greta

by genocidalbbg on ao3

“I’ll keep you safe.” Eiji whispers once he’s sure Ash is asleep, the words barely louder than a breath, as if saying them too firmly might disturb the fragile peace that’s finally settled over the room. “You’ve protected me way too many times. Let me return the favor, just this once.”

His fingers pause in Ash’s hair, lingering against the soft strands as he looks down at him.

The tension that usually carves itself into every inch of Ash’s face has smoothed out, but it hasn’t disappeared entirely.

His lashes are damp, clumped together from crying, and there are faint trails of dried tears on his cheeks that glint faintly in the filtered morning light. His lips are parted, slightly chapped.

He looks young like this. Not just younger, but untouched, almost, like someone who might have grown up differently. Someone who might have laughed more and fought less.

Eiji feels a pressure rise in his chest, something between heartbreak and tenderness, as he takes in the way Ash’s entire body seems to trust him enough to fall apart and fall asleep in the same breath. That kind of trust is rare. Sacred. It’s more than Eiji feels worthy of, and yet, he cradles it with both hands.

He traces the outline of Ash’s jaw with his eyes, the curve of his cheek, gone red and swollen from tears that had come too fast, too suddenly, after being held back for too long.

The streaks remain dried along his face, a map of everything he tries not to feel, not to show. Eiji wants—achefully, irrationally—to erase them, like that might somehow undo the reasons they’re there in the first place.

For a fleeting second, he’s caught by the silent urge to press a kiss against the tear-streaked skin of Ash’s cheek. He almost leans in.

Almost.

Read the rest of the fic here:

Hey! I’m opening up fic requests that I’ll be writing and posting on AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/users/genocidalbbg

Fandoms I’m writing for:

- My Hero Academia

- Banana Fish

- Attack on Titan

- Jujutsu Kaisen

- The Summer Hikaru Died

- Marvel (specifically the MCU)

I’m down to write about your OCs too.

Feel free to send me:

- A pairing or a character

- A general vibe/scenario/prompt (as specific or vague as you want)

- Anything self-indulgent or emotionally devastating (encouraged😛)

- Tropes, AUs, songs, dialogue snippets, etc.

I’m pretty open to writing almost anything (angst, fluff, smut, hurt/comfort, dark themes, omegaverse, etc.), and I’ll just let you know if there’s something I’m not comfortable committing to.

You can send requests via:

- Tumblr asks

- DMs

- By replying to this post

It happens to me quite often, seeing people call Ash’s death a suicide. Saying that he wanted to die, that in some way, he chose it.

And honestly, I find myself agreeing with them. At least a little.

Ash was tired. God, he was so tired. Not just in his body, but down to his soul—tired in a way that no amount of sleep, safety, or even love could fully heal. He had fought for so long, survived for so long, clawed his way out of hell again and again, only to find that peace was always just a little bit further, just a little bit out of reach. Even when freedom was right there, he was too exhausted to chase after it anymore.

I don’t think Ash sought death in the traditional sense. I don’t think it was hopelessness, exactly. I don’t think it was the desperate self-destruction of someone who wanted to disappear, nor was it despair.

It was surrender.

It was laying down his sword, finally, after a lifetime of fighting battles that no boy, no teenager, no person should have ever had to fight. It was choosing, in those final moments, to sit with Eiji’s letter—the one thing in his whole life that had been purely good—and letting it be enough. Letting himself be enough, for once.

It wasn’t about giving up in bitterness. It wasn’t about hatred. It was a kind of soft resignation. After everything, he was finally giving himself permission to stop.

Ash’s death wasn’t just another act of violence. It wasn’t another defeat. It wasn’t just loss. It was, in its quietest way, an act of reclaiming. Reclaiming even the smallest shred of agency that the world had ripped from his hands over and over again.

It was Ash, who had been used, hunted, abandoned, and brutalized, finally deciding: This is where I stop. This is enough.

And no—it doesn’t make it fair. It doesn’t undo the tragedy of it. It doesn’t make the grief any easier to carry.

But it’s comforting, in a way, to think that at least in those final moments, he had a choice. Maybe not in how or when or why the end came. But in the way he met it.

We’ll never really know what was going through Ash’s head when he chose to stay in that library instead of calling for help. We’ll never know if he even had a real chance of surviving, or if the wound Lao gave him was already fatal, something no ambulance could have saved him from.

But what we do know is what he chose to do with the time he had left.

He chose peace.

He chose to stop.

He chose to hold onto love, instead of fear.

And in a life that had been defined by cruelty, by survival, by endless brutal choices made for him—that one, tiny choice? That mattered.

two sides of the same coin