❦

the room you are in is cold, but you know that outside is even colder. still — a part of you thought, that, maybe it would still be better than this. better than the neon lighted living room you stand in. quieter, than the loud bass boosted music that began to give you an unpleasant itch. clearer, than the crowded body of sweaty people pressed to each other, much too close for your own comfort.

but outside didn’t have him. so you didn’t want to go outside — where he was not. temptation was a vile feeling.

you’ve been here before. a beautiful girl you don’t know is draped over him, and a senile, scorching part of you wants to be doused in ice. you hate feeling like this. but this was how it was meant to be. this was how it was always meant to be.

you don’t mean anything to him and he shouldn’t mean anything to you.

you slide open the glass doors of the backyard, and go outside — not sparing the bane of your heart another glance.

.

the pool’s lighted a powder blue. you can sense the colour reflect in your eyes. the weather has gotten even chillier, so you wrap your arms around yourself and try to pretend of sunnier days. no one is around, a pleasant surprise, a wonderful escape.

you don’t exactly know where you are, considering you do not know the owner of the house. sanzu knows them, but you didn’t dare ask him, let alone converse with him the moment your eyes met his from across the room.

you think you would have, if he hadn’t treated you like a stranger. if he wasn’t so mean.

it’s been this way since you were 6 and he was 11, and you’ve grown all too accustomed to this routine. he never acts like himself around anyone, but — he told you once — that you scare him. you scare him so much he doesn’t know what to do with himself. and you remember telling him it doesn’t have to be that way. yet, all he said in retaliation was that you were wrong — you were absolutely wrong.

that happened 5 years ago. you still follow him like a ghost. a cynical part of you hopes you still show up in his nightmares.

you bite the inside of your cheek. what is wrong with you?

a puff of air leaves your mouth as you breathe out. you set your half-filled red cup down near the ledge, bunching up the sleeves of your think jacket to give some semblance of warmth to your half-frozen fingers. you sense someone walk up behind you.

“oi.”

you shut your eyes, already knowing who it is. please, please — go away. you don’t look up. his glare only sharpens.

“idiot.”

a weight falls on your lap. you jump at the contact and gaze down. your phone lights up: 3:13am. you stare at it, for a moment, and when it goes to sleep — his face is left reflecting on it.

you look up, and meet his eyes. they’re warm and cold at the same time.

“thank you, sanzu. sorry,” you whisper his name for the first time that night. he rolls his eyes and takes a seat beside you.

“don’t call me that.”

you don’t apologise, knowing it would annoy him even more. you don’t ask why he’s here, because a part of you doesn’t want to question it. you just want to be good for him. be known to him.

it is quiet — puffs of air leave your mouth. you bury your face up to your nose into your scarf and fold your legs up. haruchiyo sits like a statue, thinking.

after a while, he tells you to, “go home.”

you furrow your brow and turn your head to look at him. he’s already staring at you, turquoise coloured contacts glimmering in the harsh white lighting of the patio. you had a response ready, but one sight of him was enough to render you speechless. he makes you feel like a figurine.

you open and close your mouth. “huh?”

he scoffs, eyes narrowing in agitation. your stomach twists when he looks away.

“you’re clearly not enjoying this.”

your cheeks warm out of embarrassment, and you look away as well. you’ve thought of this moment — thought of him — for so long, but it doesn’t feel as great as you had imagined. you’d rather he go away.

being a nuisance was easy. it was all you knew.

“i— i am enjoying myself. i’m just, tired.”

“yeah,” he scoffs, unconvinced, “okay.”

your eyebrows wrinkle. a foreign type of annoyance washes over you. he’s not acting like himself — this is someone else. he doesn’t care, you have to remind yourself. he doesn’t care — he doesn’t need to care, doesn’t want to care.

“what’s that supposed to mean?” your question comes off more vexed than you had intended.

and, yet, he doesn’t even flinch. it was almost though he was expecting this.

“nothing.” the right side of his lip lifts up into an almost smile. his tone is amused, “just…, you sounded like you were seven for a sec.”

you bite your lip in contemplation. a strange type of sadness fills your chest, anger flows in your blood. if you were acting seven than haruchiyo hadn’t changed since he was 12. he always thought he knew you — and, maybe for a moment he did. but not anymore, you wouldn’t allow it.

“i— i’m not a child, anymore.” you remind him, face painted in annoyance and disdain.

he turns his head to look at you once more, and he smiles. “i know.”

he says it with such certainty — almost as though he’s known this for a while now. you let out a trembled sigh and an awkward laugh. you rest your right cheek on your knees, wrapping your arms around your legs. you don’t break the eye contact this time, growing tired of living with a lump in your throat.

“you can go back inside if you want,” please go back inside.

“nah,” he clicks his tongue, “don’t wanna.”

you bite the inside of your cheek. you feel like you are going to cry at any moment now. the music inside grows louder. the wind bellows faster, blowing your hair from your face. you scratch your wrist and swallow your comprehension. you look away.

“sanzu…”

a warm hand is placed on your right one set on the pavement. you look back at him. your eyes widen at how disappointed he seems. you’ve seen him grow mad countless of times, and have stayed with him despite it, but he’s never gazed at you like this.

“don’t call me that.” he sneers, and, yet, a light floods your heart.

you don’t know why he chooses to lean in closer — don’t know why he decides to hold your face in the palms of his hands. he makes you feel so out of control that it’s cruel.

“you’re cold,” he says sharply, exhaling through his nostrils.

his breath hits your face, and you try to steady yourself. it’s hard, when he’s so close and doesn’t even seem to be aware of this. haruchiyo is so mean it’s pitiful and laughable. you don’t want him to read you, but he’s split your spine wide open. but haruchiyo doesn’t stay too long in one place, and all you want to do around him is fall.

“warm?”

he is. he’s so warm you close your eyes and let yourself be, “mhm.”

“hey,” he mumbles. you don’t open your eyes, opting to sigh and press your face further into his hands. it feels nice to forget.

“yes?”

you don’t know what you expect him to say. he doesn’t respond for ten seconds. then, he pulls your cheek which causes your eyes to widen. he’s coming in too close. you try to look down, but his hands hold your face in place like some sort of ball.

with him this close, you can see different specks of blue and green shining. the reflection of the pool’s water makes them look ethereal. you see everything you are not.

“quit shaking.”

are you shaking? you can’t tell.

“i can’t.”

your voice is weak, she doesn’t sound like you. haruchiyo’s fingers are wet when he touches your cheek and you realise they’re like that because of you. the rapid beating of your heart only grows when his other hand falls to shift your body close to his own. his lips brush yours and you are suddenly a teenager again.

haruchiyo kisses you. it’s raw.

his teeth clashes against your own. it’s amateurish and beautiful. you can taste your own tears but it only seems to give him a renewed sense of vigour to kiss you harder, faster, meaner.

whimpering when you pull back, he only draws you back in.

“come back,” he demands in a whisper so sweetly — so weakly. you can only nod and listen.

his hands pull your scarf away and his lips attach to your exposed neck. when you feel his teeth dig into your skin you clutch onto his shoulders, trembling. he maneuvers you so easily, like you are made of paper.

returning to your bruised lips, he grabs the back of your head and his warm hands soothe your arms.

“more,” he murmurs repeatedly against your mouth between jagged breaths, “more.”

You can smell the familiar scent of smoke as soon as he’s lowering himself to loom over you, the cold staples that line his chest now pressing against your back as you shiver. The movement has him suddenly reaching even deeper inside you, your eyes rolling further back into your skull when you feel a mixture of his cum and your juices spill out onto the fabric beneath you.

He was big enough as is… had already emptied himself inside you once tonight, got you completely filled up to the brim and yet you’re still somehow able to vividly feel the piercings lining his dick drag along your walls with each and every thrust.

The same walls he’s been so insistent on training. The same walls he’s always having to force to stretch out for him, make them open up and accommodate his thickness. It’s always been a mystery to him as to why you— down to your pussy, always act like such a fucking brat with him. Just how many times has he taken you by now?

Bent you over your couch, your table, he’s even taken you right on your welcome mat. But no matter how many times he buries his cock in you, he still has to spend his time working his fingers in you, get you all stretched out and ready to take him.

How much longer’s it gonna take for your pussy to ingrain the shape of his dick in its little mind?

He wants to make that happen tonight.

You hear Dabi loudly grunt above you before he’s suddenly grabbing you by your face, fingers digging into your cheeks as he forces you to crane your neck and peer back of him, cock twitching when he sees you shoot him your best attempt a glare.

“Ahh, still a fuckin’ brat,” he acknowledges, “looks like our practice has been helping your stamina.” His voice is steady and low, and if it wasn’t for the hungry and crazed look in his eyes— one you can easily recognize as the same look he gets when he wants to see you screaming and shaking under him.. you’d probably think he was bored otherwise.

“You know… if you didn’t have such a cute face,” he’s leaning in, and he has to stifle a laugh when your eyes flutter shut in expectance. Oh— you cutie. Did you really think he was about to give you a little kiss?

How adorable of you. So you really can be sweet sometimes.

There’s a tight squeeze to your cheeks to get you back to looking at him, your tired eyes meeting with his again as your lips are forcefully puffing out in a pathetic pout from his grip. “There you are. Said that if you didn’t have that face, then it’d be my foot pushing your head down on that couch and not my hand.”

“Consider yourself lucky.”

“..Huh?” you ask incredulously, and he’s immediately taking back what he previously thought about you being sweet, not with that attitude you’re giving him. Your voice is breathless, and he can tell your mind has already started to go dizzy from how good he feels, but you still have your pride if nothing else— much to Dabi’s dismay. “Y-you’d better not..” you’re panting now, “put your grimy feet anywhere near my face.”

He only laughs. God, he’d never even dream of ruining that pretty face.

“Yea, yea,” he coos, abruptly letting go with a disappointed shrug of his shoulders as you yelp, hands coming to catch yourself as you fall back onto the couch. “Not that it’d even matter, dollface… ‘s not gonna change the way you’re looking right now.”

He doesn’t give you a chance to retort, hands gripping around your hips now as he repeatedly pulls you back into him, bullying his achy cock into you over and over, ecstatic with the way you have to scramble to get a tighter grip on the couch, keep yourself braced and grounded so he doesn’t fuck you right off onto the floor.

And you’re being so loud. Did you really even hate him? Your neighbors wouldn’t think so. In fact, no one in a one mile radius would think so.

They would think you loved him.

“How cute— you’re already looking ruined.” There’s a subtle shake to his voice, a tell-tale sign that he’s starting to get close to his high, and the way he’s slamming so deep inside you is only a second confirmation of that. “Completely ruined. How’s that feel?”

“‘M not,” you spit back, glare contorting to a lewd expression as soon as he finds the spot that’ll have you creaming in seconds. Close. You’re so close, and it’s always about now when he starts fucking you like you’re nothing but a toy.

“Yeah?” and you absolutely hate that you know him well enough to be able to tell that he’s grinning ear to ear at the way you’ve started to tremble under him. “You’d break into pieces if i took off the brakes.”

“But you asked for it huh? Want me to destroy you and turn you into my dumb little cocksleeve?” He’s louder now, raising his voice so you can hear him over the shrieking sound of your moans. “Don’t needa ask twice, doll. now shut that bratty mouth of yours up already.”

You favor close combat, he realizes. Close enough to cut, to strike, to touch. He does, too. He watches you slide beneath the explosion of blue flames that Dabi sends careening towards you. You are so swift that he nearly misses how you latch onto Dabi’s wrist- his flames gutter out like they’ve been doused- and use your momentum to knee him in the chest, sending you both rolling backwards.

You end up atop him, three, gleaming blades between your knuckles now pressed up against his throat. Dabi lifts his hand again and Tomura almost winces, prepared for the flames, the blast of them, the heat of them that will incinerate you.

But they never come.

“What the fuck?” Dabi curses, flexing his fingers like he’s trying again. You dig the sleek little knives deeper into his throat and blood wells up. Tomura sighs. Is he really going to have to save Dabi from you?

He lopes closer, comes to stand behind you, has every intention of simply letting you fall away into nothingness. He doesn’t have time to deal with you. Doesn’t care– no, no matter how intrigued he’d been, he doesn’t care. That’s what he tells himself, at least, when all five fingers close around your shoulder.

And absolutely nothing happens.

What the fuck?

Tomura squeezes, as if that will trigger something. And when it doesn’t, when you don’t fall away into dust and bone, he nearly panics–

“I see you’ve met my new protege,” A low voice comes from a little too close, before pain explodes in the side of Tomura’s head.

He drops like a stone, teeth clicking together, jaw lancing with pain at how hardly he clamps down. His temple throbs. He thinks he can feel blood trickle down the side of his face.

When he turns, Eraserhead is already a flurry of movement. His capture weapon nearly snags Tomura, before he manages to roll out of the way.

Why didn’t you decay?

Was it Eraserhead?

Tomura rises back to his feet, swiping blood from the side of his head, “So it seems,” he agrees on a rasp, “How’s the elbow?”

Why didn’t you decay?!

All he gets from Eraserhead is a scowl, just before he catches movement towards you and Dabi. Tomura’s eyes follow, and he watches as Dabi finally manages to get you off, shoving you off so that you roll into the stone wall. And the moment you’re off of him, his flames come roaring back to life.

“Void!” Eraserhead shouts and his capture weapon is so fast that it’s just a blur, it snags you, draws you to him so he can throw an arm around you, hunch over you to keep you safe from the flames.

How sweet, Tomura thinks bitterly, glaring at you just as Eraserhead’s eyes flare crimson and Dabi’s flames are cut out again. Dabi curses, looks at Tomura. They share a silent conversation.

They hadn’t intended on dealing with Eraserhead. They hadn’t intended on dealing with you, either, but you were just a runt compared to your mentor.

His mind is all unsettled now, like a broken record asking;

Why didn’t you fucking decay, though?

Regardless, they needed to get out of here. They could use a portal.

He barely catches the quiet murmur of Eraserhead, “–just like we practiced.”

And then you’re a streak of darkness rushing for him. Eraserhead’s capture weapon is tightened around your torso, wrapped around your waist. You feint, to dart around Tomura, and then back around so that he can feel the weapon near his calves. You’re wicked fast, a sly little thing as you try to wind it around him, to trip him up. But all it takes is Tomura snagging a part of the capture weapon. Immediately, it begins to crumble away, spreading out slowly but surely.

You lurch for him, your little hand closing tight around his wrist, and your eyes flaring into a bright, feverish pink. His Quirk stops in its tracks. Gone.

Tomura snarls, trying to lurch away from your hold, but you claw into him. What’s left of the capture weapon snags, pulling so that the two of you end up falling.

For a moment, time feels suspended as he falls with you. Your lips are pulled back to bare teeth, vicious little thing that you are, growling in his face, wild and untempered.

(He’ll remember this moment– he’ll think you looked perfect and horrible. It’ll haunt him.)

Your eyes are startlingly bright, burning. Your grip on him is tight and there is nothing in the pit of his chest where his Quirk usually rests, like a cemetery behind the gates of his ribs. There is no fizzling, creeping decay, no hungry destruction ready to spread from him onto the rest of the world. Nothing. Just a void.

Ah, so that’s where your name comes from.

He lands hard on his shoulder as all of time rushes up to meet him. You’re on him in an instant and he scrabbles for you, sinking all five fingers down again on your wrist, only for nothing to happen once more.

What the fuck?!

“She can nullify Quirks with a touch,” Eraserhead says and his eyes are still on Dabi, capture weapon finally pulling away to go after the arsonist. “She’s probably the only person you can touch without decaying, ever.”

It’s supposed to mock him, maybe. Boast. Clearly, you’re Eraserhead’s favorite pet.

But that sentence rattles around inside Tomura’s head, sinks down into his bones. It distracts him, allowing you to gain an upper hand on him, another small knife sliding from your sleeve, to press beneath his chin.

The blade is sharp. His vermilion eyes slash to yours, meeting the scorching pink of them.

“Is that so?” he rasps, prompting you as he looks up at you, stupidly wishing to hear you speak.

To hear you speak to him.

Your knees are on his chest. He doesn’t care, the weight of you solid and one of his hands is still gripping your wrist, small and seemingly fragile in his hold. He wants to inspect you, take you apart, lay all five fingers along your rib cage, your spine, over your face just to see, just to check if you’re real, if it’s true.

He could break your wrist, he even considers it. Are your screams as pretty as you? Do you whimper? He doesn’t think so, maybe he wants to try and pull the noise from you, though.

“That’s so.” you finally speak and he hates that you have his attention. Hates that your voice does something to him, touches some part of him that is hidden and trembling. “Meet your match, Shigaraki Tomura.”

(He loves how you say his name. He hates that he loves it.)

And he can’t decay you, can’t decay anything with you atop him, but he grabs for the knife, trying to wrench it away from his throat, from your grasp. He slits his palm for the trouble, but he manages to twist it in such a way that you yelp, and he can toss it away from your grasp. He hisses through his teeth, cut stinging, just as he surges up to to knock you from him. You both go tumbling, rolling with each other. It’s more artless than he cares to admit but at least he’s got you under him for a moment and he doesn’t need to decay you to wrap his hands around your throat and squeeze—

A portal rips open in the alleyway.

“That's our cue,” Dabi says, and then, “Move, Shigaraki.”

He lurches away the moment Dabi gives the order, leaves you gasping and heaving for air. He rolls towards the portal, just as blue flames sear towards you and Tomura thinks you’re toast for a moment, you’re gone, in and out of his life as quick as a lightning strike.

He only glances back when he’s near the safety of Kuogiri’s portal. You’re back beneath Eraserhead’s arm, your clothes singed. The blood from his palm is smeared in a messy dash, the shape of his hand on your throat. You look half feral.

You wear the shape of him, the blood on your neck, well.

The two of you watch him and Dabi disappear. The portal closes behind them.

Kuogiri returns them to base.

“What the fuck was that?” Dabi snaps at him, “You let some sidekick nearly kick your ass.”

Tomura heaves a rattling sigh, “I think I stepped in to save you from her in the first place.”

“I didn’t need you,” he responds and Tomura only rolls his eyes.

Still, he doesn’t like how heavy you’re weighing on his mind, how he can still feel your skin beneath his hand. The searing pink of your eyes, the snarl pulling at your lips, flashing your teeth. All volatile and hungry. All that brutality, all your vitality.

You’ve left an imprint on his mind, like an ink blot, haunting and twisted.

Eraserhead’s words wind around his mind, clinging to them, like they’ve seared themselves to his brain.

She’s probably the only person you can touch without decaying, ever.

Ever.

The word feels like a death knell, rattling around inside of him, all echoing and final.

***

Shouta is careful with your bruised throat as he wipes away the drying blood that has clung to your skin. You think maybe you should be more grossed out, but you’re exhausted and sore, and the cloth he uses is warm, surprisingly soft.

“You shouldn’t have rushed for them like that,” Shouta scolds softly, wedging himself further between your legs so that he can peer at your neck better. He doesn’t need to do this, you’d told him so. But when you’d gotten back to his home, he’d only given you gruff instructions. One worded. Terse.

Bathroom.

So you’d gone. He’d followed you in a moment later.

Sit, he’d said, nodding to the sink counter. You’d done that, too. And now here you are, with him fretting and fussing over you in his own way. He takes care of you after patrols, it's become habitual. So long as you don’t need more medical attention, he’s the one bandaging you up, the one taking care of you.

Shouta has always cared for you like this. He’d taken you under his wing, guided you. You think he feels responsible for you, in some way.

A little over two years ago, freshly eighteen and just trying to get by, he’d found you. You’d stolen from the gas station and just so happened to be in his line of patrol that night. You had put up a fight, trying to cancel his Quirk as you pawed at his hold on you. He’d only realized you’d manage to cancel his Quirk when he couldn’t use it on you while you touched him. He’d almost been amused. How’d you manage to erase Eraserhead’s Quirk?

Other than that, you don’t know what he’d seen in you, don’t know why he decided to change your life— pity, maybe, looking at you, so youthful and frail. So hungry and angry, hissing and feral, maybe just to mask all that fear. He’d offered to just walk you home. You told him you didn’t have one. Parents? In and out of foster care your whole life, just some orphan that aged out of the system on your own. Someone society forgot.

You had no one.

(Later, you’ll hear everyone say it— “You like strays, don’t you, Aizawa?”

He has three cats. All strays, once ill-tempered and now docile. Loving. A little wary of strangers, but adoring of him.)

He hadn’t been certain what to do with you at first— too old to go to UA, his school. At first there were mentions of college but you’d barely made it through high school. Not because you weren’t smart, only because you’d barely done the work. Barely went.

Besides, you decided quickly that you wanted to be a hero. Like him.

(Maybe it was just because he was the first person in your whole life who gave you any sort of attention— who cared what happened to you. Maybe you didn’t want to part from that, wanted to hold tight, take all that he would give you.)

Reluctantly, he’d agreed to train you.

He had asked a favor of Principal Nezu, set you up in a tiny studio dorm that was beside his. Right next door. Your very own space for the first time in your life.

But you often stayed with him. Nearly attached at the hip. You often crashed on his couch.

(Or in his bed— the nights that you’d fall asleep watching movies in his living room, only to wake up curled in his bed, and find that he’d taken the couch. Sometimes you nap there, while he’s teaching. His cats join you, curled by your legs, sprawling and taking up space.

He never wakes you when he finds you like this.)

And your training had been non-stop for those two years, a rush to get you your provisional licence so that you could patrol with him and then a rush to get your official hero licence, too.

They needed heroes now more than ever. Especially with the fall of All Might. The rising of the League of Villains.

Two of whom, you’d just run into.

Shigaraki Tomura’s blood is currently being cleaned from your neck. It should frighten you more. He should frighten you more, but he doesn’t.

He’s only two or so years older than you. You feel like you could’ve known him, could’ve seen him in and out of orphanages and foster homes with you. You feel like maybe you would’ve talked to him. Another young face forgotten by society.

He can’t hurt you, not with his Quirk anyways.

“I didn’t want them to get away,” you finally answer him, your voice raw, probably from nearly being strangled. .

Shouta sighs, dragging the cloth over your neck gently, like you’re something fragile, “You can’t take two of our most notorious criminals on by yourself.”

“I wasn’t by myself,” you counter, tilting your head off and to the side, offering up your throat. It feels vulnerable, with him so near.

This is how things usually go. Shouta fusses. You give him a hard time. He’s always scolding you for some reason. And you’ve never had that attention before, never had someone that cared about what you did or how you acted, never had anyone to care if you rushed into danger. No one has ever reprimanded you the way he does.

You like it. You crave it.

And it’s not like he can ground you or stick you in detention. You’re not one of his little students. You’re not his daughter. You’re an adult, so all you get is a stern talking to while he cleans you up.

You like to remind him of this a lot.

What are you going to do? Ground me? You smirk when you say it, lift your eyes up to his, I’m not your daughter, Shouta.

Maybe you say it too often. More than you should, almost calling attention to your relationship with him, what it might be, or is not.

Not one of your students, either, you tell him slyly.

There is an eleven year age difference between you and Shouta.

You don’t think eleven years is so bad in hindsight. But you can’t decide if you’re too fresh faced for him, can’t decide where you sit in his eyes.

He takes care of you like a child sometimes, takes care of the child in you that was never cared for. He looks after you, cooks you breakfast– knows your favorite foods, knows what you won’t eat. Sometimes, he will swipe those foods from your plate and bring them to his. He dresses your wounds. Makes you ice your bruises.

He also lets you sleep in his bed. His clothes, too. He’s bundled you in coats and sweaters, you have at least two of them sitting on the floor of your bedroom now. His eyes linger on you, on your form in your catsuit that you wear for hero work.

He practically comes home to you.

You can’t decide if he sees you as a child or an adult. Can’t decide if he sees his students in you, someone to be nurtured and encouraged, or if he sees you as mature, as his partner.

You don’t think he can decide either.

“You know what I mean,” he responds slowly and he’s so close that you can see his dark lashes fanning across his cheek. His scar is a crescent moon on his angular face. You can smell teakwood, mahogany, a little lavender, maybe. Some sweat. It’s familiar. It’s his.

It’s a comfort, you realize, your muscles finally easing. Adrenaline slowly begins to slide away from you, leaving you a little bereft, a little cold, so you cling to the comfort of Shouta. His large, rough palm at your throat, his low, rumbling voice.

“You’re too reckless still. I know your Quirk requires you to get close, but you can’t just go barrelling for enemies and hope you’re strong enough to hold tight to them.” Shouta tells you, “And you need to remember people can hurt you without their Quirks, too.”

Now the cloth falls away and Shouta leans away fractionally to observe the ring of bruises in the shape of a hand on your neck. He takes your chin in hand, tilts it off to the side to see your throat more clearly.

He sighs lightly, wary, “I’ll get you some ice. Does it hurt?”

He finally steps away from you and you have the absurd notion to bring him back. You think it’s the adrenaline wearing off, the sudden neediness, the buzz in your brain slowing, fizzling out to a whine.

You turn to face the mirror behind you, to examine the bruise.

It’s almost perfect, the press of his hand into your skin. Marked. Like a collar of fingers, the shape of his palm.

Anyone else would be dead.

His eyes were so red. You can still see the tilt of the scar on his lip, pulled into a sneer.

You can see the shape of all five fingers pressed deeply into your skin now, a reminder of him that will linger for awhile.

You reach up with a careful hand to press experimentally against the mottled skin, hissing a little at how tender it is.

“It’s a little sore,” you tell him, turning back around, but he is already disappearing from the bathroom.

“Shower,” he commands over his shoulder, “I’ll make us food. You can ice it after.”

“I need clothes,” you call back, but in a moment, he has already returned with a sweatshirt of his, like he knew you would ask– it’s black, crewneck, soft on the inside. Grey joggers, the ones with the tie at the waist, so that you can fit them to you.

You’ve worn these clothes before. They’re familiar to you in the same way your favorite book is, in the same way your pillow is.

And then Shouta is gone again, bathroom door clicking shut to offer you privacy. You stare at the door for a moment, at where he once was. And now you’re alone, with your draining adrenaline, and his clothes in your arms.

You turn on the shower, strip carefully. There is some blood soaked into the collar of your hero uniform.

When you shut your eyes beneath the scalding stream of water, you see the silver dash of his hair. You see the look in his eyes, after Shouta had told him that you could nullify Quirks with your touch– that strange expression, half curious, half wild.

Like he couldn’t believe you were real.

His hands were warm at your throat.

You fit your hand against your neck the way he had.

You wonder if it’s the first time he’s touched anyone with all five of his fingers. You wonder if anyone ever touches him willingly.

You wonder about what it must’ve been like, as a child, to not hold your toys or your pets or your parents with all that you can. With tiny, frightened fists.

You used to cling to anything, anyone.

You’d learned the hard way, but you couldn’t imagine–

You shouldn’t be sympathizing with him. You should be frightened. You should be worried about what he wants to do next, what he’d been doing that you hadn’t been able to stop. You take your hand from your throat like it’s burned you.

You scrub hard at your skin, as if it will clean away your thoughts, as if it will all just rinse down the drain in a swirl.

You shut the water off. You dress in Shouta’s clothes. You are careful not to find your reflection in the mirror, lest you see those bruises again. When you emerge from the steamed bathroom, you wander, bare foot and quiet to the kitchen.

Shouta stands at the stove, shoulders slumped slightly, hair pulled away to expose the curve of his neck. He stirs something at the stove. One of his cats, the sweet calico, Kyoko, is rubbing her head against his shin in a desperate plea for attention. Her tail is botched and she’s missing a bit of her right ear, but you still call her pretty when you rub your finger to her cheek.

She chirps at him, before throwing her head into his legs again.

You watch as Shouta murmurs to her, glancing down, you think he asks if she’s hungry. Maybe something about how sweet she is, too.

The window above the kitchen sink glows softly with the light of night in a city. Gold streetlights. The dash of the moon. The occasional, meandering car on the road. The lights in the kitchen are warm and muted, too. It’s cozy, something you never had growing up but always dreamed of.

You don’t know why, but an ache settles somewhere inside of you. A little bubble of happiness that is twinged with melancholy. You want to go to him, to push your forehead into his chest for attention, too, want to be wrapped in the warmth of his arms. You suddenly feel deeply understanding of the little cat at his feet, can’t stand to hear her small cries for attention anymore.

You move to snag Kyoko, who immediately begins to purr once her little head is tucked beneath your chin. You hold her tight, cradle her to your body to soothe her. Her happy purrs rumble against your chest. The two of you peak over Shouta’s shoulder at what he’s cooking.

Soup with mushrooms and green onions. Steamy and savory smelling.

You realize he made something easy like soup for your throat and that ache inside you only grows, takes root until you think it will spread through all your limbs, all your body. And you will just be a girl with a pit inside her, with the roots of joyful melancholy. Maybe it will bloom through your skin and you will be consumed with flowers.

“Smells good,” you tell him and he glances down to you and Kyoko. You catch the faintest lift of his lips into a smile. He has such a nice smile, if he’d ever share it.

How selfish, you think, to covet such a thing.

“Will you feed the cats? They haven’t had dinner yet.”

You nod, looking down at Kyoko as you ask her if she’s hungry. You set her down again, but she quickly weaves between your legs as you go to the fridge to pull out the cans of food.

The moment a can is opened, the other two come from their hiding places, dashing for the kitchen. The other girl, Yuki, whose a sleek white cat with a missing eye, twines herself around your legs, too, when she realizes you’re going to feed her. Her one, shining blue eye peers up at you expectantly. And finally, Kitaro, the tomcat of the house, whose lithe and black like a little panther, but covered in scars, saunters over.

He is the most temperamental of the cats. He usually swats and hisses at everyone, including Shouta from time to time, but he is terribly fond of you. He chitters at you, flashing sharp little teeth and you smile down at him.

They’re eager when you finally get the food into their bowls and set it down for them.

And the night progresses quietly. Shouta showers as the soup simmers on the stove. When he returns, hair damp and messily braided away from his face, you eat together at the kitchen island, sitting on stools. Your throat does hurt, and you’re thankful for the gentle heat of the soup.

Shouta also makes you ice it after you’ve both eaten. You settle on the couch afterwards, curling up into one corner. Shouta sits at the other end, glasses perched on the strong bridge of his nose, laptop on his thighs, school papers spread out across his coffee table. You share a blanket, one that you’ve pulled up to your shoulders as you lay down, but only reaches part of his legs. Still, if you moved too much, you could probably feel the press of his legs to yours. You could tangle them together.

You don’t. Instead you curl your legs into yourself, even if it jostles Kitaro a little, who is laying in the crux of your knees.

The TV plays softly in the background. The rustle of papers, the quiet clacking of the keys on his computer, the occasional scribbling of pen all soothe you, lull you gently. You doze, eyelids growing heavy.

You curl a small fist around the blanket– it’s your favorite of Shouta’s. It’s soft beneath your touch, the fabric bunching between your fingers and you think of him again.

With his startling eyes and wiry frame. With his warm hands.

As you fall asleep, you wonder faintly, almost sadly, if you’re the first thing he’s fully touched without losing in a long time.

***

It has been weeks since Tomura met you and he is still dreaming of you.

He is already a fitful sleeper, but now that he sees your face behind his fluttering lids, he has resolved himself to staying up most nights. When he does sleep, unconsciousness sweeping in to claim him, he sees you there; dark and harsh and brilliant in his mind’s eye. Sometimes you are moving, a slash of brutality against his hazy dreams. Sometimes you sit in front of him, cross-legged, your face surprisingly calm.

The world around you is falling apart in these ones, the very fabric of the sky decaying, splitting at the seams to crumble away. It’s all muted, smoky grey and pale blue, watercolored to bleed together.

He hates these dreams, where you lift your hand up, palm open to him. Fingers spread wide.

“Give me your hand,” you say, voice coaxing, almost sweet. Your features are relaxed, gentle in a way he shouldn’t know. Shouldn’t envision.

Tentatively, he offers up his hand to you, watches as you reach out to flatten your palm to his. The touch is a little surprising to him, your hand soft, almost ticklish against that sensitive skin that is so rarely touched. His hollow chest is heaving as he feels it, feels you.

Then, as carefully as possible, you let each of your fingers press to his. His thumb to yours, his pointer, yours. Middles next. Ring fingers pressed like a steeple. Then, finally it’s just both your pinkies, hovering away from each other.

He doesn’t know why, but he grows scared. He can feel the way his stomach rolls sickly, the sudden lurch of his heart as your pinkies come together like a promise.

Nothing happens, except you smile fractionally.

“Your hands are so big,” you tell him but his heart is still thundering in the cavern of his chest, still rattling around inside of his treacherous body.

“They’re so soft, too.” you tell him and you tilt your head, eyes cutting to his, which shine like twinkling rose quartz with the use of your Quirk, “Like you’ve barely used them.”

“I-I can’t,” he gets out, “I can’t without decaying something.”

“You’re not decaying me,” you say, your voice barely a whisper, eyes lifting from the two of your hands pressed together to find his face.

“No,” Tomura agrees shakily, swallowing, “I’m not.”

“When was the last time you could do this?” you ask softly, but the moment you do, your features always begin to shutter, blur. Your voice grows strange, layered with a child’s. One that he has not heard in many, many years.

And then it’s his little sister’s tiny, fragile hand against his.

He tries to lurch away from her but it’s too late. It’s too late and all of that gore seeps into the grey washed world, bleeds vibrant, horrible color into his dreams. He hates that the image of her falling away into horror, crimson and thick and sickening, is still so sharp in his mind. He hates that he has not been able to fill it with time.

He hates that his brain has not allowed him to forget it, has not repressed or shoved it away for his safety and well-being. He thinks his mind is a traitor.

How is he supposed to live with this?

Some nights, he doesn’t think he can.

He clings to his Master’s words, though, the ones that he takes comfort in. He repeats them like a prayer, a slithering whisper about how he should hold fast to these emotions. To the guilt and the rage and the festering anguish.

He thinks it’s burning a hole through his chest, corrosive and flesh-eating, taking out the tender parts of his body so he is nothing but leanness. So that he is nothing but hollow and starving, crooked and desperate and hungry like some hyena, half deranged with its sloped back and mad yelps and cries. Salivating over scraps.

He thinks of you, wily like a coyote and vicious, small and sharp-toothed and nimble.

Scavengers, the both of you.

He wonders if it hadn’t been the heroes that got to you first, would you be like Toga? Or Twice? Dabi? Some marooned child of society, looking to sink their teeth into anything. You had too much grit to be a hero, he thinks.

You would’ve served better here, with him.

The moment he thinks it, he wishes he hadn’t. Wishes he could rip the thought from his own skull and decay it himself.

But he can’t.

And it sits there, like a tombstone, like a garden bed.

(If he isn’t careful, it will take root inside him and grow. And there is no space for life in a body like his.)

***

You’re not even patrolling when you catch a glimpse of a black hoodie, a flash of icy silver hair again. One of your hands had been tucked into your own coat pocket, the collar of it upturned to keep out the early autumn chill.

The coffee in your other hand, warm, freshly bought, drops sharply as you watch Shigaraki Tomura round a corner, blending into the people going about their everyday lives. Coffee splatters on the sidewalk. You curse, others glance at you, but dart around you, continuing about their day.

You scoop up the now empty cup, breaking into motion. You shove the cup in the nearest trash, snapping your eyes ahead to try and find his form again. You pick up your pace, trying not to sprint, lest you give yourself away, but also trying to keep up with his long strides.

You round the corner, catch sight of him again. You try to force yourself to not break into a run again.

You knock into someone in your haste, brushing past them. They grumble at you.

You manage a vague apology, eyes ahead, on the back of one of the most wanted villains in the country.

Faintly, you hear Shouta’s voice in the back of your mind, urging you not to run straight into danger.

You fish for your phone in your pocket blindly, and you’re about to thumb out a text to him, warn him that you’ve just spotted Shigaraki again.

He’s in class now, though, you know it. It’s doubtful he’ll see it. It’s doubtful he’d see a phone call, too, and the closer you get to Shigaraki, the more that would give you away.

You know Shouta would want you to stay a safe distance away, not to engage. He’d want you to follow as far as you could and then contact him, return back to UA, return back to your little apartment safely. But then this will be the second time that Shigaraki has slipped from your grasp.

You watch as he slyly ducks into an alleyway.

Shit, you curse. You can either try for Shouta or follow.

Your body moves before your mind does. You follow, disappearing down the yawning mouth of the alleyway, too. You try to be silent, your phone still in hand. But the alleway is quieter, darker, especially the further in you wade. You don’t miss that you have now lost the safety of people nearby, too.

Briefly, you wonder which hero is on patrol now for this area, wonder if they could somehow reach you–

Just before he rounds another corner, he glances over his shoulder.

It seems natural for him, like he’s always wary, always waiting for something to catch up with him.

You freeze as the red slash of his eyes cuts to you.

He almost could look normal, without the severed hand clutched to his face. In the simple, black hoodie. Black jeans and red sneakers. He looks your age. A year or two older. You could see him in college, overworked and exhausted. You could see him at the movies, at the mall.

Once more, you are painfully struck with the idea that he could’ve just been some other teen with nothing to their name. Maybe he was like you, wandering in a world that didn’t want him.

But he isn’t.

For a moment, neither of you move. His chest heaves strangely, rising and falling rapidly. His eyes are a little wide, almost as if he’s terrified of you, like you’re some ghost come to haunt him.

But then his eyes narrow, a sneer pulling at his lips to reveal the flash of white teeth in the darkened light of the alley, “It’s you,” he hisses, and you are almost surprised that he recognizes you.

You glance to your phone, fingers suddenly twitching. You need to call Shouta, someone–

The moment he realizes your intention, he lunges, a blur of movement. You try to sidestep him but he is fast, blindingly so, and his body collides with yours. He’s all harsh angles, so sharp you could get cut on him if you’re not careful.

You take the brunt of the fall, the wind leaving your body the moment your back hits the pavement with all his weight on you. Your head snaps against the cement and you’re lucky you don’t pass out, not as black stars flutter to life in your vision.

Your phone clatters noisily out of your hand, skidding onto the pavement. You’re certain the screen is at least broken. Still, you force air into your burning body, scramble for your bearings.

You bring your knee up hard into his stomach, using your momentum to shove him enough to get out from beneath him. You twist, crawling towards your phone. Your knees and palms get cut up against the gravel, but you manage to get your phone in hand again.

You scramble to unlock it, to get to Shouta’s contact, messages, anything—

Your ankle is grabbed, lurching you sharply back to him. It scrapes your chin against concrete, making you yelp as your teeth click together. Blood stings to life, slipping down your chin and to the line of your throat.

You grapple with Shigaraki and it feels childish for who he is. Who you’re supposed to be. You’re both just wrestling for the phone in your hand. It feels absurd until you’re on your back again, belly up and vulnerable, and his body is digging down into the soft parts of you.

You growl in frustration as you stretch your arm away from the two of you, as if that will keep your phone from his grasp. You’re kicking futilely, too, desperately flailing and wriggling under his weight.

Frantically, you try to find a way out, your body and mind screaming. Think! You demand desperately, come on—

The line of his neck is by your face, the bend of his shoulder. He’s stretched above you, reaching for your phone. His teeth are bared in effort as you clutch as tightly as you can, covering as much as you can so he can’t get all five of his fingers in it.

You don’t have any of your knives on you, no weapons or tools, but something inside you snaps, some survival instinct that lurches forward, yanking free of its bonds. It’s a violent, twisted thing, ugly and shameless and desperate.

You reach with your free hand to lay fingernails into flesh. You will become your own weapon.

You feel his hiss more than you hear it. You dig in deeper, scrape sharply and roughly, tearing up skin beneath your nails.

And then you sink your teeth into the vulnerable juncture between his neck and his shoulder.

A bark of a laugh ruptures out of him.

It’d be ridiculous if you weren’t so maddened, so full of fear and white hot adrenaline.

You feel half wild, forcing your teeth into the meat of him, harder, deeper—

The warm, copper tang of blood begins to blur into your mouth and you force yourself to stay, to bite harder—

He growls now, though, in pain, in frustration. You can feel his hands clawing at your fingers, trying to force them up so he can get to the phone.

You don’t let go of him, jaw locked, as more blood fills your mouth. You feel part animal, near frantic—

His fingers, strong, dexterous, shove at your wrist and you yelp as it twists dangerously.

“C’mon,” he rasps, “Let go and I won’t break your wrist.”

You kick uselessly, but stubbornly don’t let go.

He makes a sharp movement and you jolt beneath him as vicious, searing pain rips through your wrist, up your arm. Your hand goes limp with the burst of jarring pain.

But you bite down harder, screaming between your clenched teeth, between all the blood in your mouth, and into his shoulder. It’d be disgusting if you weren’t in so much pain, if your brain wasn’t quick-wired to survive, to fight.

The moment your phone is out of your grasp, he wrenches himself away from you. A noise of pain is forced from him as your teeth rip through his flesh, as he tears away from you.

Once your touch is gone, your phone slips to dust between his fingers.

Fuck.

You scramble up, too, spit his blood out from your mouth and at his feet. You’re sure you look insane, all horror and heat, lips dashed with crimson, teeth flashing dangerously when you level him with a glare. You’re sure your eyes are feverish and rosy, the color they bleed into when your Quirk is being used.

It’s strange, though, the way he’s regarding you, like there is something in you to be picked apart. His eyes are garnet, flashing as they fly over you, searching, searching, searching— like you have the answer to a question he’s been asking his whole life.

You take a sick pride in the gash at his slender neck, the open wound from your teeth, your strength, your terror.

You’re both a little breathless, as still as predators, as still as prey with your heaving chests. You have your broken wrist, which throbs painfully, cutting through your adrenaline addled mind to warn of your danger, curled into your body protectively.

You should run or shout for help. No phone to call Shouta, to call for anyone. Broken wrist. Facing off with one of the most dangerous and wanted villains. Your odds aren’t good.

But your odds were never good, life never threw you luck. You got by with bared teeth and wit and your sharp-toothed instincts.

You wipe your blood-slick mouth with the back of your good hand and decide you’re not done with him. You lunge for him. He sidesteps, nimble and lean, grabbing your arm to swiftly wrench it behind your back at an odd angle.

You cry out, the pain lancing up your arm, ringing through your broken wrist in a way that damn near makes you sob.

“Should I break your arm, too?” he asks and there is almost glee in his voice as he twists sharply, pulls you into his chest and wrestles you still. The pain makes your vision blurry and wobbly, tears pricking to life.

He is solid behind you, his chest pressed to your back, with your twisted arm between you two. You dig for training or rational thought, but all that’s coming up is your fear and pain. All that’s coming up is the instinct to thrash, to escape.

“Careful,” he hisses in your ear, his grasp on you tight, unforgiving, “Or you’ll break it yourself.”

You don’t heed his warning and the moment you squirm again, fighting and thrashing in his grip, there is a sickening snap that rattles through your arm.

Your cry is piercing, guttural, echoing down the alley. Bouncing off stone.

Shigaraki drops your broken arm, “I warned you,” he scolds, loping around to watch you fall to your knees, to try and bite back sobs and whimpers that are forcing their way out.

“You’ve a lot to learn, don’t you?” he asks, observing you, the tilting of his head reveals the sharp line of his jaw as he gazes down at you.

Still, you try to force yourself up, stand on shaking legs. Your arm is limp at your side, the pain seering, nearly overwhelming.

But you stand.

Shigaraki snorts, half amused, the scar on his lip hitching upwards.

You’re prepared to fight again, when a figure appears in the mouth of the alleway.

“What’s going on over there?” they shout, “We heard screaming.”

It’s police and before you can even open your mouth, Shigaraki is disappearing, melting into the shadows and easing away silently.

He gets away.

Shouta is livid with you. He chews you out the entire time that Recovery Girl heals your broken bones. By the time she’s done, you’re still a little sore and Shouta still isn’t done lecturing you.

He makes you dinner, though. And after falling asleep on his couch, you wake up in his bed by morning.

And there’s the remnants of a dream caught in the back of your mind, thin like cobwebs, translucent and shimmering like glass and gossamer. It slips from you the way water does, the way Shigaraki did– silent and deadly and leaving you with something broken, misplaced.

***

Shouta is harder on you in training lately. You can’t tell if he’s punishing you or trying to teach you a hard lesson. But he’s rougher when he spars with you, he doesn’t hesitate to make it hurt more, to show you that you have to think.

“Your instincts are sharp— you fight dirty when you need to, but don’t lose rational thought in the process.” He tells you after he’s knocked your feet cleanly from beneath you and you’re staring, dizzy and winded, up at the ceiling. “It could be the difference between life or death.”

And then his hand is being thrust into your vision, large and scarred and strong. You blow your hair from your face and reach up to take his offered hand. It’s warm. Rough. He pulls you up to your feet easily.

For a moment, your breath is caught in your throat and you’re looking up at him through your lashes. His hand is still wrapped over yours, dwarfs it completely. You think he even pauses, glances down at you like this, tousled, with your chest rising and falling.

He drops your hand, “Let’s go again,” he says, giving you space. You let loose a breath, watch him as he turns from you, as he puts distance between you two.

He kicks your ass. Again and again and again. You’re well acquainted with the floor at this point. Your body is littered in bruises. You’re aching and exhausted and can hardly think straight. Your legs shake with effort when you whine, “Can’t we be done?”

“No,” is his clipped response as he settles into another loose fighting stance.

“Shouta, I’m tired–”

“Is that what you’ll say to villains when you don’t want to fight anymore?” he asks, just before he moves, a flash of darkness, swift and sure. You barely dodge his fist, the second strike to your stomach makes you twist away, trying to keep on the balls of your feet. Nimble, quick.

You huff, “Yeah, I said that to Shigaraki and he let me go.”

You don’t catch the quirking of his lips in slight amusement, not as you leap to latch your legs around his waist, hooking your arms around his neck to pull and throw all your momentum into flipping him onto his back, onto the ground.

He grunts as you exclaim in victory, “Hah!”

It’s short lived, though, because the moment the two of you are on the floor, he’s grappling with you, twisting until he’s got you under him.

His knee digs into your stomach to keep you down. You wheeze, struggling, worming a hand to fist in his hair and pull in some petty attempt at getting out.

Shouta makes an irritated noise, before reaching around to seize your wrist, fingers digging into a pressure point to make you yelp and let go.

You thrash, just as he wrestles your arms down onto the ground, straddling your hips. Pinned.

You groan in frustration, giving up, kicking childishly as you say, “Let me go.”

“You’re a brat,” he responds, squeezing your wrists, “And no. Figure it out. I’ve taught you how to get out of this. Think, instead of pulling my hair like a child.”

You push against the hold he has on your wrists, trying to dislodge him. But his weight on you is too strong, too heavy.

“Shouta–” you whine.

“Figure it out and we’ll be done.” he responds, laying his weight into you more.

You suck in a breath, forcing yourself to look up at him, the lines of his shoulders. His arm. Sluggishly, your mind works something out.

You shove your hips up into a bridge, sending him forward, destabilizing him just as you slide your arms down against the floor to break his hold. You latch tight to his middle. Tight so there’s no room, tight so he has to focus on balancing himself with your weight. Your temple digs into his chest, just as you trap his arm.

You twist, he goes rolling onto his shoulder without the support of his arm. You shove him onto his back.

Then you’re seated atop him, chest heaving, hands at his throat, one twisting his face away threateningly.

He smiles finally, small, but enough to have you easing up.

“Good,” he says, voice low, and the praise turns warm inside of you, gooey. He taps your thigh in request to be let up.

You ease off him, rolling onto your back again. Tired. Your whole body feels like it’s throbbing, like it’s all one tender bruise. You sprawl out on the floor.

“C’mon,” he murmurs, easing up and once more offering his hands to help you up. Reluctantly, you take them, but you make him do most of the work in pulling you up to your feet. He huffs at your dramatics, especially as you go limp, forcing him to take your weight. You slump against his chest, letting your knees give out so he has to hold you up.

“Carry me,” you whine and he snorts.

“No,” he says but there’s something amused in his tone, maybe fond, “I’m going to let you go and you’re going to fall.”

“No you won’t.” you respond, perhaps a little too arrogantly, because he does let you go a moment, just to scare you. You yelp, but before you can drop, he has you again, strong arms hoisting you back up.

And he laughs, low and soft, as you claw at his shirt, as he forces you back up onto your feet.

You could almost feel the sound rumble inside his broad chest and it makes you want to cling to him. It makes you want to be close, to be held tight in his arms. Something about it makes you desperate for his touch, for his smile, for his praise.

You feel young, holding him like this, looking up at him with wide eyes. You feel small and vulnerable.

But he rights you and you finally force yourself to stand. He lets you go. You wish he wouldn’t.

“I’m showering first,” you declare, reaching for your water bottle, heading for the door of the training room.

“You have your own shower, you know.” he responds dryly, but you shoot him a frown over your shoulder and he rolls his eyes. It’s half-hearted. He doesn’t fight you on this more. No, you think he likes having you around.

For entertainment, in the least.

And that’s how most of your evenings go– there’s a routine in them that is comforting. It’s yours and his. You two also patrol together, sometimes eat late dinners and become night owls. Sometimes you catch lunch with him and you sit perched on the corner of his desk until his students trickle back into his classroom.

They’ve come to like you, mostly because you give their teacher a hard time. Your banter with him amuses them.

And maybe there’s something about him when you’re around, a little more open. Gentler. Perhaps more agreeable.

Sometimes you drop by to disrupt his class momentarily. His students try to take advantage of it, try to get you to hang around longer. Shouta always ushers you out, though.

You don’t see Shigaraki again, not for a few more weeks. But strangely, when you’re out on your own, you look for him. Sometimes you think he might round a corner, in that black hoodie. With red sneakers. Sometimes you think you’ll just turn and see his eyes, so ruby, catching yours.

You’re not scared of him. You’re not looking over your shoulder like you’re frightened he’ll be there, he’s not some monster in the dark. Just an itch you can’t scratch, an unanswered question. You have a curiosity for him that you can’t shake.

What’s someone so young doing with so much spite he wants to tear the world apart with it?

So you let yourself look for him when you’re all alone. When you’re on patrol with Shouta.

But time goes on and your life feels normal, almost simple. Stable in a way you have never known. It almost makes you apprehensive.

A change finally happens in the form of a student following Shouta into the training room one afternoon. His hair is a messy tuft of indigo, his eyes lidded, the same shade of purple. He’s lean, though relaxed. He almost looks as exhausted as Shouta. There’s something a little comical about it, the two of them, tired-looking and fixing you with similar stares.

“This is Shinsou Hitoshi,” Shouta introduces, “He’s a student from the General Department who I have agreed to train. He may eventually shadow us on patrols but will not be able to use his Quirk, since he doesn’t have his provisional license yet.”

And then Shouta gives your name as an introduction, “She’s my,” and there’s a fraction of a pause, a minute debate in his mind before saying, “Partner. You’ll be training with her most often.”

I’m your sidekick, you think, but you don’t dare say it. Something inside you twists, warms slightly.

You ask about Shinsou’s Quirk, who seems reluctant at first to say it and once he does, once he tells you that he can brainwash people, you understand why. That is a Quirk that you’re sure people judged him over. You’re certain that society has not been kind to a Quirk like that. You can practically hear their sneers, their whispers.

But when you don’t give any adverse reaction, he seems to loosen up a little. Even more when you inform him you have another Quirk that nullifies others.

Shouta doesn’t waste time and he throws the poor kid into training with the two of you. And just like that, it then becomes the three of you. Shinsou joins each of your training sessions after school. You end up sharing snacks with him during small breaks, trail mix and granola bars. You bond over how stern Shouta can be. He snorts at your teasing.

He’s a good kid.

You think even Shouta is pleased, you think there’s something fond in him, when it’s just the three of you. You know he loves his students, despite seeming so aloof and guarded, but he seems more open in these moments. He laughs a little easier, though it’s still rare, but the sound is sweet to your ears. You love having someone to bond with, to roll your eyes to when Shouta is being a hard ass, to torment, too.

Plus, it’s not so bad to win more sparring sessions finally, even if it’s a little cheap since Shinsou is only fifteen. Still a student, still training. You’ve never officially beaten Shouta, just gotten the upper hand for a while. Still, you take what you can get with him.

You always take what you can get with Shouta.

But this part of your life, when you’re busy, when you spend your afternoons with Shouta and Shinsou and your evenings patrolling, are peaceful. Whole and warm and simple. They’re golden in your memory, almost sweet, like the halcyon rays of sun before the hungry, hurting storm clouds roll in.

You just wish you hadn’t needed to go and ruin it.

You wish you could even say that you take it all back, everything that happened after this time, wish you could say you regret it.

But you don’t and maybe that’s the worst part of it all.

***

The next time Tomura sees you, it is mid-morning. There is a chill in the air, a bite of the cold to come. The sun is out, though, bright and casting you in its brilliance. You’re not on patrol. You’re just walking, with your hands tucked into your coat pockets, all alone.

The city’s quiet bustle is enough for him to blend in, but not enough to bother him. He needs to go to the store to steal food again. He and the rest of the League are practically homeless. Foodless. Penniless. They’re all growing thin and wane and snappish.

They’re hungry– for opportunity, for more than this society will allow.

He has no business watching you from afar, not when he still needs food. Not when he could be spending his time and energy elsewhere. As it stands, he has no idea what he’s doing when he begins to trail after you.

You’re oblivious, brows furrowed lightly on your otherwise peaceful resting face. You dip your chin, burrow down into the warmth of your scarf against the wind that picks up. Tomura shivers. His hands are near icy despite the partial gloves he’s wearing to keep himself from decaying anything.

He shouldn’t but he follows as you walk into a nearby park. Every step towards you is another further from the store, further than what he should be doing.

He’s careful, keeps his steps even and sure, far enough away so that you don’t notice him. Is he stalking? Is that what this is?

His stomach growls. His teeth chatter as his body wracks with another shiver.

You look so warm, so sweetly oblivious.

He feels like an animal, watching as you settle onto a park bench. The tree that arcs above your head is filled with sun kissed leaves beginning to melt into shades of yellow and orange, little dashes of red. It casts playful shadows over you, scattering you in it’s light and dark. You’re like a painting, lively and entrancing, this slice of something beautiful and surreal. Too bright and vivid for the real world.

He feels himself scowl.

What does someone like him know about beauty, anyways?

He traces the curve of your cheek with his eyes, the gentle lines of your lips. The arc of your lashes. The way the light makes your eyes glimmer and he thinks of you in the dark with him, with your eyes blazing fuchsia, all sharp and defiant.

(He’d thought you were beautiful then, too, the same way catastrophes are. The chaos of you is sweet to him.)

He watches you pull out a phone– shiny and new– and smile at the screen for a moment. Just a small tilting of your lips, something he bares his teeth at.

Something he’s seen in his dreams.

He hates you, he tries to tell himself, he hates you and he wants to tear you apart. He wants to wipe that smile from your face. He thinks of your scream– thinks of you beneath him, livid and thrashing.

He thinks of your teeth in his skin.

Tomura watches you tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear delicately.

He thinks of you in his dreams, with your palm up and offered to him. Your fingers are gentle when they press against his, when you compare your hands to his. You are caught in his misty dreams, tucked away in a place of his mind he wishes he could rip out.

He stands, rooted in place, observing you.

His stomach cramps with hunger again, desperate and aching. Another painful shiver wracks through his body.

He wants to put his cold hands on you, leech the warmth from your body. He wants to sink his teeth into your skin.

Your phone gets tucked away and you pick your eyes up suddenly. He isn’t expecting it, but as if you can feel his gaze on you, heavy and blazing, your eyes cut to his.

He watches your face, the way your mouth falls open in slight shock, the rounding out of your eyes. But then all that gentleness sharpens– your brows furrow, your lips pull back to reveal teeth. You raise your hackles.

He doesn’t know why, but he smiles.

The sickle curve of his lips slices across his features and you jolt into standing.

He arches a brow, challenging.

You glance around the citizens milling about, the peacefulness of this park. You glance at the phone in your hand, then at him.

He could almost laugh because he watches you try to decide what to do– you’re too expressive, he wants to mock. It’s all written right there on your face. You’re too inexperienced, too, unsure how to handle situations without your handler to guide you. Are you going to cause a scene? Would you endanger a civilian by rushing for him now? Going to call for help?

What’s the heroic thing to do?

In your indecision, Tomura allows himself to turn away and it is supposed to be offensive to you. You’re not much of a threat to him, not when you can’t decide what to do. Not when all you know how to do is bite and kick like a child.

He heads back to the store. He doesn’t have to look behind him to know that you’re following him. That’s fine. He’s gotten away easily each time he’s encountered you and this time will be no different.

When he walks into the store, he’s blasted with warmth finally, the artificial, stale kind. But he’ll take what he can get. He notices that you follow him but surprisingly, you stay outside. He can see your form by the shop windows.

He steals what he needs to; quick, small foods that he can shove into pockets. He tries to get as much as possible. In the least, so he can share with Toga. He doesn’t care about her in any substantial or friendly way, but he cares less for the likes of Dabi or Spinner.

(Besides, there’s an unspoken agreement between all of them that Toga eats before them. Maybe it’s because she’s a kid, he doesn’t care.)

And when he exits, you’re right outside– on the phone, though, and it almost seems normal. You cooly follow after him, lest you frighten the poor citizens around you. He thinks he can hear you quietly arguing on the phone with someone.

He isn’t foolish enough to lead you to where he’s going, so he leads you elsewhere. Down a few alleyways, some twists and turns. When he gets tired of your stalking, he finally stops, looks over his shoulder at you.

“Made up your mind yet?” he asks and he can faintly hear the tinny, faraway voice on your phone shouting at you to do not engage, do you hear me?

Your name is said over the phone when you don’t respond.

That piece of information settles into him for a moment. He wished he’d never heard it, never learned your name.

You have the audacity to end the call you’re on. The voice scolding you now gone, forcing the silence of the alleyway to stretch between you two. He knows he needs to get away soon, before all your reinforcements arrive.

He isn’t surprised when you rush for him with a vengeance. He does a lot of sidestepping, quick dodging from your swift attacks.

He feels as if you’ve gotten faster, keener.

You land a succession of jabs– they’re not particularly hard or debilitating, but it takes him a moment to right himself. However, when you dance away from him, you hold something up–

It’s one of the granola bars he’d stolen, one from his pocket. You blink at it. Then at him.

At the same moment that you realize he’d only stolen food, he realizes that you’re an excellent pickpocket. He narrows his eyes at you.

An expression flickers over your face. A wince, almost. He doesn’t understand why.

You toss the granola bar back at him. He catches it quick, reflexively keeping his pinky lifted away, despite his gloves.

And you don’t rush at him again. You frown.

He bares his teeth to hiss something at you– is this your idea of kindness? Is this your idea of being a hero? Being oh so benevolent to the starving villain? Do you think that’s going to change him?

The sound of feet on pavement growing near makes him pause his suddenly violent need to teach you a lesson. He shouldn’t waste time with you. He’s already wasted too much.

You don’t follow him when he finally turns to leave, to slip away again. You stare after him, he can feel your eyes pressed between his shoulder blades. He disappears and no one follows him. It feels strange, he feels cagey and pent up. He tears at the skin of his neck with his fingers, opening cuts, lashing out on himself in frustration.

He hates you, he seethes, scratching furiously, he wishes he could destroy you.

However, what he won’t find out until he’s returned to the runned down place they’re pretending to call homebase for awhile, is that you also swiped his phone. Just a burner phone. There’s nothing on it that will aid you in your search for him. He’s too careful. But it’s annoying nonetheless since he needs to get his hands on another one.

More than that, it offers him another piece to the puzzle of you that he did not ask for.

You’re a thief, he realizes. Or perhaps were one, at some point.

And though you’ve only taken his phone, it feels as if you’ve stolen something else from him, too, just left him with this new facet of you.

This new piece of you that he didn’t ask for, that he wishes he could stop thinking about.

You had let Shigaraki get away.

And when Shouta had gotten to you, eyes flying over you wildly to make sure you were okay this time, you’d had a pained expression on your face.

He’d been about to scold you again, really lay into you for directly disobeying him and hanging up on him.

But you’d reached into your pocket and held up a cellphone, old, somewhat outdated. “I stole his phone,” you’d told him, but there had been a wobble to your voice. Something he caught immediately.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” he’d asked, coming around to face you, to place two, large hands on your shoulders.

You had swallowed hard.

“He just wanted food.”

“What?” Shouta had asked, ducking his head down in an attempt to force you to meet his eyes. You’d felt like a child again beneath his gaze, beneath those warm, heavy hands.

You had blinked, tried to force away the feelings rising in you like a swelling bruise. You’d felt tender, suddenly fragile and aching.

“He’d stolen food. Just food.” you had answered. And Shouta had understood then, drawing in a slow breath.

You hadn’t been expecting it, but he’d pulled you into a hug then, pulled you right into his broad chest. His arms had gone around you, slow but tight, broad palm moving against your back soothingly.

You’d ducked your head, let yourself fall into his comfort, his safety. You’d sniffled, tried not to suddenly burst into tears– because of Shigaraki or because Shouta had treated you so gently in that moment, you hadn’t known why.

Only that Shouta had said, “Let’s go home,” and you had.

And he’d been quiet with you the rest of the day, soothing and coaxing, his voice a soft rumble.

You’d fallen asleep against his shoulder that night, feeling as if there was something squirming in your heart. Something you were too scared to name.

But you’d dreamt of him again, of his hungry, scarlet eyes and wiry frame. Of the way he’d watched you, envious of your warmth.

And not for the first time, you’d wondered about him, wondered why it was you, now, tucked away in the world of heroes, while he slipped away into the underbelly, hiding from a world that wouldn’t accept him.

A world that wouldn’t feed him, the same one you’d been pulled from, just as desperate, with stolen food stuffed into your bloated pockets, and so much bitterness you could almost taste it between your teeth.

***

Tomura doesn’t know what he’s doing as he stares at the library computer with your name typed into the search bar. He tells himself he’s just curious. He just wants to see what he can find on you for his next encounter with you.

But there isn’t much known about you, just a small town news article about your debut as a hero, as Eraserhead’s sidekick. The article says remarkably little; your Quirk cancels out other Quirks with a touch. You show a lot of promise to become a hero that works behind the scene, like Eraserhead. It suggests that perhaps you’ll even follow in your mentor’s shoes and become a teacher at UA eventually.

There’s a photo of you; it’s while you’re moving, presumably fighting, because your smile is sharp edged and victorious. Your hair is a dramatic splash behind you, mussed with battle. There’s a scrape on your cheek. You look every bit like one of their newly sculpted heroes.

Tomura scratches at his neck, eyeing your face; the one that has come to haunt him. That has made him desperate enough to search your name, search for anything about you.

You smile back at him, like you’ve won something.

He growls in irritation, standing from the computer and stalking out.

He tells himself his little interest in you is harmless, something that he can drop whenever he wants. It’s not a problem.

But it’s the same way he tells himself that he’s not stalking you when he watches you through the window of a cafe or ends up discovering what store you favor and what path you like to take through the park when you aren’t patrolling.

It’s not stalking when he even figures out your usual patrol schedule or how you take to the roofs to watch the world from above like a bird.

It’s harmless, he tells himself, harmless in the same way hungry dogs are– whining and crying and begging until they decide to bite.

***

There is a distinct shift the next time you encounter Shigaraki.

It is often easy to forget that villains are human. Many heroes do it– it’s probably easier that way for them. It allows them to focus, to not feel remorse if they hit a little too hard. They can forget if they’re a little too rough.

Or why they are the way they are. Everyone likes to condemn the thief, but not wonder why they were stealing. It’s easier that way, when everything is clear and cut cleanly between good and bad.

You’d steal, too, if you were hungry, you’d told Shouta, morals are a privilege– you can have them when you’re fed.

So it’s easy for you, horribly easy, to see villains as people, to not see them as singularly evil but a culmination of their tragedies.

Monsters are made, not born, and everyone likes to forget who is making them.

Shouta used to tell you that it wasn’t a fault of yours, to see people as people, no matter how terrible. He thought it was a strength, that it was admirable. Every hero should do it, perhaps it would teach them something.

But you don’t think the strangely playful tone of your next encounter (or the next or the next or the next) with Shigaraki is what he was referring to. The trouble with seeing him as just a person, is that then he seems like just a man around your age, then. You forget who he’s supposed to be, what he’s supposed to have done, when you’re trading quips and catching hits.

You think he allows you to spot him, since no other hero has had nearly the amount of encounters that you’ve had with him. Or maybe he’s following you. The thought crosses your mind and it should frighten you– you should mention it to Shouta. Especially since it almost seems like you’re crying wolf at this point.

For a while you don’t call for reinforcements as quickly as you should. Maybe you let him get away each time, you don’t fight as hard as you could. And you don’t think he’s fighting as viciously, either. He’s not trying to kill you. You’re not trying to capture him.

You don’t play nice, though. He’s not gentle with you. You’re not particularly careful with him, either. But it’s exciting, the rush of adrenaline, the sharp lilt of his smile to counter the mischievous glint of your eyes. It feels like an unspoken game of cat and mouse, following each other around until you both collide like reckless stars.

You separate sharply, too, all of it brutal– the coming together, the falling apart.

You both speak the same language, you think, something about the violence of it all, the fight of it all that’s familiar and knowing. Like there was never any choice in your lives, like it always meant to be spitting out blood and getting back up.

Eventually, you stop calling for reinforcements at all. At some point, you stop telling Shouta of your encounters.

You don’t linger on it, don’t dare contemplate it, lest guilt latches onto you, weighs you down, drags you into crawling. You feign some foolish form of ignorance, like you don’t know what’s happening during these encounters. You’re still fighting, aren’t you? It’s not like you’re helping him in any capacity.

You pretend not to notice the thread between you and Shigaraki that you’re pulling on, pretend not to notice the way it’s tethering you to him. You pretend it’s not going to eventually suffocate, that it’s not dangerous.

(But some days you have a hard time looking at Shouta, especially after everything he’s done for you, everything he does for you–)

Your teeth click together when your back is slammed against the drywall of an abandoned store. It cracks beneath your weight slightly, just as Shigaraki’s forearm bares down hard against your throat.

You gasp and wretch for breath, your toes barely on the ground as he keeps you pinned with his arm. You claw at him, fingernails digging into flesh.

He leers closer, “You don’t learn lessons, do you?”

He’s smiling, though, regarding you in amusement as you squirm and struggle.

You manage to knee him in the stomach, enough for him to drop you, so you can suck in large lungfuls of air.

If you were really fighting to hurt him, fighting to win, you’d kick him while he’s doubled over, move fast so he can’t get back up. But it’s more fun when it’s close– like little kids wrestling, you feel young and dumb with him. You feel reckless in the same way you did as a teenager, playing chicken near the train tracks with a bunch of other lost kids, when you used to dare each other to walk on the edge of high bridges and buildings. Everything was cut to close.

You had nothing then, so there was nothing to lose.

You try to tackle him instead, sending you both rolling onto the floor filled with debris– you hiss in pain as your palm catches on a spare shard of glass. Your palm opens with hot blood, runs rivulets down your wrist.

But you’re too busy wrestling with Shigaraki, too busy trying to get the upper hand to notice much.

There is a strange moment, though, when you end up atop him, straddling his stomach. A beat where you’re both breathing hard, staring at each other.

His hair is spread out around his head, like a halo of silver. It’s getting longer, you think, which is a dumb thing to notice about him.

He narrows his eyes at you, just as he catches your wrist before you can strike him. It’s the hand streaked with blood.

Reflexively, he holds a finger away from your wrist.

But then he stares at it, at his hand now slick with your blood, wrapped around your wrist. His fingers dig into your pulse, like he’s looking for your heartbeat.

Then, almost curiously, his last finger comes down to join the others against your skin.

Nothing happens. He knows nothing will happen and yet, each time he’s able, he seems to try again and again.

(You don’t think he actually wants his Quirk to work on you, only that he can’t fathom otherwise, so he has to try and prove himself wrong–)

He squeezes tighter, before those ruby eyes flick back to your face.

“Funny, I was always told I was a fast learner,” you finally answer him.

It takes him a moment, a beat where he watches you and you become aware of your position– of him, warm and lean beneath you. Of his hand, lithe and large, still wrapped around your wrist. Something inside of you shivers, makes your cheeks flush hot and prickly.

He snorts then, but he doesn’t seem very amused anymore, before shoving you off of him.

“You’re naive then,” he sneers, standing easily, apparently done with you.

Maybe you are, you think, standing now, too. You clutch at your bleeding hand, wrap your own fingers around your wrist now to cradle it to your body.

You try not to think of his touch.

He turns his back on you, evidently to leave, which makes you bristle. You don’t think, you just let that irritation bubble and fizz over and out of you, so that you rush for him again. You wrap your arms around his neck, use your momentum to flip him over again, onto his back. And this time, you use all of that training that Shouta has beat into you and you grapple with him seriously this time.

But he manages to catch your arm, force you onto your stomach, with it wretched behind your back. His other hand shoves your face into the ground. Even now, you can feel only four fingers on your head.

“I’ll teach you, if that’s what you want,” he snarls and you feel panic flood your veins, feel the white heat of it, the shaking that overcomes you. You thrash, hard, but he only shoves your cheek down harder, “You naive, stupid little girl–”.

You cry out– it’s a smaller noise than you’d like to admit.

And then he’s gone. All of that weight and pressure leaves so swiftly that it almost gives you whiplash– too sharp of a contrast. Even his leaving is brutal, somehow.

He has disappeared by the time you’ve picked yourself up from off the floor.

It’s raining, cold and hard, when you walk back to UA.

You lie to Shouta for the first time that night– a real, spoken lie, rather than just omitted truth.

You tell him you cut your hand cooking earlier, not wrestling with Shigaraki Tomura in hollowed out buildings, where the prying eyes of society can’t touch you.

You feel sick, when he rewraps the bandage around your palm. He’s careful with you, gentle in a way that Shigaraki isn’t.

You don’t sleep that night.

You just keep thinking about the look in his eyes, when he’d dropped that final finger against your pulse, and the concern in Shouta’s voice, when he’d asked what had happened to your palm.

Shouta had held your wrist, too, fingers against your heartbeat.

But it hadn’t beat the same and you can’t stomach looking in his eyes for the rest of the night.

***

Tomura dreams of you in soft light now, the red heat of morning, maybe the lullaby violet of evening.

He hears that little cry of yours– but now it’s sweeter, more desperate.

He hates you, he thinks, even in his dreams, all warbly and tender, as he presses two of his fingers between your plush lips. He presses them down against your tongue and you whine, turn wide eyes on him–

You’re so eager and soft in these dreams, which feels ridiculous for all your sharpness. He doesn’t know you as compliant or sweet like this, and his mind feels traitorous for imagining it. You wouldn’t take this lying down, wouldn’t take his fingers in your mouth, or let him fall into the crux of your body.

You’re so vivid, so warm and alive to all his cloying decay and death.

He wants to hurt you, he tries to convince himself, but he never does in these dreams. He can never make himself, not when you’re laid out beneath him, offered to him like sacrifice, slick and too-warm.

He wakes aching and livid. Doesn’t rest until he puts his hands on himself, touches and strokes and catches his groans behind his teeth– it’s a broken, frustrated sound, rattling around in the cage of his chest.

He thinks of you spread out beneath him, above him with your hair tickling his collar bones. He thinks of his hands on you, spread wide, all five of his fingers grabbing and squeezing and possessing you.

He thinks of that stupid little cry you’d given him, the one now that haunts him–

He doesn’t feel shameful when his hands end up sticky and he’s bitten his lip so hard it’s started to bleed to keep back a whine, doesn’t feel shame when he thinks of you, a little hero, welcoming the likes of him into your body.

It’s not shame, he thinks, with his chest rising and falling and the sweat cooling on his skin, it’s not shame just–

Irritation. Infatuation. Infection.

You’re a fucking disease, he decides, and he’s blistering with you, sick with you.

He wants to vomit you up, purge you of his body and mind.

But he can’t, so maybe the thought of you will just fester and rot inside of him.

Maybe he’ll just wander around this world, feverish and longing, like an open wound, like a walking corpse.

***

Shouta usually keeps a careful distance between the two of you. He isn’t afraid to touch you– he can’t be, as your mentor, as someone who has trained you and taken care of you. His hands know correcting; they have laid flat against your back to correct posture, or curved along your shoulder to guide you, they have molded you and shaped you. They have also stitched you up and soothed you, swept blood from your skin, pressed ice to inflammation.

But those touches have always remained somewhat professional, somewhat formal. Clinical, at times. Almost fatherly.

Even when he’d needed to cut away your hero suit to get at a wound you’d received while patrolling. Even when you’re sprawled on his bathroom floor, half bare for his eyes to assess– there has always been a careful distance between you two.

But lately, that distance dwindles, slips away like thread between your fingers.

The other night, he’d tucked a strand of your hair from your face.

Your legs now tangle with his when you both occupy opposite ends of the couch.

He lays his hand on the small of your back as you walk beside him. He ducks his head low for you, so that you can speak into his ear and he can murmur back to you.

But it’s a careful dance, one that you’re unsure of. He remains distant with you around others, especially his class. Especially Shinsou. You suppose you can’t blame him when students like Kaminari start rumors that you’re his teacher’s girlfriend.

Shouta always corrects him, grits out in a low voice that you are not his girlfriend and some part of you begs to ask, would it be so bad if I was?

Especially when you sleep in his bed. In his clothes. When you occupy some unnamed space in his life that seems to only be growing.

You suppose you don’t know a lot about relationships– you’ve never had one. There wasn’t much time to find love when you were just trying to find something to eat, when you were just trying to find somewhere safe and warm to sleep for the night. And now, with Shouta, you feel like you’re grasping at something you can’t quite reach.

You can’t decide if he knows what he’s doing or not, you can’t decide if the shift in your relationship is intentional on his part or not.

But you’re nothing if not curious, maybe a little too desperate for even the potential of his love. You’re so eager for it that it almost hurts, that you’d take nearly anything. And the idea of his rejection is a bitter weight that lies atop your chest.

(Looking back, you think this could’ve been the point of no return. This could’ve been your damned moment, the precipice of your fall. Maybe if the night had gone differently, if you hadn’t been such a child–)

There is an evening when Shouta stumbles home, with a gash ripped across his chest, near soaking wet with the icy rain that has just begun outside. He’d gone to work alone, working on an undercover mission that you know little about. Such is the nature of Shouta’s hero work, sometimes.

The Hero Commission expects you to follow in his footsteps. One day it will be you with secrets, slipping through shadows, moving through the underground world of the city. You know it well already, was born and reared down there, so it makes sense that you would return to it one day. But now in the form of a hero, some force to be reckoned with.

But looking at him now, bloody and exhausted and freezing, you wonder why everyone ever thought there’s glory in hero work.

You rush to him, Kyoko being dumped from your lap in the process, rushing off because of the commotion.

“I’m fine,” Shouta says quickly, the moment he sees the concern on your face. “It’s not that deep.”

Still, he looks wane. He looks tired. He looks cold.

You usher him in and he lets you. It’s your turn now to get the medical supplies, to grab a rag and have him rest against the bathroom counter.

“I can do it,” he tells you when you gently reach to begin cleaning up the wound, but you shake your head.

You don’t know why, but you want to prove you can care for him, too. You want to prove you’re like him, maybe, that you’re an adult with careful hands.

“Let me,” you reply, perhaps quieter, more tentative than you intended.

And he does.

You gently pry away his hero suit from the wound. Shouta only hisses quietly through his teeth at the pull, but otherwise remains still for you. He was right, it isn’t a deep wound, you can see that now. Just a long, drawn out graze that was just deep enough to bleed.

It’s over his heart and your hands flutter there, to and fro, gentle with him.

You can feel him watching you, dark eyes heavy and soft on your face. You look up through your lashes at him, just for a moment, and you feel suddenly nervous, suddenly small standing in the shadow of his large frame. In the shadow of his eyes.

You focus on cleaning the cut on his chest, listening to the way his breath stutters when it stings. You focus on bandaging him up, making your hands busy, watching as the red pricks through the white cloth.

“What happened?” you ask and your voice is hushed in the small bathroom. You don’t dare look up at him again.

“Nothing terrible,” is his short answer and you know he can’t tell you much about the mission, or what happens on these nights when he’s all alone. You can’t help but feel somewhat excluded, though, like you’re only a part of fragments of his life. Still, like there’s a distance he holds you at, so impossibly careful.

You don’t want to be careful anymore.

You want him like this, near and warm and beneath your hands.

You don’t know why you say it and the moment you blur it out, your cheeks flare into warmth, “I don’t like when you go out alone.”

The corner of his lips tick upward in amusement. He reaches up, nudges your chin with his knuckle gently, almost playfully, “Now you know how I feel.”

His voice is low, rough and warm, like the crackling of a smoldering hearth. Soft thunder to lull you to sleep.

You pick your eyes up finally, peer up into his face.

“How you feel?” you ask, voice just barely above a whisper.

He lets his knuckle brush lightly against your jaw, slow, smooth strokes as his features soften up, as his dark eyes flicker in the low light of the bathroom.

“Hm,” he hums softly, “How I feel.”

He tucks a strand of your hair away from your face delicately– you’ve never been treated so gently than when Shouta is touching you like this. Like you’re spun glass, something lovely in the palm of his rough, broad hand.

“Thank you for patching me up,” he murmurs then, his voice just a soft rasp.

And you think he’s going to pull away again, he’s going to ease away from you and you–

You feel your heart splinter, you feel the childish urge to latch on tight and not let go of him. You don’t want the distance, you don’t want to watch his features slide back into stoniness. You want to be his– oh God do you want to be his.

And you don’t want to be careful anymore, not when the risk is worth so much reward.

You press up onto the tips of your toes, let your stomach barely touch the hard lines of his, lean into his orbit carefully. Everything feels as if it could shatter at any moment.

He freezes beneath your hands.

You tilt your lips up in offering, parted soft, parted sweet.

And he let’s you–

He lets you lean in the rest of the way, press your warm lips to his. It’s a tentative kiss, almost unsure, like you’ve never done it before (you have but– but it’s never been like this). You’re lamb soft and unsure, moldable.

He kisses back.

You can feel his stubble scrape against your upper lip, can feel the exhale he gives against your cheek. The way you melt, silken and bending to what he wants of you.

His hand is large, chilled against your cheek.

You try to bite back a noise, a small thing that he ends up swallowing, as you eagerly push towards him. But that slight roughness, that desperation, makes him pull away suddenly.

His hands come down on your shoulders, holding you away, holding you at that distance and you–

“Shouta,” you breathe, almost whine.

But you watch as the walls rise, watch as all that softness slips from him, reveals only cold stone. “No,” he says, firm but gentle for you, “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that–”

You feel heat rise up, the shameful, bitter, angry kind. You feel it swell inside of you, sickly and horrible and vicious.

Your lip wobbles suddenly.

“What do you mean?” you hiss quietly, frustrated with the sudden sting of tears that you refuse to let fall.

“I shouldn’t have done that.” he says again, stoic and calm in the face of all your furious shame and anger and it just–

It makes you livid.

“Why not?” you ask, sharp, trying to keep the hurt out of your voice, “Y-You wanted to!”

When he’s silent, your eyes turn almost pleading, chest heaving. Your voice is small and uncertain when you ask, “Didn’t you?”

Your throat feels tight and choked, a lump forming there that hurts. One you can’t swallow down, not when you feel like your heart is on the outside of your body, like you’ve got all the most vulnerable parts of you bare and exposed.

Shouta exhales hard, squeezes your shoulder and you can tell he’s warring with himself. You can tell he wants to comfort you, assure you otherwise but he can’t, shouldn’t.

“It’s not that,” Shouta says, soft now, “It’s not that. It’s just inappropriate–”

“I’m not a child!” you snap and the tears finally break over the line of your lashes as if to contradict you, falling hot and angry against your flushed cheeks.

“I’m your mentor.” Shouta responds, almost soothingly, almost like he’s trying to placate you. Especially when he reaches out, goes to brush a tear from your cheek as if he isn’t the one who caused it.

You jerk away from him, waving away his hand, “Don’t–” you say, voice breaking, “Don’t do that.”

Shouta swallows, “I’m sorry,” he says again and you can tell he means it, feels like he almost means he’s sorry for more than just this. Like he’s sorry for not giving in, sorry he won’t let himself have what you’ve offered.

You have to look away from him, have to look away from his concern and defeated shoulders. More tears slip down your cheeks, quick and furious, and you wipe at them with the heel of your hand.

You want to say something– you want to scream or shout or fight him. You want to cry. You want to throw a tantrum, you realize, with all of that prickly embarrassment and knife sharp rejection gutting you seamlessly. You want to throw it up at his feet to see what he’s done and how bad this hurts–

But all you do swallow it all down, it goes down like needles, like splintered glass to tear up your pink insides somewhere.

“I-I’m going to go,” you say instead and you turn away from him. Turn to leave the bathroom, to shove your shoes and coat on despite his gentle protests.

Shouta catches your wrist in your flurry of movement and you have to keep back your sob behind clenched teeth.

“It’s raining, you’re just going to your apartment, right?” he asks, still worrying about you, still trying to care for you and it makes you see red.

“Yeah,” you lie, lurching out of his grip, ripping your hand from him, and finally wrenching open the door only to slam it shut behind you.

You don’t go back to your own apartment.

You go out into the night, into the freezing rain, which comes down in sharp, stinging pelts. Feels good against your overheated cheeks, though, almost feels good with your pounding head, like it’s icing your bruised and tender spots for a moment.

It soaks you quickly and down to the bone and eventually all that soothing chill becomes icy cold, seeps beneath your jacket, burrows down into your body that aches with a sudden loneliness.

At first, you don’t know where you’re walking to, aimless as the rain slants against you. The streetlights are like lanterns in this weather, glowing fuzzy and all alone in the streets save for the occasional car.

When you get into a busier part of the city, anyone who is walking has an umbrella, huddles beneath it, trying to keep their hands warm. A couple walks past you, huddled together and giggling, their breaths puffing out in front of them in this cold.

You wipe at your eyes, turn away so that no one sees the way you try to keep your face from crumpling.

You keep walking and walking and walking until you realize you’ve carried yourself to a part of the city you used to frequent; before Shouta, before becoming a hero, when you were nothing but a thief, some scavenger that society would rather not have.

It’s filled with abandoned warehouses and rundown drug stores, a seedy motel and dilapidated apartment complexes. It’s removed from the eyes of the main city, so they don’t have to look at the orphans and beggars.

But it’s familiar to you.

You wish you could say it still feels like coming home but it isn’t home anymore– no, home is Shouta’s bed, and the couch you spend evenings on with him while he grades papers. It’s the window in the kitchen, right above the sink. It’s training rooms and the walk from your apartment to his. it’s him and his stupid cats and violet-haired kid.

You bite back a groan, maybe another sob. Your teeth are chattering violently now with the freezing rain, your arms wrapped tightly around yourself as if you’re trying to hold all of that heartache on the inside of your body.

Even in all your frustration, though, you force yourself to glance around, to peer through the rain at your surroundings. It’s second nature at this point, since Shouta started training you, because you’re his good little–

You jolt in surprise when you see him standing behind you in the rain. His silver hair is plastered to his face, to his neck. His hood is thrown up to try and block out the rain, but he’s also soaked, red eyes gleaming in the lowlight.

It’s almost comical, you think, the both of you standing out here, shivering and soaked in this downpour like drowned strays.

Shigaraki Tomura eyes you warily.

You don’t think either of you were expecting to see each other.

For all your earlier anger, you don’t have a lot of fight in you, don’t want to fight. Can’t fathom trying to use your brain enough to battle him off. And Shigaraki, for reasons beyond you, has yet to really harm you every time he’s come across you.

You feel strangely casual, strangely unguarded and wavering.

“What are you doing here?” he finally rasps, glaring at you.

A broken laugh ruptures out of your aching ribs, between your chattering teeth.

“What are you doing here?” you counter and he clearly doesn’t care for whatever strange humor you’ve found in this situation.

He lopes closer, though, almost tentatively, watching to see if you’re going to make any sort of move. You remain with your arms hugged tight to your body, shivering in this cold.

He doesn’t answer you. His hands are tucked away into his pockets. You can see him trying to hold back shivers, too, can see the way his shoulders tense, the way his jaw grinds together.

“I used to live around here,” you admit for some reason, out into the alleway space between the two of you. Maybe if only to say it aloud, to say that you were someone before Shouta, maybe just to spite Shouta, to tell Shigaraki Tomura a piece of you that is personal and kept inside your heart.

The rain swallows your words, though, and for a moment, you think he’ll ignore you entirely.

But he asks, “So you decided to visit in the freezing rain?”

He’s not being humorous, but you smile anyways and it feels wobbly, a little bit absurd– the kind of smile that comes after crying, when you feel half-mad, when everything is a mess and your emotions are an overflowing fountain, spilling out in any way it sees fit to drown everything in sight.

You shrug, open your arms out to the space, looking around for a moment, as if it will back you up when you ask, “Why not?”

Shigaraki’s next few steps towards you are almost cautious, like he can feel your fragility from here.

Maybe starting a fight would do you well. Maybe you want to taste blood. Maybe his eyes on you will keep you warm out here– will make you forget about Shouta, which strikes you with another sharp and buzzing pang.

And somehow, someway, when he steps close enough to touch, he manages to hit the one spot where you’re hurting the worst;

“Don’t you have a nice warm home to be in?”

You wince like he’s struck you, face falling for a moment, arms collapsing back down to your sides.

You think of Shouta, back in his apartment, with his cats and his blankets and the fond way he’d always look at you–

All that frustration keens at the thought, though, flares quick and hot inside of you. That urge to scream and sob and fight comes back with a vengeance. When Shigaraki gets too close to you, you lash out, shoving him backwards.

It’s artless, but he stumbles a half step back after your palms had pushed against his chest.

Unknowingly, you hit a nerve in him, too, when you ask, “Can’t you leave me alone? You’re always fucking stalking me!”

“I don’t waste my time stalking bratty, useless little heroes.” he snaps, biting out the words.

You don’t know why that stings, too. Maybe it’s the way he said ‘useless,’ or the mockery of ‘hero.’ Maybe it’s because that’s how you feel, like some bratty child, scorned and angry and bitter. Maybe that’s why Shouta doesn’t want you–

You shove at Shigaraki again, acting as the child you feel like. He almost snorts, except you do it again, and again, until you’re shoving against his chest with everything you have.

And strangely, he lets you for a moment, watching your face, watching the way your lip trembles and your eyes grow all glassy. He can’t tell with the rain but–

He grabs your forearm, tight and firm to stop your sudden shoving. He keeps a finger lifted away from you naturally. He doesn’t need to, you think dimly, but he does.

You beat at his chest with your free hand before he snags that one, too, grips you to haul you closer to him, to peer down into your face with blazing red eyes.

When you look up at him, it’s through angry, indignant tears.

“Let go,” you hiss, trying to jerk out of his hold.

He bares his teeth in some semblance of a smile, “What makes you think I’d listen to you?”

You thrash harder in his hold, but he just yanks you closer, until you lose balance and stumble into his lean form. You can feel his chest against yours, the line of your torsos, your hips.

You look at him through wet lashes, and there’s something strange in his expression now. It freezes you, stills you against him. You can feel his chest rising and falling rapidly, can feel the sudden shuddering of his body– you pretend it’s from the cold. But you suddenly can’t feel the cold anymore, can’t feel the breath in your lungs.

Hunger, you finally place the look in his eyes, just before he pulls you up to meet him halfway in a kiss that feels more like a car crash.

It’s jarring, shocking to you the way impact is, like free-falling and finally hitting the ground.

His lips are rough around the edges, you can feel the indent of his scar at the corner of his mouth, but the center is warm and almost soft. Wet, between the rain that turns everything slick and the way he parts his mouth against yours.

It should be gross, you think, it should be horrible– you should try to pull away, but he’s clutching you tighter, crushing any possible distance between you two, shattering it with a vengeance. And it’s–

It’s everything you wanted from Shouta, maybe, that closeness, the grabbing of his desperate hands. The vicious wanting, of being wanted so viscerally, so tremendously.

And maybe it’s to spite Shouta, too, a bad decision for the books. You haven’t made one of those in awhile, have you?

So you fist your hands in his cold, wet hoodie, and throw your other arm around his neck to drag him down into you, deeper into the kiss.

He makes a noise, something like a groan, a growl that splits off into a whine at the end. You swallow it, open your mouth to let him into you. Your teeth clink together, it’s messy and hard and fast, all heat and desperation.

The absurdity isn’t lost on you, the strange irony that comes with kissing in the rain— it isn’t romantic. It doesn’t cause your heart to flutter but full on stop. It’s freezing and rough and brutal.

You’re not kissing the man of your dreams (but you have dreamt of him, haven’t you?), you’re not kissing some dashing hero, there’s not going to be a love confession after this.

You’re kissing one of the most wanted villains in rain that hits you like ice, surrounded by a place you used to call home.

You could laugh, if you weren’t so busy trying to claw at him, to get more.

He kisses like he’s trying to tear you apart. You can feel the sting of his teeth, the hungry push of his lips into yours. He’s all scavenger, he’ll take everything you give him and more—

And you feel him, the hard line of his desire for you, digging roughly into your stomach and that’s– that’s finally what shocks you. It’s what forces you to lurch away from him.

He lets you go, surprisingly, but you both stare at each other, wide-eyed and shocked.

The irony of you stuttering out the words, “I-I shouldn’t have done that–” is so cruel and hysterical that you feel like you’re going to split apart at the seams.

But he doesn’t look upset. No, he looks like he’s won something, like he’s snapped a piece of the puzzle into place. Like he knows something you don’t.

You shove past him.

You run home, force your body to move, to breathe hard and heavy, to try and forget the way he’d felt against you– or the way Shouta had cradled your cheek or the way you’ve never known something like either acts. Never been treated so gently. Never been wanted so badly.

When you get to your apartment, you slam the door shut behind you. Throw the lock into place and let your chest shake and heave and breathe, forcing in huge lungfuls of air. You’re so soaked that you drip all over the floor.

You shuck off your cold clothes in the living room because you can, because you feel like you’re going crazy, feel like you’re unraveling.

You take a shower so hot that it hurts, trying to scrub him off of you, or trying to remember the heat that he’d forced into you.

You sleep naked for once, something you don’t do often, but need to feel the sheets against bare skin, need to know that you’re alone and with yourself.

But you lie awake, twisting and turning and restless all night.

You refuse to let your hands wander, refuse to give in to whatever spark that had fanned into a flame in the low parts of your stomach. Refuse to picture red eyes. Refuse to imagine raven hair between your fist, too.

You refuse it all, try to force it down into the depths of you to never see the light of day again.

You end up getting sick from the rain– feverish and woozy and exhausted– but you also think you’re sick with something else, something that’s wormed its way into all the secretive, vulnerable parts of you.

Something that makes you furious and flushed in the lonesome hours of the blue-dark night.

***

you groan. "just go get ready," you say. "i'll meet you by the gate."

you can feel their eyes searing through you; the thing in you flinches. you gasp in a sharp breath. the world blurs for an instant, a watercolor thing.

when the thing in you steadies, so does the world.

there's a shock of cold against your neck, a glacier's biting ice. you yelp as the ice lolly drips against you. you try to push gojo away, but he's stronger. he smears it on the salt of your skin once more, winter's kiss, and then pulls back.

"don't be late," he says with a grin, popping the lolly back into his mouth.

you scowl at him, holding a hand against the numb spot on your neck. it's sticky.

"be nice, satoru," getou scolds. too late, as always.

gojo laughs, pushing to his feet. getou joins him, though he nudges against you one last time. gojo waves energetically as the two of them leave. you don't return it.

as promised, you meet them at the gate.

they squish you between them in the manager's car. you hadn't expected anything else. you stare out the windshield as the landscape speeds by, their voices a background hum.

the manager drops the three of you off. you follow them into the site, the hairs on the back of your neck rising as the seething mass of cursed energy ripples towards you.

neither of them seem particularly bothered.

it's simple. at least for them. they dismantle the curse piece by piece, calling back and forth to each other with grins.

you just watch.

it ends as it always does: with them the victors. they're already making their way back to you, swapping jokes, when everything explodes.

it's thousands of small curses spewing from the wreckage of the special grade. they fill the air like a swarm of bats, swooping low and plucking at you the way a guitarist picks at strings.

gojo blasts a path through them. it fills instantly.

"shit, that's annoying," he groans.

"have fun," getou says with a chuckle. "it's your turn, anyway."

"ugh. fine."

it's too late for you to realize.

a pulse of cursed energy leaves gojo, rippling out like water. the little curses screech as it washes over them, disintegrating into ash. it rushes over you like the tide, all consuming.

the thing in you withers instantly.

your heart stops.

you clutch at your chest, sinking to your knees. there's ash drifting through the air like confetti. you see getou and gojo turning towards you, the way their jubilant expressions melt.

things get blurry, then. you think you're out of touch with the world, that you're just a step behind it.

"fuck!" you hear, but it's muffled, as if you're underwater.

something slides under your back. it takes your weight, holds you up. there's fingers at your jaw, pressing into the hinge of it. they snake to your mouth, dip between your lips.

something presses on to your tongue. it's rancid. meat gone rotten mixed with the sludge of overripe fruit.

"swallow," someone urges. "swallow!"

you think you do.

something unfurls in you. it webs across the root system of your nerves; it slithers its way into your heart. it wraps around it like a fist and pulses.

your heart pumps, just once.

it does it again.

your heart kicks. stutters. then it starts again, battering against your chest like a drum.

when it settles, your heart is beating in gentle rhythm, like waves washing against the shore. you hiss in a breath. your chest is tender, a stitched wound.

you peel open your eyes.

getou is kneeling beside you. his hair is loosening from its bun; it spills over his shoulder like calligrapher's ink. gojo is at your back, his fingers sinking in to the spaces between your ribs.

they're both talking, but you can't quite hear them. getou cups your face, his hands a cradle.

"you're okay," he says, the first thing to break through your daze, a shattering of river ice. "you're okay."

something in you stirs. it has a mouth like you've never felt before, its teeth sunk into your bones.

"what did you do?" you croak.

but you already know.

—

it will take years, but one night, suguru will come to you. there will be blood spattered across his clothes, rusting into a deep brown.

"i'm leaving," he will say. "come with me."

his curse will throb within you.

you will not have a choice.

Actually, I think even the language around “safe spaces” bothers me a little. Originally, I believe the term “safe spaces” came from the late 60s/early 70s LGBTQ and feminist movements, where they labeled gay bars or places as “safe spaces” to be themselves in a world that ordinarily rejected, abused, or killed them for who they are. They carved out a tiny slice of the universe that would allow them to be themselves for just a an evening, a moment in time. Of course, it still meant anyone could show up in most cases. Perhaps there was some precautions put in place to try and weed out bigots or danger, but for the most part, anyone was welcome.

The term “safe space” like many other phrases on the internet that were once apart of civil rights, activist, or social theory has now been mutated, transformed, and I believe, has come to die.

Or perhaps, should die. We should kill it.

(And before anyone jumps at me—I do still believe in the importance of “safe spaces” in its original form. I do believe it’s important for marginalized people to have real, in-person, safe spaces to be in whether to just exist, connect with other members of their community, celebrate, etc. I believe it is an okay thing to have some of this on the internet too.)

Now, carving out a “safe space” on the internet and especially in fandom means to immediately block anyone that doesn’t make you feel incredible, have all the exact same opinions as you, and never once ruffles your feathers. It means to never see a gif of that ship you hate or artwork you find distasteful. It means taking everything personally and being sensitive and hypervigilant. And breaking friendships and mutuals quickly, over very, very small things. It means never being able to debate or have conversations of analysis. It means to never disagree, to never step outside of your own perspective.

It means to become hyper-individualistic. To create your own, tiny, fragile world. And if anyone or anything disturbs that in any way, you annihilate it immediately. You have no tolerance for anything other than something that gives you immense joy, satisfaction, and reassures your view of life or fandom. (My partner calls this “sugar in your mouth all the time” and what they mean is you always want sweets, but to feel better, to be healthy, you need vegetables, too.)

Creating a safe space now means losing community and only tolerating, engaging, and encouraging people who bolster you specifically. And yes, you may bolster them in return, but it becomes transactional. Warped. It is all only ever about you. And how you feel. And how that person or people or community makes you feel.

I think this is why we’ve seen an uptick in intolerance for differing opinions in fandom spaces (or online spaces in general). No one is allowed to disagree with each other—you should block and move on. If you do disagree with an opinion, that person assumes you think they’re an evil, awful idiot and becomes defensive. Or now you’re starting drama. There’s an inability to add to discussions. Or jump off of each other. Or to disagree in a way that isn’t mean-spirited or condescending. In college, during discussion based literature classes, I was allowed to disagree with my classmates on the text and we rarely got heated or upset with each other. Occasionally, of course, there were personal topics that sparked larger emotions or a misstep, it’s always possible.

But no one was ever unsafe.

Which is why I dislike the phrase “safe space” on the internet, in the modern era.

You’re not in danger, you’re just uncomfortable.

On a more specific level, I think this is also why there’s been such an uptick in selfshipping in our corner of fandom. We’ve curated our spaces so far that it truly is just about the individual and their individual self ship. Gone are the days of sharing and connecting—unless you’re willing to engage with someone’s selfship, they will not engage with yours. It leaves us all to play dolls separately, rather than together. There’s been a decline in fics, especially longer ones. There’s been a decline in just general content. Now everything is individualistic. Tailored so specifically to you and only you, that it sorta leaves you isolated.

Or leaves many members of the community isolated.

It’s become fractured and lonely. Uninspiring and an echo chamber of voices that all, always, agree and love and play and talk and adore each other, by themselves.

It leaves no room for difference, uniqueness, community, or even creativity. It leaves no room for discomfort. It leaves no room to learn how to regulate yourself over something small, like a differing opinion or someone else who enjoys that same character, differently. It’s crucial that you know how to let things roll off of you in order to be in community with each other.

Community has disagreements, it has diversity of thought and art and personhood. That is a good thing. It’s possible to disagree with someone and still maintain respect, kindness, and even curiosity for them.

Beyond that, the internet, no matter how much tailoring you do, is never just for you. If you post an opinion on your blog, someone is allowed to disagree or add to that and it doesn’t always mean they’re trying to destroy and kill you mentally. And beyond this, fandom is not just for you. Fandom has always been about community. And community should not all look, talk, act, think, and agree exactly like you.

This is dangerous and indicative of grander socio-political trends in our world and capitalism. But that conversation is for another day.

I say all of this mostly to get my opinions on the matter out—and to perhaps change minds or get people thinking. I want us to be reflective on our spaces and on ourselves. If you enjoy being in fandom spaces, it may be good to reflect on why! I think part of the reason I haven’t enjoyed it as recently is because of this hyper individualistic trend. I always enjoyed fandom as a community and place to discuss analysis, art, writing, and The Characters, together. And that just doesn’t feel as possible anymore in the xreader world that I currently live in.