I Have A Dream

how about some catnips? or nice treats.

The cat sniffed the catnips you put on the floor and then… oh no - what have you done?

At least it seems less stressed… for now.

As a small/medium boobs girlie this hurt xD

Kingly snuggles.

Dont repost

Yay sunny

Round 3 Wave 1

A new life for Tomura part9

Love Like Ghosts (Chapter 9) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

You knew the empty house in a quiet neighborhood was too good to be true, but you were so desperate to get out of your tiny apartment that you didn't care, and now you find yourself sharing space with something inhuman and immensely powerful. As you struggle to coexist with a ghost whose intentions you're unsure of, you find yourself drawn unwillingly into the upside world of spirits and conjurers, and becoming part of a neighborhood whose existence depends on your house staying exactly as it is, forever. But ghosts can change, just like people can. And as your feelings and your ghost's become more complex and intertwined, everything else begins to crumble. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

Chapter 9

There’s something wrong with your house, but you knew that when you bought it, and lately it feels like the thing that’s wrong with your house is you. You’re constantly uneasy, at work and at home, to the point where Phantom glues herself to your side and cries when you try to leave. Tomura hovers. You can tell he wants things from you – more touches, more kissing, more sex – but with half the neighborhood out hunting conjurers, the insect deliveries have mostly dried up. Most of the time, mustering up a voice and a set of hands is the most he can do.

The conjurer hunt is on. Keigo’s taking time off from work, and whatever Spinner and Jin usually do during the day, they’ve put it on hold. Every morning, you or Aizawa or Jin’s mom gives the three of them and Atsuhiro a ride to the train station, where they get on separate trains, each taking a different route to the same destination. They’re checking cities and towns off the list, one by one, starting close to home and working their way outwards. They get back later and later every day.

Jin’s mom doesn’t like it. Magne doesn’t like it. Dabi especially doesn’t like it, given the clouds of smoke that are constantly billowing from Keigo’s house, and eventually you and Hizashi are dispatched to deal with it. Hizashi’s there for the intimidation factor. You’re not sure why you’re involved. “You’re close with Keigo,” Hizashi says with a shrug, when you ask him. “Hard to tell, but Dabi’s not thrilled with how things have been going there lately. Knowing you and Keigo might talk about him might make him behave a little better.”

“Oh.”

“That’s the theory, anyway,” Hizashi says. He bangs on the door with a closed fist. “Open up, Toasty. We need to talk.”

“Fuck off.”

“No can do. You’re about to get the fire department called on you,” Hizashi says. “How are you going to explain that one to your human when he gets home?”

“Like I’d know. He’s never here.” Dabi’s face appears in the front window, and a moment later the door cracks open. “He saw his first chance to get away from me and bolted.”

You can’t stop the incredulous laugh that sneaks out of your mouth. “He’s out there hunting your conjurer. What about that says he’s trying to get away?”

“I didn’t ask him to do that.”

“No, he volunteered.” Hizashi leans hard against the door and shoves it open. “You’re acting even dumber than the guy across the street, and that’s really saying something.”

“Hey,” you say listlessly. “Don’t talk shit about my ghost. He came up with the plan.”

“The plan that might get my human killed,” Dabi says.

“The plan that might save your ass,” Hizashi corrects, flicking Dabi in the forehead and ignoring the smoke that starts to leak into the air. “Enough with this little fit you’re throwing. Things are this way with your human because you made them this way. Your human treats you different than she treats her ghost because of you. If you want any of that to change, you need to get it together.”

“I’m not embodying,” Dabi says. “You can’t make me.”

“You can do better even if you don’t embody yourself,” you say. Dabi makes a disparaging noise. “Not lighting the house on fire would be a good start.”

“Why do you do that, anyway?” Hizashi is fully inside Keigo’s house now, and even though you know it’s going to drive Tomura up the wall, you follow him in. “Oof, this place smells. Have you ever heard of air freshener?”

You survey the front room of Keigo’s house. It’s messy. There’s a basket of laundry sitting on the couch, unfolded but clean as evidenced by the used dryer sheet sticking out of a sock on top. While Hizashi continues to hold forth on the odor of the house, you investigate further, checking out the kitchen. It’s also messy. There are clean dishes in the dishwasher and dirty dishes in the sink, and based on the state of the stove, Keigo’s been living on instant noodles, frozen vegetables, and not much else. You think of the time you were sick, of Tomura’s clumsy but well-intentioned efforts to help, and feel an unexpected wave of sadness.

It crystallizes into resolve a moment later. You head back to the front room and target Dabi directly. “Get in here. You’re going to learn how to do the dishes.”

“What?”

Dabi sounds baffled, and Hizashi is hooting with laughter. You raise your voice to be heard over him. “You want things to be better with Keigo, you have to do stuff,” you say. “Just not burning down the house isn’t enough. You have to help out. Don’t just say you want things to change. Make them change.”

“Like a man,” Hizashi says, still cackling. “This is what real men do.”

Dabi looks skeptical. You weigh the risk of the statement you’re considering, then decide to hell with it. “Tomura knows how to do all this stuff already.”

It’s quiet for a second. “If your useless virgin of a ghost can do it, so can I,” Dabi states, which sets Hizashi off again. “Teach me how.”

You’re tempted to tell him that Tomura figured it out on his own, but you also don’t want Keigo to have to deal with some of the mistakes Tomura made. “Let’s start with the dishwasher.”

After the dishwasher, you go through proper dishwashing technique, stressing the importance of cleaning up whatever mess gets made in the process. “It’s not helping if there’s still a mess afterward,” Hizashi advices from the kitchen table, where he’s going through Keigo’s record collection. “Shou and me went through that with cleaning the litterbox. It was bad.”

Dabi bitches his way through the dishes, but you think he’s grasped the basics. After that, you move onto laundry – or rather, Hizashi moves on to laundry, because you get a brief flash of what Tomura will do when he finds out you’ve been touching Keigo’s and possibly Dabi’s underwear and decide you don’t want to deal with that. While they’re working on it, you head back across the street to retrieve a spare air freshener from your house. Tomura pounces on you the instant you step through the gate. “What are you doing over there?”

“Trying to teach Dabi some life skills so Keigo doesn’t have to live in a dungeon,” you say. Tomura’s more materialized than he’s been in a while, just slightly more than insubstantial as he tangles himself around you. “I should be done soon.”

“You’re not going back.”

“I’m going back,” you say.”

“No, you’re not!”

“I am, and here’s why. Keigo is my friend. He’s trying to help everybody. You don’t care about everybody, but I do, and I don’t think my friend should have to live in a house like that with a ghost that treats him that badly.” You dig up an air freshener, plus a scented candle, ignoring Tomura’s attempts to reel you back in. “The only reason Dabi’s going along with it is because I told him that you know how to do this stuff already.”

It’s quiet for a second. “He’s not better than me,” Tomura says.

“You’re better than him. Keigo and Hizashi didn’t have to come over here and teach you how to do the laundry.” You head for the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

Tomura entangles you again, because Tomura’s an asshole, but he lets you go before you reach the gate. When you get back to Keigo’s house, Dabi and Hizashi are there, with a pile of folded laundry between them and identical weird looks on their faces. “What did you say to him?” Dabi demands. “He’s so full of himself –”

“Yeah, I haven’t experienced this level of concentrated smugness in a while,” Hizashi notes. He gives his head a shake, then shrugs it off. “You got the goods?”

You hand off the air freshener and the candle. “Light this up and start praying. I’m not sure how much of a dent it will make, but it’s better than nothing.”

You’re not really sure how well your lessons and Hizashi’s have stuck, and you’re not sure how Keigo’s going to feel about the fact that you were both in his house, bullying his ghost. You don’t even have a chance to warn him, since you’re not the one picking he and the others up from the train station tonight, and you find yourself watching anxiously from your front window as Keigo trudges up the stairs and into his house. “What are you worried about?” Tomura asks. “You did him a favor. He should thank you.”

“I shouldn’t have gotten into their relationship like that.” The idea of someone trying something similar on you and Tomura makes you almost as uncomfortable as the idea of raising the topic of you and Tomura in a formal relationship. “He might be mad. I’d understand if he was mad.”

“He should be grateful,” Tomura says. Your phone buzzes in your pocket. “I’ll make him thank you if he doesn’t.”

It’s Keigo’s number. You gulp, unlock your phone, and start reading the texts.

Keigo: so uh

Keigo: hypothetically

Keigo: did you go to my house while I was gone and replace Dabi with Hizashi in disguise

Keigo: because like

Keigo: the laundry got folded

Keigo: the kitchen is clean

Keigo: when I got inside he stole all my clothes so he could put them in the washing machine

Keigo: nothing is on fire except a SCENTED CANDLE

Keigo: what did you DO

Tomura is reading over your shoulder, and as he reaches the end of the text string, he bursts out into raspy laughter. Something twists in your chest hard and painful enough to knock the air out of your lungs. You don’t think you’ve ever heard Tomura laugh before, and you’re almost angry with yourself for how much you like how it sounds. “What’s funny?”

“He stole his human’s clothes.” Tomura snickers. “If I tried that on you you’d leave and never come back.”

You’re temporarily frozen with horror at the thought, but you break out of it by force to text Keigo back. Sorry. Me and Hizashi went over there because the house was a little too on fire, and when we saw what a mess it was we decided to try to help out.

So you did it, Keigo texts back. He’s saying he did it.

We told him what to do, but he did most of it, you explain. Sorry.

Don’t be sorry. Just like – how? He never does this shit. I have to beg him not to cut my brake lines and burn down the house.

You’ve got theories, but nothing definitive, you glance at Tomura, wondering if he knows, but either he doesn’t or he’s not telling. I’m not sure, you text. He really stole your clothes?

Two seconds after I got inside. I barely shut the door in time. Keigo texts again while you’re trying not to have a thing over Tomura’s renewed laughter. I would have texted you about it sooner except I was naked and it would have been weird.

Now you’re laughing, but Tomura isn’t. “He owes you now. You should make him do something.”

“I’d say we’re even.” You laugh-react to Keigo’s text and put your phone away. “He and everybody else here helped me a lot when it came to you. I want to help them out, too.”

“Him telling you things isn’t the same as you dealing with his bastard scar wraith all day,” Tomura says. “You did more. He owes you.”

“That’s not how it works,” you say. “People help each other for a lot of reasons. It’s not usually just so the other person will owe them. Is that why you help me sometimes?”

You regret the question the instant you ask it – enough that you take it back, out loud. “Sorry. Don’t answer that.”

“I –”

“Don’t.” You know you’re not handling this well. You just don’t know what else to do.

Realizing that you’ve got feelings for Tomura has been a disaster on every possible level. You thought admitting it to yourself might make things easier, but instead it’s unlocked a whole new circle of hell – one where you want things from him that you’ve got no business wanting, things you know he can’t give you, things he wouldn’t give you in a million years. Not being able to touch him at all makes it worse. You’ve never thought of yourself as being touch-starved, but there’s not really another word for it. You miss the cold. You miss him. And it’s pathetic, so you do everything you can to not think about it. The last thing you want is for someone to ask.

But apparently you’re not hiding it as well as you think you are, because Mr. Yagi takes one look at you the next morning and motions you into his office. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” you say, but it comes out watery and awful. “I’m fine, sir. It’s just, uh –”

What should you say? That it’s the time of the month? If you say that, Mr. Yagi will run for the hills, and you shouldn’t lie to him. “It’s ghost stuff,” you say, and Mr. Yagi nods sagely. “Things in the neighborhood are – hard right now.”

“I have something that might help,” Mr. Yagi says encouragingly. “Izuku’s completed his review of the files you’ve collected, and he’s hoping to present his findings to you in person.”

“Oh,” you say. “Um, okay. I don’t know if the neighborhood –”

“You’ll come to our neighborhood,” Mr. Yagi says. You blink. “This evening, for dinner. Izuku will present his findings to you and you can eat a meal in a place that isn’t so obviously haunted. Inko tells me that constant observation wears on a person.”

You’re so used to it by this point that you barely notice. It’s the explanations that start to wear on you. Lately Tomura’s been interested in what you’re eating, and you’ve been stuck trying to describe taste to someone who can really only grasp texture. It would be nice to go one night without having to explain that lettuce tastes like green but salmon doesn’t taste like pink. Mr. Yagi raises his eyebrows. “Well?”

“Thank you, sir,” you say. “I’d like that.”

“Excellent!” Mr. Yagi beams at you. “You have my address from the office party two years ago, yes? We haven’t moved.”

“Um – you might need to send it again.” You have a bad habit of deleting your old texts.

Mr. Yagi sends you his address and you add it to his contact in your phone. And while you’re in your contacts, you realize that there’s a contact you’re missing – and a ghost who’s going to have questions when you don’t show up after work. You still haven’t gotten around to getting Tomura a phone, which means you’re going to need someone to go talk to him. Somebody he’s not going to try to kill. You’d send Spinner or Keigo, but they’re both on the mission, and introducing Hizashi into the equation is a recipe for disaster. If you ask Shinsou for help, Hizashi and Aizawa will murder you. That just leaves –

Wondering what in the hell you’re doing, you text Magne for the first time ever. Hi. Would you be okay letting Tomura borrow your phone for a second?

You’re not entirely sure what Magne does during the day. Whatever her job is, it’s remote work – but it must be a slow period, because she texts you back right away. What does he need it for?

I won’t be back until late and I need to let him know.

Magne sends you a truly bizarre collection of emojis. That’s so cute! What time should I bring it over?

Noon, you say. Thanks, Magne. I owe you one.

A little bird name Himiko tells me you have a Sephora credit card. I’ll be expecting a top-tier birthday gift.

The ghosts don’t have real birthdays, so they celebrate either the day they were summoned or the day they were embodied. You’re not sure which one Magne picked, but Spinner definitely knows. You’ll ask him. You got it.

Your lunch break starts at noon, and your phone rings from Magne’s number at approximately 12:02. “You’re on speaker,” Magne shouts at you. Then: “I’ve got your human on the phone! She wants to talk to you. Let me in the yard!”

“Just throw it,” Tomura shouts back.

“This is an iPhone! I’m not throwing it anywhere!”

“I don’t care what kind of phone it is. You’re not coming in my yard.”

“Tomura,” you call out, trying to simultaneously be loud and keep any of your coworkers from overhearing this nightmare, “go up to the fence and borrow the phone from Magne. And don’t run away with it. Otherwise I’m going to have to buy her the entire Sephora franchise for her birthday.”

Magne cackles at that, but when she speaks, she’s not talking to you. “There you are! It’s a shame you’ve been hiding in that house all this time. You’re much cuter when you’re – you know, all there.”

“I’m not cute,” Tomura says. You’re smiling to yourself for about three seconds before he speaks up again. “My human said I’m pretty.”

Based on the cacophony on the other end of the line, Magne’s phone mission picked up an audience. Or maybe she gave it an audience. You can hear Hizashi cackling like a goblin, Shinsou snorting with laughter, and some squeaky little Eri giggles, which would all be really funny if it was happening to anybody else. Tomura’s on the same page as you are about it. “Why are you laughing?”

“She’s not wrong,” Himiko says from somewhere in the offing. The whole neighborhood is there, apparently. “You’re really pretty, Tomura! It’s only funny because boys usually say that to girls, not the other way around.”

“Honestly, we should use it the other way around more often,” Hizashi says. He projects his voice at a volume that makes your ears start ringing through the phone. “I for one could stand to be called pretty at least four times a day.”

He’s speaking so loudly that Aizawa can probably hear him from their house at the top of the street. “Dad, that’s gross,” Shinsou complains.

“I think it’s nice,” Eri chimes in. “I like being pretty. My hair and my eyes look like Tomura’s, so Tomura must be pretty, too!”

“Okay,” you say loudly, trying to regain control of the situation, “my lunch break’s not forever, and I really do need to talk to Tomura, so –”

“Of course! Shoo, shoo!” Magne hopes into action. You’d better start saving for Magne’s birthday gift yesterday. “Here. The phone. I’ll be in my house. Just shout when you’re ready to give it back!”

“I’ll just throw it. That’s faster.”

“He won’t throw it,” you say. Magne makes some kind of agreeing sound and leaves. Tomura must have the phone now, but he’s not saying anything. “Are you there?”

“Am I supposed to say you’re pretty?”

You facepalm with the hand that’s not holding the phone. “No,” you say. “Not unless you think so. I said you were pretty because that’s what I think. And that’s not why I called you.”

“Why did you call me?”

You brace yourself. “I won’t be back until later tonight. Later than usual. I wanted to let you know.”

“Why?”

“I’m meeting someone who has information. About the second conjurer.”

“Who?” Tomura’s voice darkens so abruptly that a chill goes down your spine. “I don’t need you to tell me. I’ll find them. I’ll –”

“It’s my boss’s son. He’s fifteen. He’s been looking at the same documents I have, except he actually has time to read them.”

It’s quiet for a second. “You could have said it was a kid,” Tomura says reproachfully, and you almost laugh. “Your boss the ghost has a kid?”

“I don’t really know how that worked.” You don’t want to know, either, and you really don’t want Tomura asking questions about it, so you change the subject fast. “I’m going over there after work and I’ll be back when I can. Are you okay to feed Phantom, or should I ask someone to –”

“I’ll do it. She’s our dog.” Tomura cuts you off. “Don’t be stupid. And be careful.”

You’re tempted to point out that being careful is most likely rolled in with not being stupid, but you keep your mouth shut. A moment later Tomura speaks up again. “Come back fast. I miss you when you’re not here.”

“I will,” you say, trying not to implode. “I, um – I miss you too. Please don’t throw Magne’s phone.”

“Fine.” Tomura hangs up. You need to get Tomura a phone. You also need to teach Tomura phone etiquette, like not hanging up without saying goodbye. Except he said he missed you, which – what was that? Was it a guilt trip? Tomura’s never tried to guilt-trip you before, and he’s not subtle in general. If that’s what he was doing, you’d see it coming a mile away, which means that this wasn’t a guilt-trip. In fact, he took the news that you won’t be back until later fairly well. The weird feeling you’re getting is because it was a normal conversation. The kind of conversation you’d have with a boyfriend who wasn’t crazy. Most of your boyfriends have been crazy.

Tomura isn’t your boyfriend. You’re being weird. You text thank-you to Magne again, drop a line to Spinner to ask when Magne’s birthday is, and head back inside to grab your lunch. It’s a nice day. It might be nice to eat outside.

At least that’s what you think, until Nakayama drops down on the bench next to you. “Who was that on the phone?”

“None of your business.” You grit your teeth as Nakayama pops open a salad in an excruciatingly loud plastic clamshell package. “You were eavesdropping?”

“Nobody used to call you,” Nakayama says matter-of-factly. “Honestly, you seemed like the type who’d bang your boss.”

You almost choke on your sandwich. “But now Mr. Yagi seems kind of like your dad. Not in a daddy way, just a literal dad,” Nakayama continues. “So who was on the phone? Why do you miss them?”

“No one. Go away.”

“Is it your boyfriend?” Nakayama asks. “I’d say that to my boyfriend if he was clingy. Is your boyfriend clingy?”

“It’s not my boyfriend,” you say. You’re pretty sure your face is on fire. “Don’t you have anywhere else to be? I thought – uh, I thought you and Woods from the DA’s office were a thing.”

“We are. But he was being judgy about one of my cases, so I ditched him for today.” Nakayama crunches down on a bite of salad. “I’m surprised you knew that! You don’t usually care about office gossip.”

You don’t. But you’re desperate to get out of this conversation without having to think or talk any more about Tomura. “I pay attention, but I’m sort of behind, I think. Can you catch me up?”

Nakayama grins at you around a mouthful of lettuce. “I thought you’d never ask!”

Asking about gossip is going to be your new go-to for avoiding talking about your personal life with your coworkers. Nakayama talks straight through lunch, and afterwards you throw yourself into your work, doing everything you can to avoid thinking about Tomura and what Tomura said and what the actual hell is happening there. You end the day a half-day ahead of your inbox, and you duck out early, swinging by the store to pick up some flowers to bring as a gift for your hosts. And then you sneak into another store, to pick up something for someone else.

You’ve been to Mr. Yagi’s house before, but it was a while ago. The neighborhood you’re driving through feels mostly unfamiliar. The houses are medium-sized, but on big lots, and you know from your homebuying exploits that this much space costs a ridiculous amount of money. The land one of these houses is built on probably costs as much as your property and your house put together. The last time you were here, you remember thinking somewhat uncharitably that Mr. Yagi must have family money. You’re even more confused now that you know he’s a ghost.

Mr. Yagi’s house is yellow with green trim, bright and pretty. It feels friendly when you walk up the front steps, and the doorbell’s ring somehow sounds cheerful. Mr. Yagi opens the door, smiling. “Come in! What are these –”

“For you,” you say. Your parents might not have been very affectionate, but they made sure you had manners. Mr. Yagi accepts the flowers. “Thank you for hosting me.”

You take off your shoes and make your way into the house after Mr. Yagi. The rest of the house feels just as friendly as it looks. Whatever’s being cooked smells really good, and Mr. Yagi’s wife smiles at you though a cloud of steam when you approach to ask if you can help. “I have it under control. And I have my assistant,” she says, elbowing Mr. Yagi lightly. “Go out to the backyard, if you’d like. Izuku’s waiting.”

You make your way through the house and onto the back porch, which overlooks a garden about ten times as pretty as yours. You can’t help feeling a surge of envy, which is only partially helped by reminding yourself that this garden’s had a lot more time to grow than yours has, and that this family doesn’t have to worry about buying delicate or expensive plants for fear that a ghost will get impatient and kill them in order to materialize fully. The only shadow in the garden comes from a large, lush shrub with purple-green leaves that’s resisting every effort made by Mr. Yagi’s son to extract it from the ground.

You come closer. “Do you need help?”

“No,” Izuku says, out of breath. “I don’t want to chop it down, but it has to go. It’s invasive.”

“Oh,” you say. “Did you know that when you planted it?”

“We think it was mislabeled,” Izuku says. “Or I read the label wrong, or something. I don’t want to kill it, and I think I can get it out alive, but we can’t plant it anywhere else.”

Something occurs to you. “If I help you get it out alive, can I have it?”

“Dad said you have a garden, but why would you want – oh!” Izuku breaks off suddenly, grinning. “Based on the size of this bush and its relative age compared to the lifespan of similar plants, it contains about ten years of life energy! Ghosts usually burn through energy between forty-eight and fifty-five times faster than living things, depending on their power level, and Dad said your ghost is extremely strong, so if we assume a consumption rate of seventy times faster than a living thing and if you take this tree and he uses it, that should give him roughly two weeks of complete embodiment. Longer if he stays incorporeal sometimes.”

You can only stare at him. He keeps talking. “When Dad was still a ghost, he went through life-force really fast. Mom says he kept wanting to do things for her – like hold the door open, or pull out her chair so she could sit down, or carry her groceries. One time her car got stuck in the snow and he picked it up and carried it for her. Oh, I guess that’s another thing! If a ghost is exceeding the physical abilities of their embodied form, the consumption rate doubles. What kind of things does your ghost like to do?”

“I have a dog and they like to play together,” you say. There’s no way you’re bringing up the rest of it with a fifteen-year-old. “How did you find out about all this stuff? Is there an equation or something?”

“Sort of! I can show you if you want. Of course, it’ll be approximate, since there’s not a great way to measure power levels and you kind of just have to vibe it, but it should tell you about how much complete materialization time you’ll get. What kind of things does your ghost usually drain?”

“Small plants. Weeds or mushrooms, and sometimes blackberry bushes,” you say. “And the people in the neighborhood bring us bugs for him to use.”

“He must be conserving power really well if he can get complete materialization from insects,” Izuku says excitedly. “Do you think there’s any way I could meet him? I haven’t met a real ghost in ages, and one that powerful –”

“Izuku,” Mr. Yagi says warningly from the porch. “That ghost isn’t safe for most people to interact with. And his reaction to you would be difficult to predict.”

“He’d know I’m not a threat. He could read it off my aura,” Izuku says. He looks at you and explains before you can ask. “I’m half-ghost. Mom got pregnant with me before Dad embodied himself full-time.”

Your first thought, as incredibly stupid as it is, is that you might need your box of condoms after all. Your second thought is that you really didn’t need to know that much about your boss’s sex life. Then you remember that Mr. Yagi can see Tomura’s marks on you and decide that it’s even. “Um, what does that mean? Being half-ghost.”

“Like being an embodied ghost, but I didn’t have to drain anybody,” Izuku says. “I can see other ghosts, and feel what they feel. I need to blink, but my eyes still do the thing Dad’s eyes do, so I have to wear contacts. And sometimes when I dream I can see into the world between.”

You sit there with that for a moment. Izuku looks to Mr. Yagi. “Once I get the butterfly bush out, she’s going to take it home so her ghost can use it. Did you know he’s only been using bugs?”

“I didn’t,” Mr. Yagi says. He glances at you, and you will your face not to flush. “We’ll all work together to dig up the bush after dinner. It’s time to wash up.”

You follow Mr. Yagi and Izuku into the house, feeling like you handled things well. It’s not until you’re washing your hands that it occurs to you that Izuku, who’s half ghost, can almost certainly see Tomura’s goddamn handprints all over you. It takes you way too long to muster up the courage to do anything but bolt directly out the door and drive until you run out of gas. But you make it out to the table and sit down, avoiding everyone’s eyes. You’re sitting with two ghosts. They can see the handprints. They know. You’re screwed. There’s no way they’ll let you have the butterfly bush now.

Mr. Yagi’s wife reaches across the table and pats your arm. “It’s all right,” she says, and you look up to find her smiling. “I’ve got them, too.”

You can’t see handprints on her, but she must have them, if she was involved with Mr. Yagi before he was embodied. You’ve never met anybody other than Keigo who was involved with their ghost when it was still a ghost, and you feel yourself relax a bit, just like you do when you and Keigo hang out. You manage a smile in response, then pick up your utensils and start eating. The food tastes really good. And it’s nice to know that you’re not going to have to spend twenty minutes explaining why cheese comes in different shapes, colors, and sizes without becoming something other than cheese.

You have to explain other stuff, though. Izuku has questions. “How many ghosts are in your neighborhood? Are they all adults or are some of them kids? Was your house built before the rest of the neighborhood or is it just the only house with a ghost in it?” He uses the pause provided by your answers to inhale half the food on his plate, then jumps back into the breach with even more questions. “Dad said there was a scar wraith. Have you met him? Scar wraiths are technically half-embodied ghosts, right? How many of his powers does he still have? Which of the former ghosts on your street is the most powerful? Do you think my dad could beat Magne or Atsuhiro or Hizashi in a fight?”

Mr. Yagi chokes on a sip of water. “I won’t be fighting any ghosts in that neighborhood. My ghost-fighting days are long over.”

“You used to fight ghosts?” you ask.

“Yes,” Mr. Yagi says. “That’s what I was summoned for.”

You want to ask. You really, really want to ask, but you don’t want to pry. Mr. Yagi’s wife finally elbows him. “Just tell her, Toshi.”

Mr. Yagi sighs. “When we first spoke of this, I mentioned that some conjurers don’t bind ghosts. Rather, they form mutually beneficial alliances – sometime simply to extend their lives, sometimes in an effort to do good. The conjurer who summoned me was named Shimura Nana. She hoped to do good, and I wanted to help her. Together we pursued evil conjurers and unquiet ghosts, ending their reigns of terror wherever we could.”

He glances guiltily at you. “I believe we once crossed paths with Hizashi, from your neighborhood. My master judged there to be greater threats than him.”

Hizashi wouldn’t like hearing that. Maybe you’ll tell him the next time he tries to scare you for kicks. But there’s a different question you’re considering. “How do you kill a ghost?”

“We’ll get to that,” Mr. Yagi says. “In any case, as the years passed, my master and I came into contact with the same conjurer over and over again. He was interested not in short-term havoc, but in long-term destruction, and he chose his ghosts accordingly. Many of the worst ghosts my master and I faced had been captured by him – taken as children, isolated for decades, their power growing unchecked until it outgrew the haunt containing it.”

Unease twists in the pit of your stomach. You’ve heard a story like that before. The one you were told was about Eri, but when you consider the details – the length of time, the complete isolation – it sounds like someone else, too. “These ghosts had no chance to make a bargain with their conjurer,” Mr. Yagi continues. “It was likely never explained to them why they had been imprisoned in this world. Many ghosts are curious about the human world, initially, and form opinions once they’ve been allowed to explore and interact with it. By the time this conjurer’s ghosts are allowed to interact with the world, they’ve grown to despise it as a prison. They destroy everything in their path, until they’re stopped.”

“Dad stopped a lot of them,” Izuku says.

“His master called it merciful,” Mr. Yagi’s wife – she’s told you to call her Inko – says. She looks troubled. “I don’t know about that.”

“There aren’t any left in the country. My master and I made sure.” Mr. Yagi folds and unfolds his napkin. “Ghosts may not approach the world with the same view of mortality as humans do, but it still takes time to create such a violent, hateful ghost. We were certain we’d found them all. And then –”

Suddenly you’re certain you know what he’s going to say. “You found my house.”

“It has every hallmark of our enemy’s work,” Mr. Yagi says. “An immensely powerful ghost, firmly entrenched in a house that can barely contain it. How long has he inhabited that house?”

“A hundred and ten years.”

“That fits!” Izuku says excitedly. He gets up from the table and bolts down the hallway, coming back a moment later pushing a wheeled whiteboard that you’re pretty sure disappeared from the conference room at work. “So! Thanks to the map Mr. Aizawa made, and the list of identities you found, I’ve been able to track where this conjurer’s been over the last two hundred years. A lot of the haunts have been destroyed, but nothing gets built there again, so they’re easy to find. The conjurer starts out way to the north, two hundred years ago. He binds a ghost to an old temple, and sixty years later, the ghost breaks out. Did you get that one, Dad? Do you remember?”

Mr Yagi nods. “Okay,” Izuku says. “Seven years later, he’s right here. Just a little ways south. This time the ghost is in an abandoned palace. That one only lasts twenty years before the haunt gets destroyed, and Dad gets that one, too. Seven years after that, the conjurer goes big and summons a ghost to haunt this entire mountain range by binding different parts of it into different caves and cabins –”

It would take an idiot not to see the pattern that’s emerging. The conjurer moves steadily south, spending seven years in each location – no more, and no less. In each location he leaves behind a haunted house with a lonely ghost, a ticking time bomb that won’t go off until long after everyone’s forgotten it was there. When he reaches the border, he turns around and heads north again, still spending seven years in each location. “Why seven years?” you ask. “If he’s worried about being caught, shouldn’t he switch it up?”

“Summoning and binding ghosts take time,” Inko says. “If it’s not done well, the ghosts can get out. And this conjurer doesn’t want his ghosts to get out.”

Yeah, no kidding – if they can get out, they won’t go crazy like he wants them to. Izuku keeps going over the map, seven years and a few miles at a time. Then he stops. “Here there’s a big gap,” he says. “In distance and in time. He doesn’t show up again until fourteen years later, and he’s way too far north. Plus, his name is wrong. You were right about how he steals names from people he knew in his previous identity to build the new one, but his name in the new town isn’t related at all to the last one.”

“It’s an insult to my master,” Mr. Yagi says. The scowl on his face is way too scary for your liking. “Shimura Tenko.”

You remember that name from the files. “So what happened? Did he just take a break?”

“After ninety years of doing the same thing? No way,” Izuku says. He opens his mouth, closes it, and turns to Inko. “Mom spotted it. Mom should say.”

Inko smiles at him, then turns to face you. “Look at the space that’s missing,” she says quietly. “There should be a haunt somewhere here.”

You look at the spot she’s circling on the map and your heart sinks. “We’re not the only city around here,” you say hopelessly. “It could be any of those –”

“We checked. There isn’t.” Izuku is bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. “The guy my dad fought is the same guy who summoned your ghost. And it took him a while. Either your ghost really fought or really tried to escape, because the conjurer never spent more than seven years anywhere else. He spent fourteen years here.”

Your heart is racing. You look to Mr. Yagi. “How did you and your master not find him?”

“There was nothing to find,” Mr. Yagi says. “Every other haunt became a place of violence and terror, the instant the ghosts began to attain their full power. There were incidents, accidents, mysterious deaths – things that signal the presence of a ghost. There was no such thing in your house.”

No, there wasn’t. You checked. If there had been any sign of trouble, you wouldn’t have bought it. “What I don’t understand,” Inko says, “is why your ghost didn’t turn out like the others. From what Toshinori says, your ghost radiates malevolence to such a degree that no one’s stayed long inside the house. The isolation is what’s supposed to drive them crazy, and that would make him more isolated, not less.”

“That’s a weird move for a ghost with a lot of power,” Izuku agrees. “Especially given what all the other ones did. Obviously ghosts have different temperaments, like people do, but if all the others destroyed their haunts and he didn’t –”

He trails off, and Inko doesn’t try to fill the gap. They’re both looking at Mr. Yagi, so you look at him, too. It’s a while before he speaks, and when he does, he’s avoiding your eyes. “Initially, Tomura wouldn’t have had sufficient power to harm anyone. Once he did, it seems he made a conscious decision to use his powers to deepen his own isolation rather than wield them against others. He’s undeniably malevolent, but not particularly hostile. As far as any of us can tell, he’s never attempted to break out of his haunt, much less wreak the kind of destruction one might expect from a ghost in his position. In the eyes of his conjurer, he represents a failure.”

Even though failing at this is exactly what you should want for Tomura, you still don’t like hearing people talk about him that way. “What does that mean?”

“It means that Tomura’s conjurer is likely to return at some point,” Mr. Yagi says, “and attempt to turn Tomura into the symbol of terror he was meant to be. My understanding of Tomura is limited, but based on the available evidence –”

He gestures awkwardly at you. “The fastest way for his conjurer to do that would be to remove you from the picture.”

“Wouldn’t Tomura just kill him?” Izuku asks. “I mean – if someone hurt me or Mom, that’s what you’d do, right?”

“Yes,” Mr. Yagi says, “but this conjurer is too cunning to make it easy. He’d likely kill her far from the neighborhood, which would force Tomura to destroy his haunt to pursue him. Tomura would likely leave immense destruction in his wake as he chased the conjurer. Which is what the conjurer wanted him to do all along.”

You feel like you’re going to be sick. You imagine the house blowing apart from the inside, just like the fence did; or worse, you imagine it crumbling, falling apart in a wave of dust that billows out, consuming everything in its path. He already looks down on the neighborhood. If he found any way to blame them for your death, he’d wipe them off the map. And then he’d move on to everything else.

No. Tomura wouldn’t do something that crazy just for you. You’re out of your mind. “I’m not that important to him,” you say. “I’m not – he’d kill the conjurer to punish him, maybe. He wouldn’t go on a rampage. Why would you say that?”

Mr. Yagi doesn’t answer. He looks uncomfortable. “Even if he succeeded in killing the conjurer, it wouldn’t bring you back,” Inko says softly. “He’d still be loose in the world, still angry, still destructive, with no one to aim his anger towards. Haven’t you ever been so angry that you didn’t care who you hurt?”

You have. You don’t want to admit it, but you have. “So have I,” Inko says, which is hard to imagine. “But you and I are human, with societal expectations that make it unlikely that we’ll act on those feelings. Ghosts don’t have that. They follow their feelings. They don’t see consequences until it’s too late.”

“You’re wrong,” you say. Your jaw is clenched, your hands curled into fists out of sight. “I believe you about all of this – who his conjurer is, and why it happened, and all of that. But you’re wrong about what will happen if his conjurer kills me. He doesn’t care enough about me for the rest of it.”

You see Mr. Yagi and Inko trade a glance. Izuku is staring, too, waiting to be let in on the secret. “Perhaps we’re wrong,” Mr. Yagi says. “Even so, no one wants you to be hurt. With that in mind, we have a gift for you.”

“Toshinori’s master made these for me, back when Toshi was still a ghost,” Inko says. She pulls back her sleeves, revealing narrow bracelets on each wrist. “They hide the traces of ghostly power. When Toshi and I met, he and his master were still battling the conjurer. Wearing these kept me from being noticed and used against him.”

You hadn’t known that. Now you understand why Mr. Yagi is so certain about what Tomura will do if you’re killed – it’s what he would have done, or wanted to do, if he’d lost Inko. “My power’s faded enough that it’s almost undetectable,” Mr. Yagi says. “My master would be pleased if the bracelets went to someone who needed them.”

You argue. Of course you argue. A lot, in no small part because going to Mr. Yagi’s house for dinner and coming back with his wife’s jewelry on is going to convince everybody at the office that you’re sleeping with him. Once you lose that part of the argument, you switch tactics to arguing that something that fits Inko’s wrists is going to be too small for yours, only for Inko to tell you, completely straightfaced, that the bracelets are magic and can grow or shrink to fit whoever needs to wear them. You sit there with that for a moment, chagrined, before she bursts out laughing and tells you to try them on first. You do. They fit perfectly. Maybe they’re magic after all.

You help Inko with the dishes while Izuku piles up paper after paper after paper on the counter for you to take home and review, including a list of six possible names Tomura’s conjurer could be going by at this very moment. Then all of you head to the backyard to extract the butterfly bush. It’s a four-person job for sure. You have no idea how Izuku thought he was going to do it himself.

Inko insists you go home with leftovers, then sends you home with more food than you can carry. You thank her and Mr. Yagi and Izuku with a little more emotion than you usually display – for the food, and for their help. “I’ll bring this back to the neighborhood,” you say. “It’ll clear things up. Now we have a better idea of what to watch out for.”

“If you need assistance at any point, let me know,” Mr.  Yagi says. “I do have some experience in this regard.”

“I will,” you say. “I’ll see you at work, sir.”

You’re still feeling too many things as you drive home, the still-living butterfly bush taking up the entire backseat of your car and enough food for two nights of dinners in the passenger seat. It takes you a while to name the feeling as hurt – hurt for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with the absurd kindness Mr. Yagi and his family showed to you. It’s an old hurt, one you’ve lived with for a long time; the feeling of observing a happy family and realizing all over again how empty your childhood was. But now there’s a new kind of hurt added to the pile. Not the hurt of wanting something you didn’t have, but wanting something you won’t get.

Inko was you, once upon a time. Human, in love with a ghost, in the line of fire. But it worked out for her. She’s happy. She has a son and a husband who loves her and a garden whose biggest problem is an invasive plant her son accidentally planted in it. That’s never going to be you.

Even if you wanted that, and you’re not at all sure you do, knowing you can’t have it makes you sad. You drive the rest of the way home with a weird lump in your throat, trying to clear it before you get home. You can’t explain this to Tomura. He won’t understand.

The mood sticks with you all the way home, but when you pull into your neighborhood, you feel it inexplicably lift. It’s just past sundown. Hizashi and Shinsou are in their garden, laughing about a misshapen eggplant they’ve been growing. Himiko is on the front porch of her house, painting Jin’s nails, while their siblings scribble profanity they probably learned from Spinner onto the sidewalk in chalk. Spinner and Keigo are hanging out in front of Spinner’s house, talking something over with Magne. And your front lawn might be dead as a doornail, but all the lights are on inside your house.

You park in the driveway and start ferrying things up to the house. The door swings open before you can even think of unlocking it, and Phantom races to greet you, barking and whining until you set the leftovers on the porch swing and crouch down to greet her. She licks your face, slurping the way she does when you’ve been sweating or crying. This time it was the latter.

When you turn to retrieve the leftovers, they’re gone. Inside the house, you hear the refrigerator open and shut. “I can carry that stuff,” you say to Tomura. “Don’t burn through too much energy.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” Tomura’s down to a pair of hands as he drifts onto the porch, hands that seize your wrists and refuse to let go. “What are these?”

“I’ll explain,” you say. “I still have stuff to bring in.”

You bring in your purchase from the other store, knowing Tomura won’t look inside it unless you give him a reason to be suspicious, then devote your attention to wrestling the butterfly bush out of the backseat. Tomura eyes it suspiciously. “Where are you going to put that?”

You stop just before you remove it. You know from experience that once something leaves the car in the driveway, it’s fair game. “My boss and his family gave it to me,” you say. Tomura’s suspicious expression cranks up a notch. “It’s for you.”

Tomura blinks. “I’m going to bring it in. Don’t touch it yet,” you say. “I need to talk to you first.”

Tomura waits as you drag the butterfly bush in its pot into the yard, then up onto the porch, then through the door. He keeps quiet until after you’ve shut the door. “Can I have it now?”

“No,” you say. You’ve got a not-insignificant suspicion that Tomura is going to jump you the instant he’s fully materialized, and you don’t want to try to have this conversation while he’s trying to make out with you. But now he’s waiting, clearly impatient, and all at once you forget what you were planning to say. “Um –”

“Did they give you that tree just because they had it?”

“No,” you say, startled. “I asked if I could have it. I wanted to see you. My boss’s son, he said you could probably get two weeks of full materialization out of it, but I think there’s a good chance he underestimated your power level, and –”

The butterfly bush crumbles to ash so quickly it’s hard to imagine it was there in the first place. Tomura’s feet hit the floor, and a moment later, he jumps you. Literally jumps you – he’s taller than you are, but he tangles himself around you until both his feet are off the ground. He’s solid, and heavy, and you’re not at all prepared to take the weight of a fully embodied ghost. You collapse backwards, barely managing to tuck your chin and avoid smacking the back of your skull against the floor. Tomura takes the change from vertical to horizontal completely in stride. Whatever he’s planning, it’s not impeded by the fact that Phantom is racing in excited circles around the two of you.

You’re worried he’s going to kiss you, or go after your clothes the way Dabi’s apparently made a habit of doing to Keigo. Instead Tomura stretches out on top of you, apparently unconcerned with where his elbows and knees are going, and buries his head in your shoulder. Or your neck. He can’t seem to decide which one he prefers.

You put up with a few seconds of ghost cuddling before you ask. “Tomura, what are you doing?”

“Saw it in a movie.” A puff of cold air hits the side of your neck. “Wanted to try.”

“In this movie you saw, were they on the floor?” you ask, exasperated. “If we’re going to keep this up, we’re moving it to the couch.”

“I don’t want to move.”

“Tough luck. I don’t want to cuddle with you on the floor.” You roll him off of you, get to your feet, and book it to the living room, flopping down on the couch a split second before Tomura flops down on you. “Here’s fine, though.”

Tomura gets comfortable again, complaining under his breath, but once he’s settled, he goes quiet and still. “You’re like a weighted blanket,” you say nonsensically. “I didn’t think this was going to be the first thing you did.”

“I want that later. I want this now.” Tomura goes quiet again for a few moments. “Those things your boss gave you are strong. I didn’t see you until you were here. Why do you have them?”

It occurs to you why Tomura might be concerned. “They’re for hiding me when I’m out there. From other ghosts. Or conjurers.”

“You went there to find out about conjurers,” Tomura says. You’re surprised he remembered that. Or surprised he asked about it. Or both. “Did you?”

“About one of them,” you say. “The last name on Aizawa’s list. My boss thinks, um – he thinks that one might be yours.”

“Mine,” Tomura repeats. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” you say. You don’t want to get into the rest of it – the conjurer’s MO, whatever made Tomura different, what Mr. Yagi’s afraid will happen if – when – you die. Not when it’s calm like this. Not when you feel like you’re breathing for the first time in weeks, in spite of the fact that you’re currently being flattened by a ghost. “But my boss and his wife met when he was still a ghost. Someone made the bracelets so other ghosts and conjurers couldn’t find her.”

“Why would they care about someone else’s human?” Tomura sounds like the concept’s never occurred to him. “Just get your own.”

You knew you were right about this. You tell yourself that being right is a relief. “My boss loves his wife. He loved her even when he was a ghost. The best way for somebody to hurt him was to hurt her, and somebody really wanted to hurt him. So she wore these. To be safe. And now his powers have faded, so she gave them to me.”

It’s quiet again. “I don’t like that I can’t see you,” Tomura says.

“I’ll take them off once I’m in the neighborhood,” you say. “So you’ll know I’m there.”

Tomura makes an indistinct sound you can probably read as agreement and makes himself comfortable again. When it becomes clear that he’s not moving any time soon, you wrap your arms loosely around him. Tomura makes another indistinct sound. “What are you doing?”

“Holding you,” you say. “People do that.”

“Weird.” Tomura doesn’t stir. After a few minutes of lying there, one of your hands resting between his shoulder blades and one on the small of his back, you cautiously sneak one hand up to fiddle with the ends of his hair.

It’s tangled. There’s only so much you can do one-handed, but you get to work anyway, strangely comforted by the texture of it between your fingers. Tomura lifts his head slightly when you tug at one of the tougher knots. “Why are you doing that? It’s just going to get tangled again the next time I dematerialize.”

“I can fix it next time, too.” Maybe with a brush. “Do you care?”

“No.” Tomura answers fast. “It’s – nice. A lot of it is nice.”

You wonder what ‘it’ is in this case. Being corporeal? Being in physical contact with you? The physical contact you’re initiating? It doesn’t really matter. It’s all physical sensation to him, some good and some bad, and you’re the person who provides it. Tomura doesn’t care about you beyond that. It makes sense that he wouldn’t worry about you the way Mr. Yagi worries about Inko. The way any other ghost in the neighborhood worries about their human.

You’re not upset about it. You’ll take what you can get. And if what you can get is a few minutes cuddling on the couch before your ghost decides he’d rather make out, that’s still more than you expected when you came home tonight.

Enough to Go By (Chapter 12) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

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

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Chapter 12

Saintess.

You look down at Kazuo’s one-word text, your stomach twisting. You’ve got no idea where he got that name, or what question he was ordered to ask that led him to it. You text back. Is that even a real word?

The question was whether the League of Villains has allies beyond those who were present at Kamino. Kazuo texts back slowly. Too slowly. The typing bubble seems to hover forever. I was unable to give them any more information about the villain known as Saintess.

Kazuo’s careful with his words. If he framed the question that way, then your name would be excluded – even though you pal around with villains, even though you’re the girlfriend of the League’s ringleader, you haven’t committed a crime. The word ‘villain’ wouldn’t apply to you, which means you’re safe. Thank you.

We need to talk in person. Tonight.

Why?

I’ll meet you after work.

Meeting you after work means he’s coming to your workplace, after work. Whatever this is, it’s important. And it’s going to clash with one of your other plans, which is also important – and a lot harder to get out of. You hate yourself as you ask the question. How long will it take?

As long as it needs to. Kazuo doesn’t really get irritated anymore, but you can remember what it used to feel like when you pissed him off. Do you have somewhere to be?

You do, actually. Tenko is supposed to negotiate with Overhaul tonight, and he wants you to be there with him. Overhaul wants you there, too – when you listened in on the phone call, you heard him mention “the one in grey” specifically. What is this about?

The Shie Hassaikai.

Shit. Hold on.

You turn to nudge Tenko awake and find him watching you through half-lidded eyes. He doesn’t sleep much, but when he does, he sleeps like a log. He barely stirred when your alarm went off. “Who are you talking to?”

“My friend Kazuo.” You brace yourself. “I can’t go with you to meet Overhaul. I have to meet him instead.”

Tenko doesn’t look happy, and he’s still half-asleep. It’s going to get worse. “You have to go with me. He asked for you specifically. If you don’t go, he’ll suspect something.”

“Tell him we can’t tonight,” you say. “Even if we’re supposed to be allies, we shouldn’t jump just because he says so. That looks suspicious, too.”

“Maybe.” Tenko looks like he’s considering it for a second. Then he shakes his head. “Tell your friend you can’t.”

“I can’t do that. I have to meet him.”

Tenko’s eyes narrow. “Why?”

“He has a quirk called Search Engine. He works for the HPSC gathering intel.” You try to figure out a good way to phrase it, then realize there isn’t one. “He knows about you and me.”

“And he’s a hero?”

“Not exactly.” You wonder if there’s anything else Tenko needs to know. “It’s not relevant, but I dated him in high school.”

“What?” Tenko looks like he’s going to blow a fuse. You’re pretty sure the structural integrity of everything he’s touching is in danger at the moment, regardless of the gloves. “He’s blackmailing you. That’s why you have to go. I’ll kill him.”

“He’s not blackmailing me.” You can’t let Tenko meet Kazuo. You can’t let anything happen to your old friends because of your new ones. “He’s been telling me how to stay clear of his searches. This morning he texted me to let me know that my code name popped up, but nothing else.”

“He’s a hero, but he’s helping you,” Tenko repeats. His expression darkens. “He likes you. That’s why. Do you like him?”

“He’s my friend,” you say, exasperated. “Half the reason I dated him because he reminded me of you.”

Tenko coughs. “What?”

You decide to pretend you didn’t say that. You unlock your phone and show Tenko the conversation in question. “He has information about Overhaul. We need that. Before we meet him?”

“Why would he know you needed information about Overhaul? What does his quirk do?”

“Search Engine – it lets him find the answer to any question he asks,” you say. Tenko looks – well, you’re not sure how to classify that expression. Somewhere between skeptical, pissed, and panicked. Whatever it is, it’s uncomfortable. “The problem is that it’s hard to come up with a query that excludes every answer except the one you’re looking for. And all that information comes in at the same time, so it’s hard to sort through. He –”

You trail off, trying to figure out how to explain. “He went to UA, but they pushed him too hard. His mind broke down and he dropped out, but the HPSC conscripted him to help find you. And since I’m with you, and I’m his friend, he’s helping me avoid getting caught.”

“Which means helping me, too.” Tenko looks really skeptical now. “I don’t buy it. No hero would help you if it meant helping me at the same time.”

“He’s not a hero,” you say. “The heroic system ruined his life.”

That seems to land a little better with Tenko than your previous explanations. He hands your phone back to you. “So he knows something about the Hassaikai that he wants to tell you,” he says. You nod. “And the stuff he’s told you before has been useful.”

You nod again. “Then I’ll tell Overhaul to shove it,” Tenko decides. A smirk crosses his faith at the thought. “We’ll meet him tomorrow instead. He’s not the only ally we’re considering. He can wait his fucking turn.”

You text Kazuo back, confirming the meetup while Tenko reads over your shoulder. At first he’s just looking. Then his chin notches against your shoulder, his arms wrapping around your waist. He’s wearing the gloves he went to bed in, and you let him rustle around for a few moments, getting so close he’s practically glued to your back. That’s going to be a problem in a few minutes. You have to go to work. But at the same time, you aren’t ready to go just yet. Lately you only feel normal when you’re with him.

“That guy,” Tenko says after a minute or so. “Did you really date him because he reminded you of me?”

“I was always going to be friends with him, but he made me think of you, and that’s part of why I dated him.” It’s embarrassing to admit this. You don’t like thinking about how much of your life has been marked by losing Tenko. “He was what I imagined you’d be like. If nothing had changed.”

You hadn’t realized that there was something else to it at first. Kazuo was brilliant, and he was funny, and he was kind. Half the girls in your class had a crush on him, but he wound up with you, because you made sure you were there. If there was something he needed, you had it. If he needed a partner for an assignment, you were right there, on top of everything, ready to pitch in and make sure his ideas shone. If he wanted to talk, you dropped everything to listen. You weren’t playing a part; more auditioning for one. The job of Kazuo’s sidekick, in theory. In practice, his girlfriend.

He was your second boyfriend. Your first one was an asshole who cheated on you with Mitsuko, who dropped him when she found out and made you drop him, too. That was how the two of you met, and you’re still amazed that the two of you are friends rather than mortal enemies. Kazuo was different than that, almost perfect, a version of Tenko all grown up, without the scratching and the father who shouted and a heroic quirk. You know he loved you, and you were close even after the two of you broke up, until UA pushed his quirk past its limit. And you loved him, too, in a way that was probably healthier than the way you – feel – for Tenko. Like Kazuo said, all those months ago: He never tried to kill you. And you’d never step in front of a bullet for him.

“What I would have been like,” Tenko repeats. “You must have been disappointed when you saw how I turned out.”

You elbow him lightly. “What part of me chasing you down the street said ‘I’m disappointed’? Don’t be dumb.”

“Don’t fall in love with any more heroes, then.” Tenko lifts your phone out of your hands, drops it somewhere in the blankets on the bed, and pulls you back down with him. “I already locked it down.”

He’s kissing you, one of his hands flirting with the edge of your shirt, slipping beneath it. You touch the screen of your phone and wince when you see what time it is. “I have to go.”

“It won’t take long.” Tenko’s hand slides all the way under your shirt. “I know what you like now. I’ll be fast.”

He’s probably underestimating how much time it takes for you to get fully turned on, but then again, it feels different with him. And it’s not something you want to get into before work. “I bet I can be faster.”

“Huh? You can after I –”

You twist out of Tenko’s arms and push him onto his back. He was already half-hard when he was holding you. By the time you disappear under the blankets, there’s a noticeable tent in his sweatpants. You haven’t asked if he’s okay with this, but when you catch the waistband of his pants, he lifts his hips to let you pull them down. His voice is raspy when he says your name, and before you can ask for his consent more directly, his legs shift apart, making more room for you between them. That strikes you as an invitation. You get settled a little more comfortably, although you’re not expecting to stay here for long, before you lean in to drag your tongue across the tip of his cock.

Tenko’s hips jerk. “Hold still,” you say. “Or I stop.”

“Why do I have to hold still?” Tenko freezes anyway, and you almost laugh. “It’s not fair.”

“I said I was going to be fast. I need your help. You can help by holding still.”

“So you’ll stop if I don’t.”

“Let me think.” While you’re thinking, you lick the tip of his cock again, and this time, Tenko stays still. You reward him with a kiss, and slowly open your mouth, tasting him for a long moment before pulling away to speak. “I guess if you don’t hold still, I’ll have to hold you down.”

His hips jerk again. You feel the muscles in his thighs go tense. Is that an idea he likes? You were just being playful, flirty, but suddenly your head is full of the idea of pinning Tenko’s hips to the bed and teasing him until he can’t take it any longer. You don’t get the sense that it would take very long, so you carefully shift your weight, to the tune of a sharp intake of breath from the head of the bed. Suddenly the sheet shifts back, and you glance up to find Tenko propped up on his elbows and staring down at you with glassy eyes. He wants to watch you suck his cock. That’s fine with you.

Unlike the first time you touched him, Tenko keeps his hands to himself. They’re curled into fists at his sides – no, grasping at the sheets – no, grabbing a fistful of his pillow and holding on tight. You keep your attention focused on the tip of his cock, since you’re not confident in your ability to suppress your own gag reflex, and you really don’t want to ruin Tenko’s first blowjob ever. But you’re not going to say it isn’t tempting. Every time you glance upwards, he’s a little more undone.

You’re just considering whether it’s worth a shot when Tenko’s mouth opens and a plea spills out. “I need it. I need you.”

He needs you. You wonder if something so simply can really be the magic words, the thing that takes you from unsure to dead certain, but you’re already taking him further into your mouth, your tongue flat against the underside of his cock as you breathe through your nose. Tenko shudders, gasps so sharply that could almost be a whine. You struggle to think of a way to signal your approval and finally settle on running your thumb over the exposed crest of his hip. You had one hand free when you started; now you have two, because you’ve taken his cock so far into your mouth that there’s no room left for your hand.

With Tenko’s hips held down, there’s no risk that he’ll thrust and trigger your gag reflex. You draw back partially, then sink down again, far enough that the tip of your nose brushes the coarse dark hair at his groin. The thought crosses your mind of how disastrous it would be to sneeze right now, and shortly afterward, you discover how difficult it is to laugh with a cock in your mouth. Your throat convulses as you struggle to hold it back, and Tenko moans, so loud and desperate that your face flushes and head floods through you.

You’re not laughing anymore. You draw back and sink down again and again, trying to keep the motion as smooth and effortless as possible, and Tenko’s body seizes beneath you. His back arches, and he stammers out something like a warning. It’s late. You’re not a fan of the way cum tastes – you haven’t met anyone who is except Yoshimi, and you think she’s probably lying about that – but you find that you don’t mind so much when it’s Tenko’s. There are a lot of things you don’t mind so much when it’s him.

You pull away once he begins to go soft, then duck back in to kiss the spot on his hip you were running your thumb over. He doesn’t make any move to pull his sweatpants back up, so you do it for him, and you take the opportunity to look him over. You thought he was just worn out. Now you think he might be passed out. “Are you okay?”

One hand catches you by the front of your pajama shirt and yanks you down for a kiss. You try to hit the brakes – kissing after a blowjob is iffy, and you’re not sure if Tenko knows that – but he won’t let you, and your lips crash together hard. He speaks without letting you pull away. “You just sucked my soul out through my dick. Of course I’m okay.”

“I think those two statements contradict each other.”

“I don’t care.” Tenko’s other hand comes up, landing half on your hip, half on your ass. “My turn now.”

“No.” You pull away and scramble out of bed. “Maybe later. I have to go to work.”

“Maybe later?” Tenko looks affronted, or he would if he wasn’t struggling to keep his eyes open. “What? Do you think I’d be bad at it?”

“I don’t think that. I just have to go to work. And you need to go back to sleep.” You’re pretty sure his soul’s still attached, but you definitely sapped most of his energy. Not enough to stop him from pouting, though. “Definitely later. Is that better?”

“No.” Tenko yawns. “But I’ll take it.”

He lets you go, already half-asleep as you pull your hand free, and you head to the bathroom to brush your teeth, noting an odd spring in your step. You haven’t felt this good waking up in a while. Maybe you should start the day like this more often.

Nobody else is awake when you head out to the living room and kitchen, which isn’t a surprise. Compress has been sleeping a lot, which is good – an injury like his requires extra rest. Twice goes to bed early, like an old man, according to one of his two personalities. Toga stayed up late. So did Spinner, and so did Dabi. Dabi’s the only one who stirs when you start picking through the kitchen for breakfast. “If you’re gonna fuck him before seven am, tape his mouth shut first.”

Half of you cringes at the thought that Tenko was audible from the living room. The other half, though – “Nobody made you listen.”

“Kinky. Maybe we should change your code name, Saintess.”

“If you think that’s kinky, you really need to educate yourself.”

You probably would have thought not caring if someone was eavesdropping was kinky back in the day, but then you met Mitsuko. She and Dabi would probably hate each other. Then again, Mitsuko’s not above a bout of hatefucking. Maybe that would be good for her. Speaking from personal experience, there’s nothing like getting intimate with a villain to exorcise some of your hatred of heroes.

It doesn’t matter, because there’s no way you’re introducing your friends to the League. The fact that Kazuo knows is bad enough. You make tea, pick through the kitchen for something to eat on the walk to work, and put on your shoes. It occurs to you that you should probably say something Dabi, because he’s awake, but you can’t figure out what it should be. “Um, have a good day.”

His response comes back dripping with condescension. “You have a good day too, Saintess.”

You lock the door, struggling to suppress an eyeroll. He’ll probably give Tenko a hard time once Tenko wakes up, but hopefully the blowjob high will insulate Tenko from caring about it too much. That’s not the only thing you’re hoping it’ll insulate Tenko from. At some point today he’s going to remember that you’re meeting up with your hero-adjacent ex-boyfriend after work, and the less time he spends thinking about that, the better.

You’re worried work will drag, but it speeds past, keeping you busy enough that you don’t worry too much about the fact that the League is still holed up in your apartment. Kurogiri’s looking for another potential hideout, but you don’t get the sense that any of them are in a particular hurry to leave. After all, your place is a guaranteed roof over their heads, a source of running water, a source of internet access, and a semi-comfortable place to sleep, more comfortable now that you’ve invested in an air mattress that sleeps two. You wouldn’t want to leave, if you were them.

You’re not sure you want them to, either. When you’re with them, you don’t have to lie to anybody about what you’re doing. When you’re with them, you’re not worried about being found out. When you’re with them, you’re with Tenko, and you – like him. You like him so much that you stepped in front of a bullet for him and gave him head with absolutely zero prompting. You’re not sure which of those is more out of character for you.

Your last patient of the day has a weird injury, weird in that even when you rack your brain, you can’t think what could have possibly caused it. It seems like his hand’s been degloved completely, then flipped inside out, with veins and muscles and layers of fat on the surface and skin enfolding his bones. “This was a quirk,” you say, once you’ve clenched your jaw and concealed the surprise. The patient nods. “What happened?”

He shakes his head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that. It’s not our policy to ask questions like that,” you say. The patient shrugs. He’s not the most talkative, which is fine. You get his permission and take some pictures, getting as many views of it as you can, before you render a potential treatment plan. “I’m going to call a doctor to look at this, but based on what I’m seeing, this is a hospital matter. We’ll most likely prescribe you some painkillers for the trip and wrap this up to prevent any more exposure to bacteria. Do you have any questions?”

“Are you sure you can’t fix it here?” The patient’s expression says he doesn’t want anything to do with the hospital, which isn’t a surprise, but you’re fairly sure the doctor will be able to talk him into it. “They fixed whatever’s wrong with your hand, right?”

You glance at your bandaged hand, surprised. You’re still covering the scratches Tenko left, just because the scabs keep cracking. “That’s different. Mine are superficial. Yours is – just sit tight. I’ll grab the doctor and she can explain.”

The doctor on call is on break, and not happy to be interrupted. “Sorry,” you say. “The patient in Exam 3 – his hand’s turned inside out. He doesn’t want to go to the hospital, but –”

“What do you mean, turned inside out?”

“I mean, the muscles and blood vessels are on the outside,” you say. The doctor’s eyes widen. “He might need emergency surgery to keep the hand, and it’s probably infected already. I can’t talk him into going to the hospital. I’m just a nurse. Maybe if you explain –”

The doctor sets her bento aside and gets to her feet. “Did he say how it happened?”

“It was a quirk,” you say. “I took photos already. I’ll add them to our database while you talk to him.”

“Name, age, quirk.”

“He didn’t give a name. Early thirties. Quirk – I don’t know what it’s called, but his hair looks like arrows.” Sometimes quirks are easy for you to guess. Sometimes not. “He’s a little guarded, but he came here for help. That counts for something, right?”

The doctor nods. “Upload the photos. I’ll go talk to him.”

You added the photos to the clinic’s shared drive already, and you steal the doctor’s chair to upload them to the database that covers all the clinics in the network. Keeping a database of quirk-related injuries helps identify trends, develop treatment protocols, and tailor supply and personnel distribution. If a lot of burn injuries are showing up at a particular clinic, it’s helpful to be able to supply that clinic properly. But you’ve never seen an injury like this before, and when you add the photos to the ‘open wounds’ folder in the database, you realize that no one else has, either. There’s nothing even remotely close. What kind of quirk could do this?

You’re puzzling over it, wondering if it’s worth querying public records over, when you hear a door open and shut down the hallway. At first you think it’s the doctor coming back. Then you hear the exit door at the far end of the hallway open and shut, too, and thirty seconds later, you realize that something’s wrong.

You race down the hall, skidding into Exam 3, and find the doctor sprawled out on the ground, conscious and aware and bleeding from a superficial scrape in her upper arm – but not moving. “What happened?”

She tries to answer you, but she’s speaking with agonizing slowness, almost completely unintelligible even when you try to read her lips. You hurry forward, checking her respiration and heart rate, horrified to find at least thirty seconds passing between each beat of her heart. What is this? How is she still alive? The first answer is clear: A quirk. Your patient’s quirk, which you didn’t ask about, because it’s policy not to ask. The second answer’s in doubt, and although it’s never happened while you’ve been on shift in three and a half years of working at the clinic, you know what protocol mandates when a staff member is attacked.

You press the panic button taped to the underside of the desk – why didn’t the doctor go for it? – triggering a clinic-wide alert and placing an automatic call to the emergency line. Then you turn your attention back to the doctor, the doctor you sent in here alone, checking for pupil movement, for pallor, for anything to tell you whether you need to call a code along with the alert.

Emergency services get there before law enforcement’s even left the station, and because you had contact with the attacker, too, you’re sent along in the ambulance to Yokohama General. You spend the entire way there trying to stay out of the EMTs’ way and trying to apologize to the doctor before letting this happen, until one of the EMTs tells you to can it. “If you’d known, you wouldn’t have sent anyone, but you didn’t. Put the blame where it belongs.”

That’s hard to do. Lately you’ve been so used to placing the blame on yourself that it’s turning into your default position, but this time, it really isn’t your fault. You never would have sent the doctor to check on the patient if there’d been any indication that he was dangerous. You didn’t know. That’s all.

At Yokohama General, the doctor’s whisked up to intensive care, while you’re held back in the emergency room. You’re not sure what they’re looking for – you touched the patient while you were unwrapping the bandage he’d tied around the wound, and nothing happened to you – but you hang out in an exam room anyway, with nothing to do but nap behind a curtain and text Kazuo. Might be late. Somebody attacked a doctor at work and I’m at the hospital.

“I know.”

You nearly jump out of your skin. The curtain peels back and reveals Kazuo standing there, wearing a pair of glasses and a suit jacket over his usual white shirt and slacks. The man standing next to him is wearing a suit and a pair of glasses, too – but his suit is grey, and his hair is green with streaks of yellow, and –

Sir Nighteye. You shrink back in horror, and the third member of the trio, a blue-skinned woman with a mask over her face, pipes up in a hurry. “Don’t worry, we’re here to help! Sir is very friendly! He loves to laugh!”

Sir Nighteye glances briefly at you, then looks to Kazuo. “Is this your friend?”

“I would give her space,” Kazuo says. “She was attacked on her way home last year, and was a first responder to the incident at Kamino Ward. Therapy for these traumatic experiences has not progressed as far as those who care for her might have hoped.”

You give Kazuo a dirty look, which he ignores. “I see,” Sir Nighteye says, and takes a notable step back. “I understand you had contact with the individual who attacked your coworker.”

“Yes. I examined him.” You wonder how Nighteye’s quirk works. How long it works for, and if he uses on you, how far ahead in your life he’ll be able to see. “If I had known what he was going to do –”

“That wouldn’t have been possible,” Nighteye interrupts. Maybe it’s eye contact. You bow your head. “Describe the injury to me.”

“Um –” The word that comes to mind is ‘horrific’, but after what you’ve seen over the last few months, your bar for horrific is pretty high. “It looked like his hand had been turned inside out. Skin on the inside, veins on the outside.”

“I see. Did it appear to be clean?”

“What?”

“The separation of the skin on his hand from his wrist,” Sir Nighteye says, impatient. “Was it jagged or clean?”

“Oh.” You think of the photos you took. “Jagged.”

“But the skin was otherwise intact?”

“Yes.”

“I see,” Nighteye says again. What does he see? You need to know. You need to know if you can go home tonight, or if you have to stay as far away from Tenko and the others as possible to keep them safe. “You’ve been working there for three and a half years. Have you seen an injury of that type before?”

“No,” you say. “Not in our database, either. He said it was caused by a quirk, but our protocols don’t allow us to ask more than that.”

“Kiyohara.” Nighteye doesn’t say more than Kazuo’s family name, but it’s clear what he wants. “Now.”

Kazuo’s hesitating, and you know why. “That question is too broad,” you say to Nighteye. Nighteye pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger, eyebrows raised. “It has to be more specific, or the information influx will risk overloading his brain. Since you don’t care about his health, maybe you’ll care about the fact that he won’t be useful at all after a grand mal seizure.”

You haven’t blown up on a hero, ever. Suddenly you get why Mitsuko’s been doing it. It feels good, and Nighteye, unlike the sidekicks, doesn’t rise to the bait. “Is that so?” he asks Kazuo. Kazuo nods. “We’ll secure as much information as possible before you make the query. As of now, you’re off-duty. And you’re free to go.”

That last is to you, but a warning look from Kazuo keeps you seated on the bed until Nighteye and his sidekick are gone. You open your mouth and he holds up his hand. It pisses you off. “Don’t shush me. What was that about?”

“Not here. Outside.”

You grit your teeth and follow Kazuo out through the emergency room and onto the street. It’s dark, and with autumn well on its way, the wind whipping between the buildings is cold. You follow Kazuo for two blocks, then into a park, before he stops walking and turns to face you. “You shouldn’t have spoken up. I told you – you can’t save both of us.”

“So I was supposed to just sit there while he made you overload your quirk?” You’re already out of patience. “No. Tell me what’s going on. Right now.”

“The Nighteye agency is investigating the Shie Hassaikai,” Kazuo says. Your jaw drops. “They’ve enlisted the help of dozens of unaffiliated heroes. It’s the largest operation any hero has conducted since Kamino, and it will be far better planned than Kamino was. Sir Nighteye won’t act until he’s certain of victory.”

“Why are they investigating the Hassaikai?” you choke out. “Is it because of –”

“Your friend’s involvement is tangential. They aren’t after him this time.” Kazuo’s hand rises to his temple, and you catch it, pull it back down. You spend a lot of time dragging your friends’ hands away before they can hurt themselves. “Nighteye has been pursuing the Hassaikai since before Kamino. Their investigation is related to the distribution of Trigger. You’re familiar?”

You nod. A solid thirty percent of your patients who show up in costume are showing up after experiencing the adverse effects of Trigger. The compound boosts quirk activation at the cost of everything else, and it’s one of those things you’ll never understand about people with quirks – that constant desire for more of it, more power, more everything. “The Hassaikai’s involved with that?”

“They’re distributing an inferior version of it,” Kazuo says. Tenko didn’t know that. You know he didn’t, because he would have told you. How much else doesn’t he know? “And lately they’ve been distributing something else as well. Bullets that erase quirks.”

“I know,” you say. Kazuo looks surprised. “It’s temporary, but they work.”

Compress’s quirk came back within twenty-four hours, but you know it’ll be a long time before anyone in the League forgets what happened in that warehouse. The bruise on your shoulder is fading, but the creepy red lines haven’t. “Nighteye believes that Chisaki is pursuing a more permanent version of the quirk-erasing bullets, and doing so through less than ethical means,” Kazuo says. “Every use of my quirk in the last six weeks has been related to this investigation. Your new name came up in my queries because you crossed paths with Chisaki once. If you, personally, aid him in any way, you’ll become one of the investigation’s targets. So will your friend.”

Chisaki must be Overhaul’s family name. You wonder if he’s got a family. “I don’t think we’re planning to help him,” you say, and see Kazuo’s eyebrows lift. “He killed one of us and maimed another one. That’s not forgivable.”

“Indeed.” Kazuo sits down on a bench, and so do you. It’s quiet for a little while. “So. Saintess.”

“I didn’t pick it.”

“I know,” Kazuo says. Of course he does. “I’d have advised you to choose a name soon regardless. As this escalates, you’ll need to shield your true identity.”

“So I won’t go to jail,” you clarify.

“So you won’t be killed,” Kazuo says. You stare at him. “I’m aware of the – position – you hold in your friend’s organization. If his enemies believe they can use you against him, they will do it, and since targeting you when you’re with him will be difficult, they’ll do it when you’re alone, as a civilian. My query indicated that you haven’t been found out, but today was a very near miss.”

That should make sense to you. You force yourself to think. Why would the Nighteye agency care about an attack in a free clinic on the rough side of Yokohama? They wouldn’t, unless – “Was that guy one of the Hassaikai?”

“Sir Nighteye suspects he is. He won’t know for sure until I search,” Kazuo says. His phone buzzes. He checks it and sighs. “My parameters are in. I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Kazuo –” You don’t know what to say, and he’s already getting to his feet. “Why are you helping me so much? You could get in trouble.”

“I don’t care about that,” Kazuo says. He barely cares about anything anymore. Seeing the apathy overtake him for the past three years has been agonizing. “The world your friend wishes to create, a world without heroes, is a world where this would not have happened to me. It’s too late for me, but there are others who could be spared.”

You look at him, feeling your throat tighten and your eyes burn. “I’m sorry.”

“I told you,” Kazuo says, for the third time today, over his shoulder as he starts the walk back to Yokohama General, “you can’t save us both.”

You’ve always thought he meant himself and Tenko when he said that. Now you wonder if he means himself and you. You wonder what saving either of you would mean. And you wonder if it’s too late for you already.

Your phone buzzes, and you look at it. It’s the new group chat, the one you made because you couldn’t face the thought of never seeing Sho or Hirono’s phone numbers pop up again. Mitsuko’s texting you. And Ryuhei. Quit being a stranger. Come hang with us.

Tenko and the others are already expecting you to be out tonight, and you never said how long you’d be gone. Where are you?

Look up.

You look up, and sure enough, your friends are strolling towards you. “Kazuo dropped a pin,” Ryuhei calls once he’s in earshot. “We never see you anymore.”

It’s been a while since you saw Ryuhei, but Mitsuko? “We saw each other five days ago, Mitsu.”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t exactly fun. And you had to run off to your stupid job.” Mitsuko rolls her eyes. “Come on. Let’s go out. I swear I won’t get wasted and spit on any more sidekicks.”

“And no peeing on the All Might statue.”

“Fine.” Mitsuko heaves a dramatic sigh, while Ryuhei cracks up. “Drinks first.”

“Drinks,” Ryuhei agrees. “I found a maid bar, and they’ll treat me like a creep if I go in there alone.”

You’re pretty sure the three of you together look weirder strolling into a maid bar than Ryuhei would have by himself, but nobody who works there comments on it, and they’re nicer to you than you expected them to be. One of them knows you – she’s one of the people who uses the clinic as a primary care provider, so you’ve seen her a few times a year for the past three years. She cracks a joke about how Ryuhei would look better in a maid costume than she would, which leads directly into Mitsuko bullying him into trying on the headpiece of one of the costumes. You take a picture before you can stop yourself and drop it in the group chat. Kazuo’s busy, but now there’s a record, and you’re pretty sure it’ll make Yoshimi laugh.

You’ve been most comfortable with Tenko and the League lately, but it’s nice to have a night out with your friends, too – one that’s not complicated by your involvement with your childhood best friend turned boyfriend, who probably fits the criteria of a domestic terrorist and who’s been living in your apartment on and off for the past six weeks with his gang of domestic terrorist friends. Mitsuko and Ryuhei are the most irreverent of your group, and they live the closest to the edge. Ryuhei has a record that isn’t his fault – his quirk is entirely unconscious, and when a sidekick launched a quirk-based attack at him while he was running away from a building he’d graffitied, he couldn’t stop himself from reflecting it back. Mitsuko doesn’t have a record, but the cops in Yokohama know her too well to ever give her the benefit of the doubt again. They might have the privilege of having quirks, but you’ve always been able to complain with them in a way that you haven’t with the others.

After the maid café, you find yourselves at karaoke. You collectively suck at karaoke. Ryuhei’s got the best voice, but his enunciation is the first thing to go when he’s drunk, and you can’t listen to him slurring his way through a song without laughing. Mitsuko is tone-deaf, but makes up for it with enthusiastic dance moves, and there’s absolutely nothing about your performances that stands out. You’re such a nonevent at karaoke that Sho used to fall asleep when it was your turn to sing.

It should be fun. It used to be fun. But you’ve lost two friends now. One of your friends is sick, while another’s being forced into work that could snap his mind in two. Mitsuko isn’t okay; you’re not okay. Ryuhei isn’t, either, and when the three of you are alone and you run out of things to talk about, there’s no point in pretending otherwise.

“Everything sucks now,” Ryuhei says in a break between songs. “Not just since they died. For a while.”

“It sucked the whole time. We just didn’t admit it.” Mitsuko is facedown in one of the pillows on the couch. Her voice is muffled. “It was always bullshit. When they were here, it was easier not to think about it.”

“I miss them,” you say. Your voice wavers, but only once. “I wish they were here.”

“Yeah. They should be here, and those heroes shouldn’t.” Ryuhei’s words are slurred, but he’s getting his point across just fine. “If they’re so great, how come nine hundred people died on their watch?”

They sound like Tenko. He’d be happy to hear this, and like you’ve summoned him just by thinking of him, your phone pings with a text from the burner phone Tenko’s been using to call people – Kurogiri, Overhaul, and you. When are you coming back?

I’ll be back tonight.

When?

Can’t he just trust you? You’re about to text back that you’ll be home when you’re done when Mitsuko scoops the phone out of your hands. “Your new boyfriend’s kind of clingy, huh?”

“No,” you say. Part of you gets a stupid little thrill out of admitting that Tenko’s your boyfriend. “Not clingy. He knows I was meeting Kazuo tonight.”

Mitsuko makes an error sound. “Bad move. Telling the new boy about the former boy makes the new boy insecure.”

“No –”

“Especially if the first guy is Kazuo,” Ryuhei says. “Fucking hell. If I was dating his ex and she went out to meet him – and she didn’t tell me when she was coming back – I’d probably shit a brick.”

“Thanks. I really could have done without that picture in my head.” Even as you return fire, you’re wondering if they’ve got a point. If it’s not just that Kazuo’s working for the heroes. If any part of it is that Tenko’s jealous of the guy you dated before him. “What should I do?”

Mitsuko’s still holding your phone, and to your horror, she sends a text. This is Mitsu. Your girlfriend’s not banging her ex, she’s hanging with us. Chill out.

Tenko texts back immediately. Two words. Prove it.

“He wants proof,” Mitsuko announces. “Selfie time! Look cute.”

You can’t manage looking cute. You’re too stressed to look cute, and too distracted by the stupid faces your friends are making. Mitsuko snaps a photo and sends it off, followed by a text. Your turn.

For what?

To prove you’re not banging your ex right now.

You cringe. “He doesn’t have any exes.”

“Aww, you’re his first? No wonder he’s acting like such a freak.” Mitsuko snickers. “It’s fine, anyway. We already know what he looks like.”

Something about that strikes you as odd, but before you can ask, Ryuhei pulls a phone out of his pocket. Not his. This one has a cracked screen and a case with an Endeavor pinup card taped to the back, and all at once there’s a lump in your throat. “Is that Hiro’s?”

“Yeah. They released her personal effects, fucking finally. I was her emergency contact, so I got them.” Mitsuko takes the phone from Ryuhei, your phone forgotten even as it pings again. “You know she was conscious under there?”

Your stomach clenches. “No.”

“Like the whole time. When I unlocked it, there were a whole bunch of undelivered messages, to all of us. I guess the wreckage blocked the signal.” Mitsuko’s voice is flat. Her eyes are filling with tears. “She recorded a message for us. Here.”

You don’t want to listen. You don’t want to see. Not when you had something to do with the disaster that killed her, not when it’s partially your fault. The screen is black, but you can hear Hirono’s voice, rough and choked with dust and tears as she tells all of you that she loves you, that she hated waking up most mornings except that you all made her stupid life worth living. No jokes about Endeavor. No picking on you for being boring or Mitsuru for being a simp for his latest girlfriend or Mitsuko for whatever item of clothing she bought that Hirono hates. Just Hiro saying she loves you. And Hiro saying goodbye.

You’re crying by the end of it, messy, stupid tears. Ryuhei’s teared up, too, but unlike you, he’s still able to talk. “That was the last audio clip,” he says. “There were a bunch of others. While she was trying to grab the phone, I guess. The first one was really interesting.”

He presses play on it, and you know instantly what it’s recording: The fight between All Might and All For One, audio that the news helicopters couldn’t have picked up, audio that would have been suppressed if anyone had gotten ahold of it. All For One is taunting All Might over his failures, mocking him for his ideals, the same words you can imagine Tenko using but with thousands of times more glee. And then you hear it, All For One’s voice chilling your blood even through a recording: “There is one thing you might be interested to know. Shigaraki Tomura, my apprentice? He was once known as Shimura Tenko – your beloved master’s grandson!”

You freeze in place. “That name sounded kind of familiar,” Ryuhei says, after he’s hit pause. “We couldn’t figure out why at first. Yoshimi was the one who got it. Shimura Tenko was your friend. The one who went missing.”

“We all told you he was dead, but you were right and we were wrong.” Mitsuko sprawls out on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “We figured there couldn’t be two, so we checked with Kazuo, and then we asked if we should tell you. If it wouldn’t be too hard on you with everything else going on. You know what he said?”

You can guess. “He said, What makes you think she doesn’t know?” Ryuhei mimics Kazuo’s frozen voice. “And then it all made sense. Why you’ve been acting so weird. Why you haven’t been around. Where you got that weird scar on your wrist –”

“And that bite mark on your neck,” Mitsuko adds, and your hand flies up to cover it even though it’s long gone. She waves your phone at you, the screen lit up with texts from Tenko. “I’m texting Shigaraki Tomura right now, aren’t I?”

You could lie. You need to lie. But even as you’re stammering through the first sentence of your denial, you know it’s too late. Your friends know. Kazuo as good as told them. And in some weird way, you’re relieved. You don’t have to lie any more. You can let it go. So you stop talking, except for one sentence. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Are you kidding me? We don’t want to rat you out,” Ryuhei says. “We want in.”

You stare at him. “We want to meet him first,” Mitsuko says. “Since you’ve been hung up on him since you were a toddler and your judgment with guys isn’t usually garbage –”

“But we want in,” Ryuhei interrupts. “Like we said. It’s been bullshit for a long time. At least your psycho boyfriend is doing something about it.”

“So?” Mitsuko looks at you expectantly. “When do we meet him?”

Your phone pings again, and again – and then it starts ringing. Mitsuko holds it out to you, and you answer the call. “My friends want to meet you.”

“I’m not jealous,” Tenko says. Someone guffaws in the background. “I’m not. I thought someone had – when are you getting back? It’s –”

“My friends want to meet you,” you say again. “Do you want to meet them?”

“They want to meet me,” Tomura repeats. He sounds just as confused as you feel. “Like, me, or –?”

“They know. I didn’t tell them, they guessed.”

“We want in,” Ryuhei says loudly, and you jump. “Do we have to audition or something? I’ve got a record.”

“I’d have one if I hadn’t blown my arresting officer,” Mitsuko adds from your other side, and someone on the other end of the line – probably Spinner – breaks out in a coughing fit. “So?”

Tomura’s quiet for a second. “In a few days,” he says. Ryuhei digs an excited elbow into your side. “Tell them they’d better know exactly what “in” means for them.”

“I’ll tell them,” you say. He’s stressed. You can tell. This is your fault. “Sorry.”

“Don’t. When are you coming back?”

“Soon,” you say. “I promise. I –”

Whatever you were going to say gets drowned out by Mitsuko making incredibly loud kissing sounds right next to the microphone. You hang up and shove her away, hard. Not that it bothers her. She’s cackling to herself. “He said yes?”

“In a few days. And you’d better know exactly what you mean when you say you’re in.”

“Nice!” Ryuhei gives you what’s probably a friendly punch in the arm, and you recoil with a hiss. He hit just above the impact point of Overhaul’s bullet. “Oh, sorry.”

Mitsuko has a weird look on her face now. You decide not to overreact to it. She might just be drunk. When Ryuhei hops up to go rent your karaoke booth for another hour, she turns to you. “Does he hurt you?”

“Who, Ryuhei?”

“No. Your boyfriend.” Mitsuko’s expression is serious, maybe more serious than you’ve ever seen it. “That thing on your wrist. I remember when your voice was fucked up, too. There’s more, right? Something’s up with your shoulder. Did he do that?”

You shake your head. You didn’t step in front of the bullet on Tenko’s orders. He was mad at you for doing it. “But he’s hurt you before,” Mitsuko says. You open your mouth and she talks right over you. “You’re going to say he didn’t mean to, right?”

But he didn’t. The first time, he didn’t remember you until it was almost too late. When he bit you, he didn’t realize how hard he was doing it, just like he didn’t realize he’d activated his quirk the first time you touched him. When his nails tore up the back of your hand, it was because you put your hand there. “He didn’t mean to,” you say. Mitsuko makes a derisive sound. “Don’t. I know him and you don’t. He didn’t mean to.”

“Just because he’s sorry doesn’t mean he didn’t mean it,” Mitsuko says. “I know guys like him. I know them better than you do.”

Guys like him. Magne said something like that, too. You didn’t try to talk her out of it, and you don’t try to talk Mitsuko out of it, either – just like you’ve given up trying to talk Tenko out of the lies his master told him for now. “You’ll meet him soon. You can make up your own mind.”

Ryuhei comes back, and you and Mitsuko shut up in unison. “We got another hour, but then they’re kicking us out,” he reports. “We got another few songs. Who wants to sing?”

You don’t to. Mitsuko does, though, and after two songs from her, Ryuhei commandeers the mic and forces you to sing. Like always, you’re boring enough to send at least one of your friends to sleep, and with Mitsuko passed out on the couch, you hand the mic back to Ryuhei. He’s in a good mood, at least partially because he’s drunk, but you’re most of the way to sober, and you can’t help feeling like you’ve screwed up. You wanted to keep your friends out of this, and they’re in. You’re this close to getting Kazuo in trouble, too. And you’ve let Tenko down. Again.

You text him, wondering if he’s still awake, hoping he isn’t. I’m sorry.

Don’t. We still need allies, and if you trust them, I can trust them, too. Tenko’s response comes back fast, and the weight of his trust knocks the air out of you. When are you coming home?

We’re leaving soon. I should be home in an hour or so.

Good. Tenko’s immediate response gives you that weird hit of normalcy again. It’s a normal conversation, the kind you’d be having if you’d grown up together and gotten together and moved in together, if nothing had gone wrong. I miss you.

I miss you too.

“Hey,” Ryuhei says, and you look up. “I’m putting on the performance of a lifetime here. You two aren’t even watching?”

“Sorry,” you say. Mitsuko sits up, then lies back down with her head in your lap. “Go for it.”

Ryuhei gets back to it, aiming slightly sulky looks your way, and you settle in. You keep your eyes on him, but your mind’s left the building. It’s already on the train, halfway back to your apartment, all the way back to your apartment, through the front door and home to your best friend.

Starboy Tomura animation

Omg i get a nose bleed while drawing it🥵🥹

Shigaraki.

A man so beautiful, so sexy, so perfect the world can't handle him. Therefore he couldn't be real, and the sky weaps for him.

yandere!shigaraki x reader (university au)

set in the same au as this post ! just ended finals so it gave me an idea to write something. in this AU shigaraki never became a villain and is just attending uni like you and touya (he met AFO tho)

word count: 2082 tw: yandere, possessive behavior, obsessive behavior, stalking, toxic behavior, university au, manipulative behavior

✤you sighed for the umpteenth time that day. you had a final to pass and you didn't study it very well. you were right in front of the auditorium where you were supposed to pass your final, trying to memorize as much of your lesson sheet as you could, only managing to stress even more.

✤you waited a few minutes after the door opened, letting people go in before finally entering the auditorium. it was the biggest room of your university and it was quite impressive, not really helping with your stress. you roamed around the seats desperately trying to find yours.

✤after some time, you finally found it. you tried asking the blue haired guy who was sitting at the edge of your row to stand up so that you could sit but it was no use, he wasn't listening to you, he was more interested by the music in his earphones.

✤after hesitating for a while you decided to touch his shoulder, hoping that this way he would finally notice you. he did but when he looked at you he gave you a death stare, his red eyes piercing through you. you flinched but decided to talk.

"hum... e-excuse me, this is my seat."

✤you were cursing yourself inside for stuttering before he finally decided to get up and let you pass not before sighing loudly and muttering something you couldn't quite hear. you thanked him in a whisper before passing by him and realizing your seat was right next to him. just your luck.

✤you sat down, trying to collect yourself and to concentrate on your exam. you were taking out your pens while trying to remember your class as much as you can, only to stop after a short while because you saw that you were getting nowhere.

✤trying to destress a bit you attempted giving a look to your neighbor, trying to see what he was doing. he was quite handsome, not your mainstream handsome sure but definitely handsome. you bet girls were all over him, though he seemed to have quite the bad personality.

✤when your eyes met, you turned away, blushing. he definitely caught you staring at him. before you could even feel even more embarrassed the supervisors told you to put your bags and phones away before finally handing the exam sheets.

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

✤your exam was finally over, you hoped your grader would take pity on you with the tears stain on your paper but you doubted it. the guy who was sitting next to you had already left by the time you were done so you could leave the row without any problem. before you left you saw that he forgot his earphones, you decided to take them. you'd give them back to him when you saw him.

✤you exited the auditorium, meeting some acquaintances, talking to them about exams. without any surprises, they all done better than you. while you were talking, you could almost swear you felt ruby eyes watching you intensely.

✤it was only a few days later, when classes started again, that you saw the blue haired guy. he was playing a game on his phone, sitting on a bench in the courtyard of the university. besides him was sitting touya, one of the most popular guy in the university and a blonde girl who was often hanging around them but that you didn't know the name of.

✤although you weren't sure if you should interrupt them you decided it was a good opportunity to give him back his earphones, maybe you'd even get to talk to touya ! but when you started heading over to the bench, touya and the girl left. looks like you wouldn't talk to touya today either, you were hesitating whether you should leave and try to give him back his earphones later when touya was here.

✤too bad for you, he noticed you and he even frowned when he saw you. you didn't want to be labelled as weird for staring at him again so you decided to give him back his earphones. you approached his bench, an awkward smile on your lips.

"hey... we were sitting together at the exam last week."

✤he raised one of his brows, unimpressed, waiting for you to keep going.

"you forgot your earphones, I came to give them back."

✤you searched for them in your bag before giving them to him, wrapped in a tissue so that they wouldn't get dirty. his look softened a bit when he saw them. he lifted his gaze up to you, you shuddered when his red eyes met yours, he really had quite the effect on you. you stared at each other for a while before he decided to speak.

"thanks."

"well, that's all I had to say, have a nice day."

✤you don't know what you were expecting but it wasn't something as quick as that. you started to walk away before you felt him grab your wrist.

"when is your next class ?"

"hum... in an hour I think.."

"then sit with me for a bit."

✤you couldn't make any excuses to refuse, maybe you just didn't want to refuse so you just sat next to him. there was a bit of silence before he decided to break it.

"i heard you crying when we were taking the exam."

✤you started blushing hard, embarrassed. you thought you were subtle about it but looks like he heard you. you shrank on yourself as he kept talking.

"yeah. the exam didn't really go well for me, I started studying too late..."

"well... in return for finding my earphones maybe I could help you with classes you struggle with. I think I can say im not a bad student."

✤your eyes started shining, before you got closer to him, grabbing his hand, which you noticed was gloved.

"you'd do that ? that would save my life ! but I don't want to bother you..."

"if im offering it means it doesn't bother me."

✤he looked aside, blushing a bit not anything too noticeable but he still blushed. he took his phone out before asking you for your number. you gave him and stayed with for a bit before finally heading to classes.

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

✤you learned a bit about the blue haired guy. his name was shigaraki tomura, he was your upper classmate although he studies in the same major as you. he is always at the top of his classes without studying much. you also heard some rumors about him, one about his adoptive father who had ties with the university director but also the villain world.

✤however, you didn't pay much attention to it. shigaraki was a nice guy, although his personality was a bit special. he easily got irritated with the slightest inconvenience and sometimes he was a bit of an asshole to almost everyone but not to you at least.

✤you often met up at the library to study, he would teach you a lot of things. you were very thankful to him for doing that. nothing was forcing him to but he was helping. he really was a nice guy.

✤beside your study sessions with shigaraki you started to feel very uncomfortable when you were alone. you felt like someone was watching you, following you and examining your every moves. the discomfort grew even more when you heard the click of a camera, like someone had taken a picture of you when you weren't aware of it.

✤you began to always look back when you were walking alone, panicking whenever you could hear the footsteps of anyone behind you. you were pretty sure you had a stalker, you tried telling your best friends but they told you it was only an impression, that you were overreacting.

✤you didn't dare tell anyone else, afraid they would think you were crazy. you just kept quiet, your paranoia growing even more as each day passed.

✤your fear reached it's peak one day at the university. you were roaming through your locker, searching for a book you forgot before entering the library to study with shigaraki. however when you opened your locker, the book wasn't the only thing you found.

✤there was a letter on your book, by the way it was positioned it was clear that it wasn't just slipped inside your locker, someone must have opened it. you shivered at the thought, taking the letter and opening it.

✤inside it were pictures of you, not normal pictures but candid shots, photos you have never seen before and that you didn't know existed. now you were sure of it, someone was stalking you. but who would ? and why ?

✤you roamed through the pictures, some were taken at the university or in the streets but one of them really scared you. it was a picture of you sleeping, in your room, in your house.

✤you let out a shaky breath, terrified. how did they know where you lived..? you covered your mouth in shock, you checked the back of the picture and saw a few words written on it.

<<you'll soon be mine>>

"oh my god..."

✤you took a step back and bumped into someone. when you turned around you saw shigaraki standing behind you.

"you're taking a while for one book."

✤when he said that, you bursted into tears and hugged him closely. you stayed like this for a while as he soothed you. when you were calmer you explained everything to him: from when you started to feel like someone was following you to what happened just now.

✤just the fact that he believed you made you feel instantly better. he advised you to report the person to the police and he told you he would walk you home everyday. he did.

✤he would come get you before classes and walk you home after them. you would even study at your place sometimes because in public you were scared the stalker could take more pictures of you. although, thanks to shigaraki, you felt like he wasn't stalking you anymore. maybe you being with a guy scared him and drove him away. you didn't even want to know to be honest.

✤you got closer and closer with shigaraki, everything felt natural with him. and it was only a matter of time before you eventually started dating.

✤it all started with "unintended" touches, you would graze your hand against shigaraki's while looking for your pen. trying to grab his gaze whenever you looked at him. he was quite the oblivious guy because he seemed to never grab any of your hints.

✤it was only when you kissed him that he got the hint. you jumped on him after being tired of him ignoring any of your move : at that time he definitely understood.

✤you started dating at that time and shigaraki would never let go of you, always clinging onto you no matter what he was doing. you study together ? he would pull you on his lap, you were cooking ? he would hug you from behind, even when you slept he would always big spoon you.

✤at university everyone knew you were together, shigaraki was quite the jealous boyfriend. never letting any of your friend talk to you for long, you didn't mind after all they didn't believe you when you were talking about your stalker.

✤you also got to know better touya and the blonde girl whose name was toga, not that you talked to them much. shigaraki wouldn't allow it after all. you didn't really mind either.

✤you passed your year with outstanding grades and it was all thanks to shigaraki. he made your life so much better.

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

✤you were sleeping on your notebooks as shigaraki watched you. he loved watching you, he always did. he took his phone out and took a picture of you. another one for his collection.

✤he was the one stalking you, he had been from the day you met at the exam. he pulled all sort of strings to make sure you two got close and the fact that your friend didn't believe someone was stalking you was a blessing for him.

✤he isolated you from everyone and you didn't even see he was the bad guy in the story. he had you all for himself without any effort. he pulled a strand of your hair behind your ear while smiling softly.

✤he was right when he put the letter in your locker, you were all his now.

SHIGARAKI NSFW ALPHABET

{ gift for my beautiful wife ~ @nutsnhonie }

warnings || smut, asphyxiation, fear play, blood kink, marking, rough sex, biting, vouyerism, {more,, but i cant rly think of what to put}

{an: wife wife wife wife wife wife}

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

he cant do much honestly, due to his quirk, but he will hand you things like a wet rag,, water bottle,, etc. even though he is an asshole, he still cares about you.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

his favorite is your hair, since he cant harm that by touching it. but from afar his favorite is definitely your thighs.

on HIMSELF,, he doesnt like much. though he is proud of his dick for some reason,,,

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

he doesn't cum as much as the others, but he still fills you up, hence the name "creampie"

will almost always do it inside of you.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

he definitely watches you masturbate, or watches you while HE masturbates. plug a lil weird but he chill,,

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

hes fucked hookers, or anyone the was willing, but he never cared for them or cared if they finished or not. therefore he is more experienced in HIS job at it. not so much the other things.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

doggy style. though he holds your hips like a british person and their teacup, its still his favorite position.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

doesnt find humor attractive during sex. therefore he is definitely the serious type.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

he has a good amount of hair, but keeps it maintained. same color as the hair on his head and has a niiiceee happy trail.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

not very romantic, but does love you. will probably be romanticish AFTER the sex. still cant fathom the fact that you want him.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

does it when you arent there. when he is really pent up with stress from either a mission or something else, then he will find different ways to touch himself. just wants to get off a few times.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

asphyxiation, blood play, the usual. he definitely likes choking you to the best of his abilities without actually killing you.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

his room, though anywhere you want him to fuck you he totally will.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

you in general, but theres just something about seeing you covered in blood that sparks a match in him.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

coprophilia or anything nasty like that.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

prefers giving, seeing it as his best way of getting you off. his chapped lips definitely make the job easier. he does enjoy receiving though as most people do.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

fast and rough definitely. will only slow down if you beg him too.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

absolutely. he loves taking risks of someone catching you. also if he is in a time crunch he will.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

this is Shigaraki we are talking about. of course he will. enjoys inflicting pain on you, risking being caught, etc

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

for him around 4, but thats just for him. if he is going down on you than it doesnt matter. he can go as long as you need him too. gets him out of team things anyways.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

has a few small vibrators that he collected for you. mainly for when he isnt there, though he definitely doesn't mind using them during sex with you.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

teasing is almost constant with him. he enjoys watching you squirm and watching your face flush up with embarrassment.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

aside from grunts and huffs, he doesnt make much noise. if you manage to get him in a submissive manner {unlikely} then he will whine from overstimulation.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

absolutely into marking. likes licking blood from cuts he inflicts on you, or marking you with hickeys or bites. another one would be fear play. enjoys watching you squirm with fear as he pretends like he is about to actually touch you fully.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

his torso and arms are toned and he is littered with scars from either fighting or missions. his dick is around 7-8 inches hard, with a slightly darker tip than his skin.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

most likely high from all the pent up anger, but wont force himself on you. {maybe in another fic....}

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

will wait for you to fall asleep until he does, but sometimes he doesnt sleep at all after.

hope you like,,, im not used to his character much since i left the fandom a while ago.

{ made by @whokilledsamara }