#it would never happen and i think it would make both of them worse but i wanna see it anyways

[luveline]

does eddie know about reader getting kidnapped in the steve zombie au? i feel like it would freak him out and also he’d totally understand steve’s fussing now. i can imagine maybe robin mentioning it passing and eddie asks steve and they discuss it in hushed whispers away from r, steve finally opening up to eddie and dropping the jealousy even if for a moment.

afterwards, eddie is a bit more protective with r and she’s confused? at night when theyre cuddling before bed, she mentions it to steve and he’s get this guilty look on his face and tells her what happened. i’m just not over the whole kidnapping debacle i cant lie. it was intense and poor reader must still suffer from the pain.

thank you for requesting!! zombie au | fem, 2.5k

cw mentions of abduction and dark themes

“How long have they actually been together?” Eddie asks. 

He asks out of boredom, mostly, but there’s something else —when you and Steve first got here, together, after Eddie found you looking for antibiotics and so bravely saved Harrington’s life— he assumed you and Steve were new lovers. The way he was with you pointed to a honeymoon stage in full flux. Even now the question gets asked because he sort of can’t believe you and Steve are nearing the two year mark. In apocalypse years, that’s basically twenty. 

“Since the start, pretty much. Steve says she liked him for a while and he fell for her hard a couple of months before they found me,” Robin says, letting her book rest tented across her chest. 

If Robin weren’t a homosexual, and Eddie also weren’t a homosexual (maybe, he’s not fully decided), he thinks she’d be the girl for him. You're taken, but Eddie likes being your friend too much to care anyhow. 

“Why…” 

Across the grass, just out of hearing distance, Steve is tipping your head back. Sat behind you, talking to you, his hand held carefully against the front of your neck, thumb poking into your chin guiding you back. He looks worried. You laugh in his face and free fall backwards until you’re both laying in the dirt, your back to his chest and Steve’s spine to the ground. 

“He gets really worried about her. Like, all the time.” 

“Well, she got hurt pretty bad. If I remember it right, she fell two stories and didn’t wake up for a few days.” 

Eddie’s never heard that story. He’s heard about you getting locked in a fridge with a geek, and that you and Steve got chased by a gang of scroungers by the I-65, but, “She fell two stories?” he asks, “And she’s alive?” 

“That’s not even the worst of it,” she says with a laugh. “You know how she got the nickname killer?” 

Eddie shakes his head, ‘cos he does, and he doesn’t want the funny story, he wants to know what the hell happened to his friend. “What’s the worst of it?” 

Robin realises he’s being serious and stops laughing. It’s not like she thought it was funny that you got hurt, but it wasn’t like you were in any real danger. But Eddie’s like a bloodhound. There’s a story here and he knows it and he needs to hear it, worse when Robin stays quiet for a long time. 

“A couple of weeks after they got to the College, we had to go get her.” Robin digs her hand behind her back. “There was a man, he… sort of faked his death? And he took her.” 

“He faked his death and kidnapped Y/N?” Eddie asks, shellshocked. 

“He faked his death to kidnap her.” 

“What? Why?” 

Robin frowns at Eddie severely. “He was Steve’s partner for patrol. He was too interested in her, asked a bunch of questions Steve wouldn’t answer, and then he disappeared. We assumed he’d wandered off and died like an idiot.”

“But he didn’t?” 

“No, he… God, Eddie, I thought she would’ve told you all this stuff.” 

Eddie shrugs. Part of your charm is your poor self-esteem, he teases, how cool you are and how terrified of being a loser you seem to be, despite the inevitability of being both. Everyone Eddie loves is a massive loser, and that’s what makes them his kind of person. 

Your friendship is an honest one, but it doesn’t mean you’re forthcoming. 

“He only had her for a day,” Robin says. “I shouldn’t tell you more than that, it’s not fair, but we found her. Steve went crazy until we got her back, and he’s been like this since.” 

“Shit, Robin, I’m tempted to stand guard by her tent. Wait, what happened with to the guy?” 

“He shot himself trying to hit Christopher with his gun.” 

Eddie whistles lowly. “Got what he deserved.” 

“Yeah, I think he did.” 

Eddie doesn’t like what’s implied. He should ask you about it directly, but he’s heard your nightmares sometimes. He always assumed they were of the same variety as his own, gnashing teeth breaking the skin of his arm or leg as he tries desperately to escape from a corner. 

He doesn’t make Robin say more, and he doesn’t ask you about it. He can’t find time alone with you, and he isn’t sure what he’d say. 

Steve glares at him from across the flames of a small campfire. “What?” 

“What do you mean, what? Just standing here.” 

“You’re suspiciously quiet, Munson.” 

“I want to ask you about something but I don’t want you to bite my head off.” 

“I’m sure I will.” 

“I know you will.” But Eddie cares about you enough to chance it. He steps around the fire, digging his shoes into the hardened muck of ash and pebbles, “It’s about Y/N.”

Steve’s eyes go looking for you. “What about her?” 

“Robin told me she got taken by some guy? Like, actually taken?” 

The light in Steve’s expression just dies. “Yeah.” 

“He’s dead now, right?” 

“Yeah. Killed himself like an idiot.” Steve frowns at Eddie again, tongue poking at his lip. “He took her while she was showering. I’d just got back from a run and she told me to sleep while she was gone. I woke up that night and nobody knew where she went. I didn’t sleep, I– went through every building on the campus with Hopper and I couldn’t find her, I didn’t know where to look, but a couple of us went outside the walls anyways, Chris and Vanessa, Jonathan, me and Rob, and she left a couple of things in the woods. Buttons, bits of fabric.” 

“Smart girl.” 

“When I found her, he had her ziptied.” 

“Fuck.” 

“That’s what those scars are, on her face?” Steve brings a pinched hand to his jaw. “He grabbed her and his nails… I cleaned them out afterward but they got infected anyway, so she’ll have them forever. She used to cry for hours. Sometimes she still cries about it.” 

Steve sighs, ragging a hand through his hair roughly. “I wouldn’t tell you that stuff, but I know she won’t, and sometimes I’m not here to look after her, and I know you will.” 

“Yeah, I will.” 

“And I know you like doing tricks with that cat’s cradle stuff, so you should probably, like, be aware that she doesn’t like having her hands tied together.” 

“I won’t do anything to her,” Eddie says lightly. He feels like he and Steve are on different footing than before. “Thank you for telling me.” 

“I shouldn’t have, just–”

“She’s your Achilles heel, Harrington.” 

“Sure, whatever that means.” 

“Your one weakness.” 

Steve grins, to Eddie’s surprise, crossing his arms over his chest, their temporary ceasefire stretching a little longer. “I guess she is.” 

—

Steve is laying down in the tangle of your blankets waiting for you to press yourself into his arms. A niggling thought appears at the surface of your mind, your gaze having fallen to his collarbone, bared by his too-large sleep shirt, a worry you can’t ever seem to truly move past: Steve loves you and you can’t deserve it. It goes away when you realise it doesn’t matter. Steve loves you and you have to try to deserve it, to fall into his arms and build him up as he does for you. Maybe you already do, and your cruel head has taken too many hits. Whatever the case, the part of you that has a big crush on your boyfriend wants to rest near him. There’s no better pleasure than settling down to sleep on his side and knowing he’s going to pull at you until he’s deemed you comfortable. 

“Steve…” you murmur, placing a hand either side of his chest to hang over him. 

“What?” he asks. 

“Can you do that thing where you hold me like I’m a baby?” 

He laughs loudly. It’s ridiculous and silly and you’d never do it if Robin were spending the night in the tent with you, but you lay across Steve and he gets an arm under your legs to curl you up. It’s less like a baby (as you’re much too big and tall and he’s not nearly as gentle as he’d be with a kid) and more like a pill bug, all your weight on him, your face smushed into his neck and his arms around your back. Somehow, someway, you slot together nicely like this. “Just tell me when I’ve broken your back,” you mumble.

“As if.” 

“As if,” you repeat. 

“Do you feel like a baby?” 

“No. I just figured that was the quickest way to ask for this.” 

“I think you can just ask me to hold you,” he says, his hand spreading out between your shoulders, “and that’ll work.” 

“Mm.” You aren’t ready to sleep, and he couldn’t like this, it’s not a permanent position. Your head whirs with thoughts of the day, and the stomach-central-heaviness that comes with being body to body with someone you love. “You okay?” you ask quietly. 

“I’m good.”

“Me too.” 

“I’m really nervous about that ’expedition’, Friday,” he says. 

“We don’t have to go.” 

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Steve says. 

“It does seem far away.” 

“Thing is, even if we don’t go, Robin’s dead set on going, and I swore we’d never be apart again. I can’t break that promise.” 

You nose at his chest. “I guess we have to spend the next two days convincing her to stay home.” 

“How are we gonna do that?” 

“I don’t know. Break her leg?” 

“Sounds like something Eddie would say.” 

You laugh into his skin, quiet and contented, because you know you’ll find a way to stay with Robin. Maybe she’ll be impossible to convince and you’ll both have to go with her, but nothing matters beyond staying together. 

“He’s been acting weird,” you confess. 

Steve’s thumb rubs the band on your bra. “Do you wanna take this off?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, pulling the clasp together under your shirt and releasing it in a move so dexterous it borders on offensive. 

You shrug out of your bra without displaying too much skin. Steve’s hand falls to your stomach, shy of your belly button, trimmed nail skimming a ticklish line. “He’s been quite gentle with me,” you say unsurely. 

“He doesn’t have a crush on you. Well, more than he usually does.” 

“I thought I should tell you, though. I don’t want to give him the wrong idea.” 

“God, you don’t,” he says, “Eddie doesn’t get wrong ideas ‘cos all his ideas are already wrong, but it’s not something you did. This time, it’s my fault.” 

“How’s it your fault? He wouldn’t fight me in the river, did you tell him not to?” 

“He doesn’t actually listen to me.” 

“So why’s he acting like I’m glass all of a sudden?” 

Steve finds your hand and holds it, pulling at it, encouraging you to lay down on him again. “I’m sorry, but I told him about what happened with… with Connor. Nothing in detail, only that it happened.” 

“Oh.” 

“I know it’s not my story to tell him.” 

“You’re half of it, though,” you suppose aloud, turning your face up to the tent ceiling, pleased when his hands adjust you and cross over your front. 

“I told him that he tied you up, and about your mouth. But I didn’t tell him about any of the things he said, or– I know I shouldn’t have said anything, I just don’t want you to be alone one day and have that secret, just in case he needs to look after you–”

“Are you going somewhere?” you ask quietly. 

“Of course not.” 

You let the quiet grow for a time, until you let out a sigh, your chest collapsing beneath his hand. “I honestly forgot that he doesn’t know all that stuff from before.” 

“That’s okay,” he says softly, hugging your chest with the same gentleness as he holds in his voice, “sometimes I forget too.” 

“We went through a lot.” 

“We still are.” 

“But things have been a lot better here, right?” you ask. “I mean, it’s not the College, we don’t have our room, but we have each other, and the porta-cabins aren’t bad. Hopper even said that next month when we choose our campground we’ll stay until after the winter, and we’ll have a cabin, right? Me and you, Robin, Eddie, Marcy, Sarah– not a bit of privacy–”

“I'm not sharing a room with that imbecile.” 

“It’ll be fun. Warmer than last winter outside.” 

Steve sighs. “So much rain.” 

“Do you think Eddie thinks I’m weak?” 

Steve doesn’t answer. He slips you from his chest and slinks in behind you, his lips under your ear. You turn your head to see him and find him close enough to kiss. 

“No,” Steve says surely. “Eddie doesn’t think that you’re weak. He’s just hearing about it for the first time, and he cares about you. Remember when you told me about the time those girls at school smashed your lunchbox and tipped milk over your head? It was years before we met and it still made my chest get all hot and achy.” 

“I can’t imagine people caring about me so much, sometimes,” you confess in a mumble. “Especially now.” 

“But they do.” 

Sweet, then, for Eddie to worry. As much as you like fighting with him in the river while you wash your clothes, it’s nice to think he might’ve refrained from his usual attempts at drowning you because he was upset on your behalf. “He’s a good guy. Maybe he can go with Robin instead.” 

“I trust him, but Robin is never leaving me again,” Steve says. “Not that far away. Nah, we’ll just go with her.” 

You couldn’t lose Robin, but you also couldn’t lose this version of Steve who has his best friend back. “Right,” you agree, burrowing against him, fingers digging under him until he lifts his back and lets you hug him. Your arm will be dead in minutes. 

Steve asks if you want to read together, so you do, until it’s too dark to read without the torchlight and you’re too tired to do more than be hugged by him. As you’re falling into sleep, he speaks, and you miss each word individually but understand the jist of it: no one’s gonna hurt you, he’s saying. He’s swearing it. Because we’re together. 

You mumble love yous and goodnights to each other. You have a nightmare that night but you’re not scared when you wake. You'll have more nightmares in the future that aren’t as easily forgotten, just, for once, the memory fades into nothingness as Steve draws your face into his hands and lays you back down. As quickly as you’d woken up, you’re sleeping. 

—

[clairebonnefoy]

Merlin and Arthur get trapped in a room and the only way to leave is if they tell the truth

Merlin pressed his palm into a brick and the wall opened, revealing a weirdly empty corridor. Merlin could feel the magic coming from there and knew they were close. But it wouldn’t be so easy; something was protecting it, he knew.

      Arthur started to walk carefully into the corridor, and Merlin noticed the stone walls would close just where he was. Without thinking twice, he jumped at Arthur, making them both fall into the corridor, just as the wall closed once again, looking like it had never been opened.

      “Are you all right?” He asked, worried.

      “I’m fine,” Arthur said, pushing Merlin from over him and getting up, blushing.

      “No need to be so rude” Merlin mumbled, knowing Arthur was probably embarrassed that he needed to be saved.

      “We’re locked here,” Arthur said, pushing the wall tentatively. Merlin closed his eyes and tried to feel a way to open it again, but the magic seemed keen on keeping them there.

       Arthur banged on the door, calling for Gwaine and Lance, to no avail.

      Merlin took the chance to mutter a spell to see if he could overpower the magic, but nothing happened. The enchantment that trapped them there was too ancient and too strong.

      Suddenly, golden words appeared on the door opposing the one they entered.

      May the truth guide your path

      May the secrets which are guarded deep be set free

      “What’s that supposed to mean?!” Arthur asked, frustrated.

      “I think we must tell the truth,” Merlin said, and Arthur looked at him as if he was dumb.

      “I understood that” he deadpanned.

      “Maybe… maybe one of us has to tell our deepest secret,” Merlin said. Arthur kept looking at him.

      “Well?”

      “What?”

      “Go on. Tell your secret. Let’s see if it works”

      “Why don’t you tell your secret?” Merlin asked, accusingly.

      “I’m the prince! You obey me”

      “What if my secret is worse than yours?” Merlin asked, a bit of irritation sipping into his voice.

      “Like your secret could be interesting at all” Arthur retorted, but Merlin knew he was curious. “Anyway, you are my servant; you can’t keep secrets from me. You don’t even know how to keep secrets!”

      “You would be surprised”

      Arthur narrowed his eyes.

      “Go on, then. Prove to me that you were able to keep a secret from me all this time”

      Arthur was baiting him, he knew. But arguing would lead to nothing. One of them would have to tell their deepest secret, or else they would be trapped there forever.

      Merlin hated this place.

      He took a deep breath and looked at Arthur. If he was forced to tell his secret, it would be on his terms.

      “First, I need you to know that all I did, all I am, is for you. What I'm going to tell you, I was born with it, because it is my destiny to use it to help you unite Albion and become the great king you are destined to be”

      Arthur blushed, looking even more curious.

      “Stop blabbing, Merlin, and spill it!”

      All right.

      “I have magic”

More on https://archiveofourown.org/works/49947025

[illumity33]

Beeping Monitors and Broken Bones

Hospital au, kunikuzushi x gn!reader, they're both kids here (9-10 y/o) AN: first post! I hope it's not too bad </3 I'm not a native speaker so writing this long was a little hard for me + I'm posting on my laptop so it's harder to navigate tumblr since i'm not used to it

next

The first thing Kunikuzushi felt when he woke up was pain.

The second was anger.

His legs were encased in heavy casts, his entire lower half immobilized by thick bandages and an obnoxiously tight hospital blanket. The sterile smell of antiseptic filled his nose, and the steady beeping of medical equipment rang in his ears. The bright overhead light burned his eyes, and the room felt uncomfortably cold. He hated it.

He hated all of it.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to be outside, running, jumping, living. Instead, he was here, stuck in some stupid hospital ward, unable to move, unable to leave. It was unfair.

He scowled and turned his head, only to freeze when he realized he wasn’t alone.

There was another kid in the hospital bed next to his. They looked about his age—maybe a little smaller, their frame fragile and thin beneath their oversized hospital gown. They had a nasal cannula hooked around their ears, the tubing trailing down to an oxygen tank beside the bed. Unlike him, though, they didn’t seem upset about being here. They just sat there, legs swinging idly over the side of the bed, watching him with an expression that was half curious, half amused.

Then they grinned.

“Whoa,” they said, pointing at his cast. “What did you do to break both your legs?”

Kunikuzushi’s glare deepened. “What does it matter?”

The kid shrugged. “I mean, it’s kinda impressive.”

He wasn’t sure if they were mocking him or not, but it didn’t really matter. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation. He turned away, fixing his eyes on the ceiling, hoping they’d get the message and leave him alone.

They didn’t.

“You don’t look like you wanna be here,” they commented.

“No duh,” he snapped, finally looking at them again. “Why would I? Normal kids don’t belong in hospitals.”

The words slipped out before he could stop them. He realized his mistake immediately when the kid’s expression shifted—just a little, just enough for him to notice. Their smile dimmed, and something flickered in their eyes. It wasn’t sadness. Not anger, either. Just… understanding.

A quiet sort of acceptance, like they’d heard those words before.

“I guess that makes me not normal, huh?” they said lightly, their voice lacking any real bitterness.

Kunikuzushi’s jaw clenched. He didn’t know why, but their response made him feel worse.

He expected them to be mad. To argue. To tell him how unfair he was being. But instead, they just laid back against their pillow, gazing up at the ceiling like they’d done this a thousand times before.

“…You live here or something?” he muttered after a moment, unable to stop himself from asking.

They let out a small, breathy laugh. “Feels like it. I’ve been here for… a while.”

Something about the way they said that sent an uncomfortable chill down his spine.

“How long?”

They tilted their head, thinking. “Since I was five.”

Kunikuzushi blinked. Five. That was years. He tried to imagine it—spending every single day stuck in this place, never going outside, never running around with other kids, never knowing if you’d ever get to leave.

He couldn’t.

“…That sucks.” The words felt weak, but they were all he could come up with.

The kid didn’t disagree. They just smiled again, but this time it didn’t quite reach their eyes. “Yeah.”

Silence stretched between them, only broken by the quiet beeping of monitors. Kunikuzushi shifted uncomfortably in his bed, trying to ignore the strange, guilty feeling creeping up his throat.

“…I was riding my bike,” he said abruptly.

The kid blinked. “Huh?”

“That’s how I broke my legs,” he muttered, staring down at his hands. “I was trying to drift. Thought I’d be cool.” He scoffed. “Didn’t really work out.”

The kid let out a small giggle. “Yeah, no kidding.”

He rolled his eyes, but the sound of their laughter—real laughter, not the tired, forced kind—made him feel… lighter.

“I didn’t think you were the reckless type,” they teased.

“I’m not,” he huffed. “It was just—” He hesitated, then grumbled, “I don’t know. I just wanted to feel… free, I guess.”

Their expression softened. “I get that.”

He glanced at them. “Yeah?”

They nodded. “Yeah.”

Kunikuzushi didn’t know why, but that made him feel a little better.

Just a little.

—

Days passed. Then weeks.

Despite his best efforts, Kunikuzushi couldn’t shake off the kid next to him. They were always there, watching him with that same amused expression, making conversation even when he clearly wasn’t in the mood. But instead of annoying him, like he expected, it started to become… normal.

Comforting, even.

He learned their name. Their favorite snacks (even though they weren’t allowed to eat a lot of them). The stories they made up in their head to pass the time.

In return, he told them about his home. About the outside world. About all the places he’d go once he got out of this stupid hospital.

And each time, they’d listen with a wistful sort of expression, their fingers lightly gripping the blanket over their lap, like they were trying to hold onto something they knew they could never have.

One night, after the nurses had turned off the lights and the halls had gone quiet, Kunikuzushi lay awake, staring at the ceiling. The rhythmic beeping of machines, the faint murmur of nurses in the distance, the sterile scent of disinfectant—it was all so familiar now, almost normal. He hated that.

His legs still ached, though not as badly as before. He could move them a little now, just enough to remind him that one day, he’d be able to walk out of this place. One day, this hospital would be nothing more than a bad memory.

But this kid—they weren't like him.

He turned his head, watching their in the dim light of the monitors. They were awake, staring at the ceiling just like he was. The glow of the screen cast soft shadows on her face, making them look almost ghostly, like they weren't really there. Like they could disappear at any moment.

The thought unsettled him.

“…You ever gonna get out of here?” he asked quietly.

They blinked, then slowly turned to face him.

For a moment, they didn’t answer. They just looked at him, their expression unreadable. Kunikuzushi almost regretted asking—almost wished he could take the question back.

Then, finally, they smiled.

That same soft, knowing smile. The one that never quite reached their eyes.

He felt his chest tighten.

“Dunno,” they said lightly, like it didn’t matter. Like it wasn’t a big deal.

Like they hadn’t already thought about it a thousand times before.

Kunikuzushi clenched his jaw. He hated that answer.

Because it wasn’t really an answer at all.

Because it meant they didn’t know if she’d ever get better.

Because it meant they might not.

His fingers curled into his blanket, frustration bubbling in his chest, but there was nothing he could say. Nothing he could do.

The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating.

“…That’s stupid,” he muttered.

They chuckled softly. “Yeah.”

They didn’t argue. Didn’t try to comfort him.

They just accepted it.

Kunikuzushi turned his head away, glaring at the wall. His throat felt tight, and he didn’t know why.

He didn’t want to think about it anymore.

[ilvermornie]

amortentia ୨୧ lorenzo berkshire x fem!reader

in which lorenzo’s plans to keep his infatuation with you to himself fail (successfully?)

warnings none | masterlist

all of enzo’s friends knew he was in love with you. sure, he never outright said it himself, but these boys have known him since he was just a lonely kid sitting alone on the train to hogwarts, nervous for what was to come; they could read him like a book.

they noticed the way his eyes would fill with curiosity as soon as your name was brought up in conversation, needing to know what you’d been up to lately. they noticed how his voice would change whenever he’d speak to you - becoming softer, more gentle. most of all, they noticed all the crumpled up letters, failed attempts at confessing his undying love to you buried deep in enzo’s wardrobe. saying things has never been his strong suit.

after the fifteenth letter (one which included the line “if you don't want to date me that's okay but please give me a chance anyway”) was haphazardly shoved into the usual hiding spot, enzo decided to simply keep his little secret to himself. if he couldn't even write how he felt about you, how was he ever supposed to speak about it?

unfortunately for him, he made that decision a little too late, as the boys found the letters long before he had gotten to fifteen, and made it their lives’ mission to make you two official.

the plan started with a friday potions class.

“look at him, poor boy,” pansy whispered to draco, her eyes lingering on enzo’s figure as he stared longingly at his own cauldron of amortentia, as if willing you to come out of it.

draco hummed, now also staring at enzo with his brows furrowed. contrary to popular belief, he didn't enjoy other people’s misery - only those who deserved it, and enzo definitely did not deserve it. it was at that moment when draco decided to concoct a plan to finally bring his friend and his true love together. he was done toying around with the secret enzo had unknowingly shared with all of them.

seeing snape distracted with some hufflepuffs who just couldn’t seem to brew anything right, draco gestured for enzo’s partner, mattheo, to come over and help him come up with a plan. but if enzo was bad with words, mattheo was even worse when it came to gestures.

“what?” mattheo mouthed, his brows furrowing in confusion. draco tried again, his patience growing thin. this time, mattheo did get something out of draco; the wrong thing.

giving draco a thumbs up and a large smile, mattheo slyly pulled his wand out of his pocket and made the whole potion spill all over enzo.

instantly, enzo jumped, feeling a complete shift in his entire body. everything was warm, and he couldn’t think about a single thing but you. his mouth begged to betray him, wanting to say words he only ever thought about in bed, staring at his bedroom ceiling, but luckily he swallowed them down.

turning to mattheo, he yelled, “what the hell is wrong with you? why would you do that?”

“oopsies,” was all he got out of mattheo.

promptly, snape appeared and lectured mattheo for what he had done, deducting fifty points from his own house in the process. this didn’t faze him, partially because he never cared for the house point system anyway, and partially because just earlier that morning, he had overheard you talking to your friends about how you liked enzo back, you were just too nervous to tell him.

in mattheo’s eyes, he was doing you both a favour. did he know what would happen to someone who was doused with a fresh batch of amortentia? no, but he knew it would be something magical.

as soon as class ended, enzo ran to his dorm room and locked himself in there, trying to do anything to calm his nerves. he couldn’t be seen outside until the effects of this wore off, or else he’d do something that would result in him becoming the laughingstock of slytherin.

meanwhile, a heated discussion was happening in the slytherin common room.

“how was i supposed to know you wanted me to come over?” mattheo said, angrily sitting down on the deep green couch.

“because that’s what everyone does when they want someone to come over, you idiot!” draco shot back, exasperated as he paced around the room.

not wanting to waste any more time on draco and mattheo’s argument, as well as seeing the possibility of an opportunity coming out of this, pansy said, “okay, well, it’s already happened and there’s nothing any of us can do to reverse it. what happens to someone who just had amortentia poured on them anyway?” she turned to blaise, who’d been reading up on that very subject the entire time.

giving the textbook in his hand a quick glance, he replied, “it says here they become ‘consumed with their infatuation with the person the amortentia smells like’ and that they have to ‘fight the urge to do rash things as a result of that infatuation’,”

instantly, mattheo rose from the couch and exclaimed, “this is perfect! all we need is to bring y/n and enzo here and he’ll finally tell her how he feels!” then, to draco, he said, “who's the idiot now?”

the four didn't even have to move from their positions for their new plan to begin. a mere second later, you walked into the slytherin common room, a green and silver scarf in your hands.

“hey, is emilia here? she left her scarf...” you asked, scanning the room for both your friend and the boy you were madly in love with, and finding neither one of them. at this, you pouted. you had really hoped to see at least one of the two, especially the latter, since you were worried he’d been avoiding you lately.

guiding you to an empty seat, mattheo said, “nope, no emilia here, but don't worry! i’m sure she'll turn up soon,” as he did so, he gave pansy a look, urging her to distract you with conversation. after lorenzo, pansy was the one you got along with most, and distract you was exactly what she did. in fact, she did it so well you didn't notice a certain love-filled brunet come down the stairs to the common room.

after sitting with his feelings for a while, enzo felt the effects of the amortentia subsiding and decided to go down to the common room to give mattheo a piece of his mind, thinking he was in the clear. unfortunately, he was not, for as soon as his eyes met yours and he saw the way you brightened up, a large smile on your beautiful face, the effects of the amortentia were back and as if they never left in the first place.

he began to turn around, but ever-attentive theo had already seen him, “oh look, there’s lorenzo!” he said, smirking. enzo had no choice to stay where he was and pray that he didn't mess everything up.

“hi enzo!” you said, your hands immediately making their way to a stray piece of your hair as you tried to make yourself look as presentable as you could, “have you seen emilia? she forgot her scarf in class earlier today.”

enzo took a deep breath, making a mental script of what he was going to say so that the script the amortentia had planned for him wouldn't take over, “no, i haven't. sorry.”

your brows furrowed, being caught completely off-guard by his response. sure, enzo had his moments every once in a while, but this was too blunt, even for his worst days. as you pondered why he would be acting so strange, you noticed how flushed his face was.

getting up from where you sat and making your way over to him (much to his dismay), you said, “are you okay? you look a little red,” to which enzo just hummed, not trusting his mouth to say anything more.

‘it’s fine,’ he thought to himself, ‘as long as she doesn’t get any closer or say anything more, i should be fine.’

you put the back of your hand on his forehead, trying to feel his temperature, “are you sure you're okay?” you mumbled under your breath, concerned about how hot he felt.

enzo reached his breaking point, and the words came spilling out of him, “no, i'm not okay. how could i be okay when i’ve been in love with you for god knows how long now and haven’t been able to do anything about it? i tried everything! i watched those stupid muggle movies you like to see how they’d confess, i went to that love café in hogsmeade and asked the lady there how she thinks i should do it, i wrote fifteen failed love letters, fifteen! and none of it worked, so i just decided not to do anything about my feelings, but it was killing me, y/n, watching those other guys flirt with you, do all the things i wish i could do but couldn’t! and then today in potions, mattheo spilt amortentia all over me and now all i can think about is you, it physically hurt to keep this all inside of me, even now that i’ve said it all and ruined everything!”

the room was silent, save for draco who whispered, “who knew he could be such a sap?” to pansy.

meanwhile, your head was reeling, trying to absorb everything that had just happened. enzo had been just as in love with you as you had been with him this entire time, and you’d been nearly killing yourselves staying silent and hoping the other would say something.

while you were trying to process enzo’s unintentional confession, he was praying to anyone that would listen for you to just say something, even if it meant breaking his heart, at least then he'd finally know for sure how you felt. anything would've been better than the silence you faced him with now.

what broke you out of your trance was enzo storming off after realising he'd messed everything up, both his friendship with you and any chance he may have had with you as a boyfriend. quickly realising what you had done, you grabbed his hand, “enzo, wait.”

“i’m sorry, i’m just... in shock! i mean, wow, i’ve never been confessed to at all, let alone like this,” you felt your face getting warmer, still in complete disbelief at how this was your real life, “i like you too, enzo, as more than friends, and i think all that stuff you did is really sweet, even though i can tell you’re a little embarrassed about having to admit it.”

as soon as those words left your mouth, enzo’s mood did a complete 180 - he had never smiled a smile this wide in his entire life, he didn’t even know smiles could get as big as the one he had on right now, “really?” he asked, taking your other hand in his so he was now holding both. you nodded.

“okay then, let's rewind. y/n, would you like to go on a date to hogsmeade with me this saturday?” he asked, making a show of being perfectly chivalrous which had you stifling giggles.

letting one slip, you replied, “yeah, enzo, i’d love to. but can you just do me a quick favour first?”

“anything for you,” was his immediate reply, shortening the distance between the two of you as he cradled your head in his hands.

trying to ignore your racing heartbeat, you said, “send me those fifteen letters. i wanna read all of them.”

[scary-grace]

Enough to Go By (Chapter 25) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Your best friend vanished on the same night his family was murdered, and even though the world forgot about him, you never did. When a chance encounter brings you back into contact with Shimura Tenko, you'll do anything to make sure you don't lose him again. Keep his secrets? Sure. Aid the League of Villains? Of course. Sacrifice everything? You would - but as the battle between the League of Villains and hero society unfolds, it becomes clear that everything is far more than you or anyone else imagined it would be. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

Chapter 25

Your phone is ringing from a number you don’t recognize, and you wouldn’t pick it up at all if it hadn’t already rung four times. Either this is one persistent telemarketer, or your mom’s changed her phone number again and you just haven’t noticed. You step out of the high command meeting with an apology and raise it to your ear. “Hello?”

“This number is listed as the emergency contact for a patient who was just admitted to Yokohama General,” the person on the other end of the line says, and your blood turns to ice. “Am I speaking with —“

She says your name, and you nod, your mind spinning. Yoshimi? Why would Yoshimi list you as her contact? She was in remission. What happened? Why — “Miss,” the nurse on the other end of the line says, “I need you to confirm your name.”

You confirm it. “Thank you,” the nurse says. “The patient’s name is Kiyohara Kazuo. His advance directive —“

“His what?”

“His advance directive requires that I share a message with you,” the nurse continues. “The message is this: SAVE YOURSELF, all caps.”

Save yourself? “That doesn’t make any sense,” you say. “What happened? How is he?”

“That’s protected health information. I — ah, it appears he’s signed a consent to release information,” the nurse says. You need to sit down. Your head is spinning worse than before. “Kazuo collapsed at his workplace with a grand mal seizure, believed to have been brought on by overuse of his quirk. Stress may have also been a factor — eyewitnesses state that he was in a contentious discussion with his supervisor at the time.”

Kazuo wouldn’t have used his quirk by accident. He knows where his limit is. Did he push himself past it on purpose? Why? Your eyes are burning beneath your veil. “Do you know what they were fighting about?”

“I wasn’t there,” the nurse says, like you’re stupid. You swallow hard around the lump in your throat. “If my boss could read my mind like his apparently can, I might have a breakdown, too.”

Kazuo’s boss can read minds. Kazuo overloaded his quirk on purpose. Kazuo set you up as his emergency contact and set an advance directive ordering that a specific message be given to you. You ask the nurse for his room number, ask about visiting hours, and all the while you try to figure out what he was thinking. There was something in Kazuo’s mind he didn’t want his boss to see. Flooding his mind with information would have obscured it. And then there’s the message to you, which he prepared ahead of time. Which he must have planned for. Kazuo’s always told you that you can’t save he and Tenko both, or you and he both, or something. But this time he was brutally direct. Save yourself. From what?

Foreboding crashes down on you. You launch to your feet, lose your balance, knock against the wall, and stumble back into the meeting in the middle of some soliloquy from Geten about convincing the average citizen to rise up and join the cause. Re-Destro spots you first. “Saintess?”

“Something’s going to happen,” you say. “My contact at the HPSC — he just —“

“False alarm,” Hawks says at once. Spinner and Skeptic sit bolt upright in their chairs. “I’ve got contacts there, too. None of them have said anything. If your guy’s some mid-level guy —“

“He’s not mid-level!”

“Sure, sure. I’m just saying, I talk to the top brass,” Hawks says. “They’re building up to something, yeah, but they aren’t anywhere close to being ready to move. And when they are, we’ll have plenty of warning.”

“This is the warning,” you say. You see Dabi ignoring you, Re-Destro dismissing you, Geten and Twice and even Compress leaning to Hawks’s side of the story. But that doesn’t matter. There’s only one person you need to convince. “Tomura —“

He never met Kazuo. You know that even the idea of Kazuo bugs him a little bit — it’s a reminder that there was someone before him, someone you loved, even if you never loved them like this. But he trusts you, and when he meets your eyes, you know you’ve won. “Your contacts could have found you out,” he says to Hawks, whose jaw drops. “Better safe than sorry. Activate everybody. We’re starting now.”

You still dislike Re-Destro on principle, but you’ll say this for him — when Tomura gives the order, he snaps to it, and Geten follows suit. Skeptic was already in motion before Tomura spoke, and Spinner catches you by the arm and pulls you out of the room, dragging you down the hall. You’ve gone over plans for the start of the war multiple times, and at no point do they involve Spinner kidnapping you. You speak up as soon as you’ve got your feet under you. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you out of here.”

“Why?” If there’s going to be a fight, you have to stay close to Tomura. You try to wrench your arm out of Spinner’s grip, but he’s holding on too tightly. “Let go. I have to —“

“Hawks just got made. He knows you’re important. Shigaraki’s not leaving you anywhere Hawks can reach.” Spinner’s expression is grim. “Twice is going to make a clone of you. It’ll do the same thing as you, but nothing bad will happen if he kills it.”

Except that Tomura will have to watch you die. “And what am I supposed to do while this is going on? Watch helplessly from the sidelines?”

“No,” Spinner says. “Do what you did during the Deika thing. It’ll work better if no one knows you’re doing it.”

He’s right. You’ve kept the existence of the deleter rounds fairly quiet — after you and Spinner agreed that Hawks was the spy, you started dropping hints about how the production was harder than expected, and the compound didn’t work as well as Overhaul’s. In actuality, you’ve got dozens of bullets, a specially modified gun to fire them from, and a lot of practice while Tomura was in stasis. Next to Tomura, you’re a target, and your ability to do anything other than reinforce Super-Regeneration is limited. At a small distance from him, hidden, you can do a lot.

You stop fighting Spinner, and he breathes a sigh of relief. “Go get your gear. Stay out of sight. And don’t worry about him. We’ve got his back.”

You believe that, now. You didn’t before, but now you see it — the League wants Tomura to survive, too. No matter how else they feel about the new world, they want him in it. You nod, and Spinner lets go of your arm, leaving you to run back to the room you and Tomura share. Everything you need is hidden under the bed, and as you put it on, it occurs to you suddenly that Hawks doesn’t know what you look like. How likely is it that any of the heroes know? Right now, the biggest identifying feature you have is your costume. If you take it off —

When you step back out of the room, joining the flood of PLF members headed to their battle stations, you’re dressed in civilian clothes, and no one pays any attention to you. Word is spreading that Hawks is a traitor, that heroes are headed here right now, and while you’d expect the members of the PLF to be frightened, they aren’t. Some of them are angry with Hawks, angry with themselves for being taken in. But even the ones who are angry seem excited, too. They believe they can win. And with the advance warning Kazuo’s given you, combined with Tomura’s near-omnipotence, you think they might be right.

You don’t have an assigned battle station — everyone assumed you’d be with Tomura — so you go looking for the intelligence center instead. Skeptic has cameras everywhere. He’ll be able to see exactly who’s come to fight, and you’ll be able to see exactly who you need to hit in order to turn the tide of the battle in the League’s favor. When you get there, Skeptic’s not alone — Dabi’s there, too, in the worst mood you’ve ever seen him in. They’re arguing about something you couldn’t care less about. You wedge yourself past them to look at the screens, and your stomach drops.

There are so many heroes. You’ve never seen that many in your life, all at once, all converging on the PLF headquarters. You know Kazuo gave you all the warning he could, but you’re suddenly convinced that it wasn’t enough. This looks like every hero in Japan, from the top ten to people you’ve never seen, from heroes who have been around forever to students. A slow twist of anger works its way through you as you notice kid after kid from Toga’s YouTube playlist running across the screens. What the hell are the heroes doing bringing kids to fight a war?

Ultimately you know who you want to hit, but you don’t have nearly enough bullets for every hero. And you’re not exactly a hero expert. You turn away from the screens and step right into the middle of Dabi’s argument with Skeptic. “I have quirk-canceling bullets that actually work. Who should I hit?”

“Endeavor,” Skeptic says at once.

“No,” Dabi snarls, and you flinch. “Not him, and not the little brat he bred to replace him. They’re mine.”

Skeptic argues, but you talk over him. “I don’t care who deals with them as long as someone takes them out,” you say. “Who else?”

“The only way Shigaraki loses this is if his quirks stop working,” Dabi says. “That fucking traitor will have told them what he has, so they’ll have brought Eraserhead. Get him and the heroes are screwed.”

“And how did the traitor know what the Grand Commander has?” Skeptic hisses. Dabi snarls. “You told him. This is your fault.”

“Twice was friendly with him!”

“Not half as friendly as you!”

Maybe this is what they were fighting about when you came in. It doesn’t matter. You need to find Eraserhead and take him out of the fight, and you won’t need to kill him to do it. All it will take is one shot. The building rumbles around you, but you don’t flinch — it’s just Gigantomachia, waking up, just like Tomura’s plan calls for him to do. You keep watching the screens, looking for Eraserhead, and you find him fast. He’s not hard to miss, not when he’s running alongside the numbers one, five, six, and ten heroes, plus three or four others.

That concentration of firepower can only be aimed at one person. They’re headed for Tomura, and with Eraserhead there to cancel Tomura’s quirks, his ability to fight back will be limited. The only way to stop it is to make sure to cancel his first. You slip out of the room while Dabi and Skeptic are still fighting and head for the front lines.

Most of the fighting is happening outside the building. Tomura’s game plan called for keeping the enemy forces from breaching the building, although you’re not sure why, given that Gigantomachia destroyed part of it already with his emergence. The ground is shaking with his steps, and there’s already one hero struggling to hold him back. As you watch through a shattered window, you see a shadow lift from the ground, wings extended. You’re not a hero expert, but you’re pretty sure that’s the number ten hero, Ryukyu. That’s one less person against Tomura. One less person shielding Eraserhead.

You can’t see Toga or Twice — or Compress, now that you think about it. If you had to put a bet on where Spinner is, you’d say he’s by Tomura. Which is where you should be. You can’t see the clone Twice supposedly made of you, but you’re sure it’s around somewhere. Not dead yet. If it were dead, you’d know. Not because you’d feel it, but because you know what Tomura would do.

You’re not on anybody’s list of important targets, which means you go largely unnoticed as you duck and weave through the fight. Without your veil, not even the members of the PLF can recognize you, and you keep your gun close to your side, out of sight. At one point, though, you make eye contact with a familiar face — bright-eyed, dressed in pink, a pink-shaded visor down over her face. Uraraka Ochako, hero name: Uravity. You duck out of her eyeline, your heart hammering. She won’t remember you. Even if she does recognize your face, she won’t know where she remembers you from, and she definitely won’t link you to the League of Villains. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.

Except it’s not her you should have been worrying about. There’s somebody else staring down at you — a kid, too young to be a pro hero, must be a student. “Hey,” he says, frowning. His voice sounds strangely familiar. “Are you okay? You look —“

He doesn’t see you as a combatant, or any kind of threat. You can’t count on that to last. You bring the gun up from your side, flip the safety off, and drill a quirk-canceling bullet into his shoulder.

The student staggers, frowning — but he’s clearly confused, particularly when the bullet falls away, spent, the needle exposed. “What was that?” he asks, as you get back to your feet – and finally, you realize who you’re looking at.

It’s your brother. One of the twins. Shinji, you think. A student at Ketsubutsu Academy, called up to fight a war. And now he’s quirkless. You should feel something. He’s your brother. But all you can think of is the number of times he practiced using his quirk on you. Shinji’s frown deepens. “What did you do to me?”

You need to get away from him before he figures it out — and before he can let anyone else know. He’s got an earpiece in one ear. You snatch it out of his ear and run, jamming it into yours instead. He’s pretty obviously dressed as a hero. If he runs into anyone from the PLF, they’ll fight him, and he’ll have to fight them without his quirk. Shinji’s not going to be able to follow you. And without his earpiece, he can’t call for help, either.

The channel the earpiece is tuned to is a mess. There are directives coming in from somewhere, but they’re drowned out almost entirely by the heroes trying to coordinate, trying to counterattack, trying to adjust to the fact that the PLF, who was supposed to be caught unawares, seems to have been ready for them. You recognize Endeavor’s voice from TV broadcasts, and you know he’s pursuing Tomura, so you try to listen for him specifically as you pick your way around the edges of the fight. You promised Dabi you wouldn’t go after him, but if it comes down to destroying his quirk or letting him hurt Tomura, you know what you’ll choose.

You’re not a strategist, but as you draw closer to the battle, you try to think like one. Eraserhead’s quirk is like yours — it affects somebody else rather than doing anything for him. It would make the most sense for him to stay out of sight, like you’re doing, in a hiding spot where he can see Tomura but Tomura can’t see him. It occurs to you how likely it is that Eraserhead is doing the exact same thing you’re doing, a split second before you make your way around a piece of rubble and find Eraserhead crouched behind it, peering up and over at the fight between Tomura and the heroes.

For a moment you’re frozen, but you shake it off fast. The range here isn’t as close as it was with the student you shot, but it’s still well within your abilities, and all you need to do is tag him. You feel an odd squeamishness about shooting someone who isn’t hurting you, who doesn’t even know you’re there. Then you think about it. Eraserhead wants to hurt Tomura. Eraserhead’s also a hypocrite — calling himself a hero, defending his psychopathic student while disallowing any possibility that villains could be anything but irredeemably evil. He deserves what you’re about to do, as much as anyone can be said to deserve it. You raise your gun and aim for his torso.

“Hey!” Something skids into your field of vision, blocking Eraserhead completely. It’s the student the League abducted, the one who acts like a villain, as if you’ve summoned him just by thinking about him. He has his arm pulled back, sparks flying around his hand. If you don’t do something soon, you’re going to take an explosion to the face. “I don’t know who the hell you are, extra, but if you think —“

You don’t need to think. You pull the trigger, and the bullet you’d marked out for Eraserhead hits the hero student instead.

His hand drops, like you’ve cut the muscles in his arm instead of canceled his quirk, and you see confusion on his face, just like you saw on the other student you hit. Unlike that student, he reacts fast, raising his other hand, his face screwing up in concentration as he tries to call up a quirk that’s long-gone. With no quirk, he’s not your problem — or so you think. “Sensei, cut it out! I wasn’t going to hurt her —“

That’s an enormous lie, and it’s cute that he thinks Eraserhead is the one doing this. You cycle another round into the chamber and lean out around him, just in time for Eraserhead to look towards his student. The two of you make eye contact. You see his face shift, see that he’s registered something’s off. He’s not watching Tomura any longer. His attention is on you, and his hair falls around his face, and you’re in the act of pulling the trigger when the student tackles you from one side.

Your shot goes wide, and you put an elbow into the student’s face as you fire another. You get lucky with this one. Eraserhead’s coming towards you, hand held out, and the bullet sinks into the palm of his hand.

He must know what it is. That’s the only explanation you can think of for why he reacts the way he does, and how fast he does it. Eraserhead draws a knife from his utility belt, raises it, and amputates his left hand with a single stroke.

Was he fast enough to keep his quirk? You’re not sure. Whether he was or not, he’s toppling sideways, blood pouring from the stump of his hand, and the student lets go of you, racing forward to catch him. “Sensei —“

Nobody’s holding onto you, so you run. As you vanish around a corner, you hear Eraserhead’s voice, tight with pain and anger. “Leave it, Bakugou. Stop her!”

The student’s going to be after you. That’s fine. Unlike him, you know how to fight without a quirk. Your clip is almost empty. You fire the last bullet into the crowd, hitting a hero at random, then load the next one. The thought of circling back around to try to put Eraserhead down for good crosses your mind. Even if you canceled his quirk on the first try, you can’t be too careful. At least, you don’t think you can. You hear the distinctive sound of warp sludge spewing and look to your right, just in time to spot one of the high-end Nomus unfurling its limbs and rising to its feet. It reaches for you, hand closing around your waist, and pulls you in close. “Master’s orders,” it rumble as you fight. “Keep her safe.”

“Let me go,” you order, and it loosens its grip on you — but it doesn’t let you go entirely. Your authority must be subordinate to Tomura’s, somehow. The Nomus will follow your orders only if they don’t contradict Tomura’s. You try desperately to think of a workaround. “He said to keep her safe? He meant Toga. Go get Toga.”

“No,” the Nomu says. “Her.”

It says your name, and you curse yourself. Of course Tomura would have gotten specific. Of course he would had made sure. After what happened in Deika city, you should have guessed that he’d have set up multiple backup plans to keep you away. The Nomu repeats the order again, like you didn’t hear it the first time, this time with your name firmly embedded in it. “Master’s orders.”

“Then come with me,” you say. “I have to go fight. Come with me and keep me safe.”

This time, the workaround has at least some effect. The Nomu loosens its grip completely, but draws close to you, shadowing you completely. It says your name a third time. “Keep safe. Master said —“

“So that’s your real name,” a voice says in your ear, and terror rips down your spine. “I liked Saintess better.”

The Nomu lashes out, but Hawks is too fast. He yanks you away, splitting the Nomu’s head open with a massive, razor-sharp feather. You try to get the gun around to the right angle to shoot him, only for him to grab your wrist and twist it hard enough to shatter it. You yelp in pain, and worse, you drop the gun. Hawks lets your wrist fall, twists the other behind your back, and clamps his free hand over your mouth. “I have to hand it to you and your friend at the HPSC. You two really screwed things up,” he says. You try to bite his fingers, and he curses. A moment later you feel the sharp press of a feather against your throat. “Skeptic got a message out before we jammed communications. PLF cells are activating across the country. How does it feel to be the cause of a civil war?”

“I didn’t cause it.” Your voice is muffled, but you get the words out. “You’re the ones who made it possible.”

“And here I was thinking you could be reasoned with.” Hawks laughs, low and dark. “Tell me something. Did you ever buy it? Me as a member of the PLF?”

You throw an elbow backwards and try to bite him again, and this time, the feather that bites into your throat bites deep enough to draw blood. “Never.”

“Then you should have said something about it yesterday,” Hawks says. “Now it’s too late.”

He lets go of the hand behind your back and wraps it around your waist instead, and suddenly your feet leave the ground. His wings buffet the air, hauling you both upwards. Your backpack falls from your shoulders, and you grab for it desperately, trying to salvage something, anything. Your hand closes around a single clip. Six bullets, no gun, and the Number Two hero holding what amounts to a sword to your throat. This is worse than Overhaul’s attempt to capture you, worse than facing down Re-Destro. Hawks has you, and you can’t get out. What is he going to do with you? Take you up to a height and drop you? Drag you back to the heroes and throw you into Tartarus? Make you disappear entirely, so that no one ever finds you?

No, you realize. Hawks is carrying you towards the battle, not away from it. He wants everyone to find you. Or maybe not everyone. Just one person.

He raises his voice, shouting into the wind. “Hey, Grand Commander! I’ve got something of yours!”

From above, the battlefield is a wasteland. The PLF’s headquarters are mostly in ruins, and the woods and gardens surrounding the compound are scorched black or still in flames. There are bodies on the ground, but from this height, you can’t tell who’s dead or just wounded, who’s a hero or a member of the PLF or a student who should never have been here to begin with. You know where Tomura is, though. You can see Re-Destro in his giant form, the light glinting off of Spinner’s blades, shreds of Dabi’s blue fire clashing with Endeavor’s red flames. You can see that the heroes are in trouble, that Tomura’s quirks are enough to hold them back almost single-handedly. And you can see that Tomura comes to a stop at the sound for Hawks’s voice. Everyone else keeps fighting, but Tomura freezes, and Hawks drops a few feet in altitude. “That’s right. Take a good look. I’ve got her.”

You hear Tomura’s response loud and clear. “You’ve got a clone.”

“I dealt with the clone already,” Hawks calls back. You see someone strike towards Tomura, only to be deflected by Re-Destro. Tomura doesn’t even look. “Twice’s copies are pretty good, but he always leaves one thing out.”

A smaller feather slices through the chain of your necklace, and it drops into Hawks’s hand. He tosses it down towards Tomura, and you see Tomura’s hand flash out to catch it. You can’t see his expression from here. “All right then,” Hawks says. “Now that we’ve established that I’ve got your girlfriend, here’s what’s going to happen.”

“No, this is what will happen.” Tomura kicks off from the ground and launches into the air — Air Walk, one of the quirks you and the doctor transplanted into him. Now he and Hawks are facing each other. “You’re going to give her back, and maybe if you do I’ll kill you myself instead of letting Dabi do it!”

“Come near me and I’ll cut her throat,” Hawks says, and Tomura stops. You see his expression contort in a way that’s unfamiliar, but it smooths out a split second later. “See, we could just beat you into submission — we’ve got numbers — but the problem is the big guy, and that army of yours that’s just started acting up. Not to mention all those Nomus. Killing you isn’t going to put them back in the bottle, so I’m going to need you to tell them to stand down.”

Hawks is smart. Too smart. The part of you that’s not writhing in terror realizes that Hawks has solved a problem that the rest of the heroes haven’t even thought of. If Tomura dies, there’s no one to give Gigantomachia the order to stand down. There’s no one to put the brakes on the PLF, a PLF that will be enraged by the heroes’ attack. If the heroes want this to stop, they need Tomura to stop it himself, and Hawks has pinpointed the one thing that’s always swayed Tomura, ever since this started — threats to people he cares about. He got into it with Overhaul because Magne was killed and brought back, sought out the fight with the Meta Liberation Army to rescue Giran. All that is true. You still don’t think there’s anything that will make Shigaraki Tomura stand down when the stakes are this high.

But he’s never been just Shigaraki Tomura. And ever since you both were children, you’ve never seen Tenko accept losing you even once.

You have to get out of here. You have to get free of Hawks before Tenko’s love for you ruins everything. You thrash, and both Hawks and Tenko snap at you to hold still. Your mind spins uselessly. Hitting Hawks hasn’t worked. You can’t bite him without moving your head, without pressing the feather against your throat. You don’t have a weapon on you. The only thing you have is the clip of quirk-canceling bullets in your hand.

Your right wrist is broken, but your fingers are okay. You switch the clip from your left hand to your right, trying to lock your fingers in place around it, and begin prying it open with your left hand. Hawks is still talking. “If you don’t order them to stand down, then I’ll kill her. It’s pretty straightforward. Do as I say or your girlfriend dies.”

“You’re going to kill an innocent person so you can get an easy win?” Tenko’s voice sounds as strange as the expression that contorts his features a second time. “What kind of hero are you?”

“One life for the whole country? I’m the kind of hero who makes hard choices,” Hawks retorts. “Your girlfriend might be innocent by your standards, but she’s a criminal just like you. I don’t want to do it, but I’d be doing everyone a favor.”

Tenko’s expression contorts again, but you recognize part of it this time — horror. You haven’t seen him look that way since you were children. His hands come up, clamping down on either side of his face, fingernails biting deep. “No —“

“Then this will be a really easy choice. Order them to stand down,” Hawks says. You pry open the clip and the bullets fall into your hand — and then out of it. Out of six in the clip, you’re only able to save one. “I’m going to give you fifteen seconds to comply. Fifteen — fourteen —“

He keeps counting down, and below you, you see a flaming figure break away from the fight. Endeavor. He’ll be here sooner than Hawks’s countdown will end, and Tenko will be trapped. You can’t let that happen to him. You can’t let his dream fall apart because of you. You flick the protective cap on the bullet hard, trying to shatter it and expose the needle, and feel it break away beneath your nail. You break the action down into the simplest possible steps, the same as you did when you were learning stitches or shooting a gun.

Shift your grip. Lean back, away from the feather. Keep looking at Tenko. Don’t look away. Bring your hand to your side. Think about where you’ll hit. Take a deep breath — your last one ever, if this goes wrong — and shout to Tenko, playing the role of his sidekick one more time. “Behind you! Look out!”

Tenko looks. Hawks curses at you, shakes you, and you bring your left hand up, stabbing the bullet into the back of his hand.

Hawks jerks back, but it’s too late. The feather at your throat goes limp and falls away, and a moment later, Hawks’s wings cease to beat. The two of you remain aloft for another second before gravity catches up to you, and then you fall. You’re falling together at first. Then Hawks shoves you away from him, hard. He wants to save himself. Fine. You know it’s too late for both of you already.

Hawk’s shove flipped you from falling facedown to looking up. You have a decent view of Tenko up above you, locked in combat with Endeavor and whichever other heroes can fight in the air. He must be taking damage — you can feel your vision blurring, your heart racing, as your quirk siphons your strength and sends it to him. Maybe that will be what kills you. Maybe you’ll die before you hit the ground.

That’s okay with you. You decided it could end like this, a few months back or forever ago. The thought settles over you as your vision goes black for the last time. You’re a sidekick. No good sidekick would let her hero lose.

<- Chapter 24

taglist: @frog-fans-unite @enyaaa2222 @issaortiz @tannyr98 @stardustdreamersisi @shigarakislaughter @deadhands69 @xeveryxstarfallx @lvtuss @evilcookie5 @boogiemansbitch @cryptidfuckerofficial @f3r4lfr0gg3r @minniessskii @koohiii @lacrimae-lotos @cheeseonatower @shikiblessed @warxhammer @agente707 @handumb @baking-ghoul

[azaharinflames]

Idk, I think we are lying a bit to ourselves when we claim the show is not for Buddies after 8x11? It was, even if it is not in the way they think it is. the whole set up here was because of Buddies. The GA did not see Tommy being insecure about Eddie before, the GA did not think 7x4 was really about Eddie. What the GA did in fact see is Buck pining for Tommy since 8x6 and that was while Eddie was still in LA. To even bring up the question of Buck having feelings for Eddie is a sign for the abject fandom brain rot Tim is suffering from. Like who asked for this? The shippers with blogs he insists on talking to every week and the hoard of fanatics that have been sending death threats to him and his actors as recently as last week? I resent the fact that the show so openly admits to being influenced by them. Tim now yanking fandom into canon, essentially introducing this mess to the larger audience, under the guise of shutting it down, is so frustrating. Especially since he is out there allready trying to walk it back with his usual "never know what happens" act

Hi, Nonnie!

I don't know if what you're trying to say is that they are doing Buddie after all, but if it is that, then I must disagree. The show is being very clear in not wanting to do that, and some interviews (not all) are being clear on not wanting to do Buddie as well. Sure, Tim's can be questionable at times, but even he has said this is not the path they're going down.

Truth time? I think they went this way mainly for one reason:

It was the easiest and quickest choice.

Let me explain. The end of 806 introduces us to a Tommy that is vulnerable and insecure, and does not see himself as enough for Buck long-term. We are presented with someone who wants to be Buck's last, but who is convinced he won't be. At this point, he didn't dwell further into this, and we all assumed it was something inherently his. And, whilst to a certain degree it is, that would be a much harder issue to solve for 911. As a matter of fact, this is a big cast, and they cannot give BT several episodes to work through their stuff. Especially considering Lou is recurring and not a main. Therefore, they have a limited frame to fit all they want.

So. What is the best solution? To have Tommy be insecure about his role in Buck's life long-term, because he thinks that Buck could fall for the guy that was by his side for several years*, instead than falling for him. A valid worry, even if Eddie was his friend too and never showed to be jealous of their relationship. Do I think it could've been introduced better? Hell yeah. But they're working with what they have.

And by doing this, they do make sure they have an issue they can solve rather easily, by having Buck show Tommy he loves him and wants to be with him, whilst also making sure that the craziest fans see that Buddie is not happening**.

Perhaps 811 was influenced by the crazy fans. But I fully believe it wasn't any type of gift for them.

My inbox is open for ranting, venting, giving your opinion (unpopular or popular, I'm happy to receive and discuss both), and even confessions! Though if you don't want yours posted, please make sure to say :)

Take care <3

(*I do think Eddie is not the best friend for Buck, especially as of late. And I am frustrated at the show painting him as the absolute best friend when he's a shit friend overall, not only to Buck but to everyone)

(**I think this might have been ABC's demand rather than Tim's initiative. Because has hasn't cared that much about the crazy, even when it's been worse than ever lately. But I can see ABC being done with it and wanting to nip it in the bud)

[mechs-headcanons]

HI once again spreading the marous/aurora agenda. But now with angst >:3c

When Nastya went Out the other Mechs thought for sure she'd be back eventually. Shed get bored and need a challenge and come back. She Had to come back eventually (grief and denial :D /lh) so they didn't appoint anyone else as engineer for a while, thought it'd be disrespectful. But as time wears on and the mechanisms continue being violent space pirates, the disrepair aurora is in is well. Obvious. and needs to be taken care of. Aurora hadn't said anything in any way besides creaks and groans and other noises that none of the mechs could understand, and most of it was hollow or sobs anyway, so they had no way of knowing how bad the damage was besides just the cosmetic stuff.

However, whenever the mechanisms tried to do Anything to help or fix her up she wouldn't let them, shooting them if necessary but would just remove them from the room and get them lost on purpose. She wouldn't let anyone work on her at all.

Except Marius.

Marius whos also having a bit of a rough time post the bifrost incident, and is already quite forgetful and tends to wander and get lost, on purpose or not is up for debate

But the other mechanisms dont exactly realize that aurora has deemed Marius the only acceptable temporary engineer (because nastya has to be coming back soon. Its cold out there. She can't stay out there so long, and doesnt she miss the warmth of her family? Its cold out there. She has to.come back soon) so ashes Jonny Brian and ivy are kind of scrambling bc the damage to aurora keeps getting worse for a variety of reasons and its making space travel difficult, so they need to find a way to reason with aurora so that they can land safely and finish up her repairs but aurora won't. Let. Anyone. Touch her. And they're starting to run out of ideas when they see.

Marius. Just, sitting on the ground, digging around in a panel in the walls and organizing wires and pulling out burnt or broken ones and grumbling to himself some nonsense about how nastya never let's it get this bad. Man she was really slacking recently. No wonder the spiders seem so agitated. But furthermore aurora is just letting it happen, letting him do whatever it is hes doing, letting him help her.

When marius sees the others he jumps and stands up awkwardly stumbling over his words as he tries to explain himself and ashes interrupts like. No by all means keep working we're just surprised is all. And Marius is also confused, like, what do you guys mean by that?

Well auroras been just as stubborn as Jonny is about maintence for repairs. We didn't think she'd let anyone work on her at all until nastya gets back.

Oh. Well.. Nastya doesnt usually let Marius work on aurora, too worried hes going to mess something up and protective over her, but things were getting so out of hand that Something had to be done to fix up aurora.

And hesitantly, the others decide its probably best if Marius is the temporary (its so cold shell be back any day she has to be back soon please nastya its so cold come back) engineer.

And eventually aurora starts communicating again, slowly. First with Marius.

And she asks him if he thinks shes changed.

And Marius thinks about it for a couple minutes. And says yes, just like they have all changed. Its been millennia and eternity has worn on all of them, weathered and shaped them into something new like wind or rushing waters. So yes, shes probably changed. But in the same sense that Marius isn't the same person he was when he and raph first boarded the ship.

And aurora cries for a long, long time. And marius sits there with her, not leaving until the waves of sadness fade. Her feelings are so strong that it almost makes Marius start crying, but he doesn't. He just sits with her until she feels better.

Why didnt nastya think that, then? She asks eventually.

I dont know. Maybe she just needed some time. She'll be back soon.

Although they both know nastya won't return. The hope she does, rhough.

-✨ who didnt mean for this to get so out of hand fndfhdjdj

i love how this is half a fic may i steal this omg i’m inspired :000

agh this is so yes aghhhh

[gunviolent01]

Hello I am starting to become horrifically obsessed with Sam and I would like a second opinion on this

What do you think her TRUE motive was? Actual misanthropy, attention, a desire for meaningful suicide, being egged on via the internet? A combination of multiple factors. As an extension to this, what sort of involvement do you think 764 had in both her and Solomon’s attacks? Do you think it was a case of blackmail or encouragement? Personally, I think she naturally had homicidal and suicidal ideations, and thus searched for a community that would accept her, that just happened to be 764. I don’t think she was blackmailed or forced or pressured into doing it, I think she was merely encouraged. Probably given advice on it and coaxed towards it as well. It’s a similar case for Solomon as well, he was already violent and self hating, he resented his family who was in tune with their culture as they were Black hebrew israelites, and as he became more engrossed in white supremacist circles, this turned into a hatred for the black race and a desire to commit some sort of terrorism via mass murder. Both of them are similar in the fact that I believe they deeply wanted attention, Sam vented in her manifesto about the fact that she felt neglected by both her parents and her peers. It must have felt nice to be sort of “appreciated” by a group of people, no matter how harmful their ideology was. I think she had some clarity on the fact that what she was doing was bad, but in the end she was just an impressionable young girl that really couldn’t escape the urge to kill herself, and in order to not have a “stupid boring suicide” in her own words, she decided it was best to get national attention by killing other people as well. That’s just my opinion though, what do you think about it?

ive talked with some ex people from 764 who knew solomon personally. i know for a fact he hated 764 and didnt have any true involvement. samantha was likely more connected, but i agree she was probably just encouraged rather than pressured. ive always interpreted sams motive as a mix of general suicidal ideation mixed with severe delusion. she obviously wasnt doing well for quite a while, turned to mass murder cases to cope, and it took over her thoughts and planted the idea to follow in their footsteps. i think she did genuinely believe her whole misanthropy thing, same with the revolution, and she did admit she wasnt even sure if she would make any change in the world. it was definitely a cry for help and attention as well, she was horribly isolated and ignored and its likely she admired the praise the tcc has for people that sam relates herself to, so it just kinda fell into her path. and since she always bottled up her feelings and never told anyone, it couldve partially been a decision she made in an outburst.

as for solomon, i think his motivation was very similar to sams, but replace misanthropy with an intense self hatred. since he had a focus on getting a high kill count, he likely just seeked a place of belonging in the true crime perpetrator space. and its pretty clear that when samanthas shooting happened, it made sol a lot worse and gave him a bigger spark of inspiration, seeing someone that he knew and who was in a similar position as him was capable of having that legacy, so he was encouraged to go for it himself

if this doesnt make a lot of sense, its because im half asleep and not sober. ill reread this tomorrow and fix it if i feel necessary

[hersuniverse]

HIGH FASHION

warnings: mentions of drug use, dealer!ellie x celebrity!reader.

word count: 1.4k

a/n: this is just the first part to idk how many, i'm working on more stuff guys i swear! anyways, enjoy lovers :)

Growing up you knew what you wanted, you were born for this, being on screen in front of big audiences, you lived for it. At Least you thought you did. You’d work so hard on your latest project, Savage Starlight,  which was easy reciting lines and putting on an act; what dreaded the most was the promotions. 

Making appearances, doing interviews and posing for paparazzi was constantly taking a toll on your mental health. That didn’t mean you got to opt out of anything, it just meant you’d have reassurance on the sidelines or just more than what you had before. 

Red carpets were the worst, usually in interviews you’d receive questions before the fact to be able to prepare and react in a positive way for audiences. Red carpets were spontaneous, interviewers would pop some of the most bizarre or invading questions and you didn’t always know how to counter them; yet here you were, the start of promotion, the premiere red carpet of Savage Starlights first episode. 

“Here! Look Here!” 

“Over here, please!” 

You couldn’t begin to count the amount of voices shouting at you once you stepped on the carpet. You were forever grateful for your management and stylist for dressing you so well, tonight was Mugler, fitting for the space travel series. You gave a couple of poses, making sure to smile as big as you could before starting to take questions, which went well in the beginning. 

“You’re starting with us! Oh I’m so happy!” The lady said, holding a mic from IMBd. You smiled as she started to introduce you and ask questions about the set and your costars. “Did you and Riley get along?” There were rumours that the two of you had clashed heads when photos of a dinner you two attended leaked which showed you both arguing. 

“Oh of course, those photos that went around were only half of what happened. Riley and I argue like that all the time but it’s never serious, it's all love.” You smiled, the signature smile that every news outlet loved to see. You finished with her and continued on, making good progress through two more interviews before reaching a woman who you didn’t think would stun you so much. 

“Hello!” You greeted, her smile lacked teeth which should’ve been your first sign but you ignored it. You never know what someones going through, at the end of the day. She introduced you to the camera man as usual, then went on to her questions. 

“What was it like having to completely change your appearance for your role in Savage Starlight?” You tried to pay her tone no mind, but it was a brutal first question. 

“Wow, uhm. I mean if you’re talking like physique and style you know, I trained with Abby Anderson, a pretty popular gym geek for months prior. My style on the other hand, I have to give kudos to my stylist on set for working with me to build such a unique style.” You dodged her attitude the first time, but it’d only begin to get worse. 

“Really? I’d heard from resources that you didn’t rely on just the gym to help slim yourself down?” You furrowed your brows but kept your smile nonetheless, you had a feeling of where this was going but you didn’t want to escalate anything. “I’m- sorry, I just don’t quite know what you mean?” You kept your composure, knowing there were too many cameras to freak out. 

“They’ve theorized that you’d been using drugs to get you to the perfect size, things like ozempic? Or something harder?” You tucked your bottom lip between your teeth, you were at a loss of words. You couldn’t call anyone to help you out so you did the thing you were trained to do. 

“I think your resource may have me mixed up with someone else, either way I think we’re done here.” You explained, reading yourself to walk away. “Is that the truth or is it what you’re trained to say?” You shook your head walking away, the last few outlets were waving you down to ask you a few questions but you waved them off walking over to your assistant, Dina. 

“Hey, what happened? You still have a few outlets to speak too?” 

“I’m not fucking talking to any of them, no more questions, I’m going inside.” You struggled to remove the gloves that had been a part of your outfit but were now too hot for your liking. You heard your name still being called but you didn’t bother looking back. “What did she say?” She asked, looking over your angered expression. 

“That I’ve been on drugs, trying to lose weight.” You were on the verge of breaking down, and you couldn’t do that so out in public. Dina didn’t bother asking you anymore questions, instead she stepped out to the outlets and let them know that you’d be done with questions for the night. 

After the premiere, the next day you attended your morning meeting with your team. Arriving at your talent agency, you greeted everyone before sitting down at the end of the table, closest to the board they had. You didn’t really take in the vibe of the room ,still thinking about last night, but that’s when your manager stepped in and got straight to business. 

They were talking back and forth but you were still focused on the events of last night, trying to figure out what would prompt such a question. “Babe, are you still with us?” Your manager, Maria, tried getting your attention. “Yea- Yes I’m still here.” You sat up in your seat, focusing on her.

“Good, so can you explain this to me?” The lights went out as she flicked on the projector which showed three images of you with another person whose face couldnt be seen from their hood being pulled up but you knew exactly who that was.

You were clearly in house clothes, a hoodie and some shorts, your hair freshly washed and you were bare faced. The person over the three photos was shown, talking to you in the first, cradling your face in the second and handing you a paper bag in the last while you handed the person cash. 

“Babe?” Maria had her hands folded over her chest as she watched you analyse the photos. “Who took these?” You asked, Maria ran a hand through her silver hair, visibly stressed. “A news outlet, they  threatened us that if we didn’t pay them to keep these photos on the back burner they’d release them.”

“What did you say?” She chuckled. “Well we saw the email a bit too late,” She flicked the projector to a title from an article which you read aloud “Savage Starlight rising star, sheds light on a dark habit? What the fuck?” You shot up from your seat.

“There’s not much we can do now-” 

“What do you mean? Isn’t this some sort of defamation of character? I’ll call my fucking laweyer!” You pulled your phone out, ready to dial your lawyer and get straight to business. “Let’s refrain from that right now, the public is bound to believe the rumours more if we fire back with a lawsuit.” Dina explained, you scoffed, your career had been running smooth but ever since you started with bigger projects, things have been iffy.

“What the fuck else are we supposed to do? Let them drag my name through the mud?” you argued. “We’ll handle it, one way or another we’ll find a way to clear this up.” Maria reassured, you could only hope they’d work quickly to clear this up; you could only imagine what the public was saying right now.

When you got home the first thing you did was head to your office, going straight to the comments of each news outlet and scrolling through comments, reading them quietly to yourself. 

“I knew she was losing weight, but not like this.”

“You could tell, it was such a short span of time and a lot of weight lost, it’s fitting.” 

“Is this who we want our children idolising?” 

“This makes so much sense, just look at her.” You sat back in your chair, hand over your forehead as your thoughts ran wild. You stayed in your office for hours, reading comments, conspiracies and more. At this point you wanted to simply disappear and never show your face in public again. 

Your panicking came to a close when a familiar contact lit your phone up, catching your full attention. 

‘How’s my favourite girl?’

You bit the inside of your cheek, thinking of the stupid look that Ellie probably had on her face after sending that text. You let out a shaky sigh before texting her back. 

‘Can you come over, we need to talk.’

[forbiddentaako]

more monochrome practice I suppose

[birthclod]

thinking about ch0mpkin's evil evbo post (evilbo, if you will) and going "How can I align this with My Interests (the axes)" and the answer is Very easily actually

[dreadeves]

was thinking about lucifer!johnny or connected in some way to a demon!johnny the other day and was like, the theory is growing on me because it’s an interesting way of connecting lucifer personally to the drama alongside kit’s blatant parental issues (as well as making them much, much worse), and it’d be a fun tessa’s fucked up family & jace and clary and valentine parallels connection… and then i got whammied by the realization that if johnny is lucifer then kit would count as a warlock in the same way tessa would.

[leori-the-unlearned]

the way digimon does conflict/drama between two characters who should be or are close: chef’s kiss <3

the way sonic idw handles creating conflict/drama between two characters who should be or are close: *wilting flower*

[celestialsblues]

you know a book is good when you're tempted to write a fic about two characters hatefucking even though you've never written smut before

[themyscirah]

Started a post comparing the Messner-Loebs Flash and WW runs and their successes and failures (imo) in portraying certain themes and their similarities to each other but it started getting long and im a very slow tumblr post writer so that's a meta for another day. I do have what I think are well formed opinions on this and I'm fresh off of reading both runs so you guys are not allowed to let me forget abt writing this all up okay. Okay.