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dollgxtz · 3 months ago

Text

Shattered Birdcage

Word Count: 9.5k

Summary: Sylus loses control due to the Frenzy Enhancer and you don't find the activater in time...causing him to become sexually aggressive and desperate to claim you for himself :3

Tags: praedator!Sylus x fem!reader, predator x prey, noncon, intense choking, rough sex, forced orgasm, degradation, biting, blood, injury, cunnilingus, creampie, threats, mentions of breeding, nicknames like little bird, near death experience (no one actually dies don't worry!!), fluffy ending to soften the blow :33

Taglist: @magpie-the-goblin-girl @sxremmie @lem-hhn @silverbrain @sizzlingtigerkitten @msslytherin00 @letharue @yu-irene @poptrim @monster-effer @ditsynddotsy @size0forhollywood @its-regretti @queenofstresss @reiheis @valentinared

AN: Hiii guys!! Are we enjoying the new banner? I AM! This is literally a dream come true for me. So I decided to write a fic based on it with a little twist hehe. Please heed the warnings guys, this is a very intense fic and I tagged it accordingly. This is legitmately straight up noncon, not cnc. If you asked for a tag and weren't tagged its cause I couldn't find your age on your profile anywhere, sorry! Enjoy!

You exhale slowly, fingers brushing over the edges of the movie tickets still tucked in your pocket before letting them go. The paper crinkles softly, a fragile reminder of something almost normal. But it doesn’t belong to you anymore. Maybe it never did.

Then, the world shatters.

The fire alarm shrills, a piercing, agonizing wail that erupts through the hospital like a banshee’s scream. Panic spreads instantly, as sudden and violent as a tidal wave crashing over an unprepared shore.

The chaos begins.

Screams.

Heavy, frantic footsteps thunder down the halls. The sterile walls of the hospital, once cold and quiet, now tremble with the desperate energy of fear. The mechanical beep of heart monitors, the faint hum of fluorescent lights—all of it drowns beneath the raw, unfiltered sound of survival.

Somewhere outside your room, a woman’s voice splinters the air.

"Fire! Help!"

Her cry is swallowed by the deafening roar of the alarm, by the clatter of overturned medical carts, by the stampede of bodies flooding the halls. A shadow streaks past the glass window of your door, her silhouette vanishing into the growing plumes of smoke curling along the ceiling.

Then—movement behind you. You turn, locking eyes with Sylus. He doesn’t flinch.

He leans casually against the wall, utterly unbothered by the pandemonium unraveling around you. Smoke licks at the edges of his leather top, but he remains still, red eyes gleaming with something sharp, knowing, entertained. The ghost of a smirk plays at his lips.

"They’re right on schedule," he murmurs, his voice smooth, unaffected, like this is nothing more than a carefully executed performance.

He extends his hand toward you, as if inviting you into a dance.

Your pulse kicks up, but you don’t hesitate. You take his hand.

His fingers curl around yours—strong, steady, warm despite the growing heat. With a single pull, you propel yourself forward, slipping past the threshold of the hospital room and into the chaos beyond.

Smoke greets you first, thick and curling, its acrid tendrils slithering into your lungs like a living thing. The air is already changing—heat warping it, bending it, making it heavier. The moment you inhale, your throat burns. You clamp your sleeve over your mouth, but the effort is futile. The stench of burning plastic and antiseptic chemicals invades your senses, clawing at your eyes, your nose, your lungs.

Outside, the scene is worse.

Patients in hospital gowns stumble through the smoke, their movements disjointed, frantic. Some clutch at IV stands like lifelines, others trip over their own feet, disoriented by the blaring alarms and the thick, suffocating haze.

Doctors and nurses shout over the chaos, their voices lost in the hurricane of fear. Someone grabs your arm—a patient, her face streaked with sweat and panic, begging for help—but you pull away. You don’t have time.

You aren’t here to run.

You and Sylus move against the current, pushing past the flood of bodies surging toward the exits. The sheer force of them is overwhelming, a sea of desperation crashing around you, dragging you under. A body collides with yours their fingers tangling in your sleeve—but you break free, heart hammering as you surge toward the stairwell.

"We’ll lead them to the rooftop!" you yell, the words raw in your throat.

Sylus doesn’t answer, but he’s right beside you, his presence like a gravitational pull you can’t escape.

The stairwell looms ahead, doors thrown open as black smoke pours inside, bleeding into the emergency lights like a living shadow. The second you reach it, you don’t hesitate.

You take the stairs two, three at a time, Sylus still close behind you.

The heat is worse here. It rises from below, clawing at your legs, your back, the nape of your neck. Your breath comes in ragged bursts, your lungs searing, aching, screaming for fresh air. Each step feels like an eternity, each turn of the stairwell winding tighter, suffocating.

But you don’t stop.

Then—light.

A final shove against the rooftop doors, and you break through.

The moment you stumble outside, the temperature drops violently.

The cold slaps you across the face, stealing the breath from your lungs, shocking your overheated body into momentary stillness. The wind howls, slicing through the thick sweat on your skin, tangling through your hair, but it does nothing to mute the screams below.

And these screams are different.

Not panicked. Not desperate.

Dying.

A sickening weight drops into your stomach. Sylus steps up beside you, his stance tense, rigid, watchful. He doesn’t need to say it. You already know.

Ever’s assassins are here.

Your skin prickles as you scan the rooftop, the smoke too thick, the night too quiet. You can feel it in your bones—something is waiting.

Then—a shadow moves.

Then another.

Then—

Gunfire.

The first shot splits the air like a knife through silk.

You react instinctively, twisting your body out of the way as the bullet slams into the concrete near your foot, sending a sharp spray of dust and shattered stone into the air.

Another shot.

Sylus shoves you sideways, his movements lightning-fast, the force of it throwing you just out of the bullet’s path. Another impact—a bullet embedding itself into the rooftop behind where you had been standing only seconds before.

A crack split the air, followed by another. Sparks erupted as bullets ricocheted off metal pipes and rooftop vents, spraying embers into the night. Instinct kicked in before thought—you dropped low, rolling to the side just as a round zipped past your ear, embedding itself in the wall behind you.

Sylus moved with effortless precision, dodging fire as if it were choreographed. His jacket billowed as he twisted, reaching for his blade. A flash of steel. A wet gurgle. One assassin crumpled before he even realized he was dead.

You pivoted on your heel, raising your own weapon. A pull of the trigger—a sharp crack through the air. The man before you barely had time to react before the bullet found its mark. His body jerked violently, blood misting into the wind before he collapsed.

Another shot. Another fall.

They kept coming.

More shadows emerged from the darkness, gunfire tearing through the night in an unrelenting onslaught. You both wove through them like ghosts, striking fast, striking first. Your heart pounded as you ducked beneath a swing, countering with a sharp jab to the ribs, twisting your opponent’s wrist until his own weapon turned against him. A single shot. A final breath.

Sylus barely broke a sweat, his movements fluid, brutal, decisive. He drove his blade into one assassin’s chest, twisting just enough to make it agonizing. The man gasped, a short, choked sound before Sylus wrenched the blade free and let him drop.

"Pathetic," he muttered, stepping over the body without a second glance.

More gunfire. More bodies dropping.

Silence.

The last assassin twitched once, then stilled, his fingers curling in the pool of blood spreading beneath him. The night was thick with the scent of gunpowder, metal, and death.

And then—sirens.

A chorus of wailing alarms grew louder in the distance, flashing red and blue bleeding into the night sky.

The battlefield of bodies lay still, the chaos settled into an eerie quiet. The stench of gunpowder and iron filled your lungs, coating your throat with the acrid tang of death. The last spent cartridges hit the concrete, rolling in slow, uneven circles before finally resting among the carnage. Smoke lingered in the cold night air, twisting in delicate tendrils around the lifeless figures strewn across the rooftop.

You pushed out a slow breath, feeling the adrenaline still burning in your veins. Your fingers flexed around the grip of your weapon before you finally holstered it. The police would be here soon, their sirens growing louder in the distance, but they weren’t your concern. These bodies—the nameless, faceless pawns of Ever—would be cleaned up. Their presence erased. Their deaths categorized as classified in some sealed document, buried beneath bureaucratic nonsense.

"Sylus, we're clear! Let's move!" your voice came out sharper than you intended, urgency overtaking you.

He didn’t respond right away.

He was standing unnervingly still, his usual cocky demeanor replaced with something unreadable. His expression was neutral, but there was an intensity in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, a glint of something dark that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. His movements were slow as he wiped away the smear of blood on his cheek, his fingers leaving faint streaks of red against his skin. The way he stood—too relaxed, too quiet—set off alarm bells in your mind, though you couldn’t yet pinpoint why.

Something in his expression made your gut clench. His usual amused arrogance was absent, replaced with something darker. His pupils were slightly blown, the faintest edge of something feral lurking in his gaze. The air around him felt charged, electric. Wrong.

Then a sound.

A wet, strangled cough.

You both turned.

The last assassin—one you had assumed was already dead—was still moving. Barely. He lay twisted on the ground, one arm stretched toward you, his fingers twitching, curled like claws. His chest rose and fell unevenly, each breath rattling, wet, his lungs failing him.

But his lips—coated in blood—were curled into a grotesque smile.

"Even though..." he wheezed, a broken chuckle rattling out from somewhere deep in his ruined throat. "We can't kill you or him..." He spat a thick glob of blood onto the ground, his grin stretching wider, his yellowed teeth bared like a rabid dog. "Both of you...can rot in hell!"

His fingers twitched, curling weakly around something small, something you hadn’t noticed before. Then, in one sharp motion, his fist clenched, and a sudden crack rang out. Glass shattered, the sharp snap almost lost in the cool air, but the moment you heard it, your stomach dropped. A dark, viscous liquid seeped between his fingers, mingling with the blood pooling on the rooftop floor.

Then you caught the scent.

It was faint at first, nearly masked by the coppery stench of death, but the moment it hit the back of your throat, your entire body locked up in realization. The chemical tang was sharp, bitter, something that curled into your lungs like acid. It was distinct. Familiar.

Your body reacted before your brain fully processed the danger.

"No—!"

Your pulse thundered in your skull.

The Frenzy Enhancer.

A biochemical compound designed for one thing: triggering an uncontrollable transformation in Praedators. The LCBI had confiscated hundreds of these vials from underground labs, tearing them away from illegal deals before they could be sold to the highest bidder. But no matter how much of it was taken off the streets, more always surfaced. It was unpredictable. Uncontrollable.

It worked fast—too fast.

You turned, heart pounding in your chest. Sylus had gone rigid, his muscles locking as though every nerve in his body had seized up at once. His breathing was deep, too deep, pulling in the scent like his body was craving it against his will. His head tilted slightly, nostrils flaring, a shudder running through him from head to toe.

A low, guttural growl rumbled from his chest, barely human.

Your blood turned to ice.

His pupils dilated until the irises nearly vanished, red pools swallowing the color in his gaze. His lips parted slightly, sharp, elongated canines catching the dim rooftop lights. He was salivating. A slick sheen of moisture gathered along his lower lip, his body trembling with the effort to hold himself together.

But he was losing the battle.

The Frenzy Enhancer wasn’t just a stimulant—it was a detonator. It bypassed control, restraint, morality. It didn’t just enhance what he was—it unchained it.

And right now, it was unraveling him.

"Sylus," you said carefully, your voice firm but measured. He twitched at the sound of his name, his head snapping toward you with a sharp, unnatural movement. His muscles trembled as if barely keeping himself together, but his gaze was locked onto you now—not as a comrade.

As prey.

You had seen this before as an Enforcer, watched it unfold in others who had been exposed to the drug. The Frenzy Enhancer didn’t just bring out what they were—it unchained them. It severed the link between logic and instinct, driving them into a state of raw, uncontrolled bloodlust. But this wasn’t just any Praedator—it was Sylus. He was already dangerously close to the edge even on a normal day, always teetering between control and destruction. Now, with the drug coursing through his system, you weren't sure how much time you had before he lost himself completely.

You had to move.

Reaching forward, you grabbed his arm, fingers locking tight around his wrist. His skin was hot, too hot. His entire body was trembling with need, his breath shuddering against his clenched teeth. The growl rumbling in his chest vibrated beneath your palm, every muscle in his arm wound taut like a spring waiting to snap.

"Come on," you gritted out, pulling him forward with force. He resisted, his stance firm, as though something inside him was battling whether to follow or attack. Your pulse thrummed in your throat.

Then he staggered.

It was slight, barely a misstep, but you used it. Yanking him forward, you dragged him across the rooftop, forcing his unsteady body toward the stairwell. His breath hitched in a ragged snarl, his movements twitchy, erratic, but he followed.

For now.

Each step was a battle. He stumbled against you, his balance skewed, his instincts fighting him at every turn. By the time you both reached the underground corridors of NightStrix HQ, his breathing had become ragged, his body burning up from the inside out. His restraint was slipping fast.

You shoved open the heavy steel door, dragging him inside. Deep within the base, hidden away from the rest of the world, the reinforced cage ready to hold the beast that was about to be unleashed.

Sylus grunted against you, his breath coming in hot, ragged bursts as you dragged you both into the containment cage. His body was burning up, his muscles twitching violently under your grip, every fiber of him trembling with the overwhelming need to break free. Each second that passed was a countdown to catastrophe. The Frenzy was about to take full hold, and if you didn’t restrain him now, you might not get another chance.

You fumbled with the heavy iron chains, fingers slick with sweat as you worked to loop one around his thrashing limbs. The muzzle. You needed to get the muzzle on first. Your heart pounded as you grabbed it from the steel hooks on the wall, forcing it over his mouth while he snarled, his body lurching violently against you.

"Sylus, stop—!"

He thrashed hard, nearly knocking you to the floor. His strength was unnatural, monstrous, and it was only getting worse. With a final shove, you managed to secure the muzzle around his face, locking the metal straps tightly at the back of his head. But before you could reach for the second chain, he bucked with terrifying force, sending you stumbling backward. You barely had time to clasp the restraint around one of his legs before you were forced to scramble out of the cage.

The second you slammed the heavy door shut, he lunged.

The impact rattled through the metal bars as his shoulder slammed into them, the force sending vibrations into the floor beneath you. You jumped, heart hammering in your ribs, your breath coming too fast. He slid down slightly, panting, his chest rising and falling in heavy, uneven gasps.

Then, without warning, he laughed.

A dark, guttural chuckle, low and mocking, twisted through the air like poison. His pupils were blown slightly wide now, black swallowing the color of his irises as he tilted his head toward you. Even through the muzzle, his teeth gleamed, sharp and lethal.

"Won’t you help me?" he rasped, his voice thick with something twisted—half-growl, half-seduction.

You froze.

He was still partially unrestrained. That single remaining chain wasn’t enough—if the Frenzy fully took hold, he could snap it in seconds. If you waited too long, he would be too far gone.

You had to finish restraining him now.

Swallowing the tight lump in your throat, you slowly stepped forward into the cage. Your pulse roared in your ears, your body screaming at you to run, but you forced your limbs to obey. You kept your eyes on him, watching every twitch of his muscles, every flicker of movement. You knelt, reaching for the second chain, moving with deliberate slowness so you wouldn’t startle him.

"I’m not going to watch you turn into a monster, but I—"

You never got to finish.

Sylus lunged.

A blur of motion—heat, strength, raw power.

You barely had time to react before white-hot pain exploded in your neck.

A strangled scream tore from your throat as his teeth sank into your flesh, piercing deep, his jaws locking down like a predator making its first kill. Agony shot through your nerves, the sharp burn of torn skin flooding your senses. Your vision whited out for a second, pain so intense it nearly stole your breath.

Then instinct took over.

You snarled, swinging your fist up hard, your knuckles cracking against his cheekbone with enough force to send his head snapping sideways. The impact jarred his teeth free, a sharp burst of pain ripping through you as he tore away from your skin. Blood dripped from the wound, warm and wet, seeping between your fingers as you clutched your neck in blind panic.

For a moment, all you could do was breathe through the pain.

The air was thick with the scent of your own blood, sharp and metallic, mixing with the sweat and heat that clung to you both. Your hands trembled as you pulled them away from the wound, your fingers smeared crimson. The realization sent a sickening chill through you.

He had bitten you.

Not just attacked. Bitten.

Your gaze shot back up to him.

Sylus was licking his lips.

He ran his tongue slowly over the blood staining his mouth, eyes fluttering shut for a brief second as though savoring it. Then his pupils snapped back open, razor-sharp hunger gleaming in them.

"You taste delicious." His voice was thick, dripping with need, his words slurred with the edges of something inhuman. His breath came in heavy, fevered bursts, chest rising and falling as his restraint frayed further.

A shudder ran through his body, muscles twitching beneath his skin. His fingers flexed, nails digging into the concrete floor as his entire frame shook with the need to consume more.

"Come...just a little more..." he purred, voice dropping to something low and lethal.

Then he lunged again.

You dodge just in time, barely avoiding the brutal force of his lunge. The heat of his breath scorches the space between you as he snarls, his entire body moving like a coiled beast just barely restrained by human skin. The instant he gets too close, you strike—your fist colliding with his cheekbone in a sharp, jarring impact that sends a jolt of pain radiating up your arm. The force of the hit knocks his head to the side, his body twisting under the sudden blow, but even as he stumbles, something in your gut tells you it isn’t enough.

Your heart pounds wildly, your breath coming in uneven gasps as you prepare yourself for whatever comes next. But Sylus doesn’t fall. He doesn’t even cry out. Instead, he slowly turns back to face you, a sluggish, almost lazy motion, as if he’s savoring the sting of your hit. And then—he smiles.

“Oh…I like when my prey puts up a fight,” he purrs, his voice slithering through the air like something alive. His eyes gleam with raw, unhinged hunger, pupils swallowing what little color remains. The way he tilts his head, the way his lips curl over the metal of his muzzle—it sends a sickening chill down your spine.

The Frenzy has him now. Completely.

You swallow hard, trying to suppress the shudder threatening to wrack your frame. Every inch of your body is screaming at you to run, but you plant your feet firm against the cold concrete, refusing to let fear consume you. If you let him see weakness, if you let him smell it, you’ll lose control of the situation entirely.

"Sylus! Stop it!" you shout, willing your voice to be strong. "Please, I know you're in there somewhere! I just need to—"

He lunges again.

The movement is blindingly fast. One second he's still and the next, he’s twisting, lunging toward you with a violent, predatory force. You barely manage to throw yourself to the side, feeling the rush of displaced air as he snaps at the space where your throat had just been. You seize the opening, grabbing hold of the second restraint with trembling hands and slamming it onto his other wrist. The sharp clank of metal follows as his chains yank him back, keeping him from reaching you—but only barely.

Your pulse slams against your ribs. If you don’t finish this now, he will get free.

His body writhes violently in front of you, hot with fever, drenched in sweat, trembling with animalistic hunger. He’s caught. Fully restrained now, arms suspended in place, unable to do anything but snarl and thrash.

Your arms shake as you stumble backward, breath ragged. You barely register your own hands drifting to your neck, fingers pressing against the torn skin where his teeth had sunk in only moments ago. The wound is deep, hot, raw, but you won’t die from it. Your body is immune to a Praedator’s venom—it’s one of the only reasons you’re even still alive right now. But that doesn’t stop the sick wave of nausea that rolls through you as your fingertips come away stained with more blood.

Sylus laughs.

The sound is low, rough, and dangerously amused.

"You scared?" he murmurs, voice still ragged with the aftershocks of his transformation, his breath coming in heavy, uneven bursts. His eyes flicker over you, roaming your body from head to toe, slow and deliberate, as if memorizing every tiny tremor in your stance.

Your stomach tightens. You don’t answer.

His gaze lingers at your neck, at the place where his teeth had torn you open. His lips part slightly behind the muzzle, and his tongue flicks out, running along the bloodied edge of his mouth as if tasting the remnants of you still clinging to his skin. His chest rises and falls heavily, as if trying to restrain himself, but there’s something else lurking behind his eyes. You watch as his eyes roam up and down your body, seemingly lost in thought. He's thinking about something.

Something dark.

"Your idea of help is heartwarming," he muses as he staggers towards you a bit, his voice softer now, mocking, but no less dangerous.

You force yourself to hold his gaze, even as your breathing refuses to steady. Even as something deep in your gut tells you that Sylus isn’t as trapped as he looks.

Because despite the chains, despite the restraints keeping you apart, he’s still in control.

And he knows it.

"When you approach your prey, you must ensure your own safety first. You taught me this, Sylus."

Your voice is calm, controlled, but the pain radiating from your neck betrays the lie. Each breath you take feels like a blade dragging against raw flesh, a sharp pulse of heat throbbing beneath your skin. You try to ignore it, pushing past the discomfort, pushing past the rising tide of fear that threatens to anchor itself in your chest. There’s no time to waste. You need to find the activator—now. It’s buried somewhere in his body, a trigger designed to override the Frenzy and pull him back from the brink. If you don’t locate it soon, he’ll break free, and there will be no reining him in after that.

Sylus lets out a low scoff, but there’s no real amusement behind it. His breathing is heavy, uneven, his chest rising and falling in quick bursts as though he’s barely holding himself together. Sweat beads at his temple, strands of hair clinging to his skin, and for a fleeting moment, you wonder if there’s any part of him left fighting from within, if the Sylus you know is still buried somewhere beneath all that raw, seething hunger.

"Prey?" he murmurs, rolling the word slowly across his tongue like he’s savoring the taste of it. His voice is hoarse, thick with something not quite human, something that sends an instinctual shiver down your spine.

You don’t answer. You can’t. The way he said that definitely indicated that he is not the prey here.

Instead, you move carefully, methodically, circling behind him. His arms are still suspended above his head, iron restraints locking him in place, but you know better than to let yourself feel safe. Chains mean nothing to him. They’re a hindrance at best, a mere delay in what will happen if you fail. Even now, his muscles flex, the sharp ripple of movement beneath his skin a silent warning of what he’s capable of. The heat coming off him is unnatural, feverish, almost suffocating.

You steel yourself, steadying your breath as you press your fingers lightly against his back. Your touch is slow, deliberate, barely there as you search for the small, embedded activator. It should be beneath the skin, nestled somewhere between the shifting planes of muscle. But finding it means keeping your composure, means moving carefully enough that you don’t trigger a reaction.

Your fingers glide along the ridges of his spine, trailing lower, feeling for anything out of place. Every shift of your hand feels like balancing on a razor’s edge. Sylus flinches under your touch, his body tensing hard before he exhales, a low, guttural sound vibrating through his chest. You feel it under your fingertips, the tremor of restraint, of struggle.

A bead of sweat slips down your temple. Nothing. No scar tissue, no ridge of foreign anything beneath the surface that you can find.

“It’s not here…” you murmur under your breath, your stomach twisting as unease settles deep inside you.

Sylus lets out another breath, but this time, there’s something different about it. A chuckle—slow, deliberate, curling like smoke in the thick air between you.

"Do you think I’m putty in your hands?" he asks, his voice low, teasing, laced with something dangerous.

The sound sends a flicker of unease racing up your spine. He’s getting antsy. The patience he had been holding onto—if he had any at all—is unraveling quickly. His muscles are shifting beneath his skin again, his fingers twitching, testing the strength of his restraints. You don’t need to see his face to know he’s smiling.

Your heart stutters. You need to hurry.

Just as you reach toward his ribs, he jerks violently.

A metallic snap rips through the air.

One of the restraints—one of the goddamn chains—breaks free.

Your breath catches in your throat, eyes snapping up just as Sylus rolls his newly freed wrist, fingers flexing as if he’s testing how much control he has left. Slowly, his head tilts toward you, his eyes burning like fire in the dim lighting.

The smile he gives you is chilling.

You don’t think. You react.

With a burst of adrenaline, you tackle him, shoving him hard enough that it sends you both tumbling to the ground. A low, reverberating growl rumbles through him, his chest vibrating beneath your hands as his body tenses against yours.

The struggle between you and Sylus is a mess of tangled limbs and desperation, your bodies locked in a frantic battle against the cold, unforgiving floor. Every shift of his body beneath yours is like wrestling with something barely restrained, a predator on the verge of breaking free from its chains. Heat radiates off his skin, far too intense, far too unnatural, as if his entire body is burning from the inside out. The feverish warmth seeps into your own skin, making it harder to focus, harder to breathe.

Your hands move over his chest, urgent, searching, pressing against the hard muscle beneath you in a frantic attempt to find the activator. It has to be here somewhere—it has to be. Your fingers skim the ridges of his abdomen, feeling for anything out of place, a small foreign lump beneath his skin, a sign that the override switch is still there. But the longer you search, the more panic digs its claws into your ribs.

Your wound throbs, a dull and persistent ache pulsing from your neck, sending sharp spikes of pain through your senses with every movement. The smell of blood—your blood—is thick in the air, mingling with the scent of sweat and something deeper, something primal that radiates from Sylus like a caged animal ready to tear through steel.

"Tell me—" You swallow hard, ignoring the dryness in your throat, trying to suppress the fear that’s creeping into your voice. "Is the activator here?"

Sylus doesn't answer immediately. His breath is coming heavy, uneven, his chest rising and falling in sharp, controlled bursts beneath you. Then, slowly, he grins.

The sight of it sends a ripple of unease down your spine.

"Don’t…" he growls, his voice low and guttural, slipping between clenched teeth. His body tenses beneath you, coiled muscle flexing, veins prominent beneath the sweat-slicked skin of his arms. His hands twitch rhythmically, fingers curling like claws ready to rip you to shreds.

"Don’t press it."

You ignore him.

You have to.

You shift, dragging your hands lower, pressing over his ribs, smoothing your fingers down the hard planes of his stomach, searching for any change in texture, any break in the muscle that could indicate the activator. Your fingertips glide over his skin, past the deep ridges of his abdomen, dipping lower—

A sharp, ragged exhale.

Sylus’s entire body jerks beneath you, his spine arching suddenly, pressing into you before falling back against the ground. His breath stutters, his hands clenching into fists as a sound rumbles deep in his chest—low, guttural, something between a moan and a growl.

Your movements falter for the briefest second.

Did you find it? Did you hurt him?

Your heart pounds violently against your ribs. Your hands remain pressed against him, frozen mid-motion, fingers still splayed across the hard muscle of his lower abdomen. You can feel the way his body shudders, tense and coiled, every fiber of him locked in place, the warmth of his skin searing against your palms.

You don’t know if the reaction is pain or something else, and the uncertainty sends unease coiling in your stomach.

Sylus exhales another uneven breath, his chest vibrating beneath you. His head tilts slightly, red eyes flickering open, dilated again and dark, and he looks straight at you. Not through you, not past you—at you.

The grin he gives you is slow, deliberate.

"That-," he murmurs, voice edged with something dark, something lustful. His lips curl at the corners, his teeth flashing between parted lips as his gaze flickers lower, trailing over the places where your hands are still pressed against him. "That feels...good".

Your breath caught in your throat as the realization hit you like a freight train barreling down the tracks. Your eyes widened as you lowered your head and took in the unmistakable bulge of his erection, straining against the confines of his pants, a tangible proof of the pleasure you were unwittingly providing.

This isn’t pain.

The second he senses your moment of shock, Sylus strikes.

With terrifying ease, he yanks you upward, your feet leaving the ground for a brief, weightless second before he drives you downward. The world tilts violently, your stomach dropping as you’re thrown forward, your body twisting midair before—

Impact.

The breath is knocked from your lungs as you hit the cold, unforgiving floor, your stomach smacking against the hard surface with enough force to send a sharp shockwave through your ribs. Your arms instinctively splay out, palms slamming against the ground to steady yourself, but the weight that follows keeps you from moving.

Sylus presses down against you, his entire body covering yours, his hands locking around your wrists before pinning them flat against the floor beside your head. His hips press firmly into yours, locking you in place, trapping you beneath him.

Panic seizes your chest.

You try to twist away, to jerk free, but his weight is unmovable, pressing down hard enough that every shift only grinds you further against the floor. The heat of his body seeps into your back, feverish and all-consuming, the ridges of his toned chest molding against your spine.

You thrash, breath coming hard and fast, struggling against his grip, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t budge. Doesn’t even react—except for the slow, deep inhale that shudders through his chest.

Then, he breathes against your skin.

"You smell like fear," he murmurs, voice low and silken, curling around your ear like smoke.

Your entire body locks up.

His lips are too close.

The warmth of his breath ghosts along the side of your face, his nose grazing the edge of your jaw before dipping lower, hovering over the sensitive skin of your throat. Your pulse races, hammering so violently beneath your skin that you know he feels it.

His grip tightens.

"And something...sweet," he muses, dragging the words out slowly, tasting them like something decadent.

Your struggles escalate, knowing exactly where this is going.

"Sylus! Stop! No!"

Your fingers claw against the floor, legs kicking, desperate to throw him off, but Sylus doesn’t move an inch. If anything, his hold only grows firmer, heavier, more absolute. The pressure of his body against yours makes it impossible to move, to breathe properly, to think.

Then—he lowers his head.

The brush of his lips against your ear is featherlight, teasing. A sharp contrast to the overwhelming, inescapable strength of his grip.

And then—his teeth sink in.

A sharp, precise nip to the outer shell of your ear, quick and fleeting, followed immediately by the slow, deliberate glide of his tongue. He slides all the way down to your neck, lapping up the still dripping blood from your wound. He alternates between licking and nipping, as if feeding himself and claiming you all at once.

You flinch violently, a shudder ripping through your limbs as heat explodes beneath your skin. Your breath catches, fingers digging into the cold floor as a rush of pure, primal panic flares through your nerves.

Sylus hums. A deep, satisfied sound.

"Something very sweet," he repeats, his voice edged with amusement, hunger, something else entirely. His fingers flex against your wrists, nails pressing into your skin—not enough to break, but enough to remind you of the power imbalance.

"Makes me want to devour you whole."

A violent shiver wracks through you, your entire body locking up in terror.

Move. Move. MOVE.

Desperation surges through you like wildfire. You snap your leg back, aiming a blind, vicious kick toward his leg, his thigh—anything that will make him falter, make him let go—

But he’s faster.

Before you can even make contact, he moves. His weight shifts, his grip flexes, and suddenly—you’re being crushed, pressed even harder into the ground.

Your breath chokes in your throat as his body presses flush against yours, one of his hands releasing your wrist only to grip your hip, pinning you down even harder. His fingers dig in, securing his hold, ensuring you have nowhere to go.

"Nice try," he murmurs, voice dipping into something thick and sultry, rich with amusement. The warmth of his breath trails lower, sweeping along the side of your bloodied throat, down to the nape of your neck.

A slow, wicked grin spreads across his lips, and you feel it—feel his smirk against your skin, feel the way he’s drinking in every panicked breath, every tremor, every racing heartbeat.

"You should know better," he murmurs, his voice a low, teasing growl. "Prey that struggles only makes the hunt more exciting."

His fingers flex against your hip, nails pressing in just enough to send a sharp, prickling sting through your nerves.

"Why resist me now? You made your choice when you stepped inside," Sylus taunts, a dark chuckle rumbling from his chest. Tears prick at your eyes, threatening to spill over as the harsh sound of ripping fabric echoes ominously in the confined space. Your skirt! You cry out, trying to lunge forward, to escape, but his grip is relentless, fingers suddenly tightening around your throat with a firm command.

"Stop. Moving." His growl is a sharp command in your ear, his weight pressing down on you, pinning you to the ground with an unyielding force. The air is forced from your lungs in a rush as he yanks the remnants of your skirt away, tossing it aside carelessly. The room's cool air brushes against the exposed skin of your legs, and you shiver, fear and vulnerability intertwining as you plead with him.

"Sylus...this isn't you. Please—" Your words are abruptly silenced as he tears your underwear away, his actions speaking louder than any words could. The chill against your bare skin draws a sob from your lips, a desperate sound swallowed by the room's oppressive silence.

He's going to take you right here on the cage floor. Claim you. And there's nothing you can do. This isn't Sylus you know anymore.

"My my...this was what you were hiding underneath that skirt?" he growls, a feral edge to his voice. He leans forward, trailing his tongue along your back, the sensation a disconcerting mix of heat and cold that leaves you trembling beneath him.

"Please...snap out of it! Don't do this...!" you scream, your voice raw and desperate as you squirm helplessly beneath him. Your pleas are met with a soft, almost soothing "Shhh..." as if he's trying to calm you, but the sharp sound of his zipper coming undone is a jarring counterpoint, a grim reminder that he's too far gone.

This is it, you think, swallowed by a tide of helplessness. It could be worse...right? A gasp escapes your lips as you feel something large, hot and throbbing press against the middle of your ass. Sylus moans, a deep, primal sound that reverberates through you, sending shockwaves of dread and involuntary ache coursing through your veins. He spits, the wet warmth landing on your skin, slicking the path as he rubs his cock between your cheeks, each movement deliberate and unhurried.

"You looked divine in that uniform when we met again," he murmurs, his voice a silken thread of temptation and threat. "Would it be awful of me to say that I've been wanting to tear you apart with my cock ever since I saw you again?" His words are accompanied by a deep chuckle, a sound that seems to vibrate through your bones.

You squeeze your eyes shut, fighting against the warm, wet sensation that overwhelms your senses. No...this isn't the real him, you remind yourself, clinging to the hope that somewhere beneath the Frenzy Enhancer's influence, the true Sylus still exists. He's still in there, right? The question echoes in your mind, a desperate mantra as you hold onto the sliver of hope that the man you know will resurface, that this nightmare will end.

The moment of hope you had was shattered in an instant as you felt a sharp, piercing pain between your folds as he grips the skin of your ass, a large intrusion attempting to force its way inside you. You screamed, your voice raw with agony, as you tried to pry his hands away, your nails digging into his skin. "It hurts! Stop, please!" you begged, your pleas desperate and frantic.

Sylus grunted and moaned, his body a contradiction of pleasure and annoyance as he struggled to push his cock deeper into your tight folds, his tip breaching your entrance only to retreat, the pain searing and hot. "Hmm..." he growled, his voice a mix of frustration and desire.

You shook, your body trembling from the pain, your lower half throbbing, the intrusion gone but the ache still spreading. Suddenly, your hips were gripped and your lower half was raised up, your ass raised in the air, your hands bracing against the floor, your body now positioned for his taking.

"You just need a little...preparation," Sylus whispered, his voice low and dark, belying the wicked intent behind his words. Before you could protest, his hot tongue was sliding down your cunt, his skilled mouth working to prepare you, his touch both electrifying and unwittingly arousing, a wicked precision that left you trembling, your body betraying your mind's resistance.

"Mghn! S-stop...please, Sylus!" you pleaded, your voice hoarse and desperate, your fingers clawing at the floor as you tried to escape the pleasure-pain he was inflicting. But his death grip on your hips was unyielding, holding you firmly in place, his tongue a relentless force, licking and slurping at your folds with primal hunger. Like a beast that hadn't eaten in weeks.

If he doesn't stop soon you'll definitely-

"Those cute noises you make drive me wild" Sylus growled, his voice a low, guttural sound. You can't see his face, but you can feel his eyes roaming up and down your now soaked cunt, no doubt wishing he was deep inside you right now. "Reminds me of the sound a rabbit makes just before its eaten."

You gasp and shiver at the depraved sentence that leaves his mouth before something wet and long enters your hole, making you cry out. Sylus's tongue, hot and insistent, buried itself deep within you, his mouth working in a rhythm that sent waves of pleasure through your core.

Sylus's grunts and moans escalated into a primal chorus as he delved deeper into your folds, his tongue a relentless force, his hands digging into your hips with increasing urgency. Your body was a tempest of sensations—pain, pleasure, and ecstasy—a melting pot of conflicting desires. You tried to hold on, to keep yourself from succumbing, but your body had a mind of its own, and you went limp, surrendering to the pleasure he was delivering.

"Mghn!" you cried out, your body shaking, your hands gripping the floor as you fought against the overwhelming pleasure. "Don't cum... don't cum..." you pleaded, your voice hoarse, your lips bitten to stifle the moans that threatened to escape.

But Sylus found that sweet spot, that spongy part inside you, and twisted his tongue, sending you over the edge. You bit down harder on your lip, trying to muffle the sounds of your climax, but it was no use. The pleasure was too much, and you came undone, your body shaking, your cries echoing in the cold cage as waves of pleasure washed over you.

Sylus lapped up your essence, his tongue working feverishly, his grunts and moans a testament to his own pleasure as he reveled in the taste of your orgasm, his primal satisfaction evident as he continued to lap up your juices like a thirsty dog.

"This taste..." Sylus groaned, his voice thick with greed, as he brushed his tongue against your inner thigh, catching the drippings of your pleasure, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction. You gasped for breath, your body still trembling from the orgasm, your mind racing for a way out of this predicament.

"Your scent has filled the room now...its driving me mad. I can't wait any longer".

Your thoughts turned to the activator, the key to your freedom. You needed to get turned around, to find it somehow. "Sylus, w-we should—" you started, but your words were cut off by the sudden, sharp intrusion of his cock slamming into your cunt with a force that sent shockwaves of pain and pleasure through your body.

"Agh!"

The initial penetration was rough, but easier than before, his cock sliding into your wet hole, stretching you, before he pulled back slightly and sheathed himself completely inside you, his grip on your waist tightening as he began to thrust, his hips pistoning in a relentless rhythm.

"Ahh...it hurts..." you whimpered, your body writhing in his grip, trying to escape the pain of his thrusts. But Sylus chuckled, his voice dark and amused. "Keep squirming, little bird. It only makes it feel better."

His words were a taunt as he continued to plunge into you, his cock pistoning in and out, his body a cage of pain, his grip on your waist unyielding, his thrusts relentless, driving you to the brink of ecstasy and agony, your cries and moans filling the cold cage with a symphony of raw, primal sex.

You begin to try and dissociate from everything by focusing on the concrete floor, but Sylus primal grunts and growls as he slams into you, using your body for his own pleasure, makes it hard to escape reality. Think! Just think! You've been in worse situations before, what can you do to get turned around?

A lightbulb goes off inside your head. Its risky, but at this rate...

"F-for a Praedator...I honestly expected this to be much better. A little disappointing after waiting all these years Sylus" you spat, trying to sound more confident than you truly felt. Sylus momentarily slows his thrusting, not completely stopping but definitely enough to ponder your words. You shiver as you hear a deep chuckle.

"Is that so?"

Your entire world flips around as he grabs you, spins you around and pushes you roughly against the concrete floor. Before you can continue speaking, his hand slams into your throat, squeezing slightly. Not enough for serious harm, but its a clear warning.

Sylus's gaze is dark, beastly and terrifying as he leans down to your face, as if trying to look deep into the depths of your soul. Your heart aches as you recall your last encounter with him earlier that day, when he gave you the movie tickets. He had looked so soft...unlike the beast that was in front of you now.

"I can give you rougher, if that's what you crave," Sylus purred, his voice laced with dark humor, his eyes gleaming with a dangerous light. "I quite like you in this position, that look of fear in your eyes turns me on" He began to laugh, a low, menacing sound, as he pushed his still-hard cock back into your aching hole, his hand never leaving your throat.

Sylus's other hand, strong and sure, reached out, tearing your top with effortless ease, the fabric ripping as he exposed your breasts to his hungry gaze. Your nipples hardened in response to the sudden exposure, the cool air on your sensitive skin a stark contrast to the heat of the moment.

Your breasts bounced with each powerful movement of his hips, the motion causing a mix of pain and fear, your body a canvas of sensations, your mind struggling to process the whirlwind of physical reactions.

You whimpered as pain, pleasure, and fear mingled within you. His hand squeezed harder with each thrust, cutting off your air supply, and you clawed at his fingers, desperate for breath, your nails digging into his skin.

"C-can't...breathe..." you gasped, your voice hoarse, your heart hammering in your chest, sensations blurring together. Despite your struggles, your body began to respond to his relentless thrusts, your muscles squeezing around his cock, a reaction you couldn't control.

"Oh, you like this, don't you?" he whispered, his breath hot against your ear. "Gonna cum while you can't breathe, little bird? I could've given you this pleasure sooner if I'd known. I'd have gladly delivered your demise, one way or another."

His words sent a shiver through you as your body betrayed your mind's resistance, succumbing to the pleasure he was inflicting, your climax building despite the pain and the fear, a testament to the twisted game he was playing with your body and mind.

Were you truly going to die this way? After everything, after fighting for so long to see him again? This is how things end between the two of you? You look into his eyes. His rabid, feral eyes and feel tears begin to prick them. You look past him, your eyes resting at the revolver still strapped to your leg.

You still have one more option.

"I-it won't be me succumbing to my d-demise" you choke out, staring into his eyes. He doesn't stop thrusting into your body, but his eyebrow does raise. "Even if you make it out of here, what do you think they'll do with you when they realize the only immune person is also pregnant with a Praedator's baby?"

Your eyes widen at his words, your brain barely processing their meaning as your vision begins to blur. No! No! You begin to thrash as the sounds of his evil laughter fills your ears, and his thrusts pick up relentless speed.

"D-don't cum in me! Please!" you choke out, your voice hoarse and gravely as your forced to continue take the relentless pounding of Sylus's cock. He's ignoring you, he doesn't care. He only has one goal now. You feel your lower half begin to ache and pulse, evident that you just orgasmed beneath him. But you barely register it, as your top half begins to hurt.

Your lungs burn as if set ablaze, the oxygen in your body dwindling, your chest seizing with every desperate attempt to inhale. A thick, suffocating haze fills your head, making your thoughts sluggish, disjointed, slipping between the cracks of fading consciousness. Your body betrays you, limbs losing strength, muscles growing weak as an unbearable heaviness creeps into every inch of your skin. Your fingers, once clawing at the iron grip around your throat, are failing you now, slipping away, no longer able to fight against the pressure stealing your air.

A dull ringing overtakes your ears, growing louder, drowning out the world around you. Your vision narrows, dark spots creeping into the edges, threatening to swallow everything whole. A strange lightheadedness overtakes you, a weightless, dizzying sensation that makes it hard to remember where you are, what you’re doing. Your body is shutting down, giving up, preparing to surrender to the void clawing at the edges of your mind.

No. No, no, no. It can’t end like this.

A spike of panic jolts through your fading awareness, but your body refuses to listen, sinking deeper into helplessness. You strain, forcing your head up just enough to look at him, to plead, to beg, but the words won’t come. Your throat is locked, crushed beneath his grip, and no matter how much you try, no sound escapes past your lips. Sylus barely seems aware of you now, his expression dazed, half-lidded, his breath uneven as he lingers on the edge of his own orgasm. His fingers twitch slightly, tightening then loosening, but he isn’t paying attention, isn’t thinking, isn't entirely here. He’s too close to the edge, too lost in wanting to finish inside you.

That’s when you see it.

A flicker of red, faint but undeniable, flashes in one of his eyes. It’s barely noticeable, a fleeting pulse of color in the red of his irises, but it’s there. Your slowing mind struggles to process it, to make sense of what it means, until the realization slams into you like a shock of ice water.

The activator?!

Adrenaline floods your veins, shoving back the creeping darkness threatening to pull you under. The sheer, primal will to live surges through you like a lightning strike, reigniting every dying nerve, forcing your limbs to respond even as they scream in protest. With the last of your strength, you move.

Your fingers twitch, barely managing to form a fist. Gritting your teeth, you summon every ounce of energy left in your failing body, pull your arm back, and slam your thumb directly into his eye.

A guttural, animalistic roar rips from Sylus’s throat as his grip on your neck vanishes, his entire body jerking back in raw, instinctive pain. The instant pressure is released, air floods your lungs, rushing in so fast that your entire chest seizes from the force of it. A sharp, shrill gasp tears from your throat as you suck in a desperate, wheezing breath, the burning relief almost as unbearable as the suffocation had been.

Your vision, once clouded and swimming, sharpens in an instant, the murky haze lifting as the world snaps back into terrifying clarity. Every nerve is raw, every muscle trembling, but you’re alive. You can breathe.

Sylus's eyes widened for a moment, a brief flicker of surprise as all the Frenzy enhancer seemed to leave his body, and then, just as quickly, the feral intensity left his gaze, his face softening. But it was too late for his body to catch up, as his hips froze mid-thrust, his cock twitching inside you, releasing a hot flood of cum against your womb.

You gasped, your body trembling from the unexpected climax, the sensation of his release filling you, an intense mixture of warmth and fullness.

Sylus’s eyes met yours, the fire in them flickering unsteadily as the weight of what just happened crashed over him. The frenzied hunger that had gripped him moments ago had drained away, leaving behind something raw—horror, confusion, and something close to regret. His breath came fast and uneven, chest rising and falling as he struggled to process what he had just done to you.

His lips parted slightly, but no words came at first. His red eyes, now normal, darted across your face, lingering on the deep red imprints, blood, and bruises his fingers and teeth had left on your throat. His grip, once unrelenting, had been torn away, but you still felt it there—the phantom sensation of his hands crushing the air from your lungs.

“Are you…” He swallowed hard, voice hoarse, like it physically pained him to speak. “Are you okay?”

You coughed, your throat burning, the rush of oxygen still too sharp, too overwhelming. But you managed to nod, your limbs still weak, your entire body trembling from the shock. You could feel the marks he had left, the lingering ache that pulsed in time with your heartbeat, but you were alive.

Sylus was still staring at you, his expression unreadable, but there was something in his eyes now—guilt, realization, something heavy and unspoken pressing down on him. His hands twitched at his sides, fingers curling like he wanted to reach for you but didn’t know if he should.

“Why didn’t you press it sooner?” His voice was quieter now, filled with something vulnerable, almost desperate. “The activator… you could have stopped me before—” He exhaled sharply, shaking his head, frustration with himself evident in the tightness of his jaw. “Before I did this to you.”

The look on his face—haunted, shaken—was so unlike him, so different from the Sylus you knew, that something in your chest ached. He wasn’t just horrified by what had happened. He was horrified by himself.

You forced a small, reassuring smile, even though your throat still ached, even though your entire body was still reeling from the ordeal. “Because I couldn't find it. But I knew you were still in there,” you whispered, voice raspy but steady. “And I was right.”

Sylus let out a slow, uneven breath, his gaze locked on you like he was trying to convince himself you were telling the truth. Then, without another word, he moved.

Before you could react, his arms wrapped around you, pulling you close, the warmth of his body pressing against yours in a way that was nothing like before. This wasn’t dominance or power. This was desperation. He was still inside you, but neither of you cared to address it at this moment.

His grip was strong, but careful this time. His hands, which had moments ago been your greatest threat, now held you like you were something fragile, something breakable. His fingers curled against the back of your head, as if grounding himself, as if he needed to feel that you were real, that you were still here.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured against your hair, voice rough, low, and laced with something unspoken. “I wasn’t…I couldn’t—” He exhaled, tightening his hold. “I didn’t want our first time to be like this.”

You closed your eyes, allowing yourself to sink into the embrace. Tears of relief slipped from the corners of your eyes and dripped to the concrete floor. Your hands gripped the leather of his top, grounding yourself in him, in the fact that he was back now. His heartbeat, still fast, thrummed against your own, and for a moment, neither of you moved, neither of you spoke. The silence was thick, but not empty.

“It’s okay,” you whispered finally, resting your forehead against his shoulder. “You’re back now.”

And then you kissed him.

It was slow at first, hesitant, but the second your lips met his, Sylus shattered.

His grip on you tightened even more, arms pulling you flush against him as he kissed you back like he had been waiting for this, like it was the only thing tethering him to reality. There was nothing controlled about it—it was desperate, messy, full of every unspoken thing he couldn’t bring himself to say over the years. His fingers slid up your back, then tangled into your hair, tilting your head to deepen the kiss, to claim more of you, to drown in you.

You could feel his pulse beneath your fingertips, still racing, still alive. You weren’t sure who was shaking more—you or him—but neither of you pulled away. Neither of you wanted to.

When you finally parted, both of you were breathless, your foreheads still pressed together. His lips hovered just over yours, his hands still holding you like he couldn’t bring himself to let go yet.

It was all going to be okay.

For the first time since this nightmare had begun, Sylus let himself believe it.

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tokkiwrites · 20 days ago

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ㅤ⠀ ˚̣̣ ᵕ̣̣̣̣̣̣⠀⠀⠀⠀토키⠀⠀⎯⎯⠀⠀( ✿ . )⠀⠀⠀⠀† ꯭ ⎯⎯

꒰ ꪆ୧ ꒱ SUℳM𝛢RY ⌢ ꒰੭. You always thought things would change after high school. College was supposed to be your escape. But things don't change. You drop out and move back into your small home town, where you are still invisible, still too soft, still too dumb. Then people start dying. People who hurt you. People who laughed at you. People who touched you when they shouldn’t have. It feels like fate. Like someone’s watching out for you. And when you finally meet him it doesn’t feel like fear. It feels like being chosen.

˖˙ ᰋ ── 𝖙ags ˚ DARK JOEL MILLER FIC, killer! joel miller x fem! reader, afab reader, no outbreak au, mentions of murder, mentions of blood, violence, mention of bullying, slow descent into obsession, delusional reader, outcast reader, age gap (mentioned once), morally grey characters, made up characters and places, semi public sex, rough p in v (unprotected), creampie, knife play, marking/branding, cum eating, degradation, dumbification of reader, choking, slight size kink, slight breeding kink.

𝓁𝒾𝓉𝓉𝓁𝑒﹙ʚɞ˚﹚ 𝖓ote: hey...how yall doin...? im sooo sorry i disappeared on you guys :( uni has been kicking my ass but i promise i will be more active from now on!!! had a chance to write for some of the requests so those will be coming soon! here's a small spring gift for you all :p i hope you enjoy it! 🎀🌟🐇

You thought it would feel different, leaving.

You thought that when high school ended, you’d find something different waiting for you. You imagined a new beginning, a fresh start, maybe something exciting—something where you wouldn’t fade into the background. But the reality was far from that.

You were always too soft. Too nice. You never knew how to be anything else, even when everyone around you told you to toughen up, to stop being so stupid.

In high school, they made sure you knew how weak you were. How easy it was to push you aside. You were a target for the mean girls, the ones with sharp smiles and even sharper tongues. They loved to mock you, but you didn’t have the heart to fight back. Instead, you retreated into yourself, hoping that one day, they’d stop.

You thought maybe things would change when you went off to college. It wasn’t like you had high expectations—it was just supposed to be a chance for something different. You imagined that the people there wouldn’t see you the same way. But it wasn’t different. It was the same. It felt like rot.

College was just high school in a bigger building. Louder rooms. Longer halls. The same laughter behind your back.

Your professors barely knew your name. The other students walked past you like you were invisible. And no matter how hard you tried, no matter how much you smiled or how polite you were, it was always the same. You thought that maybe it was just a phase. That things would get better after a few months. But after three years, it just felt like you were fading. You didn’t belong anywhere. You didn’t even recognize yourself anymore. You didn’t feel like you were living.

That’s when you decided to come home.

Your parents didn’t question you at first. They asked once, maybe twice, but after a few months, the questions stopped. They stopped expecting anything from you. And so did you.

Now you live in a small apartment above an old antique store in Northridge, a place where no one expects anything from you. It’s quiet except of the floors that creak beneath your feet, and the window by your bed is stuck halfway open, even when you beg it not to. You don’t even bother trying to fix it anymore. It’s just easier this way.

You work at Sloan’s Bakery, a quiet little shop that smells like cinnamon and fresh bread. It’s nothing glamorous, but it’s safe. You like the routine. You like the silence. Now, you don’t mind being unnoticed.

Today isn’t supposed to be different. You’re just doing your usual thing, putting the price tags on the pastries like you always do. The oven hums in the back, the cash register dings every so often as customers come and go. You feel like you’re in a bubble, watching the world outside through the small window at the counter. Nothing remarkable. Everything in its place.

And then, the bell above the door rings too loudly. You glance up, expecting some sleepy regular—maybe Mr. Hanley, or that tired-looking woman who orders oat milk but forgets every time that you don’t carry it.

But you were never the luckiest person.

It’s Macy King. Her heels click too sharply against the floor, and for a second, it feels like you're back in high-school. You haven’t seen her since then. You don’t know why, but the second you see her, you freeze. You’ve never forgotten her face.

“Oh my god,” she says, too loud, too fake. “It’s you.” She laughs. That same high-pitched laugh you remember from the cafeteria. It scrapes something raw inside you. You don’t know what to say. You feel like you’ve been caught in something. “I haven’t seen you in, like… forever.” She giggles like it’s funny, but you know it’s not. She’s looking at you with that same old smugness, that always made you feel small. It funny really, she's at the same level since high-school yet she still believes everyone is beneath her.

“Didn’t you go to college or something? I thought you’d be, like, doing something by now.” You can’t find your voice. You nod slowly, trying to force the words out, but your mouth feels dry. “IㅡYeah… for a while.”

She doesn’t ask why you’re back. She doesn’t care.

“So this is what you’re doing now?” Her eyes sweep across the bakery. She’s sizing you up, like she’s inspecting the life you’ve built. “Wow, that’s… cute. Really, though, I didn’t expect you to end up here.” She doesn’t say it mean. But that’s the trick with Macy. She never said it mean. Not directly. Just enough to make you feel like dirt on the floor.

You don’t answer. You can’t. You want to scream, but it’s like your throat’s closed up, and the words aren’t coming. She steps closer, running her fingers over the glass of the pastry case like she owns the place.

“Oh my god, do you still make those little cookies?” she asks, peering into the display case. “The ones with the filling in the middle? What are they called? The jelly blobs?”

“Thumbprints,” you say softly.

“Yeah, whatever. I’ll try one.” You give it to her, unsure of what to expect. She bites into it immediately, but her face twists in distaste.

“Ew,” she spits out, loud enough for the whole bakery to hear. “This is disgusting. Too sweet.”

You don’t move. You just watch as she drops the half-eaten cookie on the floor, the soft thud of it making your stomach turn. “Oh, wait. Let me try that one,” she says, pointing at a different pastry. You give it to her. She bites into it and immediately frowns, dropping it to the ground too.

“Ugh, all of these are gross,” she says, shaking her head like you’re the one at fault. She turns her back on you like she’s bored, her eyes scanning the other pastries, dismissing them with a flick of her wrist. “Do you ever get anything right?” she adds, but it’s not a question. It’s just another jab.

You bend down to clean up the mess she’s made, your hands shaking as you gather the pieces of pastry from the floor. The crumbs stick to your skin, like a reminder of how small and invisible you are.

She doesn’t say goodbye when she leaves. She just walks out, her footsteps echoing in the silence she leaves behind.

It’s hours later and it's finally time for you to close up. You don’t know why you turn the radio on, but you do. It’s the static hum of the local station, the voice on the other end dull and distant.

“��Body discovered behind the Valero gas station early this morning. Authorities have confirmed it’s a local man in his twenties…” Your heart skips a beat and you sit up straight, the words striking you harder than they should.

“…Multiple stab wounds to the chest. Police are investigating but no suspects have been identified. More details to come as the investigation unfolds.” You don’t know why it strikes you so hard, but you can’t shake it. The voice continues, but you’re already lost in your own thoughts.

Its not long until the whole town starts talking. Brandon Haynes. You remember him. He was just like everyone else. He touched you. Too much, too harsh. More than enough to make you feel small. To make you feel like nothing.

You don’t know why it’s so strange. Why it feels like you’re holding your breath. It doesn’t matter.

You don’t feel anything for him. But you feel something for the moment. For the chance that maybe something’s shifting. Something is moving. And in that quiet, empty way, you realize that maybe you’re not the only one who’s been pushed aside.

A few days later and it is close up time again. As always the radio voice drones on as you wipe the counters. “Macy King found dead this morningㅡ”

You don’t need to hear more. You already know.

Macy is dead too. How is this even possible? Was it all a dream, or was it the karma they couldn't escape from? You don’t feel sorry for her. You don’t feel sorry for Brandon either. But something’s stirring deep inside you. Something darker. Something that’s been waiting for a long time. It feels liberating. Maybe it makes you broken. But you don’t care.

Because some quiet part of you smiles.

You never said it out loud, but you hated them. For how they made you feel. For how they touched you, laughed at you, stepped on you. And now they’re gone. You tell yourself it’s not coincidence. How could it be? What if someone saw you? What if someone knows?

What if someone did it… for you?

The thought makes your breath catch. Makes your cheeks flush. It’s stupid. Delusional. But it feels like the first real thing you’ve had in months. Maybe longer.

Someone out there, somewhere in this cruel, gray little town, might’ve done what you’ve never had the courage to. And that makes you feel seen. Wanted. It doesn’t scare you. It makes your chest flutter.

So you hope, quietly, selfishly, shamefully, that whoever it is, does it again. For you.

Days later, the radio talks about Macy's death like it’s a warning. Like the whole town should be afraid. They now know the crimes were done by the same person. A man. But you’re not afraid. You’re captivated.

You walk home that day in a daze, the cold air biting at your cheeks, and for the first time in so long, you feel like someone is walking with you. Not beside you, but behind you. Somewhere. Watching. At least thats how it seems, or that's what you hope for.

And that thought that maybe someone sees you, maybe someone is thinking of you, it makes you ache. It makes your chest feel full. Like you matter. Like you’re real again.

So the next morning, you get up early. You shower longer than usual. You put on perfume, the one you wore back in college when you thought someone might notice you. You do your hair, just a little lipstick, and put on that soft sweater that hugs you just right. You don’t know why you’re doing it.

Except you do.

Because maybe he is out there. Maybe he's watching. Maybe you’ll catch a glimpse of him one day— maybe at work, across the street, reflected in the bakery window. Maybe he’ll come in and ask for a loaf of rye bread. And you’ll know. It’s stupid. But you don’t stop.

You start waking up earlier. Dressing softer. Smiling, just in case. The town is still cold and gray, but inside you, something is blooming.

A few weeks pass. You’ve stopped keeping track of the days. Everything just folds together now—sugar, flour, radio static, names whispered on the news.

The third victim throws you for a loop. Julian Moore.

He wasn’t like Macy or Brandon. He never laughed in your face, never whispered about your thighs or stole things from your locker. He wasn’t cruel.

But he stood by. That's your reasoning.

He was there, every time you were shoved into a locker or had your tray flipped in the cafeteria. He saw you crying in the girls’ bathroom after gym, after someone stole your clothes. He saw everything. And he never said a word. So when they find Julian’s body slumped behind the old church parking lot, throat cut clean through, something inside you hums. Not with guilt. Not even with relief.

But with a kind of satisfaction.

'You see me', you think. 'You’re doing this for me'. You’re too far gone now. You know it. But it’s like slipping into warm water. Soft and quiet and too easy to sink.

You don’t pray to God anymore. You pray to him.

Whoever he is.

Some nights, you whisper your thoughts aloud. Just in case he can hear you. You tell him about the people you hated, the ones that ruined you, the ones that still smile like they got away with it. You tell him about your dreams. About how sometimes you think you feel him just outside your apartment, under your window, in the creak of the floorboards that shouldn’t creak. You leave your curtain open a crack at night.

Just in case.

More days pass. The sky is bruised purple and gold, streetlights humming like quiet thoughts, the pavement still sticky with sun. You smell like sugar, yeast and a little vanilla, your apron folded neatly in your bag, your perfume still clinging to your collarbones. And you feel good.

It’s not something you admit often. But tonight, the wind is soft. Your chest feels light. And there’s that quiet, persistent buzz in your stomach that maybe—just maybe, he’s proud of you.

You walk slower than usual. You want to be seen. You smile at the window reflections. At your shoes. At nothing.

And then it shifts. At first it’s subtle. There's a sound that doesn’t belong. A presence you can’t place. But it thickens around you slowly, like fog, until you know you’re not alone. There’s someone behind you.

It's ot a feeling anymore. Not a maybe.

Someone is there. Slowly, your steps falter. You stop, you turn. And he’s there.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Older. He’s standing under the glow of a flickering lamppost like it’s a spotlight and he is the misunderstood actor, with shadows cutting across his face. His hair is dark and slightly curled, his jawline sharp, mouth neutral. He doesn’t move.

But he’s looking at you. Your heart slams up into your ribs. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t speak. Just watches. You don’t know him. Or maybe you do. Maybe you’ve seen him before, in your dreams, in your prayers, behind your eyes when you’re alone in bed with nothing but wanting. Maybe he’s always been there.

The street is silent. The street lights glow faint behind you. Somewhere far off, a dog barks. And you— God, you don’t run.

You take a step forward. And he doesn’t move. Not until his hand shifts just a little and you see something glint. A blade. Maybe. Or maybe your mind wants it to be. You gasp, but it’s soft, almost reverent. You don’t feel fear. You feel certain.

You open your mouth, voice trembling but real. “I am not afraid o-of you…” He laughs. It’s a quiet sound. Deep and low and almost surprised. “Oh?”

But you mean it. You’re not afraid. You’ve wanted this—him, whatever this is, for so long, you’re not sure there’s any room left inside you for fear.

For months you’ve been dreaming of this. Not of murder or blood, but of him. Of being seen. Of being chosen.

And now he’s here. You don’t blink. Don’t breathe. “Stupid girl…” he mutters. His fingers brush the knife at his belt. And you? You smile.

He steps closer. You don’t move. Can’t. Your mouth is dry, breath catching somewhere between your chest and your throat, your heart trying to crawl up your neck. He’s beautiful. Not in any way you’ve ever known. He’s rough, a scar curling just near his temple, his face carved from something too human and too wild at once. His eyes are dark, unreadable. His mouth is stern, unmoved. You feel heat flush up your neck and to your cold cheeks. He’s right in front of you.

Close enough to see the shadow of stubble on his jaw, the way his eyes linger on your face for just a second longer than they should. “I—I know what you did,” you whisper, voice trembling, breathless.

He raises an eyebrow. You swallow hard. “Those people… Brandon. Macy. Julian. They hurt me. Back then. You—you knew, didn’t you? You did it for m-me…”

He doesn’t say anything. Just watches.

And that silence, it pulls more out of you. “I mean, it makes sense. Doesn’t it?” You laugh, soft and shaky, hands trembling at your sides. “No one ever remembered me. No one ever noticed me. But you—you saw me. You must’ve. That’s why you…” You trail off. You can’t bring yourself to say killed. Not out loud.

His expression shifts. A little. One corner of his mouth twitches. And then he laughs. It’s sudden and deep and rough, like it bursts straight from his chest.

You flinch, but not away. Never away.

“You’re a real sweet thing, aren’t you?” he drawls low, the faintest southern rasp brushing the words. You don’t know what to say. You just stare up at him, cheeks burning, stomach a mess of tangled knots. Then he leans closer. Close enough that you can smell leather and smoke and something more darker. Close enough that his voice grazes your ear when he speaks again. “I might just keep you longer.”

The words burn. You feel them everywhere. Your legs tremble. You’re too warm. Too soft. You feel like you could fall straight into him and vanish.

And still, he doesn’t touch you. He just watches the way you unravel—eyes wide, lips parted, breath shallow, as if it’s his favorite pastime. As if he likes watching you break.

The space between you is so tight it feels like you have been touched. Brushed. You wonder what his hand would feel like on your throat. You shouldn't want that. “I…” you whisper, barely audible. “Can I know y-our name?" He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even blink but you see his jaw tighten. Just a little. Like maybe something in him twitches when he looks at you too long.

“Why me?” you ask, stupidly, helplessly, hopelessly. His eyes flick down to your mouth, then back up. And he smiles. Barely. “You talk too much,” he mutters. He leans in again “I liked you better when you were just starin’.” You feel heat bloom low in your stomach.

“You ever wonder what it’d feel like,” he murmurs, his voice a low drag in your ear, “if I just took you right here?” Your breath stops.

Right here. This alley. The air thick and sticky with heat, the only light coming from the weak glow of the streetlamp at the corner, flickering like it’s about to die too. He pulls back just enough to look at you.

“No one can see you out here. No one can hear you.” His hand trails down slowly, fingers dragging across your arm, your waist, until it rests low on your hip.

“What if I held you up against this wall,” he continues, voice crueler, “fucked you until you beg for me to stop, and then put a knife in your gut?” You should run. You should scream. But your breath comes out shuddered, and your eyes go wide, not in fear, but something closer to desire.

You want it. You want him.

He sees it. He feels it. Your body leaning closer, your thighs shifting, the way your lips part and tremble. And he stills. For a second. A long one.

“…Jesus Christ,” he mutters. “You like that?” You nod. He stares at you. Quiet. Like he’s trying to figure out whether you’re the dumbest girl he’s ever met or the most dangerous. Maybe both.

He shoves you back against the alley wall and kisses you like a punishment, like he hates that he wants you, like he wants to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

You moan. Loud. Needy. And that’s all it takes. His hands are everywhere—on your hips, your ass, your throat. One knee forces your legs apart and he grinds against you through your clothes, a low, guttural sound in his throat when he feels how soaked you are already. “You’re fuckin’ filthy,” he growls. “Gettin’ wet from me talkin’ about killin’ you. You sick little thing.”

You nod again, whispering a barely-there, “please—” And then it happens. Just like you have dreaming of. His mouth was on your neck, his breath in your ear, his body pressing you into the wall like he’s carving your shape into it. He quickly takes off his pants, leaving you no time to react to the sheer size of him. He forces the head inside of you, leaving you mewling under his touch. “Look at you, lettin’ a killer fuck you in a goddamn alley like a whore.” In no time he was in your guts, each stroke sending you further into oblivion. Your fingernails dig into his skin and he growls, rough hands wrapping around your throat as he whispered dirty nothings into your hair. “This little cunt’s never been touched, has it? Feels too fuckin’ tight to beㅡ shit!" He uses you like he owns you, like you’re a soft and stupid doll made just for him. “Don’t stop, please don’t stop—feels so good…”

“I could kill you right now, and you’d still thank me for it, wouldn’t you?” he gloats, each snap of his hips hitting deeper into your cunt. Your tear stained cheeks press agains his hard chest, sobs muffled and eyes blurry from crying. Your head is spinning, brain melting into nothing but thoughts of him. “You’re gonna remember this every time you sit down, darlin’. Gonnaㅡ fuck, feel me for days.”

You hiccup, head bobbing up and down, as he hastily chases his high. He groans low into your neck, voice cracking like gravel, rough fingers digging into your hips as he jerks once, twice, then stills as he spills his cum inside of your ruined insides.

“Fuck… that’s it, girl. Take it. Take all of it, you stupid thing.” He stays inside, breathing heavy against your cheek, his hand slipping down to hold your belly like he’s wanting to feel how deep in he still is. “Maybe it’ll stick. God knows you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

You nod, dazed, breathless. You don’t even know what you’re agreeing to. But you're full. Of him. Of this moment. Of something filthy and real and unforgettable. It’s dripping out of you already and you shudder as it drops onto your newly bought underwear.

Your thighs still trembling, your skin still burning where he touched you. “I hope it does…” you whisper, blinking up at him, lips swollen, brain a haze of sugar and sin. “I really hope it sticks…” And he just laughs, sharp and cruel. He is entertained. “You're so fuckin’ pathetic.” But he doesn’t pull out. Not yet. The words sting. But not in the way they should. Not in the way a normal girl would cry over.

There's that filthy slickness between your thighs, and his rough hand moves down, slow, before dragging fingers through the mess he's left inside of you. You gasp.

He brings his fingers back up, slick and warm, and pushes them against your lips. "Open," he commads. And you do. You part your lips like it’s holy, like it’s something good, something earned. You wrap your mouth around his fingers and taste salt, heat and him. He watches you, slow and dark, chest rising. “ God dammit...”

Your eyes flutter shut as you suck, as if this will anchor him to you. As if this will mean something. And when he finally pulls his fingers away, wiping them on your cheek with something like contempt, you're still there, ruined, breathless, glowing in it.

He pulls away from you slowly, lazily, like he’s in no rush to care. His belt’s already half-fastened, knuckles grazed from the rough press of brick and skin. You’re still trembling, ruined and bare and aching in places you never knew could ache.

He pulls out like it means nothing. Like you mean nothing. The air cools around you instantly, and so does he. Zipping his jeans, flexing his jaw, his gaze flickers down at you once more, lazy and cold.

Then he turns. One step. Another.

It shouldn’t hurt this bad. But it does. Your voice cracks before you even know what you’re saying. “Please don’t leave—please—I’ll be good, I swear!" You’re shaking. Still sore. Still wet. Still his, in some awful, ruined way.

“Don’t go fallin’ in love, dumb girl. I ain’t your savior. I’m the reason people like you go missin’.” His eyes are sharp, unreadable.You're on your knees, legs trembling, underwear pushed to the side and forgotten, dress wrinkled and twisted halfway around your thighs. Your elbows ache from where you caught yourself against the brick, and your lips are raw from biting down too hard. There’s a stream of his come between your legs and bruises blooming along your skin. The alley smells like him. You do too.

Your heartbeat is still stuttering, off-kilter, your body stuck somewhere between shame and a high you never want to come down from. You blink up at him through damp lashes. “That’s all you wanted, huh? Someone to fuck the stupid outta you. Thought you’d get a happily ever after?”

It feels like you're begging without even saying a word. He should leave. He said he would. But he's still here, isn’t he? He just stares. Something in his brain ticks. And then, slowly, he pulls the knife from his belt. The steel hits the streetlight close to him and you freeze. He doesn’t say a word as he shifts closer. One knee between your legs again. Hand under your chin, tilting your face up to his. Finally, the blade touches your skin. “Stay still,” he mutters.

The metal is cold when it drags along your collarbone, slow. You whimper, but don’t pull away. It’s not deep. Just enough to hurt a bit. Just enough to bleed a little. When he leans back, satisfied, there’s a rough little 'J' carved just above your heart.

“Now you’re mine,” he murmurs, more to himself than you. Then louder “ So don’t go forgettin’ who you belong to, girl.”

You don’t say anything. You’re too out of it. Your fingers come back red as you touch the small mark.

He tucks the knife away. “I’ll find you again. Same spot. Don't make me come lookin' for you." And then he’s gone. Just like that.

You stay there, knees scraped, heart pounding, sticky, aching and marked. You should be afraid. Instead, your fingers ghost over the wound, and all you can think is he’s coming back.

You walk home with your head light and your lips smiling. So stupid. So giddy. You’ll clean yourself up, cover the mark with something soft and cottony. And maybe tomorrow, you’ll wear something nicer to work. Just in case he’s watching.

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel x reader #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller fic #dark!joel x reader #dark!joel miller #dark joel miller #pedro pascal fanfic #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal fanfiction

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luviestarz · 4 months ago

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lee heeseung fic recs! part 2 ♥︎

♥︎ CATCH US, DISPATCH ! ⎯ l.hs. (completed) - @jalnandanz (being in love is hard. being in love with an idol is even harder. being in love with an idol while being an idol yourself is basically hell. what will girl group member y/n and member of boy group enhypen, heeseung, do while in this situation? and are they even trying to hide their relationship? i mean, holding hands without wearing masks and a cap is basically asking for dispatch to catch you!)

♥︎ eat with me - @fruityhoon (soft yandere!hee x gn!reader)

♥︎ "keep kissing me like that and i'll marry you" (heeseung x reader) - @heeliopheelia

♥︎ 이희승 、PRETTY GIRL - @boyfhee (bsf!heeseung, hints at friends with benefits)

♥︎ — ONE THING BEFORE YOU LEAVE - @flwrstqr (bf!heeseung x fem!reader)

♥︎ 이희승 、DINE AT HOME - @boyfhee (bf!heeseung, established relationship)

♥︎ tides of regret | heeseung - @pprodsuga (in the year since heeseung first rejected your love confession, you've tried everything to get over him. a trip to europe makes you realize you miss your former best friend more than anything, and it makes heeseung realize he's got it all wrong.)

♥︎ ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆ FORBIDDEN ATTRACTION ┊ LEE HEESEUNG - @jungqkook (if anyone was more popular than you at hogwarts, that person had to be lee heeseung – the young quidditch prodigy who has every girl at his feet and every boy following him like his puppies.)

♥︎ let's collab | (m) - @taeghi (you've always vied for the top spot on onlyfans but "hluvsbabes" makes it tough with his undeniable charm and looks. when you unexpectedly meet him you realize he's even more captivating up close. despite the competition, you find yourself unable to turn down his one request.)

♥︎ MAKE A MOVIE - L. HEESEUNG - @enhaheeseung (smut, unprotected sex, dirty talk, edging, cream pie, missionary position, filming.)

♥︎ 𝓑𝐔𝐁𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐌 ୨୧ 𝐋𝐇𝐒 - @jlheon (you give heeseung detention once again for his habit of loudly chewing gum)

♥︎ are you jealous or are you jea— - @forallthethingsyouvemadeof (jealous! heeseung)

♥︎ eyes on me ; lee heeseung - @yeonzzzn (heeseung picks you up after a later shift from work and showers you with kisses in front of your work building.)

♥︎ 𝙄’𝙢 𝙔𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨 | 𝙇.𝙃. - @simjaexy (Sometimes Heeseung gets jealous a little too much when you talk to other guys or when they flirt with you, so you have to remind him that you belong to him.)

♥︎ LATE NIGHT DRIVE ⟡ 𝒻. 이희승 - @fleurre (biker!hee x f!r your boyfriend shows up in the middle of the night to take you on a ride)

♥︎ teeth - @gyuuberryy (you were not thrilled about the move in of your new neighbour. mostly because he was so strange and seemed to be hiding something dark. and partly because you couldn’t stop yourself from getting closer to him because of your unwanted attraction. you were determined to expose his dark secret and get rid of him once and for all. but, it was proving to be a difficult task because he was just so irresistible..and needy.)

♥︎[ ♥︎ ] ── drunkenly in love | lhs. - @haerni (in which heeseung comes to you with stupid smiles, slurred words ‘nd with tipsy thoughts of you.)

♥︎ 𝓽𝓲𝓷𝔂 thing | 𝓵𝓱𝓼 - @onlyrains (relationship is scary; what if your partner is too tall for you to kiss them?)

♥︎ I HATE YOU — l.heeseung - @ikeuverse (you and your best friend's brother hated each other, almost as a matter of course between the two of you. but something changes when you wake up in his bed at the weekend.)

♥︎ ⎯⎯͟͟♥︎̼̻ 𝓈inking onto your ֺ cock ꞌꞋ ࣪ _ 𝐿HS 𓈒 - @shypen (at your company’s afterparty located at your boss’ luxury mansion, the head staff & your co-worker lee heeseung excuses himself to head to the restroom. he doesn’t return after a while, your curiosity causing you to go search for him in every room in the house, pausing when you hear whiny moans from the guest room.)

♥︎ ㅤ ꢾ꣒ㅤㅤ BOY IN LOVE──LHS. - - @hhmnya (resumen ｡｡ when his impulsive thoughts win.)

♥︎ ── anywhere but home. ( lhs ) ּ 𓂅 ⋆ 💋 - @chobunz (“i can give you all the exact same things he can, but a million times better,” or where a hot stranger makes it his promise to be the better choice than the man you came with.)

♥︎ { ☆ the power play ~ l.hs } - @evnseokz (office rival! heeseung x f.reader)

♥︎ ꣑୧ BAD DECISIONS : LEE HEESEUNG - @itsminjify (agent!heeseung x agent!reader)

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swtheartz · 17 days ago

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“ LIKE STRAWBERRIES. ” — M. Grayson

Part two

Info : Reader is a healer, canon typical violence, slow burn, one sided beef to lovers type beat W / C : 1.6k.

A / N : silas actually uploading an entire fic??? this is unheard of!! uncharted territory!!!!! jk though. i was burnt out for NO reason and suddenly got a surge of spite against my depression and wrote this. lol. it WILL in fact be a series, this is only part one i fear

The first time Mark meets you is after the fight with his dad.

Cecil had told him he’d be fixed right up—in the physical aspect, at the very least. “The kid hates sob stories. Try not to say too much.”

So, he took the old man’s advice, and hadn’t said much to you while you were healing him. He’d argue that the silence was awkward. Foreign and strange, and he didn’t know how to not sit there and manage to not look out of place. The room you primarily worked in wasn’t like a hospital room, no.

It didn’t have those weird posters of kittens with something that said ‘believe in yourself,’ or something dumb like that, it wasn’t just pristine white walls with blinding fluorescent lights that gave patients headaches, and it didn’t smell like pure bleach and chemicals. No. It smelled of something floral and sweet, almost like fruit; but not quite there. The walls were more a peach color than anything, easier on the eyes than the standard American hospital. Not to mention that the walls were decorated.

All in all, it was strange. Like someone as bruised and bloody as Mark didn’t belong in there. Somewhere sweet and almost gentle, and the wounds that had made him feel as though they’d stay forever—stay etched into his skin, down to the bone, alongside the blood that wasn’t just solely his—mended themselves back together. The bruises and aches faded away.

The smell of blood lingered.

“Well,” the sound of your voice nearly startled Mark off the bed you’d had him laid across. “Take a shower and do a rain check with Stedman, and you’re all good to go, Invincible.”

“. . . What? Just- that’s it? That’s all?”

You’d stared blankly at him, arms crossed in the chair you were seated in. Though you were a healer, you did look as though you belonged amongst the official medical staff that’d be seen literally anywhere else. The slightest tilt of your head had him shifting uncomfortably.

“Did you want there to be more?” The question comes across as somewhat annoyed. Mark could see why you’d probably be agitated—but it was a genuine question!

“It’s just, uh,” he starts, swallowing nervously. “I expected it to take longer or something. Like an actual healing process, precautions I’d have to take and stuff.”

The hum of acknowledgment you let out as you nod your head makes him look at you again, and you speak. “Not when I’m the one healing you. My power is called that for a reason, and it’s so heroes like you can get back out on the playing field. To skip the healing process. If I hadn’t been here, it would’ve taken you months.”

Right. A healer. Mark himself had never really thought someone like you could exist. He’s seen powers like that only in his comics, and there weren’t any other supers capable of doing whatever you just did. The way you move is skilled and practiced, years of experience and heroes in and out of your ward showing through it.

“Huh. Okay, wow. Thanks?”

“Go home, Invincible.”

“Invincible.”

Mark grimaces. “I am begging you—literally just call me by my government name.”

He doesn’t miss the way your nose scrunches ever so slightly as your eyes never leave the clipboard in your hands, clearly focused; but not too focused. “You and I are not on friendly terms. We’re associates by definition.”

“Okay, okay,” he puts his hands up slightly in mock surrender, contemplating his response. Over the past few months, he’s noticed that you don’t quite like him. At all. You’re annoyed by how thick his file has grown in such a short amount of time, annoyed by all the times you’ve documented the amount of injuries he’s had, how much energy it takes you, and whether or not you want to quit working for the GDA after making his acquaintance all those months ago.

“. . . But hear me out.” Mark adds on, noticing the way your hands clutch even more at the wood and paper. “We’re associates when we’re on duty. By definition.”

“And I am on duty,” you retort, setting your papers down and pressing a hand to the bridge of your nose. “Constantly. The same way I’m on duty while watching you get your ass beat on live television, all because you seem to love pulling your punches. Like a fucking idiot.”

He winces at that, unable to deny the blatant distaste in your tone as you remind him of all the times Cecil has sent him your way, all the times you’ve scolded him and downright berated him because you watched as he actively held back.

“Your strength went up over one hundred percent, and you don’t even use it properly. Every fight you have, your file gets ridiculously thicker, Markus.” The way you say his name—

“Don’t say it like it’s a slur.” Mark pleads, a slight tinge of pink on his cheeks, “and it’s Mark. Just. . . Just Mark.”

“Get. Out.”

“Markus.”

“Mark.”

“Why are you here?” You sigh out the question with exhaustion, annoyance, and a dire need to rip your own hair out as Mark sits there on one of the patient beds, uninjured this time—shockingly. He’s sitting there like a lost puppy, just. . . Much larger, more awkward, and disgustingly pathetic.

He hesitates for a moment, choosing his response carefully. “I’m benched for a while. At least until Cecil figures out what to do with me.”

The sound you make is unsurprised. “Good. Sick of seeing you bleeding whenever you come here.”

“I know.”

“So stop doing it.”

Mark’s lips purse into a thin line. You’re so mean, and it’s not like he can’t see why. But you haven’t asked him to exactly stop talking to you (yes you have), and it’s not like you genuinely hate his guts. . . At least, in his eyes, you don’t. The Teen Team would beg to differ after seeing the way you speak to him.

“I’m just wondering,” he starts, unwilling to leave. “Are there like, any other heroes you’re sick of seeing? Besides me?”

You pause at that, and turn your head towards him. As always, your eyes are narrowed and tired, a little scrunch in your brow and a slight frown on your lips as you look at him. He’d really give anything just to see you smile—just once. He wonders if you have dimples. What your laugh sounds like, what you look like when you’re peaceful and calm for just a moment.

“Why?”

“Morbid curiosity,” Mark states simply. And to be fair, it is just that. Surely you don’t just dislike him and solely him, there has to be another hero you hate. Maybe even multiple. Mark likes hearing your voice, even if you’re just talking about the things you dislike.

He wonders what you do like. What you find solitude in.

“Hm.” For a moment, you exhale, and push away from your desk to think about your answer. “. . . Immortal,” you hum, thinking about it. “Can’t seem to keep his head on. Or stop charging into fights he can’t handle.”

“Like me?”

“No,” you shake your head and go back to focusing on your work. “You can handle your fights. It just seems to be a deliberate choice of yours not to handle them.”

“Ouch.”

“I hate it when Rex comes in here.” You ignore his little comment and continue, actually giving some thought to your responses. Usually, your conversations with Mark consisted of you insulting him endlessly before telling him to go home and sleep it off. Rinse and repeat.

“He can talk someone’s ear off. It’s sickening, really,” the last part is a mutter as you sort through a barrage of papers, clearly going back to focusing on what you were doing before he’d come and interrupted your rather quiet day. He’s been dropping by more often, and over time, you’ve began to hold actual conversations with him that didn’t involve you telling him how you should let him heal on his own, and him begging you to not leave him stranded in such a state—

“What’s your favorite kind of food?”

You pause for a second, pretending to not have heard, before ultimately you set your papers down again and turn your swivel chair to face Mark. “What?”

“Your favorite kind of food,” he repeats, staring right back at you. “Like, do you like spicy, or?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy.” You grumble, rolling your eyes as you shake your head. Just for a moment, you glance back up at him, watching him pout ever so slightly at your answer.

“I’m serious. It’s just a genuine question, y’know?” The two of you enter a staring contest of sorts when you glare at him, looking genuinely offended at the fact he was asking about something so minuscule and stupid. As though the two of you were friendly. . . .

“Fruit.”

Mark blinks at your response, opening his mouth to say something before closing it again, gears turning in his head. “Okay. . . So, sweet stuff?”

“Sweet stuff,” you mutter, turning back around. “Not artificial sugar. Natural. It’s better for my energy, helps me heal better.”

He nods as though that makes sense. You seemed the type to prefer natural things over the overproduced, sickeningly and overly sweet candies that left a bitter aftertaste. It makes sense in Mark’s mind—as though he should’ve known, should’ve been able to tell. The room you work in smells soft and sweet, just like honey and strawberries.

You smell like strawberries. Ripe, sweet. Tinted a dark red and soft when bitten into.

“Okay.” Mark whispers, more to himself than anything. A confirmation. A new alignment in the stars, the very universe itself as a whole. “Yeah, that seems like you.”

“Don’t stereotype me, Invinci-Boy.”

“Oh my god.”

TAGLIST : @lxluvsmoney @broicouldjustbuyyousomekombucha @koilikesthefishy @tokoyamisstuff @pookiei-bookie

#ʚ — heartz : fic #ʚ — heartz : love letter #mark grayson x reader #mark grayson #invincible x reader #invincible #mark grayson x gn reader #mark grayson imagine #mark grayson x fem reader #mark grayson x male reader #invincible imagine #invincible fic #black reader #poc reader

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katemoneymartinsgf · 11 days ago

Note

Could you do a fic where Azzi gets Paige flowers?( Cause in past relationships Paige has always been treated like a guy cause she’s more masc)

Flowers |pazzi|

a/n: sorry i’ve been so dry. trying to get back to all the requests. mass writing starts now 🙏🏽

“You got me flowers?”

Paige blinks like she’s trying to figure out if it’s a setup.

She’s in sleep shorts and a hoodie that still smells like dryer sheets. There’s a crease on her cheek from the couch pillow, and her voice is still scratchy from a nap she took.

Azzi holds out the bouquet, all casual. “Yeah.”

Paige stares.

It’s not that she doesn’t like them — they’re actually… really pretty. Tulips and daisies and those tiny yellow ones Azzi always gets right. She just doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do with them.

“You’re not sick or in trouble or, like, being held at gunpoint or anything?”

Azzi snorts. “Not unless this is a hostage situation.”

“You are in my apartment.”

“And yet, somehow, I still brought you flowers.”

Paige blinks again, slower this time. She takes them — carefully, like they might change their mind about belonging to her. She holds them in both hands, looks at them for a beat, then says, quieter:

“No one’s ever really given me flowers before.”

Azzi leans against the doorframe. “You’ve given them, though.”

Paige shrugs. “Yeah. That’s kind of the thing.”

Azzi watches her for a second. “Because people always see you as the one who should. Not the one who gets to.”

That lands harder than Paige expects. Her fingers shift on the stems.

“It’s not a big deal,” she says. “It’s just how it’s always been.”

Azzi steps in close. Slides a hand to Paige’s jaw, thumb brushing right near her ear — grounding, soft.

“Well, it’s dumb,” she says, voice gentler now. “You’re allowed to be the one who gets the flowers.”

Paige huffs a laugh, but she’s blinking too much.

Azzi keeps going, because now she means it.

“You don’t always have to be the strong one. Or the giver. Or the one who cracks the joke first so no one sees the soft parts.”

Paige lowers the bouquet just enough to press her face into Azzi’s shoulder. Muffled: “You’re being disgusting.”

Azzi wraps her up, arms around her waist, face tucked into her hair.

“I love you,” she whispers. “And you deserve every annoying, cringey thing this world has to offer.”

Her head drops to Azzi’s shoulder, bouquet cradled in her arms like it’s a gift she’s still learning how to accept.

Then: “Are you done?”

Azzi smiles. “No. I’m gonna keep going until you cry.”

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“I hate that you’re right.”

Azzi kisses her temple. “That counts as a win.”

They stay like that for a second, hearts full.

“I love you,” Azzi says into her hair. “You hear me?”

Paige nods.

“I do,” she mumbles. “And I really like the yellow ones.”

Azzi smiles against her temple. “I know you do.”

She leans back slightly — enough to see Paige still holding the flowers close, her expression soft in a way she never lets show anywhere else.

Azzi doesn’t say anything. Just pulls her phone from her back pocket and snaps a quiet photo — Paige, hoodie sleeves curled over her knuckles, nose buried in tulips,caught in the moment.

It’s late. The window’s cracked. The TV is still on, low volume, playing some romcom neither of them has been watching. Azzi’s curled into Paige’s side, blanket kicked halfway off her legs, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands, thumb lazily scrolling through her notifications.

She’d posted a photo dump earlier — some random bits from the week. A takeout box. A blurry scoreboard. A flower-stuffed cup on Paige’s counter. And, on slide four, the shot she’d snapped of Paige earlier — hoodie bunched at her wrists, face buried in flowers she wasn’t supposed to like as much as she did.

She hadn’t even asked. Just took it. Posted it later without thinking twice.

Paige hadn’t said anything at the time.

Until now.

“Az,” she says, phone still in hand. “Slide four?”

Azzi doesn’t look up. “Mmhmm.”

“You soft launched me.”

“You liked the post.”

“You posted me smelling flowers.”

Azzi finally glances up, grinning. “You looked adorable. You should thank me.”

Paige sets her phone down and shifts so they’re face to face, noses nearly touching. “You’re such a menace.”

“You love me.”

“I do.”

Azzi laughs softly, but there’s a blush creeping up her neck now — because Paige says it with no hesitation. Like it’s been sitting on the tip of her tongue all night.

Paige brushes a piece of hair off her forehead. “You’re so beautiful.”

Azzi opens her mouth, maybe to joke, but Paige cuts her off before she can even try.

“You know that, right?”

Azzi blinks. “Yeah. I mean… yeah.”

“You bring me flowers,” Paige whispers, “and post me on Instagram like I’m your girlfriend or something.”

“You are my girlfriend.”

Paige smiles, soft and slow. “Lucky me.”

Azzi ducks her head, flustered now, and Paige tucks her in closer — arm around her waist, hand slipping under her hoodie to rest against the warm skin of her back.

“I love you,” Paige says again, quieter this time. Like she means it a little more every time she says it. “You’re my favorite person. Like, in the world.”

Azzi doesn’t try to speak. Just presses her face into Paige’s neck and lets her heart slow down there.

They stay like that — bodies tangled, breaths syncing, the kind of silence that only exists between two people who already know everything they need to hear.

Paige kisses her hair.

“You gonna post me again tomorrow?”

Azzi mumbles, “Depends. You gonna cry if I do?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then definitely.”

Paige grins. “God, I love you.”

“Go to sleep, Paigey.”

She does — with a smile on her face and Azzi’s hand still curled into her shirt.

#wnba #wnba basketball #ncaa wbb #wlw #pazzi fics #pazzi #paige bueckers #azzi fudd #paige x azzi #dallas wings #uconn huskies #uconn lives #uconn wbb

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aceecee · 13 days ago

Text

Insatiable - Extra #8

The original idea I had for Insatiable, actually I didn't have a title for it back then. It was meant to be a Sylus fic, I have no idea how it turned out to what it's become.

I might write this in the future.

Masterlist

The man is silent as he enters your apartment.

The air is heavy with regret…guilt.

You know why he’s here. You can feel your heart breaking at the realisation but you hide it all. Nothing on you gives away any feeling. It’s not fair to the man, he’d been honest to you from the start that nothing real would ever form between you two. He told you all about the woman he truly loved, the one he was waiting for. You don’t feel any malice for her, from the way he had described her, she was an astonishing person, someone who deserved a man like him by her side.

“I’m guessing you found her,” your smile is soft because even though it hurts, his happiness wins over your desires.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” you know what’s coming. The two of you had discussed this. “I guess that's it,” you follow up.

“This is goodbye then, Sylus.”

“Goodbye.”

Sylus doesn’t know what to feel as he walks away from you.

He shouldn’t be this conflicted. It was never meant to be difficult.

He was never meant to get attached.

Whatever the two of you had was always transactional. He had sought you out - a hacker with excellent capabilities - you had a reputation around the N109 zone. At first the both of you kept a clear distance, your help made his operations a lot easier. As time progressed so did whatever it was between the both of you. He made sure to keep his intentions clear, it wouldn’t be fair otherwise.

It was just sex, he told himself as he held you in his arms.

It was just sex, he told himself as he kissed you.

It was just sex, he told himself as he caressed you.

He repeats those same words now as he walks away.

Six months pass and not a day goes by when he doesn’t think of you.

Things with Miss Hunter never take off. Her heart now belongs with someone else and Sylus doesn’t even care. He’s the only one who remembers their past together, there’s no need to burden her with the memories. Instead, the two become fast friends.

One night, he finds himself telling her about you. She offers no kind words as she berates him for leaving you.

“You idiot! You’re clearly in love with her. What are you still doing here?”

He’s back at your apartment. He found himself here a lot these last months, simply standing outside but never knocking. For he had left you, what right does he have to come back in your life?

He knocks this time.

No response.

“[Name]?”

Nothing.

Sylus has been in the game for a long time, one thing he’s learnt is to never avoid his instincts. They had helped him with never making deals with the wrong people, and helped him with finding the right person to trust.

And right now, those instincts were screaming that something was wrong.

He easily bypasses the electric lock on your door. What greets him inside is nothing. All the walls are devoid of any decorations, the photos you had up of your deceased family and current friends are gone. There’s no furniture anywhere. The entire place has been swept clean, not a speck of dirt left behind.

If someone figured out how to leave the N109 zone, it would be you.

Five years and six more months have gone by. Not a single trace of you has been found, you haven’t made it easy with your capabilities. None of your friends know where you are. You’ve left everyone behind.

He still hasn’t given up, no matter how long it takes, he will find you. Mephisto misses you. The twins miss you.

Sylus misses you.

The little girl stares back at him.

“Are you Stylus? Mummy said to give this to you,” she pronounces his name wrong. With red eyes and white hair, it doesn’t take a genius to know who this kid is. She hands him a letter.

“It’s Sylus,” he explains. The kid blinks at him, clearly not expecting such a deep voice. As he rips the letter open, the kid repeats his name over and over again.

Sylus,

If it is you reading this letter then I suppose you’ve met Ruby.

He looks back into those red eyes that mirror his. His daughter’s name is Ruby…how fitting.

“What is your favourite gem?” he asked as the both of you perused the collection.

He watches as you pick you out a gem and hold it next to his eye. “Perfect match,” you grin at him.

“Right now it’s rubies.”

He brings the kid inside, get’s her situated while he reads the rest.

I would have told you but I only figured out I was pregnant when I had already left. I tried to get in touch but the number you gave me no longer worked and I was not going into that area while pregnant or with a child in my arms.

I’ll admit a part of me didn’t want to, I was afraid you wouldn’t accept our child. That I would ruin your future with your hunter.

I know deep down that you’re not that kind of man but even I get insecure sometimes.

I don’t know how but some shady organisation discovered she’s your child. I have a theory that one of them must have met you and if you’ve seen Ruby, then it’s obvious. I did some digging on this organisation and it’s not good. At first I thought they were some small fry but I’ve discovered transactions that go deep, they have a lot of rich people in their pockets which means they’re very powerful. What they have against you, I have no idea. They’re good at covering their tracks.

It’s why I sent Ruby to you, you’ll be able to protect her.

I made them think that I was running away with her while I sent her alone to you. I led them away so she could get to you.

Don’t come looking for me. If I’m successful in tricking them then I’ll come to you and we can finally have the conversation we should have had years ago. If I don’t come back, then I’m dead. I offer no leverage to these people so they’ll kill me.

I’ve attached a hard drive containing all the information I have on them, with your resources it should be easy to end them.

Take care of Ruby for me, okay? She’s all I have. Tell her I love her so much.

P.S. she’s allergic to nuts, her bag has epipens but make sure to keep many around the house! She also needs a story every night or she’s not going to sleep. She has a lot of energy (I blame you for that) so make sure to burn it out of her every day. She has a sweet tooth but don’t give in! She’ll flash you puppy eyes but you have to stay strong, she’s a menace and she knows it.

You don’t sign it with your name but you don’t have to. It’s clear the letter is from you.

The familiar sensation of regret wraps its arms around him. You had been pregnant when he left you. All this time, you had dealt with it all on your own. You might die on your own too.

He can’t have that happen.

A small hand tugs at his pants.

“Are you my dad? You look like me,” Ruby asks.

He leans down and pokes her cheek. “You look like me, I’m older,” he says softly.

It’s the confirmation the girl needs, her walls crumble around her father. Tears gather in her eyes. “Will mummy be okay? I want her back.”

Without thinking, he cradles the girl into his arms. His shirt becomes wet with her tears.

He’s already failed you twice. There won’t be a third time.

“I’ll bring her back.”

Tag list: Tag List: @serenity-loves-red @crimsonmarabou @reni502 @r0ckb1n @queenkymmie @plzdonutpercieveme @perqbeth @mephisto-with-a-knife @tumblingdevils @angelwhizpers

#lads fanfic #love and deepspace #loveanddeepspace #yandere #lads #lads sylus #lads mc #sylus x reader #yandere love and deepspace #love and deep space #love and deepspace x reader #non mc reader #aceecee #lnds #lnds sylus #sylus x you #yandere x reader #yandere character #yandere sylus

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airosuiren · 25 days ago

Text

𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕲𝖍𝖔𝖘𝖙 𝕮𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖘 𝕳𝖔𝖒𝖊

A/N: OH. IT. BEGINS. 😤🔥 Welcome to the chapter where the ghosts of Gotham show their faces—and [Y/N] doesn’t blink. This right here? This is power. This is reclamation. This is “you don’t get to come crawling back just because I made it without you” energy. Everyone’s pulling the “we miss you” card, but [Y/N] is not here for their guilt games. Meanwhile, the Han family is like: touch her and perish. 🐺💀Get ready for confrontation, full-circle justice, and the moment the Wayne family realizes exactly what they lost. Let’s do this.

Character sheet (READ THIS BEFORE THE FIC)

𝕻𝖆𝖗𝖙 1 , 𝕻𝖆𝖗𝖙 2,𝔓𝔞𝔯𝔱 4, 𝔈𝔭𝔦𝔩𝔬𝔤𝔲𝔢

It started with a letter.

Not an email. Not a text. A handwritten letter in Vivian’s delicate cursive, stamped with the Wayne crest and scented faintly with lilies.

Dear [Y/N],

I miss you. We all do. We were wrong. I was wrong. Please come visit us in Gotham. Let’s talk. Let’s start over. Love, Vivian

[Y/N] didn’t reply. She left it sealed on her desk.

Then came the calls. One from Bruce, calm and composed, asking if she was happy. One from Dick, nervous laughter hiding regret. Jason left a voice message that was just silence, then a whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Tim sent gifts—tech, books. Damian sent a rare bonsai.

Even Evelyn tried. A long, teary video message.

“I was under pressure. I didn’t mean to push you away. You’re still my daughter.”

But [Y/N] had heard it all before. When she needed them, they turned away. Now that she was someone—loved, powerful, untouchable—they wanted her back.

It escalated when Bruce flew to Seoul.

He arrived unannounced, with Vivian, Evelyn, and the eldest three siblings in tow. The Han estate's guards contacted Tae-joon immediately.

[Y/N] was in the courtyard with Ji-ho, training.

When she saw them, she didn’t flinch. She only adjusted her stance.

“[Y/N],” Bruce said, stepping forward like he had the right.

She gave him a nod. Nothing more.

“We need to talk. Privately.”

Before she could speak, Jun-seo appeared at her side.

“She doesn’t go anywhere without protection,” he said coolly.

Vivian stepped forward, all glossy smiles and misty eyes. “Please, [Y/N]. I know I messed up. But we’re your real family. Not these people. Not this place.”

That word hit the courtyard like a blade.

Real.

[Y/N] blinked. Once. Twice. Then she laughed softly.

“‘Real family’? You mean the ones who ignored me unless they needed someone to blame?”

Dick winced.

Evelyn stepped in, voice low and firm. “They’re criminals. You don’t belong here.”

Han Tae-joon arrived then, flanked by Shim Soon-ja and Han Byung-chul. The elders walked like royalty. Silent and powerful.

“This is our daughter-in-law,” Byung-chul said. “Our blood, now. You will not come here and insult her in our home.”

Bruce didn’t back down. “She was ours first.”

[Y/N] looked at him, calm as ever.

“No. I was yours last. After Vivian. After the rest. After whatever else mattered more.”

Vivian’s voice cracked. “I didn’t mean to—”

“You did,” [Y/N] said. “You meant every time you looked at me like I didn’t belong. Every time you set me up. Every time you smiled while I took the blame.”

The Han siblings were gathering. So-min stood beside her mother, arms folded. Ji-yoon looked ready to lunge. Ji-ho recorded everything.

Jason stepped forward. “Let us make it right.”

“It’s too late,” Jun-seo said sharply. “She has a family now. And we don’t share.”

Vivian reached for [Y/N].

“Don’t touch me,” [Y/N] snapped. Her voice didn’t shake.

The Han family’s eyes gleamed.

“Go back to Gotham,” she said. “You made your choice. I made mine.”

And then her vision blurred.

A sharp pain struck her ribs. She gasped.

“[Y/N]?” Jun-seo caught her as she stumbled.

Blood drained from her face. Her knees buckled.

Ji-ho was already calling for the doctor.

[Y/N] collapsed into Jun-seo’s arms.

The last thing she heard was Evelyn’s scream and Soon-ja’s hissed curse.

“Get them out,” the grandmother ordered.

Hours later, the doctor confirmed it.

She was pregnant.

The Han family was quiet. Then they moved as one.

A thousand silent decisions were made. The estate’s defenses doubled. Schedules were rewritten. Plans were redrawn.

And Jun-seo sat at her bedside, holding her hand like it was the only thing tethering him to earth.

Their queen was carrying the future of the Han empire.And no one—no one—would take her from them now.

A/N: I AM SHAKING. SCREAMING. SOBBING. 😭🫀 They came. They begged. And she. Did. Not. Flinch. She CHOSE herself. She CHOSE her family. She CHOSE peace. And then—THE PLOT TWIST?? THE COLLAPSE?? SHE’S PREGNANT?!?!? 👶🛡️ The Han family went into instant war mode and I am LIVING. Security? Tripled. Loyalty? Unshakable. Jun-seo holding her hand like his life depends on it?? I CAN’T BREATHE. This chapter is everything—vindication, legacy, and a warning: You can’t reclaim what you threw away. Next chapter? The world finds out whose child she carries. See you there, besties. BRING SNACKS AND SALTS I’M NOT OKAY 😭💥 —Your emotionally fried author who just paced the room 6 times

Taglist: @kittzu, @trashlanternfish360, @ottjhe, @moonieper, @feral-childs-word, @tinybrie,@xomarryamox, @fawnqueenbrowsing, @wpdarlingpan, @leeiasure, @xzmickeyzx, @enchantingarcadecreatio, @trashlanternfish360, @nixxiev, @eclipse-msoul, @plsfckmedxddy, @viilan, @rattyrattyratty, @texas-fox, @1abi, @niamcarlin,@tomoyaki, @silken-moons, @sirenetheblogger, @itsberrydreemurstuff, @welpthisisboring, @ryuushou

Let me know if I missed anyone! Or Misspelled anyone!

Part 4 will be out soon~~

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shurisneakers · 3 months ago

Note

hey I wanna say I absolutely love your writing ,English is not my first language but your writing cracks me up every time I absolutely adore your work! I wanted to throw in an idea for misery loves company because I really like the grumpy×grumpy ,what about them being loners/grumpy in a wedding,maybe it's Steve's or someone else on the team and they share a quiet dance on the balcony or something so yeah that's my idea ,again love your works ♥️♥️♥️♥️

a/n: hello! thank you for your kindness and for sending this in, I hope you like it <3

this is part of misery loves company but is just a stand alone fic. you don’t need to read anything before this

warnings: swearing, light angst

You slip out before the first toast.

The balcony is quiet, the air sharp against your skin. Below, the city hums, distant and indifferent. The music is still loud behind you, but out here, it’s muffled, softened by the wind.

You don’t belong inside.

The thought comes unbidden, bitter in your mouth.

So the balcony is cold, the air sharp against your skin. The city sprawls below, distant and untouchable. The music inside is muffled now, voices blending together, champagne bubbling in glasses. It’s still too loud.

You lean against the railing, fingers gripping the cold marble. You tell yourself it doesn’t matter. That you don’t care.

You exhale, press your palms against the railing, giving yourself five seconds before you call an Uber to get home.

Behind you, the door creaks open.

"You gonna jump?"

You hear the shuffle of his shoes against the floor as he leans beside you.

You close your eyes. "Go back inside. Make someone else's night worse."

"Yours already looks terrible, I've got a headstart," Bucky says, stepping up beside you.

You don’t turn, but you can feel him watching you, his presence taking up too much space in a very spacious balcony.

"You left early," he grunts out.

"So did you," you mutter.

"Yeah," he says. "People started looking at me like they wanted to ask me to dance."

You scoff. "You just think everyone’s in love with you."

"You're not proving me wrong," he points out.

"You're the most insufferable man I know."

"Honoured."

You finally glance at him. His tie is loose and he looks like he wants to be anywhere but here.

"Why are you out here?"

Your grip tightens on the railing. "Why are you?"

You know he sees it.

"You gonna actually answer," he says coolly, "or are we going to keep doing this?"

You exhale sharply, looking ahead. "DJ’s shit."

"It’s a live band."

"Then they should’ve hired a DJ."

His mouth twitches, but his eyes don't move off you.

"Try again."

"No," you say flatly.

He tilts his head at you, expression unreadable.

It makes you feel like your skin is on fire. Weddings are hard. Weddings with him around are even harder, for reasons you can't put words to.

A beat passed and he finally pushes himself away from the railing.

You're about to make some biting comment, when instead--

"Dance with me."

You blink. "Are you concussed?"

"Not recently."

You scoff, crossing your arms. "If this is some kind of sympathy thing-"

"Jesus," he mutters. "Yeah, I wanna pity dance with you, that's exactly what's happening here."

"Then what?"

He shrugs, "You think you're the only one who's angry?"

Your jaw tightens, teeth harsh against each other.

"We don’t have to talk," he mutters, like he's tired. Like things are hard for him too. "Just dance with me."

You stare at him, skeptical. He stares back, unbothered.

Instead, you grab his hand, passive-aggressive, like the universe owes you something for putting him in your life.

"Step on my feet, I break your kneecaps."

"For the record, I was a good fuckin' dancer."

"There is not one person left alive that can corroborate that," you scoff.

It's a joke, but you're acutely aware that maybe it's exactly why this is hard for him.

He pulls you in, a little stiff, like neither of you actually know how to do this anymore.

The music filters in from inside, something soft, but the two of you aren’t moving right to it.

He sways, slow and easy, like it makes all the sense in the world.

It pisses you off that somewhere, it starts feeling that was for you too.

"You're terrible at this," you mutter.

"So are you," he grumbles.

You scoff. "You said you were good at dancing."

"Yeah, well," he exhales, "people say a lot of shit."

You roll your eyes, but you don’t let go.

Neither does he.

The wind picks up. His palm presses a little firmer against your back. You don’t know what to do with that.

"You think you’re mad now," he mutters, "just wait ‘til I do this."

You frown, "What are you plann-"

You barely have time to react before his lips brush against your forehead.

It’s quick, warm, and a little unpracticed, like he thought about it too hard but did it anyway.

Your fingers tighten against his shirt. Not because you want to hold on. But because you don’t know what else to do with your hands when something shifts in your chest.

"Jesu-"

"Shut up," he says, and it's the closest you've heard him come to pleading. "Five more minutes."

The words sit between you, heavy and unspoken.

You don’t know if he’s talking about the dance or something bigger.

Five more minutes.

Like you’re not running out of time. Like something in the world could belong to you, even if just for a little while.

You close your eyes. Breathe him in.

And five minutes stretch on longer than they usually do.

#BUCKY BARNES x reader #bucky barnes angst #Bucky x reader #Bucky Barnes fluff #Bucky fic #Bucky barnes fic #Bucky angst #Bucky fluff #BUCKY x you #BUCKY BARNES x you #mlc fic #ari answers #anon

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pedrasacorn · 6 months ago

Note

after that little blurb about jason still caring about reader even after breaking up with her for her own safety i now desperately need an angsty but also a comfort fic where they break up, reader is comfused and sad, jason is even sadder and maybe evn regrets his decision and then something important happens to reader and jason realizes what a mistake it was to push her away and apologises and its all good again! … lol sorry if this is too long i just liked your idea a lot :)

Jason breaks up to protect you

A/n: thank you for requesting :3 it’s so exciting and getting to challenge myself was fun!

Warnings: Blood, injury, brief description of depression, not proof read

5:30pm

Far above the city Jason watches you.

The rain and smog almost conceal his view as you exit your apartment.

But he knows your habits, the way you walk.

It’s only easy to get through your window because he’s the one who goon proofed it.

Your room is clean, as if untouched. Except the bed.

He takes stock of your fridge. Rotting vegetables he tosses, along with the moldy bread and…whatever the hell that was.

His heartache is good. And earned. Deserved even.

All it took was for one rogue to mention your existence, and that was it. Didn’t have a name; just a vague idea of your existence.

He clung to the feeling of panic lacing his veins, keeping it vivid in his mind. He used it to replace the urge to hold you, to wipe your tears, and reassure you. He knew better than to have been in your life.

He uses fresh milk to replace your…chunky one.

“I did not raise you this way…” He mutters; humorously.

As he broke up, he managed to look at your face, he imagined what it would look like dead, and bloody.

It didn’t help. Because you weren’t dead, but you looked something akin to it.

Eggs, and cheese. You don’t like eggs. He knows this.

More bread even if it goes bad again. And snacks. Easy freezer meals.

He shouldn’t, but he stays. He stays hidden in the dark where he belongs, needing to know you make it home okay.

6:31pm

Everything is a fog of grey.

The half eaten sandwich you had at work tasted like nothing.

You couldn’t even cry because—what was the point? You didn’t even really feel anything.

That nothingness multiplies when you get into your apartment. Locking everything up the way Jason taught you.

Although the stab wound, and blood dripping down your side doesn’t feel like nothing.

Sweat beeds down your face, collecting in the neck of your sweater. You just have to get to the kit Jason gave you; the medical bills were not worth it right now.

Your eyes meet his.

Your heart nearly falls out of your chest, releif flooding your veins.

“Jay I’m hurt.” Your voice breaks as tears warp your vision, softening out the world.

6:34

You, are still the most beautiful thing, he has ever beheld.

What was he doing? He had only meant to bring you food. Knowing your tendency to neglect yourself when you were heartsick.

It wasn’t your fault; he’d never blame you. Just wanted to know you weren’t going to fade out of existence the way he faded out of your life.

He runs to you, immediately ripping off your sweater, pressing his hand into your side.

“I’m not going anywhere sweets. M’right here.” He murmurs against your ear, “Who did this?”

“Some stupid—son of a bitch in an alley.” You rasp as he lies you down.

“Yeah? What son’uva bitch? You tell me. Now.”

His accent was so thick when he got upset; like when you forgot to eat, or drink water instead of caffeine.

He’s stunning.

“Hi…” you rasp.

“…hi surga’…” He soothes your cheek.

8:40pm

When you come to you’re alone in your bed.

A sob breaks through the quiet.

So light on his feet, you don’t hear him until he’s halfway into your room.

“Shhh baby it’s okay…hey, hey I’m right here.” He cups your tear streaked face.

You whimper. “You left.”

“I know but I’m not ever going to leave again okay? Yeah?” He tilts your face upward.

“You…you just think you know all the things.” You sniffle.

He can’t help his fond smile; he doesn’t mention how your words make little sense.

“Yeah?” He croons.

You nod.

“You just do things. All the time and it’s…just so you.”

Your glare holds little heat.

Even if it did, any heat from you is warmth to him.

His emotions are bared to you, he’s filled with guilt. Staying wasn’t rational, but he needed you.

He smooths your cheek with his thumb.

“Can you find some forgiveness in that pretty heart of yours?” He murmurs.

He knows he doesn’t deserve it, but it’s the best he can do to ask without begging.

“…I just missed you…the most.” You say, a bit delirious.

“Yeah I missed you too…” He kisses your forehead.

“Is that how you kiss the love of your life?” You glare.

There’s his sweetheart.

“Well you didn’t give me permission now didya?” He smirks.

You meet each other half way, his lips caressing yours.

#jason todd x reader #I like this one :3 #my writing

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atleastpleasetelephone · 1 month ago

Text

Giddy Up

A/N: So this oneshot is half-inspired by @therealslimshakespeare's fic Honeymoon, and half-inspired by the film Secretary. There's also a light sprinkling of inspiration from excessive consumption of The Righteous Gemstones, since I feel everything I do lately has a flavour of Baby Billy Freeman about it.

Pairing: 67!Elvis x wife!reader

Word count: 4K

TWs: Antiquated views of women's roles and husband's entitlement to their wives' bodies, mention of free use, possessive kink, praise kink, mention of a husband breaking in his wife, daddy kink, copious amounts of spanking, whipping, reader is gagged, crying, borderline pain kink, object insertion, begging.

“But Daddy, I did all the washin’ up…”

Spinning back and forth on the spot so that your dress flares out, you bite your lip as you keep your eyes lowered, demurely, not wanting to annoy but still trying to make your case. You don’t like being spanked. And it doesn’t seem fair, since you’ve been so good all week, cleaning and washing and ironing for him, keeping Graceland in tip top condition, there’s not a speck of dust anywhere and you’ve done it all without getting a hair out of place. You know he’s tried to find things you haven’t done, running his finger along high shelves he thinks you couldn’t reach, moving furniture he thought would be too heavy for you. But you’re determined, you want to be the best wife you possibly can, so you’ve found ladders, you’ve got the Mafia to help you move chairs, and there’s not a single spot of dirt for him to find. He’s even tried to catch you out, changing what he wants to eat last minute, bringing unexpected people to dinner, all kinds of little tricks that he expected would make you lose it, or at the very least wipe that pretty little smile off your face for just a minute. You take it all in stride though, barely batting one of your perfectly made up eyes.

When you didn’t fail, didn’t even falter, he changed tack. Took you from behind when you were pairing his socks, had you on your knees for him right in the middle of doing the washing up, rubber gloves still on your little hands. But no matter when he wanted it, or how, or for how long, you never complained. It was just another one of your wifely duties, and even when he left you hanging instead of making you cum you smiled that cute little smile of yours and went back to dusting the TVs. There didn’t seem to be a way of making you crack, making you bratty and petulant and deserving of the spanking he so badly wanted to give you. He was positively aching to feel your warm flesh getting warmer underneath his hand, firm slaps spreading redness over those perfectly formed buttocks of yours. And aching even more for the sound of you losing control, begging him to stop as he rained pain down on one ass cheek and then the other, watching your little face screw up with discomfort, tears in the corners of your eyes. It had happened once, just once. And he was dying to make it happen again.

So that day he’d simply decided he didn’t have to wait for you to slip up. He’s your husband after all, and if wants to spank you then he damn well will. It’s his God-given right to take whatever he wants from your precious little body. It’s all very well and good you being such a good wife, so obedient and demure and so… well, everything he’s ever wanted, has ever prayed for in the fevered 3ams after some sordid tryst or other… it’s all fantastic actually, and he loves almost everything about it. But there’s still some urge to stamp his authority on you even if you don’t seem to need it. He doesn’t want you to forget who you belong to, or how the consequences of disobeying him feel. So he told you there and then, it’s time for a spankin’ honey. And you did not look pleased.

“Ain’t about that,” he replies, taking you in his arms, gently. Pulling your chin up so your eyes meet his. “Yer a real good girl fer me, y’know yer my best girl…”

You look up at him with wide eyes, trying to listen as your heart hammers in your chest. You’re sure this must be for the best. He always has had your best interests at heart, even when he was breaking your pussy in and it felt like the pain would last forever and you couldn’t imagine how anyone ever enjoyed this, how this was the way God had planned for babies to be born. Until, that is, the pain stopped and the pleasure started. And then you couldn’t believe you’d waited so long to do it, and you wanted him all the time. That was the last and only time he’d spanked you, the first and last sight of the brat you kept very carefully wrapped up deep inside you. Wrapped up all the tighter after that spanking, your ass so red and sore you struggled to sit down afterwards, grazed and bruised and vowing to never let this happen to you again. He’d started with his palm but ended with his belt and tears had poured down your cheeks. You never asked him for sex again, just waited patiently like the good little wife you were quickly becoming. And now you’ve done nothing wrong, and he wants to do it again.

“Mmmmhhmm,” you mumble, lower lip trembling.

“But I can’t have ya forgettin’ what it feels like,” he continues. “Think we need a lil maintenance spankin’ baby. Know ya don’t like it, so I think once a month’ll be enough.”

Once a month? You try to control your breathing, wobbling in his arms despite yourself. His lips curl into a smile as his fingers dance over your cheek.

“What d’you think?” He persists, and you know he’s not really asking. It’s not about what you think at all. He wants you to say yes, wants you to stop just leaning against him, all shiny eyes and bitten lips, and despite your best efforts, damp panties.

“Yes, Daddy,” you reply, trying to keep your voice light and even, as if he’d just asked you to pass the peas.

“Good girl.”

He lets your body go, giving your ass a little preparatory slap before straightening up and telling you to meet him in the TV room. He has to fetch some things he wants you to wear.

Smoothing down your dress and touching your hair to make sure it’s not too messed up, you take off your apron and slowly make your way through the house and into the TV room, sitting in the middle of the blue and yellow sofa. It feels like every nerve ending in your body is on fire right now, goosebumps flash up your bare arms and legs, making the hairs stand on end. Wondering where he has gone exactly, what things he wants you to wear. Probably some see-through nightie or other, some fancy lingerie. You fiddle with the hem of your dress as you rub your legs against each other, sliding your calf over your shin and almost moaning with pleasure. You’re so worked up, the tight coil wrapped inside you threatening to come undone at the concept of being ritually punished to ensure your obedience. Trying to control yourself, you put your kitten heeled shoes flat on the carpet, legs pressed together, hands in your lap. He’s taking such a long time that eventually one hand frees itself from the grasp of the other and you find it stroking up and down your thigh. You don’t seem to be able to keep still.

Suddenly he’s in the doorway, smiling at you, a western saddle on one arm and a whip in his hand. If you thought you were on fire before that’s nothing in comparison to right now, your cheeks burning, sweat seeming to just start pouring off you, sticking your dress to the middle of your back and then the backs of your thighs.

He dumps the saddle and whip down next to you and then starts removing items from the table. You stare at him, his actions completely incomprehensible at this point. Like trying to read hieroglyphics or understand mathematical equations, you just sit there with eyes like saucers, information coming into your brain and seeming to just pass right through, slipping back out of your ear again.

“Get up on the table, honey.”

When you don’t move, still staring uncomprehendingly like he’s asked you to walk on the moon, he takes one of your clammy little hands in his and tugs on it until you’re standing, then pats the low, glass table with his other hand, asking you again.

“C’mon now, baby. On yer hands an’ knees fer your Daddy.”

Something clicks in your head and you finally see what he means, even if you don’t understand why he wants it. You slowly kneel on the table, afraid that it might somehow crack under your weight, the cold glass pressing against your hot skin. When it shows no signs of breaking you get the confidence to put your hands down too, looking between them and realising that you can see yourself reflected in the table top. Quickly your eyes snap forward. You don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t feel like somewhere you should be looking. If your skirt wasn’t covering you, you’d be able to look at your own damp panties right now.

“That’s it,” he encourages, stroking your head like you’re his pet.

Your breath is coming out in little pants, urgent, wet, somehow uncontrollable, much as you try to steady it. He hums in appreciation, enjoying the little sounds you can’t help making, the dampness of your clothes even though the AC is blasting, the way your little sooties twitch back and forth in your pretty pink shoes.

He picks the saddle back up and carefully places it on your back. It’s the lightest one he could find in the stables, but it’s still kinda heavy, made for the back of a sturdy, heavy animal not a petite little girl. You grunt as the weight of it hits you, but that’s all. His heart swells with pride at how well you’re doing, what a damn good job he did of teaching you to take whatever he dished out and never complain. He does the girth up around your belly, muttering little praises as he slowly inches your skirt up, finally pulling it high enough to expose your ass and your lacey pink panties. His eyes flick down to the reflection in the glass of the table top and it’s clear that whatever you said about being spanked, it’s got you excited. Those little panties are see through and it’s enough to drive him insane just looking at them.

“Think someone was lyin’ ta me.” His voice is needling, his hand grasping at the flesh of one buttock to make his point.

Your stomach drops and it feels like blood rushes everywhere at once at his words.

“L-lyin’?” You squeak out.

“Mmmm. Seems like ya do want spankin’,” he continues, hand between your legs now, rubbing there.

You whimper. “N-no.”

“No?” His voice is louder now, challenging you to defy him again. “Honey there’s a goddamn river down here. Yer so wet I could wash my clothes in it.” He snorts, “or you could.” His fingers slip under your panties and he gathers up as much of your sticky wetness on them as he can, before walking round to your head. “Ya tellin’ me this don’t mean anythin’?”

Wobbling, you’re not sure what to do or say. It does mean something, but it doesn’t mean what he thinks it does. You don’t like to get a spanking, but you do want him to spank you. To overcome you, to show you he is superior to you in every way. You want to be made to understand, even if it’s painful. You want to submit to every last one of his wishes.

Bored of waiting for a response, he wipes his slick covered fingers across your lips. “Nothin’ ta say, honey?”

Your tongue pokes out to lick your lips as you mumble, “no, sir.”

“Alright then,” he replies with a shit-eating grin, enjoying watching your tiny act of rebellion fail, enjoying seeing you fold, enjoying more than anything the sight of you licking your arousal off your own lips without even having to be told. “We got any carrots, honey?”

Whatever it was you were expecting him to do or say, it wasn’t that.

“C-carrots?”

“Yeah, y’know, orange crunchy kinda sweet vegetable, about so long,” he gestures with his hands, “kinda thing ya give to a horse?”

You still don’t get it, but you tell him yes, there’s a bag of carrots in the kitchen. Disbelief floods your body when he leaves the room, seemingly in search of said carrots, and you find yourself alone in the TV room, on your hands and knees on a mirrored table, with the mirrored ceiling above you and a real life saddle on your back. Staring straight ahead seems to be the only safe option, so you do that, eyes fixed on a glass bottle on the other side of the room. Is this what you thought being Mrs Presley would be like? Doing as you’re told, of course. Helping your husband out, making sure he feels good, letting him fill you up whenever he likes. But waiting for him like this, on display where anyone could find you, and if they did how on earth would you even explain when you didn’t know yourself what you were doing… none of that was on your Being Mrs Presley Bingo Card.

“Found ‘em,” he declares, triumphantly, putting two large carrots down on the tabletop next to your hand. “Think we’re ready ta go.”

You nod, in what you hope is a calm, obedient way. Like an old cart horse, ready for another journey. Nothing strange going on here, just your usual Thursday afternoon. Just your normal wifely duties, the sorts of things you’re sure all the wives do for their husbands, just… you’re rudely jolted out of your thoughts by a hard smack to your right ass cheek, delivered by his big, open hand.

“Oh!”

Grinning wolfishly, Elvis repeats the process a few times on the right, and then a few times on the left, amused by your absolute inability to keep your pretty little mouth shut and stay good and quiet for him. He likes hearing the little noises you make, but he’s about to switch to something a little harsher and he doesn’t really want your screams echoing around the mansion, making Dodger come running in some kind of misplaced concern for your welfare.

“Ouch,” you whisper, almost to yourself, as he hits you again. You’re kind of a wimp when it comes to pain. You know it doesn’t really hurt that much when he spanks you, or at least it shouldn’t, your ass is padded enough and he’s not really taking a proper swing at it, but you really can’t stand it. Added to the sting is the discomfort of kneeling on a glass table, and the weight of the saddle on your back which you’ve been trying to sort of disassociate from, thinking it’s a bit too weird and you’d like to imagine it isn’t really there. But it’s too heavy to not be there, and it’s making your back ache dully. Shifting a little from side to side you wonder how long this is going to go on for. And then he tells you to open up and unceremoniously shoves one of the carrots sideways into your mouth.

“Bite down, darlin’. This is gonna sting, an’ I can’t have ya a-hootin’ and a-hollerin’.”

Before you’ve had a chance to process the whole carrot-as-gag thing, and wonder exactly what it is that’s going to sting, you hear a whistle through the still air and then feel a sharp pain in one buttock. Oh yeah. The riding crop. Of course.

You flinch at the impact, your eyes squeezing shut as you bite down on the carrot, grunting. Okay, so that did sting a little, but it’s nowhere near as bad as you thought whipping would be. Maybe your pain tolerance is improving, maybe… swoosh… it whips through the air and hits you again, and this time there’s more force behind it, or he’s caught you in some particular way that makes it smart because there are tears being squeezed from your eyes and you’re gritting your teeth against the carrot. Starting to shuffle on the table, suddenly you want to get away.

“Ah, c’mon honey,” he coos, his hand under your chin, holding your head up. “No wriggling’ now. Take what you’re given.”

You nod wordlessly, drool starting to slide out of the corner of your mouth as you look up at him through shiny, tear-filled eyes. You feel the crop make contact with your ass again and your body jolts, but he keeps holding your chin, nodding to you, gently praising you.

“That’s it darlin’, that’s my good girl,” he coos, bringing his hand back and whipping you again and again. He lets your chin go and your head hangs between your shoulders, whimpering as he moves back down to your ass to really give it some attention now. Your eyes blur and then vaguely start to focus again, seeing the reflection of the whip and your ass and your sodden panties.

“So good f’me baby,” he continues, watching as his actions lead to red, angry marks criss-crossing your buttocks now that he’s pulled your panties up by the waistband, burying them in your ass. “Makin’ sure you’ll always be my best girl, hm? Don’t wantcha ta get complacent, forget how much a seein’ to hurts your pretty little behind.”

Still moaning and crying around the vegetable in your mouth, biting down on it grimly, you think there’s no way you’d forget how much this hurts and how much you don’t want it again. But your body is betraying you, buzzing from the adrenaline and disgustingly wet from lust. You love him debasing you like this. You can’t get enough, no matter how much you cry from the pain. It’s like a drug to you, once it’s unleashed you can’t get it back in again, no matter how hard you try to bundle it up and push it back down.

Elvis is almost as worked up as you are, sweat pouring off his brow, his dick pressing urgently against his thigh as he looks at the mess he’s made. The mess you’ve both made. He lets himself hit you one last time, groaning as he watches the fresh bloom of redness from the impact, knowing it’ll bruise and his princess will struggle to sit down later at dinner. The pain will help her remember who she belongs to though, and the idea of that consumes him, a powerful tremendous lust threatens to overcome him and make him take you right there and then on the table.

But he resists.

“Alright darlin’, think ya’ve had enough.”

He’s panting as he pulls the half-chewed carrot from your mouth, his thumbs brushing the tears from your cheeks as he holds your face in his hands.

“Yessir,” you mumble back at him, obedient to the core.

“So fuckin’ good fer me,” he finds himself mumbling back, almost without thought, wanting you so badly right now he’s rambling, his words almost incoherent. “S’good, s’fuckin’ perfect, perfect little wife…”

Pride bursts in your chest at his praise and you nod quickly in agreement, hoping for some kind of relief from the painful ache between your legs. Your pussy is goddamn throbbing right now.

He presses a kiss to your lips and then lets you go again, trying to regain control. Pulling your panties down to your knees in one quick movement he surveys your pussy, captivated by the way it glistens, so wet that when he slides an exploratory finger inside and brings it back out, coated in slick, it drips lewdly down onto the table.

“S’goddamn wet…”

Feeling like he’s losing his mind, he briefly looks around and his eyes alight on the other carrot. The filthiest thought ever enters his mind and he doesn’t stop to shake it, grabbing the phallic vegetable and sliding it into you in one smooth movement. Your eyes roll back in your head, almost cumming from the feeling of something finally filling your desperate, needy hole.

“Oh, ya like that,” he breathes, staring at the end of the carrot, green and leafy, obscenely poking out of you.

“Mmmm. Yessir. Please.”

“Please, what?”

“Please let me cum. Please. I been so good f’you. Oh…”

You don’t often beg, you’re so demure and well-mannered, such a nice girl that it’s maddeningly dirty for him to hear it, and he can’t help but ask for a little more. He slowly starts to move the carrot in and out, fingers struggling for purchase with the slickness of it.

“Beg me some more, honey.”

“Please… please daddy… sir… oh God… please lemme cum…”

You’re backing up against his hand now, fucking yourself on a vegetable, so desperate to get what you want. He moans out loud, not sure how much more of this he can take either, unzipping his pants and starting to stroke his dick to the same rhythm that he’s fucking you.

“Make yerself cum, use yer fingers. Whatever ya need.”

You move your hand quickly, barely feeling how numb it is and the soreness in your wrist from leaning on it for so long, your fingers reaching to rub your clit as fast and hard as you possibly can, wanting it now, fucking desperate for your high.

“Shit… oh Daddy… I’m cumming,” you wail, somewhere in the back of your mind thinking you’re going to get another spanking for that cuss word, but you don’t care, ecstasy shooting through your body as you moan, pussy clenching around the foreign object so hard that it shoots out, falling onto the table with a clunk. Your legs feel like jelly, shaking there as your eyes squeeze shut. Release feels so so good.

Elvis’ fingers had slipped on the carrot, and he’d watched it slide out of you with a trail of slickness in its wake. Something about the filthiness of that image tipped him over the edge and suddenly he’s cumming too, half over the saddle and half over your ass, skin and leather covered in ropes of white, throwing his head back he moans at the Elvis and you on the mirrored ceiling, moaning back at him. Shit.

Somehow, some amount of time later, he’s on the sofa with you on his lap, Little Elvis safely tucked away and your panties pulled back up again, whatever good they might be doing now, your skirt pulled down and his tongue firmly in your mouth. You moan into the kiss. And then you start to feel the pain of sitting on your bruised and battered ass.

“Ow.”

Your faces still close, his eyes glitter with merriment, lips curling into his famous lop-sided grin.

“Has my baby got a sore little behind?”

“Yes, Daddy,” you pout, although it almost immediately turns into a smile.

“Well I’m sorry I hadta do it, but y’understand why, don’tcha?”

You nod solemnly. “So I know who owns me,” you whisper, conspiratorially. “Who I belong ta.”

“That’s it, sweetie. Ya got it. Always such a clever lil girl.”

You beam at his praise, and nestle into his chest. That’s when you notice the carrot on the table, glistening with your juices. Holy shit. That’s what he was fucking you with.

“Daddy?” You whisper, into his shirt.

“Yes, darlin’.”

“You… you…. the carrot…” You don’t know how to say it without being lewd.

He giggles, and you feel the vibrations rumbling through his chest and into your ear.

“Yes, baby. Y’got a real good seein’ ta from a vegetable.”

You squeak, covering your red, embarrassed face with one hand. He slowly peels it back and manhandles you until he’s looking you right in the eye.

“An’ damn fuckin’ sexy it was too.”

***

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lotties-ashwagandha · 2 months ago

Text

LET IT BLEED AWAY BETWEEN US (part two)

(adult) lottie matthews x reader.

you’re adjusting to your new (and temporary) house together after lottie comes back, though remnants of the past still linger. read part one if you’d like, but this fic is understandable if you don’t.

“I’m going to talk to the bank at the start of the week. We can do away with this place,” Lottie gestures around the room, “and find something better.”

You are silent. This place isn’t your home, but it used to be — before the wellness center, before Lottie. She is oblivious to it, but this house has belonged to you for years even without being lived in for a while, because you considered it a good idea to keep a backup plan if joining a wellness center cult didn’t work out.

Your precautions are now paying off.

“I like it here,” you cross your arms. “We aren’t in a hurry to go anywhere.”

“This place is small,” Lottie zips up her makeup bag and sets it down at the edge of the bathroom sink, sparing a glance at you from where you linger in the doorway. “Why do you adore it so much?”

“It’s charming.”

“It’s not ours,” she steps toward you. “And we have the money for something better. We could rebuild everything that we had.”

It’s a proposal you are both well aware exists more as a dream than a possible reality. What you had is gone, and even if you were to regain it, it would be more haunting than anything. This place isn’t your home either, as much as you would like to pretend — you moved most of your things to the cabin you shared with Lottie back at the wellness center, and much is now gone.

She looks over at you, reaching a hand out for you to take. “Come here.”

You join her, looking into the mirror above the sink and meeting your own eyes. Lottie’s hands rest at your waist for a moment before her arms loop around you, her chin resting atop your shoulder.

You meet her gaze in the mirror. Her arms around you tighten slightly, she holds you close to her. It’s early in the morning, but you are overcome with the need to stay in the seclusion of your temporary home with her, to pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist and that all you must face lies in her embrace.

Lottie presses a soft kiss to your shoulder, and when you close your eyes you are still in your old cabin together, and the light bleeding in through the window is sourced from endless woods. You are removed from responsibility, and she creates tasks for herself that align with her own interests, tending to the bees and leading meditations at the treeline.

You are restful again. It is easy to believe in it again, and you do not believe that your home was destroyed for nothing. You do not consider what stole your life to be a delusion, because you look into her eyes again and you see your same pain and loss reflected in them.

“This will be a good thing,” she says quietly — to reassure the both of you. “It has led us here.”

You will go along with it. You will sell your house, sell away your old dreams for something better. You clear your throat and begin to believe in her. “What are you looking for in a new house?”

Lottie smiles, prompting you to follow her as she steps out of the bathroom and continues through the house into the kitchen as she speaks. “We could buy anything. I would like to have something close to the city, but still with some natural elements— we could have a garden in the back.”

You pour her a mug of coffee, and then one for yourself. Hope blossoms within you at the prospect of a garden, even one much smaller than what you have grown used to. It is a part of yourself reborn. “We should decide on what we’re planting soon, so we can judge how much space we will need on the property.”

Lottie nods, and you notice the way her expression grows distant after she takes a sip of her coffee, like she can already see the house you’ll end up in. Her expression lights up. “We could buy a hot tub, too, a really nice one.”

“A hot tub?” You question. You wonder how much she really is willing to spend of what’s left.

“Imagine it,” she takes your hands in hers, towering above you with renewed enthusiasm, thumbs running over the backs of your hands lovingly. “It would be much easier to meditate in a hot tub, don’t you think?”

It would be, and maybe it’s a good place to start — you both need something to dream about.

With one of her hands having found your jaw she guides you to kiss her. Softness between you keeps you tethered to her, addictive in the way she holds you. You are one another’s escape, and though unsureness and residual anger still poison your peace of mind on occasion, they are easy to forget about in the blessings of her kiss.

hello hello lmk if we want part three, buying a new house and living happily after ever because episode four did not happen!

yellowjackets taglist: @webism @ahauandthesun @chaithetics @szczurkanalowy @cassioo

click here to visit my masterlist (taglist form is over there too + so is my ko-fi link + so is the link to my fandoms and request preferences).

#yellowjackets #yellowjackets x reader #lottie matthews x reader #lottie matthews

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revelboo · 4 months ago

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please pelase if you got the time I miss my ugly dumb puppy waspinator or the shockwave and soundwave fic 😭😭😭

I do love your stories so much tho my tops are the two above, armada starscream, knock out and ugh a few more I love you sooo much thank you for all u do 🙌🙌🙌

He’s a good-ish boy. Thank you for reading my silliness

Worker Bee Pt 11

Waspinator x Reader

• Trying to wolf down your pasta, you barely resist the overwhelming urge to just elbow him in the face. Except then he’ll probably whine at you and you’ll feel guilty about it. Skin prickling when he shifts against your back, mandibles tugging at the ends of your hair, you stiffen. “You better not be chewing on my hair again,” you mutter, the impulse to elbow him in those big optics growing. “You understand you’re heavy, right?” Might as well be talking to yourself as one of his elbows lands alongside yours, his much heavier body almost pinning yours now, hips brushing your butt. Feeling those mandibles spread against your neck and his inner mouth and glossa brush skin- nope. Knocking over your bowl as you roll onto your back and push his head away with both hands, heart racing. “Personal space! Remember personal space?”

• Remembers. Doesn’t really care, but he does remember you fussing at him before. Ducking his head after you, ignoring your attempts to shove him away, he accidentally pushes you along the carpet. Because your scent is different. Shifting and sweetening and he’s fascinated with it. Hears you swearing at him, before finally giving up, that red stuff you were eating in your hair and smeared on your skin as you cover your eyes with your hands. “Scent for Waspinator?” It must be. Finally accepting him.

• “My soap?” There’s pasta squished under you into the carpet and in your hair, and you just want to cry as his mandibles frame your throat, inner mouth and glossa stroking against you. Maybe he’s just hungry and he’s decided you’re food not a friend anymore. An antenna brushing your face makes you shiver. “I’m not food. You know that. Right?” Voice wavering as his glossa slides behind your ear.

• “Waspinator knows,” he hisses, head lifting in offense. And to his dismay you take the opportunity to squirm out from under him, soft little body rubbing against his. Watching your eyes close when you look at the red foodstuff smeared into the floor, little shoulders lifting and falling. Wings flicking, he’s tempted to drag you back down to him, but before he can decide how angry you’ll be if he does, you storm off, leaving the mess. And him.

• Nearly crying when you go into the bathroom, now without a door to even try and close and find the shower still running. And then you are crying in frustration as you strip and slip into the ice cold shower since the water heater ran out who knows how long ago. Trying to dig slimy pasta out of your hair and then, there’s Waspinator. Because of course there is. And there’s no point screaming at him to get out. He never listens. Just sobbing as his antenna flatten to his helm and he steps in with you, an arm dragging you into him as he clumsily tries to help you get the stuff out of your hair. Not complaining about the cold. And you wonder what deity you pissed off to deserve this. Finally giving up and leaning into his warmth, just over it all.

• Gently pressing your face against his throat so he can get to your hair, he tries to ignore the sounds you’re making. Trying to prove to you that he belongs here with you in your hive. That he can take care of you. Feeling you shivering and shaking as you cry like you’re in pain. That sound hurting him, too. Keeping you pressed to him, he finds your smelly stuff you’d used before and washes you. “Waspinator’s here,” he croons, trying his best to soothe you. Still wants to investigate that subtle change to your scent, but willing to wait for now. You’re not going anywhere and neither is he.

#transformers x reader #waspinator x reader #idw waspinator

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luvjunie · 2 years ago

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Hey sweetie, I’ve been a real big fan. Can you write some HCS or a fic about the both Miles being twins?

a/n: ABSOLUTELY 10000% YES. i had way too much fun with this oml. and omg thank you you’re so sweet! 😭 btw, let’s just pretend that in this au they don’t have the same name since they’re ‘twins’ lmao

— headcanons. miles and miles as twins

Twins? Yes. Polar opposites? Definitely.

They both have a completely different sense of style, but one thing they have in common is that they both love Jordan’s. However I feel like miles!42 is a full blown sneakerhead. Has the better collection and often finds miles!1610 wearing his shoes, because somehow 42 always manages to win the snkrs raffles.

“Are those my brand new fuckin’ 4s?” “Uh… no?” “Take my shit off before I tweak out.”

42 keeps his side of the room squeaky clean, gets upset if there’s even a sock that does not belong to him on his side

Absolutely hates the song Sunflower. Cannot stand it, makes him wanna rip his hair out. The minute it came out 1610 played it into the dirt and 42 swears he can still hear it in his dreams till this day

1610 is the more affectionate one (outwardly) while 42 likes to pretend he’s completely devoid of that as if he doesn’t love his brother with everything in him.

“You got exactly three seconds to get off me.” “Just hug me back, damn!”

They’re the kind of brothers to open soundcloud, turn on a random trap beat and see who can go the longest freestyling. They do that thing where guys bring their fist to their mouths and squeal and shove each other out of excitement when they get a good flow going back and forth

42 is definitely the athletic type, plays football and soccer. 1610 is more in tune with his artistic side. Will play sports for fun but doesn’t care for them like that

42 is introverted as hell, doesn’t really like talking to people. 1610 is more of a social butterfly

They’ve never once liked the same girl. Ever. Their taste is drastically different

“Bro, you like a white girl?” “…Yes? What does her race have to do with anything?” “See me personally—“. “Literally nobody fucking asked.”

Used to help each other break out of their cribs when they were babies. Either that or Jeff and Rio would wake up to find that 42 had climbed into 1610’s crib after they’d been put down and slept with him instead. it was impossible to keep them apart from each other, so eventually they just broke down the second crib and let them use the one.

You can tell who is who in their baby pictures. You guessed it, 42 was the oddly solemn one who always wanted to play by himself. They worried about him for a bit. They also had to tickle him as an attempt to get him to smile in pictures, and just their luck, he’s never been ticklish

When they were eight years old, 1610 accidentally broke the wolverine action figure 42 never went anywhere without, and 42 cried about it for three days straight

They definitely ask for each other’s opinions on their outfits

“Do you think this shirt goes with these pants?” “The entire outfit is black… how would it not go together?”

They both obviously love their mother but 42 is the biggest mama’s boy. Always in the kitchen helping her cook, will watch her telenovelas with her and actually keep up with the plot. He’ll willingly follow her to the grocery store or accompany her on her ridiculously long Ross/Tjmaxx sprees because he likes hanging out with her

They terrorize the fuck outta their dad and have been doing so since they entered this world because they think it’s funny. Stupid shit like dying his boxers pink, or looking up a cracked tv screen video on youtube just to watch him nearly have a heart attack thinking they broke it. They used to twin-swap when they were younger to get out of certain things, but it’s 100% impossible to pull off now. They’re way too different, physically and mentally

Uncle Aaron took 42 to get his ears pierced when he was thirteen, something 1610 would never do. Rio basically had an aneurysm when he came home with them in and Jeff was not pleased but Aaron took the blame for it, said it was his idea. 42 made up some bullshit lie about how if he takes them out before they heal completely they’ll get infected. Still has them in till this day

42 is exactly fourteen minutes older and refuses to let 1610 hear the end of it, but 1610 is taller by an inch and weighs a little more.

“I don’t know why you’re talking shit like I’m not older than you. Pipe down lil’ bro.” “Sorry, is someone talking to me right now? Cause I sure as hell can’t see ‘em.” “Nigga it’s ONE INCH”

They’re definitely scrapping over that, and both get smacked upside their heads by Mama Rio for fighting with each other

42 needs the tv and the fan on, SIMULTANEOUSLY when he sleeps or he’ll be up the entire night. 1610 can’t stand it

1610 will try and turn the fan off after his brother’s been asleep for probably two hours, thinking he’s in the clear until he hears—

“Do you value your life? Turn my damn fan back on.”

Deep down 42 is a big ass softie and loves spending time with 1610, he has no idea what he’d do without him. He’s just not the best at expressing it. 1610 teases him about it simply because he enjoys aggravating his other half

“You still got plans with Ganke tonight?” “Nah, his mom’s dragging him to some baby shower.” “Oh, cool, cool… So what movie are we watching?” “Huh?” “Huh—Headass. What movie are we watching tonight?” “Sorry, I’m not understanding. Are you—asking to spend time… with me?” “Damn, I need to say it in Spanish? Matter fact, you probably won’t understand that either. No sabo ass.”

#junie’s works ᥫ᭡#across the spiderverse fanfiction #miles morales #earth 42 miles morales #miles morales prowler #miles morales fanfiction #miles morales headcanons #across the spiderverse headcanons #spiderman astv

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scary-grace · 2 months ago

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the one - a shigaraki x f!reader fic

You made a deal with Fate to grant Shigaraki Tomura a long and happy life, but that came at a cost - in the world your wish created, the two of you never met. But his life isn't the only one your wish changed, and as you struggle to carry the burden of a past that exists only in your memory, you find your path crossing with old friends and former enemies in a way you never expected. Can you build a life worth living in the aftermath of everything you've seen and done? Can you do it without the person you changed everything for? Or will you and Tomura, against all odds, find your way back to each other one more time?

For Challenge Friday @pixelcafe-network! Fixit-ish, angst, tw for drug use/addiction, recovery. 21k in part 1. Dividers by @cafekitsune.

i. if one thing had been different

Do you know what you are truly asking of me? The entity’s voice isn’t audible, but it’s a physical sensation all the same – a roll of thunder rattling your chest, a vibration that settles into your bones and won’t stop. Even the smallest wish changes the world. You are asking me to alter the course of history. To change what has already happened, and replace it with the happy outcome you desire.

Laid out like that, it sounds awful. You sound awful for asking it, but you didn’t come this far to back down now. Awful as it is, selfish as it is, you still want the same thing you wanted when you set out on a quest into dark and forgotten places, far from the sunny, modern, well-lit surface of the world. “Yes,” you say. “That is what I wish.”

Why?

Why not? “What happened to Tomura wasn’t fair. I want to fix it.”

What happens to so many is unfair. The world is an unfair place, the entity counters. It’s telling you. You’re the one who lives in it, who experienced the unfairness that led you to the League of Villains, who seethes with frustration and hatred every time you think of how little the world has changed. Was what happened to Shigaraki Tomura truly so much worse than the rest? Why is it that he deserves a happy outcome?

“Doesn’t everybody deserve a happy outcome?” you ask. “The people who love everybody else didn’t come find you. I did.”

A villain, with a villain’s selfishness, the entity rumbles. You won’t argue it. And yet, your wish is not for a happy outcome for yourself.

“If Tomura is happy, I’ll be happy,” you say. “That’s what it means to love someone.”

You don’t remember when you fell in love with Tomura. Don’t remember when you realized that you’d do anything for him, that you weren’t fighting for an ideal any longer, but for him. But you remember when you found out he loved you back. There was something magical about being one of the few parts of the world he didn’t hate, something improbable and special and rare about being someone worth surviving for. You’ve kept those memories close, spent so long turning them over and over in your hands that they’ve worn smooth and featureless. All that’s left is the feeling. The warmth and peace and comfort of waking up alongside him and knowing he belonged to you.

It’s been so cold since he died. Since the heroes murdered him, and no matter where you look, you can’t find evidence of him anywhere in the world. You were released after five years in Tartarus, because while you were present at the scene of every last one of the League’s crimes, there’s no evidence that you killed anyone, and when you got out, you were horrified to see just how completely he’s been forgotten. If the world had changed because of him, it might be easier to survive. But it hasn’t. So you’re here.

If he’s happy, you’ll be happy, the entity repeats. You are aware that there is a price.

Everything has a price. “I’ll pay it. I don’t care what it is.”

So be it, the entity says. Speak your wish again.

“I wish for Shigaraki Tomura to live a long and happy life,” you say. “That’s all I want.”

It will be so, the entity murmurs. Return to the surface, and sleep. When you awaken, all will be as you asked.

The truth settles deep into your chest, deeper even than the entity’s voice. You’ve been granted your wish, and when you wake up in the morning, everything will be all right. “What price did I pay?”

You said you didn’t care.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know.”

I cannot say for certain, the entity says, except to say that it is not your life. You will live to see every result of your wish.

“Good,” you say. As long as Tomura can be happy, you’ll be happy, too.

It’s a long climb back to the surface. When you emerge into the polar night, beneath a sky devoid of clouds and moon and northern lights, the exhaustion feels as though it’s part of you, something that will never leave. Maybe it’ll follow you into the world your wish created. Maybe that will be the price of your wish. If it is, you’ll take it. As you stumble back to the shelter you built with only half an expectation that you’d ever return, you feel at peace for the first time in eight years. For the first time in eight years, it’s easy to fall asleep.

When you wake, you’re no longer in your shelter. No longer in the north. You’re in a city – you can tell by the noise – and you’re asleep on a hard mattress in a drafty room. It wasn’t your most restful sleep, but you open your eyes rather than trying to drift off again. Your wish must have been granted, because things have changed, and you don’t want to sleep. All you want to do is find Tomura again.

He’s not here. The room you’re staying looks like a motel room, somewhere no one stays for long, and your belongings are piled up in one corner of the room. You get dressed, gather them, and leave. It’s all right if you have to look for him a little bit. You have no memory of how you got here, but then again, this isn’t the world you lived in. You’re the only one who knows the world has changed. When you find Tomura, it’ll start to make sense again. He’ll have lived in this world the whole time, and you know he won’t mind explaining.

But there’s no sign of Tomura anywhere. Not in the motel lobby, not in the park across the street. His number’s not in the phone whose passcode is thankfully present in your muscle memory, and you pick your way down the block, anxiety beginning to bubble in the pit of your stomach. You know things have changed, because they’ve changed for you. So where is he?

Finally it occurs to you to look him up on the internet, and when your search result returns nothing, your heart drops so far and fast that it makes you nauseous. You wind up crouched on a street corner, struggling to breathe, until it occurs to you that a world with a happy outcome for Tomura might be one where he never became Shigaraki Tomura at all. You search his first name instead, the one he murmured to you half-asleep once and never again. Shimura Tenko.

Shimura Tenko is a pro hero. His hero name is Endgame. He’s a protégé of All Might’s, although not his successor, and when he’s in the news, he’s in it for rescue heroics. Shigaraki Tomura never existed, and Shimura Tenko is a hero who saves people, and it starts to dawn on you with horrible slowness. With shaking fingers, you search your own name. And you find your name in the news, too – in the news articles about the minor heroes who’ve captured you, with an ever-longer rap sheet attached.

Now you understand. You wished for a long and happy life for Tomura, but the only way for him to live happily is to never become Shigaraki Tomura. And if he never became Shigaraki Tomura, he never met you. Tomura will have a happy ending, but you won’t be part of it. And you remember what the entity promised, too: You will live to see every result of your wish.

Your own happiness was the price for Tomura’s. And you’ll be paying for the rest of your life.

He’s happy. You know he’s happy – pro hero Endgame, nowhere near the top ten, with friends and a dog and a mentor who’s proud of him and some girl he keeps getting photographed with out and about – and you try out different ways to be okay with it. What you said to the entity as you made your wish feels stupid, naïve. If he’s happy, you’re happy, because that’s what it means to love someone? If that was true, you wouldn’t feel sick every time you hear his name. You can’t make it okay that way. You have to find something else.

You try telling yourself that Shimura Tenko isn’t the man you love. You loved Shigaraki Tomura, and this isn’t him – it’s someone else, someone you’ve never met, someone you don’t know. You’re in love with someone who’s died, someone who’s never existed. You can be happy for him, the same as you’d be happy for a stranger having a good day. You can’t mourn for something that was never yours to begin with. Everything’s okay.

But that isn’t right, either. You’ve seen him smile in pictures, heard him laugh in interviews, and it’s just the same as you remember. The scars on his face are the same ones you ran your fingers over so many times, the birthmark at the corner of his mouth is the same one you kissed. The love you felt for Tomura defined your life, and he’s still there. How can he not be there? You can see him. Sometimes, when you’re particularly delusional, you imagine that he’d recognize you if the two of you met again, but you know in your heart that you’d be nothing to him. Just another stranger. Just another villain.

You’re still a villain, a minor one, and without Tomura and the League of Villains to force society to confront even one small piece of their hypocrisy, nothing’s changed for the better. With your record, the police and the heroes always have a tab on you, and you know they’re waiting for a chance to pull you off the street. The fact that you’ve been to Tartarus and know it’s worse doesn’t make you feel any differently about being in jail, so it’s worth avoiding. Sometimes you can’t help it, though. Sometimes you have to steal if you want to eat. And when you can’t ignore what you’re seeing, you have to act.

At first you don’t recognize the man on his knees in the middle of the intersection, hunched and mumbling, hands clamped on either side of his head. He’s wearing a paper bag over his head, not the mask you’re familiar with, but as soon as you hear his voice, you know who it is. Twice is surrounded by a perimeter of police cars, a ring of civilians hanging well back out of the way, and you can see a Maiden in the background, waiting to encase him. You don’t see injuries, or stolen property lying around. It looks like a scene you’ve witnessed a dozen times, where the distinction between a person in need of help and a dangerous criminal is erased, and you know without even thinking that you can’t witness it again.

You try to talk to the police. Tell them you know Twice, tell them you can calm him down, tell them there are other ways to handle this scene, even though you know they won’t listen. What do you do when they don’t listen? Get louder. Get more insistent. Become such a nuisance that their attention turns to Twice and not you, and that has consequences. Consequences like you getting Tasered. Like your head striking the side of a cop car as you fall, before cracking hard against the concrete. Like you passing out and waking up in a holding cell with a splitting headache, all set for a month’s sentence for interfering with a police matter.

You have a concussion and a fractured cheekbone, neither of which the jail’s doctors care about treating, and your headache never fades. You’re set to spend the entire month cringing away from the light and groaning in pain until someone in the cell with you takes pity on you. “If you don’t quiet down, they’ll smother you in your sleep,” she murmurs in your ear. “Take these.”

It’s an effort to focus your blurry eyes on the pills she’s holding out. You know what they are – something you avoided before, no matter how badly you got knocked around or how much you wanted to forget. But you’re tired of how much this hurts. Tired of remembering every day what you lost and fending off the thought of just how hollow your wish-come-true has made you feel. You pluck the neuroin pills out of your cellmate’s hand and swallow them dry, their bitter taste flooding the back of your throat.

Neuroin works fast. It doesn’t put you to sleep. But it’s enough to make you forget. And when you do remember, all you want is to forget again.

“Can you hear me?”

Someone is tapping your shoulders, speaking loudly and clearly, but it feels like they’re speaking to you from the surface, when you’re kilometers deep in the sea. You try to slip away, but they rub their knuckles hard across your sternum, and it hurts. Even then, you can’t rise to defend yourself – just keep lying there, your breathing slow and uneven, your mind going grey at the edges. Their hands might still be on you. You can’t tell. Their voice, familiar as it is, is growing more distant by the second.

How did you get here? Why is it so hard to wake up? Do you even want to wake up? You don’t have a choice about that, and it doesn’t matter. You made the only choice that mattered already, and it brought you here. Wherever here is. Whatever’s happening to you now. You could find it, if you searched, but it doesn’t matter, either. You can hear another voice. “Give it up. They’re all gone.”

“Not yet,” the first voice, the familiar one, says. “It’s only been a minute and a half, and protocol allows for a second dose.”

“You can waste it if you want, but what do you think it’ll do? She’s as dead as the rest of them –”

“Doctors pronounce people dead. Not heroes,” the first hero says sharply, and something about the way he says the word kicks off a faint spark in you. An alarm goes off. “Second dose. You can do this. Come on.”

Neuroin is hard to come up from, and this must have been a bad batch, but with two doses of Narcan in your system, you can fight your way back if you want. And you do want. You want to see if you’re right, despite knowing that it’ll devastate you, despite knowing that seeing him will make you wish you’d never woken up in the first place. You have to know. You fight your way back to the surface, your breathing labored and still uneven, and look into the eyes of the hero who wouldn’t give up on you.

You were right. “Welcome back,” the pro hero known as Endgame says, his raspy voice calm and steady, his crimson eyes soft. “I don’t know how much you remember about what’s happened –”

“Overdose.” Your speech is slurred. You sound drunk, and you don’t want to sound drunk talking to Tomura. He always clowned on you for not being able to hold your liquor. “Narcan. Been here before.”

“On purpose?” Tomura asks, and you shake your head. He looks relieved, even though he doesn’t know you, even though he’s a hero and should probably see you as a waste of space. “I’m glad you’re here. There’s an ambulance coming. Do you want to try sitting up?”

You give it a shot, knowing that you’re not strong enough, just so he’ll touch you again, and he does. One arm around your back to hold you up, one hand on your shoulder to steady you. “This wasn’t your fault,” Tomura tells you. Tomura sounds like a hero. He is a hero – but he always was, wasn’t he? Your hero, the League’s hero, the one who fought for everyone who’d been left behind. “Someone’s been purposely tainting batches of neuroin by cutting them with some other compound, which makes it – well, I guess if this has happened before, you probably know.”

You nod rather than admit that most of your previous overdoses, while not truly purposeful, weren’t all that unintentional, either. “We’re looking for the person who did it,” Tomura continues, “and we’ll find them. But this wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known what was in it.”

“Using it was a choice.” You glance up and see the hero Tomura’s paired with looking down at you, arms crossed over his chest. Bakugou Katsuki has the same eat-shit look on his face that you remember, the one that says you and everybody else are beneath him, the one you were glad to see wiped off his face after Tomura killed him. “No one held your arm down and made you shoot up.”

“No one asked you,” Tomura snaps at him. He refocuses on you, even though Bakugou’s right – no one made you shoot up. No one’s ever had to make you take neuroin. “Hey. Look at me. The paramedics are going to be here, and they’ll take you to the hospital. Once the doctors clear you, you’ll go to court, and the judge will give you a choice between jail and treatment. You don’t have to keep living like this. You can choose differently.”

No, you can’t. You’ve tried treatment. It hasn’t worked, just like overdosing hasn’t worked. You will live to see every result of your wish, and you can’t live with it, no matter how hard you try. The only thing treatment will do is clear your head enough to remember everything you lost. You must be shaking your head, because Tomura’s voice softens even further. “It’s not too late. It’s not too late until you stop breathing, and you’re already breathing better. This might be where you are right now, but you don’t have to stay here, and if you want to live differently, there are people who want to help you. It’s not too late. I swear.”

He keeps talking to you, saying everything and nothing, while you notice that the hand on your shoulder has a ring on its fourth finger. He’s married. Somewhere in the years since your wish changed the world, Tomura got married, and it wasn’t to you. He got his happy ending, and you weren’t part of it. Instead you’re a neuroin addict with close to a dozen overdoses under your belt, and he’s a hero who brought you back because it was the right thing to do. You almost wish he hadn’t. If the batch was tainted, then it wouldn’t have been your fault, and this would finally have been over.

And then something strange happens when the EMTs take you away from him, transferring you onto a stretcher. As he looks down into your face, Tomura’s expression shifts oddly. “Do I know you?” he asks, and your heart lurches. “I feel like I’ve seen you before.”

He looks like he’s thinking hard about it. Like the answer to that question matters at all. “In another life,” you say, and the paramedics pick up your stretcher and carry you away.

You’re at the courthouse bright and early, but there are so many people waiting for a hearing that you aren’t seen until midafternoon. You lurk in the corner of the courtroom, listening to people being charged with petty theft, possession with intent to distribute, trespassing, disorderly conduct, defacement of property. Nonviolent crimes. The people who are charged with violent crimes are few and far between, and for some reason, the ones who do are the ones with lawyers. You don’t have a lawyer. You’re going to jail – again.

Fine. There’s neuroin in jail if you know where to look, and you always know where to look. You’re dozing off, daydreaming about how creatively you’re going to tell the judge where she can stick her offer of treatment, when someone says your name. Your name, in his voice – of course you’re going to sit up and take notice. “T – um, Endgame. What are you doing here?”

“I came to see how you were doing,” Tomura says, and smiles. There’s a sad tinge to it. “Have you had your hearing yet?”

“Um, no. Not yet.” Your mouth is as dry as sandpaper. “Do you usually come to the hearings?”

“No,” Tomura says, and walks away. He’s back a second later, with a paper cup of water that he passes to you. You take a few sips. “If you want the truth, the batch of neuroin you and your friends got ahold of wasn’t the only one that was tainted. There were dozens of overdoses last night, and you’re the only one anybody was able to bring back. So I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Oh,” you say. You wouldn’t call the people you were using with your friends, exactly. The only thing that ties you together is neuroin. Tied you together. Bakugou was right – they’re all gone. “I’m – uh, I’m fine.”

“Did you decide yet?” Tomura asks. “What you’re going to say at your hearing?”

No. You decided to say no, because you’ve been to treatment five times and flunked five times, two times for relapsing, twice for treatment noncompliance, and one time because you lost patience and climbed out the window. But Tomura’s looking at you, with that straight-to-center gaze you remember so well, and he looks so hopeful that you’ll make the right decision. So hopeful that you won’t take away the one win he got last night. You can’t remember the last time you saw Tomura looking that way.

You can’t ruin it. “I think yes. I don’t want to go back to jail.”

Tomura’s smile brightens, and from the front of the courtroom, the bailiff calls your name. You make your way forward. You can’t go back on what you just said to Tomura, not while he’s still here, and when the judge asks the treatment-or-jail question, you opt for treatment. When somebody opts for treatment, the system works fast. There are counselors and caseworkers from the court’s preferred treatment program waiting, and they’re all over you the second your hearing ends.

You thought he’d leave once he heard the answer he was hoping for, but Tomura is still there as the counselors are hustling you out. “Good luck,” he tells you. “I’ll be rooting for you.”

“Thanks,” you say, even though you wish desperately that he hadn’t said it. Now you’ll be wondering if he’s thinking of you, rooting for you, every time you think about dropping out of treatment. “Um, thanks for not giving up on me.”

“I don’t give up on people,” Tomura says, and just like before, his expression shifts as he studies you. “Are you sure we don’t know each other?”

You answer the same as before, this time over your shoulder as your overenthusiastic, overly optimistic caseworker leads you towards the doors. “In another life.”

For you, with treatment, you bail out in one of two phases. The first place is detox, because detoxing off neuroin is actual hell. The only way out of it is through, according to the treatment counselors, but you know there’s a second way – more neuroin – that’s a lot quicker and easier. Of the five times you’ve been to treatment, you’ve dropped out of detox three times. The first two times you snuck out. The second time you climbed out a window, fell fifteen feet, snapped your ankle, and wound up in the ER high out of your mind on legal painkillers. Detox is awful, and there’s nothing waiting for you on the other side. Quitting treatment is the only smart thing to do.

But this time, when you think about quitting, there are two things that get in the way. One of them is the likelihood of getting another bad batch of neuroin, this time without Tomura there to save you. The other is Tomura himself.

You know you won’t see him again. You know he’s married, that he doesn’t care about you any more than the average hero cares about the average person they save, that he doesn’t actually remember you. You just have one of those faces, and maybe he’s seen you in the news after you’ve gotten arrested again for doing something stupid. And at the same time, you promised him you’d try. You don’t want to break a promise to him, even if he’s probably forgotten about it already.

So you grit your teeth and stick it out through detox for the third time, sweaty and nauseous and in agonizing pain. Once your blood tests show that the neuroin’s left your system, the doctors on the medical side of the treatment center offer to put you on methadone, which is basically neuroin without the fun. The last two times you detoxed, you refused it, but this time, you accept. It helps with the withdrawal symptoms, which is good. You’re tired of not being able to eat and sleep.

Detox is the first phase you bail out. The second phase is when you go from quiet time alone with your thoughts to three different treatment groups plus individual therapy per day. You would have hated this anyway – you were never big on sharing your backstory before – but now your backstory is a total blank, because your memories are of what happened before you made your wish. You had to figure out what you’ve been up to through your police reports, which sucks, and it gets you in trouble for not “taking ownership” of all the stuff you did. You can’t exactly explain.

And that’s the problem. That’s always been the problem. Half the time in treatment is spent figuring out why you use and how to cope differently, but you can’t admit why you use without somebody putting you on antipsychotics. You know it sounds insane. But if you’re not honest, you can’t get better, so you’re in a double bind. When you’re sent in to meet your individual counselor for the first time, you’re already so over it that you can barely mumble a hello.

But then you look up. You see who your counselor is, and your jaw drops, because it’s Midoriya Izuku sitting across from you, holding a cheap ballpoint pen and a notebook and staring out at you from behind a pair of glasses with dark frames.

The question explodes out of you before you can stop it. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here,” Midoriya says, like this is normal. Like he’s not the one who killed Tomura and took away the only person who made you happy. “What are you doing here?”

“Don’t try that on me. I’ve heard it all before,” you say. The longer you study him, the more confused you get. There are no scars on his hands, no scars on his face. The high school diploma on the wall hanging next to his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree isn’t from UA’s hero course – it’s from General Studies. “Didn’t you want to be a hero?”

Midoriya flinches ever so slightly, and you realize all at once that it’s not just your own life you ruined with your wish. You created a world where Midoriya isn’t All Might’s heir. Which means Midoriya’s quirkless. Which means that he spends every day coping with a dream that didn’t come true. Which, not coincidentally, is exactly the same thing you do, and another stupid question comes flying out of your mouth. “How come you’re not on neuroin?”

Midoriya bursts out laughing at that. “My patients ask me a lot of weird stuff, but I haven’t heard that one before,” he says. “Do you mind if I write it down?”

“Uh, sure.” You watch as Midoriya cracks open his notebook and scribbles something down. You don’t know if it’s your quote or not. “Okay. I was stupid, but – why are you here?”

“And not on neuroin?” Midoriya chuckles. You can tell already that you’re never living this one down. “I wanted to help people. When I was a kid, I thought being a hero was the only way to do that, but it isn’t. And I started thinking that the people who need help the most aren’t the people heroes are helping. There’s something I can do that heroes can’t. So that’s why I’m here. Why are you here?”

“Better here than jail.”

“Right,” Midoriya agrees. “Except this is your sixth time in treatment, and you’ve never made it farther than this room. What is it in here that scares you so much that living on the street and shooting up neuroin seems like a better option?”

You blink. “That’s kind of blunt. Do you talk to all your patients like that?”

“Only the ones who’ve heard it all before,” Midoriya says. Fine. You earned that one. “Seriously. You’ve overdosed nine times. This last one, we were lucky to get you back at all, and they aren’t having any luck finding the person who’s contaminating the supply. This isn’t just about jail or not jail anymore. It’s your life. So I think it’s kind of important to find out why you’d rather risk it out there than talk about it in here.”

Your stomach clenches. “Why do you think?”

“I looked through your files,” Midoriya says, “and both times you made it this far, you referenced something that your intake clinician described as “an elaborate delusional architecture”. You were prescribed risperidone and quetiapine, both of which you declined to take, and you were dropped from the program due to treatment noncompliance. I think we should talk about that.”

“So you can put me on risperidone again?”

“Here’s what I was thinking,” Midoriya says. He sets his notebook aside and leans forward in his chair. “Based on your history, I don’t see evidence that the delusional architecture is actually impacting your ability to function day-to-day. It’s impacting your emotional experience, not your behavior, which means to me that it’s not a problem antipsychotics can fix. Antidepressants, maybe – or mood stabilizers – but I think it would be better if we just talked about it. If you tell me the truth, I’ll make sure they don’t put you on antipsychotics for talking about it.”

“You can do that?” you ask, skeptical. “I thought the psychiatrists ran the show.”

“I see you more often than they do. If I tell them that we’re dealing with a mood disorder or trauma, with psychosis as a secondary concern, they’ll treat the other stuff first,” Midoriya says. That makes sense to you, sort of. You’ve never made it this far in treatment, so you can’t say for sure if he’s full of shit. “Treatment won’t go anywhere if you don’t buy in. If going to bat for you with the prescribers is what it takes, that’s what I’ll do. What you want matters to me.”

Your eyes are starting to burn. “I can’t have what I really want.”

“Okay,” Midoriya says. He picks up his notebook. “Tell me about it.”

You almost refuse. You almost choke down the words, like you’ve done so many times before, because it won’t change anything. But then you think of Tomura, who told you he’s rooting for you. Of Midoriya, sitting right in front of you, whose dream you tore away and who picked up a new dream to replace it. Nothing else you’ve done has worked so far, and you have to live in the world your wish created. Maybe it’s time to try something different.

“You’re crying,” Midoriya says, and you raise your hand to your cheek to find it wet with tears. You didn’t even notice. “It’s okay to take your time. You don’t have to tell me everything today.”

“I can’t. It’s a long story and we only have an hour,” you say. You don’t know where to start, really. Maybe you should just start with yourself. “Um – okay. So once upon a time, there was this kid. She didn’t want to be a villain when she grew up.”

“What did she want to be?”

“I don’t remember.”

“That’s okay,” Midoriya says again. His face is kind. You remember how he lost that kindness in the world you destroyed and wonder if he ever missed it. If he even knew it was gone. “What happened to her?”

You swallow hard. Wipe away more tears that you didn’t realize you were shedding. And then you tell him everything.

You go to group therapy and talk about early recovery, relapse prevention, mental illness, trauma, and then you go to individual therapy and keep telling Midoriya the story. It gets bigger, bigger than just you, pulling in so many people whose lives might be different now, whose lives you changed or ruined with your wish, who will never know there was something else before. But Midoriya knows, because you’re telling him. He knows you’re holding something back, too.

“You promised you’d tell me the truth,” he reminds you, after you’ve spent forty-five minutes dancing around the question he hasn’t asked directly. Then he asks it. “Was I a hero in your timeline?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t want to tell me about it because you didn’t want to upset me,” Midoriya guesses. You nod. You’re not sure when you stopped hating Midoriya – maybe when you realized that this version of him would have fought to save Tomura instead of killing him. “Elaborate delusional architecture, remember? You know I wanted to be a hero, so you made me a hero in your story. I think that’s really nice.”

Huh. That’s not how you were expecting him to take it, but it makes its own kind of sense. If he’s not going to be upset, then it’s okay for you to keep telling it. “Okay, so All Might was hurt fighting this villain called All For One, and he needed somebody to be his successor. He picked you and gave you his quirk.”

“Gave it to me?”

“His quirk was special. It was called One For All and it could be passed from person to person,” you say. “You were All Might’s successor. But All For One had a successor, too. And that was Tomura.”

“Tomura. That’s who your wish was for,” Midoriya says, and you nod. “Your wish came true, right? Who’s he in our timeline?”

“All For One called him Tomura. He was Tomura when I met him, so that’s what I called him, but that wasn’t his real name. Not the one he was born with.” You’re babbling, stammering. “His real name was Shimura Tenko.”

Midoriya knows who that is. “Endgame,” he says. There’s an odd look on his face. “When did you meet him?”

You tell him that, and whatever else he asks, and although you’re pretty sure he’s planning to use you as a case study at some point, he keeps the prescribers off your back. You decide you don’t want to be on methadone anymore, so you switch to suboxone, which means going through mini-withdrawal and being sick and bitchy and terrible for a day or two. You and Midoriya take a break from the story so you can talk about the decision, and when Midoriya presses you on the answer, you give one you don’t expect. “I don’t want to be chained to a clinic when I get out.”

“You’re planning to graduate treatment,” Midoriya says, and smiles. You nod uncertainly. It feels weird to say that, and to think it, when you’ve been thinking of getting out of here as a countdown to overdosing again. “And you’re interested in having more freedom. Is there something that you’re hoping to do with it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” you say. “Ask me in a couple weeks.”

You complete a couple of your treatment groups and join new ones, and meanwhile, the woman you’ve been sharing your room with graduates. She’s a pro hero who picked up a painkiller addiction after repeated injuries, and the two of you never quite got along. But you wish her well anyway, and she looks you up and down before inclining her head. “Good luck, Seeker. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

People get nicknames in treatment. You never stayed long enough before to find out, but you picked up a nickname – Seeker, for reasons beyond your understanding. The woman who becomes your next roommate has a nickname when she arrives: Skeeter, short for mosquito. “Because she’s annoying?” you ask Birdie, who transferred from the same jail as the new person’s coming from. Birdie shakes her head. “Or something else?”

“She’s crazy,” Birdie says, and lowers her voice. “She drinks blood.”

Toga. Can it really be Toga? You haven’t looked up the other members of the League, too afraid of what you’ll find, but the idea of Toga as your roommate – did Midoriya do this? No, you don’t think so. He says that he’s fine exploring your mind palace, but doesn’t want to rearrange the furniture, which means that it’s a coincidence. The same as it being Twice you were trying to help when you got the injuries that led to your neuroin addiction was a coincidence. The same as it was a coincidence that Tomura’s the one who brought you back from your overdose, just like it’s a coincidence that Midoriya’s the one trying to help you build your life back. When does it stop being a coincidence and start being a pattern?

Your new roommate is there when you get back from group, because she doesn’t have a schedule yet, and it’s pretty clear that she doesn’t want to be there. Toga never got to grow up in your timeline, but she grew up in this one, and she looks like you felt eight years after the end of the war. Tired, angry, hopeless, done. There are bite marks up and down her arms, and that’s what you ask about first. “Did you do those yourself?”

“I need blood.” Toga’s lying on her bed. She rolls to one side, puts her back to you. “Better watch out. I might bite you, too.”

“Would it help?” you ask, and she startles. “My blood is full of suboxone, so it might not taste the best, but –”

“Is it a kink thing?” Toga asks. “Are you weird?”

You laugh in spite of yourself, and you realize how long it’s been since you laughed. “My counselor says I have the most elaborate delusional architecture he’s ever seen. But I’m not that kind of weird.”

“Then why would you give me your blood?”

Because you know her. Because you know how horribly people treated her because of her quirk, when there were other options everywhere if they’d just taken a second to look. Because you know what almost saved her, and why it didn’t work. “It’s not going to kill me. And it might help you get better.”

“I can’t get better,” Toga says. Then, after a little while: “Let me think about it.”

While she’s thinking about it, you bring it up to Midoriya. It turns out that Midoriya keeps files on all the patients’ quirks, and he’s been working on one for Toga since the idea of transferring her from jail to treatment was floated. “It sounds like you’re conceptualizing it like your suboxone,” he says to you. “A harm-reduction measure, which makes sense in theory. But I know where you got this idea. And I’m worried about playing into your delusions.”

“If it’s a good idea, does it matter where it came from?” you ask. It doesn’t matter all that much to you that Midoriya thinks you’re crazy. As long as he thinks you’re functional, it’s fine. “It’s better than her biting herself. Or biting anybody else.”

“Yes,” Midoriya agrees after a second. “I’ll take it up the chain. You know –”

He trails off. “What?” you ask.

“I might have an idea about what you can do after you graduate treatment.”

“Okay,” you say. “What is it?”

“Ask me in a few weeks,” Midoriya says, and you roll your eyes. “Let’s go back to the story. What happened next?”

You’re at the part of the story with Overhaul, where the League ends up messing with the Hassaikai enough to tip the advantage to the heroes during their raid. You were one of the people Tomura loaned out to the Hassaikai, and you remember how much fun you and Toga and Twice had making Irinaka lose his cool. How proud Tomura was of the three of you when you came back. How happy he was to see you, specifically, and how good it felt to know that some part of his lopsided smile was just for you.

You don’t want to talk about that with Midoriya, and luckily for you, there’s a different part of the story he’s interested. “In your timeline, the Shie Hassaikai was responsible for manufacturing Deleter rounds?”

“Yeah,” you say. “Who’s doing it here?”

“They don’t know,” Midoriya says, and your stomach drops. “As far as I’m aware, the Shie Hassaikai has never been considered as a possible source. In this timeline, have you had any contact with the Shie Hassaikai?”

“Nope,” you say. “They don’t sell the stuff I like. And even if they did – no way would I go to them. I’d rather go through withdrawal.”

“Really?”

“No,” you say, and Midoriya snorts. “Why are you so interested in this part? I thought it was just my delusional architecture.”

“It’s an unusual part of it,” Midoriya says. “Most of your delusion can be traced to information that’s publicly available, which means that your mind had a realistic foundation to build on. This is the first thing you’ve told me, other than the part where you added me to the structure and came up with an explanation for All Might’s quirk, that can’t be traced to a particular source – and yet you’re just as sure of it as you are of everything else. It’s just strange.”

“Are you going to tell them to put me on risperidone?” you ask warily.

“No, no,” Midoriya says distractedly. “Just taking a few notes.”

You believe that’s what he’s doing. But at the end of the day’s session, those notes don’t go into your case file. They end up dead center on Midoriya’s desk, and as you shut the door, you see the disquieted look on his face.

“You’re in love,” Himiko tells you as she paints your nails during rec time. “I can smell it.”

You’ve heard her say that before. You shrug, just like you did then, and she pushes the point. “Who is it? Is it your counselor? He’s cute –”

“No,” you say. The idea of dating Midoriya is almost too weird to laugh about. “It’s nobody here. I won’t see them again.”

“Because they’re dead?” Himiko’s mouth turns down. “That’s really sad.”

“Not dead,” you say. All of this happened because you decided that ‘dead’ wasn’t an option when it came to Tomura. “It’s just not possible. He’s with somebody else, and even if he wasn’t, he’d never want someone like me.”

“What does that mean?”

“A drug addict with a criminal record,” you say, and Himiko swats you. “What?”

“That’s not a growth mindset. If I have to use the growth mindset, so do you.” Himiko’s mocking you a little bit, but you kind of deserve it. You’ve been in here for nine months and counting, and you’re turning into a bit of a treatment evangelist. “If you want to be mean to yourself, say it like you’re going to grow from it.”

“Fine. If he was looking for a partner, which he isn’t, my backstory is not compatible with his standards due to my history of substance abuse and criminal activities.” You’re pretty proud of that reframe. It sounds a lot less judgmental like that. “There’s not a point in thinking about it, so I try not to. It is what it is.”

“You feel really strongly for somebody who’s not thinking about it,” Himiko observes. “Most of the time when I smell love on people, it’s like a breeze. Sometimes it’s stronger and sometimes it’s weaker. It sticks around, but it changes. That’s not what I smell from you.”

She quiets down, stroking pale blue nail polish onto your little finger. She made a point of telling you that it’s not your color, but she agreed to put it on you anyway. “Yours is part of you. It never changes. If someone took it away, you wouldn’t be you anymore. And it’s not usually like that.”

“Are you saying I’m codependent?” You’d buy it. You’re on your third time through Untangling Relationships group therapy, because the counselor in charge thinks you’re not taking it seriously. “Harsh.”

“No, it’s just sad,” Himiko says, which is worse. “To love somebody so much that they’re part of who you are, and for them not to feel the same way.”

“Maybe in another life,” you say, and she kicks you under the table this time. Lightly, though. You can tell she feels bad for you. And you’re not sure she should.

You love Tomura. You’re never going to stop loving him. You loved him so much that you risked it all, made a wish that cost you everything, just so he could have a chance at a long and happy life. He’s gotten that life. That life doesn’t include you, could never include you. And as you work through your groups in treatment and tell Midoriya your story and add day after day onto your clean time, you’re trying to figure out how to build a happy-enough life alongside the truth that you’ll never have what you really want.

That happy-enough life can’t include neuroin. You wouldn’t want it to, even if you could use safely. It has to include something other than moping and wallowing and kicking yourself for believing that Tomura’s happiness would be enough to make you happy, too. In between storytelling sessions, Midoriya’s been doing his best to hammer the idea of meaning-making into your head. Whether your life has meaning or not depends on you. It’s a choice you can make, just like the choice to shoot up was. You can choose for your life to matter. You’re still not sure how.

One day when you get to Midoriya’s office for your individual session, Midoriya’s not alone there. There’s a hero with him, a hero you recognize – Sir Nighteye. You cringe backwards on instinct, half out of shock at seeing him alive instead of dead, and Midoriya hurries to reassure you. “You aren’t in trouble,” he says. “Sir Nighteye just wants to talk to you. About, um –”

“About the Shie Hassaikai,” Sir Nighteye says. “I believe you have some information about them.”

You glare at Midoriya. “I thought our conversations were confidential.”

“Yes,” Midoriya says, “but one of the cases where they aren’t is if you report that a child or someone who can’t care for themselves is being abused or neglected. What you were telling me about – Eri – qualifies.”

You kind of want to strangle him. “Eri is part of my delusional architecture, remember? She’s not real. It’s a waste of time to –”

“Prior to this point, criminals who use Deleter rounds have been scrupulous about removing unspent bullets from the scene,” Nighteye interrupts you. “In the last incident, we went to great lengths to recover an unspent bullet, and were able to test its contents. True to your report, the bullet contained human DNA, harvested from an adolescent girl.”

An adolescent. In your past, Eri was rescued when she was four, or five, or something. She’s a teenager, and no one’s been looking for her. Nobody even knew she was there. Nighteye folds his long fingers together and leans forward to study you. “I don’t know where you got this information, and I don’t care,” he says. “I want to know if you have any more.”

It's quiet for a moment, a moment where your throat goes tight and misery washes over you. There’s one more person whose life you’ve ruined, and compared to what’s happened to you and Midoriya, this is thousands of times worse. No one rescued Eri as a kid, and now she’s a teenager. Who knows what Overhaul’s done to her, or what she’s become in an effort to survive him? They aren’t the same, but you can’t help drawing the comparison – Overhaul to All For One, Eri to Tomura. Your information is thirteen years out of date to when Eri’s rescued in your memories, but if there’s any chance it can help, you have to speak up. “I know some things. Ask me and I’ll do my best.”

It feels almost like it happened to someone else, after so much time – five years in this timeline, and eight years in the one you changed. You give details about the Hassaikai, about the layout of their compound, about who’s likely to be in Overhaul’s inner circle, about where Eri’s being held and what her quirk is. You could spill the entire story, and it still wouldn’t lessen your guilt. For as many people as your wish has saved – Tomura’s alive, Toga’s alive, Twice was still alive eight years after he died in your memories – it’s damned an equal number. You first, then Midoriya, and now Eri. A little kid who should have been saved, but wasn’t. Just like Tomura.

You will live to see every result of your wish. There’s no amount of neuroin in the world that could block it out. That doesn’t mean that you don’t wish for it anyway.

You don’t pay attention to the outside world, but Himiko does, and so do the other women in the treatment program. They watch TV during rec and read magazines when they can get their hands on them, and if they get visitors, like Himiko does from Uraraka Ochako, they make their visitors give them the news. Uraraka Ochako is a pro hero in this timeline, too, and one visiting day, she doesn’t show. Himiko doesn’t really mope, but you can tell she’s hurt, so you try your best to cheer her up. You’re doing her nails for her in the room you share when Birdie hollers from the rec room. “Skeeter! Your friend’s on TV!”

“Huh?” Himiko startles, and you paint her whole fingertip instead of just her nail. “Why? Is she okay?”

“There was this huge drug bust. They’ve got her airlifting this jacked-up yakuza loser out of this sinkhole where their hideout used to be –”

Himiko scrambles off the bed and runs, leaving you to cap the nail polish and take a second to get your shit together. The Shie Hassaikai raid is happening, or just happened – thirteen years later than it should have, but it’s happening. They’ll rescue Eri, if she’s still there to rescue. They’ll take down Overhaul, even if it’s long-overdue. Things are back to the way they should have been, even if it took a while. You don’t need to think about it any further than that. Not about how this proves to Midoriya that your delusional architecture isn’t totally false, or about how Eri’s spent thirteen extra years suffering because of your wish. And definitely not about why the heroes were so fast to crack down on Overhaul when they still haven’t found the source of the tainted neuroin.

You decide not to watch the news. You’ll find out later, and sure enough, Midoriya calls you in for an unscheduled session in the morning. When you get there, he’s alone. No sign of Sir Nighteye, who died during the Hassaikai raid in your memories. “Um, what happened?”

“Sir Nighteye wanted to be here, but he’s recovering from his injuries,” Midoriya says. He looks disturbed as all hell, worse than you’ve ever seen in this timeline or the one you lived through before. “The information you provided proved to be accurate. The heroes were able to accomplish their raid on the Shie Hassaikai with minimal casualties.”

“Oh.” You should be relieved, but you’re too tired – you barely slept last night. “What about Eri?”

“Yes,” Midoriya says. “Among those discovered inside the compound was an older teenage girl, who does answer to Eri. Her appearance is the same as you described. But –”

A chill goes down your spine. “What?”

“She’s angry,” Midoriya says simply. “She should have been saved, and she wasn’t.”

Just like you were afraid of. Just like Tomura. You slump down in your chair, and Midoriya keeps talking. “She was planning to fight, but a hero talked her down. You probably don’t need me to tell you which hero, but –”

“Endgame,” you say. Midoriya nods. That look is still on his face. “What?”

“I’ve been through your records. Again. And no matter where I look, I can’t see where you came up with the information that led to the raid,” Midoriya says. “I looked into your quirk, too. It lets you find hidden things, but you have to know what you’re looking for. And I can’t figure out how you knew to look for Eri.”

You couldn’t. The Shie Hassaikai were tight-lipped as hell when you were embedded with them, probably because Overhaul knew better than to trust Tomura right away, and even while you were in their hideout, you didn’t find out where Eri was hidden until the heroes beat you to it. “So,” Midoriya continues, his voice oddly brittle, “the only conclusion I can come to is that part of your delusional architecture – isn’t. And if one piece of it is true, then that makes me wonder if other parts of it might be true, too.”

“You don’t want to go there,” you say. Midoriya’s gaze snaps from the middle distance back to you. “Why do you think I’m like this? I wasn’t before. Going there turned me into a neuroin addict, and I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, so –”

“In your history, what happened to Eri after she was rescued?” Midoriya cuts you off. “Tell me.”

“They took her to UA,” you say. “Eraserhead looked after her. They needed him to manage her quirk.”

“That’s what their plan is now, too.” Midoriya takes a deep breath, lets it go. “I’m going to argue that she should come here instead. And I need you to tell me what I need to know to win.”

All you can do is stare at him. “I saw your expression when I said she wanted to fight. And you guessed right away that it was Endgame who helped her,” Midoriya says. “I think you’re comparing what happened to her to what happened to Tomura in your memories. What do you think would have helped him more – going to UA and living in the staff dorms while the students his age lived normal lives? Or going somewhere with people who could help him recover, around people who understand some of what he’d gone through?”

You’re pretty sure Tomura would have started biting people if he’d been rescued from All For One at age eighteen and dropped off at UA. You met him when he was nineteen, and he was already enraged, the hurt and confusion and fear that he admitted later buried completely under anger. Would treatment have helped him? You don’t know. But you think he’d have been better off around people who understood why he had a problem with heroes than he would have been around a bunch of hero kids.

“Here,” you say. Midoriya nods. “If she’s like him, she’s not just angry, she’s hurt. She might not feel rejected like he did, but she probably feels forgotten. Maybe she feels like she deserves it because her quirk can hurt people – like she’s dangerous, or like she ruins everything she touches. Her social skills are probably – not good.”

“We have groups for that,” Midoriya says, and you manage a weak laugh. “My one reservation is you. Based on my understanding of your – um – memories, you see yourself as responsible for what’s happened to her, and I’m concerned that seeing her on a regular basis in what’s previously been a safe space for you will have a negative impact on your recovery.”

Your instinct is to argue, because you usually argue with Midoriya when it comes to what you can or can’t handle, but like you’ve been doing recently, you force yourself to stop and think. You had such a hard time handling what your wish did to you that you became a neuroin addict. You’ve been able to cope with what you did to Midoriya, since he’s the one who killed Tomura and he thought you were crazy up until today, but Eri had nothing to do with what led you to make your wish. Seeing what happened to her because of you is going to be awful.

But the world is awful. If you ever want to get out of here and live a life that matters, you’re going to have to cope with that, and even just Himiko being here is enough to keep you from leaving. If you took away the happy life Eri had being raised by Eraserhead and Present Mic, you owe her a place to heal. And you owe it to her not to look away.

“I can hack it,” you say. “This is the right place for both of us to be.”

Midoriya nods. He looks relieved and not, sort of like you feel – the right thing is happening, but you’re really ambivalent about it. “About your memories –”

“Don’t go there,” you say. “It’s just a story.”

It’s quiet for a moment. “Just a story,” Midoriya agrees, and he picks up his notebook. Some snarl of tension in your shoulders and the back of your neck relaxes. “Right.”

“Remember,” Himiko’s counselor says to you and the others, all settled into the common area, “this is supposed to be fun. If you don’t like the thing you made, don’t beat yourself up about it, and don’t compare it to what everybody else is making. If all you want to do is color, that’s fine. This is about finding things you enjoy, that bring you peace.”

“Origami doesn’t bring me peace. It makes me want to bite things.”

“You don’t have to do origami,” Himiko’s counselor says patiently. “We’ve got lots of options. Just try to do something fun.”

The newest patient, a tiny woman who hasn’t stopped crying yet, blows her nose. “I can’t have fun without my Gentle.”

“Suck it up, honey,” Birdie says from the other side of the circle. “Some of us used to get high for fun, and you don’t hear us complaining.”

You know she’s referring to you. Everybody here has issues, but you’re the only addict, even if the yoga master who comes in twice a week insists that everyone’s addicted to something. “Speak for yourself. If I get a paper cut, I’m going to bitch the roof down.”

“Guys,” Himiko’s counselor says again, over the sound of Birdie’s cackling. You think her name is Nakayama. “Let’s try to keep it low-key. Everybody’s under a little more stress tonight.”

“Yes,” Digit mumbles, sipping from a cup of flavored water that you and everybody else are pretending contains tea. “The zookeepers are coming.”

Right. The treatment center’s pitch for Eri to come here instead of UA was successful enough that she’s coming here for a tour – and she’s bringing the pros she’s most comfortable with as moral support. “Let’s not look at it that way,” Nakayama suggests. “We’ve got visitors coming today, because a potential new patient is touring. It’s more about her than it is about all of you.”

“How come she gets to tour this place?” Jinx complains. “I just got chucked in here.”

“If she comes here, you’ll all be here for the same reason,” Nakayama says. She’s really calm. You can see why she and Himiko work well together; Himiko needs somebody who can take her crazy without being sucked into it, and Nakayama has ice water in her veins. “The purpose of this place is to help you recover –”

“And live our best lives?” Hyena asks. She’s another pro hero, just like Digit and Jinx – somebody who veered off the path at some point and wound up in the deep end. You remember her, you think – one of Endeavor’s sidekicks. Now she wears her flaming hair short and spiky. “Sure.”

“I’d settle for a life that means something,” you say, and she looks at you. “That would be good enough for me.”

“I think it’s possible to have both,” Nakayama says. “All right. Everyone pick something to do. You can talk if you’d like, but there’s no pressure. Just try to find something you’ll enjoy.”

You might need to up your suboxone, because you’re thinking about how much you’d enjoy a hit of neuroin to settle your nerves. You’ve got coping skills for that, sure, but neuroin is faster – and you need it fast, because Midoriya gave you a heads-up at your session this morning about just who Eri’s bringing with her. All Might will be here. Eraserhead will also be here. Bubble Girl will be here, which you couldn’t care less about – but Endgame will be here, too, and the idea of seeing him again makes you want to hide.

You are hiding, sort of. You’ve got on a sheet mask, from a care package Himiko got from Uraraka, and you’re sitting with your back to the door so you won’t see the others first thing when they come in. You’re doing origami, because you suck at origami. It’s a good reason to keep your eyes down. The question pops into your head, like it’s been doing all day, of whether Tomura will remember you, and you acknowledge it before firmly pushing it to the side. It won’t matter if Tomura remembers you or not if he never gets a good look at your face.

“Hey,” Birdie says after a little while, “aren’t we giving the wrong impression about this place? It looks like a sleepover in here.”

“Yeah.” Himiko looks up from her work. “I’ve been on a lot of locked wards, and this is the squishiest locked ward I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s a friendlier environment,” Nakayama agrees. “The purpose here is treatment and recovery, not punishment.”

Hyena makes a disbelieving noise. “If that’s true, then you’ve got way too many criminals here.”

An awkward silence falls. “I mean, she’s a pathetic criminal’s sidekick,” Hyena says, pointing to the new girl, who bursts into tears again. Nakayama tries to shush her, but she keeps talking. “And then over here we’ve got a murderer, a fraudster, and a drug addict. I think a little punishment’s in order.”

“Does it help?” you ask. Hyena gives you a derisive look. “I mean it. Nobody here is running away from the stuff we’ve done. Does it make you feel better to bring it up?”

“Aww, did I hurt your feelings?”

“No,” you say, and mean it. The bar somebody would have to clear to hurt your feelings these days is pretty damn high. “I just want to know. You’re a hero, and your job is to help people. When did we stop being people to you?”

Hyena opens her mouth, then closes it again, and an even more awkward silence settles into the place where her retort was meant to go. “I think,” Nakayama starts, then coughs. “I think it might be a good idea to –”

The double doors at the far end of the common area open, and all of you freeze at the sound of footsteps. The next thing you hear is Midoriya’s chattering. “You’ll see some of the patients in here. I think they’re having art group, so – um – maybe you should wait a second so I can explain –”

There’s a lighter set of footsteps, breaking into a run, and before you or anyone else can say something, a tall, stick-thin girl with long grey-white hair and red eyes drops down into the circle across from you. “Are you guys the criminals? What did you do?”

The hero patients instantly start protesting that they aren’t criminals, and while Nakayama and Midoriya try to settle them down and Eri watches with clear disdain, you take the opportunity to watch her. In some ways, you see exactly what you were scared to see – she reminds you so much of Tomura, not so much in her appearance but in the way she’s tense with anger, the way one hand winds into a fist to yank at her hair. Her forearms are covered with scars instead of bandages, and even though they’ve probably been feeding her more in the hospital, her face is still hollow. She looks awful. Just like he did.

And at the same time, you’re relieved. She didn’t back away when she saw people; she jumped in, even if it was a mess. Tomura did the same thing with the League of Villains, and there was hope for him, even if the rest of the world refused to see it. There’s hope for her, too.

You clear your throat, and she looks at you, her gaze hot enough to burn holes through you. Like she knows you’re guilty. Like she knows it’s your fault. “Hi,” you say. “Sorry. We’re the criminals.”

You gesture at your side of the circle – why didn’t you realize there were sides until just now? – and Eri’s gaze follows your hand. “What did you do?” she asks again. “I want to know.”

“I’m a hooker,” Birdie announces. “I slept with guys and stole their identities so I could buy myself food and rent rooms instead of sleeping on the street.”

“And?” Sugimura, her counselor, prompts from where she’s standing with the tour group.

“And I bought myself designer shit,” Birdie says, rolling her eyes. “And I’m not sorry.”

Hyena snorts. “She’s gonna be here a while.”

Eri ignores her, focusing in on the new girl. “What about you?”

“She arrived recently, and she’s still adjusting,” Nakayama says. Apparently she’s decided to roll with whatever’s going on here. “It can be a bit of a shock.”

“You have couches and nobody’s cutting you up. Some shock,” Eri says. It says something awful that she puts having a couch and not being tortured on the same level, but she’s transferring her almost-accusing stare onto Himiko now. “What about you?”

“I killed people.”

“How many?”

“Twelve,” Himiko says. Eri’s eyebrows lift. “Then I got caught. I was in prison for a while, but then they moved me here so I could rehabilitate.”

“You’re allowing a multiple murderer to rehabilitate?” Eraserhead says to Midoriya. He sounds about as disdainful as the others. “That’s a serious lapse in judgment.”

“She was underage when she committed her crimes and she was underage when she was captured,” Midoriya says. You’re impressed he’s standing up to Eraserhead. Then again, Eraserhead’s not his teacher. “We evaluated her and determined that there was room for growth, and she’s made a lot of progress in the four months she’s been here.”

“I don’t even want to kill anybody anymore,” Himiko says. “I get all the blood I need.”

Eraserhead coughs, but Eri doesn’t blink. She looks away from Himiko, aims her gaze at you. “What did you do?”

“A ton of neuroin,” you say. “Other stuff, too. But mainly neuroin.”

She studies you for a moment, and you hold her gaze. You owe her that much, even if looking at her makes you feel sick with guilt. “Sensei hated people like you,” she says, and it takes all your dubious self-control not to flinch at hearing Tomura’s name for All For One fall from her lips. “That’s why he tried to kill you all.”

“He – what?” Tomura. That’s Tomura’s voice. You shrink down, and Himiko seizes your arm in excitement, which is how you know she’s figured you out. You’re never going to know another second’s peace, but that’s the least of your worries now. “What are you saying? Was – Sensei – the one who was tainting the neuroin?”

You wonder if you’re imagining the way Tomura’s voice tripped on the word. Probably. Eri is nodding. “He didn’t have to add anything to it. His quirk let him move the molecules around however he wanted,” she says. Her expression shifts into thoughtfulness. “There was somebody who helped with it. Somebody big. They didn’t want drug addicts in their world.”

That doesn’t sound like All For One, which was your first thought. Who does it sound like? Before you can search your memories in earnest, Eri’s speaking to you again. “Do you know what my quirk is?” she asks. You nod. You can’t remember if you’re supposed to know or not, but you figure Midoriya will help you cover. “Why aren’t you scared?”

She reaches out, and you hear quick footsteps as Eraserhead approaches, but you don’t flinch. “It’s just a quirk,” you say. “All that matters is how you use it.”

“That’s what Endgame says,” Eri says. You wish your sheet mask covered your whole face, not just most of it. It’s a relief when she looks away, around at the art supplies. “What’s all this stuff?”

The disdain is back in her voice. “Art supplies,” you say. “Want to join?”

Eri blinks. “You should,” Himiko urges. “None of us are any good, and we don’t care. It’s just for fun.”

You wonder if Eri knows what fun is. Tomura didn’t, really. The best he could do was distinguish between more angry and less angry, lonely or not lonely, itchy and itchier. The first time you heard him laugh, you felt like you were on top of the world. “Come on,” Birdie adds. “Make some shitty origami.”

“You’re welcome to if you’d like,” Nakayama says gently. “There’s plenty of space for you here.”

For a moment, you think Eri will bolt. Then she settles in and picks up a sheet of origami paper, the same color as the one you’re holding. “Show me how to make that.”

You’re folding the world’s shittiest paper crane. You unfold what you’ve done so far so you can start flat, then make the first fold again, watching as Eri copies you and trying not to listen to the rest of the tour group. “I don’t care if she fits in here,” Eraserhead is saying quietly. “You’re playing into how she already views herself – as a criminal and a monster.”

“Maybe that’s how you look at criminals and villains. That’s not how we look at them here,” Midoriya says. He’s probably sweating bullets. You know All Might’s lurking in the offing. “Our patients are people, same as you. They deserve a chance to recover, if they want it, and the ones who are here want it a lot. The recidivism rate for patients in this program is lower than for people released from prison.”

“Our goal is to support the patients in healing from whatever led them here,” Sugimura says. She’s the oldest of the counselors, the one in charge. It hasn’t escaped your notice that most of the counselors here are young. “Taking accountability for what they’ve done is part of that, but not the only part.”

“What about schooling?” All Might asks. He’s trying to talk quietly, too, but if you remember right, All Might’s voice comes in the same volumes as Present Mic’s – loud and louder. “If she were at UA, her education –”

“Some of our patients also need to finish their compulsory education. She can study with them,” Midoriya says eagerly. You’re pretty sure he’s talking about you and Himiko, and the idea of going back to school is news to you. “There are a lot of ways to meet Eri’s needs, whatever they turn out to be.”

“Maybe we should see where she’d be staying,” Tomura suggests. “I saw the place she was before. It can’t look like that.”

“Right,” Midoriya agrees. He hurries over to where you and the others are sitting. “Um, Eri, would you like to –”

“I’m not done with my crane.”

“I’ll keep an eye on it. You can finish it when you get back,” you say. “Go check the rest of the place out.”

You’re expecting Eri to tell you to eat shit, but instead she hesitates for a moment before sliding the crane over to you. You set it carefully on the table and out of the way, and Eri gets unsteadily up and joins Midoriya. As the heroes pass, heading for the doors on the other side of the common area, you keep your head down again. You don’t want Tomura to look at you. As bad as it would be if he recognized you as the overdose victim he guilt-tripped into treatment, it would be worse if he didn’t recognize you at all.

“Aren’t you coming?”

That’s his voice, but he’s not talking to you. You know damn well he’s not talking to you, so your heart shouldn’t twist like this. “No,” Bubble Girl says. You’d almost forgotten about her. “Some of my friends are here.”

“Suit yourself.” You picture Tomura shrugging. The double-doors close again, and a moment later, Bubble Girl is on the other side of the circle, giving hugs to Hyena and Jinx and Digit.

You find yourself unconsciously scooting away, and Himiko and Birdie are doing the same thing, dragging the new girl along by default. Nakayama catches your eye. “Is this happening for a reason?”

“Just giving them their space,” you say, moving Eri’s half-finished crane carefully to your side of the table. “Nothing weird.”

Bubble Girl and the others are all talking over each other, laughing and giggling in a way that tells you heroes never change. The likelihood that Hyena and the others actually face their problems is zero – they’re going to do their time and get out and go back to being the same fake, morally bankrupt figureheads they’ve always been. Hyena thought it was okay to humiliate you and the others, but she’ll never acknowledge that her treatment of criminals was bad enough to land her here. You and Himiko and the others have to reflect. They get away with it.

Finally they quiet down a bit, and Hyena’s voice picks up above the others. “No offense, Awata, but what the hell is up with your man’s hair?”

“I have no idea,” Bubble Girl says. “It looked so nice before, but he started growing it out, and now he won’t cut it. Even if I ask him to.”

“Did you ask him nicely?” Hyena asks. “On your knees?”

Birdie makes a disgusted sound, then hides it in a cough. “Shut up,” Bubble Girl says, but she’s giggling. “It looks crazy. I’ll tell him you agree.”

“Did he say why?” Jinx asks.

“No! I keep telling him I hate it, but he won’t cut it, and he won’t say why not!” Bubble Girl heaves a dramatic sigh and flops forward onto the table, almost flattening Eri’s crane. You move it even further away. “You really don’t know somebody until you marry them. I had no idea Tenko was this weird.”

That one takes a second to land, but once it does, you’re fucked. You take a second to try to recover, determine that it’s hopeless, and try to get up, only for Himiko to grab your arm and yank you back down. You look askance at her, but she’s not looking your way – just holding on so tightly that you can’t break her grip without breaking her fingers. What’s her problem? You need to throw up. Failing that, you need to cry, and you can’t do it here. Bubble Girl. Tomura married fucking Bubble Girl, and you can’t sit here and listen to her bitch about his hair.

So much for being stable in recovery. If there was a syringe of neuroin sitting on the table in front of you instead of a paper crane, you’d shoot up right now, even if you knew Overhaul had doctored it specifically to kill you and every other neuroin addict in Japan. The veins in your arms are shot, scarred to hell and back, but your jugular vein’s practically virginal. You can imagine exactly how it would feel – a sharp sting, a rush of cold, and relief. For however long it lasted. You’d take it, even if it was just a split second.

You will live to see every result of your wish. Right. Go fuck yourself. You want to die.

But Himiko’s yanking on your hand, and when you look up, you see a piece of paper in front of you. Her handwriting is cute, if hard to read, and while you’re trying to decipher it, Digit speaks up. “I’m surprised you’re here,” she says. “I thought places like this creeped you out.”

“Yeah, I’m surprised you didn’t come to see us before,” Hyena says. There’s a weird edge to her voice. “What gives?”

“I’ve been meaning to! I’m just busy,” Bubble Girl says. Himiko is yanking on your arm like she’s trying to dislocate your elbow. “Honestly, I’m here for Ten. He says he’s here for Eri – and he is – but he’s looking for somebody, and if he doesn’t find her, it’ll mess him up.”

“Who?”

“Some junkie,” Bubble Girl says, and you freeze in Himiko’s grip. “He got stuck on street patrol one of those nights where everybody was overdosing, and he only got one person back. Losing people always hits him hard, so he’s like – fixated. He actually went to court the next morning to try to talk her into treatment.”

She’s talking about you. You left enough of an impression on Tomura that his wife knows about you. “I tried telling him that it’s not on him,” Bubble Girl continues. “All those addicts care about is their next hit, so she probably dipped out of treatment the second everybody looked away – but Ten’s convinced she’s different. He’s so naïve sometimes.”

He’s not naïve. Tomura believes in people. He believes in people who everybody else has given up on, just like Midoriya does this time around. You risk lifting your eyes from your crane and find Nakayama looking at you, a question on her face. You shake your head. As much of a shock value as there’d be to revealing that you’re the junkie in question, you don’t want Bubble Girl to know it’s you. And somehow you don’t think pushing back on Bubble Girl’s opinions on drug addicts is a winning strategy.

Himiko is still yanking on your arm. “Stop it,” you say. “I’m gonna hurl.”

“Read what I wrote you,” she hisses. You focus on the piece of paper she slid in front of you, put all your effort into deciphering her handwriting, and read the message: She doesn’t love him as much as you do.

Does she think that will make you feel better? Of course you love Tomura more than Bubble Girl does. You love Tomura enough to alter history, even at a cost that’s been torturous to pay. You’ve loved Tomura through living on the street, spending weeks or months in jail or prison, through neuroin overdose after neuroin overdose and withdrawal and nine months of inpatient treatment. She can’t love him more than you do. No one could.

And it doesn’t matter. He loves her. That’s the ballgame. He loves her, and he never met you until it was too late, and even if it hadn’t been too late, he’d never have looked your way. You might be trying to get better, but the heroes are right – you’re just some junkie. That’s all you’ll ever be.

But you can hear Midoriya’s voice in your head, reminding you that you’re more than what you’ve been through, what you’ve done. Tomura’s voice, telling you that it’s not over until you stop breathing, and you’re already breathing better. And as much as you try to stifle it, there’s the proof Bubble Girl just gave you: Tomura has been thinking about you, talking about you. Enough that his wife knows. And when he comes back in here, you can show him something he’ll be happy about – you, doing better. Recovering. It doesn’t matter if his wife thinks you’re just a junkie. What Tomura thinks is all that matters.

You finish your paper crane, then get to your feet and walk to the trashcan. You peel off the sheet mask and drop it inside. Your skin probably looks like shit, but you’re still here, and you’re sober. Bubble Girl can go to hell. You’re still floored that out of all the people Tomura could have married, he married her.

When the tour group comes back through the common area, it’s with good news, at least for the treatment team: Eri’s going to stay here. She’ll be a patient like all of you, except with significantly more freedom, because she’s not a criminal or a disgraced hero completing a mandatory treatment program. You have a feeling that your treatment program and Himiko’s are about to change, given that Midoriya apparently has his eye on you as schoolmates for Eri. Maybe it won’t be the worst thing.

All Might has to leave, and so does Bubble Girl, allegedly. She says an abrupt goodbye to her friends, plants a kiss on Tomura’s cheek through her weird mask, and books it. So much for sticking around to support her husband. Eraserhead has more questions for Midoriya, and Eri comes back to finish her paper crane. Tomura lingers, looking around at the common area, almost restless. You watch him out of the corner of your eye for a while, trying to work up your courage. Then you realize you don’t have any. You get up from the table and head for the water fountain, staying squarely in his eyeline, waiting for him to look your way.

He recognizes you instantly. His face lights up in a way that’s all kinds of bad for you, and as he crosses the room to you, there’s almost a spring in his step. You see what Hyena meant about his hair – it’s past his chin, approaching his shoulders. More like you remember it, and the question pops out of your mouth before he can say a word. “Your hair’s longer.”

“Yeah,” Tomura says. He raises one hand and scratches lightly at his neck, and déjà vu mixed with nostalgia hits you like a breaking wave. “My wife hates it.”

Your coping skills must be pretty good, because you don’t quite throw up – but not as good as they could be, because you could still really go for some neuroin. “Do you like it?”

Tomura blinks. “I do,” he says after a second. “I feel more like me this way.”

Because it’s how he used to be. He feels more like himself because he is more like himself, more like the man he was before you changed history. That man died young. Tomura is thirteen years older than that man ever got to be. “Look at you, though,” Tomura says, changing the subject. “You look like you feel better.”

“I hope so. The last time you saw me I was coming off an overdose.” It’s hard to keep your voice light, airy. To pretend this conversation isn’t killing you. “I’ve been here for nine months. I think it’s going okay.”

“You’re still here. I think it’s going great,” Tomura says. His voice is warm, proud, and you’ve heard that voice before, so you believe it. “I meant it, when I said I was rooting for you.”

“I know.” You can’t hold his gaze any longer. You look away. “Thanks.”

“Hey,” Tomura says. With your eyes down, you see his hand lift as if to reach for you, then fall back to his side. “I still feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

“You have. This is the third time we’ve met.”

“No, before that,” Tomura says. He’s not quite frowning. “Are you sure –”

“Shimura.” Eraserhead appears at Tomura’s side, and you take a quick step or three back. “Counselor Midoriya’s informed me that visiting hours are over. It’s time to go.”

“Right.” Tomura nods, and Eraserhead sets off to say goodbye to Eri. Tomura lingers for a second longer. “I almost had it. Where I know you from.”

“In another life,” you say, and Tomura smiles halfway. Three times is an inside joke, almost, even if you never see him again. If you never see him again, there are things you want to say. “What you do out there matters, even if other people don’t take it seriously. Keep not giving up on people – like you didn’t give up on me.”

“I haven’t given up on you,” Tomura corrects. “I’m still rooting for you.”

You don’t know what to say to that. You’re worried you might cry. “If your hair makes you happy, you shouldn’t cut it.”

Tomura laughs, startled. His laughter’s still a little rusty, and you love it just as much as always. “Thanks,” he says. Eraserhead calls out to him sharply, already at the doors, and just like that, he’s gone.

Eri is staring at you again. Eri does a lot of staring. You’re supposed to let it happen, since she’s trying to get used to being around people who aren’t Overhaul and his creepy friends, but you’ve set up a policy of your own. If she stares at you for longer than thirty seconds, she’s supposed to ask about whatever she’s staring at, and you’re approaching the deadline. She speaks up as it’s ticking past. “What are those?”

“On my arms?” It’s one of those spring days where the weather’s warm but the central heating hasn’t switched off yet, and you have your sleeves pushed up for the first time in a while. You hold out your arms to show her, and she leans closer for a look. “Track marks.”

She glances up at you, puzzled. “I used to shoot up,” you explain. You think it’s safe to say ‘used to’. You’ve got almost a year of clean time. “Sometimes the punctures got infected, or I used the same one too many times and the vein collapsed. My circulation is kind of bad now, and I’ve got these scars. Anybody who sees me in short sleeves is going to know what I used to do.”

“They’ll judge you,” Eri says. You nod. “Just like they do.”

The heroes liked Eri at first, until Eri made it clear just how much she doesn’t like the heroes. Part of you thinks that’s your fault, too. You got in good with Eri early on, somehow, and through you, she made friends with the other criminals. Once she saw how the heroes talked about you all, treated you all, she became roughly as anti-heroics as Tomura used to be. You spent a week or so in individual therapy wailing to Midoriya about how you ruin everything before you got your shit back together.

It’s not the same as with Tomura. Eri has people around her who want to help, who want her to get better. And it’s not like she’s not having any positive contact with heroes. The daily schoolwork you and she and Himiko do is taught by a regular teacher, but Eri gets electives, and almost all of them are taught by pros. Not to mention visitors. Eri gets visitors every night if she wants them, and at least once a week, All Might and Endgame stop by.

You always make sure you’re somewhere else. You don’t want to see Tomura with his hair grown out, with a wedding ring on his finger. Midoriya tells you that part of being successful in early recovery is not making things any harder for yourself than they need to be, and since nothing makes you want to use quite so much as being near the person you love most in the world, who’s permanently out of your reach, staying away from Tomura is the smart thing to do.

You know that. Midoriya knows that. Anybody you were honest about things with would agree, and when Midoriya gave you permission to avoid Tomura as much as possible, you still pushed back. “But avoiding’s not a long-term strategy, right? I can’t just avoid him forever.”

“That’s true. Sometimes there are situations where triggers can’t be avoided,” Midoriya agreed. “At the same time, when they can be avoided, they should be. And since Endgame represents the source of your pain –”

He doesn’t represent it. He is it. “Yeah. I should stay away.”

And you have, for the most part. Himiko usually goes to hang out with them, but you take the time alone in your room to think, or to study. You need to study. You’re coming up on a year in the program, a year sober, and that means you’re eligible for discharge – and you don’t want to leave. That means you need to find a way to stay. And that starts with finally finishing high school.

“Don’t you care?” Eri asks, and you realize you’ve zoned out. “About what people think?”

“I’ve been a villain since I was eighteen,” you say. “I missed the boat on that one a while ago.”

“I thought you had to have a quirk to be a villain.”

“I have one,” you say. It doesn’t come up very much, because it’s pretty useless, but you’ve got one. “It’s called Find. If I know what I’m looking for, I feel kind of a pull towards it. Like when people play that hot and cold game.”

Eri frowns. “What’s that?”

“Um – you’re looking for something, or trying to guess something. When you get closer to it, the person who knows what it is – or where it is – tells you that you’re getting warmer. So I feel it like that. It’s kind of useless.”

“No it isn’t,” Eri says, frowning. “Could you find people with it?”

“Yes.” You used it to find the entity that granted your selfish, impossible wish. It took you three years, but it worked. Something occurs to you. “I have to know what I’m looking for to find it. I didn’t know –”

“Nobody knew to look for me.” Eri still sounds bitter when she says it. “Even if you had, nobody would have listened to you.”

“Yeah.” It doesn’t make you feel any better, but it’s true. “It sucks.”

“It’s the heroes’ fault,” Eri says, and you glance at her. “They could have made you a hero and you could have helped people. But they put you in jail and made you a neuroin addict.”

“Nobody made me take neuroin,” you say. Eri rolls her eyes. “I hear you, though. Maybe it would have been better if they’d made me do something useful with my quirk instead of just stealing stuff.”

Or finding neuroin. You used your quirk to find a lot of neuroin. Eri still look dissatisfied. “It’s stupid,” she says. “Don’t you ever just want to –”

“Go crazy?” you ask. She nods, and she reminds you so much of Tomura that it hurts. “I’ve seen where that ends. I’m trying something different. What do you want to do?”

“I haven’t done anything yet,” Eri says.

“Yeah. That’s why it’s so important,” you say. “You’re not like me. You haven’t made any mistakes yet. You can do whatever you want to do. So – what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know yet,” Eri says, and you nod. “I want to watch Sinister tonight when my visitors show up. And I want you to come too.”

Eri’s been developing some likes and dislikes. She really likes sugar and sweet foods. She really likes music, and one of the heroes who tutors her is teaching her to play guitar. She really likes origami, and she’s better at it than you. And she also really likes horror movies – the old, weird ones. You know it freaks the treatment team out a little bit, but they’re trying to give her as much autonomy as possible. “It’s nice of you to invite me, but I have to study.”

“English, right? We can play the movie in English with the subtitles on.” Eri is staring at you. “Skeeter is coming. And Honey. Why won’t you?”

“I really need to study.”

“You have to come,” Eri counters. “Otherwise I won’t feel like you’re supporting me.”

That strikes you as pretty manipulative, or guilt-trippy, or something. When you glance at Eri, you can’t tell what way she meant it. “My counselor says he really wants me to focus on school,” you say. “I’ll ask him what he thinks when I see him today. If he says yes, I’ll go.”

“Good,” Eri says confidently. “He’ll say yes.”

You’re not so sure, but you promise yourself you’ll give it a shot, and when Eri looks away, you roll your sleeves back down. You’ve been practicing being open about your scars so she’ll be more comfortable being open about hers. But her scars aren’t her fault. Nothing about what’s gone wrong in her life is her fault. Almost everything that’s gone wrong in your life is yours.

Your appointment with Midoriya is his last one of the day, and when you go in there, you’re expecting him to be alone. He isn’t, and just like you did the first day when you realized your counselor was someone who hated you in your real history, you recoil back against the door hard enough to jar your teeth in your head. “You aren’t in trouble,” All Might says, but you’re not buying shit from him. You look at Midoriya, panicked, but he’s avoiding your eyes. “I just want to talk.”

“About what?” You hate All Might. You want to hate All Might – but All Might in the new history did what All Might in your timeline should have done, saving Tomura instead of forgetting about him. “I don’t have anything to say.”

“The tip regarding the Shie Hassaikai came from you,” All Might says. “I came to see if there’s anything – else.”

“About the Shie Hassaikai?”

There’s an uncomfortable silence. “I was led to believe,” All Might starts, then clears his throat. “I was led to believe that you might know something about the Hero Killer.”

It takes a second for that one to hit, and once it does, you turn to glare at Midoriya. “Are we just pretending confidentiality doesn’t exist now?”

“Someone’s life is in danger,” Midoriya says. “I’m obligated –”

“That only counts if I’m the one who’s going to kill someone,” you snap. “And I might be, if you keep telling people!”

“I’m sorry,” Midoriya says. “I shouldn’t have broken your trust. But if there’s something you can do to help someone, you should. I’ve heard you say that.”

“Yeah, when it would actually help,” you say. “You guys have had the Hero Killer in custody for years. What the fuck do you think I can help with?”

All Might glances at Midoriya. “I thought you were joking,” he says. Midoriya shakes his head, and All Might turns back to you, the look in his blue eyes wary. “The Hero Killer has never been in custody. Very few people have seen him and lived, and of those, none have gotten a clear enough look to describe him. He’s killed more than forty heroes, including hero students, and maimed a dozen more.”

“And what do you think I can do about it?” you snap. “Did Midoriya tell you I’m crazy? I’ve got this elaborate delusional architecture going on. You can’t trust anything I say.”

“What you told Sir Nighteye was accurate,” All Might says. “If you were correct once, you could be correct again. You can help save people’s lives.”

You think of what Eri said. Of what you could actually do to help people. It’s not ratting out the Hero Killer. “Heroes’ lives. Why should I save them? So you all can keep chasing fame and fortune by beating up people like me? You aren’t in it to help people. You’re in it for money or fame or power. He’s right about you.”

All Might frowns. “The Hero Killer’s never released a manifesto.”

Right – the Hero Killer’s message only got out because he was arrested. He hasn’t been arrested here, which means you sound crazy. Or like you really do know something. “I’m sure he’s got his reasons.”

Midoriya is glaring at you. Like he has any right to glare at you, when he’s the one spilling your secrets to get All Might to pay attention to him. “Even if the Hero Killer has his reasons, not all heroes are like you say,” he says. “There’s no telling which heroes he’ll hurt.”

Every muscle between your jaw and your abdomen tenses up in an instant, making it hard to breathe. Why didn’t you think of that? The Hero Killer hurt Tomura even in your memories, when they were both villains, but Tomura’s a hero now, and Stain would kill him without a second thought. All Might seems to sense that you’re wavering. “Anything you might know would be helpful,” he says. “I don’t need to know how you know it.”

Great. You struggle to unlock your jaw enough to speak. “I know his name, but it won’t help you find him.”

“Share it, please.”

“Akaguro. Akaguro – um, Chizome.” You remember watching the Hero Killer video with Tomura. He Decayed his phone halfway through. “His quirk – it lets him paralyze somebody if he tastes their blood. It doesn’t last forever.”

“How long does it last?”

“Long enough to make a difference.” For you all, at least. If Stain had been serious about killing you and Tomura, Kurogiri was paralyzed more than long enough to make escape impossible. “That’s all I know.”

“You mentioned his reasons,” All Might says. You don’t answer. “Say more.”

You try to remember all the stuff Spinner and Dabi said about Stain when they’d get into their bullshit sessions about who understood his ideas the best. “He thinks being a hero is about sacrifice. And about doing things for others with no expectation of payment. He thinks that once people take money for doing heroics, they stop being heroes, so he hates them all. The only one he doesn’t hate is you.”

“Me,” All Might repeats. You nod. “Why?”

“He says you’re a true hero. And only a true hero is worthy of killing him.”

“I don’t want to kill him,” All Might says. A shadow crosses over his face, and you wonder if he’s thinking about All For One, who he must have killed for real. “Violence only begets more violence.”

Tomura said that. You remember Tomura saying that. Since when does All Might – “In your opinion,” All Might starts, and you snap out of it, “I would have the best chance of bringing him in alive.”

“Just kill him,” you say. All Might looks surprised. So does Midoriya. “If you’re just going to stick him in Tartarus, dead is better.”

“Were you –” Midoriya breaks off, scribbles something in his notes. “Never mind. We’ll get there. Um, sir – All Might – do you have any other questions for my patient?”

All Might shakes his head. “Thank you,” he says to you. “If your information leads to the Hero Killer’s capture, you’ll receive the same reward as last time.”

That’s news to you. “There was a reward?”

“Yes,” All Might says, frowning. “As thanks for your cooperation with the investigation of the Shie Hassaikai, the government has expunged two of your felony convictions from your criminal record.”

You have four felony convictions. Had. If he’s telling the truth – and you can’t figure out why he’d lie to you after you gave him the information he asked for – you only have two left. It’s been months since the Hassaikai raid, and Midoriya must have known. Why didn’t he tell you? Somewhere in your stunned silence, All Might nods to you and leaves, and it’s a little while before you recover the power of speech.

By the time you do, Midoriya’s already braced himself. Good. “You’ve got some fucking nerve,” you spit. “I want a new counselor.”

“I was trying to help –”

“Who were you trying to help? Me, or yourself? You’ve been treating me like I’m crazy for almost a year, and now you’re using me for information so you can buddy up to All Might!” You can’t remember the last time you got angry like this. It’s been forever. “Is getting good boy points from your favorite action figure really that important to you? All that bullshit about caring about people the heroes can’t help – when all you care about is being a hero –”

“They’re going to clear your record!” Midoriya doesn’t shout, but he speaks with more emphasis than you’ve ever heard him use. “Do you know what that means? When you get out of here, you’ll be free. No probation, no work or housing restrictions – nothing. You’ll be able to do whatever you want to do. I want you to have that, because I care about you. Even if you don’t feel that way.”

The worst thing is, you think he’s telling the truth. Midoriya does care about you. But if he cared about Tomura the same way in that other life, you wouldn’t be here. “And none of it has to do with getting All Might’s attention?”

“Maybe a little bit.” Midoriya looks away from you. “But this is personal to me, too. The Hero Killer killed one of my classmates, in my first year at UA. I want to see him pay for what he’s done.”

“In Tartarus.”

“Where else?” Midoriya glances down at his notebook, then up at you. “Were you there?”

“We’re not there yet,” you say. You and Midoriya look at each other for a moment. “If I get another counselor, they’ll tell the shrinks to put me on antipsychotics, right?”

“I’d highly recommend otherwise, but it’s likely,” Midoriya says. He sighs. “I broke your trust, and I apologize. If you would prefer not to continue to work with me, I understand, and I’ll do everything I can to facilitate a smooth transfer to a different therapist.”

He’s not saying he’s sorry for ratting you out. Some part of you appreciates the honesty, and you don’t want to end up on antipsychotics again. “I don’t want you to go behind my back again. If there’s something you think needs to be shared, tell me so I can decide. I don’t want people to start acting like I know the future.”

“I understand,” Midoriya says. He looks relieved at first; then he glances down at his watch and jump-scares himself. “Sorry. Let’s not burn through any more of your session. We left off in the story at – um –”

“Gigantomachia,” you say. Then you remember something. “One thing – Eri wants me to go to movie night. She said I have to or she won’t feel supported in her recovery. But Endgame is going to be there –”

“Don’t go,” Midoriya says at once. “Blame me.”

You’re planning to. You settle into your chair and start talking.

Eri’s unhappy with you, but you shift the blame onto Midoriya so successfully that she refuses to talk to him when he stops by to say hi on his way out. While Eri and Himiko and Honey head to the visiting room, you head back to the room you share with Himiko to study. Your exam’s in less than two weeks. If you don’t have your high school diploma, you can’t be admitted to the peer support specialist training program Midoriya found. And if you aren’t in that program, helping new patients through detox, you’ll graduate from treatment and be back out on the street.

You don’t want that. You’re not ready for it. This is the only place you’ve felt content since Tomura was murdered, even if ‘happy’ is permanently out of reach, and if training to become a peer support specialist is your way to stay, you’ll do it. You remember more from your two and a half years in high school than you thought you did, despite the fact that you spent way too long pickling your brain in neuroin. But English was your worst subject in school, and it’s still your worst subject now. If you fail, that’s where it’ll happen.

Even knowing that, you can’t quite focus tonight. Your head is spinning through scenario after scenario, pointless thoughts chasing their tails endlessly, and you keep coming back to All Might asking if you want to help people, Eri saying that you could use your quirk for something good, Midoriya saying way back at the beginning that he wanted to help people the heroes couldn’t. Is there something you can do? What can you do that others can’t?

When the answer occurs to you, it makes you feel like an idiot for taking so long to figure it out. You head to the small library and the ancient computer you’re allowed to use, praying the website won’t be blocked. It isn’t, but the database you find yourself staring into is enormous, and your brilliant idea suddenly feels a lot less doable. There are so many. How are you supposed to do anything with all of this? What can any one person do?

One person can make a difference. If one person had reached out to Tomura when he was a child, it would have changed everything – and you know that for sure now, because you live in a world where it did. One person did that. You could be that one person. Even if it was just for one other person, it would be enough.

You print pages at random, until you’ve got twenty or so, then take them back to your room to study them. English can wait a little bit. You memorize the details on each page, repeat each name out loud until it rings in your head, look at each face until you could pick it out of a crowd with ease. You’ll do the same tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after, and when they’re impossible to forget, you’ll go and memorize some more. It might not come to anything. But it’s worth a try.

Overhaul looks like you remember him, except for the arms. He’s got them both, but no legs, and no effort’s been made to restrain him as he sits at the defense table, attorneys on either side of him. “They used a quirk-canceling bullet on him,” Midoriya tells you. “He’s no longer an imminent threat.”

“But he’s not harmless,” you say. “Not with what he’s doing to Eri.”

Eri’s been improving steadily. Everyone can see it. But she’s needed as a witness in Overhaul’s trial, and even going over her testimony in one of the sensory rooms at the treatment center is enough to unhinge her. She can’t calm down without help from people she trusts, and that list of people is pretty thin. One of them is Endgame. One of them is Midoriya. And because You will live to see every result of your wish, one of them is you.

The trial is supposed to be closed to the public, but you and Midoriya are here in the otherwise-empty audience as support people for Eri. Endgame is keeping her calm in the room where the witnesses are sequestered, but while she’s on the stand, she’s supposed to look to you and Midoriya, and use the sight of the two of you as a touchstone. She has a packet of origami paper, too. When she wants to pull at her hair, she’s supposed to start folding it so she has something else to do with her hands.

That one was your idea, and you remember seeing a surprised look on Endgame’s face. Midoriya didn’t look surprised at all. “I knew you’d be good at this,” he said, smiling. “You’ll make a great therapist, too.”

Your peer support specialist course was only two months long, and now you spend most of each day down in detox and intake, trying to keep people from dropping out of treatment the same way you used to. Nothing reinforces your desire to stay sober like watching someone detox off neuroin, and because you’ve been through it yourself, you’re in theory the best person to talk someone through it. In theory. In practice you get sworn at a lot. Yelled at a lot. Called lots of names. You’ve even had people shake you down for neuroin.

A lot of them do leave, but every one who makes it through and gets moved up to individual and group treatment feels like a victory to you. And as much as you hate to admit it, helping people is kind of a high. Enough of one that you’ve started taking college classes, too, hoping to become a counselor or a social worker. You’re coming up on a year and a half sober. The Hero Killer was captured based on the information you gave, which means your record is clear of felonies, with misdemeanors that will be wiped off your record once you’ve gone five years without committing any more crimes. The life worth living that you found so difficult to imagine is easier to picture now.

With your future coming into focus, it’s ever so slightly easier to ignore the past, or at least to put it in its place when you need to. Which is good, because in the leadup to Overhaul’s trial and for the sake of helping Eri, you’ve found yourself dealing with Endgame a lot more than you ever expected to.

Endgame. You’ve made yourself stop calling him Tomura, because he’s not Tomura. The Tomura you fell in love with is gone, first into death, then from everywhere but within your memory when you changed his past. Endgame is someone else, someone who never belonged to you, and so what if his laughter makes your heart ache? So what if seeing his hands open at his sides makes your fingers cramp with the desire to slide your hand into his? So what if you end up crying after you see him, every single time, in the bathroom or in your debrief therapy session with Midoriya or into your pillow at night while Himiko sits on the edge of the bed, petting your hair? You can see him, interact with him, without breaking down. That’s good enough. You’re fine.

The timer on your watch beeps, and you silence it in a hurry. Time for more suboxone. You’re on a pretty strict schedule, and you place your midday dose under your tongue as yet another hero takes the stand. If the prosecution is going to call every hero who was present during the raid on the Hassaikai compound, this is going to take a while.

Weirdly enough, Overhaul’s lawyers are the ones who get you out of it. They agree to stipulate that the majority of heroes involved in the raid would give testimony almost identical to the heroes who already testified, in exchange for the government dismissing the other twenty-nine heroes. The only ones who are left after that are the ones who interacted with Overhaul directly, and Tomura – Endgame – is first on the list.

He's good on the stand. Convincing. There’s still something magnetic about him, something that makes people sit up and pay attention. You find out that he’s the one who took out Overhaul’s legs, in the course of trying to subdue him alive, and find out that he’s the one who Decayed the Hassaikai compound down to its foundations to expose the place where Eri was imprisoned. Endgame describes the conditions she was being kept in in enough detail to make you sick. The only consolation is that Midoriya looks pretty sick, too.

The Hassaikai lawyers take a stab at cross-examining Tomura – Endgame – but he’s a nightmare, and based on the way one corner of his scarred mouth tugs up in a smirk, he’s doing it on purpose. It’s not good for you to see him like that, looking so much like he did in your memories. You’re relieved when he’s off the stand. Now you can settle in and wait for Eri, just like –

“That was a mess.” Endgame sits down on your right, scaring the hell out of you. You lurch to one side and collide with Midoriya, and when you flinch back, you fall against him for a second before lurching upright again, your heart racing. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. How’d I do?”

“At not scaring me? Like hell.” You start a round of box breathing, picturing that YouTube video of a mandala expanding and contracting in your head. “On the stand? Fine, probably. I’m not a lawyer.”

“It went well,” Midoriya says. “They’d have kept you on for longer if they thought they could get anything out of you.”

Endgame nods. You see one of his hands lift to the side of his neck, then fall back. “I don’t get called out to a lot of these things. Usually I’m doing rescue stuff.”

“You were good,” you say. “How is she?”

“She’s okay,” Endgame says. You’d believe him, except for what he says next. “How bad do they need her testimony to put him away?”

“Not to put him away, but to make sure he never gets out,” Midoriya says. Endgame’s expression is grim. “We’ll be here for her. That’s all we can do now.”

“Right.” Endgame makes himself comfortable next to you, and cold sweat starts dripping down your spine.

You try to pay attention as the next witness comes on, and the next, but all you’re conscious of is Tomura sitting beside you, close enough that you can feel his body heat but not so close that you can touch. You haven’t been this close to him since he was helping you sit up after your overdose. His hair’s even longer now, the ends trimmed instead of tangled like you remember them, and you fold your hands in your lap, squeezing tight so they won’t ache at the memory of running your fingers through his hair. You’ll be crying later. You just know it.

When Eri takes the stand, your attention snaps from Tomura to her in a heartbeat. Her face is set in a mask of determination, her hair done in the simple style that Honey helped her with this morning, her dress picked out by Himiko, who has an eye for this kind of thing. She looks so young, and although you know she’s rattling with anger, it’s not visible to the naked eye. Tomura could never have mastered that kind of control in your memories. Then again, Tomura never got the help he needed.

The prosecutor keeps it brief with Eri, asking her to describe her experiences in brief, her understanding of Overhaul’s plans, and what happened when she was rescued. Her psych evaluation was entered into the record, so he doesn’t have to ask her questions about her mental health. But this was never the part you and everybody else was worried about, and sure enough, when the Hassaikai lawyer steps up, Eri goes tense. Her eyes shift away from the attorney, going straight to the defense table. To Overhaul.

This is what you were afraid would happen. That she’d be drawn in by him, cowed into silence by him – or worse, that she’d get so angry she loses her ability to express herself and winds up feeling powerless all over again. But you know Eri. You know she’s strong. You wait as she stumbles on the first question, and as the prosecutor objects to the second, Eri tears her eyes away from Overhaul and looks towards the audience. You hold her gaze, and without breaking it, you reach into your coat and hold up the packet of origami paper you brought, identical to the one she holds. You extract a piece of paper, and slowly, Eri pulls one from her pocket to match.

The two of you have been doing origami together, you working from instruction or memory while she copies each fold you make. You’re not sure why or how that happened, since you’re bad at origami, but it seems to help. You make the first fold for a paper crane, and Eri does the same as she answers the defense attorney’s next question. Her voice is still shaking, but her eyes are fixed on your hands.

You try to tune out what she’s saying. Knowing what your wish did to her will make you want to use, and you’re already triggered enough with Tomura sitting right here at your side. You didn’t mean for it to happen, but you can’t change it. All you can do is what you’re doing now. Being here, trying to have her back, while she tries to put away the man who tormented her. Maybe you need to remember that. You’re not the one who tortured her. That was him.

Tomura touches your arm, and once again, you startle so badly that you almost crush your half-finished crane. Your packet of paper slides from your lap to the floor, and Tomura ducks down to retrieve it, haphazardly wedging the spilled papers back in. Not all of them, though. He keeps ahold of one, looks at you with eyebrows raised. He wants to fold, too? You nod, and Tomura faces front, folding fast to catch up to you and Eri.

You didn’t know he did origami. If you did, you’d have offered him some paper from the start. On the stand, Eri counters a question about how Overhaul treated her when he wasn’t experimenting on her with a flat, unequivocal response. “He never stopped experimenting on me,” she says. “It happened every day.”

Your stomach clenches, and you breathe deep through your nose and out through your mouth – which turns out to be a mistake, because this close to Tomura, you can pick up on what he smells like, and it’s so familiar, so much like home, that your heart breaks all over again. You’ve never wanted to use more than you do right now, when you’re so close to the person you did everything to save, knowing that in saving him you set yourself up to lose him a second time. It hurts. It will never do anything but hurt, and you have to live with it forever.

You keep your eyes on Eri, even as your vision threatens to blur. Her eyes are clear, and she’s sitting upright in her seat, aware and alert, as the two of you set your completed paper cranes down, hers on the railing of the witness stand, yours balanced on the back of the bench ahead of you. Eri starts to draw another piece of paper out of the packet, and so do you, but then her eyes dart sideways. Her mouth twitches. Her shoulders shake. Not like she’s going to cry – like she’s trying not to laugh. You follow her gaze straight to the paper crane Tomura’s just set down on the bench alongside yours.

At least, you think it’s supposed to be a crane. “What is that?”

“A crane,” Tomura says, and your throat hums with laughter. “You were folding too fast. I think I missed a step.”

“I’ll say. It looks like a dinosaur.”

“Hey. Don’t make fun of him,” Tomura says. “Birds used to be dinosaurs. Maybe he’s the missing link.”

The longer you look at Tomura’s misshapen crane-thing, the worse the hum in your throat gets. There’s something so ridiculous about it with its tiny wings, the way it lists sideways, the fact that Tomura folded a beak onto its head and its tail. And in spite of that, there’s something weirdly upbeat about it. Like it knows things can’t get any worse than this, and it doesn’t care. Tomura scoots it along the bench until it’s right alongside your crane, like it’s trying to make friends, and the juxtaposition of the two is too much to handle. You let the piece of paper fall into your lap and clamp your hands down over your mouth to hold in your laughter.

You see a grin flash across Tomura’s face out of the corner of your eye, and your heart lurches – and then you remember the point of all this, why you’re really here. Eri, and you completely forgot about her. You look up in horror and find her looking back, clearly watching Tomura’s crane debacle. Her eyes are still clear. And she’s almost smiling.

How often have you seen her smile? Even now, it’s rare, and in an instant, everything else falls away. You draw another piece of paper out of your packet, matching Eri’s again, and this time, you hold out one for Tomura, too. He hesitates. “What?”

“This might be a bad time to tell you,” he says, solemn except for a spark in his red eyes, “but I’m shit at origami.”

It’s an effort not to laugh. “Pay attention this time, then,” you say. You hold out the piece of paper again, and this time, Tomura takes it.

By the time Eri steps down from the witness stand, she’s folded six paper cranes to match yours, and Tomura’s folded six cranelike objects of his own. He lines his up alongside yours, side by side, and you tell yourself that this is enough. You’ve found a life that matters, even amidst the mess you made. If sitting next to him for a few minutes, folding the worst origami known to humankind, is the best it gets, it’s better than you ever thought.

You’re packing up to leave for your first shift when your phone buzzes. You haven’t had a personal phone in a while, so it takes you a second to respond, and you hesitate when you see Midoriya’s number. The two of you are in a weird grey area right now – he’s still your therapist, but you’re also sort of his coworker, and either way, it’s weird for him to be calling you. You pick it up anyway. “Yeah?”

“It’s not a story.”

You knew this was coming. You close your eyes. “What happened?”

“He asked me. All Might.” Midoriya’s voice is shaking, although you can’t tell whether it’s with excitement or terror. “To be his successor.”

Ever since Eri came to the treatment center, All Might’s gotten more interested in its mission, and he spends a lot of time with Midoriya talking about it, but you didn’t think it went this far. You never thought it would go this far, and based on the way Midoriya’s hyperventilating into the phone, he didn’t expect it, either. “Breathe,” you say. “How did it happen? Did he say why he picked you?”

“He said the world needs a new kind of hero,” Midoriya says. “One who reaches the people no one else can. Who believes people can change if they want to, and who won’t give up on them as long as they’re still trying.”

“Like Endgame,” you say without thinking.

“That’s what I said,” Midoriya says. He sucks down another deep breath. “But All Might said Endgame can’t do it alone. So he asked me.”

The world really must be different now, if that’s All Might’s take on things. Even if you’d heard that coming out of a hero’s mouth in the world-that-was, you’d never have believed it, but All Might’s not just saying it – he’s putting his money where his mouth is, by choosing someone who sees criminals and villains as more than just monsters in need of a beatdown. “What did you say?”

“I said I had to think about it,” Midoriya says. “I’m not sure I can’t do more good here.”

“Wow,” you say, and Midoriya makes a questioning sound. “I’d have thought you’d be all over it.”

“I want to, but I don’t know if it’s the right thing,” Midoriya says. “I know what I do here matters. I don’t know if I can make being a hero matter the same way. I promised him an answer in three days.”

“You’ve got some thinking to do, then.”

“Tell me about it.” Midoriya’s quiet for a moment. “It works exactly like you said it does. His quirk. Everything he told me is something I heard from you.”

What are you supposed to say to that? “It was never just a story,” Midoriya says, and you shake your head, even though he can’t see you. “We need to talk.”

“Yeah.” All at once you’re done with this conversation, and dreading what’s going to happen at your therapy session tomorrow afternoon. “Look, I have to go. I’ve got my first shift with –”

“As a de-escalation support specialist?” Midoriya’s voice brightens up instantly. “Do you know which hero you’re pairing up with?”

“They just promised it was someone I’d be able to keep up with,” you say. “Not somebody who can fly or something.”

“I’ll build in extra time to our session. I want to talk about that, too,” Midoriya says. He sounds more like himself now, to the point where you wonder if he isn’t right. If this isn’t the right thing for him to do, instead of picking up All Might’s quirk and trying to be a hero. “Good luck out there.”

“Thanks.” You hang up the phone and finish packing in a hurry. It’s your first day – or night. You can’t be late.

You’re not sure whose idea the de-escalation specialists was, but somebody high-up liked it enough to turn it into a pilot program. No top heroes are involved – it’s for heroes who go on regular patrols, who come into contact with villains, criminals, and civilians on a regular basis. Heroes who opt in are paired up with someone trained in crisis response, who can hopefully de-escalate situations and prevent them from turning violent. It’s probably more about reducing property damage than about helping people, but given that you took your first hit of neuroin to treat injuries you got in a situation that didn’t need to escalate like it did, you think it’s worth a shot.

At least a few heroes have signed up. You and the other support specialists are going to rotate through shifts with them, and you’ll be mostly on the night shift, since you still work your day job in detox and do treatment in the afternoon. Himiko and Eri are coming back from dinner as you leave, and Himiko grabs you in a hug. “Be careful,” she instructs. “I haven’t been out there in a while, but it’s probably still crazy.”

“I hope you get paired up with a decent hero,” Eri says. “Most of them are losers.”

Eri’s doing better – a lot better – but she’s still not the biggest fan of heroes. Neither are you, to be honest, but if you can help even one person tonight, it’s worth putting up with a hero for a couple hours. “I’ll be careful. And thanks,” you say to both of them. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

It’s still weird to you that you’re able to leave the treatment center when you want to. Not that you go out very often – Himiko and Eri and Honey and Birdie are here, and they’re your friends. But you can go out. Go for a walk. Go to the convenience store and buy pads when Eri realizes she hates tampons, or to the grocery store to get a cupcake for Birdie when you found out it was her birthday. You can buy things now, because you have money. You can come and go as you please, because it’s home. Neither of those are things you ever thought you’d have again.

The world you made with your wish isn’t perfect. There’s plenty of things wrong with it still, but you can’t pretend it’s not better. Nobody cared about de-escalation in the world-that-was. You used to hear hero students bitching about how there weren’t enough villains. But here they care enough that the program you’re in is one of several pilots, all across Japan. Himiko’s alive in this world. Twice is alive. Spinner’s alive; you looked him up, found out that he writes books, read one of them and found yourself smiling. Maybe Dabi and Magne are alive out there, too.

Tomura’s alive, too. That’s why you did this. He’s alive and he’s happy, and you – maybe you aren’t as happy as you would have been with him. Maybe there’s a piece of you that’ll always be missing. But you’re happy enough, you think. You finally have a life that matters.

You reach the street corner where you’re supposed to meet the hero you’ll be working with, right on time. The hero’s late. You resist the urge to pull out your phone and mess around with it. If you’re out on the street, on a shift, you’re on duty, so you need to pay attention. You learned to read a crowd when you were a criminal. Now you can use that for something good.

You hear footsteps behind you, and someone comes to a stop beside you. “Sorry I’m late. There was a – hey, it’s you!”

You’d know his voice anywhere. “It’s you,” you say helplessly, and turn to face Endgame.

He hasn’t cut his hair yet. Every time you see him, you wonder if it’ll be gone, if Bubble Girl has finally worn him down, but it seems even longer than it was before. He’s smiling at you, lopsided and sincere. “I was wondering if you’d sign up. It seems like your kind of thing.”

You nod. “I guess we’re working together tonight?”

“Looks like it. Is that going to be okay?” Endgame tilts his head, studying you. “Sometimes I feel like –”

“Like you’ve seen me somewhere before?”

It’s quiet for a moment. “Yeah,” Endgame says, “let’s go with that. I’m good to go if you are.”

“Me too,” you say. He starts off across the street and you follow him, and for eight hours on a cloudy spring night, you’re exactly where you belong.

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