✶ ☾ 𝕊𝕒𝕟𝕒𝕜𝕠 ☽ ✶

Then, the world erupted with a piercing cry, a desperate call to others the same. The Malgonian tiger sank low to the ground and dragged itself away from fresh prey—a deer. It was so newly mauled that it hadn't started to stink up the stifled, hot summer air just yet. There was still a glisten in its big black eyes, and its blood ran bright arterial red.

At the same time the tiger disappeared, you and your partner ducked into the overgrowth to avoid being seen from above. That noise had come from a very distressed harpy, either in the throes of death or badly injured. Neither of those options would produce favorable outcomes, as it was only a matter of time before the sky swarmed with black wings and powerful bodies. From below, the harpies often resembled a kettle of vultures gliding effortlessly, gracefully, even, on their enormous wings. Once they got closer, their arms, legs, and faces would be revealed to you; it would already be too late.

"Shit, you've got to be kidding me," sighed your partner, a middle-aged man of some renown in your shared field. Even though you could stand proudly on your own degree and accomplishments, you were not on equal footing. He ran this operation; you did your work and shut up. "Last I heard, the harpies were supposed to have migrated north a few weeks ago. Why are they still here?"

"Hell if I know!" you retorted, cracking your neck as you craned it to see up into the sky. There was no trace of others, but this one continued to wail for help. "I want to see why it's so loud. Maybe we can make a specimen out of it?"

Your colleague beamed, "Right, then! On we go. Let's have a look at the ugly thing. Just remember to stay low and be quiet."

You came from a hunting village in the western plains, and you knew all about hunting and how to stay hidden for a significant amount of time. Your knees couldn't do what they did, and you could barely contort your body beyond lying stick straight on a mattress, but when your life depended on silence and camouflaging into the tall weeds, you learned how to do it well.

As you crawled closer to the noises, the louder and sharper they came. Harpies had the sort of cry that pierced straight into your skull like a serrated arrowhead. That pain likes to sit inside your brain and throb and throb and throb. Some people had even reported that their ears would bleed, and it wasn't uncommon to pass out from just how incapacitating it could be.

Luckily, this one was just focused on getting attention, and not stopping you in your tracks, literally.

Your colleague reached the edge of the undergrowth and ventured a glance over the top of it to see what was beyond before immediately throwing himself down onto his stomach.

"It almost saw me!" he whispered. "It's a harpy, alright. But we've just walked into a total goldmine, my friend. It's a male harpy. Do you know how rare those are? Why, I think it was something, like, once every fifty or sixty years. What a treat! Oh, my, this is so much more exciting than bloody tigers!"

"I want to see!" You used his back for balance and slowly pushed your head above the tall weeds, just until you could see the creature.

It wasn't far away, about fifty feet or so, if you had to guess. He hunched over on his knees, thrashing about with his arms and wings bound by rope or netting; you couldn't really tell at a glance. Whatever his bindings, they held fast, and they were strong enough that the harpy couldn't free his wings from them to fly away.

"This must've been an old harpy breeding ground, and he wandered into an old trap some hunters laid out for them. It looks all but abandoned now, though," said your partner, lightly stroking his chin with one hand, holding himself and you up with the other. "Poor bastard."

"Why would they put traps down for harpies?" you asked.

"Ah, for the same reason we're interested. Research!" he said, brightly. "Only, I believe ours to be a more noble pursuit. While we wish to understand, the hunters want trophies or money. Poaching any living creature should be illegal, but harpies just aren't seen that way. Not human. Not an animal. But an evil beast. Hunters are more intelligent than we give them credit for; they know this."

Then, was waiting for this beast to die for the sake of research, the right thing to do, either? Just how much different would you be from a hunter? You're still banking on his death for acknowledgment and status, so how was that different from a hunter poaching for trophies or money? How much of science was actually scientists bullshitting people into believing their actions weren't just another form of evil?

"Should we free him somehow?" you asked.

Gobsmacked, your partner let his jaw hang open for a moment before scoffing and looking away, "Absolutely not! Are you fucking mad? One, he will benefit both our careers if we let him pass on, and two, I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in being eviscerated once he's able to use his hands again."

You didn't like his answer. You thought about punching him. "So, we're just going to sit here until he starves and dies?"

"Correction!" your partner gestured to you with his nose. "You're going to stay here and sit here until he dies. I'm going to ride back to the university to let them know we have something big coming their way in a few days. You aren't to return to camp until you can no longer see, understood? I want eyes on him for as long as possible!"

Two days. You lasted two days before the guilt got to you, two days of listening to the harpy's cries, weakening, and his hope of freedom waning. Harpies were not good beings—they were savage and unforgiving, known for swiping people off their feet and dropping them from deadly heights so their bones would shatter, making the meat tender for the fire later.

There were even rumors that female harpies stole men from surrounding villages to use for producing offspring. Perhaps that was one reason your colleague was so enthusiastic about the entire thing: He wanted to know just how much genetic material was shared between humans and harpies. To a lesser degree, it was a curiosity of yours as well.

But even that wasn't enough to stop you from revealing yourself to the harpy one evening after the sun had set. You came with a large canteen and seasoned jerky from your own rations. It wouldn't be enough to sate the appetite of a starving creature; you hoped it would thwart it as a threat.

The harpy's calls had dwindled into dry moans, a particularly masculine sound compared to when he would cry, which was as shrill as the rest of them. He heard you approach but barely reacted, expression warping in surprise and nothing else.

"Hey, there," you said to him, stepping with your heels first so your toes landed softly. You revealed the leather canteen to him, spun the cap off, then poured a little water out so he could tell what it was. "Just stay calm. Just stay calm. Please just stay calm. God, please stay calm."

The harpy's eyes shifted between your face and the canteen, and they were an odd thing. A light green iris surrounded by a darker green sclera. Something so simultaneously human but not. He made no motion to move as you edged closer to crouch where he sat on the ground, now with his back against a shade tree.

"Here, open," you opened your mouth, he mimicked you right away. He lapped at the cool liquid as it went down his throat, emptying most of the container before replacing the cap. He let out a dissatisfied grunt but did not scream; you were grateful for that.

Again, you told him to spread his jaws. This time, you gave him a bite of the jerky, to which you readily predicted he would consume ravenously, and he did. He swirled the meat on his tongue, tilted his chin up slightly, and swallowed it whole. Just when you worried it might catch in his throat, he was begging for more, shifting restlessly as he tried to get closer.

"Nope! Nope!" You kept the distance between your bodies, but provided him with an entire strip of jerky this time. Like before, he licked the seasoning clean from the coarse meat and then ate it without masticating. "Incredible. You must have a more flexible or wider esophagus than humans. We'd choke if we did that, yknow?"

You fed him jerky until he had stopped taking it from you with as much fervor. All the while, you silently observed him, concluding that humans and harpies, indeed, shared some ancestral link, because he looked so much like other human men that the only discerning trait was his eyes being a little further apart than normal, and a particularly pronounced aquiline nose. He had a low brow that gave his eyes such intensity that it made you shiver.

His skin was deeply tanned from a lifetime flying so close to the sun, his wings large and dark and beautiful as he was. It was his hands and fear that inspired the most fear in you. His arms were long with fingers that thickened into claws, legs covered with the same feathers as on his back, feet dangerous and deadly with talons.

Across his body, there were adornments made from stone and natural crystals. Fragments of bone were carved into strange shapes that were braided into his shoulder-length hair. Old black tattoos were smeared across his skin, nonsensical to you, greatly fascinating to look at anyway.

He looked so much more human than beast. You couldn't just watch him die.

From the depths of your back pocket, you pulled out a switchblade that you immediately deployed. The blade glinted in the ebbing sunlight, stirring a response from the harpy: Unease. He started to squirm as you closed in on him with the knife, cooing to him gently, reassuring him that you would do him no harm. You were not like the rest of them.

You refused to be a scientist like them, the ones who took and took and took.

So, you cut the harpy's binding as quickly as you were able to, despite his thrashing about, hoping that you didn't nick him in the process, giving him a reason to attack you at the end. You spent more time sawing through the ropes than you had anticipated, finding that by the time you were finished, you were utterly spent, your clothes were soaked through, stuck to you with sweat, skin slick and glowing. It was no wonder he couldn't break through the ropes.

Once freed from his constraints, he found renewed vigor within himself and sprang to his clawed feet, and the full spread of his wings eclipsed the lingering light of day.

You were fast to put distance between yourself and him, brandishing your knife in the air as a warning that you wouldn't be afraid to hurt him, as much as you wished it wouldn't come to that. He looked down his nose at you from his full height and leaned his head sideways one way, then swayed to the other, contemplating something, perhaps.

You asked her why, the first time she Decayed the pills Kurogiri gave her and asked you to bring her some from your bottle of acetaminophen. Are you worried they’ll give you something?

No, Tomura said, but her gaze drifted away from yours. I just know you wouldn’t.

You wouldn’t. You’d take the messed-up pills yourself and suffer the consequences, or you’d jam them down the throat of whoever tried to drug Tomura. You love her, but you don’t love the people she surrounds herself with. Or the people who surround her, whether she likes it or not.

When you and Tomura first started talking, you didn’t know what you were getting into. By the time you found out, you were in way too deep, and you knew too much for Tomura’s bosses to let you run free. It was join them or die, and you picked joining up almost before the choice was offered. You knew it wasn’t Tomura’s idea. Kurogiri was the one who brought you to Sensei, and Tomura looked horrified to see you there.

You’re still in too deep with Tomura, the kind of stupid, crazy love you thought was made up by people who wanted to sell engagement rings and romance novels. You know she loves you back, because even when she pushes Kurogiri away, she keeps you close. You’re the only one who she’ll take medicine from. You’re the only one she lets change her bandages.

Today’s a bandage change, and Tomura is grimacing as she slides one arm out of her jumpsuit. “This fucking hurts,” she says. “I bet they’re worse.”

“Or maybe it’s just a bad day,” you counter. “I’ve been taking good care of you. You’re not allowed to get worse on my watch.”

“I know,” Tomura says, almost sulky. Then, softer, as you unwrap the bandages: “You‘re too nice to me for how bitchy I’ve been.”

“You got shot four times. I’d be bitchy too,” you say. You’d probably be bitchier, honestly — at baseline, your temper is a lot worse than Tomura’s. “This one actually looks okay. It’s starting to close, see?”

“I don’t want to see.” Tomura averts her eyes. “Cover it up.”

“You got it.” You rewrap her arm, then let it go. “Next one.”

Tomura works her other arm free of her jumpsuit, but she doesn’t put her rebandaged arm back into her sleeve. Usually she does, because if she doesn’t, she’s topless. And she doesn’t wear a bra. “Um, are you going to —”

“Are you going to?” Tomura asks impatiently. She gestures with her arm and you refocus in a hurry. Which isn’t easy. You don’t usually get a chance to look at Tomura even partially nude — she likes to fuck with the lights off — and you don’t want to miss an opportunity. “What about this one? Is it closing too?”

“Yeah.” You readjust that bandage, too. “They look good. So if it’s a bad day for pain, then maybe —“

“Maybe it’s these.” Tomura shoos you back from the bed and starts struggling out of her jumpsuit entirely, exposing the bullet wounds in both legs.

Usually she treats those herself. You’ve offered to help, but she doesn’t like her legs being looked at, probably because of the sheer number of scars and scratch marks on her upper thighs. It doesn’t matter that you don’t care about the scars. She doesn’t want you to see them, so you don’t push it. You don’t push it so much that you’ve left her to handle the other two bullet wounds alone.

Now she’s sitting on the edge of her bed, naked except for the bandages, and it feels like there’s nowhere you can look that won’t give you an eyeful of something you can’t ignore. “I can look at those if you want,” you tell Tomura, keeping your eyes aimed at her feet. It’s safe for now, but given how into her you are, you’ll probably develop a thing for her feet if you look at them too long. “You just haven’t wanted me to.”

“I changed my mind,” Tomura says, and you sink to your knees.

The bullet went straight through her right thigh, missing her femoral artery by fractions of an inch. Most of her blood loss came from this wound, but like the others, it’s healing well. You rewrap it carefully, fighting to keep your hands from lingering where they shouldn’t be. You want to kiss her, touch her. Tomura’s usually the one to initiate physical contact, and she hasn’t since she got hurt. You sleep in the same bed, curled up together. But sleeping is all it is.

You give into temptation and press a quick kiss to her her knee before you move to her other leg. That one’s healing even better, but you still draw the process out, finding reasons to stay and look and touch. You know you can’t stay there forever. You sit back on your heels and look up at her. “It all looks fine,” you say. “Just a bad day.”

Tomura’s legs swing slightly, her feet brushing against your thighs, and you try to keep it together. “I can bring you a painkiller if you want. Anything.”

“It doesn’t work.” Tomura’s voice takes on a dull note. “I’m killing my liver for nothing.”

“Maybe you need a distraction,” you offer.

“I’ve tried that. Games, movies, reading, binging stupid TV. None of it works.”

You lean forward and press your lips against her other kneecap; then you do it again, ever so slightly higher. “Can I show you my idea?”

“Yes,” Tomura says. You kiss her one more time, then rise back. “What are you going to —”

You kiss her. The two of you spend a lot of time kissing, but it’s been a while since you really made out, so you start slow. Gentle kisses, drawing away for a kiss to her birthmark, to the scar over her eye. The scars on her face are the only ones she’ll let you attend to. Tomura kisses you back eagerly, but her hands stay at her sides. She doesn’t trust Decay — Not with you, she said, when you asked. I can replace everything else.

Since she can’t touch you, you get to touch her as much as you want, no distractions at all. Her extremities are bandaged, but that leaves her torso for you to explore. You run one hand along the sharp curve of her waist, down to her hip and then back. You do the same with your other hand, but you don’t stop at her waist on the way back up. Your hand finds its way to her breast, fingers drifting over her nipple almost by accident, and Tomura leans forward into your hand. She’s not self-conscious about her body except for her scars, and she’s sensitive. You only have to play with her nipples for a few moments before she’s panting against your mouth.

You draw back slightly. “Distracted yet?”

“No,” Tomura says. Her eyes are starting to dilate, and you see the beginning of a flush on her cheeks. “More.”

Her heart is beating fast when you kiss her neck, and worse when your free hand finds its way into her hair. Her scalp is sensitive, too, which is why she likes it when you comb out her hair with your fingers, fiddling with it until it’s to your liking. You tug slightly, pulling her head back to expose her throat, and a soft moan slips out of her mouth. You hear it again, quiet but sharper now, when you scrape your teeth over her collarbones on your way to kiss a path down her sternum.

Usually Tomura doesn’t let you take this much time. Usually she’s a hell of a lot more demanding, and you’re almost embarrassed by how much you get off on getting her off. This is different. You draw her attention away from her injuries, into whichever part of her you’re currently touching. Right now, her breasts, which fit perfectly in your hands. You’re tracing over her nipples, fingertips light, while your lips find every birthmark on her pale skin, as she arches her back to press herself closer to you.

“More,” she says again, her voice rough and breathy in a way that sets your nerves humming. “Fuck. Stop screwing around.”

“This is screwing around?” You pin one of her nipples between your thumb and forefinger and pinch slightly, your stomach twisting as she moans again. “What do you want me to do?”

“You said you’d distract me. I still feel it. Distract me more.”

You work your way down her body, mostly with kisses, sometimes with bites too gentle to leave a mark. She’s fine with some of the marks, but not the ones that look like bruises. By the time you reach her hips, her legs are already spreading. You push lightly on the inside of her thigh and Tomura spreads them further.

That’s never going to get old. The way she relaxes for you, gets vulnerable for you, lets you see her and make her feel good. She told you once, way before you even kissed, that she doesn’t feel good very often. Your imagination latched onto it, and you made up your mind that if you ever got the chance, you’d make Tomura feel so good she couldn’t think.

“What are you waiting for?” Tomura mumbles as you get settled between her legs.

“Just getting comfortable. I’m going to be here for a while.” You’re looking up at her, and you see her face flush. “Has anybody told you that you’re really hot?”

“Don’t say stupid things.”

“It’s not stupid. You’re really hot. You’re so hot that I —“ You feel her hips twitch upwards under your hands and lose patience. “Hold that thought.”

Tomura’s demanding, usually, and she’s worse when you’re actually fucking her. You usually counter it by slowing down, teasing her, making her beg for you before you make her come. You’re not interested in teasing right now. You need to taste her. You clamp your hands over her hips, holding them down, and bury your face between her legs. She tastes just as good as you remember, and her legs are trembling even before you’ve turned your attention to her clit.

Her legs. You loosen up on her hips so you can lift one leg to rest on your shoulder, avoiding any strain on her injury. The other’s splayed out wide, and you tuck your hand behind her knee, helping support it. And if you push her legs a little farther open in the bargain, who’s going to complain? Not you, as you run the tip of your tongue along her slit, pushing inside every so often. Not Tomura, if the harshness of her breathing tells you anything.

She’s not quiet, but she must be trying, because the slick, messy sounds of your tongue against her are louder than she is. For a little while, anyway. Until she starts to squirm, hips bucking up against your face for more. Maybe you should change positions, have her sit on your face instead. The thought crosses your mind, but you push it away with an effort. That position would probably hurt her legs more. Even if she wouldn’t think about it until later.

“Fuck,” Tomura gasps suddenly. “Fuck, not yet, I —”

She comes, hips jerking sharply as jagged moans issue from her mouth. You’re too busy steadying her legs to hold her down, and one thrust of her hips is a hell of a lot harder than the others. Your nose doesn’t break — you know what that sounds like, and this isn’t it — but it definitely starts to bleed.

You tilt your head back, trying to keep it running down the back of your throat. Can you still eat Tomura out like this? She said she wasn’t done, and even if she’d probably understand you taking a break for a second — “Don’t stop,” Tomura begs, and you decide you can handle the bloody nose without getting off your knees.

The fact that you need to keep your head at least partially tilted back means you have to get creative with your angles. It means you need your fingers, too. Tomura’s wet enough to handle two at once, and she clenches down on them so tightly that you can barely curl your fingers. It takes longer to make her come this time, but you don’t mind — you like the sounds she makes too much. You like how her entire body shudders when you suck on her clit. And you like being so absorbed in her that she has to switch from begging you for more to telling you to stop before you realize that she’s come a second time.

You’re pretty pleased with yourself when you come up for air, enough that you forget something important. Tomura peers at you through blurry eyes that widen in shock. “What the fuck happened to your face?”

The nosebleed. Dammit. “Nothing.”

“I fucked your face so hard I broke it,” Tomura says, and you burst out laughing. “Stop. It’s not funny —“

“It’s really funny.” You pinch your nose shut and tilt your head back, watching Tomura out of the corner of your eye. “Seriously. If I was in real trouble I’d have stopped.”

“No you wouldn’t,” Tomura says. She catches your arm four-fingered and yanks until you climb up on the bed next to her. “You were distracting me.”

“Did it work?”

“You made it worse,” Tomura says. Your stomach lurches. “My legs are shaking so bad I can’t walk.”

“Good. You scared me for a second there.”

“Yeah. Just like you scared me when you sat up and blood started dripping down your face.” Tomura rolls sideways, face-first into your shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry,” Tomura repeats, more forcefully this time. “For all of it. It’s not what you signed up for.”

It’s not. You’d be lying if you said it was. If you hadn’t thought you were falling for a normal girl, if your stomach hadn’t dropped when you realized what you’d really walked into. In some ways it’s your nightmare. But you don’t regret it. Maybe you’re just lovesick — and a little concussed — but you don’t regret it at all.

“I got exactly what I signed up for,” you say. You wrap your arms around Tomura and pull her closer, fighting a smile when she settles in against your side and ignoring the taste of blood as it drips down the back of your throat. “You.”

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