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hoe-doroki · 3 years

Text

Siberia

minors do not interact

warnings: 18+, drunk sex, marking, biting, love scratches, sloooow burn

pairing: Shouto x fem!reader

genre: pining/angst, smut, fluff

wc: 13.8k

summary: On the field, you and Todoroki are rising stars amongst hero pairings. Off the field…you’re kind of in love with him. After a successful capture, you’re boss brings you in to let you know you’re being sent on assignment in foreign country…alone. Before you leave, you have to act. You’re not partners anymore, after all. And with a little liquid courage you do. Then, the next morning, you still have to leave.

a/n: Thanks so much to @some-kindofgnome, @mindninjax, and @linestrider for helping me out with this beast! Ya’ll are such dears, hyping me up when I was feeling really uncertain about this story. FYI, this story is kind of the prequel to a short fluff fic that will be posted (for bnhabookclub’s secret santa) on Christmas, so stay tuned for that!

edit: I no longer write x reader but here’s my old masterlist - mobile | desktop

September

Shards of ice and concrete flew. Ears ringing, you faced away, keeping your uncovered cheeks and hands from the debris. You’d have to turn back into it soon to keep an eye on the villain soon, though. He wasn’t exactly subtle, firing off explosions every few minutes, but he did have plumes of smoke and heaps of destruction on the city street to hide behind. Todoroki had been shooting walls of ice up to protect the buildings, but the road was shredded.

“You okay?” Todoroki shouted, also facing away from the blast.

“Yeah, you?”

“Yeah.”

You turned back with a dry, scratched hand in front of your eyes as you squinted into the wind, streaks of both freezing and hot air blowing past you. You had to consciously keep from grinding your teeth in frustration as the villain cackled at you.

Todoroki and you had a near-perfect capture rate. Usually, the two of you could manipulate his ice to capture any villain, but ice didn’t work so well against a villain with exploding spines on his back. Each attempt to restrain him ended with ice shattering, blown away from the villain’s body in one go. There wasn’t much that Todoroki’s fire could do against a guy like that either.

“Shouto,” you shouted, making your way closer to him. “Make me a big block of ice and then distract him. Be ready to run back and use your fire.”

You saw the question in his eyes for a split second, but he’d stopped asking questions of you early on in your three-year partnership. Questions and explanation took time that couldn’t be spared in battles against villains, so you just had to trust each other.

You hadn’t failed yet.

With a sweep of his arm, you had an iceberg the size of a school bus at your disposal. Todoroki ran at the guy, fire in his hand in order to distract with some close combat—neither of your specialty.

You worked quickly to manipulate the ice into four walls. They didn’t have to be straight or pretty, just sound and close enough in size to line up. Luckily, Todoroki’s ice was the easiest thing you’d ever worked with; it was free of impurities and even in temperature. From there, you could mold it however you wanted.

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw another one of the spikes on the man’s back explode. Todoroki was able to counter the blast with a wash of fire, but it still knocked him back and set your heart pounding. You needed to end this before either of you ended up hurt with more than the light burns and scrapes you were sporting now.

You took the last bit of ice and lifted it overhead, letting it expand into something soft and irregular—nothing more than densely packed snow. Then, another shout of Todoroki’s hero name had him running back, and you used all your focus to shove the four ice blocks around the villain and fuse them at the corners, sealing them to the irregular ruble on the street.

“Haven’t you learned that ice can’t keep me down?” the villain shouted over your frozen terrarium.

You had learned that, but you’d also learned that he was slowing. He only had a few spires on his back—less than ten—and each one he used had to be regrown. He was regenerating them much quicker than you might have hoped, but it wasn’t as fast as at the beginning of the battle. However the explosions worked, whatever they did to his body, they must have been taking a toll. That gave you a window. A small one, but hopefully enough.

“Fire!” you shouted at Todoroki, pointing to the tall pile of snow you were controlling, moving to just above the ice box.

Todoroki loosed a thin tongue of fire, letting it hit the snow but dissipate before it turned the solid straight to a gas. He knew that what you needed now. The only thing that would bring you both victory, was liquid.

A shelf of water dumped into the room of ice you’d contained the villain in and you returned your focus back to its makeup. You held the ice strong, not letting the new water—warm in places, still nearly frozen in others—melt the walls. Then you shifted some of it to create a roof, leaving only enough room for the man to be able to poke his head out, and some air holes to allow in oxygen. You didn’t need him poking his back out of the water and creating another explosion.

You used your finest degree of control, your tightest concentration to clarify some of the ice, providing a window into your new aquarium. The villain was holding his arms, obviously cold, but he wasn’t using his quirk. Seemed that his explosions didn’t work underwater.

“God,” you said, letting out a relieved sigh as your shoulders slumped, though you didn’t relax your hold on the walls. They wanted to melt against the heated concrete, but you didn’t let them.

Todoroki came over to you, breathing heavily himself. “He won’t be able to stay in there long.”

“I know,” you said, watching the man’s movements closely for signs of hypothermia. You weren’t too worried, since Todoroki could create heat at a moment’s notice, but you still didn’t like this method. It was the best you’d been able to come up with, though.

“Great work, Snow,” he said, a thin smile curving on his lips.

The thing about Todoroki’s smiles, rare though they were, was that they were contagious. They were always earned, always a surprise, and you couldn’t ever help but return one when it was given to you. So, you smiled back, heat blossoming in your chest as your gazes lingered, panting in matching breaths.

It was easy to restrain yourself during battle. In combat, you and Todoroki were partners whose quirks worked well together, whose minds and styles had grown to be one with each other. But as soon as the battle was over and your breath was allowed to slow, the adrenaline able to recede, things felt different. You wanted to take his cheek in your hand and wipe the ash off his face. You wanted to take a washcloth and clean the blood away. You wanted to hold him in your arms and whisper that he was whole and okay and you’d both done your job well.

But all that you could offer was a hand raised in partnership. He took it and you touched from fingertip to elbow. Your tight grip on his equally cold hand held for just a moment, just one squeeze. And then you parted.

“Excellent work today, Snow.”

You were standing in front of your boss, freshly showered and out of your thermal costume, back in clothing that was a little more appropriate for a temperate fall in Japan. Nevertheless, the office felt warm, kept that way to make your manager’s day of sitting in pencil skirts at her oak desk comfortable.

“Thank you, ma’am,” you said, bowing and doing your best to read her face. “It was a team effort.”

It was unusual that someone was called to the boss’ office for good news, but, at the same time, you couldn’t read any dissatisfaction on your boss’ face. Your capture today had gone well. Yeah, there had been damage to the street, but very little to the buildings—save for the guy’s hideout, which had been ruined—and the police apprehended the man before he’d gotten frostbite. All in all, a neat wrap-up to a villain you and Todoroki had been chasing for weeks.

“Yes, it was. You and Todoroki are one of the star partnerships on the field nowadays,” she said, her gaze breaking down to some paperwork on the table.

You narrowed your eyes, able to hear the but that was coming.

“We’ve seen a lot of growth in your quirk. You used it really fantastically today when you were in a tight spot, and we’d like to send you on a covert operation.”

You cocked your head, feeling a disconnect between the different statements she was making. “…With Todoroki?”

She shook her head, looking grim. “Only one was requested for this mission, and you’re the one best suited to the job. Your ability to freeze and manipulate ice at will is really unique. If all goes well, it won’t be for long.”

“How long?”

She shrugged and your heart dropped. “Maybe a few weeks? It depends on how it goes. I’m emailing you the briefing now.”

A shrug and a maybe. She obviously had no idea.

“Okay, well, where is it?”

She looked up at you, a slight cringe wrinkling her brow and the bridge of her nose. This, she did have the answer to.

And she knew you wouldn’t want to hear it.

You’d somehow managed to drag Todoroki to a bar, you hadn’t been choosy about which. The light was dim, the décor mostly dark wood with black accents, and the atmosphere nearly morose with the lack of patrons. It matched your mood. He was nursing a gin martini and you a vodka to give yourself an ironic little laugh. Or maybe it was preparation. Either way, it was helping to steel your nerves.

“You seem upset,” Todoroki said before you were halfway through the drink. You’d been through congratulations on the day’s capture, but it had been hard to keep up the merriment. You weren’t entirely shocked that he’d picked up on it so quickly, though. The two of you were only kept alive by how attuned you were to each other, after all.

“It’s annoying that your job is being perceptive,” you said, knocking back a bit more of the drink.

“It’s yours too,” he said plainly. “What’s on your mind?”

You sighed, plucking the olive out of your drink to chew on it. Your mouth filled with brine, each taste bud standing on end at the sharp taste of pure salt. You had to take another sip to wash it down. “Boss lady didn’t tell you I’m going on assignment?”

You knew she hadn’t otherwise he would have asked you immediately. Todoroki wasn’t the kind to beat around the bush.

“Oh?” Todoroki asked, sipping more of his own drink. “By yourself? For how long?”

You ran your finger over the condensation on your glass. It was cold, though not as cold as you were used to. You liked your drinks frosty so you froze the condensation and gave the glass a swirl. “I don’t know. A month?”

You’d saddled Todoroki with the day’s villain paperwork while you’d read over the mission’s briefing. It had been short, which was your first hint that the team didn’t have as much information as they needed. They were pulling from an outside agency, after all, which always smelled of desperation to you.

“Where are you going?”

You looked down at your vermouth-mixed vodka and said, “Siberia.”

A rare bald reaction showed on Todoroki’s face. His eyes went wide and his chin jutted toward you. “Siberia?”

You held your hand out and pulled at the particles of water in the air, freezing just enough to make a few snowflakes to dance above your hand, drawing Todoroki’s gaze. “Siberia.”

It was your quirk that matched you to this assignment. You would thrive in an environment surrounded by snow. You’d be able to manipulate the whole terrain and freezing would be easy. You’d be at full power.

Todoroki took your ice-filled hand in his warm one and you felt heat flow rapidly into you as he melted the snow to water and then back into vapors barely catching the bar’s yellow light before slipping in and amongst the smell of liquor and hops.

“Wow,” Todoroki said, a word that always sounded stunted through his dull monotone, almost oxymoronic. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” you said, though receiving the compliment felt disingenuous. Being chosen for this was a testament to your strength, but it didn’t feel like an achievement—it felt like a disruption. Months away from the job that you loved and the partner you…

You swigged the rest of the martini and ordered another one. If you were going to have to go to Russia tomorrow, you’d do well to invite a piece of it to you tonight. Microdosing or something.

Todoroki ordered a second, too, as he was nearly to the bottom of his own drink. He stirred the last dribbles of it and said, “Siberia isn’t that far from Japan.”

“Just one time zone behind,” you said. You’d done some googling after memorizing your notes. You weren’t sure how much you’d be moving about the region, but the location you were being sent to tomorrow was set.

The energy between you was stiff. Battling together today had been so easy, the two of you essentially extensions of one another. Todoroki created ice that you could manipulate as though it had come from your own body. Sure, you could create ice out of the water that was around, but Todoroki could so easily give you exactly what you needed. And then his fire could clean it all away. It was a perfect pairing.

Usually that chemistry followed you off the battlefield, but now you were trapped in small talk. Stuck with you apparently one foot out the door, unable to face him fully. Your elbows fell to the black marble bar, hands pushed into the roots of your hair. “God, this sucks!”

“They can’t force you to go if you don’t want to.”

He was right, but how would that look? Heroes didn’t turn down cases without good reason; that wasn’t how the job worked. You were expected to take jobs that were difficult, dangerous, and unpleasant—that was simply the field. The only reasons to turn one down were if you felt you couldn’t fulfill it.

“I can’t exactly tell them that I’ll miss my partner too much to go,” you said, eyes flickering towards his for a moment before starting on your second drink. “Then they’ll just think I’m too stupid and they’ll fire me.”

“I’ll miss being your partner too,” Todoroki said.

Your stomach squeezed. This. This was what made it impossible to spend time around Todoroki without getting the wrong idea. He just said things, so simply and genuinely that your mind would always jump to the next thing, when really, he just said what he meant and nothing more. There was no subtext, no matter how you tried to find it. And the search made your heart ache.

“So this isn’t a celebration so much as a farewell,” Todoroki mused, finishing his first drink and joining you on the second.

You were beginning to feel a bit of a buzz. Your emotions were a bit more liquid, sloshing from one state to another with more ease than usual. The sadness was transmuting into longing. The longing transmuting to desire.

“I wish I had known,” Todoroki continued, your eyes slipping back over to him. “I might have ordered something stronger.”

“Hah,” you said, the huff coming out humorless. You might have also, if you didn’t want to avoid being hungover on the plane. “Wanna drown my memory, Todoroki?”

“No.”

He didn’t look like he had more to say. Damn, sometimes you needed just a little more—subtext or actual text—out of him.

But he didn’t give it to you, so you just looked at him. His bangs were covering his eyes from you as he looked down into his drink, but you thought you could see the sadness. His shoulders were hunched, head hanging heavy off his neck. He would miss you. Maybe not as much as you would miss him, and maybe not in the same way, but you knew he valued your partnership. Your friendship. That, at the very least, meant something to him.

Tonight, however, you weren’t thinking about the very least. You didn’t want the lowest common denominator between you—your professional partnership—to be the last image you held of your relationship before heading to one of the most desolate places on Earth.

Besides, as of this afternoon he wasn’t your partner anymore. Not for the moment, at least.

“Shouto?”

Your voice was timid, unfamiliar with using his name in this setting. It was his hero name, but that wasn’t what you were saying here, and you knew it. He knew it too, by the way his eyes jerked up to yours, a question creasing between his eyebrows.

You didn’t answer, though. Maybe he had the right idea, leaving things unsaid.

You put two fingers to his jawline, drawing his face up, lifting his whole posture off the bar with nothing but a gentle touch. His brows furrowed deeper and then they relaxed, his eyes open and at ease.

For a moment, you did nothing more than breathe each other’s air. A moment of hesitation or of resolve, you didn’t know—it didn’t last long enough to figure it out. Then your mouth brushed against his, the bitter taste of alcohol on both your lips.

It wasn’t a good idea. But you’d regret it too much if you didn’t, and you had just enough courage to make it happen. As you twisted more to the side, slanting so you could feel the smoothness of his shaved cheek, you soared. Maybe he’d wanted this too. Maybe even as long as you had, though you’d lost track of exactly what that was.

Then he pulled away. Not for breath, but for distance.

“We can’t,” he said, feeling for his wallet and pulling it out. He placed a few bills on the bar, paying for both your drinks and his. Your heart hadn’t even finished breaking by the time he was taking your hand and dragging you out of there.

He hailed a cab in record time, everything moving just a bit too fast for you to keep up with. He was ushering you into the cab without a word and then you were seated side by side, hands still clasped tight.

“Todoroki, I—”

Todoroki caught your eye and shook his head, and you stopped immediately. Just like in combat, you didn’t ask questions. You did as he said, quiet for the whole car ride to his apartment.

Luckily, it wasn’t far. Half the reason you’d been able to drag him to the bar was its proximity to his apartment. It was fully within walking distance. But it seemed he’d decided he was in a hurry.

Your hands finally split from one another as you exited the cab and you followed him through his building, still quiet. You’d been there before, visited him when he’d been sick or injured, or occasionally to talk shop—though usually that easily dissolved into something more casual with food being ordered, knees touching as you sat crisscrossed around a low table.

The moment you made it through his front door, you automatically toed off your shoes on the tatami mats. Then the light were flicked on and his lips were back on yours, catching you off guard. Hadn’t he just rejected you? Hadn’t he pulled away from you and spoken his dissent?

You fell into the push and pull of his lips against yours, both a little too dry from the constant cold and heat you put them through, but that didn’t matter. You’d dreamt of kissing this man for so long, and here he was. You allowed yourself to revel in it for just a moment more before pulling back, just as he’d done earlier.

“What’s happening?” you asked. “I thought—”

“Not in public,” he said, “That’s not how I want to do this.”

“Oh,” you said, unable to believe you’d disregarded that. Even if the bar you’d been in hadn’t been that populated, that didn’t mean that you were invisible. And, like it or not, you and Todoroki were both public figures, well known for your partnership. The two of you kissing, no matter how innocent, would be news if it went public. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Todoroki said immediately, taking your hand in his warm one. “Don’t be.”

And then he was kissing you again, this one more passionate than either of the last two. The first had been hesitant, feeling each other out, the second quick and needy. This one was full, in no rush while making sweet use of the time you did have. His other hand came up to grip your waist and you moved to grip his shoulder, feeling the swollen muscle beneath his shirt.

You were drawn to his warmth, as you always were, and your body couldn’t help but press against his, thigh to thigh, chest to chest. You’d always tried so hard to keep a professional distance that as soon as the boundary was taken away, you couldn’t seem to get close enough. Making up for lost time, as it were.

Making up for the time that was about to be taken.

You felt yourself being dragged out of the entryway, and you eagerly let it happen. In the past times you’d been to his apartment, you’d never seen his bedroom, but you knew where it was. Todoroki led you there, his lips barely leaving yours for breath, fingertips pressing in wherever they could reach.

The next thing you knew, your knees were hitting the back of a bed and you allowed yourself to be pushed back. You landed on a soft comforter atop a neatly made bed, and were met with Todoroki’s hard body crawling on top of yours. You continued to make out and you thought that if this was how you spent your last night before leaving Japan, you’d be happy. You were already happier than you’d been in ages.

Todoroki was panting when he pulled away from you, kneeling over you so that he looked powerful in a way that you didn’t usually acknowledge. You were intimately aware of Todoroki’s strength, but usually it was matched with yours, used to compliment and support you and vice versa. But now it was suspended over you and it sent a thrill through your core. This was a side of him that you’d always wanted to see, always imagined, but never believed would be yours.

“Y/N,” he said, brushing a soft hand down your arm, the light touch making you shiver. “What do you want?”

“What do you want?” you asked, pressing up, entangling your legs.

Now both of his hands were on your arms and you loved the touch, warm on one hand, chilled on the other, but both making you equally heated.

“I want to be with you,” he said, the rare euphemism coming out as assuredly as any blunt word ever had from him. “I want to have you.”

“Me too,” you said, pushing on your knees to catch his lips again.

Then there was no stopping you. Todoroki’s hands moved down to the hem of your sweater—too cold for outside, too hot in the bar, and utterly unneeded here—and ripped it over your head before starting on the buttons of his shirt.

In the meantime, you pressed your way into his lap, riding his thighs a little as you kissed him, making your way down his neck and leaving the softest kisses, reveling in the shiver it sent down his spine as you did.

“Sensitive?” you whispered in his ear.

“Mhmm,” he murmured. Then his own shirt was off, and a quick flick of his fingers behind your back sent your bra following.

Then you were pushed back on the bed, his lips now giving your neck the same treatment. You felt him lingering in one spot halfway between your jaw and your collarbone, his teeth just barely grazing the soft skin. Before you knew what you were asking for, you whispered, “Do it,” and felt his lips latch and give a good suck.

You were going to Siberia. A scarf would never leave your neck. You’d be clothed head to toe every moment you were there, you were sure. He could mark up your whole body and no one would ever know.

What was more—you wanted him to.

You wanted to dress in the morning, clean yourself and see the footprints of his presence on your body. Little reminders that this wasn’t a dream, one of the many fantasies that had eaten at you, feeling good until they left you hollow. This was as real as the familiar smell of his detergent on his navy blue bedding. The poster of All Might you couldn’t really be surprised to see.

A moan escaped your lips as you felt the spot on your neck go hot with his ministrations, and you knew the bruise would linger for days. You grew wet at the thought of it.

“More.”

Obediently, Todoroki trailed down your neck to your chest, taking in the sight of your upper half bare to him. You’d seen him topless before, usually when the two of you exercised together, his body glistening with sweat, rippling as various muscle groups enjoyed his focus. But he’d never seen you. He looked up at you, eyes almost too soft to bear, and said, “You’re beautiful.”

You bit your lip and your head fell against his pillow as his mouth descended onto your breast, not the nipple but just above. He sucked a new spot, this one even more private than the previous. You arched your back into his mouth, wanting him to know how much you wanted it, how much you needed it. He could read you as well as ever, sucking the spot until the pain was sharp, then releasing and laving his tongue over it. Then he sunk his teeth into your nipple.

“Ah,” you gasped, gripping his hair and tugging. That pulled the smallest moan, almost a grunt out of him, and you realized that you needed more. You needed more, fast.

“Shouto,” you breathed, reaching down his waist towards his pants, but arms not quite long enough to make it there. Still, he looked into your eyes and understood, giving a smile that bloomed one of your own and pushed his jeans down, leaving him in nothing but tight boxers.

You could see his bulge straining against the fabric and your heart knocked against your chest. This was your partner, the man who held your life in his hands on the daily and his in yours. The man you sat up with doing paperwork, and who worked missions with you when you were both dead on your feet, starving, and snippy.

How did that add up to where you were now? You didn’t know, but when he unbuttoned your pants and looped his fingers around the hem, you lifted your hips. Your panties when halfway down with them, leaving half your ass against the comforter and the tops of your pubes frizzing out, but what did it matter?

You didn’t wait for Todoroki and pushed your panties the rest of the way down yourself. You immediately felt the slickness at your center begin to dribble down your thighs, sticking them together. Todoroki took the invitation and removed his boxers as well, revealing himself in his full glory to you. He was pale along the shaft and red at the tip—the same colors that you associated with him. You blushed at the thought, unable to miss the subtle dual-tone of his pubic hair, more muted in color than the hair on his head. You’d never be able to look at his split color the same way again.

Your hand was on the back of his neck, bringing him to you before you could overthink things any further. His dick pressed against the crease of your inner thigh as you tasted his tongue, the flavor of the martinis all but gone at this point and replaced with nothing but him and you.

“Y/N,” he managed, his voice coming out rough as he grinded against you, the whole of his length making it from your crosswise crease to your belly button, leaving sticky pre on your stomach. “I feel I should tell you…it’s been a while for me.”

“Me too,” you answered quickly, lifting your hips into his, pulling a groan from him.

When was there time to be meeting people—much less people who weren’t influenced by your being a mid-tier celebrity—when you were a pro hero? Not that there was any point in trying. You’d barely been able to look at other men as you spent your days fighting off a growing crush on your partner.

“I’m just saying,” he said as you went to press your lips against his neck again, “this might be over quickly.”

That affected you, causing you to bite down high on his shoulder, where the tall neck of his hero costume would more than cover.

You didn’t care about how long he would last. The base of his length had moved between your lips and was grinding soundly against your clit, ensuring that your own orgasm wouldn’t be far off either. But while you weren’t particular about how long it lasted you didn’t want it to be over. You wanted to stay in this forever.

“Nothing to prove,” you said, returning to his lips and taking them in yours. “Just need you.”

“Me too,” he said, voice low and throaty. Your heart flipped before you forced yourself not to read into it. There was no subtext. Never any subtext.

He reached away from you, pulling at a drawer next to his bed to pull out a pack of condoms. He picked a square from it and tossed the rest aside before ripping it open. He rolled the rubber down himself and you took in his size again.

It would be a lie to say that you’d never thought about what Shouto was packing before. You’d seen his costume in ribbons after a particularly grueling battle, leaving little to the imagination. You saw the thickness of his thighs, the jut of his hipbones. You’d wondered what else was there.

He didn’t disappoint. The condom left a good inch or two at the base of his cock uncovered, and he wasn’t narrow either. He’d be a stretch, a delicious elongation for you to make room for.

His hand left his dick and went to your center and you spread your legs automatically. He reached with two fingers and spread your wetness up and down your pussy. You groaned at the feeling, arching your hips up to encourage him further. Hesitantly, he began to press one finger into you and then another.

“Damn, you’re tight,” he said. “You weren’t kidding.”

You just squirmed beneath him, all of his movements far too slow to stoke anything but the smoldering coals within you. But you needed Shouto’s fire.

“Sho,” you whined. “Don’t tease.”

“I just don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his voice not carrying an ounce of the smugness that another man’s would.

“You’d never hurt me,” you said, lifting your arms up and encouraging him toward you. He indulged, giving a couple more pumps of his fingers, scissoring them just a couple times and then pulling out. Without hesitation, he slipped them into his mouth and sucked them clean.

Your face went hot. The pure nonchalance of his gesture didn’t even seem to register, as his hand dropped to the bedspread, his lips back down to yours. You tasted the tinny flavor of yourself on his lips and only felt more aroused.

“Ready?” he asked, his voice soft and hot in your ear.

You grinned. “Impatient.”

He chuckled as his knuckles brushed against your thigh, guiding his dick to your core. And then he was pressing in, stretching you wide despite the prep that he’d done. Your body ached, wanting to pull away from the discomfort, but also yearning to feel whole, feel full. But he was filling you up so slowly.

“There you are, princess.”

You felt the head of his cock kiss your cervix, and when you looked down, you saw that he wasn’t even all the way in. A good inch still hung out, keeping his hips from being flush with yours, keeping you from being as close as possible.

But you felt it, that heat that started in your groin and moved up through your stomach and your chest as you squeezed your walls around him, feeling every bit that you could. Sex wasn’t love, you knew that, but then why did having him so close make your heart flutter in a way that it didn’t when he was gone?

“Can I move, sweetheart?”

You were gone. The tone of his voice, the words on his lips made anything possible. You would take whatever he would give you and hold it with both hands.

“Please.”

He started with a gentle rocking, barely leaving you, and you were grateful for that. You were so warm when he was deep inside you, his swollen cock pressing against the nerves of your clit, even from inside. He took one hand and pressed it against the base of your belly and every sensation turned hot, searing. Every drag of his cock was magnified, and you could see the light ripple of your belly every time he plunged into your depths.

You gasped and wrapped your arms around his back, nails finding the skin under his shoulder blades and digging in. “Oh, fuck,” you whined as he upped his pace, sweat making your skin stick to each other.

“What do you need?” he grunted, his words knocking you out of your daze just enough to hone in on his sentiment.

“Fingers,” you breathed.

Todoroki rotated his hand so that the heel of his palm pressed right above your pubic bone, and the tips of his fingers began toying with your clit. After that, it wasn’t long. Your hands clawed at his back, knees rose all on their own and clung to his sides.

“Shouto,” you cried desperately. “Shouto…!”

“I’ve got you, baby, I’ve got you.”

“I—” Your voice broke as the heat spread from your core and your chest to all through your body. Even your extremities, always cold from your quirk, became flush with warmth, your cheeks hot, lashes wet as Todoroki only seemed to move quicker. “I’m—Shouto!”

Your breath left you as your orgasm tore out of you. It seemed that was all Todoroki needed, as he pushed a few more desperate ruts into you, half your name passing his lips before he stuttered to a halt, only managing a few more rough passes of his cock before he collapsed on top of you.

You panted as the heat left your body, save for all the corners at which Todoroki was still pressed against you. Those were hot, hot as any touch from him had ever been. You felt him adjust his hips as he pulled out of you, but you didn’t loosen your hold across his back, not wanting to break apart.

“Y/N,” Shouto said after a minute. “We have to clean up.”

Always so logical. Always so sensible. Your brows furrowed above your closed eyes as you tried to wish it away. You wanted to stay here. As long as you stayed put, it felt like time was paused in this moment for you. That you could live in afterglow forever.

“I know,” you said, but you made no sign to move.

Todoroki seemed to think this was because he was on top of you and rolled to the side, peeling of the condom as he did so.

You shivered immediately, your combined sweat on your chest cooling and leaving your skin tacky and raised with goosebumps.

“C’mon,” Todoroki said, placing a hand over yours. “We’ll take a shower.”

He helped you up, your body heavy, though you didn’t know if it was from pleasure or denial, and led you to the bathroom, flicking on the shower.

Under the hot spray, you leaned into the touches of Todoroki treating your skin with soap, pressing his hand gently between your legs to clean you of evidence of your activities. When he faced away from you, you gasped at the lines of red you’d left down his back, pairs of stripes marking either side of his spine. The spot you’d left on his neck was already purple, as were the two he’d left on you.

“I’m so sorry, Shouto,” you said, rubbing light fingertips over the raised spots.

“I don’t mind,” he said, turning around and taking your hand in his. “Don’t worry.”

He passed his thumb over the bruise on your breast and, despite the warm water, the soft touch had you shivering again. The intimacy was surprising. Weren’t you supposed to rebuild your walls after your time in bed was over? Was this a one night stand?

It had to be. Because you were leaving.

With that thought on your mind, you wrapped your arms around him and hid your face in his shoulder as the water poured over you. You couldn’t face him.

But you surely couldn’t let him go either.

“Stay.”

You felt Todoroki’s chest rumble around your hands, his words carrying into your bones. You weren’t certain whether he was talking about tonight, or asking you not to go to Russia. But, either way, tonight, you could do. It was all you could do.

The vibration of your phone was faint, but pulled you from slumber as the sensation rattled up your arm. Somehow you’d managed to keep your phone clenched in your sleep and you fumbled as quickly as you could in your haze to turn off the alarm. Your motions were imprecise as sleep and the last vestiges of alcohol coated a thin film over your senses.

You blinked at your phone. 4am. It was early, but that didn’t mean you had time to spare. As you tried to peel through the murky layers in your mind, you became aware of the sensation of something thick and warm across your middle.

The next breath you took squeezed your chest, seeming to inflate your heart instead of your lungs, bolstering the dual weight of joy and heartache. Todoroki’s touch was always one that you craved, his left side so warm to your constant chill while his right side never shivered at your own cold touch. You wanted to curl in closer, scoot back to deny the few inches that were separating most of the lines of your bodies.

But you couldn’t. The arm was enough of a problem.

As slowly as you could, you scooted out from under his hold, hoping that the alcohol—or the sex—had rendered Todoroki out cold. This was the first time you’d seen him in repose, so you weren’t sure of your luck. He’d never told you if he was a heavy sleeper or not.

So you could only hope for the best as you slid to the ground, recovering the clothes you hadn’t put back on after your shower and gathered them in your arm. You just had to leave the bedroom without waking him up.

But that didn’t mean you couldn’t look back.

Todoroki’s room was dark, each piece of furniture nothing more but a rectangular shadow in the sparse space. But Todoroki’s hair, pure white on his right side, caught just enough light to draw focus to the bits of him that poked out of his blanket. His cheek pressed against the same pillow you’d used, the second one behind him resting untouched. You let yourself study him, memorize him like this, and then brought a hand to your lips and blew him a kiss, relieved you hadn’t woken him.

You didn’t know what you’d do if you had to say goodbye.

The good thing was that you could feel that you weren’t hungover. You and Todoroki had both gulped big glasses of water before bed and it seemed it had paid off. Of course now you had to pee, but that would just have to wait. You couldn’t risk making the noise.

You called a car to Todoroki’s building. You were all packed back at your place, and then you’d have to dash to the airport to make the flight that had been arranged for you. It seemed this was all happening so quickly to keep you from even being able to consider making a decision. Your next steps were handed to you quicker than you could plan for. Your agreement was expected. Assured.

You shuffled back into your clothes at the front door, not wanting the pull of your sweater against your skin or the zip of your jeans to alert Todoroki to your sudden departure. Then you slipped on your shoes and pushed yourself out the door before your car was even ten minutes away. Once you closed Todoroki’s door, there was no way back in—an automatic lock. No turning back.

As you passed through the bright corridors of the apartment complex and then to the sheet of darkness outdoors, you felt the stillness of the world at 4am. Your sluggishness from both the remaining alcohol in your system and the paltry three or so hours of sleep you’d gotten feeling endemic to the atmosphere. It was a lull, providing you just enough awareness to gently guide you through the motions, but not enough to truly have to think about them.

The cold curled around you as you waited on the car, making you shiver through your sweater despite your high tolerance. You wished that Todoroki was back beside you, making you warm with either his quirk or just his presence. But now, every move you made was taking you one step further from him for who knew how long.

Time crept by before your car finally approached. You sent it in the direction of your own apartment, dark and empty, and told the guy to wait once you got there. You’d be right back down.

And then it was off to the airport to catch a redeye due north.

Shouto felt cold.

Not from his quirk. No, he’d just finished his first solo patrol in months, and there wasn’t a villain to be seen, so he hadn’t had to use either his right side or his left.

Now that he was back at the agency, he felt sluggish. Pulling his boots off, unzipping his uniform was a chore. He placed them on the wooden bench mechanically, wondering if this was what the next month or so would be like since you had left his apartment this morning.

The thought of it was bittersweet. He’d been so happy yesterday, and then had woken up to find nothing but bunched up covers in front of him when he’d woken up. Your smell had barely even lingered, since you’d showered using his soap. He’d been left alone with little more than the memory that you’d been there at all, the whole thing barely feeling real at that point.

He’d been cold ever since.

It took Shouto only five minutes to fill out his no-incident log, and then there was nothing to do but go home. But the last time he’d gone home had been with you by his side, the promise of kisses in the air between you. He was loath to replace that memory by schlepping home with loneliness as his new partner.

He closed his locker door with a slam, frustration feeding his emotions. He needed to snap out of it. You were his partner, dammit, and you were away on hero work. That shouldn’t have left him feeling so empty.

Worse, he didn’t know what to make of last night. You both had been tipsy, but not drunk—he was sure of that. You’d been to enough company holiday parties, galas, and celebrations to know each other’s spectrums of drunkenness pretty well. So that meant there should be no regret, right? He didn’t regret it.

But you’d left without saying goodbye. Had you just been upset about having to leave and had got caught up in the moment? Had you been trying to communicate something he wasn’t getting?

Shouto ran an irritated hand through his hair and left the locker room, marching for the elevator. When he made it to the boss’s door, he gave three good raps of his knuckles and waited, his nerves more on edge than they’d been for his entire shift. He touched the bruise at the base of his neck through the turtleneck he had on now. It was probably good he’d been in the locker room alone. This morning, he’d gotten a good look at the scratches you’d put on his back, flashing immediately back to the moments before your orgasm when you’d clung to him so tightly, seeming to need him more than you ever had in combat.

“Come in.” Shouto walked in to see the agency’s manager smiling up at him as she lowered her laptop screen. “Oh good, I was hoping to speak to you, “Shouto.”

She gestured to one of the chairs in front of her desk, plush green ones with rounded upholstered backs. Shouto sat down and eyed her wordlessly.

“We haven’t worked out the details completely, so that’s why I hadn’t called you in yet, but it’s just as well that you’re here,” she began, intertwining her fingers and resting her chin on them. She was casual in a way that Shouto didn’t quite think was professional, but that you always said you appreciated. “We’ve been speaking with Deku’s manager and think that it’s a great opportunity while Snow is gone for a little PR between the two of you. It’ll look good, the two of you, high school friends, crossing agencies to do a little partner work to make up for the fact that Snow isn’t here.”

“That sounds fine.”

He wouldn’t mind working with Deku—they didn’t get to see each other often enough as it was now that they were both pros. Their quirks didn’t work as well together as yours and his did, but he did know Deku’s style well enough to be able to work seamlessly. It would do in the interim.

“Of course, it’s too bad to lose her while you two are going up in the rankings, but we’ll just have to make the best of it.”

“Right,” Shouto said, his hands going clammy. “Have you heard from her? Do you know if she’s landed?”

“The flight has landed,” she said. “But I have not heard from Snow. There won’t be any internet or cell service there.”

Shouto’s eyes widened, posture falling forward. “What?”

“That’s right,” she said, looking only the slightest bit apologetic. Not nearly enough. “I’ll probably get occasional updates about the course of the operation, but we can’t expect anything more than that.”

“So we just won’t hear from her for a month,” he stated, voice tumbling out quick with disbelief.

“Maybe less, maybe more.”

Shouto stared, able to see his reflection in his boss’s perfectly polished glasses. His jaw worked as he finally looked down, hands pushing against the seat of his chair, ready to push up and out of there. “Are we finished?”

“You’re dismissed.”

Shouto swept out of there, feeling the tension of a slowly ticking clock following him.

November

“Three, two, one.”

The man beside you put his hands on the wall and you felt the telltale vibration that the snow around your feet never seemed to dampen. A round hole dug through the thick concrete wall of the building you were back against as you held a pile of snow taken from the ground aloft, ready to turn it into spikes or a dense shield or sword at a moment’s notice.

As soon as the wall was dug through, you charged in first, masses of snow floating on either side of you. You ran fast, perhaps a bit quicker than was strategic. The nondescript hallways of the concrete building blurred past you, mixing in a blur of beige as you kept your senses alert. All you could pick up on, though, were your own echoing footsteps and those of the team behind you.

When the path split, so did your group, different people going down different hallways as you continued straight, barreling forward. There had to be something this time. Some clue, some person. Or, gods willing, maybe the whole operation would fall into your lap. Rarely did you hope for battle when on patrol, but you were. Eight weeks and yet to actually interact with any of the big bads you’d read about had you itching for a fight. Hungry for it.

Anything to get this over with.

But you already knew there was nothing. Nothing more than the dank smell of mold from melted snow traveling from the grimy corners of rooms and hallways into the air. The wireless communicator in your ear was silent and you didn’t see anything to hint at any signs of human life. No footprints—nothing.

You let go of some of the snow you were holding, turning it to ice slabs and sticking it to the rough texture of the cement walls. You weren’t going to waste your energy on villains who weren’t here.

You barely felt yourself slowing to a stop, nearly causing the person behind you to smack into you. “Sorry,” you said, before gathering the strength to at least keep walking.

A clean sweep would have to be done before this building was rendered a lost cause like all the rest. And then you’d go back home.

Well, not home. Not even close.

“Why don’t you go outside?”

The Mole’s eyes were on your leg, which was bouncing up and down as you sat in a rocking chair, trying and failing to read. You turned to him, eyes cold. He had the strange snout of a star-nosed mole, though it had nothing to do with his quirk. Neither did his name, which you always thought made it sound like he was some sort of spy. No, his quirk was tunneling, which was handy for powering through old cement prisons, seeing if they had hidden basements but made for quite the nightmare from a hero branding standpoint. You’d gone simple. Ice quirk. Snow.

“Fine,” you said, standing up, feeling the heat you’d created in your leg from the anxious bouncing.

It took five minutes to bundle up. Thick socks over your thermal leggings and snow pants over those. Gloves then jacket, scarf then coat. Hat and waterproof boots. All that and when you stepped outside, you still felt the cold biting into you. Still, outside might have been cold, but inside was stifling. After two months you had cabin fever bad.

It turned out that Siberia had its own League of Villains much like the one Todoroki had interacted so much with during his high school days. Siberia housed a lot of prisons that had been dealing with high profile escapes for months. Then people with matching quirks descriptions were showing up in groups, wreaking havoc only to recruit more members.

But they were slick. Siberia was so vast that so long as the villains made it in and out quickly, hunting them down was a wild goose chase. By now, you were afraid that they had one or more teleportation quirks in their ranks, able to send them hither and yon without so much as a scent to follow.

Thinking about it too hard grated on your nerves, though, so you walked over to the garden. This was the real reason why you’d been sent to Siberia alone, without room for even just one other person to join you. Your group of heroes was off the grid with as little contact with the outside as possible. That meant growing your own food.

In the arctic.

You approached a woman who simply went by Dell—you didn’t know if it was her real name or a hero title—who had bare fingers to the soil, coaxing life out of a potato sprout. You crouched behind her, back naturally curling to match her premature hunch, making her look older than she was—and she did look old. There’d been no snowfall today, so the only snow that had to be cleared was that that had been blown by the wind. Light stuff, easy to move as breath itself—easier, actually. In this cold, every breath felt like it tore at your nostrils, then your lungs. You’d thought you were used to the cold, but it turned out you didn’t truly know it.

You easily moved the snow that had strayed into the garden, compacting it into a snowball and dropping it in your hand to toss it off into the pine trees. That brought you a smile, at least. Then you began the harder work of picking the frost out of the soil. You’d grown spoiled, manipulating little ice other than Todoroki’s for three years now. What he created was perfectly pure, exactly what your quirk liked best. This stuff was tiny, stuck in dirt and warped with atoms besides hydrogen and oxygen. It was good practice, but it made you miss the ease with which you interacted with Todoroki’s quirk. Like it was an extension of your own.

Dell’s eyes were closed, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think that she was totally unaware of your presence, her focus solely on the plants. They were growing, just barely perceptively—almost a trick of the eyes. If you stared long enough, though, you could see a leaf’s edge move past one wrinkle on her knuckle to another, a mark of the growth.

Her quirk allowed for her to steer nutrients from the earth into plants. So long as they had sunlight and water, they could grow more rapidly. She could protect them somewhat from the cold as well, but your quirk was also intended to help with that. While you couldn’t heat the soil, you could keep the frost off of it, keep the leaves bare and pointing up to the sun.

“Bad nerves?”

You looked at Dell, her eyes still closed. You couldn’t even say what color they were, you’d so rarely seen them open. When they were, she was walking from one plot to the next, eyes cast down. Humans got her ears and her mouth, plants got her eyes and her touch. As for smell—it was hard to smell anything in this cold, much less through the scarves everyone had bundled up to their eyes.

“No,” you said, perhaps a bit petulantly. One didn’t get to be a hero with bad nerves. You had to be cool and calm under pressure. Steady.

“They sent you out again.”

It had become a habit of the group, the dozen or so members who had access to this remote cabin. A location only to be found with coordinates of latitude and longitude, as there were no other landmarks for miles. Just snow, trees, and Dell’s small garden. When the few weeks your boss had promised you turned to the month you’d promised Todoroki, then turned to five weeks and even six, you’d become more and more ornery. At least you always had Dell to talk to when you were kicked out, the comfort of the snow around you feeling both familiar and allowing you to feel powerful.

No one had mentioned that you’d have no internet access. No cell phone. No courier service. The detectives in the group had some internet access, but it was strictly for professional use. Not a single private email was to be sent.

“Not a lot of patience for fidgeters,” you mumbled. “Gotta do something to stay warm.”

“The fireplace makes me sweat,” Dell commented, shifting to the next plant over.

It did for you too—you’d just been making an excuse. It was so hard to get a neutral temperature in this place. This was the land of extremes. Blizzard or drought, heat or frostbite. Yet people continued to survive and have the propensity to commit crimes.

“Something is on your mind.”

Todoroki.

On your flight north, you’d let the warm feelings of your night together linger over you, kindling into hope. He hadn’t said anything, but Todoroki wasn’t foolish enough to jeopardize a years’ old partnership for the sake of carnal passion. No, if he was going to sleep with you, it was going to be for a reason. Just like you.

Since then, you’d been in two months’ worth of circles.

“I didn’t tell anyone goodbye,” you said, just one of the many things that had been on your mind. “I didn’t get to tell anyone.”

You’d put every effort into not waking him. You hadn’t left a note. You hadn’t stolen one last kiss or even a touch of his hand. You’d thought you’d be able to talk again. Soon.

What was the point of being one time zone away if you couldn’t make contact?

“You’re missing someone,” Dell surmised, pulling a potato the size of her fist from the ground you’d just cleared of frost. Without you, it would have taken a shovel to do that. The frozen ground here was as hard as asphalt.

“Yeah,” you said. It wasn’t that you didn’t miss everyone else, but at least you knew what you’d be coming back to with anyone else in your life. You relationships were stable. But Todoroki…

“You’re in love.”

You’d been staring at the dirt, your eyes practically frozen over. You blinked up to find Dell’s eyes staring at you. They were a murky brown—or maybe a murky blue. They were right in that land of in between.

“Can you really be in love if you’re not in a relationship?” you asked. “If you’re not in it with someone else, really testing out what your compatibility is like? Isn’t it just a crush otherwise?”

You didn’t know why you were asking her. You were the only person you ever saw speaking with Dell—the others seemed to think that her plants were enough for her, that she had all the conversation that she needed with them. Maybe that was true. You had no idea what she knew of love.

“Is dating the only way to know those things?” she asked. “Is dating the only relationship of meaning?”

“Of course not,” you answered. It sounded stupid the way she said it. You and Todoroki were partners—had been. You had no idea if you’d been replaced. Certainly temporarily, if not permanently. But you knew how the two of you worked. Perfectly in tandem. As each other’s other half.

The wry laugh that followed didn’t come out as anything more than a breath, muffled in our scarf.

“So you love them,” she said, a smile quirking her lips as she pulled another potato. “But they don’t know.”

“I thought he might,” you said, the cold from both the air and your quirk leeching out any heat that that cabin had brought you.

“But now?”

You had no clue.

December

As The Mole tunneled into this building, you could tell it was different right away. Rather, you could hear it.

Human noises. Voices. Multiple of them. You ran in first, taking your place as the muscle of the group as you carried as much snow and ice in with you as you could without inhibiting your peers’ vision. You stuck patches of it to the wall, where it wouldn’t be in the way, but would be available for you to call on. Then you readied a staff of ice, compact with no air pockets so that they wouldn’t snap as soon as a fist or weapon came at them.

You began knocking people down indiscriminately, thwacking them with your staff and then sending slicks of ice to their feet, sending people sprawling. You created handcuffs and restraints watching to see who had a quirk that would let them crack out of them, only for you to trap them in something bigger.

Three months. Three months of isolation with no one but a handful of colleagues to keep you company, nothing but the case and the garden to give you purpose. Now, all of that impatience, all that frustration came walloping out on these villains, descriptions matching the text that had burned into the back of your eyes.

A screech came through the hallway, making your fingers go numb almost too quickly to counter for. But these villains didn’t know who they were dealing with.

You formed hunks of ice in your ears, freezing one of the only parts of your body that still felt the warm pulse of your blood, but silencing out some of the noise. You clenched your staff, ignoring the tingles of the villain attack and headed back into battle, deafened, looking for a mouth to fill with ice.

It was easy to spot the one making the soundwaves. It was a quirk similar to Present Mic’s, except the pitch was always high and, rather than just being painfully loud, it was at such a frequency that it messed with the nervous system. You jabbed some snow into his mouth, feeling it form around the nooks and crannies of his teeth, pressing it up against his soft palate, and turned it from compact snow to hard ice, hoping he got brain freeze.

You weren’t usually so coldhearted. But you’d been in Siberia for three months. You wouldn’t allow anyone to get frostbite. You’d cuddle any villain you gave hypothermia to if you had to. But your nerves were raw as your throat was with every frozen breath you took. It had taken three days through the tundra to reach this place.

Your patience was at its end. You’d been brought on to be the brute force.

So you were brutal.

You continued plowing through the crew in the windowless hallway, catching more of the quirks you’d read about in the mission’s write ups. Fortunately, most people could be stopped by ice—it just depended how much ice would be needed. The next thing you knew, a hole was burst through in the ceiling. You raised a shield of ice over your head, saving you from the dust and plaster that rained down on you, though it did little to help your vision.

You were unsure if the move had been done by your side or theirs, an accident or not. But it was to the villains’ detriment, as you were now able to reach your pull out of the building and drag in heaps of snow through the new hole. Now you could cage people completely if you needed to; you could freeze the whole room.

Although, suddenly, it became much harder to do that. Your ice wanted to melt. You had to focus on all that you’d already molded, keeping it solid and strong as you felt the temperature in the room steadily rising. You were sweating, both from the exertion of the fight and then the heat you first felt on the exposed skin of your face and then at your extremities, tingling from the temperature change now that the previous numbness had dissipated. Something was coming. Something hot.

Then you saw it, a bright orange flecked with streaks of yellow and red, fluid and coming at you. Reflexively, you brought your ice up to shield you. It held long enough to turn the incandescent source from orange to black in an instant. Then what was once liquid was suddenly solid, sending it crashing through your ice and to your skull.

You didn’t even remember falling.

You woke up to a pounding headache, exacerbated by the constant rumbling underneath you. You opened your eyes and found yourself already sitting up, strapped in the backseat of a car.

Panic shot through your veins immediately. You’d been caught. The villains were taking you somewhere. The feeling only lasted a second, though, as your wits returned. You were bound by nothing more than a seatbelt, limbs loose and free to unbuckle at an instant.

“What’s happening?” you asked, your voice dry.

The teammate beside you handed you a water bottle as The Mole began to speak from the driver’s seat. “Mission’s over, kid,” he said, “I tunneled the lava quirk into the ground and when he used his quirk to ride back up, we were able to capture him.”

“But what about all the other villains?” you asked

You had no idea how many had been there. Your shots had been fired indiscriminately at anyone who wasn’t one of the few people you’d spent the last three months holed up with. Everyone else had gotten your ice—until that lava villain had melted it.

“Your ice held even when you were unconscious,” he said, glittering eyes catching yours in the rearview mirror. “You’ve got a strong grip, kid.”

You furrowed your brow, drawing your attention back to the throbbing at the side of your head. You were definitely concussed, but that was nothing you couldn’t push through.

What The Mole was describing shouldn’t have been possible. Certainly, the ice couldn’t have been that strong to have withheld the heat that villain brought into the room. Unless you were holding it in place. Which you always had to put thought into. Thought that wasn’t possible when you were knocked out.

You froze a bit of the water in the bottle that was in your hand, playing with the ice as you shifted the fractals from snow to ice, changing the shapes like you were twisting the base of a monochrome kaleidoscope.

Your quirk had gotten stronger here. All the snow you’d worked with—the vast amounts, the uncontrollable impurities, not to mention your hours of detail work in the garden—it had refined your craft. Outside of the minimal hero work you’d been able to pull off—until the hurrah at the end, of course—the last three months had been an intensive in using your quirk. In living up to your hero name as you were thrust into the stuff it was made of. Without Todoroki to rely on.

“Are we going home?” you asked suddenly. The Mole had said that the mission was over, but…

“Yeah, we’re all going home,” he said, and you could hear the grin on his face.

Home, you thought in relief, your head falling gently to the headrest. Then you froze.

Home.

Shouto.

“Shouto?”

Midoriya was right in front of Shouto, eyebrows raised in concern. Shouto leaned back reflexively—he hadn’t even noticed Midoriya approaching him on the sidewalk. His training shouldn’t have allowed for that to happen, but he’d been distracted.

“Something on your phone?”

Shouto was suddenly aware that he’d been staring at his phone entirely too long. He’d barely noticed the snow landing and melting on the screen. He wiped it against his pants.

In the three months that he and Midoriya had been partnering—offset with many solo shifts and shifts with their various sidekicks—Shouto had been pushing himself. He’d been overcompensating because you’d become inextricable from his battling style over the years. And now that you were gone, he had to be on top of his game.

But, aside from that—he wasn’t mad about having to further hone his skills, after all—he and Midoriya had needed to be on their best behavior. There’d been more citizens and fans to interact with, more autographs to sign, more selfies to pose for. Midoriya had taken on your usual role of speaking with charm to the crowd, and Shouto was thankful. Thanks to him, PR had been right; Shouto’s public perception had gone up.

However, staring enraptured by his cell phone while on the job didn’t look good.

“She’s coming back,” Shouto said, unable to quite have it in him to put away the phone, still open to the email he’d just received. He had a special alert for work messages and he’d almost skipped this one when he’d heard the notification. They’d done nothing but disappoint him for weeks now—months.

“Snow?” Midoriya asked, his grin bright and genuine as ever. “Wow, that’s amazing! When?”

“Should be today,” Shouto said, staring back at the little box of black and white text on his screen. “Soon.”

His heart started pounding, and suddenly all the warmth that he’d been missing for months was pooling back in his belly, in his cheeks, in his sweaty palms.

“Shouto, are you okay?” Midoriya asked, cocking his head as he brought his hands up to the phone and lowered it.

“I’m not sure,” Shouto said, putting his phone back in his pocket to find his hands tingly, his fingertips feeling flush and warm. He took a step in the light dusting of snow, continuing the route of their patrol while Midoriya followed. “I feel very…anticipatory.”

“Anticipatory?” Midoriya echoed. “You mean excited? I know you’ve been eager for her to come back.”

“Yes, but…” Shouto let out a sigh, brushing both sweaty hands through his hair. “I don’t know.”

Midoriya smiled, eyes wide with mirth. “You’re nervous. What do you have to be nervous about?”

Shouto had been playing over the events of the last time he saw you for three months now to the point that word you’d said, every sound you’d breathed when you’d been underneath him was branded in his mind. But in between all of it, there’d never been any promises, any statements that he could glean your intentions from.

“We slept together. The night before she left.”

Midoriya nearly choked, doubling over coughing while Shouto cocked his head and patted the man’s back. He’d probably swallowed some spit.

“Midoriya,” Shouto continued, grateful that the snow was keeping people off the streets, and they could speak for a moment without hordes of fans approaching them for once, “do you think that one can make love to someone if it’s onesided?”

When he could stand straight again, Midoriya’s face was red, so Shouto waited for him to get his breath back under him as they began walking again.

“Um, wow, sorry, you just surprised me,” Midoriya said. “Can we backtrack for a second?”

“But nothing was happening back—”

“No, I mean,” Midoriya pinched the bridge of his nose and Shouto paused, allowing him to gather his thoughts, “was that the, uh, first time?”

“Yes.”

“And, er, nothing like that had ever happened before?”

“No.”

“And you’re in love with her?”

Shouto became aware of his heartbeat again, now moving up to his throat. He could see your face in his mind’s eye and wondered if your hair was longer or if you’d had it cut while you were away? Had being up north paled your skin since you’d been here in the fall, or would it have the same hue as when you’d left? It had been so long since he’d seen you; would he even notice?

“I’m not certain,” Shouto said. “But…”

Shouto put two fingers to the pulse point at the base of his neck. The mark you’d left there was long since gone, as were the marks on his back, but he could still feel the ghost of them. Your touch had hardly left his mind in the three long months of autumn turning over to endless winter.

“My heart races when I think of her.”

“Aw,” Deku said, his mouth turning down in one of those smiles that radiated out even when it curved the wrong way. “You do. But wait, you asked if you could, uh, make love if it’s onesided. Why do you think it’s onesided?”

“Because she didn’t say anything,” he reasoned. “And her actions could have meant a lot of different things.”

“Shouto,” Midoriya put a hand on Shouto’s shoulder, “obviously I don’t know the whole situation, but do you really think that her actions would mean anything other than her liking you?”

“I just…” Shouto made a block of ice in his hand, thinking of the fine control you had over your quirk. You could take this crude creation of his and turn it into something utilitarian, whimsical, beautiful. Then he took it in his other hand and melted it away. “I always thought I would be a solo hero. But I really don’t want to have to keep doing this without her.”

“So go,” Midoriya said. “You said she’ll be back soon, right? Go to her then. I can handle,” Midoriya gestured to the light flurries around them, “all this.”

Beyond the flurries there were only a few pedestrians, clad with umbrellas. There was a fairly steady parade of slow-moving cars on the city block, but no one seemed to be in a rush today. The snow made everything quiet.

“But I still don’t know—”

“You know, Shouto,” Midoriya said, an assured smile on his face. “So go do what you need to do.”

Upon getting to the airport, you’d had access to the internet for the first time since you’d left, and the first thing you’d done was google Todoroki’s name. You had to make sure that he was alive and uninjured. In doing so, you’d stumbled across heaps of articles with photos of him and Hero Deku, a few of which mentioned your absence and yours and Todoroki’s esteemed partnership.

Was there a partnership to come back to? Or had it been dissolved in your absence and you’d have to become a solo hero or settle for sidekicks until a new partner came along.

You weren’t sure that you’d ever be able to partner with someone else after working with Todoroki.

You’d become much stronger in your time abroad—you knew that now—but you wanted to bring that back to Todoroki. You wanted to show him what you’d learned, wanted to feel that power in a battle alongside him.

On the airplane, you tried to push all that aside and focused on Japan. You’d packed so sparely for the trip that the few pairs of socks you’d brought were threadbare, your costume in need of a replacement. You thought of the warmer weather, the longer days, the familiar faces, and your own warm bed.

By the time you landed, you’d almost convinced yourself. You hailed a car, enjoying in the easy Japanese you exchanged with the driver rather than the broken English you’d brought with you to Russia.

All you needed was Japan. You could worry about everything else later

You had the car drop you off on the corner of the street from your apartment building. The snow was coming down, but it was different than it had been up north. It was only just starting to stick, each step leaving a bald spot on the sidewalk that would be filled again in a few minutes. The chill wasn’t bitter, the air no longer biting. For a moment, you reveled in the snow. It would likely be melted by noon tomorrow and, despite all the snow you’d just left, you’d still miss it when it was gone.

When you approached your building, you noticed a silhouette loitering outside through the dimming light of the afternoon. The sun set only an hour later than it did in Siberia—still not nearly enough daylight. No one knew that you were returning today, so this person couldn’t be waiting for you, but you still used your quirk to sweep away the snow to leave your vision unobscured between yourself and the figure.

You recognized the hair immediately. The last thing you’d seen before you’d left.

“Shouto?” you called, your pace increasing as you released the snow and it flurried back to fill the void you’d created. “What are you doing here?”

That rare smile tugged at his face and then he was coming your way, arms outstretched.

“I missed you so much.”

You felt his hands coming to clutch your arms first. Then, not a moment later, his lips slanted over yours and your suitcase toppled to the ground.

His lips were cold. The cheek your hand came up to touch was cold. But his tongue was hot, and you could feel the heat spreading throughout you as wildfire on kindling kept too dry and too isolated.

He pulled away too soon, your mouth taking in a breath of frozen air when it had expected another touch of his lips.

“I’m sorry, I should have asked,” he said, taking a step back.

“No, it’s okay!” you reassured him, feet creeping half a step forward, feeling the crunch of snow under your boot. “It’s just…we’re in public.”

You remembered last time, when Shouto’d had the foresight to save any physical affection for the privacy of his home. A good call, as it seemed that any knowledge of your stolen kiss at the bar hadn’t leaked.

“And it seems a lot of people have been enjoying taking your picture lately,” you said, referencing all the photos you’d seen with him and Deku.

He smiled again—maybe they weren’t so rare after all. “I don’t care. I mean, if you do that’s fine, but I want people to see us together. Because…I want to be together. If you do.”

He took your hands in his and you wished neither of you were wearing gloves. You wished all the bundled layers between you would fall away—you’d been in cold worse than this.

“I do,” you said, and you leaned in to kiss him to prove your point. If he was okay with people seeing, you didn’t care either. Your boss could take it up with you later. “I really do.”

“Good,” he said, and his hands slipped up your arms before wrapping behind you, pressing you against him. You clung to him, fists clutching the fluffy material of his coat. “I know that maybe it’s too early to call this a relationship or anything—”

“I don’t think so.”

Todoroki fell silent at your interruption, waiting for you to continue. But, for a moment, you contented yourself in breathing in his scent, before pulling your face away to look into his eyes, pupils wide from the dimming light.

“A friend told me that a relationship isn’t the only way to have a partnership with someone. That it wasn’t the only circumstance around which to have true feelings for someone,” you explained, thinking of Dell.

“You were thinking about this while you were away?”

“Every day.”

He kissed your forehead, and then his eyes urged you to continue. “What did you think about?”

“Well,” you started, feeling flush from the gesture, “the way I see it, things usually go crush, partnership, sex. Or, I guess if you’re feeling impatient, crush, then sex, then partnership. But we kind of did: partnership, crush, sex. We have all the right pieces, they were just out of order.”

“That’s not so bad,” he murmured, low voice sounding deep and rumbly so close to you. If you didn’t have the soft layers of your overcoats between you, you’d be able to feel the vibrations under your skin.

“So the only thing we really need to catch up on…is dating.”

Your eyes met his shyly, a question hidden in your words. Todoroki wasn’t always good at reading between the lines, but you were good at reading his face. You saw the understanding in his eyes.

“Well,” Todoroki said, looking around. “I understand if you’re sick of the snow, but it’s not that late yet. Maybe we could go for a walk and see where it takes us?”

“I’m never sick of the snow,” you said with a grin, taking one hand off Todoroki’s back so that you could pull all the flakes that had fallen on his person at once and swirl them in your hand, just like you’d done in the bar so many months ago. One of your favorite tricks since you were a kid. Then you dropped them to the ground with their brethren. “I even got pretty good with it.”

“Impressive,” Todoroki said. His voice was deadpan, but the brightness in his eyes hinted at his intrigue.

“I learned some tricks while I was away.”

“I can’t wait to see them,” he said. “And, you know, I don’t mind a little snow either.”

A snowflake landed on your cheek and before it melted, Todoroki leaned in and kissed it, replacing the cold with his heated touch. When you left the embrace, you remembered your suitcase flat on the ground, handle outstretched. Todoroki saw your gaze and reached for it, but you did him one better. You grabbed the thing and pushed it into a hedge outside your building, totally obscured in the low evening light. Todoroki raised a brow at you, but you just smiled, summoning snow and turning it to ice. You wrapped it around your suitcase, sticking it to the ground, and giving it a coating too troublesome for a thief to bother with hacking through with a pick.

“It’ll melt,” Shouto said. “We can just take it up to your room or leave it in your lobby.”

“No,” you said easily, looking up at the falling snow. “I don’t want to miss a moment of this. And besides, it won’t melt. I told you I’ve learned some tricks.”

And, just like always, he didn’t question you. He simply offered his hand to you and you took it as though it was ordinary. As though the many times you’d been side by side over the years had always been linked with a hand, not just trust.

Then, without a destination, you took off strolling. The night wasn’t nearly as dark as it had been in your little cabin in Siberia, what with all the city lights. The air was still below freezing, but you’d never felt warmer.

“Can I ask you something?” you said, before the air fully settled and left you in a lull of silent contentment. “Why did you bring me home with you? Back then. Did you like me and just didn’t say anything or…?”

Todoroki was quiet for a moment, the night air filled with the drone of slow-moving cars and the beeping of city crosswalks.

“It was nothing I had thought about before,” he admitted. “But when you kissed me, I wanted to kiss you back…because it was you.”

That didn’t really tell you anything. Nothing about what he’d felt before or after, nothing about how that had led him to waiting out of your building to kiss you again. But, at the same time, it told you everything. Because, after all, it was the same reason you’d kissed him. That you’d liked him at all. Because he was your partner, your best friend, the person you trusted with your life over anyone else.

Because…it was him.

#todoroki x reader #bnha x reader #todoroki smut #shouto todoroki smut #shoto todoroki smut #not/sfw #bnha smut #mha smut #mha x reader #bnha imagines #bnha imagine #todoroki imagines #todoroki imagine #shoto x reader #shouto x reader #shoto todoroki x reader #shouto todoroki x reader

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fantastic-bby · 3 years

Text

One In A Million

Pairing: (F)Reader x Changbin ( ft housemates Felix and Jisung)

Word count: 14.7k

Summary: In a world where magical creatures exist simultaneously with humans, Changbin, a marine biology student, knows that merfolk have been pushed to extinction by humans years before. However, while he’s at his regular smoking spot at the beach, he notices a figure watching him from the water...

Warnings: Cigarette use (Changbin) | Mentions of marijuana usage | Changbin almost drowns

A/n: I may have gotten carried away ahaaaa... This is actually the longest fic I’ve ever written (it almost became longer) and I’m really happy with how it turned out so hopefully you guys enjoy it too owo

Masterlist

Changbin thinks he’s gone mad. He stares at the water in so much disbelief that he’s sure he’s gone mad. Looking down at the cigarette in his hand, he’s thinking that Felix has definitely laced it with something. If he wasn’t high, then why did he just see a person disappear into the water from the beach he’s standing at?!

“Fucking Felix,” he curses as he pulls his phone out of his pocket.

Binnie: Did you put something in my cigarettes? [03:54]

Lixie the weedie: No??? Why would I touch your cigs? [03:55]

He lets out another curse as he shoves his phone back into his pocket. When Changbin sees the head poke out from underneath the ocean’s surface, he’s slightly more convinced that it’s an actual person and not some drug that’s messing with his head. He looks around the beach—it’s empty other than him. It’s normal for the beach to be empty around this time. Changbin’s only out there every night because he wants to smoke and his housemate—Jisung—refuses to let anyone smoke cigarettes in the house. Jisung’s a funny guy. He would gladly take Felix’s joints and edibles, but he refuses to be a victim of secondhand smoking because of Changbin.

Changbin’s phone buzzes twice in his pocket and he pulls it out once again.

Sungie: Come back inside D:< You’re gonna catch a cold if you’re out there any longer [04:00]

Binnie The cigs keep me warm [04:00]

He awaits Jisung’s next response to see the message being read. The chat bubble pops up, bouncing a few times to signal that he’s typing back only for it to disappear. Changbin looks back out into the ocean only to realise that whoever was watching him is gone. He sighs, wondering what kind of a person would be in the water during winter with how the temperatures drop way below freezing.

Sungie: I’m locking the door if you don’t come back in 5 minutes [04:03]

Binnie: Fuck you [04:03]

Sungie: Attached image (1)

Of course he sends a love meme back. Changbin rolls his eyes, a smile tugging at his lips. Jisung means well, he just shows his affection in a slightly more aggressive and dry manner than Changbin would.

Binnie: I’ve accepted the love meme and I will be returning shortly <3 [04:05]

He gives the ocean one last look before turning around and heading towards the neighbourhood, putting his cigarette out in the process of walking. Changbin’s body shivers a few minutes into the 8 minute walk. Without the smoke warming his lungs and body, it’s just cold now. He knows he needs to stop and the constant excuses that he’s come up with to stay attached to those cancer sticks make Jisung want to punch him in the face. One of those excuses is being warm in the winter, which again, makes Jisung want to punch him.

“I’m back,” Changbin announces as he steps into the small house and kicks his shoes off. Jisung pops his head out from the living room to look at him.

“Lix and I are playing Super Smash Bros., do you wanna join?”

“Uhh, I’ll pass,” he shakes his head as he steps into the living room to see Felix sitting on the couch. His Nintendo Switch is plugged into the TV, the baby pink controller in his hand while the other baby blue one is with Jisung. "Don't you have class in the morning?"

"Our professor cancelled," he replies with a shrug as Jisung starts another round of the game. "I only have classes after lunch, so I'm not too worried about it."

“Still,” Changbin chuckles. Unlike Changbin, Felix and Jisung somehow have more filled schedules than he does despite how they’re only first years and Changbin’s already in his third year. They’re always saying they have work they need to do when they’re doing pretty much anything else but their assignments.

“Why did you ask about your cigs?” Felix looks away from the screen for a split second to glance at Changbin.

The older man sucks a breath in through his teeth as he contemplates it. Felix and Jisung would definitely call him crazy, but they’ve lived with each other for the past four years, so it’s not like there’s any secrets between the three. “I thought I saw someone in the water for a moment, but then they disappeared.”

“In this temperature?” Jisung snorts. “You’d have to be crazy to take a dip in the ocean during winter.” Even though his attention is solely on the game, he takes a few glances towards his housemate when he realises that Changbin seems way more spaced out than usual. “You alright, hyung?”

“Yeah,” Changbin nods quickly. “I just feel like that person may have not been… a human.” He doesn’t really know how the thought even came to him. It just popped out of nowhere when he swears that he saw a tailfin following after the person.

“What?” Felix pauses the game and turns to look at him, earning a whine from Jisung. “What else could they have been?” Now Changbin really thinks he’s gone mad. He knows that if he actually spoke his thoughts, then Jisung and Felix would probably end up laughing at him.

“I don’t know, man, I just feel like it could’ve been something else,” he shrugs, “like a mermaid or something.”

“Merfolk went extinct years ago, hyung,” Jisung states, emphasizing on ‘years’, as he nudges Felix’s shoulder and unpauses the game. “Humans pushed the merfolk to extinction even before we were born. That includes sirens.”

“Yeah, but you know how sometimes scientists declare a species extinct but it turns out they were just hiding somewhere else.”

Felix and Jisung both pause the game once again before turning to look at their older housemate. “No way,” Felix shakes his head.

“They’d have to have been really good at hiding or else the humans would’ve found them by now,” Jisung nods.

“You think maybe the joint I gave you a few hours ago still has its effects on you?” he teases as he jabs Changbin’s bicep with his finger. In response, he yelps and swats at Felix’s hand until he leaves him alone.

“I’m telling you, I know what I saw,” Changbin grumbles. “There was a fin following after them.”

“It was probably another creature,” Jisung guesses as he turns back to the TV. “You know how water sprites can get too. Maybe it was one of them playing tricks on you.”

“Water sprites don’t take the forms of other water creatures,” he states matter-of-factly.

“Alright, Mr ‘I study magical creatures’,” he rolls his eyes. “Don’t think too much about it. It could’ve been something else.”

“I don’t study magical creatures, I study the ocean’s ecosystem, asshole,” Changbin nags and reaches over Felix to punch Jisung’s arm. The younger man lets out an exaggerated howl of pain as he writhes around.

“Felix, hyung is bullying me!” he whines.

“Sounds like a you problem,” Felix snorts just as he manages to knock out Jisung’s character. “I win!” He shoots up from the couch with his arms up in the air, “I won because you’re too busy teasing Changbin hyung!” Jisung lets out an even louder whine.

“That’s unfair! We have to play again! Let’s play another round!”

“It’s not unfair! I won!” Changbin crosses his arms over his chest, amused as he watches the younger men argue about whether or not they should play another game. They annoy him, sure, but Changbin’s harboured a soft spot for his housemates. As much as Felix makes him want to throw him out of the window and how Jisung makes him want to lock him in his own room, Changbin would do anything to keep them safe and happy. The feeling’s mutual across the three of them.

Jisung, the designated demon of the house, once broke into Felix’s crazy ex-girlfriend's house and stole his hoodie back for him only to have objects thrown at him by her. Felix, the house mum, once almost lit a car on fire to try and save Jisung from being beat up by a gang of hooligans. Changbin, on the other hand, pays the most in rent and likes to use it against his two younger friends—he would prefer to call them his brothers. A happy family that the three of them decided to build together when they had started college.

Changbin finds himself at the beach at the same time a few days later, cigarette held between his index and his middle finger. He’s come to terms that there’s no way it was a mermaid—he studies them, of course he would know what a mermaid looks like even in the dark. However, tonight, he finds himself sitting on one of the rockier areas of the coast, sitting cross-legged on the almost frozen stone and looking out at the ocean as he smokes his problems away.

He’s lucky that the three of them are able to afford a small house nearer to the ocean or else he would’ve been more stressed out. Being near the ocean as a student who studies marine ecosystems means that it’s easier for Changbin to do research without having to travel so far away to get to the water.

As he looks out, he sees it again. Changbin almost falls off of the rocks and into the water when he sees what looks like a person sticking their head out of the water, eyes watching him intently. He sits upright, leaning closer to get a better look only to watch them dive back into the water. That’s when he sees it.

A tailfin.

“No fucking way," Changbin gasps as he crawls closer to the edge of the rocks. The waves move gently, the darkness and the movement obstructing any kind of view he would have into the water. His hand holds himself up as he slowly gets closer and closer towards the water when the head re-emerges, right in front of his face. Changbin loses his balance out of shock, his hand slipping against the rock and his body rolling off of the edge until he's enveloped in cold.

Freezing cold.

He panics.

Changbin can't breathe. He feels the salt water gushing into his lungs and all he feels is pain. His throat burns, his eyes sting, his lungs hurt. Black spots start to fill his vision while his limbs frantically try to push himself up towards the water's surface, but it's too cold for his limbs to even move properly. He'll drown if he doesn't get out and if it isn't the water that kills him, then the hypothermia definitely will. The more he panics, the more frantic his arms become, but it’s not like Changbin’s actually able to control himself since the only thought in his mind is swim to the surface.

Arms wrap around Changbin's torso when he feels his body starting to give up but it's too dark for him to see as they pull him into a darker area. He's shoved out of the water and onto stone, his lungs painfully coughing out all the water out as he heaves to catch his breath. He looks around the area once he's more composed, only now noticing that he's in what looks like a cave. Changbin's eyes stop at a pair of eyes peeking out from right above the water's surface, staring at him.

"Y-You…" Changbin trails when he realises how cold it is, his arms moving to wrap around himself in a feeble attempt to keep himself warm. The head further emerges, tilting curiously and watching him. Changbin manages to push out a gasp despite his shivers, her skin is patched with tinges of blue and green, scales crawling up the side of her face. Her pupils were shaped like slits, almost cat-like. "You're… a m-mermaid." Her head tilts curiously as she lowers into the water momentarily. She lifts herself out of the water further to take a closer look at Changbin. “Do you not understand me?” he questions. The mermaid blinks a few times, her pupils dilating when she sees the way Changbin hugs his soaked jacket tighter around himself. She slips underneath the water despite the human’s protests. “F-Fuck,” he curses as he realises how much shit he’s in. Not only does his throat hurt like hell now, but he knows that if he doesn’t get out of the cave or find a way to find warmth, he’ll freeze to death.

A few moments pass before the mermaid pops back out with a plastic zip lock bag in her hands. She puts it onto the ground and pushes it towards him. Changbin looks between her and the plastic bag before taking it, ripping it open to see a perfectly dry winter coat. He turns back to look at the mermaid who’s returned to hiding half of her face underneath the water and only her eyes watching him. Changbin immediately changes out of his wet clothes and slips himself into the coat, closing his eyes as he lets out a sigh of relief when he feels his body slowly starting to warm up. When his eyes open, Changbin notices the mermaid still watching him, her webbed hands holding onto the edge of the cave to keep herself afloat.

“I thought mermaids were supposed to speak human languages,” he thinks out loud. Once again, her head tilts curiously. “Since you guys were said to be extinct, then I don’t think it’s a surprise that you don’t understand me.” Changbin hugs himself tighter as he looks around the cave, the mermaid watching him and looking around as well. How is he supposed to get home? The only creature that knows where he is doesn’t even understand what he’s saying!

“Mermaid,” he calls out, the creature immediately perking up at the sound of his voice. “Wait, do you understand me?” The way she simply stares at him makes Changbin realise that she just reacted because she heard him talk. He stuffs his hand into the wet pocket of his jeans, pulling out his phone. Changbin presses the home button and watches as the screen flickers before turning white and shutting down right after. He sits awkwardly as he thinks about what to do next. He lifts his head, making eye contact with the mermaid—who’s been watching him this whole time—and knows that she’s the only way he can get home.

“I-I need to get home, mermaid.” Once again, she tilts her head as she tries to process what she’s saying. Changbin bits his lip as he looks around the cave, trying to figure out a way to get her to understand. “Home,” he says as he lifts up three rocks, building a really crappy fort. “I need to get back to where I live.” The mermaid watches his hands, her mind trying it’s best to figure out what he’s showing her. Changbin sighs when she shakes her head. He lifts his hands over his heads to try and signal a roof, “my house.” The mermaid blinks a few times before diving back underwater, leaving the human to dwell with his own thoughts and company while trying to figure out how to at least get back to shore.

A few minutes pass and Changbin decides that he might as well explore the cave. He doesn’t even know if the mermaid will return anytime soon, so he stands up and looks around. There’s little light that shines into the cave and it’s only because of a few large cracks that scatter the cave walls, but it’s enough to help him barely navigate through the area. Rock formations jut out from the sides and Changbin’s careful to try not to bump into them, his biggest fear being accidentally stabbing himself with a rock formation if he’s careless. He follows the inside of the cave only to realise that he’s trapped. The only way out is to jump into the small body of water right in front of him. Changbin stares at the pool, panic starting to creep throughout him when he realises that this cave is most likely underwater when the tide rises.

A glow emits from underneath the water’s surface and it makes Changbin’s face contort in confusion as he watches the way it moves around. It gets closer to the surface before the mermaid re-emerges, obviously watching him in confusion since he’s not in the same place as before, but a water sprite is sitting on her shoulder this time.

“The mermaid tells me that you’re stuck,” the sprite claims as he flies off of the mermaid’s shoulder and moves closer to look at Changbin. The dark blue sprite is small—very small. He’s probably only the size of Changbin’s finger, small blue wings holding him up in the air as he hovers around the human’s head. “How did you even end up here?”

“I-I saw the mermaid, but I thought they were extinct and I fell in,” Changbin admits softly. The sprite turns around to look at the mermaid who watches from the water. He mutters something in a language that Changbin can’t understand and the mermaid responds in the same language. The sprite snaps back at her and she scowls as she lowers herself into the water.

“I can cast a spell on you that would keep you alive while we bring you back to the beach, but you can’t tell anyone about her,” the sprite sighs as he turns to face Changbin. “Mermaids went into hiding for a reason and I don’t want some clumsy human to be the reason that their numbers go down again. I’m Hyunjin by the way.” Hyunjin climbs up his hair and stands right on top of his head, “I’ll give you an air bubble so you’ll stay dry too.”

“Thanks…?” Changbin trails off as he watches a translucent bubble wrap around him, suddenly very aware of how quiet it is inside of the spell. “Woah,” he gasps when he hears his voice bouncing back to him.

“Yeah, there’s a lot of echo in this bubble and you’ll still feel cold, but it’ll help you get home,” he mumbles. “Walk towards where (Y/n) is.”

“(Y/n)?”

“The mermaid.” The tiny creature stays on Changbin’s head as he walks towards the pool. “She’s too nice to humans for her own good. I told her a billion times to not interact with them, but she still goes ahead and saves you.” Ouch. Changbin makes a mental note that Hyunjin’s a bit of a dick, but he knows that if he says anything now, the sprite might just leave him in the cave to die.

Honestly, Changbin doesn’t really blame Hyunjin for not liking humans. His species has unfortunately had a very bad history with the other creatures that live in the same world as them. Where humans had dominated the entire world, forcing every other creature into a form of either submission or alliance, merfolk were only deemed extinct presumably due to the insane water pollution. The other creatures don’t exactly like the humans either. Even without any sort of magic, humans had still managed to force every species to live simultaneously despite destroying everything else.

“(Y/n) has to push you back to the beach,” Hyunjin speaks up as Changbin slowly climbs into the water. “I’ll dry your clothes and get your phone working once we’re there, but only if you promise not to tell anyone about her.” The human notes how the bubble’s temperature slowly starts to drop. Changbin would probably succumb to the cold of the water if he wasn’t wearing the coat.

“So, the merfolk still exist?” Changbin questions once he’s completely submerged in the water. It’s a strange feeling to be floating so effortlessly despite being able to feel the force of the waves and the water moving around him. Once in the water, he has a slightly better view of the mermaid swimming closer to him. Unfortunately, he’s only barely able to make out the colour of her scales with how dark it is underwater. Her turquoise tail is long, lighter blue scales scattering her body and fading into a more human-like tone as they her torso. Her ‘hair’ is just as it’s described in theory in Changbin’s classes; it’s just an added fin that grows out and only appears like it’s hair. He wonders whether it’s as soft as scientists had described it to be.

“Yes, they still exist,” Hyunjin nods before muttering something to (Y/n). The mermaid nods, moving closer to rest her hands against the bubble and starts to push it through the water. “Merfolk got so scared for their existence that they decided to ‘go extinct’ to protect themselves. Humans were pushing them beyond their limits as a living, feeling species.”

“Well yeah, humans are greedy,” he sighs. “What about the other creatures?”

“Dragons don’t really care since they can eat you guys in seconds. Most pegasi stay in their own dimension unless they’re needed here; that’s why you don’t see them as much anymore. Kobolds stay hidden in ships, werewolves stay in the mountains and vampires build their own mansions away from human civilisations. Most of the creatures that can travel to their own world try to stay away from your world for the sake of their own safety.”

“Have we really pushed you guys that far?” Changbin turns to his shoulder when he feels Hyunjin move off of his head.

“Unfortunately, yes,” the sprite nods. “Soon, your world will be rid of magical creatures because they’ve run away and we’ll go to becoming nothing but myths for your future generations.” He turns around to mutter something to (Y/n) as they approach the beach. “Start walking. We can’t risk (Y/n) being seen. At least if they see me on your shoulder, they’ll think I’m the only one helping you.” Changbin does as Hyunjin says, starting to walk just as the bubble hits the inclining ground underneath the water and moving towards where the waves hit the beach. He turns around for a moment giving a wave towards the mermaid who returns it with a small smile on her face.

“Thanks, Hyunjin,” Changbin says as he's back on the beach and the sprite hovers right in front of him. “I won’t tell anyone about this.”

“You better,” he clicks his tongue in annoyance. “I knew it was a bad idea for her to linger in shallow waters.” Hyunjin does as he promises, using his magic to dry up Changbin’s clothes as well as getting his phone back to working order. “Be more careful next time. You humans are always so reckless when it comes to your life.”

“I was just curious,” he shrugs in response, watching his phone start up.

“Too curious for your own good.” Changbin ignores the comment. His eyes widen when he sees the messages spamming his phone from Jisung and Felix.

“Shit,” he curses softly as he quickly replies to the both of them.

“Head on home before your friends worry,” Hyunjin says when he hears the spammed sound of the notification. Changbin sticks his phone back into his pocket before looking back at the sprite.

“Again, thank you. I’ll try not to fall into the water next time.”

“In the chance that it ever happens again, just call out for me. I’ll be able to hear you,” he gives the human a smile and Changbin thinks that he may not be as cold as he would like to show. “But if you fall too many times, I might consider just leaving you there,” Hyunjin snickers right after.

“Okay, now you’re just being an ass,” he scoffs with a smile on his face. “I’ll be more careful next time, I promise.”

Changbin wakes to the sound of his alarm beeping from the other side of his room, something he does to force him to get out of bed. He lets out a whiney groan as he rolls over, willing himself to ignore it until the alarm snoozes. Jisung, however, refuses to allow that.

The bedroom door swings open to a very disgruntled looking Jisung who marches over to Changbin’s bed and whacks him with a pillow, “It’s a fucking Sunday, turn the damn thing off.”

“You’re already here—you do it,” he yawns. Jisung’s face twinges with annoyance as he whacks Changbin another time. “God—I. Ah!” Changbin yells, thrashing around his bed before sitting up to see the younger still staring at him. “I’ll turn it off! You can leave!”

“I also wanted to let you know that Felix’s already up and making breakfast,” he mumbles, standing at the edge of his bed like a Sims character.

“Give me twenty minutes,” he grumbles and lays back down.

“If you’re not out by then, I’m eating your portion,” Jisung giggles mischievously as he scrambles out of his room.

“Fuck you,” Changbin groans as he kicks the cushion by his foot and sends it flying in Jisung’s direction, only for it to hit the door just as he closes it. Changbin rolls over in his bed, too lazy to actually go ahead and turn the alarm off and instead opts for just letting it snooze on it’s own. He stays in bed for a little longer before dragging himself out and to his desk across the room where his phone is. He doesn’t remember setting an alarm for the weekends, so Changbin assumes that he must’ve accidentally turned on one of the weekend alarms without realising it.

Making sure to turn the alarm off, Changbin sighs as he looks through his notifications to make sure he hasn’t received anything important overnight. Once certain that there’s nothing important, he moves to taking a shower and putting on the black hoodie he wears everyday along with his jeans before stepping out of his room and making his way towards the dining room where Felix and Jisung are.

“You took twenty-one minutes,” Jisung giggles, “means I get your serving of waffles.” Just as he’s about to reach for the waffle-filled plate, Felix swats at his hand with the silicone spatula.

“Those are for Changbin hyung, you dick,” he scolds, earning a whine and a pout from the hungry boy.

“Thanks, Felix,” Changbin hums as he sits down and pulls the plate towards him. “Do you guys have anything important today?”

“It’s Sunday,” Felix shakes his head, “I’ve finished all my assignments for this week, so I’m probably just going to head back to bed after breakfast.”

“Same for me,” Jisung hums with a mouthful of food. “I have an assignment due Tuesday, but that’s for something future Sungie has to handle.”

“I’ll do it for you,” he offers and sits himself down, digging into his own plate of waffles.

Changbin scoffs at that, “stop doing Jisung’s assignments for him. He should be paying you.”

“He does pay me,” Felix corrects him, “he gives me five dollars for every two hundred words that I write.”

“I really shouldn’t be condoning this behaviour,” he sighs before turning to Jisung. “Damn it, Ji, cut Felix some slack!”

“I don’t ask him to do it, he offers and I just pay him afterwards,” Jisung shrugs as he takes another bite of his waffle. “Don’t worry about it, the university won’t know.”

“You know, that’s not the point, but I doubt that I can stop you…” Changbin trails off. He feels like he should be at least a bit more strict with his friends, but he also knows that Jisung really couldn’t give two shits about his academics. He just happened to luck out when he met Felix; a weed dealer who doesn’t even have to try to write papers worth distinctions. Jisung’s less book smart than he is street smart. He spends his time making friends with not-so-nice people that actually offer more convenience to him than they do company. As much as they have very questionable morals, they’re loyal to Jisung only because he sells them Felix’s edibles at a good price.

Changbin, on the other hand, is in between the two of them. He doesn’t have a 4.0 GPA like Felix does and even though he’s more extroverted than Jisung is, he prefers not to go around and make friends with dangerous people. Changbin’s just… Changbin. He’s turning twenty-four soon, he’s in his final year of university and he’s spent his entire academic life getting slightly higher than average grades and as extroverted as he is, Changbin prefers sticking to his small group of friends. He’s able to blend into groups and make friends easily, but Felix and Jisung are the only friends that he’s actually willingly kept around for more than two years.

“Hyung, if you want me to do your assignments, I’ll do them,” Felix offers, “no charge.”

“Uhh, I’ll pass,” Changbin shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure it’ll be suspicious because my grades would jump from merits to distinctions overnight.”

“Ah, I can dumb them down for you, I don’t mind.”

“Felix, you’re not doing my assignments.”

“Felix writes great essays, though!” Jisung pipes up.

“Ji, you should really be doing your own assignments, man,” Changbin sighs.

“I do do my assignments,” he huffs, “I just need the extra help sometimes.”

“I don’t mind either way—it’s better than watching you guys fail,” Felix shrugs. Changbin can’t stop the smile that makes its way on his face when he sees Jisung trying to steal some of Felix’s food. “No, dude, fuck off,” Felix grumbles as he swats his hand away.

“I just want a little more,” Jisung gives him a toothy grin as he stabs his fork into the waffle.

“Jisung! Fuck off! This is mine!” Felix slaps his hand away, but it doesn’t stop Jisung who continues to try and steal his food. Changbin breathes out a laugh as he watches them fight, wondering whether or not he needs to get involved before deciding that it’s too early in the morning for him to do anything.

Changbin stands on the shoreline, cigarette between his fingers as he looks out at the ocean. Only this time, he’s looking for the mermaid. Maybe he’s foolish for thinking that she’d return after the whole incident and Hyunjin—most likely scolding her for letting a human see her—having to save him, but Changbin wants to know more about her species. Even if he can’t communicate with her, maybe he’d be able to get a better look at her tail… which is kinda creepy. Changbin’s being creepy.

He groans when he realises how weird he seems, taking a huff from his cig and letting his chest fill with warmth, but he almost chokes when he sees the familiar figure watching him from the distance, head poking out of the water. It’s the mermaid!

And Hyunjin

Changbin feels himself shrinking when he sees the water sprite flying towards him, stopping right in front of his face with his hands on his hips. “Back at the beach again?” Hyunjin raises an eyebrow. Changbin’s about to answer when the sprite starts sniffing the air, his gaze moving down to look at the cigarette in his hand. “Oh.”

“What ‘oh’?”

“Is that why (Y/n) says you’re here all the time?” he questions as he turns back up.

“Uhhh, yeah,” Changbin nods. Hyunjin clicks his tongue repeatedly as he shakes his head.

“That’s unhealthy.”

“Yeah I know,” he rolls his eyes.

“It’s not good for the environment either,” Hyunjin adds as he moves to sit on his shoulder. “People just leave them lying around everywhere and sprites are usually the ones who clean them up because it’s gross.”

“I actually throw them away properly, so the littering isn’t something you have to worry about,” Changbin mutters as he takes a drag. “I’ve been trying to stop for a while, cut me some slack.”

Hyunjin gives him a look but decides against pressing him further about it and instead changes the subject, “(Y/n) wouldn’t stop bugging me about coming back to the beach. She said she wants to talk to you.”

“What?” His head turns to look at the sprite who shrugs.

“She’s never interacted with a human before—she’s curious.” Hyunjin keeps his eyes on (Y/n)’s figure in the distance. “You remember the rocky part of the coast you were on before you fell off? (Y/n) wants you to move there so that she can get closer to you.” Changbin’s surprised. He would’ve expected her to at least be scared instead of curious, but he obliges and makes his way towards the rocks, climbing onto the cold, damp stone and carefully making his way towards the edge. He sits right on the edge just as (Y/n)’s head pops out of the water. “Say hello.”

“Uhm, hi,” Changbin waves at her. She smiles as she returns the wave, webbed hand raising out of the water shyly.

“I’m gonna start saying this from her point-of-view,” the sprite tells Changbin as he turns to him before turning to (Y/n) and saying something to her. She nods immediately, speaking in her language.

“I was so worried when you fell into the water. I heard that humans can’t handle this kind of cold like the other creatures can.”

“Ah,” Changbin laughs awkwardly. “I was just trying to get a closer look at you since I thought that merfolk were extinct.” (Y/n) looks at Hyunjin as he speaks and she smiles, making the human feel less sheepish.

“Then I’ll assume that I’m the first mermaid you’ve ever seen.”

“That’s right,” he nods. “I’ve always been interested in merfolk and the ocean in general.”

“Ahh, then maybe one day I can take you into the ocean when it’s not so cold and I can properly show you my tail!” Changbin blushes at that. (Y/n)’s smiling brightly at him with her hands clasped together.

“I think she’s as interested in humans as you are with merfolk,” Hyunjin chuckles when he sees how excited she looks. “You should tell her about what it’s like to walk around with legs. She thinks that’s fascinating.”

“Legs?” he turns to Hyunjin in confusion. How would Changbin be able to explain what legs are like? He’s never had to think about how his muscles function before. “I don’t know how else to explain that and I wouldn’t think that (Y/n) would be able to explain how swimming with a tail would feel like either.”

“Wait…” the sprite trails off before realising how awkward that would be. “Yeah, never mind.”

“What’s that thing you put in your mouth every night?” Changbin turns away from Hyunjin to look at (Y/n) who’s looking at him with bright eyes holding wonder.

“Oh, uhh, it’s a cigarette,” his hand moves to rub the back of his neck awkwardly. “I-I doubt that merfolk could actually really understand what it is, but it makes my stress lighter.”

“How can that tiny stick do that?”

Changbin pauses before he lets out a deep sigh and shrugs, “it’s…”

“Magic,” Hyunjin blurts out. “I’ll just tell her it’s magic. She won’t understand what drugs are.”

“Do merfolk not have some form of drugs?” Changbin asks.

“They do,” he nods, “but they think it’s magic. Don’t tell them that pufferfish are venomous—they’re going to tell you they’re magical and just make them high,” Hyunjin snickers.

“I didn’t realise humans have magical abilities.”

“Humans have… some,” he hums.

“Keep in mind that you can use the ‘magic’ card any time you don’t know how to explain something to her,” Hyunjin whispers in his ear as though (Y/n) can understand him.

“Well, some of it is magic and some of it we just find convenience from what the Earth offers us,” Changbin continues. (Y/n) lets out a hum, her figure lowering into the water to keep the gills on her neck under the waves before she comes back up slightly.

“Hyunjin keeps telling me that humans are dangerous, but I don’t think you’re that dangerous.” The human turns to the sprite who looks at (Y/n) with narrowed eyes as he translates her words.

“Well,” Changbin adjusts himself into a more comfortable position, his legs crossing underneath him, “it’s like humans saying sharks are dangerous. It’s a cautionary thing rather than a general thing. Humans just don’t care much for the Earth.”

“Is that why there’s so much of your plastic in the ocean?” Changbin nods, a heavy sigh leaving past his lips. “Those bags have killed more of the creatures in my ocean than any human actually has.”

“We know,” his lips purse into a straight line. “The only people that seem to care aren’t in actual positions of power to change that, so…”

“That’s stupid,” (Y/n) huffs as she crosses her arms across her chest. Changbin’s eyes widen and he moves back in shock when he realises that he understood her.

“I got tired of translating, so you guys get put under a spell that lets you both understand each other,” Hyunjin lets out a sigh as he moves to sit on the rocks beside Changbin, his arms holding him up as he smiles.

“Y-Yeah, it is,” Changbin chuckles nervously. With Hyunjin resting by his side, Changbin feels more at ease with talking to (Y/n). He doesn’t feel so weird about it since the water sprite was literally translating what he was saying to the mermaid, making Changbin feel a bit more comfortable with the situation.

“Tell me more about humans.”

“What else is there to tell?” he tilts his head questioningly.

“Could I touch your hand? I’ve never felt human skin before,” (Y/n)’s hand slowly nudges out of the water as she asks him and Changbin honestly feels like her sentence could’ve easily come out of a serial killer.

“S-Sure,” he glances over at Hyunjin who shrugs in response. The human carefully moves to lay on his stomach as he holds his hand out towards the water where (Y/n) gently reaches out as well. The water isn’t too far away from the rock, making it easier for Changbin to actually allow the mermaid to hold onto his hand.

Immediately when her webbed hands touch his, she gasps, “your hands are so rough!” Her hands gently hold onto his individual fingers, pulling them away from each other and just examining it. Changbin’s lips purse together again as he just lets her do whatever she wants. “Oh, these must be fingernails,” (Y/n) mutters to herself as she lets her own fingers gently graze over his nails. Her hands are pretty much as soft as human’s skin, but Changbin would think that they feel way softer and more like what fish skin feels like without the scales. Even in the dark of night, he’s able to note where (Y/n)’s skin actually has scales and where they’re exposed.

Only her shoulders are held above the water, her shoulders scattered with dark turquoise scales that crawl up the sides of her neck and face, barely covering the gills of her neck. Changbin also notes how the scales seem to lead down her back more than they do over her front… but he doesn’t want to look down any further because from what he remembers, merfolk don’t have anything covering their chests.

“It’s so strange how your fingers don’t have fins connecting them,” (Y/n) speaks up after a moment.

“We don’t live in the water, so we don’t need the fins to help us move around,” he explains. “Like our hair—it’s not a fin like yours is. Yours is supposed to help you move around in the water, but our hair is just… well it’s hair.”

“Could I touch your hair?” she asks gently. Changbin’s cheeks redden as he—awkwardly—tries to lower his head off of the rocks without falling in. (Y/n) moves closer to the edge, one hand reaching up to hold onto the rocks before she takes a deep breath and pulls herself up so that she’s closer to his head. Changbin thanks the Lord that her chest is clothed with what looks like a top made out of marine plants. Her wet fingers gently hold onto his hair and her eyes widen further as she drops herself back into the water. “That feels so strange!” she exclaims. “Merfolk don’t actually have hair. They’re more like the fins on our fingers.”

“Could I feel it?” Changbin asks. (Y/n) nods excitedly and pulls herself out of the water once again to briefly allow the human to touch her fins. His fingers run across the smooth fin, his lips parting in awe at the way it feels because it’s just as his textbooks say, if not softer. “That’s so cool,” he breathes out once she’s lowered herself back into the water. “Your skin feels smooth like fish skin.”

“Well, yeah, we are technically fishes,” (Y/n) chuckles. “I would love to take you into the water to show you my tail, but I don’t think you’ll be able to see anything in the dark.”

“I also can’t breathe underwater,” he reminds her. Her lips form an ‘o’ at the realisation and (Y/n) turns to Hyunjin with a smile on her face.

“I’m not putting any more spells on Changbin,” the sprite shakes his head. “I’m tired, it’s almost 4 a.m., I’m not doing that.” Wait a minute, 4 a.m.?!

“Oh shit,” Changbin sits up and whips his phone out of pocket only to realise that Hyunjin’s right. “Shit, I have to get home before my friends start to worry.” He looks back to (Y/n) to see how her mood’s visibly dampened, a frown pulling on her lips. “I can’t spend too long away or else they get upset and I don’t want to worry them.”

“Will you return tomorrow?” she questions.

He nods with a reassuring smile, “I promise I’ll be back here tomorrow at the same time.”

“Alright,” (Y/n)’s eyes light up and Changbin thinks it’s cute. “Goodnight, Changbin.”

“You too, (Y/n).”

Changbin wakes the next morning and for the first time in a while, he’s awake before his alarm starts ringing. His eyes look around his bedroom as he wonders why he’s awake so early when he’s pretty sure he slept at 5 a.m after getting back from the beach. He sits up, feeling even weirder when he realises that he feels super refreshed. Changbin looks around his room as he throws his covers off of himself, standing up and making his way towards his desk to pick up his phone.

7:26 a.m.

His alarm won’t ring until 9 and his classes are only in the afternoon., which makes Changbin wonder why he’s awake so early? Felix and Jisung are definitely still asleep—both of them barely ever have morning classes—and Changbin contemplates what to do since he doesn’t feel like he’ll be able to fall asleep again.

The beach!

Changbin perks up. He can visit the beach. No one would be there so early in the morning! He doesn’t even bother to shower—he can always shower when he gets back before he heads to campus—so he just throws on one of his really thick jackets, grabs his pack of cigarettes and his phone before quietly stepping out of the house, making sure to leave Felix a text to let him know where he’s heading.

His body stiffens when he feels the cold wind slap him in the face, regretting not grabbing his beanie before leaving, but Changbin doesn’t feel like heading back into the house because he doesn’t want to waste any time. By the time he reaches the beach, the Sun’s raised just a little bit more and the tide is still low. He climbs to the rocky coast he was at the night before, sitting on the edge and looking out at the ocean, hoping maybe Hyunjin or (Y/n) are lingering around anywhere.

Changbin feels himself perk up when he sees a familiar set of eyes peeking out from just above the water’s surface, (Y/n)’s head immediately lifting out of the water with a big smile on her face when she realises who it is.

“You’re out here early,” she comments when she swims to the rocks.

“Kinda surprised myself,” he chuckles. “I’m not awake this early and my alarm will only ring in a few hours.”

“You left the beach only two hours ago,” (Y/n) claims.

Changbin nods at that, “which makes this a bit more confusing on my end.”

“It’s because I casted a spell on you,” Hyunjin’s voice speaks up as he emerges from the water. “I had a feeling you would have trouble sleeping, so I casted a sleep spell on your mind to get you refreshed in a few hours time.”

“Oh,” he watches as the sprite moves to stand on his knee, “thank you, Hyunjin. I haven’t gotten proper sleep in so long.”

“Don’t mention it,” he smiles as he takes a seat on Changbin’s knee. Hyunjin’s change in personality towards the human makes him wonder whether the sprite’s already starting to warm up to him.

“Changbin.” (Y/n)’s voice makes him turn back to look at the mermaid. “What do you do during the day?”

“I’m a student, so I’m usually at college until the evening,” he hums, “after I get home, I just spend the rest of the day with my housemates until it’s past midnight and I come to the beach to clear my mind.” She lets out an ‘ooh’ while Changbin talks, intently listening to everything he has to tell. “I live with two of my friends. They’re also college students, so we like to get things done together.”

“Are they nice?”

“They’re amazing,” he chuckles. “I love them. Jisung made a Spotify playlist for the three of us once and it’s all we listen to now. He’s a nice guy, but sometimes he gets a bit crazy and thrashes the house until Felix has the urge to lock him outside of the house. Felix likes to cook, so he makes us breakfast and dinner. He’s a good cook.”

“Your friends sound like good company,” Hyunjin muses.

“Very much so,” Changbin nods feverishly. “They’re really important to me. Whenever I’m at the beach for too long at night, Jisung’s usually the one to text me and ask me to come home. If I don’t respond to him, then Felix will call me instead.”

“So that night when you fell into the water, it was your friends that you mentioned?” (Y/n) asks.

“Yeah, they scolded me when I got home because I just said that I lost track of time.” Changbin leans back on his arms, getting himself more comfortable. “I feel bad because I worry them a lot. They don’t usually say anything about it, but I can tell that they’d really wish I would be a bit more aware of what’s happening around me.”

“Why so?”

“The cigarettes are one thing,” he pulls the pack out of the pocket of his jacket and shows it to (Y/n), “Jisung wishes I would stop because he doesn’t want anything bad happening to me in the future. Felix hints at it sometimes, but he can’t say much about it because he smokes weed every once in a while.”

“Weed?” (Y/n)’s head tilts curiously.

“It gives the same effect as pufferfish magic,” Hyunjin explains and her lips part in understanding.

“Yeah, but cigs are unhealthy,” Changbin continues. “I’ve tried stopping before, but every time I try, I end up crawling back to them.”

(Y/n) stays quiet for a moment before hey eyes flick to Hyunjin. “Hyunjin, could you cast a spell on me so that I can breathe above water?” The sprite whips his head towards her and his eyebrows furrow.

“Why?” his eyes narrow.

“Just do it.” Hyunjin hesitates before sighing, climbing off of Changbin’s lap to jump onto (Y/n)’s head. Changbin watches as he holds his hands out, palms facing outwards before a bright light flashes from his hands.

“That should do the trick,” he mutters as he jumps off of her head to return to his previous spot on Changbin’s knee. (Y/n) blinks a few times before diving into the water only to jump out and grab onto the rocks, moving to sit beside Changbin where her tail hangs into the water. The human stares at her with wide eyes, only now aware of just how vibrant the colours of her scales are in the light of the day.

To Changbin’s shock, (Y/n) grabs onto his pack of cigs out of his hands and pulls the top open, pulling one of them out. She looks at it for a moment before throwing it into the ocean along with the rest of the pack.

“(Y/n)!” Hyunjin gasps. Changbin’s eyes almost bulge out of his skull as he watches the pack fly out until it splashes into the water. “What are you doing?! You’re littering!” The sprite squeals as he flies out to chase after the pack of cigarettes that’s now unusable.

“I know,” she shrugs as she turns back to the human, “but if it helps you with stopping something that’s unhealthy, then so be it.” His jaw drops when he sees the way (Y/n)’s shoulders slump, her body relaxing as she looks out at the horizon. She turns to him and tilts her head questioningly.

“Oh,” he snaps out of his trance, “it’s nothing. I just—you do realise I can buy another pack, right?”

“If you buy another pack, I’ll throw that one out too,” she simply says.

“You’re adding to the pollution, (Y/n),” Hyunjin huffs when he returns. “The sprites are going to be really mad at you if I’m not able to get rid of them before they find it.”

“Then just always stay at my side,” (Y/n) grins as she pets his head with her finger. Hyunjin whines as he shoves her hand away from him. Changbin watches at the way she interacts with him, his heart filling with a sense of joy at the way she continuously teases Hyunjin and how he seems like the more stable friend in their dynamic; it reminds him of his friends. “Changbin?” Her voice snaps him out of his thoughts.

“Hm? Yeah?” he shakes his head for a moment.

“You alright?”

“Y-Yeah,” Changbin nods, “I was just… thinking.” (Y/n) smiles.

“What kind of thoughts move around in your human brain?” He puffs his cheeks with air as he turns away to look at the ocean, humming in thought as he wonders what else he should share with her.

“I feel like I’ve spoken a lot about myself since we’ve met,” Changbin says after a moment and turns to look at (Y/n), “tell me more about you.” Her eyes widen in surprise, realising that he has been only talking about the human world.

“I don’t know what to start with,” she hums as her back subconsciously straightens.

“What’s it like living underwater? Do mermaids live in something similar to cities?”

(Y/n)’s lips jut out in a small pout as she thinks about it, something that Changbin notes as cute in his mind. “Kind of. Water sprites merfolk pretty much live together, so we use their magic to build structures. Merfolk don’t have the same machines that humans do, all we have is magic and using similar machines would actually hurt the ocean.”

“Do you live with other merfolk?” he questions.

“I live in my own cave,” she shakes her head, “Hyunjin’s the only one that lives with me because I’ve known him since forever and my parents thought it would be safer if I actually lived with another creature.” Silence falls between them, Hyunjin starting to zone out because he’s starting to feel like a third-wheel. (Y/n) and Changbin sit by each other’s sides, looking out at the ocean and letting the sound of the water moving fill the space instead. “Would you like to come into the ocean one day?” she asks as she turns to look at Changbin.

He turns to her and nods, “it’s too cold for me to go into the water. The winter cold is harsh to humans.”

“Spring is in a few weeks. We can wait for then.”

“What are you doing for Spring break?” Felix asks as he plops himself onto the couch, head dropping onto Changbin’s lap. Jisung emerges from his room not long after, falling directly onto his unfortunate housemate who yells in response. “Ji, what the fuck?!” he groans.

“Hmm, comfy,” Jisung giggles as he rubs his face onto Felix’s t-shirt. The blond sighs, knowing that he can’t push Jisung off and instead just accepts the fact that he is now a cushion.

“Spring break?” Changbin questions, completely ignoring the fact that Jisung is crushing Felix. “I think I’m staying here. My parents have work so they’re gonna be flying out a lot. My sister’s still in Norway, so even if I move back home, I’ll be lonely.”

“We can keep you company,” Jisung hums. “My parents are out of town, so I’ll only be going home in the last week of Spring.”

“My family thinks it’ll be better if I wait since I’m already planning on heading back to Australia during Summer break,” Felix hums as well.

“Then I guess it’s back to our trio shenanigans,” Changbin chuckles as he looks up at the TV. He feels slightly The screen’s hooked up to Felix’s Netflix and he put on whatever he was watching last which just so happened to be Bunny Girl Senpai.

“Is that girl wearing a bunny costume?” Jisung questions as he sits upright to look at the screen properly.

“Yeah,” he nods. “Why? You a furry?”

Jisung scoffs, “you’re the most likely to be a furry, Lix. You’re girlfriend’s a puppy hybrid.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m a furry, Sung,” Felix shoots up, “that’s fucking mean and don’t ever say that in front of Ava.”

“Furry.”

“You’re a dick,” he scoffs as he returns to laying his head on Changbin’s lap.

“Jisung, you do remember that the guy you have a crush on now is a cat hybrid, right?” Changbin snorts.

“Yeah!” Felix huffs. “Minho hyung’s a cat hybrid!”

“I don’t have a crush on Minho hyung, I have a crush on KC!” he whines before slapping his hand over his mouth. Felix and Changbin’s heads whip to him with wide eyes.

“You do have a crush on KC!” he gasps.

“Looks like we were right all along,” Changbin chuckles. Jisung pauses before letting out a sigh followed by a whine when he realises what he’s done.

“Be glad that I don’t go share the same classes as you and KC or else I’d tease you all the time,” Felix snickers. Jisung scowls at that as he stands up, muttering curses under his breath as he heads back into his bedroom.

The two giggle as they watch him. “What about you, Changbin hyung?” Felix turns to look at him. “Do you have anyone that has your eye?”

“We’re not tweens, Lix,” he snorts.

“Doesn’t mean that we can’t talk about relationships,” he claims.

Changbin sighs, “no, I do not have anyone on my mind.” (Y/n). His brain momentarily halts when he remembers the mermaid. “No one on campus has really caught my attention,” he hums. Felix side-eyes him as he turns to look at the TV, the feeling that Changbin’s lying lingering in his gut. He’s known his housemate long enough to tell when he’s lying and Felix can already see it from the way he blinks exactly three times after speaking. Talk about being observant.

“If you get a partner, you’d tell us, right?”

“Of course,” Changbin nods as he pats Felix’s head. Hyunjin watches from the ceiling, cloaked with an invisibility spell as he watches the way Changbin interacts with his friends. He knows he shouldn’t be there, it’s definitely already breached the line of being protective over his best friend and now it’s pretty much just stalking, but Hyunjin’s paranoia got the best of him.

“Ji, if you don’t come back out, then I won’t share my popcorn with you!” Felix yells, shortly hearing the sound of Jisung’s bedroom door opening followed by his footsteps scrambling into the living room.

“Ah, don’t do that to Jisung,” Changbin laughs, “share your popcorn with him, Lix.”

“This is a piece of dead coral that I picked up on the way here.” (Y/n) places the greyed invertebrate into Changbin’s hands. The human looks at it in awe, amazed at the structure of it. Ever since (Y/n)’s started becoming more confident with talking to the human, Hyunjin’s been using his magic to help Changbin safely reach a cave that’s more secluded to keep any other human eyes away from the mermaid.

“This could help a lot with a research paper I’m writing about coral reefs,” the human hums as he examines it.

“I don’t think there’s anything else I could show you outside of the water,” she confesses softly by his side. Hyunjin’s magic also helped with letting (Y/n) breathe out of water, meaning that she’s able to actually sit on the rocks with Changbin now. Hyunjin had casted the same spell he did many times before to allow them to understand each other before disappearing because he always feels like a third-wheel around the two. The water sprite can already see that they both fancy each other, but he prefers not to say anything.

“If it hurts to bring it out,” Changbin turns to look at her and smiles, “please don’t. I don’t want anything dying because you wanted to show it to me.”

(Y/n) stares at him for a moment before nodding, a small smile pulling at her lips. “Maybe when it’s warmer, I could bring you into the water and show you what lies on the ocean floor. From what my parents have told me, there’s a lot of things that humans still haven’t discovered.”

“I think we’ve only actually managed to uncover about a small chunk of it—most of that with the help of water sprites and merfolk,” he nods, slipping the coral into the pocket of his coat. “But I don’t think we’ve been able to actually discover much when your species started hiding away from us.”

“I fear that if humans re-discover our existence would only bring more harm to my people,” (Y/n) sighs. “I want to interact with your people more, but they scare me.”

“I personally think it’s better if you stay away from us,” Changbin chuckles. “They won’t treat your kind nicely. It’s as Hyunjin says; magical creatures are running away from humans because they fear for their own safety.” The mermaid stays quiet, realising that she’s put herself at a very vulnerable situation by interacting with the human regularly. Had she been more careless, she could’ve been caught by someone who had malicious intent. “My friends still don’t know you exist, by the way,” he turns to look at her, “they think I just come to the beach to smoke.”

“But you’ve stopped, haven’t you?” (Y/n)’s head tilts slightly.

Changbin lets out an awkward laugh, “yeaaah, they don’t know that either.”

“What would they do if they found out about me?” He pauses at her question. He knows that Felix and Jisung wouldn’t do anything to (Y/n) intentionally, but he also knows that they might want to see her, which would end up scaring her instead.

“I’m worried that they might scare you,” he confesses with a chuckle. “Felix and Jisung are very… excited people. I feel like they might say something that could scare you.”

“Are they anything like you?” she further asks.

“Hmm,” Changbin hums, thinking about it for a moment, “they’re louder than I am—which is funny because Jisung’s an introvert—but they’re nice people. I’m just worried they might make you uncomfortable.” (Y/n) hums at that as she turns away from him to look out of the cave.

“Would I ever be able to meet them? They sound important to you,” she says softly.

“Maybe one day,” he shrugs, turning to follow her gaze. Their meetings are still mostly at night, meaning that Changbin gets more views of the ocean in the night than he does in the day. He thinks the ocean is gorgeous every night, but tonight is particularly serene to him. The waves are calmer than they usually are and the full moon is glowing brightly in the sky, sending a beautiful reflection off of the water. When he turns back to (Y/n), she’s staring at him, her pupils dilated, meaning she’s calm; something that Changbin’s managed to learn over the time that he's known her. Her pupils change like a cat’s does, showing her mood. He feels his stomach flutter at her gaze.

“Sometimes I wonder what it’s like to live as a human,” (Y/n) starts, “but I also know that it would be foolish of me to give up my home in the ocean to live as a species that even has sirens wary of.” Ah right. Changbin realises that if merfolk still exist, then it’s likely that sirens still do as well since they were declared extinct not long after merfolk were. “Even though I know that, I still wonder how different it must be on land.”

“Humans are dangerous creatures, (Y/n),” Changbin mutters. “A lot of us wouldn’t hesitate to put our greed first. They would hurt you.”

She lets out a bitter laugh at that, “I know, but as Hyunjin says, my curiosity tends to get the best of me.” He turns to look at her to see the way she’s staring down at her hands. “I understand why we hide. I understand why the merfolk around me are so wary of the fact that I linger in shallow water, but I just wanted to see what humans are like. The only one I’ve ever encountered is you.” (Y/n) looks away from her hands and turns to Changbin, “but you’re not anything like I’ve heard humans are.” Changbin can feel his entire face getting hot and his ears heating up as well, the butterflies in his stomach once again erupting like they did before. “I think I’m lucky that you’re the person I encountered rather than someone else. Hyunjin says that too.”

“Really? I feel like Hyunjin doesn’t like me, though.”

“Ah, he’s just like that,” she laughs. “Hyunjin acts all cold on the outside, but he’s really just a softy on the inside. He really likes you, but he’ll kill me if he ever finds out that I’m saying this to you. The only reason why he acts so cautious around you is because he’s worried that he may have read you wrong.”

“He really cares about you, huh?” Changbin hums.

(Y/n) nods, “sometimes I like to do dumb things because his reactions are always really funny.” She looks down at her hands once again before sliding herself into the water. “My skin is starting to dry out, I’m sorry,” she mutters before dipping her entire head underneath and popping back out.

“Does anything happen if your skin dries out?”

“It starts to hurt after a while,” she shakes her head, “but if I didn’t have Hyunjin’s spell on me, then I’d suffocate on land faster.” (Y/n) rests her arms on the edge of the cave entrance, keeping herself afloat as her chin moves to rest on the back of her hands. She watches Changbin whose eyes are glued to the night sky. She wonders why she feels so much adoration towards him. He turns away from the sky to look at (Y/n), this time holding her gaze as he tilts his head.

“Something on your mind?” he questions. She stares at him a moment longer before climbing out of the water and returning to her spot beside him.

“Nothing much,” (Y/n) hums. She stretches her back, letting out a small yawn before resting her head on Changbin’s shoulder, the human tensing when he feels her. “I’m just thinking about some things.” He prefers not to question her sudden skinship because honestly? Changbin doesn’t want her to move. He kinda likes it. He ignores the fact that her wet skin is making his shoulder wet instead, letting his hand move behind her.

When (Y/n) wakes up, Hyunjin’s floating right in front of her face. “You’re finally up,” the sprite comments as he moves away.

“Huh?” The mermaid sits up and looks around in her bedroom. When did she get home? “What happened?”

“Changbin said you fell asleep while you were talking in the cave, so he called me and I brought you back home.” He floats away from her and towards her door, “you should really be more careful, (Y/n). Changbin won’t be the one who will hurt you—that I‘m sure of—but I fear that another human may find you and be the one who hurts you.” (Y/n) silently watches as he leaves, a sudden sense of fear running through her. Changbin definitely wouldn’t hurt her, but the chances of someone else finding her while she’s waiting for him just might be the reason she would get caught.

(Y/n) sighs softly as she climbs off of the bed of algae, her tail pushing her towards the door where she pauses for a moment. How dangerous would it be if she were to grow feelings for Changbin? Her hand grips onto the doorknob as she thinks about it. What would happen if someone else found out that Changbin’s been hiding her from the world? Would he end up being reprimanded? (Y/n) sighs before opening her door, pushing the thought out of her head and heading into the living room where Hyunjin is hovering around, flying from wall to wall as he cleans up.

The sprite turns around at the sound of her door, “Changbin asked if it was possible for him to bring his friends to the beach.”

“Oh.” Hyunjin stares at her for a moment longer before sighing, placing the gemstones in his hands onto the shelf before moving towards her.

“Are you sure you want to meet more humans?” he asks. Hyunjin feels like he trusts Changbin enough to bring only good people to meet (Y/n), but he still worries about how she feels. “You tend to rush into things, I just wanna make sure.”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,” she confesses. “Is it bad that I do? I know it’s dangerous, but I want to know more about Changbin.” Hyunjin eyes her for a moment before letting out another sigh.

“You’re known him for barely three months and you already like him,” he mutters. (Y/n) face flushes pink as she looks at him. His arms cross over his chest, “if you really want to, then I’ll allow it, but the moment something seems off then I’m hiding you immediately.” She perks up, head nodding excitedly. “Maybe it would be good if people he trusted knew who he was meeting. That way there would be reassurance coming from above water as well,” Hyunjin thinks out loud as he turns around. “I’m also worried that they may scare you off.”

“Changbin mentioned that too,” she claims.

“If you’re absolutely sure, then I’ll fly out to Changbin’s place now and let him know,” he says.

(Y/n)’s face contorts in confusion, “why do you know where he lives?”

“Uhh,” Hyunjin freezes because now he has to tell her that he’s followed Changbin home before. “Well…”

“Hyunjin…” her eyes narrow.

“I may or may not have followed him home once because I wanted to see whether or not we could trust him,” he admits with an awkward chuckle.

“Hyunjin,” (Y/n) groans.

“He didn’t know I was there!” Hyunjin defends. “None of his housemates knew I was there! I just wanted to see what he was actually like.”

“And what did you learn from that?” Her arms cross over her chest as she awaits his answer.

“He’s… a good guy.” (Y/n)’s arms loosen and her face softens. “His friends seem like good people. I like Jisung particularly; he’s funny. I think you would appreciate Felix’s parent-like behaviour with Changbin. I don’t think I could find anything nasty on him that could hint to him probably wanting to expose your existence to the humans. He’s good. If you have feelings for him, then I’ll do my best to help hide the both of you to give you time together.” Her arms fall to her side at her lips part. “I’m only doing this because I trust him.” Hyunjin moves until he’s directly in front of (Y/n)’s face, “but you have to promise me that you’ll still be careful.”

“Of course,” she breathes out with a nod. She raises her hand, allowing the sprite to hold onto her finger. Hyunjin’s always been really tiny due to just his species being generally small, but (Y/n)’s always found it adorable. They’ve known each other since (Y/n) was born. Hyunjin’s lifespan as a water sprite is long, but he was only born a few years before the mermaid was. Since their parents were friends, (Y/n) and Hyunjin spent pretty much their entire childhood together and they’ve gone past the need to tell each other that they see each other as family.

“I’ll head on over to Changbin’s place, then,” Hyunjin smiles as he lets go of her finger.

“You might freak him out if he realises the fact that you know where he lives,” (Y/n) snorts.

“Ah, he’s a smart guy. He’ll put the pieces together,” he chuckles, shaking his head before bidding the mermaid goodbye and leaving her home. (Y/n)’s cave wasn’t too far from other merfolk, but it was far enough that it was closer to the surface. There are only two other merfolk that live a few miles away from her cave, but merfolk spend most of their time with creatures they are familiar with and seldom mix around with other merfolk they don’t know. The distance from the shore to the cave is far from humans, making it quite a long course through the water before Hyunjin’s able to reach the familiar beach of Changbin’s town. He pops out of the water, his wings unfurling before carrying him straight to the human’s house.

Hyunjin doesn’t really bother to knock and instead flies into the open window of Changbin’s bedroom only to find him laying in bed, snores leaving his mouth with his blanket pulled all the way up to his chin. The sprite purses his lips into a straight line as he pulls the window close. It’s no wonder Changbin’s all bundled up; his window must’ve been open the entire night. The sprite hovers right above his face, contemplating waking him up, but he’s not exactly given a choice because the bedroom door swings open without any warning.

“Hyuuuung!” Jisung whines loudly, causing Changbin to jerk awake in his bed.

“Don’t you go spreading your false information!” Felix barks as he barges into the room beside his housemate.

Changbin sits up and stares at them, eyes tired and face contorted in displeasure, “what?!”

“Hyung, Felix pushed your dry coral off of the coffee table,” he tells him. The eldest’s eyes snap open and he’s scrambling out of his bed and pushing past the two younger males.

“I didn’t push it off, it was an accident!” Felix groans, watching nervously as Changbin silently moves over to pick up the dried coral sitting on the ground. The impact managed to chip off the top of the oddly shaped rectangle, breaking the corner off while pieces of it scattered the carpet. Hyunjin watches from the ceiling, curious to see how the human would react, but Changbin’s quiet as he picks up the pieces.

“Don’t worry about it,” he mutters as he stands, the coral pieces sitting in his palm. “I should’ve brought this into my room instead since I wanted to use this for a report.” Changbin turns around and gives his housemates a small smile to reassure them. Felix and Jisung shrink slightly, guilt washing over both of their faces.

“I’m sorry, hyung, I didn’t mean to. I-I was just cleaning and it—” Felix reaches out to him as he walks back into his room but Changbin stops the younger man from coming in.

“Lix, it’s fine,” he cuts him off. “It’s just coral. I can always, uhh, get more of it from the beach. It’s okay.” Changbin closes the door, leaving the other two standing outside of the room feeling lost. It’s rare for him to just numbly push it aside, which only makes Felix feel even worse because he has a feeling that someone gave him the coral. In his room, Changbin places the broken coral pieces onto his desk and stares at it. If he told (Y/n) that it’s broken, he wouldn’t want to actually tell her because he doesn’t want to make her feel bad, but Changbin doesn’t want to ask for another one. He scratches the back of his neck and sighs, “fuck.” It’s his mistake for leaving the coral in the living room when he had made a mental note to take care of it, but what could Changbin do now?

“Is this a bad time?” Hyunjin finally speaks up. Changbin’s head perks up and he whips his head around to see the water sprite standing on his bed.

“I knew you stalked me,” he gasps in mock surprise. Hyunjin laughs at that as he flies over to the desk to look at the coral. “I didn’t mean to leave it out in the open,” Changbin sighs.

“You could always ask her for more, I don’t think she minds,” he claims.

“I don’t want to make her feel bad if I tell her that this one broke,” Changbin mumbles, his fingers poking at the pieces.

“Changbin,” Hyunjin turns around to look at the human, his hands moving to his hips, “(Y/n) won’t mind. She likes when you ask for ocean stuff.”

“Does she?”

He nods and flies up in front of Changbin’s face, “she really likes talking to you about the ocean.” Hyunjin only lowers back onto the desk once Changbin looks more reassured. “Speaking of (Y/n), she wants to meet your friends.”

“What?” his eyes widened.

“She said that she wants to meet Felix and Jisung,” Hyunjin continues, “she wants to know more about you and your life because she likes you.”

"She—huh?" Changbin shakes his head a bit before staring at Hyunjin.

"Do you want to introduce your friends to your mermaid girlfriend or not?" His arms cross over his chest.

“(Y/n)’s not my girlfriend,” he’s blushing furiously as he denies it but Hyunjin raises an eyebrow.

“Mhm, and that night where you let her fall asleep on your shoulder even though her skin was wet and your shoulder was freezing after that says otherwise,” he teases.

“She’s not my girlfri—” Changbin’s cut off when his bedroom door swings open and Felix and Jisung are staring at him, eyes flicking to look at Hyunjin who’s looking like a deer caught in headlights.

“I-Is that a sprite?” Jisung asks. Changbin nods.

“Okay, cool, we were just wondering who you were talking to,” Felix laughs awkwardly as he pulls on Jisung’s collar and pulls him away from the door.

“No, stay,” Hyunjin beckons them over. The two of humans exchange a look with Changbin before stepping into the room. “How good are you at keeping a secret?”

“Pretty good,” Felix shrugs.

“Why?” Jisung tilts his head.

Hyunjin turns to Changbin, “do you trust them enough to meet her?”

“Well, if (Y/n) wants to meet them, then I can bring them to the beach,” he nods.

“Who’s (Y/n)?” Jisung asks.

“Are you a hundred percent sure we can trust them?” The water sprite ignores Jisung’s question, more concerned about just how much Changbin would trust them to meet a mermaid.

“Felix has kept a secret I told him four years ago and Jisung forgets them a few seconds after—I think they’ll be fine,” he reassures Hyunjin. The sprite turns back to the obviously confused humans before relaxing his shoulders.

“Bring them with you when you come by later. I think she'd be pretty happy if she could meet your friends.” He moves to the window, flicking his wrist upwards and the window frame lifting on its own before Hyunjin flies out. The three humans stare at the open window, completely ignoring the cold wind that’s blowing into Changbin’s bedroom because Jisung and Felix are too busy trying to figure out what the hell a water sprite was doing in their hyung’s bedroom.

“So…” Jisung trails off as he shifts his weight from one foot to another. “Care to explain who your friend is?”

“Which one?” Changbin turns to look at the two.

“The sprite and whoever (Y/n) is,” he clarifies.

“I met the water sprite through (Y/n),” he says simply, “I’ll bring you to see (Y/n) later, but you have to promise that you won’t tell anyone about her.”

“I’m not gonna question why you’re so secretive about your obviously secret girlfriend, but okay,” Felix chuckles. “I knew that you had someone on your mind.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Changbin grumbles, “we’re just friends.”

“Then why did the water sprite say she was your girlfriend?” Jisung teases.

“Because…” he trails off as he tries to find an excuse. There’s really nothing for him to say that could deny that he may or may not be in an unofficial relationship with the mermaid other than the fact that Changbin and (Y/n) have only known each other for less than three months and may or may not be into each other. “Look, if I bring you to the beach to meet her, she’ll explain it too, okay? Just bare with me until then.”

“Fine.”

“You’re fucking joking,” Jisung breathes in awe. Both him and Felix are staring at the mermaid with eyes that are close to falling out of their skull and jaws all the way to the ground.

“T-This isn’t possible,” Felix mutters, eyes trained on (Y/n)’s turquoise tail. She sits on the edge of the cave, hiding behind Changbin’s legs as his friends gawk at her. Hyunjin watches from Changbin’s shoulders, arms crossed over his chest and a smirk on his face at the way the humans are in so much disbelief that Felix smacks his own head to make sure he’s not dreaming. “She’s a mermaid,” he looks up at Changbin.

“You’re girlfriend’s a mermaid,” Jisung states.

Changbin blushes and shakes his head, “we’re not dating.” (Y/n) stays behind his legs, hiding her blush by sliding back into the water and only peeking her eyes out of the water. “Now you’ve gone and made her scared!”

“No!” she squeaks, shooting up to tug on his jeans, “they didn’t scare me.” Changbin turns around, eyes softening when he sees the way (Y/n)’s reassures him with her eyes.

“Oh, we didn’t scare her. She’s blushing,” Jisung teases. Even in the dark of night, he’s still able to see the red tinge on her cheeks which only deepen at his statement. (Y/n) lets go of Changbin’s pants and lowers into the water.

“Are you okay?” he questions softly. She looks up, nodding silently when her gaze meets his. “Are you sure they’re not scaring you?” (Y/n) shakes her head. Changbin relaxes a bit as he turns back to face his friends, “this is (Y/n). I met her a few months ago because she saved me.”

“Saved you how?” Felix’s eyes narrow.

“Your friend over here fell into the water while trying to get a closer look at (Y/n),” Hyunjin giggles as he jumps off of Changbin’s shoulder and floats towards Jisung’s shoulder. “(Y/n) had to drag him towards a cave because she didn’t want him to freeze and drown.” Jisung and Felix feel a click in their heads at the words ‘drown’ and ‘freeze’, both of them slowly turning to look at their friend.

“You almost drowned?!” Jisung exclaims.

“Why didn’t you mention this?!” Felix yells.

“Because I would’ve had to explain how my clothes dried and how I even survived,” Changbin shrugs. Felix scoffs, eyes rolling as he tries to process the new information.

“So, you just casually almost die and decide not to tell us?!” Jisung’s jaw drops.

“I didn’t want to tell you about (Y/n) because she’s supposed to be extinct!” he throws his arms up into the air. (Y/n) watches from the water, stifling her laughter at how Jisung and Felix continue to fire at Changbin for not telling them of his death, Hyunjin making eye contact with her and chuckling as well. She reaches up and tugs on Changbin’s pants once more, making him turn around immediately at the feeling. “Yeah?”

“I wanna say hi.” She blinks innocently a few times while Jisung and Felix watch, their arms crossing over their chests and their eyebrows raising.

“Oh, sure,” Changbin crouches down and holds onto her hand to help her sit on the edge of the stone where she shyly waves towards the two humans.

“Wow,” Jisung chuckles. “You’re whipped.” Felix snickers from beside him, pursing his lips together to make it less obvious that he’s laughing as well.

“No I’m not,” he snorts. (Y/n) looks up at him and pulls on his hand, silently asking him to sit down with her, which Changbin immediately obliges without even questioning it.

“Sure,” Felix laughs.

“Changbin talks about you guys a lot,” (Y/n) claims.

“I hope you mean in a good light.”

“Very,” she chuckles, “the only reason I wanted to meet you guys myself is because you sound really important from what Changbin has told me.”

“Important?” Jisung smirks.

“I meant that you sound like really good friends.” (Y/n)’s words make Changbin loosen up slightly. She’s trying not to embarrass him in front of his friends, so she chooses her words carefully to at least try to lessen the teasing he might receive once they head home. “I think he loves you guys more than he’d admit,” she whispers, giggling when she earns a glare from Changbin. Jisung and Felix turn to him, choosing not to tease him because they’re actually warmed by (Y/n).

“We love you too, hyung,” Felix smiles, Jisung nodding ecstatically beside him. “I’m going to assume that (Y/n) is the event where a species pretended to go extinct and still haven’t been re-discovered.”

“Precisely,” she nods.

“What are the chances that a stranger could find her?” Jisung questions.

“That’s something that I’d rather not find out,” Hyunjin sighs, moving from Jisung’s shoulder to (Y/n) instead. “The only reason why I allowed Changbin to introduce you two to (Y/n) is because I trust him. So, I’m going to take a leap and trust you.”

“We won’t tell anyone about her,” Felix reassures him. “We’re just here because we wanna see who Changbin hyung’s girlfriend is.”

“For the last time, (Y/n)’s not my girlfriend,” Changbin groans. “We’re just friends!” (Y/n)’s expression drops and the only person that happens to miss it is Changbin because he’s too busy glaring at his friends. Jisung clears his throat and gestures to the mermaid when his friend gives him a questioning look. Changbin turns around and panic starts to fill him when he sees the way her mood’s dampened. “W-What’s wrong?”

“Would it be so bad if we were dating?” she mutters out, a frown pulling on her lips.

“O-Of course not!” he stammers, his eyes squeezing shut as he tries to explain it to her. “I just don’t want them thinking we’re dating if we’re not, you know? It might make you feel awkward or uncomfortable,” Changbin mutters as he rubs the back of his neck.

“I don’t think it’s awkward,” (Y/n) admits, her cheeks tinged red. The human’s eyes widen as well, blush creeping over his entire face.

“I—uhm.” Changbin struggles to actually word anything out while his best friends laugh at him and Hyunjin watches with a shit-eating grin on his face. He scooches closer to (Y/n) and moves his lips right to her ear, “let’s talk about this later, yeah?” She moves away from his face and nods. When (Y/n) turns back to Changbin’s friends, they’ve made themselves comfortable on the rocks, ready to learn more about the mermaid.

The night is spent with casual talking, the five of them getting to know each other more. Changbin learns more about Hyunjin that single night than he has in the past few months that he’s known the water sprite. Jisung also seems to make it a mission to embarrass Changbin as much as he can in front of (Y/n) to the point where Changbin’s almost holding him by the collar and hanging him over the ocean. Felix on the other hand, watches in amusement. He doesn’t say that much other than piping in every once in a while because he’s genuinely interested in learning more about the magical creatures.

“I’ll catch up with you guys in a bit,” Changbin tells the two humans when it’s already 3 a.m..

“We’ll be waiting at the beach,” Jisung nods, waving at Hyunjin and (Y/n) before he walks off with Felix. Hyunjin looks at Changbin before turning to (Y/n)—who’s moved into the water because her skin was drying out—and realising that they want time alone.

“I’ll give you guys some space,” he mutters before diving into the water, leaving the two alone. Once alone, (Y/n) pulls herself up to sit on the rocks, tail dangling in the water as she looks out at the horizon with Changbin sitting cross-legged beside her.

“What do you think of my friends?” he questions.

(Y/n) hums, a smile tugging on her lips as she turns away from the ocean to Changbin, “I like them. They seem like a lot of fun.”

“They really are,“ he chuckles. Silence falls between them and whatever elephant was already in the room seems to have doubled in size because now, the two of them are painfully aware of their relationship. “(Y/n),” Changbin breaks the silence, turning to face her.

“Yeah?” She's already looking at him and it makes Changbin’s face heat up. The moonlight reflects off of her face, the blue and green scales of her face reflecting the light like diamonds that cover her skin. (Y/n)’s gorgeous. Changbin isn’t sure whether her beauty is amplified because of the sudden serenity of the night or whether he’s just never actually taken the time to admire her, but she’s entrancing. His eyes flick to her lips, soft and glossy before they flicker back up to her eyes where she’s watching every feature on his face to try and predict his next move.

“C-Could I kiss you?” The words come out before Changbin’s able to stop himself and he mentally slaps himself because that is not at all what he wanted to say. (Y/n) nods anyway, letting him move closer until his warm lips gently press against her cold ones. The kiss is slow and gentle, both of them testing the waters before pulling away. When Changbin’s eyes open to meet (Y/n)’s his stomach erupts with butterflies. How lucky was he to encounter a mermaid when they had hidden away from humans, faking their extinction to keep themselves safe. He realises then that (Y/n)’s, “one in a million,” he subconsciously says out loud. As rushed as it sounds, Changbin's pretty sure he’s managed to fall in love with her in the short amount of time they’ve known each other.

“Huh?” (Y/n)’s eyes flash with confusion.

“You’re one in a million,” Changbin says, his hand moving up to gently cup the side of her face before he leans in once again.

127 notes · View notes

riversofmars · 3 years

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The Doctor and her friends try to escape a deadly trap as Dorium’s bar and the planet burn up. Meanwhile, River is continuing her research into the Timeless Child...

Chapter 5: The Pieces Are Moving

The Maldovarium, 52nd Century

The sun was blazing down and Dorium’s bar, built mostly from metal, was heating up even faster than the surface of the planet. The sun was growing bigger in the sky, it was getting closer.

“The Master must have found so much more in the Matrix than he led on.“ The Doctor pressed through gritted teeth as she considered how this was possible. “This is like the Time Lords of old, able to wheeled so much power… what they became in the Time War… he wasn’t there in the final days to know the horror…“ She mumbled, trying her best to prioritise her thoughts. Time was changing around them. They were in grave danger. There was no time to wonder how the Master had accomplished this, there was any number of ways he could have done it and finding out which it was would not help save them. She looked around back to her friends who awaited an explanation.

“You shouldn’t have come. This is far too dangerous for you.“ The Doctor realised, slowly shaking her head. “He knew I’d come here. Perhaps a Matrix prediction… it’s a game and he’s one step ahead of us at every turn.“ Her mind was reeling but they had more immediate concerns. The sun above the planet was growing closer, they appeared to be heading towards it and the temperature kept rising. “Dorium, do you have a way off this planet?“ She asked and stepped into his line of vision.

“I’m nothing if not well prepared, Doctor, there is a shuttle for emergencies outside, but we can’t just abandon my bar, this is my life’s work!“ Dorium protested. “What is happening out there?“

“If you don’t get out of here right now, you won’t have a life.“ The Doctor interrupted him. “One of you will have to carry him. Get to his ship.“ The Doctor gestured towards the box and Yaz complied while Jenny rushed to support her wife who looked as though she was about to faint. Vastra’s body couldn’t regulate its temperature at all. Yaz and Jenny seemed to have trouble breathing the hot air and even Strax was beginning to show signs of struggling as beads of sweat formed on his head.

“But Doctor…“ Yaz wanted to protest, trying her best to hold Dorium’s head level.

“This planet is being dragged into that sun, get off world and quickly.“ The Doctor shut down any protest and glanced out of the window again. The sun continued to grow bigger and the temperature inside the bar was becoming unbearable. They didn’t have time to argue. She could sense that this was only the beginning.

“But we have the TARDIS, can’t we just…“ Jenny jumped in but the Doctor interrupted her:

“No you don’t. I need to find the Master and I’m doing it by myself, it’s far too dangerous.“ She looked around, assessing what she had to work with. “Get off this planet, I’ll be in touch and pick you up to take you home but right now, I need to find him. He is messing with the fabric of time itself and while you’re close to me, you will be in danger!“ She explained hastily and rushed to a computer terminal in the corner.

“Doctor, you can’t.“ Vastra protested weakly.

“A Sontaran does not run away!“ Strax exclaimed, outraged.

“Whatever we’re doing, can we do it now? It is really very stuffy in this box!“ Dorium called from his box.

“We’re coming with you.“ Yaz insisted but the Doctor shook her head.

“No, you’re not.“ She stated and sonic-ed the computer terminal. A teleport beam engulfed her friends.

——

Shuttle outside the Madovarium, 52nd Century

“Ugh! That insufferable man! Woman!“ Vastra collapsed onto the floor as they found themselves in a shuttle. The temperature was bearable, the insulation for space travel was far superior to the bar, but temperatures were rising even in here.

“I hate to be the bringer of bad news but unless we leave this planet right now, we will be fried, and I’m lacking hands to operate the controls.“ Dorium realised the Doctor had managed to engaged his emergency evacuation teleport. He was glad to have spent the money. It wasn’t like he could have walked anywhere in the event of a disaster and it had proven a sound investment already. “So if you wouldn’t mind.“ He glanced to controls, having no better means of pointing.

“How do we fly it?“ Yaz sat his box down by the controls hoping for instructions. She pushed her anger at the Doctor’s actions aside in favour of getting off the planet in one piece first.

“Step aside. A Sontaran can operate any kind of combat vehicle. Strap in. Someone secure the head.“ Strax instructed pushing her aside.

“We can’t just go without her.“ Jenny launched a weak protest as Strax started the engines. He engaged the shields and the temperature dropped significantly, allowing them all to breath more easily.

“It seems we have very little choice, my dear.“ Vastra replied weakly, as her wife helped her to her to a seat. “She will come to her senses.“ She had been the Doctor’s friend long enough to know that they couldn’t change their mind by force.

“Unless she gets herself killed first.“ Yaz huffed as they launched and shot off into the atmosphere, away from the planet that was hurling towards its doom. Below, the Maldovarium caught fire.

——

The Maldovarium, 52nd Century

The Doctor checked the computer console. Her friends had reached the shuttle and set off. Good. Step one. She looked around herself, the building had just caught fire. The temperature was still rising. Judging by its speed, she calculated she probably had about seven minutes: three minutes until the air would be too hot to breath and she would have to use her respiratory bypass, five until her skin would start to blister and seven until her core temperature would rise so high that the proteins in her body would break up and she would die. She’d have to work quickly.

Her fingers flew over the keyboard on the computer terminal as she pulled up the security camera footage of the last five minutes. Good old Dorium, of course he wanted his establishment well protected. She fast forwarded through it and there it was: one moment, everyone was having a lovely time, the next blazing sunlight streamed into the bar and the customers disappeared into thin air. Some screamed, some just looked confused, but they all vanished. Time was being rewritten. They had never come here because the planet was not where it had been. So the planet had moved, not the star.

She wondered how far back the footage would go. Would it go back far enough to show who brought Dorium back here? Unlikely. He’d probably had to rebuild and set up everything anew upon his return. She had about a minute of breathable air left and she was struggling already. She looked around, the TARDIS was in the other room, she would need a minute to get there at least and above her, thick smoke started gathering. She would have to feel her way forward at this stage. Her mind was racing. Any clues she would find here, she’d have to find now or they would be lost forever. She couldn’t think. The moment had passed and the air had become too hot to breathe.

“Think, Doctor, think!“ She snapped with her last proper breath, she ground her teeth. When I arrange for your death, I expect you to stay dead. The Master’s words echoed through her head. Nothing was gained if she she risked her life chasing after clues that probably weren’t there. The Master was too clever to leave traces; which begged several questions: why would he reveal himself to Dorium; why allow him to see his face, knowing a description would point her straight towards him? Arrogance? Was he trying to taunt her? Or did he just not care? Did he think he was so far ahead of her, that it wouldn’t matter? Something about this didn’t feel right. She had to get back to her TARDIS before the fire bared her way. The skin in her hands was starting to go red and raw.

——

Space, 52nd Century

“That was a close call…“ Jenny breathed a sigh of relief when they cleared the gravitational pull of the planetoid and the sun alike. It wasn’t a moment too soon, the planet was beginning to burn as it hurdled closer and closer to the sun.

“How was that even possible? You can’t just move a planet…“ Yaz shook her head in disbelief as she watched the destruction on the monitors.

“You and I might not be able to… but anything is possible, given time…“ Dorium mused.

“The Master is a dangerous foe but this does appear beyond the capabilities they have displayed so far.“ Vastra sat in the copilot’s seat as she recovered, her body temperature normalising.

“Maybe he’s not working by himself…“ Yaz mused. “Last time we saw him, he’d allied himself with the Cybermen… maybe he realises he can’t do it by himself… Maybe he’s found new friends.“

“A sound stratagem.“ Strax commented.

“What do we do now?“ Jenny asked. They had retreated to a safe distance nearing the outskirts the solar system but they had yet to determine a new destination.

“Wait for her to come and pick us up?“ Yaz suggested half-heartedly, she didn’t believe the Doctor actually would be back so soon but she decided to try and be optimistic.

“We have no way of knowing when that would be. Besides, we don’t know if she will even be successful in her endeavour.“ Vastra retorted matter-of-factly.

“Then what do we do?“ Jenny asked, feeling at a loss. They all so desperately wanted to help but the Doctor had cut them off.

“We have hyper speed travel, yes?“ Vastra turned to Dorium who was watching the screens, looking melancholy at the loss of his life’s work.

“State of the art systems, I only purchased it last week, what a shame, the hull is all blackened…“ He sighed, pulled out of his thoughts.

“We made a promise to the Professor to look after her child and so far, we’ve failed. We will carry on, even without the Doctor.“ Vastra decided, pulling herself up. “Perhaps we will find whoever is responsible faster than the Doctor weighed down by her hunger for revenge…“

“Excellent. It would be most disappointing if we were to miss out on the fight and the opportunity for a glorious death.“ Strax announced with glee.

“Where do we start?“ Yaz asked, nonplussed. She couldn’t help but feel abandoned by the Doctor, and so soon after her previous disappearance. She was, however, glad for the company she found herself in. If she was going to be stranded in the far future without means of time travel, an ancient lizard woman, a potato-headed warrior, a Victorian maid and a blue head in a box seemed like appropriate company. “Where could the Master possibly be? Would he have taken the child with him or maybe he’s got a base and people who work for him? Or maybe, this is the Master earlier in his time stream? Maybe to him, the destruction of Gallifrey hasn’t happened yet…“ All the questions were becoming overwhelming. It seemed like an insurmountable task, particularly without the Doctor at hand.

“We can’t discount any possibilities.“ Vastra agreed. “We are rather more limited with our means of travel but there is one point of interest in this time period. Somewhere where the Doctor is stubbornly refusing to look.“ She had given it some thought and a plan was forming in her head.

“Where?“ Jenny asked and her wife smiled:

“The Library, of course. Professor Song might be able to tell us where to start looking.“ She nodded decisively and turned to Strax to provide coordinates for their destination. “And if nothing else, she deserves to know the truth.“

——

The TARDIS

The Doctor slammed shut the doors to her TARDIS. She took a deep breath, fresh oxygen reawakening her senses. She rushed to the console. As sturdy as the TARDIS was protected by it’s shields, she didn’t want to tests its limits by staying on this doomed planetoid any longer than she needed to. She ran a final scan, searching for the shuttle her friends had escaped in, and noticed with relief that it was just clearing the solar system. They were safe. Safer than they would be had they stayed with her. Content - if not happy - with her decision, as she launched the TARDIS into the time vortex.

The Doctor gave a sigh of relief once she had left the Maldovarium behind. She stepped away from the console but didn’t get very far. As her adrenaline levels normalised, she felt weak and became aware of how close she had come to reaching her physical limits. She struggled out of her coat that was singed in places and sank to the floor, trying to catch her breath. Her hearts hammered in her chest, her hair was sticking to her head with sweat, her hands and face were red and raw. She had to pause for a moment, gather herself, before she could carry on. The TARDIS circled around the vortex waiting for coordinates, buying her time by staying where time didn't pass.

“Perhaps I just need a moment… maybe some after-sun…“ The Doctor mumbled to the TARDIS that hummed and wheezed in response, almost scolding her for having been reckless.

The Doctor didn’t like stopping, even for a moment. Those where the times when she had time to think and those things that she had been trying to avoid, those feelings she had been pushing down, had an opportunity to catch up with her. She was in no way closer to finding her son. In the absence of her friends she allowed herself a moment of weakness. The tears stung on her burnt skin of her cheeks. What would the Master want with her son, apart from torture and hurt her? He was being used as a pawn against her. She would make the Master pay for this.

Slowly, she got to her feat. Unsteadily, she staggered back to the console, deciding on her course of action. She wouldn’t be able to properly rest until she had found her child so she had to keep going. For now, the Master was her best lead. It was time to see the destruction she had left behind as she had fled Gallifrey. If the Master had found a way to escape death, she would find answers there.

——

The Library, 52nd Century

“Someone is having you on. Whatever it’s meant to be, the Timeless Child, it doesn’t exist.“ Anita closed the book she’d been reading and pinched the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t focus anymore. “There is no reference to it. Anywhere. Are you sure that’s the phrase we’re looking for?“

“I’m certain of it.“ River confirmed but couldn’t deny she was getting frustrated as well. They had been at it for days now. Or was it weeks? River was starting to lose track of time. And they had nothing to show for it. Initially, River had enjoyed finding stories about the Doctor’s past; adventures she didn’t know about that she hadn’t been part of. It had been entertaining for a while, as were the essays written about her and the Doctor. Who would have thought they would become such a popular subject matter for students at River’s alma mater?

“Well, it’s not mentioned anywhere.“ Anita sighed, leaning back into the cushions of the sofa. “How did you learn about al this anyway?“ She hadn’t pressed River for information so far but it seemed about time.

“Those words, those exact words, the Timeless Child… Dorium was so sure that’s what it was.“ River closed the book she was reading as well. It was time to stop.

“Well, maybe he got it wrong.“ Anita shrugged.

“Maybe…“ River couldn’t deny that it was possible. In her head she recounted the message Dorium had sent her. He had mentioned a Time Lord giving him the information, as if it would give weight to it. Since he hadn’t given a name, part of River had believed that it might have been the Doctor himself. Perhaps he was keeping his identity hidden for any number of reasons; most likely not to interfere with his own timeline… But now she wasn’t so sure.

There were other Time Lords out there. The Master. The Corsair… From what the Doctor had told her in their time on Darillium, Gallifrey was still out there. Not just the Gallifrey of the past, before the Time War that River had visited not so long ago. Gallifrey had never been destroyed in the final days of the War, just hidden away in a bubble universe at the end of time. Maybe they were starting to emerge again, taking a few tentative steps back into the universe but why now? Why this? Were they maybe just trying to mess with her? Or the Doctor? Had all this just been a pointless goose chase and she had walked right to her death on a fool’s errand? She shook her head to herself. No. There was something else, something she couldn’t quite remember. It was right there at the edge of her mind.

“How long have you been at this?“ Anita asked, breaking the silence.

“I don’t know, you tell me, I’m starting to lose track.“ River chuckled half heartedly. She had always had a very special relationship with time, being the child of the TARDIS, but inside the Library computer, cut off from reality and actual time, it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

“No, I mean before this, before you came to the Library. You said you’d been researching this before and couldn't find anything and you hoped there would be answers here…“ Anita prompted.

“There clearly aren’t…“ River stated in frustration.

“How long, River?“ Anita frowned, noticing her deliberately evading the question.

“Well, let’s just say it wasn’t obvious I was… expecting when I left the Doctor and started researching.“ River answered at last, her bitterness evident in her voice. Anita remained quiet for a moment. They had hardly spoken about River’s pregnancy and son, bringing it up seemed to make it all the more painful.

“Did you find anything at all? What were you doing?“ Anita tried to steer the conversation back to the subject matter.

“All sorts… I knew it had something to do with the Time Lords so… that’s where I went looking first and of course I got myself involved in yet another of the Doctor’s adventures… younger Doctor that time, very young, couldn’t tell him who I was of course… I went to Gallifrey but I had no time to look around really, not with a fight for the very fate of the universe going on…“ She gave a half smile. When wasn’t the Doctor fighting to save the universe? As much fun as it had been, it had distracted her rather… As she recounted her adventures in her head something occurred to her. She blinked, confused. How had she forgotten about it? How had she failed to make the connection? “But there was something…“ Maybe the trip hadn't been entirely wasted.

“What?“ Anita frowned, confused by her sudden wistfulness.

“As I… things went a bit pear shaped. I was pulled inside the Matrix.“ River revealed which suddenly seemed a whole lot more significant than it had at the time. She considered how furious the Doctor would be if he ever found out what she had put herself through whilst being pregnant. She couldn’t deny that she herself had been incredibly relieved to find her son completely healthy at birth. She hadn’t exactly been taking it easy. There had been a few close calls in the early stages which was why she settled for desk research when she’d become less agile on her feet.

“What’s that?“ Anita asked. “The Matrix?“ She’d felt like she should know what she was talking about but she didn’t.

“The Matrix… it’s like a super computer, not unlike this one. Time Lord minds get uploaded as they die so it’s the sum knowledge of their race, so to speak… Algorithms generate prophecies, predictions, extrapolations, possible futures. In the golden days of the Gallifreyan Empire, they would base their interference around time on them and heed their warnings.“ River tried to explain the best she could. “I used my… affinity for all things Time to help the Doctor: bring him back to where he needed to be. Only barely got out of there myself in the end… but while I was in there… I can’t quite remember but there were flashes of something… I was very preoccupied, mind, but I think subconsciously they did register… maybe the Matrix sensed that I was looking for answers…“ She hadn’t thought it significant at the time, she had had bigger things to worry about but the more she thought it about, the more she believed it couldn’t have been coincidence. The images were beginning to take shape in her mind, as if she was only now able to remember.

“And you saw the Timeless Child?“ Anita asked perplexed, wondering why she hadn’t mentioned it before.

“I don’t know… maybe…“ River tried to focus, struggling to reproduce the images in her mind. “It was a little girl, standing in front of a gateway…“ River closed her eyes as the image became more clear. Why hadn’t thought about it until now?

“A girl though? Didn’t you say you had a son? Then it’s probably not related to you?“ Anita mused disheartened as it seemed like just another dead end.

“Time Lords don’t take the whole gender thing very seriously…“ River couldn’t help but chuckle as she continued watching in her mind’s eye. Someone was approaching the girl.

“River…“ Anita reached out for River’s arm, trying to get her attention.

“Just hang on…“ River was doing her best to remember. She didn’t recall seeing any of this before. Apparently her subconscious had picked up much more in the Matrix than she had realised.

“River!“ Anita insisted, her voice urgent and River opened her eyes, ripped from the otherworldly portal she had been watching but she didn’t find herself in the cosy living room the Library computer had generated for her. Instead she found herself in a laboratory. She jumps to her feet in shock and not a moment too soon, as the sofa also disappeared from under her. Anita looked around utterly confused. Was this a computer glitch? There were other people too: the woman who River had seen approaching the child and the child herself, sitting in a chair being examined.

A/N: You may have picked up on my using the events of Doom Coalition here which canonically are set between Darillium and the Library, if you happen to have been following those Big finish audios. I thought it could work really well with the whole being pulled into the Matrix thing. I know a lot of people don't know the audios though so I'm trying to write it in a way that you don't have to know them and anything significant will be explained. I hope that works for everyone. Please let me know if you find things confusing at any point <3

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jeffwittekk · 4 years

Text

It’s you.

For a winter’s night, the temperature was perfect, or maybe it was the fact that the man I loved was there, walking by my side after a month without talking. Nonetheless, the winter cold and the warmth of my cheeks created enough contrast to remind me that this was not a dream.

He walked beside me in silence, his hands in his pockets and head down. The only noise around us was the crunchy of our boots in the snow and only the lanterns lit us up on this empty street. He seemed so close but so far at the same time, yet he was the one who drove four hours to see me. He was the one who ended our relationship by bringing a girl to his apartment. He was the one who thought we shouldn’t be together, so why should it be me breaking this awful silence?

For a moment, all I wanted was to feel his lips on mine, feel his breath on my neck and his hands on my thighs. For a while, all I wanted was to go back to where we were a month ago. After what feels like a long time, he finally broke the silence. His voice was raspy at first and then it softened. His voice. So soft and comforting, felt like velvet.

“I don’t know where to start,” he said. I noticed how the warm air from his mouth blew smoke with the cold air from outside.

‘‘Why are you here?..’’ I whispered.

The city of Angels was sleeping, the sun had gone down and yet it was still as hot as it was a few hours ago. But the music was in full swing, the echo of laughter sounding far away as my feet played in the pool water as Jeff sat next to me, telling me how he met our mutual friend, Jac. We sneaked out of the party quickly to be alone. Being a bit drunk, the idea of a cheeseburger seemed incredible. And that’s how we spent part of the night, in his truck, in the In N out parking lot, drinking milkshakes. That's how he came into my life, completely out of the blue, on one random evening of June.

Meeting Jeff was an avalanche of emotions, positive, exciting and intense.

Soon the darkness of the street was replaced by a busier street; families, couples, strangers passed by us and I couldn't stop thinking how they manage to walk near me without realizing the hole in my heart? hole the man next to me made. After some hesitation, we took our seats in a small cafe which was still open despite the late hour. With my hands around my mug of hot chocolate, I couldn't help but stare at Jeff, maybe trying to figure out what he was thinking, but no success. He looked tired, sad even. He took my hand, a way to draw my attention back to him. The touch of his skin on mine made me shiver, reminding me of the first time he touched me.

After an evening with friends, we returned to Jeff's apartment. Everything was new, everything was exciting and the exhilarating feeling of falling in love with Jeff still took a lot of energy. That’s why the idea of sitting on his sofa in front of Netflix sounded so delicious. Shamelessly, Jeff sat right next to me, letting me rest my head on his thighs. That’s how I fell asleep in less than twenty minutes. "Do you want to sleep here, or do you want me take you home?” He asked, waking me up delicately. "here’s fine" I nodded, "maybe I’ll take a shower first?". I wasn't sure if he was going to take the lead and join me in the shower, but after 15 minutes and my skin boiling hot, I got out wrapping the towel around my body. When I entered his bedroom, Jeff was sitting on his bed, scrolling through his phone. He quickly shifted his eyes from his phone to me. How could a look be so tender and loving? he quickly got up to give me some clothes I could sleep in. He passed near me, in silence but with a gaze that said it all. I never knew that a look could make my insides throbbing that way, and I guess that was all it took for me to drop my towel in front of Jeff's marveling eyes. A smirk formed on his face as his eyes devoured me alive. In my outburst of courage, I slid my hands up his chest, under his navel, and finally, I took my sweet time to play with the elastic of his briefs. I could feel his breathing quicken against my skin as my hands explored further. He took one of my breasts in his hand, his thumb playing with my nipple to make them hard for him.

The waitress asking if I wanted a refill of hot chocolate, quickly tooking me out of my daydreaming.

"Do you remember our first night together?..." I asked him, whispering

Surprised by my question, Jeff raised an eyebrow. "Of course. I was so stressed out"

"Really? Why? it was good" I reassured him

"Yeah, it was really good, I remember not getting much sleep that night," he replied with a smile. He started playing with my fingers, dancing his with mine. “I miss your touch” he whispered back.

“yeah…” I hissed. “Should’ve thought about that before bringing someone else home” I paused “did you left your family right after Christmas just to tell me you miss me? I got your texts, don’t worry Jeff”.

Both our families lives on the east coast, we had plans to visit them all during the holidays since my family live four hours away from his. But no plan are set in stone and mistake are made.

‘‘I know. I regret everything, it was a stupid mistake, i didn’t think and I - It was selfish but I got scared...’’ he spoke slowly, articulating every word.

‘‘You got scared? That’s your excuse? You’re the one who told me to trust you and to let myself loose and not be scared to fall in love’’

I got up.

‘‘What the fuck do you even mean you got scared ? That’s so dumb’’. I was raging, i could feel the heat coming up to my face and the tears threathening to roll down my cheeks.

Almost home, back in the empty and silent street, i could hear him walking behind me. I don’t know if he thought I would give him a bed to sleep in but he is not my problem anymore.

‘‘I don’t care if you think it’s stupid because it’s the truth, I got scared, really scared. All the cards are in your hands and you don’t even realized it. I woke up one day minding my own business, taking care of myself, next thing I know ? I wake up next to this amazing girl who loves me for me, not for the clout or the money, but for me. And that, that legit scared me. I don’t know why I acted that way, I wish I didn’t hooked up with that girl and i’m so sorry I hurt you. It kills me’’

He was almost screaming, three feet away from me, right in the middle of this street. And at that moment, I completely forgot where we were and how cold the middle of the night was.

–————————-

sooooo..... i wrote my first story 🙆🏻‍♀️

Please be nice, it’s the first actual thing I write, i’m pretty happy and super excited to share with you all! but of course I see all the things I could do better hahaha but give me all your thoughts please please!! There’s gonna be a part two soon, don’t worry i won’t let you wait like that for long !!

What do you think she’s gonna answer in part two ??

Thank you for reading me, if you like, reblog or give me your impressions i’ll be so freaking grateful🧡

Love you all, M 💕

#it’s you part 1 #jeff wittek fanfic #jeff wittek fluff #jeff wittek angst #jeff wittek smut #vlog squad fanfic #jeff wittek one shot

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appples · 3 years

Text

Bakugo and Dabi x reader fanfic

I’m getting so excited about this fic, I have started to make some progress and I couldn’t help but share! here are some blurbs I have started to work on. It’s all still quite rough yet but I still wanted to share

I realized there was someone in the room before I saw anything. Just a faint feeling of being watched but it was enough to wake me up. Sitting up I hear a bottle clank against a wooden chair, sounding to be made of glass. The person sitting in the chair drew in a deep breath. He was studying me.

“I had forgotten about you. Wiped you from my memory, all those memories of that time gone.” The bottle moved, rising to his lips.

“To-“ whatever substance in the bottle was there, sloshed violently.

“Don’t!” His feet moved to rise but he remained seated. “That person no longer exists.” My mouth goes dry.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never forgot about you.” My throat catches. It’s true, I never did forget. Never could and never wanted to. The bottle is against his lips again. “I tried but you always found a way back in”. Flames burst forward from his hand, he was much closer than I had realized. There wasn’t a single thought in my mind when I stood up and walked towards the blue light, my feet moved on their own.

“Stop, what are you doing?!” His slurring words betraying him. I didn’t stop until I was inches away from him, holding my body rigidly opposite of his.

“I’m not afraid of you,”

“You need to be.”

“No. I don’t care if you are still a little bit of Touya in there or just Dabi but I am not afraid of you.”

“I said not to say that name!” The bottle falls to the floor with a crash as both his hands wrapped around my neck, squeezing without hesitation. “Why won’t you fucking listen. Touya is dead, I killed him and I can kill you too.” Heat developed between his palms and my skin, like a sunburn at first but quickly increased in temperature. I wince but continue to do nothing, silently screaming that I am not afraid. Dabi began to rise me off the floor, dragging me feet dangling and slamming me into the nearest wall. All the air ran from my lungs, accelerating my already decreasing oxygen supply. He slammed me a second time, hoping for any response but I refused to give in. The glow from his hands around my neck illuminated our faces as he glared down at me. His warm breath against my face smelt of hard booze and cigarettes but in that moments I didn’t mind. My eyes raised to meet his, already looking down at me. When they met I finally gave him the satisfaction of a reaction. My heart took off racing; his eyes were still the same. He smirked, almost as if he could feel my body tighten when he looked at me. Dots were starting to blur my vision, consciousness was fading. I raised my hands and placed them over his, near breaking eye contact despite my eyes beginning to flutter. Dabi released his hands before the darkness filled my vision, stumbling as my feet rejoined the floor. I gasped for air as he stood watching me, still smelling of alcohol.

“Don’t do this”

“Do what? What do you think it is that I’m about to do?” He smirked, “or maybe it’s something you want me to do.” Dabi’s knee quickly thrust mine apart as he stepped between them. “How long did you wait? Pathetically hoping he would come back.” Tears began to fill my eyes. Even if it meant nothing to him, I had loved him. He grabs my chin, thrusting my face upward again to meet his, tears threatening to spill over.

“You used to dream about this, didn’t you? Your body pressed against mine, my hands like this.” They slid under my back and and up into my hair, grabbing a fist full of strands. I moaned, completely unable to stop it; my body felt like literal and figurative fire. He laughs in my face, pressing his body against mine. Opening my eyes felt like torture, looking into his so close you could almost see the pain. His head dropped as he softly pressed his lips to my neck, so faint you could convince yourself it wasn’t happening. The whimpers threatened to escape forcing me to bite down on my lip. Instead they caught in my chest and I pulsed against him. But he was right, I did dream about this. For years I couldn’t stop it, my dreams were always haunted with him. There was no option to forget, I could only ever learn to live with it. Do I beg? For him to stop, or keep going? A metallic taste invaded my mouth as blood tricked in from my lip. Dabi’s breath was so warm as he continued to hover against my neck, the warmth spreading across my skin. Maybe if I keep my eyes closed I can just pretend this is one of my dreams gone wrong.

“Look at me” he demands. My eyes open like they hang on his every word. His blue eyes flicker like the flames he creates and for a split second I almost see Touya. Every part of me wants to call out to him, to tell him I am still here waiting for him and that he is safe with me. He will always be safe with me. Dabi brings his hand to my face again, resting his thumb against my lower lip, pulling it from my bite and leaving my mouth slightly agape with a smear of blood. My breath catches in my throat. I need to say something, anything.

“P-please.” I croak out. His eyes disengage and pull away. Dabi steps back and with his hand still on my face, shoves me to the ground. I clatter to the floor on my hands and knees. Towering over me he laughs and turns away, walking towards the door.

“You’re useless” The door slams and locks behind him, I still haven’t moved. Why am I mourning for someone who died years ago? This man is someone else but I can’t help but hope that there is some way to bring him back after all this time.

When we were young I spent a lot of my spare time at the todoroki’s residence while Touya trained. I was there insane anything was to get too terribly out of hand and neither Touya or Enji could put it out. As extreme as it sounds, it happened most weeks. No matter how quickly I put out the flames, he was always hurt. He alway tried to shrug it off and carry on but in those silent moments when he had to remain still as I bandaged yet another burn, I could see the pain. Does he remember those moments at all anymore? How I only ever touched him while he was in pain. All I ever wanted to do was reach out and touch him, my heart would scream for it.

He came in when it was dark again, slinking through the shadows. The sound of a lighters flicks before I see the burn of a cigarette being lit. At least he doesn’t smell like alcohol this time. I don’t know why he is here, there didn’t seem like he had much more to say after last night. While I would like to ask why I am being held and what my fate may possibly be, I figure in situations like these it’s best not to ask outright.

“After my accident I was happy for you. You were finally free of me.”

“I looked for you after everyone else stopped.”

“But you still gave up in the end.” I hesitated and sighed.

“Yes.”

“And you forgot about me.”

“No.”

“Lying doesn’t look good on you.”

“I accepted your death as to be what the reality was but I never forgot about you.”

“Why? And don’t give me some bullshit like ‘because I loved you’.”

“I guess it wasn’t the same for you but you were my best friend, if not my only real friend. You mattered to me.”

“And now? Do I still matter to you now with these scars? Do I still matter to you now with how many people I have hurt and killed?” His voice has been uncomfortably calm as he finished smoking his cigarette. Tossing it to the floor and rubbing out the only source of illumination. A flame burst forth in the palm of his hand, I jumped back startled.

“No, now you’re afraid of me.”

#fanfic #fanfiction #bnha fanfiction #mha fanfiction #dabi #yandere dabi #dabi is touya #dabi x oc #angst #kidnapping #dabi bnha #dabi mha

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whyralltheusernamestaken · 4 years

Text

Hell

Yannoe that incorrect quote that’s like, I would f//ck a demon cuz of status, when your stroll into hell and everyone else is panicking but your sugar daddy’s just there?

Well that’s what this fic is lmao

Hitoshi Shinso x reader

Demon!Shinso who doesn’t go to UA

Genre : fluff, comedy possibly

Warnings : swearing, hell(?)

Words : 2,316

Masterlist

A/N : it’s a very stereotypical hell, apologies lmao

this is also a very ooc shinso cuz i’ve never written for him b4

Hope you enjoy!

The events following your classes’ arrival to the rescue centre were certainly a mess. One moment Thirteen had been explaining about them self and their quirk, and the next a vast mass of villains had shown up. A mass of purple clouds had swallowed all of you up whole and scattered you across the centre, leaving you with the weaker villains.

Well that was what was supposed to happen. Instead, you had drop onto a one way staircase of marble, surrounded by rivers and waterfalls of lava.

“Why the fuck is it so hot in here?” someone curses out. You turn to see Bakugou taking off a piece of his costume, sweat already dripping down the side of his face.

“Are we still in the rescue centre?” a certain red hair asks, deactivating his quirk that he had unconsciously started using when he was sucked into the warp.

Before you can even get a word in, a small, cute imp pops up out of nowhere, a small trident in it’s hands. “Welcome to hell!” it cheers, a large grin on it’s face as it’s wings beat the hot air around, turning around to look at you. “Welcome back Lady Y/N, it’s been a while since we last saw you.”

You hum in response, booping the small creature. “I must say I didn’t recognise it here, must’ve changed a lot.”

“It knows you?” Kirishima asks. You nod, not bothering to elaborate more as the imp answers your question.

“Not at all mistress.” it responds, flying around before settling on Kirishima’s shoulder, the said boy tensing up almost immediately before softly rubbing the imp’s cheek. “You simply hadn’t seen the outside of the castle.”

“Sorry to break up your little reunion.” Bakuogu snorts, stomping up to Kirishima and grabbing the imp by it’s tail. “but how the fuck can we get out of this shit hole?”

“Well that’s not very nice.” it chides, stabbing him in the hand with the point of the tail before flying to settle on your head. “You can leave if master allows it.” it continues, ignoring Bakugou’s hisses and threats towards it.

“Well shall we go then?” Kirishima suggests, to which you agree. “Come on Bakubro, stop being a wimp.”

“Who the fuck are you calling a wimp huh?”

You ignore the boys, beginning to climb the stairs. The stair case seems endless, one step followed by a thousand more.

“Why the fuck are there so many stairs?” Bakugou shouts, rubbing his forehead with his arm.

“Because it’s long and tortuous.” the imp laughs, sticking it’s tongue out at Bakugou to which he responds with another curse.

“Would you like me to teleport you mistress?” it asks.

“Does that offer include the boys?” you ask, not bothering to turn around and look at them.

“No it doesn’t”

“What why not?” Kirishima asks. “That’s not very fair.”

You can hear the pout in his voice. “Then I’d love to take you up on that offer.”

“Y/N you bitch, don’t you dare leave us- HEY! Come back here now!”

By the time he finishes his sentence, you’re already gone.

“Bro she just left us.” Kirishima complains, but he’s drowned out by Bakugou’s ear piecing screams of anger.

He sighs and shakes his head, continuing the steps up.

After what seems to feel like hours, they finally reach a massive gateway, It opens up to another set of stairs, this time the temperature much cooler than before and the stairs seem to be made out of pure gold, decorated with velvet trails of red.

“This way!” the imp calls out, reappearing in mid air.

“You little shit-” Bakugou calls out, leaping into the air to grab it, but it simply flies away, leaving him to fall clumsily onto his feet.

Kirishima follows along, pulling Bakugou by the arm, making sure he didn’t stomp off like a child.

After a few twisty corridors, then find themselves in a massive hall, the ceiling held up with columns of red and gold, a massive crystal chandelier hanging from the centre. Painting and tapestry littered the baroque architecture and near the back of the hall sat a massive throne, one that could probably fit at least a dozen people.

The boys look to see you sat across someone’s lap, you head against their shoulder as they fed you grapes.

“Oh, look who finally made it.” you smile, giving Bakugou a wink as you see literal steam emitting from his ears.

He starts scowling at you but Kirishima simply laughs. “So Y/N are you gonna explain anything or?”

“This is Hitoshi!” you say, wrapping your arms around his neck as he smiles adoringly at you. “He’s the demon king of hell.” you nod approvingly at your introduction, whereas it only brought more questions to his friends.

“And you know him because...” Kirishima starts, trying to get you to continue explaining your story.

“Oh, he’s like... hmm.” You pause, trying to look for a good term to label your relationship as. You had accidentally stumbled across summoning the demon when you tried to combine your quirk which witchcraft, which led the latter to become infatuated with you, the first human who had even summoned him in his thousands of years alive.

Your room had began to fill with smoke and now matter your use of quirk or fanning air through the window, the wouldn’t seem to disappear. That’s when you realised the mass of black forming in the centre of the smoke.

You shrieked and climbed out of the window, jumping down rather ungracefully before sprinting down the road. Your parents were at work so there was no point in staying in the house.

As you turned the corner, you bumped into someone, falling backwards. They stepped forward and caught you by the waist, lifting you up to meet a gorgeous purple haired man with deep sunken eyes and a Cheshire grin.

“Um thanks.” you quickly said, stepping away and getting ready to run away again when he spoke.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” he asked.

“I think there’s someone in my house.” you said, your adrenaline now leaving you with the fear.

“Oh that was me.” he replied curtly, giving you a grin as he watched your face morph into fear, and then quickly anger.

You raised you leg, kicking him directly in the nuts.

“Bro I could’ve been changing on something.” you threw your hands up in the air. “Who gave you the right to just waltz into my house.”

“Um you actually.” he spluttered, squatting down on the floor as he struggled to regain his composure. He was the demon king for fuck’s sake and not only had some mere human ran away after summoning him but then they proceeded to kick him in the balls. The audacity!

“What?”

“You summoned me.” he glared.

You pursed your lips. “How?”

“How am I supposed to know?” he retorted. “No one’s done that before.”

You stared down at him, inching your face closer and studying his features. “Can I return you?”

“What the fuck?” He raised his head abruptly, head butting you as you stumbled back a few steps.

“What?” you shouted, rubbing your sore forehead as he stood up again. “I didn’t try and summon you, it was an accident.”

“Well I can’t go back until you make a deal with me.” the man sighed, placing his arms on his hips.

“Yeah no.” you replied almost instantly, turning on your heel and leaving. If he was telling the truth and was indeed the one in your room, then you could go home with no worry.

“Hey, don’t ignore me you human!” he shouted, catching up with you and walking next to you.

“Can’t you like, I don’t know, leave me alone?” you asked desperately.

“No. You have to make a contract with any demon that you summon within 7 days or your soul will be taken.”

“Uh huh.” you nodded. “Can I make a deal with you to leave me alone?”

“Technically yes, but you’ll also need to pay a price.”

“Oh my fucking god.” you screamed, banging you head against your front door. “What’s the price then?”

“Hmm I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You’re the one spewing this nonsense about a contract.”

“Oh, it’s just I get to choose the price. I’m not too sure what I want from you yet.”

You rolled your eyes, walking over to underneath your window before boosting yourself up with you quirk, perching on the window sill as you stared down at him.

“You’re cute. But also fucking insane bro.” you commented, stepping into your room and closing the window.

“Well that wasn’t very nice.” he said, reappearing in your room.

You screeched, jumping back. “Bro please leave me alone.” you begged, sitting down defeated on your bed with your head in your hands.

“Nope. I’ve decided.”

“What will it be?” you asked uninterested, deciding that you’re fate had been sealed already. You were going to die anyways, why not go by a hot demon.

“You’ll be my friend.”

“What the fuck no.”

“I do admit that I’m rather a lonesome person, I could perhaps do with some of your...” he looked you up and down before finishing, “presence.”

You snorted. “Don’t you have any demon friends?”

“The king has no friends.” he replied simply.

“And you’re like the king?” you raised your eyebrow at him.

“No darling, I am the king.”

“He’s like my friend?” you question, looking at Shinso for an answer. He simply shrugs with a smile before holding up another grape for you.

“Friends?” Bakugou snorted. “I don’t see you cuddling up to all of your friends in the dorms.”

“Humph fine.” you pout. “Like sugar daddy? I don’t know, but you do give me a lot of things.”

“That’s simply because I like you.” Shinso replies, a soft smile on his lips.

You respond with a large grin, sitting up to give me a kiss on the cheek whilst you hear Bakugou cough “Disgusting.” underneath his breath.

“Can’t you like, keep Bakugou here and torture him endlessly?”

“I’m afraid that’s against the rules.”

“Or you could recruit him, since he’s a literal demon himself.”

Kirishima laughs at your comment, before asking “So how can we go back? Our friends might be in danger so we need to go back as soon as possible.”

“Alrighty Hitoshi, can you teleport us back?”

He responds with a hum before you find yourselves back in the centre.

You look around to see Kirishima and Bakugou getting up from the floor, Bakugou shouting about how he didn’t need to have dropped them from such a high place. He stops when he sees the Nomu, it’s foot perched upon your teacher’s head. You start to run to him when you realise Shinso is flying mid air, still holding you in his arms.

“Hey, how strong are you?” you ask.

“Pretty strong I’d say. Why?”

“Do you think you could blow that muscle bird away. It’s kinda ugly.” you comment, pointing at the Nomu. “But like, keep the human underneath it, I kinda need him stil alive.”

“Your wish is my command.” he replies, before he flicks his wrist, the nomu being lifted high into the air and tossed to the side of the centre.

“Holy shit.” a male voice shouts. “That bird is invincible, how did someone do that?”

You turn to see Mineta shouting by the side of the water zone, your lips curling in digust. “Ew gross.”

“Would you like me to get rid of him?”

“Maybe another day.” you reply.

The doors suddenly burst open to reveal All Might, standing there in all of his muscly glory.

He begins to fight with the Nomu as you lean back in Shinso’s chest.

“So like, could you get his body off the playing field?” you ask, pointing at Aizawa.

Shinso hums in response, lifting Aizawa’s body and following it toward the exit of the centre.

“Hey Tsuyu, could you take him?” you shout and she nods quickly, wrapping her tongue around his and pulling him towards the ambulances outside.

“Alrighty, how about we wrap things up.”

Shinso hands you a magical gun and you enhance it with your quirk. With one beat of his wings, you two gets proceeding closer to the nomu, before you shoot it’s expose brain. It halts momentarily, unable to regenerate too quickly, and the perfect opening in created, All Might landing a punch and sending it flying off, out of the centre’s roof.

“Well that was fun.”

“I don’t think we can say the same for your friends.”

You look over to see a few of your classmates very ruffled up, buts and bruises littering them. “Oof.”

“Should I put you down?”

“Nah, you’re comfy.”

Bonus :

“Y/N, are you going to see your demon boyfriend any time soon?” Kirishima calls out in the living room of the dooms.

“Demon boyfriend?” Uraraka pipes up, catching the interest of many classmates.

“Hmm?” you hum in response, looking up from your phone. “Maybe when I feel like it, why?”

“Well I heard there’s a special type of crocodile skin in the demon realm where it’s unbreakable and I was wondering if I could reference it for my quirk or costume?”

You nod in response. “Sure thing, I can give him a call.”

“Um no you won’t.” Uraraka cuts in. “You are going to tell him to come here because I want to see your boyfriend.”

“Um why though?”

“Because we’re best friends and you didn’t even think to tell me you were dating someone?” she pouts and you instantly feel bad.

“Sorry sorry Ochako. Sure.” you quickly reply.

“No you are not inviting that bastard over.” Bakugou shouts from the kitchen.

“Well more of a reason to invite him I guess.” you laugh.

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thewitcherssongbird · 4 years

Text

Your Curse is my Command

Next chapterrrrrr cuz I’m awesome right?

*****

Chapter 3

The following two weeks were a series of mishaps and mayhem and a cacophony of complaints which all together rendered Geralt insane, sleep deprived and sexually frustrated. It was that fucking curse that he’d landed himself into that had started this whole mess and he wasn’t even the one cursed! The thing was, every time he told Jaskier something, he did it. He did it and complained rather loudly while doing so.

He really had tried to avoid ordering Jaskier to do anything but he kept forgetting. Then he tried his best to avoid Jaskier altogether but due to Yennefer, avoiding him completely was impossible.

And that wasn’t even the half of it. The weather took a sudden turn to even more cloudy and rainy days which deflated Geralt’s general mood, not that anyone noticed. And suddenly things that had absolutely nothing to do with the wretched obedience curse started happening on top of the wretched obedience curse and Geralt had a sneaking suspicion Yen had something, or everything, to do with it.

The first evening, Geralt accidentally ordered Jaskier to pass the chicken and immediately got “Geralt!” shouted in his face while Yennefer snickered at the end of the dinner table. Fucking curse.

A few days later he told Jaskier to pick up his goddamn clothes from the fucking floor and put them away because he was a grown man and he immediately sprung to the task immediately with a glare that almost had him retreating from the room, which mind you, was not something Geralt did. Curses were a thing of nightmares.

One perfectly fine morning when Yennefer was busy with a client in the sitting area, the kitchen door locked itself behind him and of course, locked him in with Jaskier. A faint smell of lilac and gooseberries hung in the air. Geralt tried to pick the lock with a metal skewer he found in a cupboard while Jaskier complained very loudly. But the door was locked magically. The door leading to the back of the manor was also magically locked. That was Yennefer’s doing.

But then he told Jaskier to shut the hell up while he fiddled with the lock. Honestly he’d completely forgotten about their predicament until a very sharp knife lodged itself into the door above his head. He couldn’t tell if Jaskier had missed on purpose but he was too busy apologizing to ask. The man was dangerous when he was angry.

The next evening, he ordered the aggravating bard to leave him alone and he promptly left, traversing the town in the dark and efficiently leaving Geralt alone. Geralt had to stalk him for an hour to catch him off guard and release him from the command just so that he could come back to the manor. It was exhausting, who knew Jaskier was so good at avoiding him? He didn’t get the chance to ask, Jaskier was furious and made sure they all knew it.

The next afternoon, it was pouring outside and everyone was bored out of their minds and frankly fed up with Jaskier’s chattering. The bard seemed to have so much pent up energy and frustration that Geralt wouldn’t have been surprised if he had crawled out of his own skin just for something to do. They all decided to play board games, sitting on the floor around the table with blankets and hot cocoa.

Yennefer had decided to give them both a single blanket to share. He was sure she secretly dropped the temperature in the room, he glared at her even as Jaskier huddled closer to him and took his arm around his shoulder, almost climbing into his lap. That was actually nice but he wouldn’t admit that, because he was a firm believer of not taking advantage of someone one was in love with. At least Jaskier had shut up, for some mysterious reason, but Geralt wasn’t going to ask and jinx it.

There were also multiple instances where he told the chatterbox to shut up and well, Geralt had never seen murder so clearly in anyone’s face. Once or twice he’d admit that he ignored the glares and enjoyed the silence just for a moment. But then he’d get hit with pillows, shoes, cutlery, food, chess pieces and on a special occasion, a candelabra. With candles. That were lit.

Jaskier wasn’t unusually clumsy but in two weeks he had tripped twice over a loose floorboard, thrice over absolutely nothing and once he had fallen from the stairs. Luckily he was nearly down them and in all instances Geralt was very conveniently there to catch him and nearly die of lust and longing as his eyes caught on the lips that were always slightly open and showing a hint of perfect teeth as Jaskier’s breathed heavily, probably from shock or frustration, who knew.

Yennefer was of course always lurking somewhere near. Not that it qualified lurking because it was technically her house but that wasn’t the point.

Well, there was one accident which Geralt was actually quite sure had nothing to do with Yennefer or the curse. Geralt was deathly tired when he walked into the bathroom and promptly turned on his heel and walked out again with a growing problem in his trousers.

In the past few months, Jaskier had been more careful about showing skin in Geralt’s presence, he hadn’t noticed until now but he realized it as he walked back down the stairs. Jaskier had been lying languidly in the bathtub, eyes closed in pleasure as his hand no doubt moved hidden under the water. Fuck.

And all these days, Geralt hadn’t fucking slept! Every night he’d go to up to the roof and meditate for an hour or so, but meditation wasn’t meant to keep him functioning for two weeks and Geralt was not friendly when sleep deprived. But what could he do? Sleep in the day and let Yennefer know he was an absolute coward? No. Climb into a bed with the man he was lusting after? No. He had morals.

***

It was another, rainy day when Geralt and Jaskier were sitting on the couch in Yennefer’s apothecary while she worked. Jaskier was trying to see how high he could stack her decorative stones and Geralt nearly dozed off with his feet in Jaskier’s lap. They had nothing better to do in the cold outside. A fire burned merrily in the hearth, there was one in nearly every room of the house. There was no firewood in sight, only a distinct scent that was not smoke hung in the air around the flames.

“Geralt I need you to grab that potion and hand it to me, please. Jaskier don’t touch it, you’re human,” Yennefer said. Bullshit.

This meant Geralt had to lean over Jaskier to get the potion, perfect. And suddenly with that overly familiar scent tickling his nostrils, his hand slipped and he landed with his face in Jaskier’s lap, who squeaked in surprise and probably fear that Geralt was about to bite him or something. Not that he blamed him with the mood he’d been in recently.

He shot a venomous glare at the meddlesome sorceress as grabbed the allegedly dangerous potion and smacked down hard on Yennefer’s table. His glare went unnoticed as she continued humming and leafing through her book, absently taking it and thumbing out the cork.

Why did she insist on making this so hard for him? For all her good intentions couldn’t she see that the stupid, annoying, stupidly handsome, infuriatingly lovable, human bard was not. Fucking. Interested?

“Jaskier, go make us some cocoa,” he said then. Predictably, Jaskier cried out in protest while he got up to make them cocoa.

“Two sugars,” Yennefer called after him, not looking up from her notes, and got a ‘fuck you’ back.

He stared at her. She ignored him.

“Yennefer.”

“Hmm?”

“What are you doing?”

“Making a cure for the blacksmith’s daughter. She has an interesting case of smallpox,” she answered casually, still not looking at him.

“No, what are you doing to us?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.” Geralt grabbed her wrist as she reached for another herb. He let go when she sighed and looked at him.

“Geralt, I thought you two just needed a bit of a push but evidently you need a really hard shove. So that’s what I’m doing.”

“Yen.” She must have seen something on his face, she cupped his face in concern and stroked her thumb over the dark circle under his eye, he looked down at the potion she had been making to avoid her mothering eyes.

“Geralt, what’s wrong?”

“Yen, you need to stop,” he started and then his voice shook as he continued, ”You need to leave it alone. Please. It hurts, okay? He- He’s not interested.”

“Have you asked him if he is?”

He pulled away from her as he heard Jaskier’s angry steps. He brought a stormy expression and three cups of cocoa with him.

***

Jaskier on the other hand was nearly boiling with barely contained rage. Geralt had been avoiding him for nearly three whole weeks and when he did see him he was being forcefully ignored or ordered around. Nevermind not taking advantage of the fucking obedience curse.

He went to sleep alone, and he woke up alone. He could barely tell Geralt had been there at all. The man was purposely avoiding him. He didn’t know what he had done but after weeks of saying nothing he was fed up. He hadn’t seen Geralt in two hole days and he hadn’t gone anywhere, Jaskier still heard him downstairs or in the room when he was in the bath or almost asleep. Geralt had been avoiding him.

One night, he waited and waited for Geralt to sneak to bed, because he was sneaking, but he never came. Eventually he got up and checked the upper floor, then padded silently down the stairs. He found Yennefer still on the couch with a cup of tea and a book.

“Where is Geralt?”

Yennefer shrugged. “He went upstairs a while ago.”

That was odd. Jaskier thanked her and headed back up the stairs. Where could he possibly be? He checked the upper floor again, when he found nothing, he intended to go back to bed. That’s when he spotted a ladder at the end of the corridor. He went to investigate and found that it led to a trapdoor in the roof.

Being a curious and determined soul, he of course climbed up and onto the roof. The cold hit him like whip, the wind slashed at his face and he instantly wrapped his arms around himself to keep from shivering. It wasn’t raining but the night had brought a thick layer of mist and cold with it and a thin wind that gave the cold an even sharper bite.

He squinted through the mist, the dark tiles of the roof merged with the darkness of the night, but there! He spotted a figure kneeling in the dark.

“Geralt?” he called. He got no answer.

Jaskier climbed fully onto the roof and moved closer. Shit! Geralt was meditating. In the freezing cold!

“Geralt!” He shook the Witcher’s shoulder. Geralt flinched and grabbed his wrist and in a quick move, he was on his back and Geralt was above him. The tiles bit into his back. Witcher’s and their reflexes. Why was he so turned on by this? He was still angry.

Jaskier pried the Witcher’s hands from him but Geralt let go almost instantly, his whole body sagged even though Jaskier was still trapped under it. Concern did away with any anger he had intended to unleash. He looked like shit.

“Sorry,” Geralt said in that it’s-all-my-fault-and-you-should-probably- hate-me-for-it tone that Jaskier hated so much. And then, “What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night, it’s freezing.”

“Oh you’re telling me?!” he shouted, wriggling under Geralt even though he was clearly not moving, why did this feel so obscene? “What are you doing- Geralt, have you been sleeping?” Geralt looked ready to pass out, dark circles were visible under his drooping eyes, even in the dark. His muscles looked tired, barely keeping him from crushing Jaskier as he sighed an exhausted sigh. “You need to get into bed right now.”

Geralt mumbled something unintelligible but moved off of him. Jaskier stood up, then helped Geralt up and took him by the arm when he started swaying on his feet.

He pulled Geralt all the way to their room and then sucked in a fortifying breath and started removing Geralt’s shirt. “Oh no,” Geralt slurred deliriously and batted his hands away, “you should probably stop undressing me.”

Oh gods did he know? Well, Jaskier decided, it didn’t matter. That hadn’t been an order, luckily and Geralt had to sleep. Jaskier tugged the witcher’s shirt off and guided him to the bed. He fell hard onto the mattress and didn’t speak again. Jaskier assumed he was asleep and decided to tug off his boots before letting himself freak out, just holding the mental breakdown away for another minute.

And then the boots were off and to put it lightly: fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckingshit! ‘You should stop undressing me’? He knew. Geralt knew. Definitely. Did he know? Wouldn’t he have protested more? What did this mean? Was he having visions when he said that? He’d seemed out of it. He was a Witcher he didn’t have visions until he was nearly at deaths door. Jaskier lay down and held his head in his hand before it fell off. He stared at the ceiling. What now?

*****

What now indeed. Anyway I hope you enjoyed it, thank you for reading. Please toss a like or a comment to your hard working writer because if not for those what do I do this for? And also I’m so sorry I completely forgot the tag list until now

@so-damn-mishalicious @jaskierisanangel @siriusly-the-best-bi @jiminthestreets-bonesinthesheets

#the witcher #the witcher netflix #geraskier #geralt x jaskier #geralt of rivia #geralt z rivii #Jaskier #jaskier x geralt #geraskier smut #geraskier fluff #geraskier angst #light angst #fluff and smut #mutual pining #idiots in love #yennefer of vengerberg #geralt is bad at feelings #Your Curse is my Command

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polymathemawrites · 3 years

Text

Hand Holds 2/?

cw: same as before but we’re adding on descriptions of borderline hypothermia to the mix

Mathias and Flynn find themselves up against the elements and get snowed in together

Posting the letters at the mailbox, Mathias waits till the flap goes back down, snapping into place as whatever odd Dalaran magic sucks the letters off and away. Moving towards the gryphon master he notes out of the corner of his eye, Fairwind shoving their mugs off onto one of the lodge workers. By the time he's finished arranging for Shadowtalon's return to Boralus after her rest the Captain has finished and come to stand at his side.

"But won't you be wanting to go with her?" The gryphon master asks, peering up at the dark sky, "If you plan to go on foot somewhere, I'd do it another day, this storm is going to turn nasty soon."

Mathias followed the man's gaze but only saw the same slow flurry of snowflakes that seemed to always fall this time of year near the mountains. "How soon?" It still paid to listen to locals, every bit of intel helped.

"By morning at least but you'd get better information from a Tidesage as to what the water wants to do."

"Not a lot of them about here right now, mate. Otherwise we would have had your fires put out in minutes." Fairwind smiles amiably at the man, "What sort of storm are we talking?"

"At least twelve inches of cover, likely. See how much colder it's gotten with the sun down?"

Used to Elwynn's more mild winters in comparison to Tiragarde, Mathias considered it was always colder here but did note that there'd been a sharp drop earlier. Thanking the gryphon master he checked his bag one last time, going to stand behind the inn as he did it, unsurprised that Fairwind had followed him there.

"Where are we going?" Fairwind asks, casually leaning against the side of the inn, the bustle of recovery efforts a hum behind him.

"This isn't a we. I'm scouting and you're not coming, Captain." He can't look at the man, he can't bring himself to, as if he knows if he does, his entire resolve will crumble.

"Have you ever scouted through Tiragarde on foot, Master Shaw? It's not easy, not that I'm doubting your abilities, Tides know you have enough of them, but when a storm comes on it's impossible to wayfind your way out unless you know the area intimately, even then it's a gamble. I'm sober for once," Fairwind laughs and Mathias turns to him against his better judgement, the man is suffused with warmth and good cheer, the colour of his eyes is hidden in the dark corner they're tucked into but the glint of them is unmistakable, the man is not just easy on the eyes, he is breathtaking like this - a private moment stolen, a view of the man that was entirely Mathias' and no one else, "And I know Kul Tiras like the back of my hand, let me be your guide for the night, you won't regret it."

That Fairwind could make that sound like a sexual invitation really doesn't surprise him, what does is his own response.

"Fine, but you need to keep up with me or I'll leave you in a snow bank to freeze."

He wouldn't really leave him in a snowbank to freeze and Fairwind seems to know this for he laughs softly as if it's a joke. Mathias realizes that maybe it is, seeing as he wouldn't just leave him. With Fairwind's steady stride and slightly longer legs it's not too difficult for the man to keep up anyway. By the time they're onto the road and skirting a field of ice elementals the Captain has told him about the history of the Lodge, the Wendigo that had devoured an entire encampment of guards in one night, and the time he fell off a horse and nearly broke his leg. Two of these things were regionally applicable, the horse bit had absolutely nothing to do with anything else happening and Mathias was turning mental summersaults attempting to figure out how Fairwind had connected it all together.

He's forced to give it up when the man asks him a direct question, "Where are we heading again?"

"I never told you actually, so there is no 'again' at all."

"Fairs that, so where are we heading?"

In the distance he can see the watchtower of Vigil Hill and above them the steady snowfall has continued, but it doesn't seem to be picking up much, if at all. "Down the Drustvar coast, some adventurers caught sight of a Horde encampment and I want to get eyes on it as soon as possible." He hears the apprehension in Fairwind's steps and manages to outpace the man by a few feet before the ex-pirate picks up his pace to fall alongside him again. After one run in with the Horde today, he's not surprised by the reaction, the Captain wasn't a soldier, he wasn't a fighter, he was a sailor who worked for profit and Mathias should have told him right off, it probably would have dissuaded the man entirely. "You can turn back or stay in Vigil Hill, I'll understand."

"Oh don't worry, you won't get rid of me that easily." The levity and bravado is back into Fairwind's voice and step and Mathias is warmed faintly by the courage in the man, or perhaps idiocy, save he doesn't think it is that - Fairwind is perfectly capable of measuring the risk to reward of any given task, it's what makes him such a good runner of Azerite, amongst other things. It's just not entirely clear what the reward is here, what has the man following him on a scouting mission at all. Certainly Mathias isn't such splendid company that it's reward enough to follow him into a potentially dangerous situation?

"Good thing I thought to pack some food to bring along, thought I'd need to bunk down for the night but they had it all well in hand by the time we even got there."

"Yes, Holton seems to keep things running smoothly."

"Should be enough to feed the two of us, hopefully. You could eat enough for an ogre when you get your mind into it." Fairwind's tone is fond so the comment doesn't rankle him as much as it would coming from someone else. Many things the man says would have caused him a bit of ire coming from anyone else, which just goes to show how compromised he's become concerning his feelings for the Captain. "Not that you look like one, has anyone told you lately how beautif-" Fairwind's words are cut off abruptly by Mathias throwing his arm out to prevent the man from walking his way off the path and into a ditch, but also because he didn't think he could handle hearing the rest.

"Oh, thanks love, wasn't watching where I was going, too busy watching you!" Fairwind laughs and throws him a charming smile which he turns his attention from entirely, although silence and ignoring him had never worked on Fairwind even once. He nearly trips when the full sentence catches up with though, the casual use of 'love' and the flirtatious turn of phrase - it is only the years and years of training that kept his footing stable.

"You would do best to pay attention to your steps, I'll let you tumble into the ditch next time."

"Wouldn't want you any other way, hardly yourself if you just follow me around keeping me out of ditches."

Mathias sighs, "Please do not make me regret allowing you to come with me."

"Do my best, love, but if you end up killing me and burying me in the snow, will you at least pour one out for me?"

Mathias throws him a worried and slightly confused look, "Why would I kill you? We're on the same side, Fairwind."

"Oh I meant, if I ever get on your nerves, or I suppose more of them than I usually do." The actual sheepish and self conscious tone of the man's voice sends a spike of guilt and something softer and sadder through him.

"You're charming and pleasant company, Fairwind." More than pleasant, Mathias had to admit to himself, he's relatively sure any number of people who knew him would have laughed at him for a number of things he'd done that day, from getting caught up in Feathermoon's trap to agreeing to let Flynn Fairwind himself follow him on a covert operation. Noticing the Captain has gone silent he glances to the side only to see a dark flush striping across Fairwind's handsome face. "Captain?"

The ex-pirate looks at him with an abrupt jerk, that curious flush tinting darker, "Oh, you're not putting one on?" The man cocks his head to consider Mathias and as such he's not watching where he's going and despite what he'd just said about letting Fairwind meet his end in a ditch he carefully maneuvers the man to cross into Vigil Hill without ending up in water. "Just a little hard to believe coming from you, mate."

"I like it when people can keep up with me in actions and words." The repartee they'd shared during the Vault job and after had been a pleasure, and Fairwind was capable of keeping up with him in many ways. He was perhaps overly lonely to have the company mean so much to him but the temperature was swiftly dropping and Vigil Hill was empty at this hour (and after much of the inhabitants had fled during the Ashvane funded incursion of pirates earlier in the year) so someone keeping up with him meant more than it probably should. They were ignored by the Night Watch, being just two men passing through, and Fairwind didn't bring attention to them by replying until they were out of the outpost and headed toward the northern point of the little isle.

Now far enough away from Kenning's Lodge the air lacked the acrid burn of smoke and instead set his lungs on fire via the cold. The snow was beginning to fall in a speed with which Mathias was starting to believe would be up to a gnome's knees soon. The northern end of Vigil Hill was home to a dock and moored there was a row boat and a lone watchman who stood from his chair as they made their way to him, grease lamp held high. "If you're looking for passage I'm not takin' anyone further than Hangman's Point."

"Come on, it's colder than a witch's tits and you won't take us down the coast?"

"Go get your own boat if you want to go further." The man looks old enough to be Mathias' father, not that he ever knew the man himself, still he could sympathize, the water looked ready to turn to slush and the man's spine was already bent, the cold probably wasn't helping.

"Just passage to Drustvar will do, thank you ferryman." Mathias cut in before Fairwind could make enough of a nuisance of them to have the man's mind change entirely about taking them over at all.

The trip over is uneventful after the aging boatman is convinced to let them row instead. Falling into a silent syncopation allows Mathias to center himself again and leave behind the Captain's flirtations.

When they disembark the ferryman holds his hand up to halt them. "If you're coming back this way you won't need a boat lads, the water will be frozen by morning, thick enough to walk on it."

"We will likely be taking a gryphon from the town north of here, thank you for the advice and safe passage." Mathias bows.

Fairwind, shaking out his hands gives his own farewell, "If it's going to be frozen you get yourself into a warm place then and take care crossing, you won't have us to feel guilty and row for you."

The ferryman laughs and his voice carries eerily over the water, the sound of the oars dipping into slush following.

Turning away from the water to look at the thick forest of Drustvar he felt more than saw Fairwind do the same as the man's arm brushed against his.

"Can't say I wanted to spend the day before Winter's Veil eve in Drustvar, but the company is worth it."

"Are you going to flirt with me the entire time?" Mathias turns, footprints left in the sand, looking for the nearest path to cut into the woods and away from the open air of the shore, the feeling of exposure sent a curl of chill down his spine which didn't help the fact that he was now freezing.

Flynn was remarkably silent for once when he strode to follow after him. "That coming from the man who just said he enjoyed my company. But I'll confess, I wasn't sure if you even knew I was flirting, mate. If it makes you uncomfortable I'll stop."

"It doesn't." It comes out before he even has a chance to stop himself, and then he's backpedaling, "But it's highly inappropriate and you should stop anyway."

Fairwind's footsteps falter behind him but then speed up and the man is at his side again despite Mathias trying very hard to outpace him at that exact moment. Damn his longer legs, damn all of Fairwind really.

"Inappropriate for who, or for why at that matter?"

There is a break in the treeline, what looks like a trampled path, maybe caused by animals, or maybe by men. He carefully pulls himself up the rocks before the trees, stopping only to turn and hold his hand out to help Fairwind as well.

Without pause, the ex-pirate takes his hand and uses the hold to help himself up. Standing suddenly chest to chest at the edge of the treeline, Mathias falls still and shivers.

"You're cold-" the Captain begins, only for Mathias to cut him off.

"You're not my subordinate, I have no rank over you, but I am the Spymaster and you constantly doing this in public, without me reprimanding you for it, will likely only result in people thinking I'm a pushover. No one is allowed to take those liberties with me, Fairwind. I do not allow it, if you were one of my agents I would have put a stop to it long ago."

They're still holding hands, still close enough to embrace.

"I'm not your agent." Fairwind smiles down at him, it sends a thrill through Mathias that settles like heat in the pit of his stomach. "No one could ever call you a pushover, love. No amount of rank and class is going to get me to stop, only you. You tell me you don't want it, and I'll stop, for you." He registers Fairwind's other hand coming up slowly, toward his cheek, before it can touch him a familiar and unwanted sound proceeds the sudden and sharp slash of air through the trees.

In Northrend, the howl of a blizzard was something he'd come to recognize. Even kept safe in the thick walls of the keep the wailing of nature was prevalent. Here, it hit with such sudden ferocity he grasped onto Flynn's arm for support, about to tell the man they needed cover when Flynn shouted it for him.

"If we don't get inside we'll be snowed under, love!"

He doesn't even need to spur them on, Flynn is practically dragging him along the path, and he kicks off at speed, rushing them along faster.

Maybe in Tiragarde the snow would have come down slower - there was something supernatural about the speed with which the forest was being buried by this storm. With local legends (or truths) about Witches running rampant and the Drust plaguing the place, it led credence to those thoughts. He could only hope that the Horde outpost to the south was being similarly affected.

Within minutes visibility was gone, their only boon was that the path they'd found kept them from needing to beat down the bush cover.

He hadn't been frozen before, not now that the howling wind was cutting him to the bone, the only source of warmth he could feel was the hand still clasped in Flynn's own.

When practical thoughts of survival turned steadily toward an acceptance of death, when he began to feel hot - he knew he was right about the magic in the snow. His pace was sluggish and yet Flynn still dragged him onward, he could hear the man howl something at the sky, but he didn't understand it, or maybe he was hallucinating.

The idea that he was beginning to slip became even more likely when he could swear he saw the impression of a building. Except then they were sheltered from the howl of the wind before it and Flynn was about to kick the door in so Mathias came to his senses enough to pull the ex-pirate back. He dropped their linked hands finally to go for his lock picking kit. The door's defenses fell away readily enough and the door was saved from having it's hinges broken. That his hands were shaking so much it put an extra few seconds on the lock no one could fault him for. It would have been unfortunate if they'd had cold air and snow blowing in on them.

Inside with the door shut against the intolerable chill allowed Mathias the moment to consider how he'd likely been ready to die. He'd have to take stock of that later, much later, and not now, and likely talk to one of SI:7's medics about his mental state. Or - or he could push it off till later and then never do it and throw himself into work as soon as he got back to Boralus. Not that he had experience doing that, oh not at all.

Realizing he'd been standing in the middle of a one room cabin doing nothing but mentally snarking himself for his workaholic solutions to every problem for a few minutes now, he finally moved to help Flynn with the potbelly stove in the corner. While the entire cabin had a fine film of dust upon it's furnishings, the precut wood by the stove was dry and between the two of them they had a fire going soon. Luckily the pipe was clean and so they didn't end up smoked out either.

"Mathias," Flynn drew his attention, forcing him to realize he'd been standing there in front of the stove holding himself and shivering for an extended amount of time, "We need to get you out of your armor." He also noticed that Flynn had somehow shed his own soaked-through clothing without drawing attention to himself and was down to his skivvies and nothing else. He stares, numb and perhaps stupidly, unable to do anything but stand there, even as Flynn comes forward and carefully begins to undo the clasps of his pauldrons.

He's kickstarted by Flynn's touch and follows his lead, hands shaking. Remarkably Flynn isn't shaking nearly as badly as he is. "H-h-how-" Mathias tries and then gives up, until his teeth stop chattering he doesn't have the patience for himself.

"Shh, love," Flynn's voice is so soft and low, worried maybe, and caring, "Just let me take care of you."

Maybe if he'd been capable of it, he would have flushed but he was too frozen right now. He moves his limbs as Flynn instructs him to and soon enough his armor is discarded on the ground and Flynn is pulling him under the dusty covers of the cabin's single bed. With his head tucked under Flynn's chin and his body tangled up with the ex-pirates he found some relief finally. Flynn was not hot so much as he was luke-warm but even that slight temperature difference was beautiful, rapturous, intoxicating. Like a blast of holy light flooding through him and for a man of the shadows it was almost too much - almost, but delicious enough to curb that overwhelming sensory experience.

"I take it you've never fallen into a frozen over river." Flynn speaks against his hair and Mathias makes a hum in the negative not that it's very clear either way. "Didn't think so." Flynn added so he must have understood him anyway.

As the pain and shuddering slowly abates bone-deep exhaustion takes it's place. He doesn't realize he's fallen asleep until Flynn is moving from the bed to put more wood in the stove and easily drifts off once more when he's back in Flynn's arms.

#fairshawlidays #fairshaw #Mathias Shaw #flynn fairwind #look i made an attempt okay

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moth-and-raven · 3 years

Text

CHAPTER FOUR

The rest of the day passes in a haze. Loud cheers met Nadia’s announcement and Portia slipped into the rush just in time to board the carriage, tear-stained but determined to fight through it.

I must have been imagining things. I don’t want to think poorly of Julian, but I have to face facts: people will do and say anything to keep themselves off the gallows. He’s smart. He’s charismatic. He knows I’m working with the Palace. I can’t help but think he was just trying to endear himself to me, taking advantage of how obviously attracted to him I am. I can’t blame him for that. It’s my own fault for chasing what was a pathetic pipe dream from the start.

I retreat to my room after we return to the palace. It’s not unreasonable, considering I haven’t slept much in the past few days. From my bed, I watch spots of sunlight creep across the ceiling until I fall asleep. At least it’s dreamless this time.

Portia comes to get me for dinner in the late evening, when the sky’s turned purple. She’s itching with curiosity, peeking at me from the corner of her eye the whole way to the dining hall. Before we enter, she clears her throat.

“So, um.”

“It was nothing.” If I keep telling myself that, maybe it’ll hurt less. “Did you—?”

“Safe and sound. At least as much as he can be.”

“How long had it been since—?”

She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth just like he does. “Ten years, give or take. The last time I saw him was right after his apprenticeship. He came back to Nevivon for a few months while he was figuring out what else to do. I was only sixteen, so he must’ve been… twenty-five?”

The same age I am now. I didn’t realize he was that much older than me, though I suppose it makes sense. He’s lived quite a life. Yet more reason for him to see nothing of interest in me.

Portia pushes on: “What will you say to—?”

“I’m not telling her anything.” I shake my head and look away. “I don’t have anything to tell her anyway.”

That’s not a lie. I may know more about him now, but nothing pertinent.

“She’ll ask.”

“I know.”

I must not be doing as good of a job hiding my sadness as I thought I was, because Portia rests her hand on my shoulder and squeezes gently. I don’t have it in me to say that whatever she’s imagining isn’t true.

I can’t do this.

“Could you tell Nadia that I—” Humiliated, I choke on my tears. “I'm— I’ll be in the library.”

I’m already around the corner by the time she agrees. I don't know what I’m going to do there, but at least I’ll be alone. Again.

I may not remember beyond the last three years, but I know in my heart that I’ve never been loved like I am in my dreams. I probably never will be. With all the beautiful people out there, who would choose me, the fat twenty-five-year-old virgin so gullible she falls for every man who looks at her twice? What could I possibly offer someone like him?

Nothing.

Painful, empty nothing.

I end up at the library eventually. At least I can navigate the palace better than I could the South End. My tears have almost stopped before I feel the metal arc of the crescent moon still hanging around my neck and break apart again. I manage to reach an armchair, nestled in an alcove near a half-flight of stairs, and curl up in it as best I can to weather the storm.

I’m so ugly when I cry. Thank god no one can see it. No one ever should.

When the waves settle and my breath doesn’t feel so foreign in my lungs, I press my palms to my eyes and sigh heavily. I have a headache now, as I always do after I cry like that. I know I should be hungry, but I’m not. I don’t know what I am.

But I made a promise. To Nadia and to Julian. Even if I never see him again, I’ll help him as much as I can. And with all of his research, all the palace staff who knew both him and Lucio, all the magic echoes swirling around waiting for someone to hear them, I think I can help him a lot.

------

I was always more comfortable at night. I sleep a little bit, curled up in the armchair, but it’s not very comfortable and I wake up sore. I’m glad I came to the library, though: Julian’s desk is a mess of torn papers and marked-up books, underlines and strikethroughs and question marks in the margins, and I have so little time to piece it all together. If I hadn’t slept yesterday away… yesterday. I shouldn’t be thinking about yesterday. It was nothing. It is nothing.

He’ll be nothing if I can’t figure this out.

Portia brings me something to eat in the very early hours, right before dawn. Without saying a word, she draws up another chair and starts sorting through things too. She can read his handwriting much more easily than I can.

And Count Lucio’s name shows up. And again, and again. Lucio’s temperature rising. Lucio says wine tastes metallic. Alchemical fluid in Lucio’s prosthetic turned red, wouldn’t survive replacement. Observations in clipped clinical speech, but scrawled with ever-increasing desperation. Lucio spitting up blood. Lucio not sleeping, complaining of bad dreams. Lucio too weak to eat, still alive.

Notes on the dissection of a beetle, a cross-section of a human brain, a map of the palace with large red Xs over half the rooms in the east wing. Peeking over my shoulder, Portia points at them.

“That’s the Count’s Suite. He had the whole wing, actually. No one goes up there anymore.”

I straighten up, my joints crackling from the hours I've spent hunched over. “Why?”

She shrugs. “Nadia had the whole thing blocked off. It’s really dirty, from the— all the ash and stuff. And people say it’s haunted.”

“By Lucio?”

“I guess. One of the other housekeepers swears they saw the ghost of a weird guy at the top of the stairs once. That it looked right at them with spooky red eyes. I think they’re full of shit, but maybe it’s worth a look?”

There could be a thousand things worth a look. If I had more time… “I don’t know. I have a couple spells that might be able to pin down a ghost, but I’ve never actually tried them.”

“If it is Lucio, though, wouldn’t he be able to say who killed him?”

“Hm. That’s true. Is the wing locked?”

Portia grins and fishes in her pocket. “Not if you have keys.”

The main staircase is close to the library. I feel the air get colder as we approach, and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck start to stand up even before Portia unlocks the corridor that leads to Lucio’s bedroom. It’s eerily quiet, all gray and black, luxury gone to ruin in the wake of a disaster. I’ve seen reproductions of burned-out buildings that look like this, after heavy battles. It crosses my mind that destruction of that caliber had taken extremely powerful magic to accomplish, not the actions of a single man weakened by pressure and long hours in the midst of a plague. Julian can’t even do magic. He said as much during our long conversation at the Raven. I can’t imagine anything else that would do this much damage without bringing the entire palace down.

Interesting.

Cinders crunch underfoot. Charred paintings watch us pass. A primal fear creeps along just behind us, whispering then asking then screaming at us to flee. I can feel my heart in my throat and adrenaline in my blood, every sense heightened. Tattered curtains move at the corner of my eye: I’m terrified to look and even more terrified not to.

But I can tell without bringing magic to my hand that there’s nothing here. At least nothing that wants to make itself known. There’s just a spark of pure rage somewhere deep inside the wing, but it doesn’t want to be seen. No ghosts, no goats, no ghost goats. No spooky red eyes. Just soot and smoke stains and three years of neglect. The fear lurking in the back of my mind isn’t supernatural, just the normal human mistrust of the dark and abandoned.

We go all the way to the end of the suite to no avail. Part of me thinks I should stay, but I’m getting tired now and the idea of sleeping in these rooms isn’t appealing. Portia takes my sigh as an admission of defeat and pats my arm. It was a distant hope anyway.

Near the end of the corridor as we leave, a small glimmer catches my attention. If I hadn’t been looking that way to start with, I never would’ve noticed it.

“Hey Portia, what’s in there?”

She lifts up the lantern and peers into the room. “Bath chamber, I think.”

We see it at the same time, as the light catches the red gleam again: falling from the sink are drops of blood. More of it trickles across the floor. The walls are stained from it, up to the window.

“What the fuck?”

My sentiments exactly. What is this? It can’t be actual blood, can it? This is the top floor of the palace. Is it bubbling up through the plumbing?

“Nadia’s gonna want to know about this,” Portia says in a small voice.

“Wait. Let me check it out first.”

She turns to look at me, pale in the lantern’s glow. “This is way beyond whatever my brother might have done. It could infect the whole palace!”

“Do you think it’s infectious?”

Portia frowns. “Did you… Were you in Vesuvia back then? During the Plague?”

There’s no point in lying. “No.”

“Neither was I, but I heard about it. Before I left Nevivon, some sailors docked and told everyone what they’d seen. People died so quickly, there wasn’t space to keep their bodies. And they were all red, their eyes and their fingertips, everywhere you could see veins.” She shudders. “I can’t believe Ilya worked with it and… and…”

She must’ve been so scared, knowing that he could die any day.

“You know that big ugly crematorium out in the bay?” she asks.

“The Lazaret.” Everyone knows about that. You can see it from shore, a jagged silhouette reminding everyone of the toll the Plague took on the city. I don’t like looking at it: it makes my heart ache.

“Yeah. Even with that, there were too many bodies. So many people… There was a rumor that the Palace stored the extra ones, until they could be burned.”

“Where would they have been able to keep them?”

“Dunno. But there’s a huge tunnel system under here, all the way down into the cliffs. And the dungeon’s really big.”

I’d wondered how Julian could escape the prison cells, when the only way out was through the palace itself. Tunnels would explain that, I suppose. “So do you think there’s still something tainting the water?”

Her eyes are wide in the dark. “There might be. Kinda like here, no one’s been in the dungeons for ages. Probably since then.”

I frown. It’s unlikely, but I can’t deny the evidence right in front of me. I take another step into the washroom and trace the flow towards the wall. Some of the stones are loose now, after years of water damage. There’s more than enough room for it all to drain away between them.

Weak dawn sunlight floods the horizon as I stand up and glance out the window. I can see most of the city from here, out across the harbor to the Lazaret and down through the South End and directly into the lush gardens below.

And beyond the gardens, flowing from the palace along the channel of an aqueduct, is a stream of blood red.

------

Nadia scowls at the dripping red water, then summons her bodyguard to her side and dispatches them with a whispered order. Both Portia and I follow her out of the wing, but Portia splits off at the base of the stairs to see to her duties while Nadia invites me into the dining hall for breakfast.

A massive, gaudy painting hangs over the table, eyeing us as we pick over the array of egg dishes and sliced fruit. It depicts a celebration scene, I think, presided over by a muscular blond man with his arms spread wide over a crowd of adoring citizens. Nadia notices me looking at it and chuckles.

“Admiring my late husband’s art sense, are you, Reyja?”

I don’t want to offend her, but I think Count Lucio should’ve stuck to partying. “It’s, um, very vibrant.”

“That was typical of him,” she laughs. “Ostentatious to a fault.”

People don’t talk about Lucio much, unless they’re cursing his name for all the damage he did to the city with his warmongering and overspending. I’m trying to solve his murder, but now that I think of it, I don’t know much about the man himself. “What was he like?”

Nadia grimaces. “Much as you’ve heard, I expect. Loud, brash, insolent. Committed to his life of luxury. I would not have married him, had I been sober when he proposed.”

She must catch my surprise, because she fixes me in her dark eyes and raises a brow as if daring me to judge her.

Of course I won’t. “How did you two meet?”

“He was visiting Prakra,” she says. “To present himself to Empress Nasrin, my mother, as the Count of Vesuvia. He had been in power for some time by then, as I recall. I believe he told me that he’d first come to this city nearly twenty years before, on a mercenary contract.”

“He wasn’t from here?”

“No. He was of the Southern tribes.”

That’s confusing. “How did he get to be Count?”

“The former Count grew quite fond of him. Lucio was named his heir shortly after he arrived, and took the throne shortly after that. He spoke often of the battle in which he lost his arm—” She points at the painting. Lucio’s left arm shines, gilded in gold leaf. “—the same in which Spada was killed.”

Lucio may have been bloodthirsty, especially fond of the fights to the death at the coliseum Vesuvia used to be famous for, but everyone knew his roots as a successful mercenary. Even in his forties, when he died, he was strong and virile.

Which was why his death came as such a shock. Who would’ve thought such a man would die in his bed, ravished by sickness and weak enough to fall to an unskilled assassin?

“What about the Plague?” I ask quietly. People talk about Lucio a little bit, but no one discusses the Plague at all, as if the mere mention of it will cause its return.

Nadia nods. “It appeared nearly overnight, five years ago. No one had seen its like before. To my knowledge, nothing like it has been seen since, either.”

“Do we know where it came from?”

“I’m afraid not. Little is known of it, save that it killed thirty thousand of my people in two years.”

Her people. Nadia may have been Prakran by birth, but this was her city now.

“I had been visiting my sisters when it struck,” Nadia continues, gaze unfocused as she looks back through her memories. “As such, I was forbidden from returning until we were certain it had passed.”

I remember the parade that welcomed her back, but I didn’t realize she’d been gone that long. It’s been less than a year: she must be so busy, trying to pull Vesuvia together again. No wonder the search for her husband’s murderer hadn’t been her top priority until now. “I’m sorry.”

She tilts her head, looking at me. “Understand this, Reyja: if the Plague has not truly left the city, and what you and dear Portia discovered today is proof of that, then the search for Doctor Devorak must be set aside. I am eager to see justice done, but one man’s life, when weighed against the lives of thousands, will not tip the scales. I hope I may rely upon your services regardless of that outcome.”

Her visit to the shop feels very far away. I’m attached to this now, however big it gets. “I’ll be here.”

“Thank you. I have sent Yazakh to fetch an expert on the Plague from their estate. I hope they will return soon, but in the meantime, I urge you to rest. We may have much to consider in the coming days.”

I take a small pastry with me when I leave the table and make my way back to my room. I don’t doubt that she’s right, but even with this additional set of problems, I can’t keep my mind away from Julian. Thoughts of him cloud my head as I lay down for a nap and they’re still there when I wake up. My stomach isn’t happy with me, swirling with guilt and humiliation and anxiety, but I don’t know what to do about it.

The expert still hasn’t arrived when I go up to Lucio’s suite to check. I pass the library on the way back and my fingers fly to the silver moon pendant still around my neck, following the divot Julian’s own nerves wore in the metal. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to look through his notes while I wait, if I can concentrate enough to get anything useful out of them.

I can’t.

When the sun sets again, I give up. Another day gone, and I’ve only discovered more things to do. I need something to focus on, something with a solution, something… something that might distract me from the fact that I’m no closer to clearing Julian’s name.

I can follow that water, if nothing else. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but maybe I can learn where it’s going. And I can get out of the palace, maybe work off some of this nervous energy. And I won’t be surrounded by pieces of him, distracting me from my mission. It’ll be perfect.

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#the arcana #the arcana fanfic #reyja north #julian devorak #moth & raven

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cassandrium360 · 4 years

Text

A Million Miles Away

So I've always loved royalty stories, but one thing that's always bothered me is that the 'reluctant ruler' always ends up taking the throne. Well... what if they just weren't right for the role, and couldn't take the pressure? That's how this story was born.

Varian is a prince here, but his heart isn't in it, and Cass is his guard who's only been given the role because he fought for her. Hope you enjoy! Also, to be clear, Varian is near nineteen here!!

Varian slowly let out a breath he had kept locked in his chest far too long. He squeezed his eyes shut, focusing all his attention on the slow drawl of his breaths. One after the other, in a rhythmic sort of way. He let the cool darkness relax him for a moment. Here, he could almost pretend he was alone. Like things were normal. Free.

A thud sounded from the room he stood in all too quickly, bringing him back to where he stood surrounded by servants. He glanced over to where one of them was busy picking up a tray of pins they had knocked over in their hasty preparations. In all honesty, Varian didn’t know why they were working so fervently, after all, the ball wouldn’t be for hours, right?

He was drawn from his thoughts once more by the soft clearing of a throat, the man standing to his right motioning for him to lift his arm to the side. Varian did as he was told, sighing as he felt the quick motions of the needle putting the finishing pieces onto his outfit. His gaze flicked over to the window, and not for the first time he wished someone would open it.

The room felt suffocatingly hot, and him having stood in place for the batter part of an hour did nothing to satiate that. The dull sunlight of late afternoon lazily flickering through the sparse tops of some rich pine trees. These were the times when he envied the guards and servants. True, they may not have had as much freedom as most, but it was still leagues more than him. They were free to walk the grounds unattended whenever they pleased, to chase any dream that called out to them without a thought back.

The girl who had knocked over the tray then stepped in front of him, obscuring his view of the outside world entirely. She began working on his hair, no doubt trying to tame the unruly mess he knew it to be. He watched as she pulled out a few sizes of combs, continuing her musings.

He vaguely heard the snap of the thread being broken, signalling the end of the incessant work on his suit. He rested his aching arm back down at his side, smiling slightly as his appearance was finally deemed acceptable.

He offered them all a smile on their way out, it falling from his face the minute the deep oak door thudded shut. He was finally alone, which seemed an increasingly rare occurrence these days. He moved slightly towards his bed, considering just throwing himself onto it. He slowly let out a bated breath, thinking better of damaging the appearance the castle’s servants had worked so hard to create.

Varian let his eyes run aimlessly around the large room, finally allowing them to rest on the mirror standing in the corner. He carefully made his way over to it, frown deepening as he took in the sight painted before him. The suit was grand, his hair was perfect.... but the person he saw standing before him was entirely unknown to him. His gaze widened as his eyes traced up the length of the stiff fabric to his hair.

His hairstripe. They had pinned it back, or more specifically, beneath the other ‘normal’ parts of his hair. The one thing about his appearance he thought no one could change, try as they might to hide it.

Varian’s shoulders lowered, his eyes moving to the ground, noticing nothing as they landed there. He was a fraud. They wanted a prince who would love these customs. Who would stand as tall as they asked him to. Who didn’t need to be hidden beneath layers of delicately crafted lies to be impressive.

He clenched his fists, pushing back the soft tears that nodded at the back of his eyes, unwilling to let them fall. “I’m sorry father,” he whispered to himself, bringing his arms to wrap around his torso. Why couldn’t he just be the strong leader his people deserved? He didn’t even know why he was crying! Over a hairstyle? Over a little annoyance like having to be dressed? The king would shake his head in shame if he could see him like this. And for good reason too, Varian deserved his father’s disapproval. His heart wasn’t in this, and the kingdom, his father, knew it. After all, his words from a few weeks awhile still rang true...

——

Varian coughed slightly, waving away the small cloud of smoke that has resulted from an overheated test tube before him. “Alright,” he spoke to himself, “Lower the temperature... maybe a little less sulphur?” he breathed, hastily scribbling those thoughts into his notebook.

The spark of the flame as a new test tube was rested above it reflected in his eyes as he carefully lifted a cut slice of the metal to add to his experiment. He moved his face back as he released the chemical, mentally crossing his fingers that it wouldn’t trigger an explosion this time; the last thing he needed was the guards he knew lurked just beyond the door to burst in here.

He pumped his fist in the air as the metal easily dissolved, the colour moving to a slightly darker one as it did. “Finally!” He said, excitedly marking the experiment as a success on the long worn paper. He couldn’t contain the smile on his face, eyes sparkling with new ideas to test with his compound with as he moved to his shelf, eyes scanning the labels for what he needed.

The door opened suddenly, the noise startling Varian slightly, pulling him from his plans for a second. “Oh, father,” he said, his smile leaching into his voice. “You wouldn’t believe it! The compound I’ve been trying to crack for weeks, it finally progressed! Turns out all I needed was a little more...” his ramblings were cut off by a raise of the king’s hand.

Varian dropped his hands to his sides at his father’s disinterest, looking up at the older man for what he had to say that was important enough for him to come down to Varian’s lab in the middle of the day. He could count the times his father had had entered there on his hands, despite him spending countless hours there since he had been a small child.

“Son, you’re eighteen now. In a few years you’ll be ready to take the throne.” He began, voice leaving no room for questioning. Something Varian guessed would prove useful as king. “The guard informed me of some... accidents that happened down here.”

Varian opened his mouth to assure his father they were nothing, but was cut off once again by his father’s outstretched hand. “You’re far too reckless, Varian. Don’t you think our people deserve a king who dedicates his time to learning ways to help them rather than silly projects like this?” he said, gesturing slightly to the room before him.

“But that’s the thing, dad! These experiments can help your people! If you would just give me a little more time to...” he said, all excitement ended by his father heavily resting his hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. Varian drew his eyes nervously up to meet his father’s stern gaze, fearing the disappointment he knew he would find there.

“I’ve allowed you far too much time out into this already. It’s time for you to grow up; take your future seriously, and our peoples’ future as well. No more distractions.” Quirin finished, turning to make his way back out of the room.

——

Varian remembered the feeling that had clawed at his chest at those words. He hadn’t cried. He knew he didn’t deserve to. What his father said felt like a knife shoved into his side, but he couldn’t debate the truth they wielded.

He remembered falling to the floor, world spinning, as the words slammed through his mind over and over again. His chest had shaken, but no tears came, and for that he had been glad. What his father said had opened a wound he had fought so long to ignore, and one that he hadn’t been able to since.

He would be a terrible king. The people deserved someone who would rule them with fairness and passion. Someone who deserved the life of luxury handed to him. Someone entirely like his father, and just the opposite of him. Yet here he was, sculpted into the image of a perfect prince that he would never have been able to attain on his own. He was a fraud.

A knock sounded at his door, the firm rasp bringing him from his thoughts quickly. “Sir, the guests are waiting on your entrance.” Came an unfamiliar voice from beyond his sight.

Varian quickly scrubbed any remaining fragments of tears from his eyes, “Just a moment,” he said, voice wavering despite his best efforts to steady it. He stole one last glance into the mirror, taking in his red eyes and perfect clothes. “Come on Var, be the king they deserve.”

He strode confidently, or as close of a semblance as he could muster, over towards the edge of his room. He could do this. Despite how much it hurt, he could put aside his passions for his people. He could study hard, work with his father, become worthy of the crown he would soon be handed. One step at a time.

If he repeated those words long enough, maybe they’d somehow come true.

——

Sooner than he would’ve liked, Varian found himself standing before the entrance to the ballroom. He had been here dozens of times before; the elaborate oak doors would be pushed aside, and he would come in at the top of a grand set of stairs at the head of the room.

He knew exactly what to expect, yet he still found himself trying to slow the breaths that always seemed to speed up before events like this. He knew that hundreds of eyes would fall on him alone the second that barrier was removed, it should have gotten easier by now, but perhaps it would be something he’d never adjust to.

Varian allowed himself to shut his eyes for a moment, steeling himself for the night ahead as he heard the announcer introduce him. This was it; too late to run. He forced himself to draw in a deep breath, however hasty it may have been. He was meant to be a model of confidence, reassuring to all in attendance... yeah, right. He just had to get past the entrance.

The doors were pushed aside by men in suits much more simple than the one he wore, and he took a shaky step forward, the light of the party pouring out over his thin frame as he came to the top of the stairs. He opened his eyes, all noise ceasing as the nobility crowding the room turned to face him.

Varian felt his heart begin to quicken, breaths clawing to get out his chest, yet only shallow ones would come. He pulled at the edge of his jacket nervously, forcing his vision to remain steady despite the hundreds of colours blurring indistinguishably together. He could feel the hundreds of eyes rested upon him, boring into him as he stood there.

His mind screamed at him, a mix of fears and rules slamming together in a wave of thoughts that he couldn’t think enough to understand at the moment. He had to do something. He urged himself to take a step forward, towards the crowd, but he found his feet unmoving. His eyes darted around the room at such a speed he couldn’t process anything he was seeing, until finally, they landed on the familiar face of his father towards the edge of the crowd.

Guilt crashed into his chest, knocking any breath that had been held there previously far away from his grasp. Not knowing what else to do, Varian ran.

He turned, ignoring the protests of the doormen, running as fast as his burning legs and aching chest would carry him back down the dark corridor. He ran through the halls at a speed he hadn’t known he was able to, finding himself unable to breathe within the suffocating walls of the palace.

He noticed a large glass door, shoving it out of his way with as much force as he could, relishing in the sudden cool of the night air pressing against his skin.

He took in a deep breath of the air that was far from stuffy, leaning into the rail of the balcony he had stepped on to. His head pounded as he stood there, looking out at the palace grounds below. He looked over to the palace wall; the walls in which he had lived his life, and felt tears come to his eyes much more quickly than they had before.

The hot tears poured down his face, shaking his chest with the silent sobs as they did. His ribs pressed hard against the carved stone. He couldn’t do this. Live this lie that he had convinced himself he was cut out for. He couldn’t pretend he was what the people wanted - needed -, couldn’t force himself to become what his father wanted. He wanted freedom. From the guards, the servants, from the pressure he couldn’t bear any longer.

He rested for a moment, revelling in the still night air surrounding him, gently rustling his still styled hair. He felt his heart rate slow as he stood there, his sobs softening into streams of tears which he didn’t care to control. Varian watched as they dripped onto his hands, gripping the railing as if it were a lifeline.

He heard the door hit lightly against the wall as someone stepped out onto the balcony, no doubt sent to return him to the ball. His blurry gaze remained on his hands as he heard soft footsteps trailing closer to him.

“Evening, your royal highness,” she said lightly, moving to stand next to him, “That was some entrance you made back there.”

“Cassie.” His shoulders released an unknown tension as he realized it was her, rather than some other guard. His frown only deepened however, “Have you ever...” he began, shaking his head to cut himself off. He wasn’t sure he had words to describe what he was feeling anyway.

“Have I ever...?” She prompted, lightly bumping her shoulder against his as she waited for him to speak. Varian would never be able to express his gratitude to her for their friendship. She didn’t treat him as if he were leagues away from her as the other workers in the palace did, and she never pushed him to speak quickly as his father did. She simply let him... exist. Whatever way he wanted to.

“Have you ever felt... trapped?” He said, teary voice breaking on the last word. He watched her pause for a moment at that, and almost regretted saying it. It was dumb, she wasn’t held by pressures the same way he was, he should never have even asked. But he trusted her opinion, and couldn’t bring himself to retract it.

“I did. For a long time. Until you changed that,” she said, glancing towards the star dotted sky hanging high above them. “You fought for my place here. No one would... I was trapped by their expectations of me; of what I should be - not exactly the lady everyone hoped for - and because of that, they thought they knew who I was, what I could do.” She said, breathing out a heavy sigh at that. “You changed all of that. Heck, I’m surprised you didn’t get disowned, stepping out of place like that, demanding the guard give me a shot… I’m not sure how many people see who I really am, but at least one scrawny scientist does.”

She turned to face him at that, a soft smile pulling at her lips as she swiftly pulled the pins out of his hair, blue stripe falling in front of his eyes in one motion.

Varian couldn’t help but let out a breathy laugh at that, tight smile on his lips too as he lifted his eyes to finally meet hers. A scientist. He never thought being called something other than what he was could feel so... freeing. His heart leapt at the thought of what could be possible if it were true, if he wasn’t destined to be prince.

That thought didn’t last long though as he saw another set of guards pass by the open door, the harsh light of the hallway spilling out into the night, “Thank you, I’m just- I can’t...” he trailed off, voice breaking as he spoke. He couldn’t do this any longer. Tonight he would leave. Leave the castle, leave this life, everything. For good.

Cass simply squeezed his shoulder, offering him a reassuring smile, “I better get back to the party before they notice I’m missing; take your time coming back,” she said, slowly turning back towards the palace.

“Goodbye, Cassie,” he whispered, and if she faltered slightly at that, Varian didn’t notice.

——

Varian’s vision was blurred, tears trailing down his face. His chest shook slightly, refusing to fully give in to the sobs that threatened to overtake him. The teardrops fell onto his shaking hands as he quickly shoved some clothes into a cloth bag.

This decision was the only one he had ever been sure of. He should feel relieved, he would be passing his duties as prince off to someone who would do them justice, would be able to help the people better than he could ever dream of. But he felt only fear moving through his veins with each slam of his heart against his chest.

He didn't have a plan. Didn't know where to go, what to say. The rational part of his brain told him to wait, to bother thinking this through. But Varian quickly shoved that notion aside. He couldn't stand the pressure the crown pushed against his head for another day. Leaving it behind would be the best for everyone.

He set down the shirt he held in his grasp. “I’m doing the right thing,” he whispered, tears slowing at the words. Not an ounce of him doubted it, which was strange for an over thinker like him. He let his breathing flow back to normal as he paused for a moment. He was finally free of the lie he had worn for so long.

His eyes shot open at the sound of his door handle clicking, Varian furiously rubbing the trails of tears in a desperate vie to make them disappear as he whirled around to face the noise. His heart spiked for a moment as he subconsciously stepped in front of the bag he had been packing, belongings strewn about beside it.

“Where are you going?” Cass said, voice less confused than Varian had expected as she spoke. She gestured to the mess behind him, eyes concerned as they ran over his reddened face.

He shouldn't have been surprised it was her; it was always her. That, and the fact that no one else would dare step into his room without being invited first. He had always been glad that she ignored formalities when everyone else had their gaze turned. It made him feel like he could break free of the string that held him back.

Varian shook his head, quickly jumping back into the conversation at hand. “Cass! Uh- nowhere. Just, y’know, a bit of cleaning!” He motioned to the science supplies set gently on his silk pillow, “Getting rid of this stuff, focusing more, just like dad said!”

He pursed his lips at the way his sentences had all rushed together, words stumbling into each other in a clumsy manner. He glanced up at her, the expression highlighted by her raised brows confirming his suspicions that she had seen right through him. Maybe he had just gotten used to letting her see past his front.

“You’re a horrible liar, hairstripe,” she said, crossing the space between them. The slight smile dropped off her face as she continued, “So that’s what this is about? Your dad?”

He shut his eyes, turning his head away from her. The room fell silent for a long moment, the only sound being Varian’s heartbeat, which overwhelmed his ears the longer he stood.

“I can’t.” His voice cracked at the small truth, tears slowly growing behind his eyelids. “I’m, I’m just not cut out to be king. I’m wrong for this- all of it! I can’t just stay here locked in this… this cage-” His eyes all too quickly flew open as he threw his arm out to the room in front of him, “-until I screw up so badly it can’t be fixed.”

A beat passed as Cass rested her hand on his shoulder gently. “I don't want this life. It isn’t me,” he said, voice lowering into a whisper as he finally dragged his light blue eyes up to meet hers.

She took a step back from him, moving over to cast a glance out the large window across the room. Varian wiped at his eyes once again, the space next to him feeling cold in her absence. His heart skipped as he watched her, hoping she wasn't about to stop his plan before it began. A small part of him nagged he could trust her more than that, but his tired mind couldn't focus on that in the moment.

“The ball’s ending, guards are still posted outside,” she said, carefully pushing the thick red curtain aside as she peered down to the courtyard below. “They’ll be off duty just before dawn, we’ll leave then,” she said definitively, finally moving to face him.

“We?” he asked, mind still racing to piece together her words.

She smiled towards him, “You think I’m going to let you go on this adventure without me?”

Varian’s heart swelled at her words. He allowed himself to breathe in the relief at the prospect of not taking this journey alone for a second, before quickly snapping back into the present. He forcefully shook the thought from his mind, guilt already piling onto him for considering it. “I can’t let you do this, Cassie,” he said, voice too quiet. He let out a shaky breath, “You have a whole life here, you can’t just throw that away.” He cut himself off before the ‘for me” could slip past his lips.

She rolled her eyes at that, the usual commitment behind the action missing. “I’m barely a low ranking guard. Even the new recruits get more responsibilities than me. They only…” she trailed off, eyes shining as she shook her head. She turned her attention to her glove, tugging at the edge of the dark fabric as she gathered her next sentence. “Wherever we end up, I’ll find a guard that lets me earn my place.”

Varian could feel his resolve crumbling as she spoke, guilt dripping away as quickly as it had appeared. She wanted this too. Maybe they were more similar than he had thought before tonight. “But your dad-” he started weakly, digging the toe of his boot into the carpet beneath it.

“-Will be fine,” she finished, “I’ll explain in a note, he’ll be glad I’m chasing my destiny. Besides,” She stepped closer to him, “There’s no rule saying we can’t eventually come back. Who knows where our path’ll lead.”

Varian smiled up at her, this one genuine as it poured into his eyes, moving in the place tears had been not long before. This would be a new beginning. One both of them had been waiting years for.

“Now finish packing. I’ll meet you back here at first light,” she said, taking a step towards the still open door, flickering torch light signalling the way.

“Cassie?” he said, causing her to pause for a breath. “Thank you.” He pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, nervous smile still more genuine than he had worn in as long as either of them could remember. Their eyes remained connected for longer than either fully realized, both wordlessly sharing dreams of their new path, glad to have someone to travel it with.

“Any time, your highness.” Her lips wore a soft smile as she slipped back down the hallway.

#tangled the series #cassarian #varian #tts #rta #tangled #rapunzel's tangled adventure #cassandra #royalty au

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vagrantblvrd · 4 years

Text

That FAHC/vaguely Animal Crossing AU that starts out all Dark and Tragic with like.

The crew in ~turmoil after Geoff’s escape plane goes down over the water during one of their utterly overdramatic heists?

(Or worse, he was flying in a surprise birthday present for Jack? (Man loves his planes and Geoff got him a shiny new one, but then TRAGEDY.)

They never found a body so the crew insists he’s still out there somewhere, right?

Send out search parties and the whatnot until Trevor tells them they have to focus on keeping their grip on Los Santos, let the search go to B-Team.

And they do? All these shenanigans and heists and whatnot and at some point they use a plane or chopper and that one goes down over the water never to be seen again along with its pilot and whatever passengers?

Same deal with Geoff in there are no bodies and are assumed to be missing and after some time spent looking for them the search is handed over to B-Team and they carry on.

At this point the media pick up on the fact certain key members of the crew are missing/haven’t been seen in a while and it becomes a Thing.

Rumors saying it’s a coup from within or whatever and the Fakes are taking each other out? Far more viciously than they’ve been with rivals and enemies and that’s an entirely new Thing they have to deal with.

After a while the last bunch of the main crew are out doing a trial run for an upcoming heist? (One they’re not all that keen on because it’s not the same anymore, but hey. One last heist before they fuck off wherever, right?)

And wouldn’t you know it, the plane/chopper goes down over the water.

No one’s thrilled what with the near-death experience of it all, but they stick together using bits of the plane/chopper some of its cargo to float ashore on this island none of them noticed before? (Or if they did, didn’t think much of it because uninhabited and not much to get excited about?)

Realize they’re stranded and have to build shelter/whatever else because the sun’s setting and it’s winter and temperatures are dropping. (Not to like. Freezing to death levels but super uncomfortable and it’d be nice to not get sick after the crash and all?)

And then!

As they’re out foraging they smell smoke - a fire? Something like roasting meat and are - legitimately so - WTF??? and go to investigate.

What do they find but a bunch of little huts and shanties and the whatnot and also the missing crew members.

Geoff in a eye-searing Hawaiian shirt (he got a bunch of new ones for Jack along with the plane) and floppy sun hat with a hollowed out pineapple filled with some form of fruit juice goodness. Garnished with bits of fruit and lovingly handmade paper umbrella and hideously 80s sunglasses.

Everyone else is likewise decked out in horrible clothing and sipping their drinks and like, “Oh, hey, guys!” :DDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Turns out they all washed up on this island and Geoff managed to repair the radio from the plane he crashed but his calls never got to the crew? And he’s ~stranded, sure, but in need of a vacation at the time of the crash because Kingpin-ing is hard, you guys.

Figured it’d be a matter of time until someone found him/he finished fixing the plane up but until then why not enjoy things?

And then more and more of the crew washed up and they were just like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and started building their own abode.

With the last of the main crew on the island everyone realizes the media and cops and whoever think the crew turned on one another and what a good way to retire?

Like.

No need to fake their deaths or whatever they were going to do if everyone thinks they already did, so!

They fix up a radio and get a call through to B-Team and Trevor and tell them what’s going on and while he’s like are you fucking kidding me when he finds out they’ve all be fine and dandy all this time and also, hey, quit the whole life of crime deal?

He also realizes they’ve got a point because the cops and whoever are somehow totally clueless.

Uses crew resources and shell companies and the whatnot to buy the island and it’s closest neighbors outright to make sure the island crew aren’t accidentally discovered.

Arranges regular shipments/air drops of supplies until he goes out in a ~blaze of glory one day, you know?

Drives his car off a pier and presumed drowned although there was a boat waiting to ferry him to the crew’s new island paradise because he’s had enough of being in charge for a while? (Figures if he gets the itch to crime again he can do a comic book-style resurrection and all that.)

Also/or, the same thing only without the Dark and Tragic bit with Getting in contact with the crew after his crash and telling them he’s retiring and hey, feel free to stop by?

And so the crew fakes their deaths in increasingly ridiculous ways because crime isn’t as fun without the full array of crazies to plan shit and all that.

Because reasons.

#ragehappy #ridonkulous au #fahc/ac au v2.0 #¯\_(ツ)_/¯#technically not a fic #vagrant fic

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fantastic-bby · 3 years

Text

One In A Million (Teaser)

Teaser details

Pairing: (F)Reader x Changbin (ft housemates Felix and Jisung)

Teaser word count: 1.9k

Genre: Fluff | Romance | Mermaid!Reader | College student!Changbin | 3rd POV

Warnings: Cigarette use (Changbin) | Mentions of marijuana usage | Changbin almost drowns

Publish date of full fic: 5th April

Overall word count: 14.7k

Masterlist

“Fucking Felix,” he curses as he pulls his phone out of his pocket.

Binnie: Did you put something in my cigarettes? [03:54]

Lixie the weedie: No??? Why would I touch your cigs? [03:55]

Changbin’s phone buzzes twice in his pocket and he pulls it out once again.

Sungie: Come back inside D:< You’re gonna catch a cold if you’re out there any longer [04:00]

Binnie: The cigs keep me warm [04:00]

Sungie: I’m locking the door if you don’t come back in 5 minutes [04:03]

Binnie: Fuck you [04:03]

Sungie: Attached image (1)

Binnie: I’ve accepted the love meme and I will be returning shortly <3 [04:05]

“I’m back,” Changbin announces as he steps into the small house and kicks his shoes off. Jisung pops his head out from the living room to look at him.

“Lix and I are playing Super Smash Bros., do you wanna join?”

"Our professor cancelled," he replies with a shrug as Jisung starts another round of the game. "I only have classes after lunch, so I'm not too worried about it."

“Still,” Changbin chuckles. Unlike Changbin, Felix and Jisung somehow have more filled schedules than he does despite how they’re only entering their second year and Changbin’s already graduating soon. They’re always saying they have work they need to do when they’re doing pretty much anything else but their assignments.