breathing reminder of their failed marriage, so they shipped him off to boarding school. I suppose it's possible that he could have step-siblings from either of his parents remarrying, but they probably didn't want him anywhere near their new families. Lonely and unwanted. Aside from his codependency issues, this could be an extra motive to his complete aversion to separating from Tashi, despite his clear misery. He doesn't want history to repeat itself with Lily. Divorce brought nothing but pain for him, after all.

I've encountered people depicting Art's family as middle-class, but that's incorrect. WASPs usually come from old money, and we can tell that this is the case with Art. The sheer size of the rock on Tashi's finger, which belonged to his grandma, speaks for itself. The writer has also explicitly said both guys came from money, but were essentially abandoned by their families.

Before Tashi, they really had no one to rely on but each other. Which makes their fall out all the more tragic.

[yanderes-galore]

may I request a romantic yandere concept for hitoshi shinso MHA?

He was like the first MHA character I wrote on here... so let's see if how I write him has changed at all.

Yandere! Hitoshi Shinsou Concept

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Manipulation, Brainwashing, Jealousy, Stalking, Possessive/Protective behavior, Restraints, Isolation, Violence, Blood, Dubious/Forced relationship.

Hitoshi has been shown as stoic, quiet, and straightforward.

Due to his Quirk, it makes sense why he doesn't bother talking much.

Yet he could also just be introverted.

Despite this attitude, he's quite capable of holding a conversation with others.

Hitoshi, due to the nature of his Quirk, is manipulative.

He doesn't mind using underhanded topics to trick those around him into activating his Quirk.

Hitoshi is often perceived as a bad person due to his Quirk.

Which seems like another reason he's introverted.

He often states he has no interest in making friends and strives to be a hero.

Right away I can tell he's a yandere who would be quiet and distant... silently observing his obsession before making any moves.

I imagine Hitoshi is capable of being a terrifying yandere.

He just... doesn't want that as he doesn't want his obsession to view him as evil.

Just... listen to this...

Brainwash Quirk, binding cloth, The ability to fool his enemies by changing his voice with his mask...

If he wanted to force his obsession to be with him, he could.

Although, I imagine Hitoshi prefers having you love him naturally.

Many don't trust him already.

So the fact that you're so insistent on being close to him... surprises him.

You... Want to be friends?

You're looking past what he's capable of and asking to be friends?

For a long time he brushes you off.

He doesn't make friends... He's fine alone...

Although, eventually during hero exercises or normal school life, Hitoshi slowly allows you to be his friend.

His friendship with you goes right up until you graduate.

He probably has a crush on you... yet nothing gets too intense until he's a Pro Hero.

So by the time things really go downhill... you're both adults with your own lives.

Well, at least you had a life....

Hitoshi doesn't usually activate his Quirk around you.

As I said before, he doesn't want you to think poorly of him.

You're eventually not his only friend... Yet you're definitely his closest one.

Hitoshi may not act like it, but you mean a lot to him.

He really does try to be patient with you.

Hitoshi may not even realize he has feelings for you until senior year where he noticed you were... getting more attention.

It's annoying to him... But why?

You... look happy.

Shouldn't he be happy if his friend looks happy?

Part of him wishes you'd look that happy when he gave you attention.

Hitoshi is definitely someone who is in denial of his obsession or just hides it.

He hides his jealousy and yearning until even after you both graduate.

Yet he'd be lying if he didn't use his Quirk against those he didn't like around you a few times.

He just acts oblivious to it.

I imagine even as a Pro Hero, Hitoshi checks in with you.

He definitely has your number and checks in whenever he can.

Although, while he has restraint, obviously he can be a scary yandere.

Imagine if you both eventually get into an established relationship?

He starts all sweet and nice, usually still quiet yet the same friend you had in school.

But I can see him relapsing into old habits.

To you, he's always been your quiet friend (now boyfriend) who always focuses on his job and goals.

He always hid away any signs of his obsession from you.

As he was always quiet, it was relatively easy for him to stay in the background of your life and hide his tendencies.

He probably even knew of you before you were friends, yet he'd never admit to that.

Hitoshi would never admit he followed you around in school, watching your every move.

He'd never admit to using his Quirk to separate others from you.

Even if he doesn't want to admit it, he's still quite manipulative.

Even when he plays nice and stays patient... He still has toxic tendencies.

When he meets up with you again, part of him has the idea of using his Quirk on you.

He tells himself he shouldn't, you should love him on your own.

Yet he does have the idea of making you say yes to dating him with his Quirk....

When you two eventually start dating after graduating, manipulation or not, he still seems like how he was when you were younger.

He's hesitant when you give him affection at first, not used to it yet slowly begins to enjoy it.

He doesn't seem like a bad boyfriend.

Although, here's a nice twist...

Maybe you don't think he's a bad boyfriend because he's been using his Quirk on you this entire time?

The temptation gets to him, leading to him manipulating you into staying with him as a Pro Hero.

Does he feel bad? A little.

Yet he's craved your love, deceived or not, for a long while.

Hitoshi, deep down, is a lonely man even as an adult.

You're the only one he's wanted since high school.

Now as a Pro Hero... He's grown strong...

Strong enough to protect you... and also gain the attention he wants.

A big part of his obsession is manipulation, obviously.

It's due to his Quirk and while he doesn't want to do anything like that to you at first...

He will eventually.

Especially if he starts looking into his jealousy more.

While not the most physically threatening or violent... He's good with words.

He'd probably manipulate you into a relationship then use his Quirk to keep you in it.

You'd be isolated from friends with him sabotaging relationships.

Honestly, it's scary what he can do with his Quirk.

Yes, he tries not to at first, but when you're both adults the temptation becomes too great.

It isn't easy to escape either.

He was trained by Aizawa.

He's agile, fast, and still very controlling.

I can see him taking out rivals or recapturing you with his hero gear.

He has the binding cloth in his arsenal which is good for restraints.

He also has the voice changing mask that he can use to lure people in or trick them into falling for his Quirk.

Imagine realizing Hitoshi has been using you and you try to run.

Only for him to quickly track you and restrain you with the cloth, using his Quirk to trick you into staying still.

Then he'd drag you back to your shared apartment or home, just to isolate you all over again.

Even his affection is deceptive.

He acts so caring, giving you gentle kisses and hugs.

But the whole time you're wrapped in his binding cloth...

Kidnapped in stuck in your now shared home.

Plus, even if you weren't, you feel as though you couldn't refuse.

He may just use his Quirk on you again if you refuse.

It makes sense why so many people distrust him.

He tried to play nice and date you properly.

Yet he's impatient... and scared to lose his closest friend...

He knows most of the relationship is built on lies and manipulation... That it's fabricated because his own selfishness got to him...

He knows you won't forgive him, he tried so hard to be patient...

But it doesn't matter now, does it?

One way or another, you're all his, and there's no going back now.

[msschemmenti]

the gentle giant 💬

the hinge stories installment

jemily x reader

a/n: thanks for the request, i hope this is enjoyable!

“so, spill. i didn’t gathering my favorite ladies here with a delectable spread of alcohol and snacks for us to bitch and moan about work all night.” garcia grinned from her seat on a beanbag chair. 

“oh yeah, if i recall correctly you two had your first third audition.” tara grinned into her glass, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. jj and emily fought hard to suppress their embarrassment. it wasn’t like it had been a secret, they’d made the account in this very living room about a month ago. both women were just hoping their drunken haze may have washed those details from everyone’s brains. 

“don’t call it that! that makes us sound gross.” emily huffed. 

“well, what would you prefer? third shopping?” tara continued to tease.

“no! that’s even worse.” jj grumbled, nailing tara’s head with a pillow. 

“fine fine fine, tell us about the date and maybe she’ll stop postulating.” garcia interrupted eagerly.

“okay, okay fine. we’ll talk. ground rules though. you’re not allowed to track, locate, or identify anyone in this story. you know what– no names. we’ll give them nicknames.” jj warned pointedly before finishing off her glass of wine and nodding for emily to start the story. 

“alright, so yes. we went on our first polyamorous date, with– what should we call her?” emily asked looking to jj for direction. 

“oh, let's call her the gentle giant.” jj grinned dreamily. 

“gentle giant? you went on a date with someone taller than you?” tara asked in disbelief. 

“yes. and let me just say– pleasantly surprised.” emily shrugged. “anyways, she sent us a like first with a comment on one of our prompts. our paris prompt. and after some weeks of talking, we were finally able to set up a date.” 

-

they’d agreed to meet at a gaming bar jj and emily had never been to. through all their hinge messages, all the proper plans were made and when they all got together 

“oh you’re much taller than i anticipated.” jj spoke, allowing her eyes to roam up the woman’s body. the woman pushed her glasses up her nose with a laugh before shoving her hands in her pocket. 

“well, thanks i guess.” she chuckled, eyeing emily and jj wearily. 

“oh don’t worry, it’s a compliment. why don’t we go in and get a table?” emily supplied, breaking the ice just a bit before all three women entered the bar. once drinks were retrieved and a table secured each woman took turns finding a game to play together.

-

“oh so we’re obviously going to this bar for the next after work drinks.” garcia interrupted.

“playing games and drinking? beating alves drunk, just moved to the top of my todo list.” tara grinned. 

“can we continue our story? preferably without interruptions?” emily asked pointedly. both tara and garcia mimed zipping their lips and jj picked up the story.

-

somehow the women found themselves standing in front of a basketball arcade game. the younger woman turned to face both emily and jj and there seemed to be a bit of mischief behind her eyes.  “for every shot we make, we get to ask a question. sound fair?” 

jj’s cheeks heated under the woman’s gaze and she looked over at emily expectantly, “deal– but jj is playing for the both of us. former athlete.” emily poked at her side. 

jj chuckled and rolled her eyes, “i don’t think me being a former athlete will help us here em.”

“oh really? what’d you play?” 

“soccer, high school and undergrad. so i’m not too sure how that bodes for us winning.”

“well anything is better than me.” emily shrugged and the two other women laughed before starting the game. 

at jj’s first bucket emily cheered, turning to question their date. “any hobbies or talents?” 

“i actually play a couple instruments. namely the drums and guitar. took me a bit of time with guitar but i’ve always been really good with my hands.” 

“yeah– i’m sure the fingerings came naturally to you.” emily spoke unconsciously watching the younger woman grip the basketball.

“oh, trust me. i know how to really work a guitar.” both jj and emily’s cheeks heated as they looked up at the woman and watched her sink a basket in easily. 

“i will reverse the question on you both, hobbies or talents?” 

“when we’re not traveling for work, i like running. and emily is really into reading.” jj supplied and readied for another shot, this one just missing the hoop. emily boo’ed and they all laughed good-naturedly before continuing the game. it wasn’t until both women focused on something other than their extremely attractive date’s physical prowess that they realized, she hadn’t missed a shot.

“um, are we just supposed to ignore the fact that you made every shot?” emily asked.

“no, i kinda played basketball for most of my life.” the woman shrugged with a cheeky smile. 

“oh so this was rigged?” jj grinned.

“guilty.”

“well next time you wanna get to know us, let us win huh?” emily grinned nudging the younger woman in the side ,flirtatiously. 

“i’ll keep that in mind.”

-

“we played a couple more games and got extremely distracted by her hands. and that was our first hinge date. very enjoyable for all parties.” jj shrugged with a smile.

“wow, so your first one was a hit. are you gonna see her again?” tara asked, lifting her glass in a cheers.

“are we going to meet her? indoctrinate her?” garcia questioned.

“woah, slow down. we’ve only hung out with her once– no need to do all of that. but we’ve discussed it and we wouldn’t be opposed to a second date.” emily shrugged noncommittally.

“i will find her. i will befriend her.” garcia vowed, causing everyone to laugh.

[ironunderstands]

I’m having some Aventio thoughts.. :3

Possessive Aventurine urghhh Aventurine who won’t let Ratio out of his sight for more than 10 minutes when they are out together out of fear, Aventurine who is terrified he will lose someone else he loves and will hold Ratio’s hand at any opportunity he gets, Aventurine who mildly and vaguely threatens anyone who so much as looks at Ratio badly…. AAAAAAAAA

Like usually I don’t enjoy the “you’re mine” kinda trope/mindset, but Aventurine has lost practically everything and everyone close to him so I can see him being extremely, well, possessive, of Ratio. However he would still obviously respect the others boundaries (especially due to his trauma), it’s just I can see him keeping Ratio as close as he possibly can.

I think that’s why I like writing fics where Aventurine is rescuing/saving/protecting/etc Ratio because he needs the ability to care for someone like that just as much as Ratio needs the ability to just let go and be vulnerable

Like Ratio already spends all his time trying to help others so having someone else do it for him is a welcome change, and Aventurine constantly has all eyes on him, so not having to be the center of attention for once is freeing..

..which is also why I probably prefer dom aven/sub ratio when it comes to nsfw/suggestive content of them. It’s more interesting than the alternatives to me because it’s a dynamic that would benefit both of them and help work out their issues in canon. Not saying it’s some magic fix it or something but yeah I think Ratio needs to give up his control sometimes and Aventurine needs to gain some. I feel like people downplay how sex can be used to explore character dynamics and I know this is kinda off course for what I usually write/talk about but I just haven’t seen anyone discuss it so I thought it was worth mentioning.

Moving onwards, I really love writing Ratio when he’s not in a normal state of mind. Drunk, injured, sleepy, a fucking owl (IM WORKING ON THE FIC THANK YOU @aurae-rori FOR HELPING ME BETA ITS AT 6.3/~10k WORDS IM GONNA TRY AND FINISH IT SOON I PROMISE), etc.

Whatever one of these you decide to inflict upon Ratio allows for some really interesting characterization to be enabled, because well, the man’s a tsundere, and it’s kinda hard for him to keep that up when he doesn’t have the capacity to. Honestly I view his tsundere-ness as being half voluntary/a choice and half just the way he is because he’s not very good at expressing his emotions or dealing with other people’s emotions.

However if I were to say, make him drunk, a good portion of that barrier breaks and Ratio’s true self gets exposed, and he nor Aventurine nor anyone really know how to deal with that. It’s so much fun to just put a character out of their element and see what they do next, and I think messing with Ratio’s mental state is the epitome of that, because now he has to confront the fact that he IS hiding parts of himself, and that’s scary (in a good way).

I also think Aventurine dealing with the fact that someone just genuinely lives him but is too afraid to really show it would be compelling. Would he blame himself? Would he dig into it and accidentally cross Ratio’s boundaries, then feel horrible about it? Would he doubt that it’s really real until it becomes transparently clear that Ratio does love him? Oh the possibilities..

Would he see Ratio being kind to someone in a similar way that Ratio is to him and get jealous? Would he worry that maybe he isn’t special to him and is just selfishly imagining everything?

They make me insane.

[unionizedwizard]

tumblr user unionizedwizard certified #1 shadowbringers + g'raha overthinker reporting for duty

i HAVE been thinking about sphene being the exarch's foil. because it is a very obvious case to the point they had to pick him up from SHARLAYAN as an emergency Relevant Character and also allowed him to come with us to living memory (you know it's about to get serious when they let him go anywhere with the wol)

so, obviously. both sphene and g'raha (as the exarch) were thrust into a horrific nightmarish situation where they were put in charge of a entire city/state facing an umbral calamity. both care deeply about the people they're trying to protect - their people. both have undergone (willingly or not) heretofore unknown scientific operations that irreversibly changed them, using cutting-edge technology, making them immortal and fusing them with an immensely powerful reservoir of aetheric energy, all in the name of duty and preserving hope for the future; both have become a symbol rather than a person. the alexandrians needed their queen, whose mere presence stopped them from succumbing to despair; the people from novrandt forced the exarch into a similar position (even though he kept repeating he would not stand for becoming a king of any sort); himself, on behalf of the ironworks & the entirety of the post-8th umbral calamity survivors, was willing to sacrifice himself to bring back the wol - because (and this is the really important part) of the wol's status as a symbol of hope and resilience. everyone here, the wol included, is dehumanized and worshiped and used for their good, self-sacrificial qualities, as well as their unyielding willpower.

sphene's memories were altered, muddled, to an extent that nobody really understands. the scientists who managed to create the endless are all gone, the average alexandrian forgot everything and everyone they've ever known, she herself knows she's not the "original" sphene but a copy - yet she doesn't seem to mourn this loss, and indeed i don't know to which extent she conceives of it as a loss, or a violation of her bodily autonomy (which it was! she never asked to be brought back, especially not this way, which would be a more than traumatic experience for ANYONE to go through!). in the same way, the exarch's memories encompass several timelines and realities, and he spent an entire century having to hide his identity, not being able to mention his own name, much less his purpose or homeland - i'd say this self-erasure is more than comparable with sphene's experience. not to mention that both sphene and the exarch were forced into "passive", static roles - i don't know how sphene felt about this because this is the tragedy of her character, that we don't know (and she herself doesn't know) the first thing about her, as an individual with preferences and feelings and memories.

also, this all adds up with g'raha's role in the deltascape part of ultima thule - the omicrons being, as AI mechanical soldiers, the missing link between sphene and himself. there's a pattern here, interrogating the relationship between mind, body, memory, duty, freedom and personal agency & autonomy, etc. the endless in general and sphene in particular are more than reminiscent of the omicrons on this point.

all of this to say: thinking about g'raha's gondola speech, i did not think he was talking about the scions, or even the wol. i see how this is a possible (and likely) interpretation to have, but i must confess i was surprised when i saw that this is what most people had understood. to me he was talking about the people from the First, and also the people from the 8th umbral calamity timeline, especially those with whom he'd worked for, presumably, months at a time. so many people who died after the Flood (we tend to forget that he arrived right after the Flood, in the immediate aftermath), not just because of the sin eaters but also because of the sudden and catastrophic environmental changes; all the people who could never adapt to the eternal light and, presumably, went mad (it's a real thing in real life even though night does come back eventually, so i imagine it must have been that but a lot worse in novrandt). all the people who died due to lack of medicine, because all the medicinal plants and recipes disappeared in the blink of an eye, not to mention the healers themselves; all the diseases and epidemics and interpersonal violence that arose as a consequence of the severe famine and lack of basic resources that plagued what was left of the star. and the unfathomable loss and trauma of losing millenia of culture and civilization and knowledge and biodiversity and entire families, entire tribes, cities, countries, being annihilated. g'raha has lived through this for a century, combined with the post-8th umbral calamity state of the Source. we know how much he cares for the people of the crystarium, and we only see the crystarium as a fully-developed, beautiful, and harmonious city-state; we haven't seen the century of work and planning and emergency managing and unfathomable grief and pain that went into it. in the same way, we see alexandria (and living memory) as they are now, but only glimpse a few moments of utter chaos during the alexandria dungeon.

so i'm just thinking of g'raha, seeing living memory, and being the only one among the party who truly understands. who can truly relate to sphene, and understand her. he's the only one present who has personally been through not one but two calamities, and had to deal with them on a day-to-day basis (while readying a completely crazy long-term plan). how many people that he knew, loved, wanted to protect... died of "preventable" causes during the century he was on the First, while himself was immortal - so that he could keep doing his duty, doing everything he could to save them eventually? all this happened in a manner which was truly unfair, and unfathomably evil, and - possibly the worst part - he knew this was still "the better path" (as he put it himself while trying to summon the wol). the survivor's guilt that both he and sphene must be dealing with is simply impossible to really understand, i think. we've seen the crystarium. of course he'd wish for all these unfortunate souls to endure and finally know peace and happiness. and of course, he didn't have a Living Memory, but of course he couldn't help but wonder how he'd have reacted in this situation.

and i do wish we could have had him interact with sphene, actually. it made sense that she was wuk lamat's foil and all, but i think it would have been interesting..........

[rockingrobin69]

of mice and man and man

“It’ll be a little crammed,” Draco said, hearing the apology and stopping the wince before it showed, “but I think we could—”

“It’s perfect,” Harry said, the smile in his voice thick enough for Draco to dare a look. He barely managed one, panting into his palm, tinier even than the space, smaller-smallest. But he did, and—Harry was indeed smiling, beaming, even, brighter than the fluorescent light. In a fight between Harry and the sun, Draco often thought, and stopped himself with quite a bit of force, because truly, what. What. What?

Cleared his throat. Harry was still holding onto his bag with both hands. It looked heavy; Draco developed a light sweat just from staring.

He said, “You can put that down if you’d like.”

Harry blinked in surprise. “I—oh. Yes. Here?”

“You can, ah, put it in the, bedroom? If you prefer? Of course you’ll take the bed; I changed the sheets and, ah.” Stopped at what was now clearly bafflement. “Is something the matter?”

“No,” Harry frowned, an obvious lie. “I just thought—never mind.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Which way to the bedroom?”

“Down the—”

“Actually, no, don’t be ridiculous. I’ll take the sofa. I’m the guest.”

Draco refrained from smacking his own forehead. “No, no, I won’t hear of it. You just escaped possible mould poisoning; you’re taking the bed.”

“I would have,” Harry grumbled into his elbow in the world’s least-convincing cough, “if—anyway, I need some space for Rufus. The living room would do best.”

To call it a living room was either generous or offensive, Draco didn’t yet decide. It was barely a room, and not entirely designed for the living. It had been a crypt, after all, but renting a place in the city was ridiculously expensive and it did make for a neat party theme. If Draco had ever thrown a party in his life. If he had the slightest inclination to do ever do so. And the neighbours were not terrible either, once the old priest finally left. Very into cheese, which Draco could respect.

Blinking until he near-blinded himself: “You’re being silly. You and Rufus would have a great time in the bedroom. It is slightly more spacious and far less—what’s the word I’m looking for—”

“Dead?” Harry offered pleasantly.

“No, not that. Less drafty, maybe. Did you bring the jumper I knitted for Rufus?”

Again with that sun-challenging grin. “Of course. He never leaves the house without it.”

(Harry once said, entirely serious, that if Draco was a vampire, he would battle the sun if it bothered him. He said it in a straight face and a shrug). (He was mad). (And Draco didn’t allow himself to think further into the absurd, not-worth-his-breath concept). (Because, what). (Truly).

“Rufus is a good chap,” Draco said, and earned another smile for his trouble. “It was good of him to discover your flat was infested with black mould.”

“Yes,” Harry said, “it was Rufus who, er, discovered it,” even though he’d already told Draco that, three times over the phone and twice since he arrived. He was so bizarre sometimes.

“Mice have an incredible sense of smell,” Draco conceded, eyebrow raised, and Harry gulped a few times in a guilty sort of way, still clutching onto his bag. “Oh, come on, we can—share the bedroom. All three of us. It isn’t huge, but not made in miniature either, and Rufus doesn’t take that much space.”

Oh, the sun was ruined; no source of light could ever compare. “Great! Yes. Let’s do that. Yes. Did I tell you I love your place? It’s so strange and Rufus feels right at home and it’s great.”

Unable to look at him, “All right. Stop rambling. If they can’t get rid of the mould you’re more than welcome to move in, both of you.” As a joke, obviously.

Harry said, “Okay,” in a slightly-too-enthusiastic tone, and Draco, weakened already by smiles and close quarters, the smell of Harry’s appley shampoo, by how he was—there, in his space and terrific and so awful about it, Draco who had given up entirely said, “Okay,” right back.

They stood there for another moment in dead silence. Draco’s flat never felt less eerie.

Then he took man and mouse to his bedroom and hoped, against all hope, not to expire from sheer—that.

*

He didn’t expire. It was a close call, but not quite enough to push him over the edge. Harry was… so, so close and so, so himself and it was heady and wonderful and absolutely unbearable.

*

They went to bed early, both a little jittery, rustling covers and soft sheets. ‘Crammed’ was not a word that could describe the situation in any sense; Draco must have forgotten how small his bed actually was. Rufus, at least, had his own space on the dresser. Harry was right at his elbow.

When Draco found enough courage to look at him, he was… smiling. Of course.

Surrendered: “Good night, Harry.”

The bastard took his hand.

“Good night, Draco.”

“Good night, Rufus.”

“Night, Ruf.”

He still held it. His hand. Harry was holding his hand and smiling about it like some—Draco hid his own terrible grin in the pillow, heart hammering in his chest, horribly, spookily, beautifully alive.

@short666bread, my dear friend, here's your treat!

[pinacoladamatata]

I am once again thinking about Solas and how his potential arc this game could go regarding the Veil being up or down and I'm gnawing at the bars of my enclosure [spoilers obviously] I don't like being intelligent/thoughtful on here I prefer to be stupid but here we go

In [yet another] article that came out, idk? today? Mark Darrah says the story "allows us to, hopefully, give a good conclusion to all the varied attitudes toward Solas that are going to be coming from people who love Solas, who agree with Solas, who hate Solas, people who want to kick Solas off of a building – I think that we give you the opportunity to bring that to a close, but then tell a greater story about The Veilguard and about the world as a whole."

and I don't know what to fucking think about this? They obviously know people's opinions are varied and I think it should be obvious that this is not a case where 'one ending fits all'

Because like, he is such a tragic character and I know there's gonna be an option to kill him, calm down, before you start in my inbox with "I WANT TO KILL HIM" like, you will be able to, that's kind of...almost a certainty. Especially for low approval Inquisitor/swore to stop him at all costs. Because if he Won't agree to stop trying to tear down the veil and causing mass destruction, (even after dealing with Elgarnan and Ghilly) then you'll have to kill him. Even trapping him forever isn't really an option because he created the fucking veil, man's crafty, he'd eventually find a way out. Like, If he will not and cannot see reason, then you, the protagonist, will have to end him.

It's the OTHER option that has me spinning because, you could, maybe, potentially, hopefully, talk him out of it. And if you did that, either as a romanced or friendly Inquisitor, or apparenty? Rook? based on this new info that Solas and Rook are going to have a lot of interaction, then he doesn't NEED to die. If he stops wanting to tear down the veil, he could potentially just disappear and do whatever he wants, like nerd out over magic.

And honestly, having him die on both paths is such a slap in the face for "your choices matter" because like clearly they do not if that happens; like what was the point of making me choose at the end of trespasser? If the only difference is 'stop Solas at all costs' leads to a boss fight where you kill him and 'redeem Solas' leads to ? him dying anyway somehow? Like I'm sorry but that is lazy and boring. His redemption should not end in death, he should have to live and deal with the consequences, because that could be so much more interesting.

[because I'll be real, I don't think they're going to let us have the option to tear down the veil/side with him AND have the option to keep the veil up. I think it will be one or the other no matter your choices; Simply because there is too much of a massive difference between world states of 'killed Solas to prevent him taking down the veil Thedas remains status quo' VS 'let Solas take down the veil, Thedas is now fundamentally different in an almost inconceivable way'. Like the setting for any future games depend on this; you would have to create 2 very different games. There has to be some uniformness to the world state, like; the veil remains, but it's thinned or whatever and the people of Thedas are living life more or less as usual if they ever want to make DA5. Would be wild of them do go the route of no matter what you do the veil comes down anyway. Which would be annoying if you swore to stop Solas at all costs and he just... succeeds anyway, even if he dies? Of course, there is Sandals prophecy, which I think is about the events of DA4. And devs have said in the past they had 'something' planned since Origins. "One day the magic will come back - all of it. Everyone will be just like they were" - The veil coming down and everyone gaining magic? Not just elves but humans, dwarves and qunari too? "The shadows will part and the skies will open wide" - Talking about the veil coming down?? Do shadows represent the abyss? "When he rises, everyone will see" - I'm actually convinced this is about Elgar'nan, or, something even worse; like the 'thing' that Mythal locked away, that the "evanuris in their greed could unleash" that "would destroy us all". So I think the end of DA:TV will be either the veil stays in place no matter what, or the veil comes down no matter what, which is, idk, interesting? Because again, they can't have both- that just gets too messy for the setting for the next game. They could have the veil come down no matter what, but, you would need to have a "better option" as Varric and Solas put it. Which, let's say for narrative purposes, this option exists and we tell it to Solas and he goes "Okay let's do that instead" and it results in a world state where the veil is 'down' but not in a catastrophic mega-calamity way. Even then though, some players are just not going to pick that and also if the veil comes down; what the fuck are we guarding it for???? I think it might come down temporarily. Maybe we have to make a new one? a better one? we have our fade tamagotchi fen'harel who happens to be the only fucker who knows how to make a veil too. Could this 'better veil' alleviate some of the problems Solas had with the old one? If there was like a set door way that allowed people and spirits to pass safely? One that didn't cause so much discord between spirits/people? Is our Veilguard a Fade TSA? I can dream. But who knows. Either way, I think we're only getting one endgame worldstate regarding the veil.

So; OK, back to Solas and how the fuck that could end. Harking back to that Varric/Solas conversation about the old man living alone. Solas is clearly speaking as though he is the old man, and he can't fathom just living a quiet life when there are literal world ending gods waiting for a weak moment to bust free. He Will not, Cannot stand by and do nothing while he knows his prison is failing. He HAS to at least deal with the 2 evanuris before tearing down the veil bc he doesn't want them to cause harm. He didn't want that before (hence locking them away) and he doesn't want it now, even for modern day Thedas (hence him helping Rook). He's got such a fucking heart under all that armor. He cares about people, he demonstrates it again and again. But my god what if, he finally *sees* that the veil may not have been a mistake, it doesn't need to be torn down, (maybe it has to be remade, better?or just altered?) and then us the protag, no longer has to kill him to stop him from tearing it down?

Like, I am very partial to the "what if love changes everything" trope especially for such a tragic character. Bc he's got death flags left and right; "I walk the dinanshiral" "there is only death on this journey" "this does not end in my downfall" his "dying alone" fear tombstone, and he's lonely he's miserable he's afraid. I'm so worried they'll kill him off anyway bc 'he was always doomed' trope and it would be easier to write, but motherfuck it would just, be SO so satisfying if, instead, there was a path where he wasn't doomed; whether it's bc of Rook or the Inquisitor or a combo of both. I feel like what if, either platonic or romantic; if there was just at least one path where love changes everything.

ofc this is massive amounts of copium and I don't expect bioware to give me anything so cool as "the veil starts to come down anyway and you, Rook, have to rebuild it with Solas' and the Inquisitor's help and at the end you can either kill him or convince him that this world is worth living in"

but hey, i can dream ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[littleliterarylesbian]

thinking about a shadowhunters universe jegulus/marauders au. specifically the TMI era.

Sirius and Regulus being the kids of the leaders of the London (?) institute. Their parents used to be circle members but feigned fear and manipulation. Like the lightwoods they're allowed back into the shadowhunter homeland on important business due to having children. They still very much believe in the ideas of the circle and are incredibly upset that the Black name has been tarnished and have put pressure on Sirius and Regulus to bring them to glory once again.

Remus was the son of a prominent shadowhunter family and during training when he was young he and his father got ambushed by a pack of werewolves. Remus got bitten and, even though it's not a 100% chance a bite means being turned on the next full moon he's locked in his family's basement and writhing in pain as he changes for the first time.

Peter, I imagine, would be a close Hodge equivalent. Not a 1-1 obviously, but close. His parents were Shadowhunters who also followed the circle but died by being ripped apart by demons and he witnessed it. Hatred festering every time he was sent out on the field. Which, sadly, didn't happen often as physically he was behind Sirius and Regulus (which isn't a fair comparison due to the fact that since either of them could properly hold things weapons were shoved in their hands).

Evan and Pandora are warlocks, they're both a bit eccentric in their own ways, and they prefer to keep out of shadowhunter stuff, but Pandora can't help but see Regulus like a sopping wet kitten. Evan is the "official" high warlock of London (again, not sure on location) but they both share the responsibilitys.

Barty is Fae and grew up closed off from most of everything but eventually became close with Evan and Pandora. Barty's family is high up in the court, trusted closely by the Seelie Queen, but he doesn't give a shit. The second that the circle is hinted at returning he jumps at the chance to backstab his father and the court that treats him so poorly.

Dorcas is a vampire and close with Barty since they bonded when she was just a fledgling, one who sticks strongly with the accords. She realizes how bad it would be if the circle were to come back and at first tries to stay out of it before she realizes Barty is a traitor and her coven leader believes that the rules are below them. Which she soon overthrows.

James and Marlene were childhood friends until around age 13 when Marlene kind of disappeared. James' parents wanted to live in a world safe from all the conflict, especially when they found out they were expecting James, so they hid in the mortal world. James doesn't get his memories wiped, it's just more like a Percy Jackson type thing where he tries to bring up the weird stuff he sees, Effie and Monty kind of just gaslight him. They weren't a part of the circle but they were high up in the clave and outwardly against the brutalization of slaughter of innocents. It painted a target on their backs that only worsened overtime and to save their family left.

Lily is a "mundane" and close friends with Marlene and James until Marlene goes missing. Lily is kind of like the Simon equivalent, James and her stay close together, even more so since they never saw Marlene again, and even when James gets dragged into the world Lily sticks by him. Even when she accidentally drinks the wrong thing at a warlock party, ends up as a mouse, and gets turned into a vampire.

at least those were the ideas I had about it

[thiolliers-consort]

Andrew Kreiss x Reader general HCs

written with male reader in mind

Warnings: he/they for Andrew, mental illness, meltdowns, mention of violent behavior/force (there will be a cut before the section including these mentions), lightly implied neurodivergent Andrew, no beta reader (we die like men)

🪦 Andrew has never felt 100% attached to the identity that everyone else assigned to him. Everyone at the manor avoided him, not including his small circle of people that checked up on them occasionally.

🪦 when you had came along to the manor, you were immediately drawn to him. You couldn’t put your finger on it, but it was just something about them that captivated you. You speculate that maybe you see a bit of yourself in him.

🪦 Andrew tries to force himself into social situations with you at first. He’s not shy by any means, but he’s definitely not kind. The main reason why he keeps himself removed from everyone else is because he doesn’t want to offend anyone.

🪦 it is extremely easy to be Andrew’s friend. They value loyalty and honesty more than anything, but there’s no other requirements. Unless you’re super disrespectful and gossip a lot. Obviously, it’s a no for him.

🪦 the best dynamic I think you could ever have with Andrew is one that leans more on the platonic edge. He enjoys playful banter, but he’s not good at conveying any other emotion that isn’t disdain. If you two could go the rest of your lives pretending that you both hate eachother, he’d consider that a valuable relationship.

🪦 he acts drastically different based on his status. If he’s sick, he has no shame or embarrassment. He is much more blunt when it comes to his needs, but he isn’t as snappy like he usually is,

🪦 tired-drew is very similar. He’s much more physically affectionate, but he has a very sour way of speaking to you. If you were anyone else, your feelings might be hurt, but you simply just get sour right back at him.

🪦 there’s never really a time where he is “jubilant”, especially when you’re early on in your relationship. The only time you can get close is when you smother him. They will allow you to do such things to them, but you will need to be able to get your hands on him first.

🪦 Physical touch is good when he’s receiving, but do not ever expect for him to give you physical affection. He would much rather give you things and spend time with you then have to hold you.

🪦 he is extremely insecure, you need to remember this. As much as he prefers the platonic aspects of your relationship, he still needs to know that you do in fact love him and that you’re not just lonely.

🪦 he asks you a lot of questions, and he will remember all of your responses. He wonders a lot if he was just your only option, so the questions will be exactly like those stupid questions that people will ask their significant others.

“If I switched brains with ______ and you had to choose between me in their body or them in my body, who would you choose?”

“You in their body.”

“So you think they’re more attractive?”

Under cut: potentially triggering topics such as mental illness, mental breakdowns, meltdowns, and potential violent behavior (lashing out at a partner for crossing boundaries)

🪦 there are a lot of things you need to deal with that aren’t exactly positive, aside from the insecurity. Mental breakdowns and Anxious meltdowns are frequent, and they will need their space for awhile.

🪦 people who experience these can one hundred percent get violent. It does not matter how much Andrew loves you or how much you love him, do not be the person that kisses someone while they’re in mental distress. You both will end up getting hurt.

🪦 Andrew will not be afraid to use force against you if you get to close to him or touch him in any way while he is in these states, and he will not feel sorry. He might feel guilty, but unless he actually gets aggressive or violent, he finds no need to apologize.

🪦 in a lot of his meltdowns or really any time he isn’t doing good mentally, he does get the encouragement from his mind to just leave you, and he will at that moment. You can try to use logic with him, but it will not work. All you need to do is wait for this to pass and be there for him when he comes back to you (it takes him about a day or two, nothing crazy).

🪦 he cannot be with someone that isn’t patient. He is a patient person when it comes to people with similar needs or issues as him. If you are someone who experiences any type of stress or mental breakdowns similar to him, he is extremely patient.

🪦 this man does not have much self respect, but if they do notice that you two will do nothing but hurt eachother, he will walk out. You two can stay friends maybe, depending on the situation, but he will not stay with someone who will do nothing but hurt him or vice versa.

[mandos-mind-trick]

Cabur

Summary: Twelve years ago the animal representing your soulmate appeared in your home. You finally get to meet him when his battalion arrives to help defend your planet from the droid army.

Pairing: Commander Wolffe x reader Soulmate AU

Warnings: NSFW, smut, unprotected sex, oral, fingering, injuries, brief mention of animal injury but it's not serious, a bit of angst, reader is a BAMF but it doesn't really get shown cause I'm garbage at action scenes, some mentioned PTSD at the end.

A/N: Sooooo this may be my sign to stick to only writing for the Bad Batch boys cause this is garbage. Turns out I'm not good at writing other clones. Also I wrote the smut before eating breakfast so if it's entirely indecipherable please forgive me.

Also Mide is pronounced Mee-deh.

MASTERLIST

It’s become a sort of legend within the GAR. 

The clone who rides into battle on the back of a Nexu. 

It’s a bit ridiculous. He doesn’t ride the Nexu. But, they are never far from each other.

No one ever dares to ask. 

Most of them already know. 

The others are too scared. 

The only one that had asked was the General, which was forgiven since he probably didn’t expect his second in command to be closely trailed by a Nexu when they met for the first time. 

His soulmate link, Wolffe had explained to his General. One of the rarest, where each soulmate is accompanied by the animal that represents their soulmate. The Kaminoans had been rather shocked when shortly after he was taken from his growth chamber, a fully grown Nexu appeared in the room. The feline had been entirely tame, until the Kaminoans had tried to separate them because clones were not allowed to pursue their soulmates due to some of the early clones deserting for their soulmates. 

Separation hadn’t worked, as the Nexu proceeded to rampage through the halls of Tipoca City until she was reunited with Wolffe. Only Wolffe could seem to control her, and so the Kaminoans begrudgingly allowed the Nexu to stay. 

She learned quickly, coming to Wolffe’s defense even during training. It didn’t take long for Wolffe to teach her how to fight, and how to take down droids. She never hesitated, even after the war started, fearlessly following him into even the ugliest battles. 

He had spent much of his free time thinking about his soulmate. They’re obviously a fierce fighter, given the predatory nature of Nexu. Strong and brave. He often wondered what kind of animal they have that represents him. 

***

The last thing you had been expecting twelve years ago was a loth-wolf pup to show up in the middle of your home. 

It had appeared out of nowhere, startling both you and your parents. You hadn’t known what it was at first, until a quick search had directed you to the supposedly extinct loth-wolf. Why it had appeared suddenly in your home...that was another quick search. 

Your soulmate link. 

You had always wondered what it might be, seeing as you had no mark or strange dreams, or any of the other typical links between soulmates. Developing this late, though, was confusing. You didn’t think much about it, though. Fate was not something to question. Everything would make sense eventually. Your people believed that fate drove every decision, every event in your life. Everything happens for a reason, all directed by fate’s design. 

Already twice the size of a tooka, the pup grew quickly, outgrowing your parents hut. It grew big enough to ride within a couple years and you often did. When you moved into your own hut, you built it big enough to fit you and your wolf comfortably. 

You often wondered about your soulmate. Who they are, what they’re doing, what kind of animal they have. You wonder how you’ll meet. Will they come here? Your people don’t leave your planet often. Aside from the few who show great prowess for politics and get sent to represent you in the senate, not many else leave. Your people prefer simple, quiet lives. Though you have technology, most of your food is grown or hunted, and your medicine is a practice that’s been passed down for generations. 

You had thought perhaps you were meant to leave, that you would meet your soulmate somewhere else. Your strength, however, was not in politics. You were a natural fighter. So instead you stayed on the planet, defending your village and hunting to provide food. Maybe you weren’t meant to find your soulmate elsewhere. Perhaps your soulmate was in one of the other villages. 

You think that, until the war starts. 

Your planet is mostly untouched for two years. There was no strategic reasoning to invade your planet, other than simply being part of the Republic. It keeps your planet untouched, at least until the Separatists begin to get desperate. 

Word reaches you one morning of a droid army approaching one of the neighboring villages. It had landed two days ago and it was slowly burning its way through village after village. They had already reached out to the Republic for assistance, but they were already stretched as it was. 

You don’t give up hope. 

You’re right not to. 

Two days after the message had been sent, they arrived. The roar of gunships is loud as troops drop in at the next village over from yours. You were already there, preparing defenses for when the inevitable attack began. They’d already burned through the village to the North. You had scouted over the hill earlier, and had spotted the dust cloud kicked up by the army’s movements. Fighters from surrounding villages have gathered, but it’s not nearly enough. 

The clones arrive like a blessing from the Maker. 

You’re glad to see them, even if some of them stare and whisper as you pass. You know they’re not staring at you. They’re staring at your wolf. Loth-wolves are supposed to be extinct, so actually seeing one would be a bit shocking. Even more so, seeing one outside of Lothal. 

You had been called to the village leader’s hut, which was being used for battle planning. The village leader had chosen you as her second in command, since you were one of the best fighters. You were also one of the few still alive that had seen battle before. 

Not every village on the planet was as interested in peace as the others. One such village had decided to attack a neighboring village out of nothing but greed shortly before the galactic war started. Fighters from across the planet had been called to aid in the fight, and you had been one of them. The most battle you’d seen back then had been on hunting trips. Though you were skilled, you’d never actually fought before. 

It had been terrifying, but you had quickly proved your skills and your ability to stay calm under pressure. You had made a name for yourself, and had carried that still to this day. 

Most of the more experienced fighters had been sent ahead to try and aid other villages, but it had been fruitless. The droid army had wiped out both the fighters, and some innocent villagers caught in the crossfire. 

This village had been evacuated, and it was going to be the last stand against the droid army. If they couldn’t be defeated, then the planet was lost. The arrival of the clones to aid you had renewed hope in the possibility of securing your planet and its safety once more. There would be a lot to do, a lot to rebuild after, but now there was hope you would get to do so. 

You make your way towards the hut, your wolf running ahead. It’s strange, usually he never left your side unless you told him to. He had been acting strangely all day. You had blamed it on the nervous energy in the village, and the approaching army. Everyone had been a bit on edge, and being an animal, he could likely pick up on it more than anyone. 

You hear a commotion as you approach the hut, finding your wolf cornering one of the clones. Your eyes widen, thinking the worst, and you hurry over. Some of the clones are laughing by the time you reach them, and you realize your wolf is licking this clone. 

“Mide,” You pull on the fur at his neck to try and get him to stop. His tail is wagging, creating a breeze behind him. “Mide, stop.” 

The hair at the back of your neck stands straight, a loud growl reaching your ears. You turn, eyes widening as you stare into four red eyes and a wide mouth full of sharp fangs. 

You scramble back, the Nexu following you. You’ve never seen one in person before, only read about them. They’re not native to this planet, so how did this one get here? And why doesn’t anyone else seem afraid of it?

“Cabur.” The stern voice of the clone reaches your ears. “Cabur, stand down.” 

The Nexu doesn’t respond, crouching as it prepares to pounce. Do you run? You can’t outrun a Nexu. Why isn’t anyone trying to help? Why isn’t Mide helping? 

The Nexu pounces, knocking you off your feet. You close your eyes, preparing for those teeth to sink into your skin, rip away at your flesh until you bleed out. 

Something wet and rough drags across your skin from your shoulder to the top of your head. Your eyes snap open in surprise. Is the Nexu...licking you? 

It licks you again, leaving a wet, gooey trail along your skin. 

“Easy, girl.” The clone pets its head, trying to nudge it back. 

It steps back reluctantly, its own tail swishing back and forth as it watches you. A hand appears in your line of sight and you take it, the clone hauling you to your feet easily. You brush the dirt off, wiping the Nexu spit from your face. 

“Sorry about her.” The clone says. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her today.” 

“It’s alright. Mide has been weird all day too. He’s never run away from me like that before.” You stare up at him, taking in his face. 

His face is stern, pinched a bit in focus. There’s a scar stretching from his forehead to his cheek, his eye having been replaced with a cybernetic one. He’s handsome, as you assume all the clones would be. 

“Is she yours?” You ask, breaking the silence between you. 

“It’s my soulmate link.” He says. “I’ve had her since I came out of my growth chamber.” 

“Oh.” You say, blinking in surprise. “Mide’s also my soulmate link. Appeared about twelve years ago.” 

“Really.” He says, giving you a strange look. 

Before you can continue the conversation, the village leader and who you assume is the Jedi General approach you. 

“I see you two have already met.” The Kel Dor says. 

You glance at the clone for a moment as the village leader introduces you to General Plo Koon and Commander Wolffe. 

“Come,” The General says. “We have much to discuss, and little time to do so.” 

***

“What’s her name?” You ask as you and Commander Wolffe make your way into position. His Nexu is walking beside you, trotting along happily. Mide is walking beside Wolffe, looking perfectly content. 

“Cabur.” Wolffe answers. “It’s Mando’a. It means guardian or protector.” 

“Fitting name.” You say. 

“She’s saved my life a few times.” He pats Mide’s side. “What about him?” 

“Mide. He’s a mythical warrior who protected our people. He rode to war with the sigil of a wolf on his helmet.” 

The corner of Wolffe’s mouth lifts. “Aptly named.” 

You both stop, having reached the point you have to go separate ways. You mount Mide, looking down at Wolffe. “See you when the battle’s done?” 

Wolffe nods, patting Mide’s neck. “Take care of her.” 

Mide huffs out a breath, nodding his head just slightly as if agreeing. He would, even without having to be asked. 

You know. Even without having to say anything you know. Just Mide’s reaction was enough to tell you. The link is so rare, and to have someone else with the same link suddenly appear on your planet like this...

It’s not just a coincidence. 

Mide runs to your position, and you watch as the cloud of dust that the droid army was kicking up gets closer and closer, flashes of blue and red gradually disappearing as dust envelops the valley. 

***

You’re covered in dirt, but you’re alive. 

With the help of the clones, you had stopped the droid army from advancing much further, protecting the village. It had been a long battle, lasting into the night. The stars are out by the time you return to the village, weary after a long battle unlike any you’ve ever been in. 

No squabble between villages will ever compare to that. 

You had seen Wolffe shortly after your return to the village, nothing more than a passing glance across the fire as you’d helped both injured villagers and troopers. You’re both alive, you’re both alright. You had spotted Cabur slinking around the village, unharmed due to her training in fighting droids. Mide’s white fur is streaked with dirt, his feet and nose scratched from the droids, but he’s otherwise uninjured. 

You’ll give him a big, juicy cut of meat later. 

You’re cleaning the cut on his nose when you hear the footsteps approaching. Mide’s head lifts, ears perking and tail wagging as he sees who it is. Something brushes against your side, Cabur purring as she makes herself comfortable next to Mide. Wolffe approaches you, and you take a moment to look him over. His armor is streaked with dirt, but he’s otherwise uninjured. 

“Good to see you.” You say, smiling softly. 

He steps right up to you, gloved fingers grazing over the bandage wrapped around your arm. 

“It’s just a scratch.” You say, skin tingling as his fingers continue to trail down your arm before dropping back to his side. “We’re not used to fighting droids.” 

“You’re, uh...quite the fighter.” He says. “I think a Nexu was the perfect choice.” 

Your cheeks warm a bit. You think the ferocious Nexu might be a bit of an exaggeration. It’s a compliment, though, that he thinks your skills are worthy of that representation. The loth-wolf is the perfect representation of him. He has the same dangerous gaze as Mide, the same fierce loyalty. The stern and serious battle-ready commander.  

“Us clones...it’s forbidden for us to initiate the soulmate bond.” He says. 

Your stomach clenches a bit at his words. You hadn’t even thought...you hadn’t even considered. You hadn’t had time to. Everything had been happening so quickly. You had never given consideration to the idea that your soulmate might not want you. Much less that he might have to reject you. All those daydreams, all those thoughts about what your life could be like with them...they’ve been nothing but fantasies and they might never be anything but. 

“Most of us don’t agree.” He continues. “We all have an agreement not to say anything, not to report anything.” 

“But...what if someone finds out?” 

“We have to be careful so no one does.” He takes your hand, slipping something into it. “We’re preparing to leave. We already have our next orders.” 

Your shoulders sink a bit. Of course they’re very busy. The war has been taking a turn. The attack against your planet is just proof of this. Having time with him right now is just another fantasy. 

You walk with him to the gunships, taking your time as troopers load up around you. He turns, patting Mide on the nose as you reach one of the ships. Mide lets out a quiet whine, his ears falling. 

You squat in front of Cabur, petting her head. “Take care of him, yeah?” She lets out a quiet sound, licking your cheek once more. You stand back up, facing Wolffe. “Come back? When the war’s over?” 

He nods once and you stand up on your toes, kissing his cheek. He stares down at you long and hard for a moment before stepping away, sliding his helmet on. You watch as he boards the gunship, following it with your eyes as long as you can as it disappears into the sky. 

You open your hand, looking down at what he’d slipped into it. A smile tugs at your lips as you stare at the item. 

A comm device. 

***

It’s been almost a year since the battle, since you met your soulmate. You’ve spoken as often as you can through the comm device, but for the last three months it’s been very quiet. You’ve gone stretches without speaking, but never this long. 

You try not to worry. 

The war had ended three months ago, around the time you had seemingly lost contact. You suppose with the restructuring of the Republic into the Empire and the sudden end to the war, things have gotten complicated for the clones. It could just be he hasn’t had a good time to step aside and secretly contact you. Despite your attempted reasoning, you can’t help but feel nervous about the sudden silence.

You’ve been keeping yourself busy helping the survivors from the destroyed villages resettle with other villages. While the army had been destroyed, the valley had become a wasteland of destroyed droids and the remnants from the battle. New huts were built and families integrated peacefully into new villages. The Senate had sent some relief, but it could only do so much. Homes could be rebuilt and crops replanted, but lives couldn’t be replaced. 

You’ve buried far too many dead. 

You try not to think your soulmate may be one of them. 

He’s not. You know he’s not. You would have felt it. Mide would have died with him. Still, the thought haunts you. How easily he could be taken from you, and you barely got to know him. 

Fate will make it work in the end. You try to remind yourself of that. 

***

You’re out hunting when it happens. 

Nearly four months since the end of the war, a year since you met your soulmate. You had been scouting the hills when you’d heard it. You’d moved your binocs to the sky, watching as a starfighter streaked across the sky like a smoking comet straight towards the trees just a few meters away. 

The crash is loud, the trees shaking with the impact. Mide immediately takes off, darting into the trees. It’s not like him, still always sticking close to your side. 

“Mide!” You call, immediately running after him. 

Your heart is pounding in your chest. It couldn’t be...could it? You hadn’t seen any identifying markers on the ship, the smoke too dense around it to see. It could be anyone, or anything. 

If it wasn’t, Mide wouldn’t have run off like that. 

You duck into the undergrowth, following the path broken by your wolf. You freeze instinctively as a low growl reaches your ears. You know that growl. 

Your breath catches in your throat. “Cabur?” 

The Nexu steps out of the bushes, tail swishing as she looks at you. It’s her. You know it. You drop to a knee, patting her head as she greets you. 

It’s him. It’s really him. 

Mide breaks through the bushes, dragging a limp body with his teeth. He drags the body over to you, letting him go gently. Wolffe’s body lays limp on the ground. There’s charred marks on his armor, likely from the crash. You push him over onto his back, staring down at his helmet. You trace the markings with your fingers, the same markings you remember. 

A sob threatens to tear from your lips as you slip your fingers under the edge of his helmet, tugging it off. You cup the back of his head, lowering it gently to the ground. 

He’s unconscious but still breathing. 

Mide lays next to Wolffe, looking at you sadly. Cabur nudges his foot, letting out a quiet whine. He’s injured, likely worse than it looks if he crashed a starfighter. You need to get him back to the village, and soon. 

You’re sweating by the time you maneuver him onto Mide’s back, climbing on behind him. You hold him as Mide runs through the trees and back up the hill towards the village. Cabur keeps pace easily, miraculously mostly uninjured from the crash. 

You guide Mide into your hut, easing Wolffe off his back and onto your bed. You begin the tedious process of removing his armor, figuring out how to get each piece off and carefully stacking it in the corner. You peel the body glove off next, revealing his chest covered in bruises.

You head to your kitchen, grabbing herbs and a bowl, beginning to mash them into a paste as you’ve done a hundred times. You mix a tonic as well, moving back to his side before spreading the mixture across his chest, making sure to cover each bruise. You place bandages over each spot, letting the herbs do their work. You cup his neck, lifting his head a bit to help him drink the tonic. You can feel it, the pulsing energy from where your fingers are pressed against the skin of his neck. 

He’s really here, right in front of you. Crashed right out of the sky, practically into your lap. 

Mide curls up on his blanket, Cabur making herself comfortable beside him. You sit by Wolffe’s side, tending to him as you let the medicine work its way through his body. You only leave to make dinner and feed the animals before you’re sitting back at his side. 

You grab his pauldron, tracing the image of the wolf with your fingers. The grey paint around the edges is slightly worn, more than it had been the last time you’d seen him. It’s hard to believe he’s really here. After four months of nothing, no sign that he’s alive and alright, no word on what’s happening aside from what was broadcasted on the news...four months of thinking the worst. 

You trace his face with your fingers, allowing yourself to feel him. He’s really here. He’s real. 

You stay by his side through the night, changing out the herbs as they dry. You nap a few times, trusting the animals to alert you if something happens. 

He begins to stir around sunrise. You’d been checking his wounds, already mostly healed. You put a gentle hand on his shoulder as he shifts, his eyes cracking open. 

“It’s alright.” You say, tracing gentle circles on his skin with your thumb. “You’re safe.” 

He breathes your name like a prayer, his eyes slipping closed for a moment as he relaxes. 

“I’m here.” You whisper, sliding your hand up to cup his cheek. “I’ve got you.” 

“I said I would.” He murmurs, turning his head to kiss your palm. “I said I’d come back.” 

You shush him gently. “And you have.” 

You get him sitting up, leaning against the wall. You feed him some soup after both Mide and Cabur greet him happily. He tells you about everything that happened since the war ended. He tells you about the Jedi and the inhibitor chips, deserting the Empire and getting his chip removed. He tells you about his fight to get here, and almost not making it. 

You try not to think about it, relishing in the face he did make it. He is sitting here with you. You can see the pain in his eyes, the guilt. You can practically feel the sadness radiating from him. Your heart aches for him. He’s lost so much, and so much has changed so quickly. You can’t even imagine what it must have been like. What it must feel like for him. 

You hold him, wrapping yourself around him. His bruises are almost completely healed, his strength returning as he holds you, his face pressed against your chest. Cabur creeps her way over, stretching herself out across your laps. Wolffe chuckles, patting her head. You tangle a hand on her fur, holding Wolffe with the other. 

***

Wolffe settles into life in the village easily. He’s welcomed, not only as your soulmate, but also as a hero who helped save many lives. He accompanies you on hunts, learning as much about your culture as he can. 

You settle into life with him easily too, adjusting to his presence like he’s been there the whole time. You’re glad your hut is on the edge of the village, as you’re both also rather insatiable. You have a year to make up for. A year of yearning and longing to make up for. 

And you certainly do. 

A body presses against yours as you finish loading the dishes in the sanitizer. You can feel him, every bit of his body through his thin shirt and soft pants. He’s softened a bit from the hardened soldier that had crash landed back into your life. You won’t complain. After the things you’ve heard, you’re happy he’s finally healthy and well taken care of. 

You can also feel how hard he is against your ass. 

His arms snake around your waist as you toss the dish towel on the counter. His lips trail up your neck, dragging along the soft skin. 

“Miss me that much?” You ask, pressing back against him teasingly. 

“Always.” He murmurs, pressing a kiss below your ear. 

One of his hands snakes under your shirt, slowly sliding up your stomach, straight towards your breasts. You’re glad you ditched your breastband earlier as his warm hand cups your breast. He hums against your neck in approval, skilled fingers plucking at your nipple as he paints your skin with marks from his teeth. 

“Wolffe,” You sigh his name as he switches breasts, giving the other one equal attention. 

His other hand slips down your stomach, dipping into your pants. You’ve been wet in anticipation since his arms wrapped around you, his fingers gliding through your slick folds. Your legs tremble as he slowly circles your clit with the rough pads of his fingers. 

“So wet for me, cyare.” He murmurs against your neck, slipping two of his fingers into you. 

“Yes,” You breathe, tilting your head back against his shoulder. “Only for you.” 

He growls quietly against your neck, pulling his hands free. He tugs your pants down before lifting you onto the kitchen counter. You pull your shirt over your head, tossing it to the floor. He tugs your hips closer to the edge, kneeling in front of you. Your fingers tangle in his hair, still kept in the regulation cut. He sometimes lets his stubble grow out, and you’re still trying to convince him to grow a beard just to see how it would look. 

He licks a stripe up your clit, hands pressing against your thighs to keep them open for him. His tongue swirls around your clit, his eyes lifted to stare at your face. Your lips part in a moan as he closes his mouth against your clit, sucking hard. Your free hand grips the edge of the counter, holding on as he eats you out. 

Your first few times together had been awkward and fumbling as you tried to figure each other out. It had taken lots of practice, and many laughs, to learn each other’s bodies. What you like, what you don’t, what he likes. How to make him putty in your hands. He’s still just as stern and dominating as he had been as a commander, but you know deep down he sometimes needs someone else to take control, someone else to give the orders. Someone he trusts. 

Your legs are shaking around his head, your own head thrown back in pleasure as he brings you closer and closer to the edge. The noises are absolutely obscene as he slurps at your drenched pussy like he’s gone days without water. 

He pulls away before you can cum, making you whine in protest. 

His chin is slick with your juices, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. You reach forward, yanking his shirt over his head. Your fingers trail along the soft curves of his body, lips pressing kisses against his skin. His hands undo his pants, letting them drop to the floor. 

You bite your lip, your hand wrapping around his hard length. His hands drop to your thighs, resting there as you pump him. You meet his gaze, staring into his eyes as you guide him forward and into your heat. You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him all the way in. A moan tumbles from your lips at the stretch, your arms wrapping around his shoulders to hold him as close as you possibly can. 

His arms wrap around your back, lips pressing a gentle kiss to your temple. You both breathe for a moment, enjoying being so close, so connected to each other. You bury your face in his neck, breathing in the scent of him. Musky and sweaty from being out in the warmth of the day working. 

He adjusts his grip on you, holding you up as he begins to move. You meet his thrusts, tilting your head up to kiss him. It’s slow and soft, quiet moans passing between your lips. You hold onto him like you’re afraid he might disappear if you let go, like you might suddenly wake and find this has all been a dream. 

His own fingers indent your skin, sharing your same fears. You know he’s here, you know it’s real, and he knows it’s real, but still, neither of you can forget the year you had been separated, the many times he could have died, the many times he could have been ripped from you. 

“‘M close.” You murmur against his lips, nails breaking the skin of his shoulders. 

“Gonna cum for me?” He growls, snapping his hips into yours. “Show me how pretty you look when you cum?” 

Your head falls back, lips parted as you cum around his cock, moaning loudly. He watches you, memorizing your face. He’ll never forget it, but he commits it to memory every time. 

A few more thrusts and he’s cumming with a growl, snapping his hips into yours a final time as he releases inside of you. You hold him against you, both of you riding out your highs together. 

His hold around you is tight, clinging to you. You’re both breathing heavily, breaths mingling as he presses his forehead against yours. Your hands gently rub his shoulders, working your way up his neck and into his hair. 

“You’re right here.” You whisper, lips brushing his. “I’m right here.” 

He exhales shakily, fingers tightening their grip just slightly. 

You press a soft kiss to his lips. “I’ve got you.” 

@stressed-cherry, @6oceansofmoons,  @ladytano420 @spicy-clones, @dangraccoon, @bobaprint, @star-trekker-0013, @stunkbiggu

[doberbutts]

Hi jaz! I know u dont post docking/cropping disc horse on ur blog so if ur ok with it i was hoping u'd be ok answering this privately. Im really really not looking for discourse i was just very curious on what your particular stance on docking/cropping was. There are like obviously advantages and disadvantages for both that I've seen on your blog (from various opinions) but I've only irl met dob owners who are VERY against docking and cropping. Sometimes i see like u reblogged a post of a puppy with docked bandaged ears and i was like "huh! Interesting!" So way less of like a trying to start a discourse thing and more of like. Do you prefer docked or not docked? Do u support docking for any specific reason or not, like i know it used to be so they wouldn't get grabbed or something like that. Sorry if this sounds weird or super blunt im autistic and really terrible at wording things gently,, i've just seen both sides talked about and was wondering like what u thought as a professional dog trainer who's opinion I trust. Its more about personal curiosity than any discourse attempt but also also if u aren't comfortable discussing it at all then no pressure!! Like i dont wanna make u discuss something ur like "damn this is gonna be triggering to talk about" i never want to do that to u.

Thank u for taking the time to read :)

I'm actually fine posting this one publicly, only because I've stated it several times before on this very blog:

I do not give a fuck what other people do with their dogs as long as it is legal within their country and the owner is doing their best to be compassionate and fair to their animals. That can be interpreted whatever way anyone wants it to be.

In other words, someone who makes the decision to have their dog's ears cropped under the care of a vet or who purchases a dog with already cropped ears? Who gives a shit. Not me. Someone who takes a pair of scissors to their dog's ears at home? That person is an asshole and I hate them.

Very few doberman breeders in this country will allow a puppy to go home without cropping the ears or docking the tail. I am not sure if that puppy's breeder counts among them, as I have very little interest in purchasing a dog from her and thus don't know much about that part of her program. The pedigrees are simply not what I feel holds the future of the breed in terms of efforts for longevity combined with working ability, so I simply look elsewhere.

It is worth mentioning that the two fully natural dogs I have had, with one still living, come from countries in which the practice is either banned or so heavily restricted it may as well be banned. If someone is serious about wanting a fully natural doberman, most people will need to import.

I know of less than 10 breeders within this country who would allow the same thing, and of them I think I would only purchase from maybe 2 of them, and *both* of those people would only sell a fully natural dog to me because they know who I am. Someone unknown to them is still getting a cropped and docked dog.

For my own dogs, I avoid all potentially painful procedures that are not medically necessary. This does include cropping and docking, both of which are surgeries and all surgeries do have at least some pain associated with them. However I also don't spay or neuter my dogs for the same reason. When it becomes medically necessary, I will consider surgery. Until then, I will not. Thankfully, I was able to find someone who was willing to play ball with that, and that is why I have had a couple natural dogs. My dobermans prior to that were not, because I was not able to find someone, because they simply didn't exist in this country and I was a poor college kid unable to import.

[xmads-omensx]

DAY 4 - MOVIE MARATHON

Word Count: 1,121

Pairing: Matt Dierkes X Reader

Content Warnings: none

Tags: lma1986

Matt wasn’t exactly the most enthusiastic about the concept of Christmas. Sure, he enjoyed the cozy atmosphere and the cooler weather, but Christmas itself wasn’t something he was that fussed about.

I, however, really liked Christmas. It wasn’t my favourite holiday ever, but I really liked the vibe it gave off.

The lights, the music, the eggnog, the hot chocolate, but most importantly, I was a massive fan of Christmas movies.

Upon learning about Matt’s lack of enthusiasm towards them, I knew I had to intervene, because how can you not like Christmas movies?

Our tradition of Friday night date night was drawing near and it was my turn to plan it. I had spent the best part of the week collecting the best Christmas movies that I thought Matt would enjoy. I tried to gather different genres as well, just so he could get a feel of more movies.

The first movie on the list was Die Hard. I felt that starting Matt off with a more action-based one would start it lightly, as that was one of his preferred genres.

Friday rolled around quickly.

Matt arrived at my house with Boo and Zeus who were both kitted out in adorable matching red Christmas jumpers.

“I thought you’d like them.” Matt said with a loving smile as he pulled away from our hug, before leaning down to place a kiss on my lips.

“They look adorable.” I laughed, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the sofa. I had already laid out snacks and hot chocolate on the coffee table for us to share, and I was quite proud of it if I’m being honest.

“You seem excited.” Matt remarked with a laugh as I practically pulled him onto the sofa.

“I just love Christmas movies. They’re the best part of Christmas.” I laughed in reply, snuggling into his side and pointing the remote at the television.

Matt knew we were having a Christmas movie marathon, so came prepared in plaid pyjama bottoms and a white t-shirt. Obviously he had one of his signature caps on, but he would have to wait until Christmas Eve to get a Christmas cap.

As Die Hard played on the TV, I couldn’t help but fiddle with Matt’s fingers that I had moved into my lap and I had, by this point, practically curled myself around his hand.

Matt rested his cheek on the top of my head as the movie played. The silence that fell upon the room, besides Zeus snoring on the floor, was comfortable. I almost never wanted it to end.

By the time the credits were rolling, I just wanted to watch a romcom, which I knew Matt hated.

“Sooo…” I started.

“Sooo…” Matt joked in return.

“What did you think?” I asked.

“It actually wasn’t half bad.” He laughed.

“Yeah?” I asked happily.

“Yeah. I liked it.” Matt replied.

“So you’re down to keep the Christmas movies coming?” I asked hopefully.

“If that will make you happy, my love, then I will allow you to torture me with your sappy movies.” He replied, leaning in to place a loving kiss on my lips.

I giggled and grabbed the remote once again.

I decided that Christmas With the Kranks would be a safe bet. I thought Matt would like it, simply because his attitude towards Christmas reminded me slightly of the Dad in the movie.

Once again, I curled up into his side as he wrapped his arm around me. using the other hand to pet Boo.

We laughed through most of the movie, which surprised me because I genuinely didn’t think Matt would laugh at it. However, as we got closer to the end of the movie, I could feel my eyes begin to well up with tears. I always cried during Christmas movies. I couldn’t help it.

Matt must’ve noticed as his arm tightened around me.

By the time the movie had ended and the credits were rolling, Matt had passed me the box of tissues that had taken up permanent residence on my coffee table from the sad music I liked to listen to, my Attack on Titan rewatches, and the countless girls nights that ended up in crying in my living room.

“You okay?” Matt whispered once the credits had finished rolling.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I croaked out, sitting up and stretching my arms out.

“You sure, babe.” He started rubbing my back.

“Yeah I’m sure. I just like to cry to Christmas movies apparently.” I said with a laugh, holding a tissue up to my eye.

Matt laughed and kissed the top of my head before pulling me into his chest and holding me there for a few moments.

It was now dark outside, so was getting late.

“Do you want to stay the night?” I asked quietly.

“If that’s okay?” Matt replied in a whisper.

Both the dogs were completely out cold by this point.

I simply nodded my head and grabbed Matt’s hand, pulling up to stand after me.

He helped me to put away the uneaten snacks and the now dirty dishes. It didn’t take long before we were both walking up the stairs to bed.

With a yawn, I began to undress and pull on my pyjamas, whilst Matt simply undressed to his boxers and crawled into bed.

I climbed in alongside him and snuggled into his arms, which tightened around me.

Something hard bumped the top of my head, and looking up I realised what it was.

“Matt, my love, you forgot something.” I hinted.

“Oh how could I forget.” He replied and leaned in to kiss me.

I laughed loudly.

“No, you dumbass, try again.” I replied.

He simply gave me a look of pure confusion as he thought about what he could have possibly forgotten.

He clearly wasn’t going to catch on, so I reached up to the top of his head and pulled his cap off. A look of realisation crossed his features as he noticed what was in my hand.

I placed the cap on my nightstand and we shared a look for a moment before we both burst out laughing.

“Come here loser.” He sighed, pulling me into his chest.

I giggled in response.

“Thanks, for today, I really enjoyed it.” Matt whispered after a moment of silence.

“Me too.” I replied sleepily.

“I guess I like Christmas movies now.” He said.

That was the last thing I heard before falling into a deep sleep.

I awoke the next morning to find Matt downstairs with Zeus and Boo watching Miracle on 34th Street. He claimed it was for research to make me happy. Ut I knew that deep down he really did enjoy Christmas movies.

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