Yea 💀😂 But You Get The Idea

Love Like Ghosts (Chapter 18) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

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

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17

Chapter 18

There’s something wrong with your house, but you knew that when you bought it. This morning, the thing that’s wrong with it is the potted plant that’s heaved over the fence into the front yard just past three am. The sound of a terracotta pot shattering wakes you up, and when you fumble for your phone to check the time, you see that you’ve got a text from Dabi. Your dumb horny idiot wouldn’t leave me alone until I gave him a plant. Whatever the hell he wants, I hope it’s worth it.

As far as Dabi goes, it could be worse. You send him a thumbs-up and a thank-you and wonder idly if Tomura really thinks one potted plant is going to get the two of you through a second round of sex. But when Tomura materializes in your room seconds later, he doesn’t try to start something. Instead he crawls under the blankets on your bed and wedges himself in beside you. Phantom’s excited to see him. She walks all over you to plop down between the two of you, her wagging tail thumping against your cheek.

You shift her to one side to avoid the onslaught and peer at Tomura through blurry eyes. “What?”

“Go back to bed.” Tomura sets Phantom down on your stomach and presses close against your side, wrapping one arm around you to hold you even closer. “I mean it. Go.”

You don’t like being told what to do, but you have work in the morning, and you’re still worn out from last night. You close your eyes again.

It’s a busy morning, so busy that your plan to get the morning-after pill before work is derailed within two minutes of your alarm going off. You were so tired last night that it was all you could do to make dinner, feed Phantom, and go back to sleep, which means you now have to shower and pack a lunch in addition to all your usual morning chores. And somewhere in the middle of that, you have to explain the plan for killing Tomura’s conjurer to Tomura himself.

Tomura, as predicted, is not pleased. His first protest is that he can do it himself, at which point you text Hizashi to come over later and explain – from outside the fence – what happens to ghosts who kill their own conjurers. Tomura follows up by pointing out that the others weren’t very helpful handling Garaki, and you counter with Tomura’s own statement about being his conjurer’s only remaining ghost. Finally, Tomura gets around to what seems to be the main point of contention. “I don’t trust them. Not with you. Not from him.”

Tomura doesn’t talk about his conjurer very much. From what he’s said, he barely remembers him. But you knew he’d say something like this, and you have a response ready. “If you’re materialized, he’s cut off from the world between. He’ll just be a human. And humans die.”

“Don’t copy me,” Tomura says. He knows you’re quoting what he said to Garaki. “Who’s supposed to kill him, anyway? If they try this stupid plan.”

“The rest of the adult humans,” you say. Then you think about it. “Probably Keigo or Aizawa. And probably Aizawa. He’s got a gun.”

“Spinner would. And Jin.” Tomura speaks with a lot more certainty than you’d expect. He sees the way you’re looking at him. “What?”

“Nothing.” The electric teakettle hisses and you pour hot water into your travel mug before dropping in a tea bag. “Usually you aren’t nice about them.”

“They came over while you were gone. For games.” Tomura crouches down to pet Phantom, who’s come over with her favorite toy. “Himiko, too. It wasn’t bad.”

You didn’t expect that. You didn’t think he’d do anything but hang out with Phantom while you were gone, and you suddenly feel guilty for not asking. But you’ll ask more when you get home from work, or text him about it on your lunch break. Right now you have to get moving. “So, the plan?”

“I haven’t said yes yet.”

“We’re not doing it today,” you say. “Just think about it. If you’ve got ideas, we could use them. Your last plan was pretty good.”

Tomura looks pleased with himself. You gather up your work backpack, plus all the research you’re bringing to Mr. Yagi in exchange for his and Izuku’s notes on his master’s journal, and head for the door. Phantom follows you. So does Tomura. “Get more plants on the way home.”

You say goodbye to Phantom and feed her a treat. “Plants are expensive.”

“They’re everywhere outside. Those don’t cost anything.”

He wants you to go out, dig up random plants, put them in pots, and bring them home so the two of you can have more sex. “I’m not stealing plants in my work clothes,” you say. “Maybe after dinner.”

Tomura grins. He dematerializes from behind you and reappears in front of you, leaning against the front door and blocking your path. “I want a kiss first.”

“I was going to kiss you anyway.” Your hands are full, but you step forward anyway and press your lips against his.

You haven’t kissed him since last night. The two of you don’t usually kiss unless someone’s trying to start something, and kissing him goodbye on your way out the door to work has always felt a little too intimate, a little too serious for whatever the two of you are. Except now the two of you have said you love each other. You defined the relationship. You went all the way, to the degree that you’re having to make an effort not to walk funny. You can be serious, because it is serious. A goodbye kiss is something you’re allowed to have.

You’re five minutes late by the time you stagger out the door, and as you push the speed limit to get to work on time, you find yourself wishing you had someone you could tell about all of this. Maybe not the sex part. Probably not about that. Definitely not about that – but the rest of it. The part where you’ve got a boyfriend who loves you in whatever way ghosts love humans. It’s the kind of thing you’d talk to your old friends about, but they’ve found their own lives and pulled away, just like you did. There’s got to be somebody else. As you cruise the courthouse parking lot looking for a parking place, your usual spot long since snagged by somebody who got here early, you’re horrified to find yourself considering telling Nakayama.

The spot you find is way back in the corner of the lot, almost out of sight of the doors. If it was dark there’s no way you’d think about parking here, but it’s broad daylight, and you’ve got pepper spray somewhere in your backpack for the walk back after work. You take a second to get yourself organized, then grab your backpack and get out of the car, walking around to the passenger side to lift your research folder off the seat.

You don’t see a shadow fall across you. You don’t hear footsteps. The first thing you notice is something touching your shoulder, and the last thing you see is an enormous hand swathed in a wet, stinking handkerchief coming down over your nose and mouth. You have time to identify the smell – not alcohol, something stronger, chloroform? – before the world starts to blur at the edges. Somewhere in your head, alarm bells are ringing. You’re in danger. You’re being kidnapped. Something’s gone really wrong.

By the time the realization settles over you fully, it’s too late. All you can do is throw your elbow backwards, connecting weakly with something solid, before everything goes black.

You come to with a splitting headache and all the adrenaline and terror you didn’t have time to feel before flooding through your veins. As soon as your eyes are open, you’re fighting, but there’s no point – your arms and legs have been shackled down at the wrists and ankles, and there’s a restraint pinning you to the table at the waist. You’re trapped. It’s not even funny how trapped you are.

When you look up, all you can see is the bright glare of a fluorescent light, the kind that gets shined on your face at the dentist’s office. When you turn your head to the right, there’s nothing. When you look left, you see a rolling cart with a tray on top of it. The tray is covered in sharp, shiny metal implements. Surgical implements.

This can’t be happening. You thrash, trying to find any give in your restraints, but there’s nothing. It’s around then that you realize you’ve been stripped of your shoes, socks, shirt, pants – you’re down to your bra and underwear, like some parody of a kidnapping in a movie. But this isn’t a parody or a movie. It’s real. Whoever brought you here is planning to hurt you badly. Maybe kill you. Probably kill you.

“Don’t worry. I don’t plan to kill you.” The voice issues from somewhere behind you, and it rings a distant bell in your head. Too distant, when the rest of you is worried about whether your kidnapper can read your mind. “In fact, my plan hinges on your survival. I have great things in mind for Tomura, and the death of his human at my hands will not improve his listening skills.”

“Shigaraki Akira,” you say, and Tomura’s conjurer laughs. “I know who you are. We all do.”

“Yes, you made it quite far in your investigation! Tomura certainly chose his human well,” the conjurer says. He sounds delighted by it, which is the opposite of how you expected him to sound. “It’s quite unusual to see a human so bent on protecting a ghost – and terribly unfortunate that Tomura wasn’t quite so careful when it came to you. So full of ghostly power – you were all too easy to spot.”

You have the incredibly stupid thought that this wouldn’t be happening if the condom hadn’t broken, then push it aside. The conjurer’s voice is familiar. You’ve met him before. When? Where? “Where did you find me?”

“You don’t remember?” The conjurer sounds surprised. Then he laughs at himself. “Of course. You can’t see me. My apologies.”

Footsteps behind you. A shadow falls over you, and although it’s hard to see the conjurer’s face, you know exactly who you’re looking at. “My fellow gardener,” the man who gave you his handkerchief the day Garaki died says. His smile sends a bolt of pure terror down your spine. “We meet again.”

All this time you’ve been plotting against Tomura’s conjurer, and he’s known where you are. He’s known where you are for more than a month. You thrash against the restraints harder than before, watching as Shigaraki picks his way around the table you’re strapped to and reaches the cart with the instruments. He pulls on a pair of gloves, and somewhere behind you, a door opens. More footsteps. Shadowy figures come to stand along the walls, and Shigaraki continues to talk.

“It’s quite a strange existence your neighborhood has carved out,” he remarks, lifting one tool after another to the light and studying them. “So many beings who once held immense power, leading such quiet, mundane lives. I must say, I’ve never understood the appeal of humanity, of mortality. Why should we settle for one life, one world, when we could have so much more?”

Silence falls, and stretches. Tomura’s conjurer glances at you. “This isn’t a rhetorical question. I’m interested in your answer. What is so wonderful about mortality?”

“It’s not wonderful,” you say. Shigaraki Akira arches an eyebrow. “The world between is worse.”

“Ah, I understand. You’ve stared into the abyss, and you don’t like what you saw.” Shigaraki raises one hand and beckons, and eight shadowy figures converge on the table, holding down your arms and legs even tighter. If you couldn’t get out before, you’ve got no hope of it now. “Perhaps you simply need to look a little longer. You will get the chance.”

When he speaks again, he’s not speaking to you. “Hold her down tightly. We must remove all traces, or our plan will be spoiled before it can begin.”

“What plan?” you ask desperately. “What are you going to do to me?”

“For all your impressive qualities, you’re only human,” Shigaraki Akira says, almost indulgently. “In order for you to properly partner Tomura, I must make you into something more.”

There’s something about that you should understand. Something you should know. But then the blade of a knife meets your skin, carving deep through its layers and down to the fat beneath it, and your ability to understand anything at all vanishes into a helpless howl of pain.

It’s terrible enough to drive you into unconsciousness, but Tomura’s conjurer doesn’t let you stay there. When you pass out, the knife lifts, and the process doesn’t begin again until you wake. You don’t know why you have to be awake for this, unless he’s trying to torture you, but he sets the knife down every so often to assure you it isn’t personal. How could it not be personal? He’s carving into your skin, peeling back long strips of it with agonizing slowness, stopping only when you fall unconscious or when his hands grow too slick with your blood to hold the blade. There’s no rhyme or reason to where he’s cutting you. Your left shoulder. Your right forearm. A spot on the side of your torso that feels like it takes hours upon hours to peel back. Every time you black out, you pray that you won’t wake up, that the conjurer won’t be able to rouse you. And every time, your eyes open again.

It's been quiet in the room, save for the conjurer’s voice and your unheeded screams, but after some endless amount of time, you hear another voice. “Too much blood loss,” it says, low and rumbling. “We’re running out of excisions.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. I expected her to be strong-willed, and we have plenty of excisions left for my purposes,” Shigaraki Akira says. “When we exhaust our options on the anterior, we’ll turn her to expose the rest. The one on her back is quite fresh.”

What’s on your back? You know Tomura left scratches there last night – and then you understand what the conjurer’s doing, what he’s spent the last interminable hours carving out of your skin. He’s removing the marks Tomura left on you. All of them, one by one.

You don’t know why he thinks Tomura will be happy with this. Seeing what’s been done to you will enrage him. You wonder what time it is, whether anyone’s noticed you’re missing, whether anyone’s asked where you are. How long will it take Tomura to realize you aren’t coming home? How long is he going to be angry at you before he realizes that something’s gone wrong? You think of him pacing inside the house, Phantom following him, anxious because he is. You wish you were anywhere but here, but more than anything, you wish you were home with them. You’re never going to see them again. Your throat, raw from screaming, closes off. Tears begin to drip down your cheeks, and the next time the knife cuts into your skin, you endure it in sobs instead of screams.

Your other arm. Your opposite shoulder. The other side of your waist. At some point the conjurer inserts an IV, and fresh blood begins to flow drop by drop into your veins. He wants you alive. Why? You try to make yourself listen to what he’s saying, to learn anything that might help you survive, but there’s nothing. Just the friendly exterior, the friendly voice, and the hands cutting you apart piece by piece.

“I can’t call this failure Tomura’s,” he muses as he carves a piece of flesh out of your upper arm. “He doesn’t know any better. Toshinori, on the other hand – the fact that I snatched you from under his nose will haunt him for the rest of his pathetic human life.”

You want to defend Mr. Yagi, but there’s nothing left of your voice. It’s almost as raspy as Tomura’s, and you’ve barely used it for anything but sobs and weak whimpers of pain. The conjurer’s voice takes on a dangerous note. “Nothing to say? Your stubbornness was charming at first. Now it’s getting excessive.” He jabs the knife into your skin, peels a strip back, and you wail like a wounded animal. “There’s no point in resisting. No one is coming for you. No one knows where you are. No one even knows you’re gone. The longer you resist, the worse it will be.”

No one knows you’re gone. That means it’s still the same day, because if he’s been watching you, he knows what time you’d be expected home. How is it the same day? It feels like it’s been forever. “That’s right,” the conjurer continues. “The longer you hold out, the more painful this will be. When it ends is entirely up to you.”

When it ends? Your mind is too hazy with blood loss and pain to come up with an answer, and before you can even come close, the knife bites into your skin again. You pass out almost instantly. He revives you just as quickly. It begins all over again.

You can tell the conjurer is growing frustrated with your unwillingness to do whatever it is he wants you to do. You also have a feeling he’s running out of marks to carve away, and sure enough, he orders for you to be uncuffed and rolled over, so he can reach the marks on your back. They uncuff your legs first. Nobody’s trying too hard to prevent you from running, which makes sense. You can’t run. You don’t even know that you could stand.

When your right hand’s uncuffed, the conjurer takes one look and bursts out laughing. “How did I miss this?” he asks, pulling the bracelet from your wrist. “Shimura’s work. Of course she’d continue to plague me from beyond the grave.”

Conjurers can’t touch the souls of the dead. If you die, you’ll be free of this. Free from him. The thought comes to you, settles around you, comforting and cold. You don’t have to survive this. It can end. You can go.

Shigaraki Akira laughs. “So this token was the underpinning of your resolve. Moonfish, retrieve the ghost. We’re ready.”

His voice is benevolent again, almost cooing, with a sickly undertone that makes you want to tear off the rest of your skin. He uncuffs your other wrist without looking, without spotting the bracelet there, covered in blood and practically glued to your skin. “I imagine Tomura will be very fond of my gift. Once your binding is complete, he’ll have no need to embody himself again.”

A ghost. He called for a ghost, and he’s talking about binding – a Nomu. Tomura’s conjurer is planning to turn you into a Nomu. He tortured you until you lost your will to go on, and as if you needed proof that he succeeded, you’re lying completely unrestrained on the table without even the faintest urge to run. “As for this,” Shigaraki continues, “it’s only fitting that I break Shimura’s last trinket on the day I break her ghost’s will.”

He raises the bracelet and slams it down on the table. You hear it crack. A sheet of white light blasts through the room.

You don’t understand what’s happening. It feels like it happens too fast, and at the same time, you see it in slow motion. Shigaraki’s blown backwards, clawing at his face and howling. The table you were tied to tips and overturns. There’s a sharp sting as the IV comes out of your arm, and pain explodes through your body as you hit the ground and sprawl out. Your mind’s a second or two behind the times. You’re sprawled out on the ground. Your arms and legs are free. You could get up, if you wanted to. You could run.

You struggle to your knees, try to stand, and realize that crawling’s your best bet. In the wreckage of the laboratory, nobody’s paying attention to you – they’re all trying to aid Tomura’s conjurer, who’s still howling in pain. You gather your strength and what’s left of your resolve and crawl for the door.

The operating room was clean and pitilessly bright, but the hallway outside is dingy, and crawling through it feels like it’s going to give you twenty kinds of diseases. It’s that thought that forces you to your feet, and not a second too soon. One of the conjurer’s minions is hurrying down the hallway towards you, carrying a matte-black box that’s rattling in his grip. You don’t even think before you act. You reach out and swat it from his hands, and the instant it strikes the floor, the ghost inside it bursts free.

The ghost could kill you. You see her thinking about it, but then the conjurer’s servant lunges through her, towards you, and she materializes all at once. You’ve never seen a ghost trap someone else with its own body before, and it’s hideous. So is what’s happening to the minion – massive dents are appearing in his body, like the way a car looks after a few rounds in a demolition derby. His eyes are blank as his body deforms, but the ghost looks at you. She has dark skin and pale hair and a look of unrestrained fury in her red eyes. “Run.”

You don’t need to be told more than once. You set off down the hall as fast as you can go, stumbling on almost every step. If anyone catches you, you’re doomed, but if you can get out of the building, maybe – you think about your home, Phantom. Tomura. But even if you make it out of here, you don’t know where you are. You don’t have money or your phone or your ID. You don’t even have clothes. When you hit the street, you’ll be doing it bloodstained and in your underwear, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll make it that far. You remind yourself again. Phantom. Tomura. You have to.

Something seizes you from behind, and your destroyed vocal cords shudder around a scream – but it’s only the ghost from the box. She begins to drag you down the hall, much faster than you were able to move on your own. “I’ll get you out, but that’s it,” she says through clenched teeth. “Whatever you did in there, do it again as soon as we’re outside.”

You still have the other bracelet. You nod and struggle to pick up speed, but the ghost makes an irritated sound and yanks you completely off your feet. It’s faster this way. Still, you’d give almost anything not to see the long smear of blood your body is leaving on the ground, and of course being dragged around like this hurts. Everything hurts. You’ve never felt pain like this before. All you want is for it to stop.

No, that’s not all you want. You want to go home. You think of Phantom, think of Tomura, and hold on tight as the ghost kicks down a door and drags you through onto the street.

It’s almost full dark. The air smells sooty and metallic, which tells you that you’re in the old manufacturing district, a long way from anybody who could have heard you scream. The ghost drops you next to the building and gestures impatiently. “Do it. You’ll need every second of a head start.”

You raise your left hand and bang your wrist against the wall of the building. Not hard enough. You throw yourself against the wall, hoping your body weight will do the trick, but there’s no luck there, either. “We’re too close,” the ghost says suddenly. “Give me that.”

She pries the bracelet off your wrist, drags you five feet, ten feet, twenty feet away, then hurls the bracelet against the wall from a distance. The blast of light takes a chunk out of the side of the building, and the entire thing begins to collapse – but that’s all you see of it. The ghost drags you away from the damaged building, towards the more populated downtown. As bad as being dragged across the floor in the warehouse was, being dragged across concrete is worse. You black out after about three seconds, and this time, there’s no conjurer trying to wake you up.

The next time you come to, you’re huddled in an alleyway, limbs flopping uselessly as the ghost tries to stuff you into a set of clothes that smell freshly stolen. “Go out there,” she snaps at you once she sees you’re awake. “Someone will see this and help you. This is as far as I go.”

“Thank you,” you mumble. “You got me out –”

“We got each other out. He dropped my box because of you.” The ghost straightens your shirt, then hauls you upright by the front of it. “Good luck, human.”

“Wait,” you say, and the ghost glances at you again. “What’s your name?”

“Rumi.” The ghost dematerializes and vanishes completely.

Rumi’s saved your life, and now she’s saving her own. The rest is up to you. You lean against the wall for a moment, fighting off the urge to lay down and give up, then start down the alleyway and into the street.

It’s a street you recognize. You lived near here, in the last apartment you had before you bought your house. It’s been almost two years. You don’t know anyone here you can ask for help, so you struggle down the sidewalk, pausing at one of the city’s few remaining payphones before realizing that you don’t have anyone’s number memorized. You could look through the phone book – Mr. Yagi’s almost certainly listed – but that would take money and time, and you’re getting unsteadier on your feet by the second. You spot the sign for the train station up ahead and aim for it. The train will take you out of the city, and maybe you can sit down.

Hopping the turnstiles is something you’re familiar with, but your muscles are desperately weak. You get one leg over, then get stuck, and sprawl out hard on the tiles on the far side. You know you leave smears of blood when you get to your feet, but the clothes Rumi stole for you don’t show it except in slick, dark spots, and there are so many of them that it probably looks like a pattern in the fabric. You leave the bloody outline of your body on the floor and pick yourself up again, dragging yourself onto the first train that pulls into the station. You hope it’s the right one.

On board, you huddle in your seat, shivering. You’ve always liked the cold, but you’re used to being cold on the outside – from air or water or wind or from Tomura wrapping himself around you, visible or not. This cold is crawling up from inside you, cold like the world between, hollowing you out one cell at a time. No matter how tightly you curl up, you can’t shake it. It hurts so badly. Everything hurts, and there’s no one to help you, and you’re so far from home. And even if you make it, you’re a mess. You’ll have scars, horrible ones, and enough nightmares to keep you awake for the rest of your life. Imagining going back to work, back to your life, feels impossible. What’s the point?

The point is Phantom, who loves you. The point is Tomura, who loves you too, who will never forgive you if you leave him like this, or at all. You have to keep it together for them. At least long enough to see them one more time.

By some miracle you got on the right train, the one that runs all the way out of the city proper to reach your stop. When you hear your stop called, you haul yourself upright and stagger off the train, leaving another bloodstain on the seat you were in. You almost make it down the stairs from the platform, but you miss a step and fall down three more, sprawling out headfirst on the concrete. You barely bring your arms up in time to shield your face. And then you’re stuck. You don’t have the energy to pick yourself back up again, and even if you could, it’s still miles between you and home. Instead of trying to rise again, you curl up, whimpering when the movement breaks the few scabs that have managed to form over your wounds. You have a hard time imagining you have any blood left to lose.

This is it. This is how you die, then – in a bloody heap on the sidewalk, because you could escape but you couldn’t make it home. You’re going to leave him. It’s the last thing you want, but you can’t help it. Maybe you can find some way to stick around, just like Yoichi did, but deep in your heart you know you’re not that strong. You’ll leave Tomura, go where humans go, and you’ll never see each other again.

The thought makes you cry, but crying hurts your throat, and the horrible raspy sounds you’re making do a great job of covering up the sound of a car pulling over. Then the sound of footsteps. But there’s no way you can miss the sound of your own name, shouted in a familiar voice. “Hey, where have you been?” Spinner demands. “If you don’t get back soon, Tomura’s going to – wait, are you okay? Did you fall?”

“I knew I smelled blood!” Himiko’s here, too. You hear a car door slam shut, and more footsteps darting towards you. “A lot of blood. Not all of it’s hers.”

“Did she kill somebody?” A hand reaches out and shakes your shoulder, then recoils – just like you’re doing, because their hand came down over one of your wounds. “Fuck, look at this. She didn’t try to kill somebody, they tried to kill her. Get her up.”

Hands seize you – at least three sets of hands, three people pulling you upright. “Careful,” Spinner is pleading. “Don’t touch the blood –”

“I can’t do shit about that. It’s everywhere.” Now you can place the third voice – it’s Dabi. What is Dabi doing out here? “Something fucked her up bad.”

You force your eyes open and see that you’re being carried towards the dark shape of the Buibaigawara family’s minivan. Jin is in the driver’s seat, and you see him grinning at you. “Hey, there you are! We gotta get – Himiko, shit, is that blood? Did you do that?”

“I wouldn’t,” Himiko snaps at him, sounding more than a little hurt. “Somebody cut Tomura’s human. We have to take her to the hospital.”

“No.” The voice from the passenger seat sounds more like Kurogiri than Shirakumo right now. “We must return to the neighborhood.”

“You’re not the one with her blood all over your hands. She could be dying!” Spinner protests. “If we get her to the hospital –”

“She’s vulnerable to the conjurer,” Kurogiri says. Dabi, Spinner, and Himiko dump you into the middle row of seats in the van and he twists around to look at you. “He’s the one who did this.”

“I got away.” You cringe from the sound of your own voice. “He got hurt. Maybe dead.”

“Did you see the body?” Dabi asks. You shake your head. “If you didn’t see it, he’s not dead.”

“He’s right. If Tomura wasn’t materialized when it happened, the conduit was still open, and he could have used Tomura’s power to survive.” Spinner looks miserable. “We can’t know for sure.”

“We have to go back,” Kurogiri repeats. “Jin, drive.”

The minivan lurches into motion. Himiko and Spinner are trying to figure out what to do about your injuries, while Dabi gets on the phone. “We’ve got her. Pull everybody back,” he says. You can’t hear the other person’s response, but you hear Dabi’s answer. “She looks like something mauled her.”

“It’s not that bad,” Spinner says hastily, trying to reassure you. It’s – sweet. “You’re going to be fine. I bet they’re not as bad as they – holy shit –”

Himiko’s just pulled up your shirt. Spinner rolls down the window in a hurry and sticks his head out, gagging, while Himiko stares for a moment with her jaw dropped. Then her pupils narrow to slits, sheer rage settling over her face. “He cut out Tomura’s marks,” she says. Dabi swears into the phone, then swears again as the person on the other end of the line barks at him in response. “I’ll cut him.”

You always thought Tomura’s thing about not touching other ghosts’ humans was just a weird Tomura thing, given how much time Dabi and Hizashi spend lowkey threatening you, but apparently it’s not. The idea of someone removing a ghost’s marks on their human is enough to seriously piss off Dabi, Himiko, and Kurogiri at once, until the car is crackling with their fury. “Can you guys cool it?” Jin asks anxiously. “I’m a nervous driver.”

“You sped the whole way here!”

“I was nervous about finding her. Now I’m nervous about you guys blowing up my mom’s car,” Jin says. “What’s going on is fucked. I want to kill something! But if even I can pick up on what all of you are doing, Tomura will, too.”

“We can’t let that happen,” Spinner says at once. “If he finds out about this he’ll go ballistic. There’s no way he’ll stick to the plan.”

“You can’t just hide it. I could smell her blood from down the street.” Himiko peers at you, her pupils dilating again. “And her soul’s not right. It’s unstuck, kind of. It’s wrong. He’ll know. He’ll know his marks are gone, too.”

Dabi hangs up the phone, then dials another number. He speaks while it’s ringing. “I’m letting the humans know. He can’t read them like he reads us. When we get back, you all get on her and stay there. You too, Kurogiri. As long as she smells like the neighborhood he might not notice.”

“She’s still bleeding,” Spinner says loudly. “If we bring her back and she dies –”

“Keigo knows doctor shit. He can help her.” Whoever Dabi’s calling picks up the phone, and Dabi starts talking. “Yeah, we’ve got her. She’s fucked up. Here’s what we’ll do –”

You’re among friends now. People who will help you, whether it’s out of obligation or because they care, and now that you know you’re not going to die alone, it’s somehow harder to hang on. The drive back to the neighborhood goes by in a long, slow blink, punctuated by Himiko and Spinner repeatedly shaking you awake. “Come on,” Spinner says, still sounding sort of like he wants to throw up. “You have to make it through this. Tomura’s naming his Pokémon all kinds of stupid shit and you’re the only one who can talk him out of it.”

“Stay awake,” Himiko tells you. She’s been patting your cheek lightly, which you don’t mind. Your face and neck are the only parts of you that the conjuror left untouched. “You’re my only human girl neighbor. I’ll be sad if you die. Tomura will be so sad if you die. You don’t want him to be sad, do you? You love him. Humans don’t want the people they love to be sad.”

“Ghosts don’t, either,” Dabi mutters. Then, to Jin: “Park at the top of the street, across the street. Everybody’s falling back to my house and the idiot’s. We could use the extra barricade.”

Jin skids to a stop at the top of the street, and Spinner opens the door. You see people hurrying up the street towards you and identify them distantly – Keigo, Hizashi. They reach you just as everyone else is hauling you out of the car. Hizashi takes one look at you and swears, his pupils narrowing to slits just like Himiko’s did. The embodied ghosts never look more inhuman than when they’re angry. “When he gets here, I’ll kill him myself.”

“Calm down,” Spinner begs. “If he figures it out –”

“He knows she’s back. If you’re any good at lying, Spinner, get down there and tell him we’re hiding her in my house so the conjurer won’t find her when he comes looking for him.” Hizashi’s a good liar, and it’s a logical plan, but you absolutely don’t want to be left alone with Hizashi right now. “Keigo, Dabi, with us. Everybody else, battle stations. Shigaraki’s on his way here, and he’s not happy.”

The group splits, Himiko bolting down the street while the others follow at a slower pace. You’ve had enough of a rest that you think you can maybe walk a few feet, past Atsuhiro’s house and up Aizawa’s front steps, if only so Tomura doesn’t spot you being carried and catch on to what’s really happening. Keigo hovers next to you, ready to catch you if you stumble, while Dabi and Hizashi trail behind you. “What are you doing up here?” Dabi asks Hizashi. “He trusts you about as far as he could throw your rotting corpse.”

“So, pretty far, then.” Hizashi ignores the disgusted noise Dabi makes. “He trusts my human more than me, and my human can lie to him better than I can. And since he’s got my human right now, he’s got all the leverage on me he needs to make sure I’m right here to take the hit against his asshole conjurer.”

“Fucking asshole. And I thought ours was bad.”

“Ours didn’t need us like his needs him.” Hizashi snarls low under his breath. “Cutting out the marks is a new low. It would have been better if he’d just killed her.”

“Don’t say that,” Keigo snaps at him. You push open the front door, then stumble over the threshold into the house. Keigo catches you, guiding you towards the kitchen, and – “Hey, calm down! I just need to get a look at your injuries!”

You can’t look at the kitchen table without feeling sick. “I’m not laying there.”

“Fine. The living room. Get on the floor.”

The floor is fine. It has a carpet, and Keigo yanks a pillow off the couch for you to prop your head on before he pulls out a pair of scissors and starts cutting away your bloody clothes. He studies you and sucks in a breath. “Okay, cleaning these out and bandaging them is the best I can do, but it’s not going to be enough. The skin’s the biggest organ in the body and right now it’s got a bunch of holes in it. You need antibiotics and some of that fake skin as soon as we can get it, or sepsis will set in and kill you.”

“You can’t just stitch it up?” Dabi asks. “That’s what you did for me.”

You wonder what the story was there. “These are too wide for me to do it with what I’ve got here,” Keigo says. He looks down at you. “The cleaning part is going to suck. Can you keep quiet?”

You nod. He doesn’t look convinced, so you clear your throat and try to talk. “I can take it. It won’t be as bad as when it happened.”

“What happened, exactly?” Hizashi asks. He’s at the front window, while Dabi leans with his back to the door. “We’ve been careful. You had those bracelets. When did we get made?”

“Same day –” The cleaning process starts in earnest, and you hiss in pain. “Same day we killed Garaki. I left to get the plants. I met him at the nursery.”

Dabi makes a skeptical noise. “You had the bracelets. Those things work. He shouldn’t have been able to tell.”

“He could.” You bite the inside of your cheek and try not to howl. What was it that Shigaraki said? “He said I had ghostly energy. That I was full of it.”

“Ugh. Don’t tell me shit like that. I don’t want to know.”

“That’s not what he meant,” Hizashi says suddenly. He turns to look at you, and if you didn’t know better, you’d say he looks like he’d seen a ghost. “When did you meet him? Before Tomura’s lesson or after?”

The fact that Keigo’s helping you instead of hurting you on purpose doesn’t make what he’s doing hurt even less. You squeeze your eyes shut. “After.”

“Fuck,” Hizashi mumbles. “It’s my fault.”

“Huh?” Keigo sounds puzzled. “It sounds like bad luck.”

“It’s not. I made Tomura practice discharging power before the fight, and I made him practice on her.” Hizashi’s voice is full of venom. “He’s got the self-control of an elephant on an acid trip, so of course he overdid it. The bracelets wouldn’t have done shit to hide her after that. Anybody who was looking could have seen her from space.”

You remember something he said that day: She’ll glow in the dark until it wears off. Hizashi was trying to make you leave, but all he did was turn you into a walking signpost pointed directly at the neighborhood. Is it his fault? Blaming him would feel good, maybe, if none of the rest of this had happened. You don’t want to think about it. All you want is not to hurt anymore.

It’s cold, and getting colder. You think some of that could be the blood loss, and the fact that your clothes are partially in tatters once again, but when you exhale, you can see your breath. Keigo notices, too, and you watch the blood drain from his face. “Guys –”

Hizashi and Dabi are huddled by the window. “These can’t all be his,” Hizashi is hissing.

“They’re not. I’ve seen some of them before,” Dabi hisses. “They’re like you. They came here on purpose, and now they’re free.”

“And they’re following him?” Keigo says, incredulous. “Why?”

“For kicks? I don’t know.” Hizashi shrugs uselessly. “I’m a little out of touch these days.”

You can hear low whispering from outside the house, and the air is getting colder by the second. If everybody else is down at the other end of the street – “Call them. Warn them –”

“They know already,” Hizashi says grimly. “Trust me.”

Just like Garaki before him, Tomura’s conjurer speaks first. The mirror sound of his voice makes you cringe and curl in on yourself. “Good evening, Tomura,” Shigaraki Akira says. “What a quiet life you’ve led since we last saw each other.”

Dabi and Hizashi rose to the bait instantly when Garaki called out to them. Tomura stays silent. “Not even a greeting?” Shigaraki asks, and clucks his tongue. “I suppose I never taught you manners.”

“You’re trespassing.” Tomura’s voice rings out, vibrating with power. “This is my neighborhood. Get out.”

Shigaraki clucks his tongue again. “Poor thing. I see now that I’ve been neglectful. I should never have left you with the impression that this was your home.”

“How many are out there?” Keigo asks, keeping his voice low.

“Hundreds,” Dabi says, and the floor feels as though it’s fallen out beneath you. “Nomus. Embodied ghosts. Live ones.”

“None of them are his,” Hizashi says. There’s a savage note in his voice. “He’s only got one.”

Tomura hasn’t responded to his conjurer’s latest taunt. His conjurer speaks again. “You’ve built quite a comfortable existence for yourself, haven’t you? A secluded kingdom. Servants who bend to your whims. Even a human of your own.”

“What human?” Tomura scoffs. “I don’t have a human.”

Even knowing he’s trying to protect you, even knowing that he’s lying, your heart sinks. “You know better than to lie to me,” the conjurer says. That almost-indulgent note is back in his voice.  You roll to one side and dry-heave onto Aizawa’s carpets. “Where is the human girl? Has she failed to return home?”

“She’s home,” Tomura snaps. “Safe from you.”

“Have you seen her?” Shigaraki inquires. He sounds honestly concerned. “Who told you that she’s home? The others? The ones who fear your wrath so deeply that they have every reason to lie?”

“She’s here.” This time, it’s Shirakumo who answers – Shirakumo, not Kurogiri. “You know I’m telling the truth, Tomura. So is Himiko.”

“Yes, your human is home,” the conjurer agrees. “But safe? I think not. Dabi, Hizashi, Keigo – come out. Bring Tomura’s human to him.”

“No,” Tomura says, but there’s an uncertain note in his voice. “Stay where you are.”

“Come out,” the conjurer repeats. “No one will harm you on your way. Tomura’s human is in a delicate condition. I won’t risk anyone dropping her.”

He’s pretending like he’s not the one who did this to you. Like he really cares about making sure you get back to Tomura safely. “Stay where you are,” Tomura orders again. “You can’t trust him.”

“I’m the only one here who’s telling you the truth,” Shigaraki says. “Hizashi, Dabi, Keigo. Bring the human out. If you won’t, I’ll be forced to send my friends to retrieve her – and unlike me, they don’t much care about preserving your lives.”

You lift your head with an effort and see Dabi and Hizashi trade a glance. Then they turn from the window and come towards you. “It’s strategy,” Hizashi insists as he drops a coat over you, as Dabi hoists you upright. “If they come get us here, we’re all dead. Your house is a lot easier to defend.”

But he wouldn’t let you go back unless he thought it wouldn’t matter. He’s playing all of you, and you’re too weak and exhausted to see what his endgame is. You’re semiconscious as Keigo, Dabi, and Hizashi carry you down the front steps, but you keep your eyes open with an effort, and you see the conjurer’s army parting the way to make a path, one that runs straight as an arrow down the street until it reaches your house. Hizashi sets a brisk pace, just below a jog, and you jostle along between he and the others. You don’t see where the conjurer is, but you hear his voice. “Very good,” he says, encouraging. “A wise choice. I’m sure Tomura will be merciful in turn.”

You hear the others’ voices as you get closer to the house, all of them trying for damage control. You start agitating to be set down. You can’t risk Tomura losing his temper on the others, and the worse off he thinks you are, the angrier he’ll be. He needs to see that you’re fine. You’ll be fine. Keigo sets you down carefully, then steps in close, arm around you to hold you upright. You survive the step up onto the sidewalk and shuffle along until you’re walking parallel to your own fenced yard. You have to keep walking. You have to keep walking long enough for Tomura to let Hizashi and Dabi in, or he’ll strand them outside.

The gate swings open as you reach it, and Tomura’s voice drifts in from nowhere. “She wasn’t wearing that when she left,” he says. Dabi steps through, then Hizashi, and he shuts the gate behind him. You have time to register that every last one of your neighbors is inside the property line before your vision begins to blur. It’s not blurry enough to block out Tomura as he materializes at the top of the front steps. His next question is for you. “Why were you late?”

You can’t talk. Talking will give it away. You climb the first step, then the next, and it’s not until you’re just outside the warm glow of the porch light that your legs give out.

Enough to Go By (Chapter 10) -- a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

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

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Chapter 10

The feeling of hollowness doesn’t wear off. Not through the rest of your shift at work. Not through the class on the assessment and treatment of major trauma you’re taking, although you managed to take notes that will hopefully be legible later. It doesn’t feel even slightly better until you’re home, out of sight from everyone, where you can let the mask drop. It’s hard to wear it all the time. You’re getting tired.

Inside your apartment, you look around for Tenko, but he’s not in the kitchen, the living room, or the bathroom. Maybe he changed his mind about coming back. You head to your bedroom, stripping off your work clothes and throwing them into your laundry basket as you go. You did laundry a few days ago. The basket shouldn’t have much in it. But something catches your eye, and when you peer in for a look, you see a set of black clothes that looks a little too familiar for the fact that it’s not yours.

You realize whose it is in the same second as you hear a strangled sound from behind you, and the question bursts out of you at a volume that’s probably too high. “Tenko?”

“I’m not looking,” Tenko snaps. You glance over your shoulder and find him without the model hand and with both gloved hands covering his face. “Do you just start taking your clothes off the second you get home?”

“Usually there’s nobody in my apartment!”

“I told you I’d be back. Did you not believe me?” Tenko’s still averting his eyes, but he’s lowered his hands for the purpose of crossing his arms over his chest, which draws your attention to what he’s wearing. “Why are you staring?”

You can’t stop yourself. “Those are my clothes.”

“So? They fit. I have to wash mine and I don’t have anything else.”

You do buy your sleeping clothes oversized, and the difference between your height and Tenko’s isn’t enormous, but it’s still weird to see him sitting on your side of the bed, wearing a pair of your grey sweatpants that have seen better days and a tie-dyed shirt you made in high school. It’s undeniably bizarre, but – “You look cute.”

“I’m not cute. Don’t say weird things.” Tenko’s turning red. “Are you going to put on clothes or what? I want to talk to you.”

“Just a second.” You were going to put on your pajamas, but Tenko’s wearing them. You pick out another pair, change quickly, and come back, sitting down on the other side of your bed. “What did you want to talk –”

Tenko kisses you, cutting you off. In no time at all he’s rolled you beneath him, pinning you back against the pillows while his mouth opens against yours. His kisses are messy, his hands eager as they alight briefly on your shoulder, against your cheek, molding to the curve of your jaw or gripping hard at your hip. Tenko’s breathing is uneven, almost hyperventilating. He needs to slow down.

But you remember what he said the night the League stayed over: I don’t know how to do this. You’re going to have to show me. So in spite of the fact that he’s got you pressed to the pillows and his hands are all over you, you raise your hands to cradle his face, giving you more control over the kiss. Something about it seems to agree with him. He matches your pace, the sloppiness evening out, then deepening into longer, more involved kisses. His lips split again, but in fewer places than before, you think. The taste of blood in your mouth is lighter this time.

One of Tenko’s hands slides beneath your shirt and you draw back slightly. “I thought you wanted me to put clothes on.”

“I’m not saying take them off,” Tenko insists. “I just want – come on, please –”

You’re not sure what he’s asking for. He’s not even trying to do anything. Then it clicks. “You’re touch-starved.”

“What? No.” Tenko objects instantly, but he’s not a good liar. He can’t make eye contact, and his face, flushed before, is turning darker – and as if that wasn’t enough evidence, his hands are still in motion, seeking points of contact, places to hold on. “I need to touch my girlfriend. That’s not weird.”

You try to figure out if girlfriend is a step up or a step down from sidekick. “So I’m not your sidekick anymore?”

“Of course you are.” Tenko gives you an exasperated look. “Saying I need to touch my sidekick is weird.”

Your brain supplies you with the image of any of the top ten heroes telling the world that they need to touch their sidekicks, and you start laughing. Your laughter’s a little wheezier than usual, courtesy of Tenko’s weight on you, but it feels good to laugh. It’s not like you haven’t laughed at all since Kamino, but laughing with others is different. When you laugh with Tenko, your guilt doesn’t matter. He’s guilty, too. And if it doesn’t bother him, then it shouldn’t bother you.

Tenko watches you suspiciously. “What are you laughing about?”

“What would happen if Endeavor started his next interview talking about how much he needs to touch his sidekicks.”

“That’s disgusting.” Tenko’s expression twists, but he’s laughing, too. “Don’t bring up heroes. It kills the mood.”

“Does it?” You’re still cradling his face in your hands. You leave one hand where it is, cupping his cheek, and lower the other, tracing your fingers over the lines of his throat and running along his shoulder. Your touch is light as your fingers run down the back of his arm, avoiding anywhere ticklish until you’re touching the bare skin of his forearm. He’s thin enough that you can feel his muscles tense at your touch. “I don’t think so.”

“It does,” Tenko says. You kiss his birthmark, then his jaw, and feel him swallow hard. “It does. They ruin everything.”

Even as he complains, he’s tilting his head, exposing more of his neck for you to kiss. “It doesn’t feel like they’re ruining everything,” you say. You lift your other hand away from his forearm and slip it beneath his shirt, and he makes a sound through clenched teeth when you drag your fingers along his bare skin, just above his waistband. “You can admit it. I won’t tell anyone.”

Tenko’s body tenses, stiffens. “Admit what?”

“That making out with me is so good that even heroes can’t ruin it.”

Tenko laughs, a raspy, startled sound that trails off into a rough gasp as your teeth scrape over his neck. “I’ll admit that,” he says. His hips roll forward and you shift your legs apart so he can fit between them. “You can tell everybody. They’ll be jealous that I’m the only one who gets to –”

His hips jerk sharply. The sweatpants don’t leave anything to the imagination as far as his erection goes, and you startle at the pressure between your legs and the flood of heat that accompanies it. You pull away from kissing his neck, conscious that you’ve already left a mark, and kiss his mouth again.

His kisses devolve into messiness almost immediately, but this time you’re with him, as your priority shifts to finding a way to improve the sensation of grinding against him through your clothes. You’ve had some experience, made out with twice as many people as you’ve slept with, but you’ve never had a makeout quite as hot as this one. Tenko’s gloved hands clutch desperately at you, the needy sounds he makes muffled by your lips. You drag your fingernails the length of his spine and lift your hips up against his. Tenko whimpers, shudders. Then he pulls away.

Not just partially away, either. He’s all the way out of your grip, curled in on himself, every visible inch of his skin red. “Tenko,” you say, and he shakes his head. “What’s wrong?”

“We have to stop. Or I’ll –” Tenko makes a sharp, uncomfortable gesture. “Like some kind of –”

“Virgin?” You fill in the blank, and Tenko nods. “That’s not a bad thing, Ten.”

“You have experience.”

“Like, two condoms’ worth of experience,” you say, and Tenko snorts. He’s still too far away from you, but he’s not quite so folded up. “We can stop and do something else. Or I can make you come.”

Tenko stares at you for a second. Then he starts nodding – but just as quickly, he’s adding a caveat. “Don’t look. At my face. I don’t want –”

He’s embarrassed about his O face. You wonder if he actually knows what it looks like, or if he’s just assuming it’s weird. You can’t imagine him jerking off in front of a mirror to check. But this is workable. You part your legs further. “Sit here. Lean back against me.”

Tenko does it, and you situate yourself around him. You can’t see his expression, but you can kiss his cheek and his jaw and his neck, and your hands have free rein over his body. The urge to take your time getting to know him, to run your hands slowly over every inch of him until you know exactly how to make him squirm, is almost overpowering. But if you do that, he might come before you even touch his cock.

Speaking of that – you tug lightly at his waistband, and Tenko pulls the borrowed sweatpants partway down with shaking hands, along with the pair of clean but very old underwear he’s wearing. The first thing you note, inconsequential as it is, is that while the hair on his head is that odd blue-grey shade, his pubic hair is dark, like all his hair was when you were children. The second thing that captures your attention is his cock, hard and already leaking slightly at the tip.

You fight the urge to take him in hand immediately. You slide one hand down to his exposed hip, rubbing your thumb idly over the sharp crest of bone while making it clear where your objective really is. “Can I touch you?”

“Uh – yeah.” Tenko coughs, his voice already strained. “Yeah. Go ahead. Please.”

“I want to do this. You don’t have to say please.” You’re surprised by just how badly you want to touch him, how much you want him to fall apart in your hands, just for you, only for you. “Do you want to show me how to touch you? Or should I learn as I go?”

“You didn’t give me a tutorial about kissing. You don’t get one, either.”

“Fair enough.” You gently press your lips against the side of Tenko’s neck, then move the hand that was on his hip to fit around his cock instead.

Tenko jumps, shudders at your touch, and you move your hand cautiously, stroking the length of his shaft, swiping your thumb over the head the same as you’d do with your tongue. Tenko moans, a low desperate sound that drives a spike of heat through your abdomen, and you repeat the motion again. You kiss the side of his neck, lightly at first, then longer, lingering on the texture of the scar tissue under your lips.

Tenko’s back arches, his head falling back against your shoulder. “Faster,” he says, and you increase your pace. “Like that. More –”

He’s shaking. You feel it at every point where your bodies are pressed together. One of his hands grasps your thigh, hanging on for dear life, and you feel a sharp surge of pain, but your attention’s caught by Tenko’s other hand, still gloved, covering his mouth. You can’t let that happen. Not when he makes such pretty sounds. You peel his hand away from his mouth, press it to yours instead. Tenko gasps, shudders. His hips thrust unevenly into your hand, and he comes.

You slow down – the first time you gave a handjob, the guy snapped at you for not easing up fast enough – but Tenko shakes his head, almost frantically. “Not yet. Don’t stop –”

You keep touching him, as requested, drawing out smaller spurts of cum than the first, as he squirms and twitches and makes increasingly pained sounds. It worries you. “Tenko –”

“Stop.” Tenko’s voice breaks. He slumps back against you, his grip on your thigh loosening. “You – sorry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you say. You’re not sure what he’s apologizing for. “Overstimulation – is that something you’re into?”

“No. I just – you’re never going to do that again, so I wanted it to last.”

“Tenko –” You struggle to wrap your head around what he just said. It doesn’t make any sense. “Of course I’m going to do it again.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not,” you say. “I’d do it again right now.”

“You wouldn’t. I thought it would be okay if you didn’t look at me but then I made all those stupid sounds –”

“I thought those were really hot.”

Tenko coughs. “What?”

“I like them. I like everything about what we just did.” You’re not sure if it’s possible to overstate this, and you’re not sure how to convince him, except – “If you want to touch me, too, I can prove it.”

You’ve barely finished the sentence before Tenko’s twisting to face you, pulling up his sweatpants one-handed. You get a look at his expression before he leans in to kiss you, just enough to confirm that there’s nothing weird about it at all. He pulls at the waistband of your pants. “Take them off.”

You pull them down, leaving them hooked around one ankle. Tenko studies the pair of underwear you’re wearing. They aren’t anything special. You wonder if he’s going to comment on that, or on how visibly damp they are, but instead he reaches out, touches you through them. A second later his eyes light up. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Yes, you did.” Your fingers are still sticky with his cum. You think about wiping them off on your shirt, then change your mind and suck your fingers clean, swallowing in a hurry and noting the way Tenko’s jaw drops. “I told you. It was – hot –”

Tenko sits forward to kiss you, his mouth sealed to yours as his hand presses flat against your stomach and slides beneath the waistband of your underwear. The texture of his exposed fingertips is rough enough to make you startle as they slide past your clit, but that’s not on his radar at the moment – he’s too busy probing around in the wetness between your legs, fingers brushing maddeningly close to your entrance before finally pushing inside. He starts with two fingers, not one, which is a stretch, but not quite more than you can handle. You gasp, and his lips curve into that too-wide smile against yours.

Tenko’s overenthusiastic at first, just like he was with kissing the first time, and you catch his wrist. “Slower,” you say. He nods. “Curl your fingers a little bit.”

“Like that?”

Your legs are starting to shake. You nod, and Tenko does it again, and again. His other hand yanks the waistband of your underwear, pulling it down and out of the way. With more room to maneuver, the angle of his fingers changes, increasing the pressure against the most sensitive place inside you and bringing the heel of his hand into contact with your clit every time he works his fingers forward. You’re so wet that there’s next to no resistance. His gloves are going to be ruined.

You feel hot all over. Your nipples are hard, visible through your shirt, and Tenko’s free hand is under your shirt within seconds of noticing it. He circles one of them with his thumb, then rolls it between thumb and forefinger, and the roughness of his fingertips makes even the gentlest motions all too intense. “Tenko –”

“What else?” Tenko’s eyes are intent on your face in a way that almost makes you uncomfortable. “I can do more. Tell me what else.”

“Kiss me.” It’s all you can think of, all you want, and Tenko’s mouth crashes down against yours as soon as the words have left it. You wrap your arms around his neck, take a loose grip in his hair, and stop fighting the wave of pleasure sweeping through you. Every muscle in your body clenches, tight and straining, through thrust after thrust of his fingers – and then the heel of Tenko’s hand presses against your clit for a second too long, and you fall apart, head spinning. You clutch Tenko closer, kissing him until you have to pull away to breathe.

Tenko’s fingers slip out of you, and even though you’re oversensitive to an almost painful degree, you whimper at the loss. Tenko notices, smirks – no, smiles. “Don’t worry. I’m definitely doing that again.”

It makes you laugh. “So you’re convinced?”

“Yeah.” Tenko raises his fingers to his mouth and sniffs them, then tastes them. He’s grinning when he lowers his hand again. “I’d say we leveled up.”

Your face flushes, and worse when you see how much moisture is still clinging to his fingers. “Sorry about your gloves.”

“I’ll just wash my hands.” Tenko looks like he’s never been less concerned about anything in his life. “Don’t go anywhere.”

You’re not sure your legs would hold you up, and Tenko looks a little shaky himself as he slides off the bed and heads to your bathroom. You think about putting your underwear back on, but they’re way too wet, and you throw them into your laundry basket without getting up. You still feel too warm to put your sweatpants back on, so you pull the hem of your shirt down and stretch out on the bed anyway. Tenko comes back a moment later. He looks pleased to see that you haven’t left – but then his expression sharpens. “What is that?”

You don’t know what he’s referring to. You give him a puzzled look, and he sits down on the edge of the bed, yanking your leg roughly into his lap. “These. Where did these come from?”

These – the three raw marks in your thigh, not scratches, more like burns or sores. They’re not so much bleeding as oozing. You remember the sharp pain in your leg when Tenko grabbed it, something you’d written off in the moment. “I think you. You were holding on.”

“That’s not how my quirk works,” Tenko says sharply. “It takes all five. And I can’t stop it when – it can’t have been. You’d be dead.”

“No. You’ve used your quirk on me before and I’m still here.”

“I didn’t,” Tenko snaps. “You wouldn’t be. You’d –”

He breaks off, because you’ve pulled up your sleeve. The injury to your wrist on the night you saw Tenko for the first time was healed before the sun came up, but the scar is still visible – jagged furrows in your skin, extending around your wrist from five points of contact. Tenko stares, jaw clenched, eyes wide, and you think through what you know about his quirk. It’s called Decay. It only activates when all five of his fingers make contact with something, or it’s supposed to. And based on what he’s saying now, it’s supposed to function as a chain reaction, something that can’t be stopped once it’s triggered. Except it can be stopped. He has stopped it, both of the times he’s used it on you.

Tenko’s expression twists in a way that looks agonizing. Both his hands lift from his sides, clawing hard at his neck, but only one of them stays there. The other comes up to scratch at his face instead, to yank hard at his own hair, to tear into the skin above his right eye, in the same spot as his scar. You’ve seen him melt down before, when you were kids, when he got too stressed or too upset or when something had gone wrong at home and someone had asked him about what happened. But never anything like this. It’s horrifying. You can’t just sit here and watch.

“Tenko, stop. Please.” You keep your voice calm, even as it shakes. You catch his wrist with both hands, ignoring the hand scratching his neck in favor of dealing with the one that’s tearing at his face. “You don’t need to do that. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

Tenko doesn’t answer. His eyes are glazed, and he’s fighting you, stronger than you. His neck is bleeding. Soon his face will be, too, unless you keep his hand away. You keep talking, senselessly. “You don’t have to hurt yourself. Please don’t, Tenko –”

One of his nails bites deep into the side of his neck. Too deep. A spurt of blood comes up, and something in your mind snaps. You let go of his wrist with one hand and cover the marks on his neck, taking his scratches on the back of your hand instead. His blood is hot against your palm, and you fight down a surge of panic. You can’t stop him. He can hurt himself badly, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You don’t even know why he’s this upset. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. Whatever it is, it’s not worth –”

Tenko lurches away from you, tearing completely out of your grip, and stumbles to the bathroom. A moment later, you hear him retching. You don’t waste time thinking about what to do next. You get up and chase after him.

The last time you followed him when he was trying to get away from you, he hurt you. This time he’s in no condition to hurt anyone. He’s on his hands and knees vomiting on the bathmat, blood staining the collar of his shirt. The instant the vomiting stops, Tenko slumps forward, and you barely manage to pull him back in time to stop him from going face-first into the mess. He’s almost completely limp when he falls against you. You keep his head and shoulders elevated in case he throws up again and struggle to come up with a plan.

If a patient at the clinic melted down like this, you’d stabilize them and maybe call an ambulance. Stabilizing Tenko is well within your abilities, but you have no idea where this reaction came from, whether it’s within the range of possibilities for him or it came completely out of nowhere. Does that even matter as far as treating him goes? No, you decide. It doesn’t.

You were just learning about treatment for major trauma tonight. You start by checking Tenko’s breathing and heart rate. He’s hyperventilating and his pulse is fast, his skin pale. His eyes are open and his pupils are dilated. The biggest injury to deal with is the claw mark on his neck. You yank a towel off the bathroom counter with one hand and press it against the side of his neck, trying to contain the bleeding, then reach up again and turn the sink on cold. Once it’s as cold as it’ll go, you cup your hand, fill it with water, and splash it into Tenko’s face.

He startles in your arms, tries to lurch upright. “What –”

“It’s just water. Your heart rate’s really high, and I’m trying to bring it down. Cold water activates the diving reflex. That’s all.” You do a better job keeping your voice calm this time. Tenko doesn’t need a quirkless sidekick or a terrified girlfriend right now. He needs a medic. “Your neck is bleeding. I want to fix that before we do anything else. Is that okay?”

Tenko doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t try to get away from you, so you take that as a yes and drag your first-aid kit out from under the sink. Bandaging the wound effectively without letting go of him is difficult, and you’re still watching his heart rate. It’s higher than you want it to be, but not as bad as before. You keep talking, explaining everything you’re doing, not asking  for or expecting any response. You don’t know what triggered this. You need to keep him stable.

By the time you’ve got the wound on Tenko’s neck bandaged, he’s shivering. You’d get him to bed immediately, but his clothes are a mess, and soaked with cold sweat in the bargain. “Let’s get up and get changed, okay? It’ll just take a second.”

Tenko gets to his feet ahead of you, then offers you a hand up. You take it but get up under your own power, and as you do, you see that the gloves are a total loss. You’ll have to figure out something else. You lead Tenko over to your closet, switching out everything he’s wearing for your largest, most comfortable clothes. The only thing you can’t replace is the underwear, and the gloves. Tenko stands there, eyes blank, unmoving but for the shivers, while you try to think of a solution. His quirk is in his fingers, right? Only his fingers. What if you cover them?

Bandaids and medical tape. You cover Tenko’s ring finger and little finger, first on his right hand, then on his left. Tenko doesn’t protest, warn you against his quirk, or offer to help. He just stands there, lifeless, until you link your little finger with his and lead him over to the bed. He gets in on your side without being prompted, then looks up at you. “Are you coming?”

His voice sounds awful, but at least he’s talking again. “In a second,” you promise. “I just need to clean up.”

Part of you is hoping he’ll be asleep when you get back, but the rest of you knows better than to hope for that. You rinse the bathmat out in the shower, then carry it to the washing machine, along with all the clothes in the laundry basket, including everything Tenko just took off. Then it’s your clothes, and while you’re starting the washing machine, you notice the scratches on the back of your hand.

Those need cleaning, too, along with the marks on your thigh. You give up on putting on pants, change into a clean shirt and underwear, and detour to the hall closet for your pocket first-aid kit. The big one is too much for this.

Tenko’s voice follows you. “You’re leaving.”

“No,” you say. On second thought, you need to bring other things, too. You fill a glass with water from the sink and set it down on the bedside table. Then you sit down on the other side of the bed, over the covers. “I’m right here.”

Tenko doesn’t answer, but when you open the first-aid kit, he turns toward the sound. “What are you doing?”

“I just need a band-aid or two.” You regret the words instantly when Tenko sits up. “No, I’m fine. Just rest.”

“I did it.” Tenko’s voice is dull. “I’ll fix it.”

You shouldn’t let him do it. He needs to rest. But if he wants to do things, if he’s doing things under his own power, maybe you shouldn’t stop him. You lift your hands away from the first-aid kit and let him poke through it on his own, working awkwardly around the band-aids covering the tips of his fingers. Tenko starts with the marks on your leg, cleaning them clumsily. When he speaks up, he says the last thing you were expecting to hear. “I should have killed you.”

Your stomach drops. “What do you mean?”

“My quirk doesn’t stop. I can control what I touch, but once it activates, I can’t stop it. When I touched you then, I should have killed you. I should have killed you tonight. Just like I killed them.”

Tenko’s voice is flat, emotionless. Are you in danger? You don’t think so, but there are two questions running through your mind, and you ask the more immediate one, not the more important one. “Did you want to kill me? Tonight or then?”

He threatened to kill you the night you met him again, and it would have been easy for him to follow through, but he didn’t. Tenko shakes his head mechanically. “I never wanted to,” he says, and the relief you feel shames you into silence. “I didn’t want to kill Mon, either.”

You remember Mon. You loved Mon, just like Tenko did – less than Tenko did, because Mon was his dog. You can’t imagine Tenko hurting Mon. But you found what was left of Mon in the wreckage of Tenko’s house. And although you’ve seen the effects of Tenko’s quirk before, you’ve never seen, start to finish, what happens when he uses it on a living being. A terrible thought builds in the back of your mind, gaining speed and power. “Tenko, what do you mean?”

“I wondered if you’d guessed. You never said it, so I thought maybe you had.” Tenko smears Neosporin over the first rotted fingerprint in your thigh – too much Neosporin, just like before. “What happened to my family – I did it. It wasn’t some villain. I’m the one who killed them.”

You didn’t know. Not consciously. But even though the thought’s just occurring to you, it doesn’t feel like a surprise. If a villain had killed Tenko’s family, the Tenko you knew would have wanted to avenge them. But he’s been focused on All Might, on society, not on some other villain. The only way that makes sense is if he knew who it was already, if he’d dealt with them already – or if the person who did it was him.

It’s silent in your apartment. You’ve been silent for too long. “You didn’t know,” Tenko concludes, and you shake your head. “You know how to say things right. Tell me what it means.”

It’s not that you know how to say things right, it’s that you know him. You know how his mind works, know where the connections break, know how to piece it back together. “Your quirk doesn’t stop once it’s activated, but it stopped with me,” you say hesitantly, and Tenko nods. “You didn’t want to hurt me. But you didn’t want to hurt Mon, or – or Hana –”

Hana was your friend, too. Tenko’s loss crushed you so badly that you barely mourned her. “And you couldn’t stop your quirk with them,” you say. Tenko nods again. He’s been trying to open the same band-aid for the last thirty seconds. “You were five years old, Tenko. Nobody can control their quirk that young.”

“Try again.” Tenko doesn’t look up from the band-aid. “If I didn’t kill you and I killed them, then – say it.”

“No.”

“Say it.”

“No.” You’re not going to do this. You’re not going to buy into this idea someone planted in Tenko’s head that he killed his entire family on purpose when he was five years old. You can picture what happened that night in your mind’s eye – how he would have reached out to someone for help, how he wouldn’t have realized until it was too late, how quickly things would have spiraled out of control. “I know what you want me to say. And I know you. So I won’t.”

“Sensei said –”

“He didn’t know you.” The words leave your mouth with more venom than they should. “Not yet. Not that day. I did.”

You remember it so well – not because it was different than any other day with your best friend, but because it was the last day, because you went over every detail of it in your head until it was etched into your memory forever. You’d swapped lunches – he liked the awful onigiri your mom made, and you were always after the expensive snacks his grandma bought. You’d played heroes at recess and kept the game going on your way home from school while Hana walked ahead. Tenko was All Might, again, and that day you were Sir Nighteye, All Might’s sidekick who could see the future.

Nobody knows how Sir Nighteye’s quirk actually works, so you had to make it up, and you made up so that you had to touch the person to see how their future would play out. No matter how many times Tenko tried to get you close to the villain, it never worked, and on the way home, you came up with the perfect solution. “All Might,” you called out, and Tenko turned to look at you, deadly serious. “Give me your hand!”

He held it out, and you seized it in both of yours. “I can’t see his future, but I can see yours,” you said, and the brightest, widest grin crossed Tenko’s face. “You’re going to win.”

“We’re going to win. I can’t do it without you,” Tenko said, in his awful All Might impression that always made you laugh. You let go of his hand, but he didn’t let go of yours. “Tell me how we do it.”

You didn’t mean to, but you held his hand the rest of the way home, while you described the battle with the arch-villain, how it was going to be close but how Tenko would win. You needed to hold on, or you’d lose sight of his future. The two of you were just getting to the good part of the fight when you reached your street, your houses. You were disappointed, and so was Tenko. “Can’t you come over? You have to finish telling me so we can play for real tomorrow.”

You wanted to. You always wanted to, and that day more than ever, because you were holding Tenko’s hand and he hadn’t let go yet, even when you tried to. Even if it was just for the game, you didn’t want it to end. “I could ask –”

But you couldn’t even get the sentence out of your mouth before your mother shouted from across the street. Your name, followed by a brisk order. “You had all day to play around! Get in here and help me!”

Your throat closed up, but you didn’t want to cry. Tenko’s grip on your hand tightened. “We’ll play tomorrow,” he promised. He smiled. Not the All Might smile – the real one, the one that the people he saved were going to see someday and believe in, the one that said everything would be okay. “Keep looking at my future. Tell me how we win.”

“I will,” you said. Your mother shouted again. You squeezed Tenko’s hand and let go. And then you turned, looked both ways, and ran back across the street to your mother.

That was the last time you saw him for fifteen years, and everything might have changed between then and the first time you saw him again, but it can’t change the truth – Tenko’s master didn’t know him then. You did. So you know for sure now.

Tenko can’t hold your gaze. “You’re not right about this. He chose me. He knows.”

“Then we disagree. Nobody ever said we have to agree on everything.” You can’t push too hard. Not tonight. “Maybe you’ll win and convince me one of these days. Or I’ll win and convince you.”

Tenko’s mouth twists, turns down at the corners. He turns his back. “Don’t look.”

You move the first-aid kit out of the way and scoot closer to him, pressing yourself against his back as you wrap your arms around him. “I’m not looking.”

You hold him like that for a long time, not flinching when his hand grips your wrist again, when his palm flattens against the back of your hand to pin it to his chest just over his heart – and when he turns back in your arms, his eyes are clearer than they’ve been since he saw the marks on your leg. He looks exhausted. “Get some sleep,” you tell him. “I’ll be right there. I just have to finish this.”

The marks on your leg still need to be bandaged, and the scratches on the back of your hand are deep enough that you should cover them, too. Tenko shakes his head. “I did it. I’ll fix it. Aftercare, right?”

You smile in spite of yourself. “Sure. Let’s call it that.”

He’s faster at it this time around. He covers the fingerprints on your leg with too much Neosporin and a giant band-aid, then slaps a sterile pad down on the back of your hand and secures it messily with gauze. “Don’t do this again. If I want to tear my own skin up –”

“I’m not going to sit here and watch you get hurt. Even if you’re doing it to yourself.” That’s not up for negotiation, at least not tonight. “Come on. If you want to cuddle, we’ll be more comfortable lying down.”

Appealing to Tenko’s touch-starvation seems to be a winning strategy. As soon as you’re both under the covers, he crawls into your arms, halfway on top of you with his face buried in your shoulder. You hang onto him tightly. Not so tightly that you can’t free one hand to play with his hair, and Tenko makes a sound. You wouldn’t call it contented, but he’s not as tense as before. What he says is muffled by your shoulder, and it comes completely out of left field. “I’m not going to do that every time we hook up.”

You almost laugh. “I know.”

Like he did last night, he falls asleep quickly. You don’t, or can’t. Half of you is scared that if you fall asleep, you’ll wake up to Tenko gone, snatched out of your grip again by All For One. It’s a stupid thought. All For One is in Tartarus, under twenty-four-hour guard – but Kurogiri follows his orders over Tenko’s, and if Kurogiri came for Tenko, there would be nothing you could do. Nothing except hold on tight, and make sure that you and Tenko went wherever he was going together.

Part of what’s keeping you up is fear. The rest is fury, the kind you can barely contain, aimed at a single target. You don’t have a clue about most of what All For One did to try to erase Tenko and replace him with Tomura, but you know the first thing – convincing him that he killed his family on purpose. Tenko’s pursuing the vision of someone who’s tried to destroy him, who’s thrown him into a battle he can’t win. And you’re supposed to help him do it.

You can’t stomach that, but maybe you don’t have to. You don’t have to be loyal to All For One’s vision or to Tenko’s efforts to follow in his footsteps. You just have to be loyal to Tenko, and that’s easy the way breathing is, as unconscious as blinking. After all, you’ve been doing it your whole life.

Omg yes same ! 😭😂

my favorites can easily be put into a pattern

Drool would go all over me and fall from my mouth like waterfall if I would see this man standing in front of me right now

I'd moan and faint from him just existing there. He would send my heart in cardiac arrest from just poking me once and that's a fact.

My ass be saying no men can tell me what to do but if he told me to go down I'd lay on floor flat on my face

Haunting for Beginners (Chapter 2) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Ghosts summoned and bound to the human world have one purpose - haunting - but Tomura's never met a human he could stand long enough to haunt them, and he's pretty sure he never will. When you cross the threshold of his house, you capture his interest, and for the first time, he finds himself with a chance to do what ghosts are meant to do. It's too bad he doesn't know how. Scenes from Love Like Ghosts, as seen through the eyes of the ghost in question. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

It doesn’t take Tomura long to figure out the problem with wanting things: Getting the thing he wants doesn’t make the wanting go away. It works for a little while. Sometimes even long enough to make Tomura think it’s gone for good. But it always comes back, and when it does, it feels just as itchy and awful as before. Worse, maybe, because now Tomura knows what it feels like to have the thing he wants.

He wants you to talk to him, and you do talk to him. At first he doesn’t care what you’re saying. He just – likes – the sound of your voice, and he likes that it’s just for him, that if he wasn’t there you’d be quiet except for talking to the dog. The dog’s name is Phantom. Tomura’s decided that he doesn’t mind sharing your attention with Phantom. Phantom was here first, and it pays attention to Tomura, too – and it can’t talk back. Tomura could. Can. Maybe.

At first he doesn’t care what you’re saying, but soon enough, he starts to. He has to, because sometimes you’re upset about things, and if you’re too upset about things, you might leave. Once he starts paying attention to when you’re upset, he starts to see differences in it. There’s sad-upset, when your voice is quiet and your movements are slow and even Phantom jumping up in your lap doesn’t make you smile. There’s angry-upset, when you’re still quiet, but you’re restless and pacing, every piece of you tense. And then there’s frustrated-upset, when something small has gone wrong, or when there’s something you don’t understand or can’t fix.

Tomura sees frustrated-upset more and more as the days go by. And the realization creeps up on him slowly, the same way everything did when time didn’t matter, that the thing you’re frustrated with is him.

He’s mad that you’re frustrated with him at first. He’s not doing anything except helping you – helping you with the coyote, helping you get rid of the humans who came over when you didn’t invite them, helping you get rid of one of the ghosts and its weird human when they invite themselves over, too. What right do you have to get mad at him? Tomura spends a solid week and a half sulking before he realizes why you’re frustrated with him, at which point he discovers a new feeling. He doesn’t know what to call it, but it’s spiky instead of itchy, and it feels urgent, like he has to do something about it right now. You’re mad at him because he’s shown himself to other people, talked to other people, but not to you. That means you want to see him. Tomura has to figure out how to make it happen.

The spiky feeling is terrible. It won’t let him have a second of peace. It’s always there, poking holes in his essence, prodding him to look for a way to make you see him. Ghosts in movies never let people see them all the way, but the ghosts in the neighborhood must have shown themselves to their humans at some point, or else they wouldn’t have them. How did they do it?

Tomura gets an answer, sort of, when you drop a bag of flour and he steps into the plume of white dust that rises up. If he has enough life-force to make himself even slightly substantial, things like dust or smoke or flour will settle around his form and show the rest of him. You’ve figured it out, too. Tomura was already pretty sure you wanted to see him, but the number of times you turn and spray water at him to reveal him only proves it. You’re weirdly accurate about it, too. You always seem to know where Tomura is, and that makes Tomura feel – something.

He watches you all the time, learning about you. You might not be able to watch him, but you’re learning things about him, too.

Tomura doesn’t want you to learn things about him. You might get it wrong. The only way to make sure you don’t is to find a way to talk to you, and Tomura doesn’t know how to give himself a voice. All he can do is give himself hands. He could write something with his hands. Where? There are pens and paper all over your house, but when Tomura tries writing, his hands are clumsy and useless, smearing letters across the page and covering his hands in ink. Then he has to hide the evidence before you get home. Phantom helps out. When Tomura sweeps the papers off the table in a fit of frustration, it eats them.

Tomura could write with a pen, maybe, if he practiced more. But he’s too impatient for that. You’re frustrated with him. Frustrated means you could leave. He needs a solution now. He spends days thinking about it, then weeks, only for the answer to come to him at the absolute last minute – when you’re in the shower, and the bathroom is full of steam, the mirror fogged until it’s almost opaque.

If Tomura lets the steam show his form, and makes a hand to write on the mirror – you switch off the water in the shower, and Tomura scrambles for something to drain. He’s just barely found a spider, barely trapped it in a coil of his essence, when you step out of the shower wrapped in a towel. Tomura materializes a shadow of himself, more than he’s ever materialized before, standing squarely in your path. You’ve been trying to see him. If he’s going to show himself to you, he’s going to make sure you see everything.

Your eyes are wide as you look at him, but you aren’t screaming or running, and you don’t try to wave him away like you did the first time he showed himself to you. Tomura’s stupid itching starts again, stronger than it’s ever been, and for the first time he tries to scratch it. He scratches it and studies you. Now he gets why you always look so proud when you make him show himself. He’s showing himself, finally, and you’re not mad at him. That’s worth being proud of.

There’s a sensation he hasn’t experienced before, in his face. Tomura has a face right now, and it’s doing something weird. You turn away from him, and he raises the hand that’s not scratching to touch the spot where a mouth would be on a human, where his mouth is. His lips feel dry and rough, and they’re curved upwards. He’s – smiling. Humans smile when they’re proud, sometimes. He’s doing it right.

He can’t see himself in the mirror. He doesn’t have a reflection. You do, even when the mirror’s coated in steam. You aren’t looking at Tomura. You’re looking at the mirror, like you’re waiting for him to write on it, and just as Tomura’s reaching forward to write ‘hello’, you speak up. “You’re my ghost.”

Your ghost. Tomura is your ghost, just like you’re his human – and you talked to him first. The feeling of like multiplies through Tomura’s essence as he materializes one finger to write in the steam on the mirror. Yes.

“Who are you?”

Tomura tilts his head, just like the dog does when it’s confused. He thought you knew. Your ghost.

“Who am I?”

That question makes sense. Tomura knows the answer now. Mine.

“No.” Your bare shoulders stiffen, and Tomura’s itching gets even worse. “What do you mean?”

Mine to haunt, Tomura writes. That one’s easy.

He can’t tell how you feel about the answer, though. Humans in the movies you watch don’t like being haunted. But you still aren’t running away. You ask another question. “What should I call you?”

That one’s not as easy. Tomura feels his expression distort, and you speak up again to explain more. You’re explaining things now. He should have talked to you a long time ago. “Your name.”

That’s easy, too. Tomura writes it out as fast as possible, before you can change your mind. “Tomura,” you say, and the feeling of like and the feeling of want engulf Tomura together. Like what? Want what? “Hi.”

Hi.

Tomura’s said hi. Now it’s your turn to talk. He waits, and you ask him a question. “Tomura, what do you want?”

He likes hearing you say his name. He doesn’t like when he doesn’t know the answer. He wants you to talk to him, and he wants to talk to you. He wants you to see him, like he sees you. And. And there’s something else, something he can’t put his finger on. Putting his finger on. He has fingers now. He can touch things. What if he touches –

The spider he’s been slowly draining in order to materialize goes cold, and all at once, Tomura’s out of time. He reaches desperately for the mirror, trying to write again, but his fingers dematerialize, and all he can do is swipe through the messages, wiping them out. Your eyes widen with unmistakable fear, and you bolt, fleeing from the bathroom to the bedroom. Tomura doesn’t chase you. Tomura’s too busy searching for something to kill, something to drain, so he can keep talking and explain that you shouldn’t be scared of him, that he’s not going to hurt you, just haunt you – not like the ghosts in movies haunt, but the way the ghosts in Tomura’s neighborhood must have haunted their humans, before they stopped being ghosts. You’re his human. Why would he scare you? He doesn’t want you to leave.

But you are leaving. The front door slams, and when Tomura chases after you, he sees your car pull out of the driveway, you in the front seat with wet hair and clothes that don’t match, and the dog in the backseat, curled up tight. You’re leaving. You haven’t left in the car and taken the dog since the night the coyote attacked you. What if you don’t come back?

Tomura tells himself to count minutes – it’ll make a smaller number – but he finds himself counting seconds instead, and they pile up faster than he can track. So do the feelings. Missing, but worse. Wanting, but more intense. Anger, but aimed in the wrong direction – not at you, not at the other ghosts, not at their humans. At himself. He messed this up so badly that you’re leaving him, and without life-force to materialize hands and write, he can’t fix it. The feelings build and build until Tomura’s essence can’t contain them, and he lets them all loose in an anguished howl that breaks window in every house on the street except the one he’s supposed to share with you.

Tomura’s not sorry about it, and he doesn’t care that the other ghosts and their humans are mad at him – but he does feel a little stupid when you come back. You aren’t leaving him. Why would you leave him? You said he was your ghost, so why would you leave? You come back to the house, and better yet, you say his name the instant you’ve crossed the threshold. “Tomura, can we talk?”

You didn’t just come back, you want to see Tomura again. And talk to him. Tomura still doesn’t have an answer to the question you asked him, but he can think of other things to talk about. He comes closer to you, shadowing you as you climb the stairs and step into the bathroom again. You turn the water on hot, standing still as the bathroom fills with steam. Tomura waits, too. The instant the steam is thick enough, he burns the life-force he collected while you were away to materialize an outline of himself.

He knows it’s a mistake the second he does it. If he doesn’t have life-force, he can’t make hands, which means he can’t write – which means the two of you can’t talk. But when you speak up, he realizes that he doesn’t need to write to answer your first question. “Tomura,” you say cautiously, and Tomura’s mouth curves upwards before he can stop himself, “are you mad at me?”

Tomura shakes his head. He wants to do something stronger than shake his head, but he doesn’t want to startle you and make you run away again. But it’s a stupid question. You’re his human, and you came back, and you want to see him and talk to him. What is there for him to be mad at? If Tomura could just say all that, things would be fine, but he used all his energy on making you see him. Your next question tells him that it was an even bigger mistake than he thought. “If you’re not mad at me, why won’t you talk to me?”

Tomura can’t talk to you. If he could, he would, but all he can do is shake his head again. You can see him, sure, but seeing’s not good enough – just like it’s not good enough for Tomura, not now that he knows the two of you could be talking instead. You look upset again. Sad-upset. You don’t leave the bathroom, and neither does Tomura, and the two of you look at each other while the steam slowly dissipates. Tomura waits for you to look away, but you don’t. You keep watching him, just like he watches you, and the itching kicks in again. Tomura wants to scream.

Why is it back now? He got what he wanted. All the things he wanted. You saw him and he talked to you and you came back and you know his name and you said his name – so why won’t the itching go away? What else could Tomura possibly want?

Something. Tomura wants something, and you must know that, or you wouldn’t have asked that question. Even if Tomura had an answer, he doesn’t have any way to tell you. All he can do is burn through the scant remains of his stolen life-force, staying visible to you as long as possible, wondering how he could have gotten everything he wanted and still wind up wanting to claw his essence apart.

Your sad-upset doesn’t go away, and to Tomura’s horror, you start spending less time in his house. Sure, you’re doing it because you’re talking to the other humans, or you’re working on your garden in the backyard, but you’re still avoiding the house. Avoiding him. Tomura’s house is empty more often than it’s been since you moved in. He hates it. He hates the way it makes him feel.

It’s a new feeling – not like wanting, although he’s been itching for weeks over just how badly he wants it to stop. The new feeling isn’t exactly new, either. It’s familiar, but now he has a name for the way he felt before you moved in. He felt that way for a hundred and ten years and it didn’t bother him, but it bothers him now. Maybe it didn’t bother Tomura because he didn’t know any different. Now he knows different, and the stupid new-but-not feeling – lonely – is agonizing. As days tick past, days where he can’t talk to you and you don’t try to talk to him, the need to do something, anything, about it grows.

There’s a hornets’ nest on the back porch, just like there is every summer. Tomura’s aware of it distantly – it’s just another part of his house – but it doesn’t actually capture his attention until he hears a string of curses from the backyard. It’s been so long since Tomura heard you say anything that wasn’t to the dog. He sweeps through the house and onto the back porch to find you sprawled out in the yard, clutching a hand that’s already been stung twice to your chest.

Tomura doesn’t know what pain feels like, but he knows what humans look like when something’s hurt them, and he sees you gritting your teeth, your jaw clenched. You get to your feet. Then you back slowly away from the nest, all the way to the far corner of the yard.

Tomura’s never paid much attention to the nest before, but now he doesn’t have a choice. You’re his human, and they’ve hurt you, just like the coyote would have hurt you if he hadn’t gotten to it first. Tomura should have dealt with this a long time ago. Even as he has the thought, he sees you set off, planning to deal with it on your own. And your plan is – bad.

It’s not just bad. It’s the dumbest plan Tomura’s ever seen. As soon as you’re out of sight, Tomura seizes the hornets’ nest in a dozen threads of essence and drains it for life-force. He has to get rid of them before you get back. There are hundreds of hornets inside the nest, more living things than Tomura’s ever drained before, more life-force than he knows what to do with. What should he do with it? Make hands, probably. With this much, he could make hands and keep them for hours. He could make hands, or –

Tomrua loses focus on the hornets as he pulls his essence together, forming the structure of a body from the hands up. One of them gets away as the rest of the nest crumbles to ash, and Tomura catches it by the wings, holding on as his feet hit the ground for the first time. Having a body is heavy. Tomura weighs something. He has height and width and mass. His chest feels tight, and he follows the impulse it demands of him – draw air inwards, then release it, an action he's seen humans undertake hundreds of millions of times. Something is rattling in his chest, setting up a rhythm of its own. Tomura realizes, with an odd sense of fascination, that it’s his heart.

It’s not really his heart, just like they aren’t really his hands. It’ll all be gone once he dematerializes again. Tomura tells himself that just in time for you to come back around the corner, wearing about five extra layers of clothes and dragging a garbage can.

You look as dumb as Tomura’s ever seen you look, and you look even dumber once you catch a glimpse of him and your eyes widen in shock. Tomura’s heart does something weird, and unlike his hands, it doesn’t stop doing it when he tells it to. “Um,” you start, still staring, as Tomura kills the last hornet and lets its ashes fall, “I was going to get that.”

Tomura knows. That’s why he got it for you. “I haven’t – not been talking to you,” he says. Now he sounds as dumb as you look. But he’s got a voice now. He can talk. That means he can explain. “I can’t influence this world without life-force. And I can’t get it from you or the dog.”

“Why not?”

What kind of question is that? “You’d die,” Tomura says. His body does something weird at the thought – twists, lurches, his chest turning tight. “My house would be empty.”

“And you don’t want it to be empty,” you guess. You’re right, and you must know you’re right, because you don’t wait for Tomura to answer. “Then why do you scare everybody away?”

Because everybody else isn’t you. “You left,” Tomura snaps instead. “You can’t leave.”

“Like hell I can’t,” you say. “I came back, didn’t I? I needed time to think. Your little temper tantrum with the mirror –”

“I couldn’t answer. I ran out of time.” It wasn’t a temper tantrum. Tomura kicks through the pile of ash, scattering it, realizing too late that doing it probably counts as a temper tantrum all on its own. “That spider wasn’t enough. No matter how slow I drained it.”

“So that’s why it was in one piece,” you say. You found it? No wonder you ran away – Tomura knows you hate spiders. “You drained the hornets faster, though. Does that work better?”

“I guess.” Tomura’s itching again. Scratching feels better when he actually has a neck to scratch. “We’ll see how long it lasts.”

You tilt your head, studying him. Then the worst thing Tomura’s ever heard you say comes out of your mouth. “You don’t know how this works, do you?”

“I know how it works,” Tomura snaps. “Shut up.”

No, that’s not right. Tomura doesn’t want you to shut up. He wants to talk to you, and he’s not sure how this is supposed to go, but he’s pretty sure it’s not going well. Something is happening to Tomura’s face. It feels tight and prickly, and when he lifts his hands to touch it, he figures out what that feeling is – it’s heat. “What is this? What’s happening to me?”

“I think you’re embarrassed,” you say. “You’re blushing.”

“No I’m not.” Tomura knows what blushing is. He hates it. He scratches harder, wondering if that will make it go away. “You can’t leave.”

“I can leave if I want to,” you say. “If you don’t want me to leave, you need to respect my rules.”

“Your rules?” Tomura scoffs. There’s no way the other ghosts put up with this stuff from their humans. Forget him not knowing how it works – you don’t know, either. “It’s my house.”

“And I can leave whenever I want to.”

Tomura knows that. He’s seen you do it, and he doesn’t want it so badly that he can feel everything inside his body crumpling around the thought. He wonders if you know you have him backed into a corner. You probably do, because you start in with your rules. “Rule number one: Stay out of the bathroom when I’m in there.”

“It was fine before.”

“It wasn’t. I just didn’t know about it,” you say. “Now that I do, I’m still not fine with it, and I want you to stop. Same with watching me at night.”

Tomura will cave on the bathroom thing. You don’t spend much time in there, anyway. But you spend a lot of time in the bedroom. He’s not giving up all those hours. “You sleep fine.”

“No, I don’t,” you say. “Stop.”

Why are you so stuck on this? Tomura’s not doing anything weird. It’s normal. “What, so it’s fine when he does it but not when I do?”

“What?” You look startled. No, scared. “Has someone else been in here?”

“No,” Tomura says. Maybe that’s why you’re acting so strange. You don’t know how haunting works, either. You don’t know that you’re his human, that he decides what happens to you, that he’s already decided not to hurt you. Not to hurt you, and not to let anything else do it. “Nobody comes in unless I let them.”

“Then who’s he?”

“The one in those movies you watched,” Tomura says. “He hangs out in that person’s bedroom all night and he doesn’t get in trouble.”

Now you look like you understand what he’s talking about. “You mean in Twilight? That’s not good either. She’s just too dumb to know it’s bad.”

Tomura knows that’s not right. Were the two of you even watching the same movie? “No hanging out in my room at night,” you continue. “Or I leave.”

“You’ll leave,” Tomura repeats, and his insides do that crumpling-up thing. He might hate that more than he hates the blushing. “And go where?”

“Anywhere,” you say. “I’m pretty sure you can’t follow me past the fences.”

If Tomura could do that, he would have. If he could do that, it wouldn’t make him – feel – so much when you leave. He can’t let you know that. He doesn’t want you to have that much power. “Who cares about what’s out there? I’ve got this.”

Tomura gestures at his house, his yard – you, since you’re his human. But as his hand crosses his own field of vision, he sees that it’s starting to thin out, going insubstantial. He’s dematerializing. The hornets’ nest wasn’t enough.  “No,” he explodes, not caring that you’ll hear, not caring that you’ll know. “Not yet. Damn it!”

“Hey,” you say quickly. “If you need energy to materialize and talk, I’ve got tons of weeds and mushrooms in the yard that you can kill.”

Tomura’s never heard your voice sound like that before. It’s softer, gentler, in spite of the urgency you’re speaking with. It makes him feel weird. “Or the blackberry bushes out by the fence,” you continue, still in that same tone of voice. “There’s ways for us to talk without you killing me or Phantom.”

Right. Now that Tomura knows how it works, maybe he doesn’t need a body to talk to you. Maybe he can just be a voice, like he’s just a pair of hands sometimes. Having a body is awful, anyway. It feels things and it doesn’t do what he tells it to do. “I have to go,” you say, and what’s left of Tomura’s face twists into a scowl that he doesn’t care at all about hiding. “I have to pick up some stuff to treat the stings I got, but I’ll be back later. We can talk more then.”

“You’ll come back,” Tomura says. He wants to say more, but his lungs and his throat and his vocal cords fall apart before he can.

“I’ll come back,” you promise, and some knot in Tomura’s essence relaxes. “I wouldn’t leave Phantom, and she likes you.”

Tomura knew making friends with the dog was a good idea. Or letting the dog make friends with him. He’s not really sure what happened there. The rest of his body falls away, and once it’s gone, you make your way up onto the porch and into the house. You’re not running. Not scared. You take off most of the extra layers of clothes until you look like you again, give the dog a kiss and a scratch behind its ears, and head out the front door. Phantom always looks happy about getting scratches. Now that Tomura knows what itching feels like in a human body, he wonders if you scratching his neck for him would make the itching go away.

He can’t ask you to scratch his neck. He’s not sure why he can’t, except that he knows somehow that it’s a weird thing to ask, and he’s just barely convinced you not to run away from him. Or has he? You weren’t talking to him like somebody who’s this close to running away from him. You were talking to him like – like –

Tomura doesn’t have a good word for it. He just knows he likes it. If he has to choose between you scratching his neck for him and you talking to him like that, he’d choose the talking in a heartbeat. He knows how long a heartbeat is now. He knows they happen fast.

You’re gone for a long time, long enough for Tomura to miss you, long enough for him to get angry about missing you. You’re gone long enough for the dog to get upset, to cry to be let out, so Tomura kills a few mushrooms and makes hands to open the door for it. You’re upsetting Phantom and Tomura at the same time. You need to come back soon. What’s taking so long?

When you finally come back, you’re carrying a lot of books, and you look tired. You look surprised to see the dog in the yard, but you don’t thank Tomura or say anything about it, and once you get inside, Tomura speaks first. He’s tired of waiting, and after he kills all the mushrooms in the front yard, he has enough life-force to make a body – and a voice. “Where did you go?” he demands. “You were gone for hours.”

“I went to see the neighbors,” you say. “To ask them about you.”

What? “Why didn’t you ask me about me?”

“Because you might life, and I needed the truth.” You look really tired. The stings on your hand are bright red and swollen. “They had a lot to say.”

That’s not good. The other ghosts need Tomura, but they don’t like him. If they liked him, they’d have talked to him, and they haven’t. “What did they say?”

“They said you’re strong,” you say. Tomura manages not to do the stupid blushing thing again. Maybe it only happens when what you’re saying isn’t true. “That’s why they moved here. Because you being so strong hides them from the people who summoned them.”

“It’s their fault they need to hide. They embodied themselves, like idiots.” Tomura wonders why he was worried that they’d lie about him. They can’t lie about him. They need him too much, and if he wanted to drive them out, it would be easy. “They can stay. I don’t care. As long as you stay.”

“I can stay,” you say. “I’ll be a lot more comfortable staying here if you give me some space.”

“Space,” Tomura repeats. “What kind of space?”

“When I’m in the bathroom. Humans like being alone in there,” you say. Tomura already decided to give up on the bathroom thing. He nods. “And at night when I’m sleeping. We like to be alone then, too.”

“Not everybody,” Tomura argues. He’s not caving on this one. “In those movies –”

“I’m not going to watch any more movies if you keep getting dumb ideas from them.” You’re calling Tomura dumb. If you were anybody else – “Life isn’t like movies. I like to be alone when I’m sleeping.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Do you sleep?”

“Sleeping is for humans,” Tomura says. He doesn’t understand why this is a problem, why you’re making it a problem. He cares about what you want. You should care about what he wants, too, because all this wanting is making him itch. Maybe he should explain. “It sounds nice when you sleep. I can’t hear it if I’m not in your room.”

“What sounds nice?” You look sort of alarmed. “What kind of noises am I making? Are they weird?”

“I don’t know,” Tomura snaps. He explained. Why did that make things worse? “I don’t know what noise humans are supposed to make when they’re sleeping. They don’t sound weird to me. They’re just – nice.”

You look like you’re thinking about something. Tomura waits. “I’m not fun to hang out with when I’m sleeping,” you say after a little while. “Why don’t we hang out more when I’m awake and I can talk to you?”

Tomura’s about to argue that he’s plenty entertained when you’re sleeping – and you don’t even have to do anything – before what you’re actually saying lands with him. You don’t just want to see him and talk to him. You want to spend time with him. What does that mean? Tomura could wait and find out, but he doesn’t want to wait and find out. He wants to know right now, because the itching’s even worse and his heart is beating faster and if it goes much longer, you might notice that he’s – what?

You don’t look like you’re noticing anything. “Well?”

“I need more life,” Tomura says, instead of yes, definitely, of course, what took you so long. “I killed all your mushrooms in the front yard. Find me something else and I’ll – hang out with you. You are boring when you sleep.”

“I’ll find something,” you say. Tomura’s body wavers, and when he glances down, he can see the floor through his feet. You notice too. “Thanks for letting Phantom out. I’ll see you soon.”

“Soon,” Tomura says. It had better be really soon. He doesn’t want to wait any longer than he has to.

When you said you’d find something, you must have really meant it, because you take your phone out and start messaging the other humans in the neighborhood, asking them to bring you bugs. You really hate bugs. If you’re asking for them, you must want to talk to Tomura a lot. Maybe as much as Tomura wants to talk to you. Not talk to you. Hang out.

You said hang out, and Tomura hovers over your shoulder, reading the texts and wondering if you’ll explain what “hang out” means. You don’t. Instead a shiver runs through you, one that says he’s gotten too close, that says the heat of your body and the cold of his essence don’t mix. Tomura couldn’t agree more. The few times you’ve walked through him by accident, it’s been gross. Tomura feels weird calling his human gross, but he doesn’t really have another word for it. Or he didn’t.

Now he knows what a human body feels like, and he knows it’s normal, so he doesn’t mind as much. You do. “Don’t,” you say. “I’ll get a chill.”

Tomura will back off when he’s ready, not because you told him to. But then he remembers what you said about space and needing it, and he draws away. You want to hang out with him. That’s better than tracking you when you don’t know he’s there, better than watching you sleep, better than writing on the mirror. Hanging out. Maybe that will be the thing that makes the itching go away for good.

Here her new account

HELP PLEASE

I was

Shigaraki Haven

bat-eclecticwolfbouquet-love

Im putting this in Shigaraki tags cause thats how people know me. If anyone can reblog this to help it would mean alot

I don't know if my account will be recovered. I do have everything Ive written backed up, with the exception of 2 asks I was working on. And my AO3 account is still there but only has about 30% of my stuff. It does have all my full fics but not thirsts or headcanons etc. What hurts losing the most was all my friends and fellow tumblrs I talked to or followed. It's heartbreaking because I worked so hard on that blog reached so many huge milestones. I never dreamed I'd get 60 followers little lone almost 6000 I was excited to get there only 20 away. I know alot say numbers don't matter but it was proving to myself that people liked me. I'm heartbroken and saddened. I hope the people that enjoyed and communicated with me can find me. Fingers crossed I get my account back. If you want to read a certain fic I can try to upload. Thanks for all the help.

PLEASE REBLOG 🙏 🥺💗

I may already had reblog that but this is just amazing

Listen To Your Demons

Pairing(s): Quirkless!Incel!Shigaraki x Fem!Succubus!Reader

Content Warning: smut, 18+ minors dni i do check, major teasing, light misogyny, demon talk/ritual talk, switch energy, slight degradation 

A/N: no one requested this, but honestly i had a dream about this and couldn’t get this out of my head. enjoy! (unedited)

Afficher davantage

You know what? Fuck it.

This:

I made this out of clips from My Hero Ultra Impact. Sorry if it's cringe.

I have a request!!

Shiggy wins reader the giant plushie she wanted from the claw game of the arcade (he says it’s all rigged but she begs him to help her because he seems like the type to be good at these games “hey, what’s that supposed to mean?!”) and she watches his slender fingers skillfully move the controls and he wins the derpy giant plushie for her in one try.

But then she can’t stop thinking about how those fingers would feel inside of her, and wants to reward him…he’s probably the type to be into knee socks and plaid mini skirts…and she did want to thank him for the plushie…she’s going to rock this virgin’s world.

(Go wild with NSFW plz we’re all a bunch of perverts)

A/N: is it too tmi if i say i did what happened in this fic irl

Warnings: nsfw!! hand kink..finger suckling, face fucking, dangerous sex..

"So close...!" you groaned as you saw the plush fall out of the claw machine again, whining against the glass you pressed against the glass with your fingers clawing at it, sliding down before you rested against the controller. "Why even bother? all these claw machines are rigged y'know." he'd speak up, sipping on his drink while he watched you bent over the machine and crying about some ugly plushie. he was confused and thought you were stupid. as per usual.

"you don't get it! I need this thing and i need it now!" you whined like an immature brat as you stared at it, it was a derpy off brand hatsune miku plush, and it made you want to cry with frustration, with only a few coins left. you turned to him as he scoffed, his irritation only growing. "your blowing all your money on something we could get online for cheap." he stated while he looked around, you knew you looked ridiculous, you knew that you could just buy it but the experience, memories and the challenge is what makes it such a memorable piece to remember. that's why you wanted it so bad, plus, it was hatsune miku, who wouldn't want a hatsune miku plush? but he couldn't lie he found it a little funny. "besides, i could win that easy peasy, there's a bunch of tips i got from online." your eyes lit up upon hearing that, of course Tomura of all people knew how to beat a game meant for kids.

with the clack of your shoe against the floor, you gripped onto him by his shoulders with a pleading pout. "please Tomura please! i-I'll do anything i swear! I'll give you anything you want or a reward for getting me that plush!" you pointed at the derpy miku as he tried to hide the blush on his cheeks, anything he wants? a reward? life couldn't be any damn sweeter for him, and he gets to finally show off cool stuff he's saved from the internet. he pulls out his phone and looks for the tutorial video again before he places coins against the slot and the game music started beeping again.

he moved his fingers delicately, trying not to decay the machine as he fiddled with the joystick almost randomly as he rapidly tapped on the button, the way he handled the machine and the way his slender fingers moved against it made you bite your lip a little as you watched him, a dork in his natural environment. you could see his focused reflection in the glass of the machine as you snapped a quiet pic, god he's adorable. you watched him fail before he angrily put in more coins, rocking the machine a little as he handled it more roughly, mumbling curses while he tried for that miku plush again, the way he was so quick and rough made you stare a little longer than intended before you heard the victory music and the plush gently fall into the slot. a wide smile appearing on your face, he couldn't lie, it found it rather..cute.

"YES! yes! Thank you so much Tomura! i love it so much you don't even—" he stopped you with a cocky grin. he looked so nerdy doing this. "yeah, whatever. what's my reward?" you pause to think over it before you just smiled at him and locked arms. "a hug." was what you said but what really wanted to leave your lips was alot more than just a 'hug.' you could feel your underwear stick to your panties as you let out a small huff, smiling softly at him, poor boy doesn't know what's coming. he kept walking as he truly thought his reward for showing off his awesome hand-eye-coordination was just a hug. "I'll get Kurogiri to warp us home, he isn't home right now so i guess you can hangout awhile longer."

perfect.

when you arrived and stepped out of the purple fog, at the dingy bar, there was no one keeping it and it was empty as always, Tomura led you to his messy room as he plopped down on the bed and watched you cuddle the derpy miku plush. "why do you even like it so much?" he questioned while he ran his fingers against his neck while eyed you up and down with a curious look. "it's ugly, but cute, ugly cute y'know?" you giggled softly before putting it aside and crawling closer to him. "You still waiting on that reward?" you whispered as you wrapped your fingers around his wrist and brought his open hand to your breast. he immediately got the message and nodded his head reaching for his gloves before you stopped him. "no, not yet."

"what the hell do you mean 'not yet'? are you suicidal or something?" he looked at you as if you were stupid before you only giggled and brough his hands together, dropping his right one before you pressed the tips of his left fingers against your lips. "Maybe, not really thinking with my head here." you whispered before you parted your lips and licked them, watching him shiver before you began to slide his middle and pointer finger in and letting your tongue play against them. you let out a few soft moans as he watched you with eyes blown wide. his cock aching painfully against his jeans as he let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding. "wh-what the hell are you doing..? i-..you know that-" He was cut off by the sound of you pulling away with a small pant, letting the pade of his fingers rest against the flat and soft surface of your tongue. "can't I appreciate these pretty hands in peace?" you chuckled. "You can't appreciate them if i dust you.."

"but you won't, right pretty boy?" is what you whispered before you slid his fingers back into your mouth, sucking on them like you would with a cock as you even pulled them barely all the way out before you swirled your tongue against the tips before sliding it all the way back in, letting drool leak down your throat as you maintained eye contact with him. he tried to reach down and undo his buttons, grabbing his dick and pulling it out as he jacked off to the sight of you doing that to him, letting out small moans and biting his dry lips while he stroked himself to the sight. "i-i fucking knew you were kinky but..this is new.." he tried to match his pace to your mouth as he felt like absolute heaven.

you pulled away just before he was about to cum, letting his fingers barely connect to your lips with a string of drool before you pulled him to stand up while you got on your knees. you saw him put on his gloves before he let his pants pool around his ankles as he shoved his needy cock into your throat. "G-gah! if this is– wh-what i get for winning...!" he groaned as he thrust into your mouth, grinding against you every now and then. "Fuck- take me to the arcade every weekend- please! let me win for you..!" he babbled as he thrust into your face, his cock sliding against your tongue as you tuned him out a long time ago and let him use you like a fleshlight. it didn't take long for him to shove himself as deep as he could down your throat before cumming, giving you no option to spit out or swallow, besides, who would be spitting him out? certainly not you. he panted as he twitched in your throat, watching you pant as he pulled away and let his saliva soaked dick rest on your face as it leaked remnants of his load onto your cheek.

"What do i get for buying you a cosplay?" he whispered as he looked down at you with a crooked smile, his cock pulsing on your face as you smiled back. this was going to be one..long and spoiled night for you. don't tell All For One why he blew his allowance on clothes that seemed so expensive, or Kurogiri for that matter.

—Ake 2024

Sanctuary of Nightmares PT1

Platonic SB x GN Child Reader

Part 2

Tw: bad parents, small amounts of blood

Summery: Confusion was a good word to describe your life. Even in your short amount of time on this planet you've been tangled in strings of 'why' and 'how could you'. You jumped from one painful expirence to the next as the world tangled you in its grasp, silencing you in the pain of its grip.

It was in these strings of pain that fate led you, it pulled you towards its hell on earth. Day by day you grew closer to it and, in one final betrayal, you were set on a path of horror in something you once thought of as a blissful sanctuary.

-

The Freddy Fazbear Mega PizzaPlex. What a name huh? It was one that drew the attention of families from all over the area. It was the destination for kids and teens, no other place was anything like it! The high-tech animatronics the place was known for were what really sold the show. And for a young kid like yourself, it was mesmerizing. The lights, the sounds, the games! You dreamed of seeing it. Of escaping to the child's wonderland. 

To escape this hell...

But those seemed like fever dreams to your tiny mind. Your parents would never allow it, not with your 'bad behavior'. Daydream all you want, but there was no escaping the scornful glare of your mother or the apathetic stare of your father. Try as you might you never could please them. Whether it was the wrath of your mother or the disconcern and neglect of your father, you had never been allowed such childlike pleasures. Any time you'd gain the courage to ask for anything, even as small as a candy bar, they'd harp on how bad of a child you were, how you were always so selfish, and that you always asked so much of them. So you learned not to ask. Hell, you'd grown the habit of not talking at all. It only ever got you into more trouble. So you remained silent throughout your young life. 

Today seemed no different. Having spent hours waiting in a car for your parents, not daring to disobey your mothers command to stay there. Luckily it was cooler outside so you were fine with waiting. You entertained yourself with thoughts of toys and Candy, of fun and games, of a life you didn't live.

It was your eighth birthday after all and while neither one of your parents seemed to care, you sure did.

After your mothers trip outside the car she got back in and went on her normal routine to pick up your father. It was only a few seconds later that her yelling started. You heard the first few screams about how 'she didn't want to have to babysit' and how your father 'should just get rid of you if he doesn't want you'. It was after those yells that you zoned out. The common screams blended in woth the low hum of the car as you let your mind drift to more pleasant things. Like birthday cake and ice cream.

This went on for hours which was rather unsual as the house wasn't to far away from your fathers work. You chose not to take note of it though and instead completely dissociate from the situation causing those hours to pass by like minutes. You weren't aware of the conversation your parents were having nor how this chosen ignorance would come to shape your life.

"Y/N!" Your name cut through your wandering mind, earning your attention as you quickly swiveled your head towards the front of the car, locking eyes with your mother.

"Get out" she spoke, though the words almost didn't register with you. You looked around, realizing you weren't anywhere you recognized. You quickly looked back to your mother with confusion and hints of fear found in your expression. Her eyebrows only tilted further down at what she perceived as not only an insult, but outright disobedience.

"I said get out!" She repeated, causing you to jump once again, her tone was enough to melt away your confusion for the moment as your mind went on auto-drive, immediately following through with what she told you to do.

The sun was quickly finding its way to the horizon, the light of its burning fire only seeming brighter in the moments before sunset would come. The rain that had fallen only a few minutes earlier gave the air a denser, almost suffocating weight to it. Your small shoes fell on the concrete, a tiny splash made in the puddle that had formed in the more worn parts of the sidewalk. You quickly held your body, the cold air nipping at your exposed skin almost immediately. You looked back to the car wondering why you were told to get out. 

"Right up that rode is that mall you wanted so badly to see. Go see it" she spoke with venom in her voice before quickly turning the car around, an action that confused you at first until she began to drive away. You felt your heart drop, the reality of what was happening immediately choking you. You stood frozen, confused, and now incredibly terrified as the familiarity of your life sped away. You ran about two steps in a panic to not be left behind but ultimately didn't make it far in your vain attempt as you tripped over a jagged and crumbled part of the sidewalk. You fell on your hands and knees, skidding them against the sidewalk with an immediate stinging pain claiming them. You looked up, your mouth open to cry out for your parents thoigh not a word left, the distant car too far to ever have heard you.

You were left in silent isolation as their ultimate betrayal to you.

You stayed that way for a few moments, tears falling silently from your eyes as you tried to compose yourself. After a moment you attempted to stand, though the sting of your open wounds brought regret as you did so. When you finally did pull yourself up you tried to wipe your wet and dirty hands on your clothes, though the sting of them made you wince. They weren't bleeding, but they were still in quite a lot of pain. You couldn't say you got that lucky with your legs though as small amounts of blood soaked into your pants. You sniffled, sucking it up as you began to turn your head in every direction in hopes of finding out where you were. It was a mostly wooded area, though a long road led you straight. There didn't seem to be anyone around, the deathly silent air filling you with more dread than you already felt.

You had never been completely alone before, let alone dropped in what you considered to be the middle of nowhere. You tried to think, to find some type of rational thought, but in your tiny mind the world now laid out in front of you was so daunting you almost couldn't comprehend it.

Your situation was akin to an ant taken from outside and put into a house. The relative size of everything around it made it insignificant and miniscule in its surroundings.

After a moment of this betrayed confusion you eventually did find a thought, one that your spirit clung to for dear life.

'The PizzaPlex...she said it was up the road...just up the road...' You tore your eyes from the unknown darkness that was soon to creep around you and instead focused your eyes ahead of you. You had a goal, something to move towards, something familiar. So, one small foot after the other, you began to walk. Your legs stung as you moved them but it wasn't anything you hadn't felt before, nor was it enough to tear you from your goal. You had no other thought but to get to that PizzaPlex. In your mind it was the only place left, the only familiarity in your now infinite and terrifying world.

So you dragged on, despite your now very recent status as completely independent. 

-

It was a long walk, one filled with small breakdowns as you tried to understand what was happening, to understand why you would be left like this. Despite these small breakdowns your mind mostly left you as your feet moved. As if detached from your own body you trudged on, your body seemingly moving on its own. The sun seemed to fall at a quicker pace the longer you walked which causing a new fear to sneak into you. One of being alone in the silence of the night. Thankfully you saw the shining building before then, like a beacon to your mind lost in a sea of dread. Yet even with its light glow, the place looked different than you remembered it in the small glimpses you ever saw on tv. It was darker, more daunting. 

As you coninued you noticed the lack of people, though there were still vehicles in the parking lot. It wasn't long until you realized most of those were vans with the Fazbear logo all over them. Some had all of the mascots on them, the familiar characters easily recognized by you. After taking a couple of curious yet hesitant steps you realized that this must be the back of the building. That theory was only further assured as you walked closer and noticed fences, likely to keep people from parking here since they didn't go very far. You could hear voices, the sounds of people in the distance that only grew as you drew closer, though they remained echoes in the orange-covered world the lowering sun created.

You soon made it to a back door, your head turning to look around as you searched for any sign of someone else. When you saw no one you attempted to open said door, only to quickly realize it was locked. You were just about to start walking around to find another door when a loud clang rang in your ears. In instinct you ran to the nearby van, hiding behind the wheel of it in hopes that whatever made the sound wouldn't find you. After a long bout of silence, and with your childhood sense of curiosity still intact, you slowly peaked from your hiding spot, your eyes scanning the area for what could have created the noise. 

It took a while for you to pinpoint it, but your eyes eventually fell on a vent cover that laid on the ground. Following it, your eyes scanned over a large trash bin, up a wall, and eventually landed on the source of where it came from. A now open hole in the building was the origin of the vent cover. You stayed staring at it for a moment, afraid that something might come out of it, but when silence rang for a few more minutes you slowly made your way out of your hiding spot. In a slow step you walked over to the open vent, your curious mind overtaking you. With a great struggle you pulled yourself up onto the garbage bin, the vent now just slightly above your head. You paced your hands on the edges and slightly pulled yourself up to look into the vent. Besides the increase in noise you didn't notice much, just an empty vent. It wqs this observation that led a confused look to fall on your face.

How did it even open-?

Just as that thought entered your mind you were pulled away from it and instead to the sound of the door you had been at only moments prior as it began to open. In a spike of fear and a moment of poor decision making you fully pulled yourself into the vent to get away from whoever or whatever may have been coming through the door. In what must have been nothing more than a miracle you managed to do so, but you were more so focused on the extreme pain in your hands rather than the feat you had just performed. 

The vent was small, but so were you which made it not too uncomfortable to be in. The scent pizza and sugar hit your nose as the smell of the pizzaplex finally made it to you. It caused a low grumble in your stomach as you realized the hunger that ate at you. You were able to push the empty feeling away though as you focused your mind on more important things, like the fact that you should probably get moving considering whoever was at the door could have noticed you. 

And so in what was frankly just calm panic you began to crawl your way further in, the stinging of your hands and knees only getting worse the longer you were forced to put pressure on them.

It was about ten minutes into this process that a sound caught your ears. Sure, there were noises happening all around you, but the world that laid just below you was muffled. The sounds of children, arcade machines, and other related noise seemed like they were off in the distance. What had caught your ear wasn't as muffled, in fact it sounded almost clear. You stopped your movement in hopes that you could identify what the sound was.

It was then that you heard the melody of it, the frantic sound of what you assumed was some type of music box. You listened, confused as to why it echoed in the vent, why ot was growing closer. It didn't take long for the reality of the sound to dawn on you.

There was something else in here with you.

And by the sound of it, it wasn't too far behind. 

With your heart picking up the pace once again you decided to hurry your movements, hoping to escape whatever it was. It didn't help that the melody only grew louder and, terrifyingly, came with the skittering sound of metal quickly approaching. You turned your head to look behind you for a second only to see a familiar-looking but unknown mechanical musical creature not far behind. With a small yelp, you turned ahead and shoved your way out of the closest open vent. A poor decision as you found yourself tumbling down a few boxes before finally landing on the floor. 

Seeing as adrenaline was quickly rushing through your veins you didn't register the pain at first, instead quickly readjusting yourself to stare back up at the vent you had just left in fear that it would continue to follow you. You backed up as the creature made its way to the edge of the vent and stared down at you. With what emotion you weren't sure, though you assumed it didn't very much like you as it quickly scuttled back in once you were out. You continued to stare up at the vent for a moment as you caught your breath, your fear slowly leaving and the pain sinking back in. After a moment you slowly stood, though you were now on rather wobbly legs. Once you did you finally decided to slowly tear your eyes away from the vent to look around, hoping to find out where you were. While the room you were in didn't seem to have anyone around, you could hear voices that seemed even closer than before. Following the noise you walked around a short hallway before you were met with a set of doors, the sound of people now very clearly behind them. You were a bit apprehensive about opening the door but considering you couldn't go back the way you came you decided to push them open. You were met with shining neon lights that draped the surrounding area and the many groups of walking people in a pink hue. What to your childlike mind felt like hundreds of people were passing by as you peaked out of the door. But, whether it was due to your tiny stature or the excitement of the surroundings, not one laid an eye on you. Slowly, and hoping to not raise suspicion, you fully crept out the door, letting it shut behind you. You still stayed stuck to the wall though, not moving from your spot as you continued to look around.

It was more mesmerizing than you'd ever imagined it. The bright lights, the delicious smells, the joyful sounds. So far removed were you from angered yelling and dangerous rage, from being scolded for wanting such amazing things. You stood now in a place you could only consider as a land of dreams- your dreams. You'd spent so long imagining being here and now you stood, amazed by it all. 

It was a magical first impression so far beyond what your mind could have conjured. But it was after that shock faded and after you slowly acclimated to it all that everything began to hit you all at once.

Everything hurt. Your'e hungry- thirsty. Ow! Where are your parents- You were alone- alone. You were in a crowd of strangers. Your parents were gone, your home! You had nothing! Why here? Why leave you here?! You wanted home, you wanted your bed, you wanted familiarity.

The lights were an off hue now, one that strained your eyes, the voices of the people were so loud and- Ow! Your hands, your knees, they stung as your cement burned skin was exposed. Trying to alleviate the pain you fell down the wall, tears pricking at your eyes as the overwhelming situation took its toll on your small body. The passers-by didn't notice. You were too insignificant in the amazement of the colossal pizzaplex. You felt suffocated, like you were drowning in the fear of it all. All of it felt like it was collapsing onto you, like the whole world was caving in. You wanted it to stop stop stop STOP-

"Hello?" A voice called. Through the murmurs, laughs, and outright yelling that came from all around you, that voice stuck out. You snapped from your panicked state, your head turning towards where it came from. You froze when you met the eyes of a stranger. They dawned a gray top and pants to match with a nametag on their chest. They towered over you, everything did really. Their expression was confused, if not irritated.

"You lost?" They asked with exasperation in their tone. You hesitated on answering, unsure of their intentions. After a moment you nodded, your throat too tight to even attempt to speak right now. Your answer seemed to only further agitate the stranger, their annoyance now visible in the way their eyes stared.

“Do you know where you came from? Where your family is?” They asked, their tone now harsh on your ears. You gave absolutely no answer this time, the fear of this stranger's presence only sinking in the longer you talked to them. That didn't seem to go over well either. In fact it went over even worse than when you’d given them at least an attempt at an answer,

“Screw this, I'm supposed to be on break” They grumbled before reaching into their pocket and pulling out a small device. It clicked before they spoke.

"I've got a lost kid on the first floor, left side in the front. They said they should be at the daycare but got lost" they spoke into the device, pulling it away once they were finished and placing it back in their pocket. They stayed standing over you for a while, not speaking another word. It was a few minutes later that a robot came rolling down, a small siren flashing on its head to warn the customers to move out of the way. It stopped in front of you and only once it did so did the person turn back to you. 

"This robot's going to take you to the daycare. Just follow it" was the last thing they spoke before walking off. You turned to look up at the robot with the shock of what just happened slowly sinking in.

It didn't look all that unique. Just a general worker bot. Either way, you were now in its care and though you were confused and frightened by the turn of events, you decided it best not to question it. You had thought you were in trouble when the worker had approched you since you most definitely were not supposed to be here, but it seems the world had different plans for you.

Different plans indeed