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le-fruit-de-la-passion · 10 months

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Two Hours - Chapter 1 - Shigaraki x Reader

***

Maybe, just maybe, some things might be worth waiting for.

***

Two hours.

He was late by a full two hours. Meaning 120 minutes, 2700 seconds, 7200000 precious milliseconds wasted of your life. You'd know, you counted.

You glared at the library clock again, as if it was its fault you had been stood up. Disgruntledly, you pushed back your chair, getting up to put your laptop and revision materials back in your bag. It was the last time you'd try and help a stranger because clearly, strangers sucked.

You had done tutoring for different classes since your second year in college. Literature, philosophy, anthropology, history- name it, you could teach it. And you loved doing it like few other things made you happy. Was there anything as wonderful as showing others the beauty of human nature, its creativity, its passion, its sincerity?

"Sincerity my ass," you thought, angrily shoving your backpack on one shoulder. It clunked loudly as it bumped against a wooden shelf, and the librarian threw you a dirty look from the other side of the room. Part of you felt bad; you had spent a while trying to cultivate a good relationship with the older man, since you spent most of your free time in the library. But the rest of you, which was to say almost all of you, didn't care, because you were unbelievably frustrated.

You had had students give you tons of excuses before: they were sick, their mom was sick, their neighbors' dog was sick, and they just had to skip the tutoring session. You didn't mind that; they'd always text at least an hour in advance, and you'd have the time to read their message and go home with a smile, instead of walking all the way to the library.

But today's guy was different. You knew he had your number and your email address: it was part of the tutoring agreement you had both signed online. And yet he hadn't had the decency, the respect, to send a single message to tell you he couldn't come to the two-hour appointment he himself scheduled. And now, you had just wasted two hours, excitedly waiting to expose the wonders of literature to a guy who couldn't even bother to text you "can't come".

You gave the librarian a half-hearted nod of apology and headed toward the big glass doors at the front of the building. The weather looked moody outside, the sky grey and heavy like rain could start pouring at any moment. You didn't need to check your bag to know you didn't pack an umbrella. It was clear this was one of the days.

Sighing, you opened the heavy door to walk out at the same moment a man pushed to get in. You tucked your body to the side to keep the door open for him, but he flatly ignored the gesture, walking past you without uttering a "thank you".

"Yup," you thought, "strangers suck."

Before you could take more than a few steps outside, a droplet of water fell right on top of your nose, stopping you in your tracks. And then another, and another, and in a flash, the area was getting flooded, puddles already forming around on the dark asphalt. You couldn't help as another sigh escaped you, bracing for the impact of the freezing rain as you took a step forward into the tempest.

Then, something grabbed you by the shoulder.

You yelped in surprise and turned around, fists instinctively bunching up to your chest to protect yourself, heart racing. It took you a few seconds to recognize the rude guy who had just passed you on his way in.

He was tall, taller than you had first realized. His oversized hoodie made it hard to gauge his frame, the visibly worn-out fabric stretched shapelessly around his torso. Your eyes looked up for a face you couldn't find: the black hood fully obscured his features, and for a second, images of killers in horror movies alarmingly flashed through your mind.

You shoved yourself out of his grip and took a step back, eyes wide. He nonchalantly placed his hand back in his pocket, an unimpressed glare staring right back at you. His eyes were red, bright red.

"You're the tutor, right?"

You looked at the ominous figure incredulously.

"What ?"

"You're the tutor, right ?" he repeated in a low, raspy tone. He sounded annoyed.

You kept staring at him, wondering if he was speaking in a foreign language you had never heard of.

Then, his words started registering.

"Tomura..." you started uncertainly, the math adding up in your head as you remembered the name on the little manilla folder you had prepared for today, "Shigaraki ?"

A small smile etched itself onto the man's face, and you noticed how cracked his lips were, a faded scar going through the dried skin. Strands of slightly greasy hair, white as snow, rebelliously escaped the black hood, and for a second you caught another glimpse of his crimson eyes. But they disappeared back under the shadow of the fabric, and you realized your body had tensed like a rock.

"I'm the guy," he said nonchalantly, the hand you had pushed away going up to his neck and mindlessly scratching the skin there. There were marks there, some old, and others so fresh they looked like they were bleeding. Anxiously, you wondered if instead of a killer, you had stumbled on an addict.

"Hey, so when do we go get a seat inside? It's fucking cold out here," he added, gesturing lazily towards the library.

You kept staring.

And staring.

He hadn't possibly said what you thought he had just said. No one was so impossibly clueless and self-centered that they would come two hours late to a meeting and act like they were the one who was being bothered. But the cold rain falling down your face made it aboundedly clear: this was real.

"No," you finally said, enunciating the word slowly.

He looked as confused as you first did, the smug, composed look on his face instantly falling. He didn't look like he was told "no" often, and you felt the flame of anger start to burn inside you.

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean no," you replied drily, feeling confidence coursing back through your body. There was no doubt in your mind you already looked like a drowned rat from the rain, and that your waterproof mascara was starting to reach its limits. But you weren't about to be scared of some loser trying to look tough with a crusty hoodie and unwashed hair.

"You came two hours late for the tutoring, which lasts two hours. My work slot with you is from four to six, and it's exactly," you snapped, bringing your phone up to his face, "Ten past six, so my work here is done."

He stared at your phone in incomprehension, then back at you, irritation slowly settling on his pale features. His thin brows frowned, and you noticed another scar marring his right eyelid the piercing crimson stare bore into you. Maybe he was some kind of gang member, and if so, was it a good idea to mouth off to him?

"Look, I don't know what crawled up your ass, but I'm paying to have a tutor," he snarled drily. "That's not fair."

You had to wonder if you were even talking to an adult. So maybe he was a killer, or an addict, or a gang member, and he would end up stabbing you for it, but by God, were you going to put that guy back in place.

"Well, tough luck, buddy," you almost spat out, your usually level-headed patience entirely fizzled out, "it wasn't fair to make me wait two hours and then expect me to have nothing other to do in my life than tutoring your sorry ass. But life isn't fair, is it ?"

You turned around, throwing the man one last angry look: "If you want tutoring, then be there next week. On time."

You felt oddly proud of yourself as you walked away, leaving him wet and alone in the rain. And if you were slightly trembling at the feeling of the crimson stare boring through you all the way down the library path, well, you just had to pray he didn't notice it.

---

"Huh," you noted with both surprise and apprehension, "you're here."

And indeed, there he was, slumped in one of the library's chairs, the stranger you were certain wouldn't come to your meeting this week: Tomura Shigaraki.

You had spent a few days feeling bad about the way you had handled things; yes, he had been incredibly late and entitled, but you never gave him any time to explain himself for it all. Maybe he did have a good reason, and maybe he had only acted so entitled because he was having an especially rough day.

One look at the condescending glare he threw you was enough to confirm that wasn't the case.

"Yeah, I'm here," he muttered, looking away, his right hand still ripping away at his neck like the last time you had seen him. You couldn't help but wonder about the gesture, the practiced way his fingers would visibly carve into the skin. Allergies? Eczema?

His vermillion eyes never left your figure as you put your bag down and awkwardly sat across from him, looking down at the carpeted floors.

"Why are you that surprised ?" he added flatly, "I told you, I'm paying for this shit."

You weren't a confrontational person; or at least, you did your best to avoid confrontation. But you'd been tired last week, and his whole little disrespectful charade had pushed you over the edge. You weren't sure you were up to deal with it again.

Your lack of response seemed to irritate him; he picked up a small handheld console from his lap, immediately busying himself in a game like your presence held no meaning to him.

You took a small breath, not wanting your temper to rise again; if you wanted this to work, you'd need to be the first to give the olive branch. You put on a nice, professional smile: "Let's put everything to the side for a moment, start over. Maybe we could both introduce ourselves again ?"

His thumbs toyed with the joysticks on his handheld, disinterest palpable."Why? I know who you are."

You could have strangled him.

"Nevermind," you smiled so forcefully it hurt your cheeks. "So, you're here for Lit 3250, Absurdism in Literature. That's a fun class."

"I'm only taking it because I have to," he grumbled. "I'm in computer programming. They make us take a class in the humanities department because the education system is fucked."

You raised an eyebrow at that, genuinely surprised: "They're making you do literature in computer science ?"

He shrugged, his eyes going back to the game on the small screen with obvious boredom.

"Told you. The system is fucked."

You pulled out the little manilla file you had prepared for him from your bag, spreading a few documents on the table between the two of you. For a second, you could have sworn his bored expression flickered into something new, but it was gone before you could register it.

"Well, I might not be able to do much about that, but I can try and make the class easier," you smiled a little more genuinely this time as he put his handheld to the side to look at the papers you had slid in front of him.

To your complete astonishment, as you guided him through the material, the man listened, never once taking notes, yet able to answer any question you threw his way in the shortest, most concise way possible. He seemingly absorbed the information while looking wholeheartedly disinterested, like remembering the words was barely any more work than eating or breathing. You had to wonder if the programmer in him coded the sentences in his mind, imputing every word as little lines of binary code, or if he was just this naturally, annoyingly smart.

"Alright, that's it for today," you concluded, noticing you had gone over the material you had planned for two sessions in just the last two hours. "I didn't take you for the kind of guy to listen to a tutor, but you've done a really good job today."

You gave him an honest smile, hoping to finally mend the bridge from last weekend's incident. Instead, he promptly looked away, lips tightening into a thin line.

"S' just cause I need to pass the class to get my diploma. I don't really give a shit about any of this stuff."

If he saw your face fall at that, he didn't show it. He grabbed his handheld and shoved it in his front pocket, promptly throwing his ragged backpack over his shoulder, as if the last thing he wanted was to stay here a minute longer with you.

"I'll see you next week, then," you hesitantly said, more a question than a statement. He didn't look back at you when he spoke with a grunt, already making his way out.

"Whatever."

---

"So Camus' thing is society is fucked, and as soon as you realize it you gotta kill yourself, right ?"

"Basically !" you beamed excitedly, circling a paragraph in the text facing him with the tip of your finger. "It's the idea that when you understand your role as just a cog in the machine in a mindless daily life, you have to either ignore it to rejoin society, or leave society altogether."

A small smile danced on Shigaraki's chapped lips, as smug and mocking as all his smiles were. You sometimes wondered if his face could ever express pure, genuine happiness, or if it was perpetually stuck with that self-satisfied expression.

"Yeah, I can get behind that."

It fit him, in a strange way. And he had every reason to be pompous: in three weeks, you had both gone through double the material you had planned for his first sessions, as be blasted each lesson like a simple tutorial fight in one of the many video games you'd catch him play before each lesson.

"Me too, actually," you agreed.

He looked at you disbelievingly: "You? Feeling like you're not a part of society? Give me a break, you're a tutor in university, there's probably a normie award for that."

"Well, even us normies are really just always doing the same thing, aren't we ?" you explained, laying your chin against your hand pensively. "Take the two of us. We always meet here at four o'clock on Wednesdays, at the same library, at the same table. We don't go through the motions because we want to, we do it because we have to, and that's what everyone expects from us. Kinda makes you want to quit society too, doesn't it ?"

For a moment, he said nothing. There was something unsettling in the way his ruby eyes bore into you, like he was judging your very soul. You felt your cheeks unwillingly redden after a few seconds under his piercing stare, looking away in slight embarrassment. If a few weeks spent with him were enough to convince you he wasn't a serial killer, you still found yourself troubled whenever he'd look at you too long.

He finally seemed satisfied with whatever he found looking into you, eyes mercifully leaving your face before settling on something on the table.

"That's a Plus Ultra sticker," he commented flatly.

You followed his gaze to your cellphone, face down, the small video game logo barely visible on the cover. How had he even noticed it?

It wasn't that you were ashamed of gaming in your free time, but you knew for a fact the entire literature department bore a clear disdain for any media not printed onto pages. They laughed off anything else as childish and a waste of time. Needless to say, you had never shared that passion with anyone on campus before that moment.

But damn, did you love Plus Ultra.

You couldn't help but grin excitedly at him: "Oh wow, you play too !"

"Sometimes," he shrugged with obviously fake disinterest, his crimson eyes brighter than you had ever seen them before."It's not the best game or anything, but it's alright. I feel like the whole hero fantasy trope is kinda overplayed."

He suddenly clammed up, like he had just remembered who he was talking to. The classic sour, haughty look you had gotten to know reappeared on his face.

"I just didn't know any girls played that game," he mumbled.

And there he was, the asshole you had met on that first rainy day.

"Well," you replied drily, "I play, and I'm actually one of the top All Might players in the country."

His pale fingers tremored at that, the excited brightness that he was trying very hard to conceal back in his eyes. It was so childish it was almost endearing, in a way.

"Well, what a coincidence. I'm also a top All Might player, except I was in the world ranking, last time I checked," he bragged, nonchalantly picking at his fingernails. "Maybe I could teach you a thing or two later."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the implication of a "later", of a world where you would be together outside of the required tutoring time, seemed to dawn on him. He stammered wordlessly, red spreading like fire on his pale face. It was... a lot more endearing than you would have thought.

"F-forget it. That was stupid."

You couldn't help but soften at that. Maybe, underneath the dirty hoodie and the deadly glare, he was as timid and insecure as you felt he was. The lashing out, the quips, the bratty entitlement- were they all just a facade for a guy who genuinely didn't know how to interact with others?

"Well," you hummed, "maybe after you're done with your midterms you could come over to my dorm for a match. There's a big communal TV you can pair consoles with."

The cold, detached mask was back, but it was much harder to believe with the pink coloring that reached the very tip of his ears.

"Yeah, maybe."

---

A month passed before you encountered your first hurdle in your tutoring work with Shigaraki, in the form of a "CLOSED" sign glaring back at you from the library's glass doors.

"Damn it," you mumbled, opening up your phone to find an unread message from the faculty announcing a temporary shutdown. Shigaraki, who had taken up the habit of coming on time for your sessions, looked incredibly pissed.

"So the fuckers think they can send one email and be done with it ?" he angrily snapped, kicking the library's plexiglas door so harshly it made you flinch. You took a mental note to never do anything to find yourself on the wrong side of that kick.

"Well, we can reschedule for tomorrow!" you chirped. Perhaps he'd appreciate you trying to put a positive spin on the situation.

The look he gave you could have turned you into dust.

"I'm already here. And I'm busy tomorrow. I have important things to do."

Briefly, you wondered if by important things he meant staying home and gaming. The college's main campus wasn't very large, and in the few years you had studied here, you had never caught a glimpse of him once. He had the kind of dim presence one could easily forget, but if you had passed him before, you would have known.

"I think the law building lets you take rooms for study sessions, " you proposed.

He sighed, voice raspy with irritation. "It's full of pretentious assholes," he replied drily, "and it's almost a thirty minutes walk from here."

"You're kind of a pretentious asshole yourself", you thought silently. It was clear he wasn't going to help or do anything that required too much effort on his part. When Shigaraki wanted to be annoying, he was really annoying.

"You got a better option ?" you mumbled, frustrated.

He looked down at his shoes, suddenly silent. "Ah ha", you thought victoriously, "didn't think so".

Then, words you could have never expected came out of his mouth: "Yeah. Come to my place."

You looked at him incredulously. He looked as surprised as you did, like he wasn't the one who had just talked.

"I live like ten minutes from here," he explained hurriedly, glaring down at the asphalt like it might melt and swallow him whole, "it'll take way less time."

It wasn't as if you didn't know the guy at all, but to say you knew him enough to go to his house, alone, was a stretch.

Although you had been able to shake off your initial fear of him, you still felt something dark and looming in the way he carried himself. For as easy as it was to read him when he was embarrassed or caught off guard, the calculating, sharp gaze he seemed to judge the world with still left you at a loss. Even more so right now, when it was directed at you.

"Ok," you eventually said before you could decide against it. What was the worst that could happen?

At first, you hadn't had much reason to worry; you walked along the main streets that cornered the campus, still filled with quite a few students going about their business. But then, he took you into a small alleyway. And then another, and another, and another, to the point where you couldn't recognize what part of the city you were even in. The buildings you passed had gotten older and older the more you walked, most of the ones surrounding you were now decrepit and abandoned. They loomed over you and Shigaraki, fully blocking the sun, a claustrophobic maze of old bricks and concrete.

You realized that you had drifted closer to Shigaraki unconsciously, your shoulder almost brushing against his. But you couldn't bring yourself to move away, the simple proximity of someone you at least relatively knew reassuring to your mind.

If Shigaraki noticed, he said nothing, his long, lanky legs moving forward without hesitation. You took a moment to discreetly observe the man, his features more detailed now that you stood next to him. The scarring was much worse than you had first realized. It spread from the small glimpses of his forehead you could see behind strands of shaggy white hair, to the start of his chest hidden by his black shirt. In some spots, the skin looked dry, old; in others, it was like it had been freshly ripped apart by sharp and uneven nails. You had found it worrying for yourself, at first, when you thought he was some kind of junkie; but now you found yourself worrying over how much the bruising hurt him.

His hand protectively grabbed his neck when he noticed your staring, thin eyebrows frowning in annoyance.

"Before you ask, yes, I've tried creams and ointment and all that shit the doctors send you to buy at the drugstore. It doesn't work. I know I'm ugly, you don't need to rub it in."

A pang of guilt hit your chest. You didn't think before honestly replying: "I don't think you're ugly."

He looked at you coldly, any trace of friendliness gone: "You think you're real smart playing with me, don't you?"

"No, I mean it, I don't think you're ugly!" you hurriedly exclaimed. "Just, ok, look."

You quickly pulled back the sleeve of your shirt, showing him the inside of your forearm with insistence. His eyes narrowed suspiciously: "What the hell am I supposed to look at?"

"A scar," you replied, showing him the thin pale line that crossed your skin. "I got it as a kid when I fell from a tree in kindergarten. Oh, and I also have this one!"

You tugged at your pants to reveal a darker webbed mark on your ankle, the skin smoothed by time: "That one is really stupid, I got it from wearing heels three sizes too small at my high school prom and falling down a flight of stairs. And I also have this other one-"

"I get it !" he interrupted, frustrated. "Yeah, alright, you have some scars too, but it's not the same thing as me."

"I know it's not," you replied calmly. "I'm not trying to say it is. But... I don't think having scars makes me ugly. I think they show I've been through something, and I'm still here to tell the story. And I think you might have been through a lot, but you're still standing here with me. So... if you don't think my scars make me ugly, then you shouldn't think yours do."

He didn't reply, silently making his way forward. Had you made him feel angrier, or even embarrassed? In one last effort to get your point across, you added:

"I think they kind of make you like Eraserhead in Plus Ultra 3."

That made him stop right in his tracks.

"You...think I look like Eraserhead ?" he hesitantly asked.

You nodded, and his cheeks reddened slightly. He took a few seconds before letting out the next words:

"Don't laugh," he warned you, "or I'm leaving you here. You can just find your own way back or get murked in an alley for all I care."

You crossed your fingers, presenting them to him ceremoniously.

"I won't laugh. Promise."

"I actually decided to grow out my hair to look like him."

Cute.

That was the first word to come into your mind. Cute.

You quickly chased the very strange and unwelcome thought away, in case Shigaraki interpreted your pause as a laugh.

"Well," you replied, "when I was seventeen, I dyed my hair bright yellow to look like All Might. I think I definitely got the short end of the stick in the idea department. "

He laughed, honest to God laughed, a raspy and genuine sound that made something foreign in your chest tightened. You started laughing too, and soon, you were nothing but two giggling idiots in the absolute middle of nowhere.

"Guess you're not that smart after all, miss tutor," he commented with a smirk.

His eyes lingered on you for a moment too long, like he wanted to say something else, but ultimately chose against it. He continued walking without a word, and you followed him the rest of the way in companionable silence, never straying far from his side.

---

It was a bar.

Or rather, the remains of something that once was a bar. A dingy neon sign with the three-letter word hung precariously above the door, the large "B" flashing within an ounce of its life. The walls were covered in graffiti and grime, a suspiciously moldy smell seemingly emanating from the bricks themselves.

"You... live here?" you asked hesitantly as Shigaraki made his way towards the building with no hesitation.

"Yeah," he let out, head snapping back around and eyes narrowing defensively. "You have a problem with that?"

Yes, several, including the probability of being stabbed to death here and my remains being found in the back of a garbage truck.

"No, no problem," you said.

He answered that with a grunt. The small staircase that lead to the entrance creaked under his weight, and he pushed the front door open.

"Wait here," he commanded. It was clear the subject wasn't up for discussion, so you opted for nodding along. "I'll come get you when I'm done with something."

It was all starting to feel like a terrible idea. So what if he liked the same games you did and actually seemed to listen to you rant about literature? You barely knew anything else about him.

You knew he felt lost in society and rejected by the world. You knew his whole face would become red as a tomato anytime he felt embarrassed or flustered. You knew he would bite his lip in concentration when he played on his handheld, and that his leg would bounce up and down like a puppy's tail every time he got close to winning. You knew his eyes were unlike any you had seen before.

But what did you really know?

"You lost ?"

You spun around so fast you stumbled on your own feet, almost falling straight onto the dirty pavement.

The man standing in front of you had sneaked by so silently you had never registered his presence, even with how close he had gotten. He seemed very amused at the way you backed away in fear, your eyes wide.

"No, no I'm fine, I'm- I'm waiting for a friend, actually," you managed to stammer out.

Somehow, he didn't look like he believed that at all.

He was the picture-perfect example of men your parents had told you to stay away from. His skin was covered in dark tattoos, their shapes incomprehensibly mingled with what appeared to be burn scars, seemingly spreading all over his body. In the dark, one could mistake him for a walking corpse, blue eyes glistening unnaturally in the middle of a patchwork face.

The man dragged his cigarette across his lips, letting a dark puff of smoke escape.

"What a friend, making you wait outside in the cold," he commented, the burnt and inked skin around his mouth moving in a manner you could only describe as uncanny. "Pretty stupid of you to hang out with people from here, princess. Lots of creeps in the area."

He moved closer, so close you could smell the tobacco off his breath, and the instinctive need to run coursed through your body.

"No need to be scared though," he let out with a smirk that screamed the absolute contrary. "I can stay with you for a while. Protect ya."

He was too close for you to run, now; if you tried, he could easily grab you with the large hand that was nonchalantly making its way toward your waist.

"Dabi."

Your head spun towards the entrance at the same time as the man's did. Relief spread through your body at the sight of Shigaraki, standing in front of the door where he had left you. His crimson gaze, which usually never left your form alone for more than a few seconds, was not focused on you, but on the stranger, who looked back at you with an utterly flabbergasted expression. Whoever he was, Shigaraki wasn't happy to see him.

"That's your friend ?" the stranger snorted as he started laughing uncontrollably, like he had just heard the funniest joke in his life. "Holy shit, you're even dumber than I thought you were !"

Clearly, Shigaraki did not find that funny in the slightest. You had forgotten how cold his expression had been when you first met him, uncaring and eerie. This was that, but colder, angrier, like the ripples that started forming in the water as a devastating storm would approach.

"Dabi," he repeated, and his tone was dark, final. For the first time in weeks, you felt something akin to fear at the sight of him, even knowing his anger wasn't directed at you. Had he always looked so unnervingly intimidating?

"Ok, ok, she's all yours, boss," the man finally said as he backed away, dropping the butt of his cigarette before unceremoniously stomping it. "Didn't mean to touch the property."

Tomura silently walked towards you, a rigid, cold hand forcefully grabbing yours and pulling you towards him. He headed back in, fingers so tightly clutched against yours that it hurt, and you followed without protest. You threw one last look at the man he called Dabi, a look of pure amusement on his face.

"Property", he had said.

The innards of the bar were much cozier than the outside view let on. It was relatively well kept, with a red counter with a few retro-style stools occupying the majority of the space, the leftover corner dedicated to an old leather couch facing a battered TV. With no windows on the walls, the only light came from a few yellowish neons hanging on the ceiling. The room was empty except for the well-dressed man behind the counter, who you could only assume was the bartender. He merely nodded at your arrival, his face obscured by a cloud of dark hair in the dim light, what you could discern of his body barely a shadow against the wall of bottles.

Shigaraki ignored him, pointedly dragging you to a door at the back, which lead to a small, dark corridor. He only stopped when he reached the last door, swiftly turning the rusty knob.

It wasn't difficult to understand it was his bedroom; the only light came from the double monitor screen connected to an impressive gaming PC. With the exception of a few shelves filled to the brim with trinkets and figurines, the walls were mostly bare, the white coat of paint discolored and yellowed. Visibly dirty clothes were pilled up in a corner, as if someone had hurriedly picked them up for the floor and tossed them there in an unsuccessful attempt to conceal them.

"Sit anywhere," he grumbled, looking away. "Or don't. Whatever."

He was even worse at hiding his blush than he was at hiding his clothes. You couldn't help but smile.

There were only two spots you could sit in the room: the expensive-looking gaming chair, which was clearly the most valuable item in the entire bar, or the messy one-person bed, which seemed to not have seen a washing machine in a while. The last thing you wanted was to anger Shigaraki after the encounter with the man outside, so sitting in his gaming chair seemed like a bad idea. You opted for the bed, praying to God the sheets naturally looked so patchy and discolored.

"W-what the fuck are you doing?" he sputtered immediately as you sat, eyes wide.

"Sitting," you replied simply.

"Not there! Are you stupid or something?" he audibly cringed. Damn it, you had made the wrong call. "Just sit on the floor. It's not dirty or anything, Kurogiri cleaned it recently."

You glanced doubtfully at the impressive amount of energy drinks and used tissues littering the room before lowering yourself down out of fear of seeming rude. Briefly, you wondered if Kurogiri was the man you saw mend to the bar. He looked nothing like Shigaraki, and referred to him far too politely to be family. He was too young to be his father either way. Was he both the bartender and the housekeeper?

"But why would Shigaraki have a housekeeper?", you wondered silently

"The guy outside, Dabi," you finally said. "He called you boss."

Shigaraki didn't even bother turning around to answer flatly: "And ?"

"Do you... own this place?"

"Something like that. Here."

He handed you a controller you immediately recognized, your hands automatically wrapping themselves around it just like with the one you had spent countless hours playing with at home. Shigaraki smirked slightly at the sight of you already being ready for combat.

"So, spill it out. What's your tragic backstory ?" you asked, leaning your back to the wall with a mischievous smile.

"What ?" he replied, seemingly caught off guard.

"C'mon," you pressed. "I've never seen you wear anything other than a black hoodie over a black shirt and black sweatpants. You're not subtle about it."

"I don't think you've unlocked that dialogue option yet," he retorted, with more than a hint of sarcasm in his tone. "How about you? What's your tragic backstory ?"

You chuckled: "What makes you think I have one?"

"You'd have to be a little fucked up to follow some guy you barely know into a shady bar in the middle of an abandoned factory district," he replied, raising an eyebrow, a wicked smile on his lips.

You couldn't help but smile at that; he was right. "Well, I don't think you've unlocked that yet either, Shigaraki."

"Just call me Tomura," he offered, a touch of resignation in his voice. Was he finally warming up to you? "Might as well if I'm stuck with you for the rest of the semester."

Maybe not. But something felt oddly nice about this, about him, and no matter how weird it all was, you couldn't help but let yourself bask in the strange feeling.

The computer let out a familiar little tune as the game booted up on the screen. Shigaraki visibly hesitated between sitting on his own chair or the floor, ultimately selecting the floor while keeping a reasonable distance from you. You had a feeling he wasn't very comfortable with women. But what he may have lacked in social skills, he definitely made up in gaming: his eyes burnt with fiery passion as the title screen appeared on the monitor, his hands tight around the controller. The look he threw you was one of pure confidence:

"C'mon. Show me what you're made of."

He immediately selected All Might in the character selection, implicitly daring you to do the same. All Might was the most powerful character in all the game, but he was famously the hardest one to master, with his controls requiring intense speed and dexterity. You could tell Shigaraki hadn't been lying about being one of the greatest All Might players; his fingers were already lined up on the buttons for a noticeably hard deadly combo. But you weren't one to back down on a challenge.

"5 rounds. No bonus power-ups," you smiled right back at him, pressing the button to also select All Might. The screen flashed red as the game loaded the fighting arena.

"You're playing a pretty dangerous game, you know that, player two ?" he commented, a hint of warning in his tone.

"I don't intend on losing," you replied with a grin.

And if the wild spark in his eyes meant anything, neither did he.

#hewwo #This work has been sitting in my drafts for SO long I cant even tell you #All of it is almost fully written #so the other two chapters will be released soon #it will also be on ao3 for all my sweethearts over there once the website is back up #thank you so much for reading ❤❤❤#bnha shigaraki #bnha x reader #shigaraki tomura #tomura shigiraki x reader #mha shigaraki #my hero academia shigaraki #shigaraki x reader #this work will be E rated in the next two chapters ❤

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todayisafridaynight · 5 months

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they were out of line for this. by the way.

#snap chats #LIIIIIIIIKKKKKEEEE STOP YOU BETTER STOP #reminded myself to make this post after that other ask..... heh...#i feel like i did call attention to this before. 🧍‍♂️ idk i think about it a lot..#too late lamers im doing it again because it still makes me scream and want to eat metal #this family is disgustingly intertwined with each other im going to throw up #like the more obvious parallel with ichi and the arakawas is him going out for new years dinner with arakawa. or attempting to #buuuuuttt this one is almost shot-for-shot the same bit and its OUGH. STOP. im GOING insane #theyre fam whether they like it or not </3 #wahh...... lad8 come soon i wanna see these two's relationship progress. or whatever weird situation it'll be in #i wonder why jo even points ichi to akane... is it to REALLY close that chapter of their lives for good ?#is it some feeling of responsibility for what happens to ichi now that arakawa's gone ?#is it guilt for keeping ichi from the truth of his birth parents for this long ? wowzers...#ok bye im gonna go be sick elsewhere

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yukipri · 3 months

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Finished responding to all previous chapter comments, and am currently doing my final editing run of the next chapter of the Prime Override!

Hoping to update publicly tonight...!

#YukiPri rambles #and a reminder that not only this one but the next two chapters after that are all up on my patreon #for early access!#and the next chapter after that should be going up there soon-ish too #but uh oh why am i so sleepy

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oifaaa · 3 months

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if you don’t mind sharing what the fic is that you read? 🥺

No I don't think I shall after all we got to keep some mystery in this relationship

#ask #anon #its actually about your fic #yes you reading this #if you have written a multi chapter fic before #its that fic i was talking about #i read the first two chapters and i loved it #good job #keep up the good work #i hope you write more soon #ill leave a wee comment next time #you wont know its me tho bc i get flustered complimenting work #but ill leave it anonymously #just for you

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utane · 4 months

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I have started to write again a little 👀

#my big tarnma fic gonna have a chapter up Soon™#I'll also try to post some of my two year old wips and ficlets #I'm gonna make a new year resolution to finish at least 1 fanfic #Then maybe poke at the dratchet fic a lil because I have completely forgotten their dynamic

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whumble-beeee · 3 months

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The Waiting Game

The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping | Cont'd from Part 3

Contains: disabled whumpee, trans whumpee, PTSD, past captivity references, needles mention, tied up/retstraints, blood, collar

* * * * * * * *

[As the warden of your captured hero, you are responsible for their health, for better or for worse. So it is generally advised that you should make a habit of tracking what injuries you cause on or in the hero’s body. Write it all down in a journal!

Another reliable approach is to examine them physically. This approach is best used if you think the hero is lying or trying to hide a physical ailment they so stupidly caused to themself while you were away. There will usually be resistance from the hero to such an approach, so you may have to restrain the hero to use this method. This also comes with the drawback that only external ailments can be detected, so you will likely have to also pick up on cues in the way the hero acts to detect more invisible sicknesses; Are they dizzy, lurching around, or exhibiting other signs of illness? Then they might just be ill! But be wary of faking! How stupid they’ll feel when you don’t fall for it because you’ve read The Unofficial Guide to Hero-keeping! (for more information, turn to ‘Identifying Faked Behaviors’ on pg. XX)]

* * * * * * * *

Stan felt like he was dying.

The way his arms wrenched behind his back had him constantly readjusting just to find even a semi-comfortable way to lie on the hard flooring. Every time he readjusted, the horrible aches and pains marring his body lit up as if it were the first time all over again, continually reawakening him with an infuriatingly small shot of adrenaline that only served to make him just conscious enough to feel the buzzing agony anew. He wove in and out of consciousness like a speedboat hurtled over the waves of choppy storming seas.

Genuinely a waking nightmare.

A bitter feeling at the top of his mouth stung lightly, clouding his mind, pulling him away from the terror, the torture, pulling him closer to an uneasy unconsciousness before the ever-present danger of the situation stormed back to the front of his mind and jolted him back awake. Because yeah, the mercenary was still here in the room, sitting in his stupid chair and scrolling on his stupid phone. At least when he wasn’t standing up every so often to bounce around the room like a bouncy ball, or restlessly spin around in circles like a toddler or quietly seethe in a sort of Spanglish about “¿por qué tardan tonto?” and “God, are they fucking with me?” and “Ughhhhh, I’m bored.”

The intermittent movement only served to constantly remind Stan of his place on the floor, tied up, beat up, ankle chained, dizzy, collared, and without his cane.

Oh, and the collar. It sat heavily on his throat, restricting any and all use of his powers. Making the possibility of fighting back stretch ever farther away.

He swallowed. Pushed the thoughts away. He tried not to think about it too much. The memories returned in the form of twisting waking nightmares if he thought about it too much. He did his best to just focus on the good things instead;

The fact that Chloe, his amazing little sister, didn’t seem to be involved in any of this. And if he ever found out she was, he would burn this entire place to the ground. He’d done it before for her, and he’d do it again. For her.

The fact that when (not if) he got out of this situation, he still had his fiance, Marcus, to go back home to. And in fact, Marcus was probably planning a rescue mission right this second, and when he saved Stan and put this Deeby guy in prison, they could all go back to normal and Stan could forget any of this had ever even–

“Oye! Chico! Stan, you better not be dying on me!”

Stan flinched out of his half-asleep daze and tried to move his hands out from behind him. His shoulders felt so stiff.

Didn’t work.

Right.

Then his eyes focused on the bounty hunter, and a glaring jolt of danger danger danger made him avert his gaze downward. The action made this vision swim, and he swayed. Had he always had a headache this bad?

The bounty hunter snorted at him.

“You givin’ me the silent treatment or something?” He started a slow meander toward Stan. “I was just checking up on you, bud. You stopped twitching and whining and shit, thought you were dead.”

And suddenly Stan found out that, in fact, there was a much more comfortable position for him to take in his bound-up state, that being him scootching back as quickly as possible from the encroaching mercenary until his back hit the wall.

“I wasn’t–!” Stan did not want to be a part of whatever recreational activities he would come up with to stave off the aforementioned boredom. Especially now that he was so defenseless. “Just–... I just– tired… and hurting. Wasn’t ignoring you.”

He stopped in his tracks and raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I can understand the hurting, considering…” he gestured vaguely to all of Stan. “That. But you’re tired? Really? You’ve been sleeping since you first got here.”

Stan took a deep breath and managed to roll his eyes against his better judgment.

“Getting kidnapped, beat to shit, and tied up so you can barely move really has a way of doing that to you, I guess…”

Stan knew his mistake as soon as he voiced the thought. Then it all but was confirmed when he saw the way the mercenary perked up, that lively glint in his eye, the way his smile widened just slightly. Stan found himself tensing and pressing even further into the wall, as if that would help at all when the mercenary came over to do whatever tortures he saw fit.

Instead, the man quirked his head at him. “When was the last time you ate? You hungry?”

Then he didn’t wait for an answer before rushing to leave the room.

Stan had to take a moment to process.

“I– What?!” he tried to call after the mercenary, already feeling his heart pounding in his chest. The bounty hunter reentered the room again with his hands in his jacket pockets, and Stan couldn't cover up the small whimper that escaped from his throat when Deeby trotted up to him and pulled out that same horrible pocket knife from before.

“Turn around.” The bounty hunter ordered with a little twirling motion of his blade.

What was happening?

“A-ah– What?! N-no!”

His mouth pressed into a straight line, an agitated huff leaving his nose at the challenge. Though, the shine never left his eyes even when they narrowed.

“I’m gonna undo the cuffs, turn around.”

What?

Stan balked. “Why would–... What’s the knife–!”

The mercenary surged forward and reached for the back of Stan's neck. Stan ducked down with a screech, more out of instinct than anything else as he braced himself for the pulling of the strap around his throat, his breath being stolen away from him as it tightened, constricting his windpipe, cutting off his air supply and inevitably wrenching him around like a ragdoll.

Only for the pressure to instead pull on the back of his shirt.

And sure, yeah, he was still wrenched forward so that he splayed out onto his stomach, barely avoiding smacking his face into the ground after a blinding white light filled his vision when he fell hard onto his injured, overworked knee, and a hoarse cry forced from his throat when the bounty hunter's own perfectly working knee dug into his upper back right between the shoulder blades. But Stan could barely even find it in himself to be mad about that over the overwhelming and very confusing relief he felt at not being choked out.

He still squirmed and struggled to get out of the pin, though the struggle was very short-lived as he fell into a forced freeze when the point of the knife rested threateningly on the small of his back. Right above the cuffs.

“Cálmate! Jesuchristo,” the hunter’s voice sounded from above him. “Sit tight and shut up, I’m doing you a favor.”

His wrists lifted up and the sliding shing and clicks of metal against metal sounded out, the cuffs shifting and clacking against his wrists as Deeby worked. Then one of the cuffs momentarily tightened before clicking open and wrenching off, and before he could even think of struggling again, the knee on his back swiveled around, grinding painful bone into bone as his arms swung above his head and were recuffed there.

Stan grit his teeth against the various pitiful noises threatening his vocal cords. If he wasn't going to fight back, he at least wasn't going to yelp like a wounded puppy.

Even if the man sitting on his back did make him agonizingly reaware of the beating he took earlier, the punch to the liver, the throws against the wall, the sprint on a knee that barely worked. And newly aware of a few possibly cracked ribs that shot lightning-quick stabs up through his chest and arms.

The manhandling was truly a gift that just kept on giving.

“There, that wasn't so hard, was it runt?” The bounty hunter said smugly as he pinched the back of Stan's shirt and pulled him back upright to his knees, which Stan quickly readjusted to sit crisscross. He had to bite his tongue from another defiant ‘yes’ and possible ‘that's what she said’ joke.

The mercenary nudged his leg with his boot. “Verbal response, bud.”

Stan pursed his lips as he inspected the cuffs adorning his wrists, noticing for the first time the dark fuzziness that clouded the edges of his vision. “You… you could have just… let me just turn around…”

He squeezed his eyes shut and blinked rapidly, shaking his head to clear the fuzz. Unsuccessfully.

“I gave you two chances. Told you what I was about to do. Plus, you need to learn to just do what I say. We can practice now actually! Eat this!”

A protein bar fell into Stan's lap. He stared at it.

He hadn't really noticed over the various screeching aches consuming his body which warranted more immediate attention, but a small, almost unbearable void was starting to take the place of his stomach. Maybe that's why he was so lightheaded. He tried not to dwell on how long he must have been here for the hunger to get that bad, and very tentatively picked up the bar to inspect it for… tampering he supposed. Poisoning.

As he turned the bar over in his hand, a small flash of dark red blotching his hand caught his eye; A little smiley face, lightly bloodied and scabbed over carved into the back of his hand. Taunting him with its joy.

He gawked at it, clenching his fist and watching the scab move lightly over the tendons. This must have been what the mercenary had carved into his hand that made him freak out when he'd first woken up. A perversion of everything the symbol was supposed to represent.

A fucking tiny little smiley face.

“It's not poisoned or anything.”

Stan practically jumped out of his skin as the mercenary appeared right beside him and deafeningly thumped one of the chairs down.

“If I wanted to drug you, I'd just–” he pressed the side of his fist into Stan's flinching arm and made a small popping sound, pantomiming a syringe. “Works a lot quicker than orally. And I can control the dose better.”

Oh. Oh no.

If the mercenary was ever going to drug him– Which there was almost no doubt he would try at some point–

He would use a needle.

“If– If you…” he was breathless, head spinning all of a sudden, vision tunneling on the death grip he held the protein bar in. “If you try to give me a shot, I'm going to– gonna freak ALL the way out. All the way. The entire way.”

He chuckled. “Damn, maybe I should poison your food then, calm down runt. Just sit in your chair and eat the protein bar.”

Stan wrenched his gaze up to the chair. He felt so hot. Was the room always this warm? He did not want to sit back in the chair. What would the bounty hunter do to him if he sat in the chair? What would he do if he didn't? Tie him up again? Torture him? Or maybe the plan was to poison him with the food. Deeby must have known he'd be hungry, he must’ve been here for hours at this point, if not a day. Or days?! He wasn't sure he could take much more of a beatdown, he already felt like he was teetering on the edge of a never-ending spiraling hole that he would never be able to escape from if there were any more restraints, more pain, more collars and taking away his powers so he couldn't defend himself even though he tried, more nonchalant bantering as if his entire life wasn't being torn apart at the seams, as if he weren’t in chains on the floor of some unknown warehouse with a collar forced onto him again with absolutely no chance of escape and no chance he would ever see any of his family ever again, no way to protect Chloe from the same fate, no–

“--Chico! STAN!!”

Two thunderous finger snaps shot through his consciousness. Stan screeched and tried to slam his elbows back, straining against the cuffs and shoving back into the wall as hard as he could, breath shuddering, feet skidding across the floor, eyes darting around trying to see through the pinhole that his vision provided for the source of the noise as the world spun on its axis around him.

Then his vision locked on the source of the noise, darkness slowly receding back to the edges of his vision. The source of the noise stared at him with a probing look on his face. Stan shrank even further into himself, if that was possible. He had curled up into a little ball at some point.

“Let go of the collar,” the hunter said, voice scarily even.

Stan felt his heart skip a beat as he realized that he was indeed white-knuckling the collar. He pried his hands off of his neck as his heart pounded in his ears, only barely drowning out the deafening sound of his own gasping breaths

“Wait wait, I didn't–!...” The mercenary stalked toward him, and suddenly he felt like a trapped animal again, collar and chains and all. “Please, I– I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, I wasn't trying– trying– I wasn’t–!”

The hunter squatted down right in front of him and sharply held up a finger, and Stan slapped his hands over his mouth to stop any more words from tumbling out at the command.

“Follow my finger with your eyes, yeah?”

Stan jerkily nodded. Tears burned his eyelids and wet his hands.

Deeby moved his hand around and around in front of Stan's face. Stan did his best to follow it. The motion made Stan's head spin, as well as the piercing red gaze of the mercenary staring into his pupils that he did his best to ignore.

“Oof, yeah,” Deeby said finally, resting his arm back down on his knee. “Concussion.”

Stan finally removed his hands from his mouth just enough to squeak out a response. “Concussion?”

“Concussion. You're off balance even though you're literally sitting down, staring into space, spacing out. Not making eye contact. Swaying. Plus your pupils are all blown up and you can't track for shit,” the mercenary laughed. “Maybe tossed you around a bit too hard back there. But hey, I told you what would happen if you tried to escape. That's on you, bud.”

Stan’s breath hitched on a light growl bubbling up in his throat. So it was his fault that he was beaten so badly that his brain literally rattled around his head? His fault that he was having a very understandable breakdown?

He wiped at the tear tracks running down his cheeks and around his eyes. Snorted, tried to get his chronically hitching breath back to normal. He couldn’t even remember what normal breathing felt like. The metal of the cuffs was surprisingly warm as they accidentally scratched at his face.

“So… What're, uh…” he whispered breathily. “What’re we gonna– gonna do about it?”

“The concussion?”

Stan nodded.

“Nothing to be done really. Just don't try anything stupid and you won't get tossed around again, I guess. But you can’t really treat a concussion.”

Stan clonked his head back against the wall with an exasperated whine. The mercenary just gave an amused shrug in return with an almost empathetic smile. “Maybe don’t do that though. Want some painkillers?”

“No,” Stan growled at the air. His vocal cords sounded strained and whiny from the crying, and he cleared his throat to get his voice back to normal. “I want you to let me go–”

Deeby scoffed, but Stan reinterrupted the interruption before he could start with another quip. “– OR failing that, I want you to leave me the-the hell alone!”

“Hm. Yeah, no. I'm bored. I’ve left you alone for the past day, and I think you're supposed to stay awake for a bit if you have a concussion anyway. So you're not going back to twitching on the floor for the time being. And I’ll assume you’ll get snarky if I say I wanna do something more physical…”

The mercenary stood up and went to go grab his chair, setting it down just a few feet away from Stan before patting the seat of the chair that he’d set down earlier, the one Stan had previously been tied to, flashing a smile that Stan could have almost mistaken as friendly with all the brain fog.

“So sit down, eat your protein bar. Let’s just have a chat.”

* * * * * * * *

Taglist: @flowersarefreetherapy

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coldercreation · 6 months

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i think i... finished it?

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greeenchrysanthemums · 2 months

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I cut myself pretty badly at work and now using my keyboard is so awkward since my finger is wrapped up in bandages XD

Don't you all worry though, I will still be publishing the first chapter of the fic either tomorrow or the day after depending on when I get that ao3 invitation >:)

I'm excited!!!

#right now i'm on i think 5000 on the waitlist but it was 12000 a few hours ago so i'm sure i will get the invite soon #morgan likes the first chapter but he is also my husband so he's obligated to hype me up #I hope that you all like it as well #i did end up splitting the originally planned chapter into two parts though because i felt it flowed better as two #rather than one #so its not as long as I had hoped #injury tw #injury mention

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softquietsteadylove · 7 months

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Ohh you have to continue the zombie au!! Them finally meeting sersi and co will be amazing :D

"Welcome, Gilgamesh."

He frowned at those around him. He hadn't given them his name. Usually it was Thena who was deeply distrustful of anyone they came across, but he was happy to take up that mantle in her absence.

That was the worst part about this place, that he had yet to see Thena.

He had woken up in a fit over it, but they had told him - promised him - that he would see her if he kept himself calm. They returned his clothes to him, washed and everything.

"We take in all those who need help," the short doctor, Ajak he had learned, said beside him. The cafeteria was surprisingly bustling with people. "That was how you came to us."

They had told him that Thena had arrived with him on her back, which he couldn't help but doubt. Not that she would do it, but Thena was half his weight at most, and they didn't exactly have food or water to spare, last he remembered.

The last solid memory he did have was of feeling feverish, dragging his feet as they continued towards the next city. He must have been really lagging, because Thena did something they never did, which was commandeer a car.

He could remember being in the backseat, and he could remember Thena's voice whispering sweet things, his head in her lap, her tipping water up to his lips.

All the more reason for him to be wary of these people until he could see Thena for himself. He looked around the place, "I don't see her."

They sighed. He had been a broken record since getting on his feet, but he felt he had good reason to be. The other doctor patted his shoulder, although he flinched away from her. "Thena is just getting back."

"Back?" he frowned and turned. Sersi, the younger, taller doctor, and a third guy in a white coat named Phastos all stepped back from him. They were the only ones he'd met so far. "Where was she?"

"She joined some of our scouts on a run," Phastos attempted to be a voice of reason. "Some of the supplies we needed were for you, so she volunteered to go with them."

He wasn't exactly placated by the news. "So you sent her out there with people she doesn't even know? Are they really gonna watch her back out there? What if they can't protect her?!"

"Gil, please," Sersi joined in the effort to soothe him. "It's a simple run to the closest facility outside the hospital. We've been here a long time--since the beginning, really. We've already sectioned off half the city as safe territory."

Gil huffed. With Phastos behind him and the docs in front, he felt a bit like a caged animal. He looked around the bustling cafeteria again, "fine. When will they be back?"

"It should be any time now," Sersi promised before turning and trotting off.

"Sersi's husband is part of the field team," Ajak supplied in her absence, leading them closer to the rest of the populace. The people already there eyed them and kept their distance, but they didn't exactly pull out pitch forks and torches at the sight of him. "We have some very good people here with us."

Gil watched as Doctor Sersi trotted over to the door, her wavy black ponytail bouncing behind her. She must have seen they were coming, because she ran at the door and launched herself into someone's arms before they were even in the room.

A man walked in with her attached to him, tall and broad shouldered. Gil couldn't hear them, but he had an inkling that he was one of the men who had dragged him inside when Thena no longer could. The other one walked in past the married couple, not even glancing at them.

Finally, far behind the other two, a ghost of a figure hurried into the room and immediately split off and away from everyone. Despite the promise of food, she steered clear of the line for it, pushing a blonde ponytail off her shoulder and pulling off her backpack.

Her clothes had also been washed, and the jacket she was wearing seemed to be new, maybe as a form of protection. But that was definitely his Thena prowling away from the thick of the crowd.

"Thena!"

Heads turned and people jumped out of the way of the huge stranger sprinting across the room. Some of them yelped, as if he were a train barrelling forward on its tracks. But he could only see Thena.

"Gil!" she barely got out before he swallowed her up, his arms snaking around her and his massive form folding over her. Her knees bent in response but he held her close, swinging her around in his arms.

"Thena! You're okay!" he sobbed, openly at that. For all his reluctance to cooperate with their hosts thus far he let himself weep with joy as he finally felt Thena's light frame in his embrace again. She still smelled like fresh air, and she was warm, and she was kind of bony, but soft in the places it mattered. "I-I thought-!"

"Sh, Gil, I'm here," she cooed, running her fingers through his hair as he blubbered over her like a baby. She let him lean his weight on her, his face buried between her neck and her shoulder, their legs stumbling, "it's okay, just breathe."

"I told you--they're too committed to each other, they won't-"

"Ikaris, hush."

"Are we just gonna watch them make out, or...?"

"Give them some space," Ajak urged the rest of her team. Gil pulled his head up to see her waving them back, her back turned to them. She didn't have the distrust in him and Thena that he had with her. "can you blame them?"

"Gil," Thena called to him, pulling his attention back to her. She put her hand to his cheek, her eyes scrubbing over him, "are you okay?"

He nodded, leaning into her touch, "I'm okay. Wh-What about you? I woke up and a-and you-"

"Sorry," Sersi leaned over to offer her apologies, "I voted to move you into the same room, but I got outnumbered."

"We weren't sure what to make of you," the other man who came in alongside Sersi's husband shrugged. "And then you freaked out when she wasn't there, so-"

"So," Gil made a face, "you decided that keeping us apart longer would fix that?"

Ajak laughed, although the guy clearly didn't appreciate it. He huffed, putting his hands on his hips, "hey, big guy, I'm the funny one here, got it?"

"Okay," Ajak spoke to those crowded around them en masse again, "let's let the lovebirds have a bite to eat and settle themselves. We can discuss what happens from here on afterward."

What did she mean by that? But Gil looked down as Thena slipped her hand into his. He was going to have to ignore that 'lovebirds' comment for now too, huh?

"Come on," Thena pulled him by the hand, keeping their fingers intertwined, "you must be starving."

"Well, yeah, but-" he looked around, still feeling on edge in the completely new environment. It was being around people - living people - that had him so on edge.

"I'll tell you everything that's happened," Thena promised him, "after you eat."

He just sighed, looking at her like she was the sun and he'd been underground for years. He would do anything if it meant he didn't have to let go of her hand yet, "fine."

#Thenamesh Zombie AU #so a new chapter begins eh?#thank you for asking for more of this au #I really am delighted to see it come back #and yes we're finally meeting the rest of the crew!#I've debated bringing them in before this #but it was never the right time before #anyway Gil wakes up and he's like where's Thena #he puts his clothes back on #where's Thena #they say come eat something and he says where is my wife?!!#Thena tells him all about how she got him here and the infection and how worried she was #she doesn't tell him about collapsing and having to be restrained #he says okay he'll hear them out #but they're on thin ice for not letting him see that she was okay as soon as he woke up #he's extra wary of Kingo and Ikaris #what do you mean his precious Thena went on a supply run with these two strangers?!#Ikaris says they can't trust them because they're too devoted to each other #Sersi: you used to be romantic #Kingo: I doubt that he was ever romantic

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