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arvandus · 4 years

Text

Touch (Pt 6)

Pairing: Dabi x Fem!Reader

WARNINGS: 18+ only please! Drug abuse/withdrawal, adult language/themes, heavy angst, past trauma/abuse, anxiety/panic attacks, PTSD, fluff, pining, slow burn, eventual emotional SMUT. *please pay attention to the chapter tags as these warnings will apply at different times*

Synopsis: When you first joined the LOV to lend your healing quirk, Dabi terrified you. Not interested in attachments, he wanted to keep it that way. That is, until he needs your help. (Slow burn, soft Dabi).

Special thank you to @salvator-heartbreaker who has helped me hash out this chapter and some future plot details; this would not be as amazing as it is without her help!

Chapter warning: Buckle up, y’all. This chapter is LONG. Like, 12k words long (separating it into multiple chapters was NOT an option). Prepare yourself for a roller coaster of feels. Also, please PLEASE be aware of the warning tags.

Recommended Chapter Songs: Overdose by grandson/The Drug In Me Is Reimagined by Falling in Reverse

Part 1 Part 5

Artwork credit to @hellowon31 on Twitter (https://twitter.com/hellowon31)

Part 6 - The Long Night

After Dabi left, you cleaned up the various items around the room. You placed the pills back into your bag from where they were in your pocket. A moment later, you decided against that location and put the bottle under your pillow within your pillowcase. You changed your mind again, taking the pill bottle into the bathroom to stuff it with cotton. It would keep the pills from rattling. You returned the bottle to its hiding place under your pillow. If Dabi came back looking for more, you wanted to have them within reach and not where he’d immediately look for them. You placed the damp washcloth in your hamper and drank some water before lying in bed with your phone in your hand.

You were only on your phone for a few minutes before you felt sleep start to drag at your eyelids, so you turned off your light and put your phone on your nightstand. Sleep was elusive, however. You stared at the ceiling pensively. Something nagged at your mind, but in your groggy, tired state, you couldn’t figure out what it was. You felt each minute tick by with painstaking slowness, frequently checking the time on your phone while your thoughts ran a mile a minute. It mulled over what had transpired, what was said and done, and how you felt… It was like flipping through an entire novel in a matter of seconds and then trying to describe a specific, obscure scene hidden within its pages.

By your fifth minute, you gave up and sat up in your bed. Your hands went under your pillow, feeling the familiar bottle in your fingers.

Realization hit. You quickly turned on your lamp. You pulled the bottle out of your pillowcase and spilled the contents out onto your comforter. You counted the amount and your breath stopped.

No.

You counted again.

FUCK.

You always made it a point to know exactly how many pills you had of anything you carried, but especially so for these pills.

You quickly put the remaining medication back into the bottle, counting them as they fell in with a tap. Then, you got up out of your bed and hid the pills inside an unused pair of shoes which you then put into a black duffle bag in the top of your closet. You only hoped Dabi didn’t come looking for them. At this rate, if he was willing to steal from you, then he’d be willing to rifle through your things.

Betrayal, cold and hard, soaked into your bones. You tried to reason with yourself, to talk yourself through what you knew about addiction, what you had learned in med school. But taking what was learned in a textbook, with no emotional attachment, and applying it into this situation did little to assuage the feelings roiling within you. This wasn’t hypothetical. This was real.

Even worse than the betrayal was the cold hard fact: Dabi could kill himself. And all because you left him alone for less than a minute. Did he already take them? How long ago did he leave your room? Your brain didn’t have time to do the math as you dashed across the hallway to his door.

You didn’t bother to knock – not this time. Thankfully, Dabi must have been so out of it that he forgot to lock it. You barreled in like a fiery chariot knocking down Hell’s gate, slamming the door behind you loudly enough to wake the dead. You didn’t care. In that moment, nothing else mattered but getting those pills back.

Dabi sat on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands. He looked up at you groggily when the door slammed. His movements were noticeably slower, his pallor a sickly grey and shining with sweat.

“You took my pills.” You seethed. “Give them back.”

“What?” Dabi slurred.

“My pills, Dabi! Three of them are missing! Give them to me!”

He looked down at his hands as if confused by what they were. “I don’t have them.” He replied.

“Bull-fucking-shit!” you shot back. “I swear to God, Dabi, I will search this room until I find them.”

He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. “I already took them. And stop fucking shouting.”

“You what???” You gasped. “What the fuck, Dabi?? Why would you do that??”

He stood up now, angry at your presence, at your justified rage that he knew he was responsible for but didn’t want to face. He was barely keeping himself together as it was. His insides felt like a writhing, fiery snake. His head felt filled with cotton. And underneath it all, the pain hummed low like a purring beast. He couldn’t decide if the pills he took were actually working or not. The relief he thought they’d give him evaded him like a shadow.

“I told you I needed more.” Dabi replied.

“Dabi, you can O.D. on this!” you shot back.

“I’m not gonna O.D.” Dabi scoffed as he swayed on his feet. He fought the sickness rolling over him in waves, great crests threatening to drown him like a raging sea. He didn’t need this right now. Not with you here. Fuck. When did he get so fucking weak?

Your body instantly became poised to catch him if he fell. He needed to throw up what he took. That was the only option. Your mind frantically tried to assess if he was weak enough for you to overpower him, to try to put your fingers down his throat to trigger his gag reflex.

“Your drugs are weak as shit compared to what I was taking before. I can handle it.” He continued. “I know what I’m doing.” His eyes were unfocused as they tried to stare down at you.

Suddenly, the wave crested, higher than he could tread. Immediately his mouth began to water in sickly preparation, his gag reflex kicking in while his gut clenched. He stumbled to the bathroom, shoving you aside in the process, just in time to empty the contents of his stomach. It was clear, made of only the water he drank and the partially dissolved pills that he had stolen.

A wave of relief washed over you while Dabi emptied what remained of the drugs into the toilet. A part of you was still angry, wanting to give him an ‘I told you so,’ but you held back, instead keeping an eye on him from the bathroom doorway to make sure he was okay.

Once he was done, he leaned back against the bathroom wall, a pained grimace on his face, the metal rings pulling along his cheeks. His breaths were ragged and heavy. “Fuck.” He muttered. He should have eaten the stupid crackers. What a fucking waste.

Once you were sure he was okay for the moment, you paced back into the bedroom to try to calm your nerves. He threw up what he took. That was good. Of course, that also meant there was no telling how long your meds would stay in his system now, and once they started to wear off, he’d continue to suffer through withdrawal since you couldn’t give him more right away. This was just the beginning for him.

A knock on the door resounded into the room, interrupting your thoughts.

“Don’t answer it.” Dabi rasped from his spot next to the toilet.

You stared at him for a moment and waited while discomfort settled over you like an itchy blanket. You understood his need for privacy, but you also needed help… at least to have someone bring some water and food. It was going to be a long night and at this rate, Dabi was going to become severely dehydrated

Another knock came through, more persistent this time.

“Dabi,” called Toga’s voice. “Are you okay in there???”

Twice’s muffled voice followed. “He probably wants to be left alone. Fuck this guy.”

“I’m not gonna just leave him, Twice. You heard him in there.” Toga replied in annoyance.

Dabi groaned in frustration, his head in his shaking hands in denial. Why did it have to be Toga of all people? She was annoyingly persistent, poking her nose where it didn’t belong and not taking hints when her prying wasn’t welcome. The last thing he wanted was her and Twice standing outside his door while he hurled into the stinking toilet. They’d probably barge in without permission. You seeing him like this was bad enough – but at least he could excuse your involvement as the team’s medic, even if the vulnerability ate away at him. But letting them see him like this? He’d rather light everything on fire.

“Make them go away.” He whispered hoarsely.

You leapt at the opportunity, rushing to the door. You opened it to see Twice in his usual gear and Toga in a pink pajama set, her hair pulled back into twin buns. Her hand was outstretched as if ready to grasp an invisible doorknob.

“Hey guys.” You said through a fake bubbly smile. “It’s okay, I’m in here with him.”

“What the hell is going on??” Twice demanded.

“We heard a door slam, and yelling, and I’m pretty sure I heard someone throwing up.” Toga said crossing her arms.

They heard yelling – did they hear what you had shouted at Dabi? About him taking your drugs? You mentally scolded yourself for being so loud earlier. There had to be some way you could play it off.

You felt your skin get hot with embarrassment. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. I’m helping him out.”

“What’s wrong?” Toga asked nosily. “Is Dabi hungover? He sounds like he’s hungover.”

“Stomach flu.” You improvised. You hoped they believed it. If they did, it’d give Dabi a reason to be left alone by the other league members for a few days while you helped him out.

Neither of them showed any doubt with your explanation. Toga made a disgusted face while Twice sighed. “Well, that’s a fucking relief. But keep the damn noise down!”

You smirked at his dual reactions. “Sorry, Twice.”

“Do you need anything?” Toga asked. “Water? Food?”

“Drugs?” Twice chimed in.

You froze like a deer in headlights for a moment before you realized he probably meant the kind that wasn’t illegal.

“Water and food would be appreciated. Something easy on the stomach, like crackers. And bananas if we have any left. I already have the other supplies I need.” You commented. Then, you remembered - Shit. Your supply bag was still in your room….

“Sure thing, big sis!” Toga replied through a cheery smile, her fangs prominent. “Come on, Twice. You can help me carry stuff.” Twice followed after her and you closed the door with a breath of relief before the sound of Dabi retching again made you go check on him.

His fingers grasped the toilet seat while his body shook, his knuckles as white as the porcelain they held onto. Spit dangled from his parted lips, his nose running, his eyes squeezed shut as he fought his body’s reactions to his poor choices.

After a minute, he leaned back and carelessly wiped his face with his bare arm, the fluids glistening on his skin in the light of the bathroom.

His face was pulled into a grimace, eyes squeezed shut against the brightness, his body slumped against the wall. “You should have taken Twice up on his offer.” He said with a forced grin through wet lips.

“Not funny, Dabi.” You scolded. “Drugs are the last thing you need. Besides, you know that’s not what he meant.”

“Well I certainly don’t think water and some fucking bananas are going to fix this.” He replied sourly.

“Better than your solution of taking six of my pills.” You shot back. “A lot of good that did you, huh?”

He opened his eyes to give you a cold glare, his mouth opening to protest. But his words were cut short by another round of vomiting, nothing coming up but thin strings of yellow bile from his empty stomach while his gut spasmed and clenched. You furrowed your brow. His nausea was getting worse, his vomiting more frequent. You wanted to use your quirk to alleviate his pain, but you couldn’t. Not for this. If his body couldn’t register the pain signals his gut was sending to his brain, then there was a chance the vomiting would stop. Throwing up was what he needed to make sure the stolen pills were out of his system.

Even aside from the vomiting, there was the issue of using your quirk too much, too soon. You could no longer fall back on your pills to manage your own pain if you pushed yourself too far. Your lower back itched uncomfortably, as if the very thought woke up the scarred nerves there, old memories threatening to follow in their wake. You pushed them aside forcefully by focusing on the man in front of you.

If you over-exerted yourself too soon, you wouldn’t be able to help him later when things got worse. Once these pills wore off, which you weren’t sure when that would happen, you wouldn’t be able to give him new ones right away. You were already short three pills after his little stint, and even if you did give him pills, his body might still reject them if it wasn’t ready for them. That would only make things exponentially worse. It was better to skip a dosage now and get back on track with the remaining medication you had. You’d pair what you’d allotted for him with your own quirk as an added relief; you only hoped the combination would be adequate until his pills became available for pickup.

Once he was done dry heaving, you handed him a hand towel from the hanging bar next to you. You had no idea if it was clean – he probably used it to dry his hands after washing them - but it didn’t really matter. It was better than using his arm again. He took it in silence, his eyes avoiding yours in what you could only describe as shame. Your heart clenched. You knew he didn’t mean for this to happen. No one ever does. You wanted to reassure him, to let him know it was all going to be okay, but words escaped you. How could you even begin to tell him something like that while he’s retching into a toilet in the wee hours of the night?

Before you could think of something to say, there was a familiar knock on the door. You forced yourself to step away and answer it. Sure enough, Toga and Twice were there, their arms full of offerings.

“Here you go.” Toga said, her arms filled with six water bottles. Twice also presented an array of items in his arms – a box of saltine crackers, some canned soup with a pull-top lid, and a couple of bananas.

“Thanks.” You replied, taking the items and placing them on Dabi’s desk. You were grateful neither of them tried to enter while you unloaded their arms; perhaps they really did believe Dabi had the flu and were too scared of catching it.

“You can go back to bed if you want. We’ll be fine.” you suggested.

“Let us know if you need anything else!” Toga offered with a toothy grin. You smiled your gratitude and closed the door as they turned to leave.

Once you heard their footsteps fade down the hall followed by the closing of bedroom doors, you returned to the bathroom with a water bottle in hand. You knew food wasn’t going to be an option for a while, but at least this might help. Even if he threw it back up, it was better than bile. But before you could even hand the bottle to him, he convulsed, hugging the toilet again, gagging and coughing. You knelt next to him patiently, ready to offer the water in your hand or the towel now forgotten on floor… whatever he needed.

He spit the drool dangling from his mouth and continued to hover over the toilet bowl with a groan. Everything hurt. His abs, his throat, his sinuses… his head was still muddled from a variety of factors – dehydration, lack of sleep, the drugs. He hated himself, reduced to a useless fucking puddle like the loser he was, and all while you were here watching him. You, who even though he let you down - even though he stole from you - continued to stay and care for him. He didn’t want that for you, and he didn’t want the guilt of your presence continuously reminding him of how he failed you while his body fell apart on him.

“Get out of here.” He said gruffly. “You don’t need to be here for this.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” You replied. You knew he was pushing you away and you understood why, but that didn’t matter to you. Sure, you were mad at what he had done, but you also understood he couldn’t help it. His obvious shame was apology enough for now, and his well-being was more important to you than his pride.

“Leave.” He growled.

“I can’t.” You could feel tears start to sting at the corners of your eyes. You didn’t want to leave him. Not like this.

More dry retching overtook him, and guilt began to creep on you like a thorny vine, choking your words from your throat. He couldn’t fight you on this even if he wanted to; was it really fair to stay when he asked you to go? He made his decision clear – he wanted to be alone. Where were you supposed to draw the line between forcing your care on him for his safety versus respecting his need for privacy?

You stared at him as you warred within yourself. He obviously wasn’t going anywhere any time soon, and on the upside, he did throw up some of those pills. But what about later, when the pills wear off and the hunger returns? Could you trust that he would come to you, looking for what he knew you had? Or would he go elsewhere, and risk his safety on something potentially worse? You wanted to respect his wishes, but your body wouldn’t move.

Dabi’s world was spinning; round and round he went, as if the toilet had been flushed and he and his rejected pills were being washed away like the trash that he knew he was. He was breathing heavily now, painful groans falling from his lips. “Get the fuck out, Y/N.”

The sound of your name on his lips for the first time smacked you, your breath catching painfully behind the lump in your throat. You struggled to suppress the tears threatening to unleash themselves down your face. He said your name. He had never said it before. You had imagined that the first time he’d say your name would be a sign of trust and intimacy. This wasn’t that at all. Instead, it was a weapon, a foul word that stung you like a whip.

He didn’t want you here. Maybe your presence really was just making it worse for him. He’d focus more on not wanting you around and fighting your hep than he would actually trying to fight his withdrawal. You had to leave and hope that he would be able to come out of this on his own.

Without a word, you loosened the cap on the water bottle and set it on the floor next to him as a final offering before getting up off the cold tile to leave. You left the bathroom, while the sounds of his continued retching filled your ears. Each cough and gag from his battered throat deepened your guilt, reminding you how your irresponsibility had contributed to him getting into this mess. Yes, he stole from you. It still angered you. But at the same time, you were the one who had all your mental faculties and still left drugs within his reach when he came to you for help.

You placed two water bottles and the crackers on the nightstand for him. Then, you took the half-full trash bag out of his trash can and made sure it was near his bed, just in case he needed to throw up again later.

With one more glance at him through the bathroom doorway while he sat doubled over the toilet, you made your way to the door.

Please be safe, please be safe… you silently pleaded.

Just as you put your hand on the doorknob, you heard a thud.

“Dabi? Are you okay?” you called.

Only silence greeted you. A cold panic set in and you rushed into the bathroom to find Dabi unconscious on the floor, face down in a puddle of water. The water bottle you had left had tipped over, the cold liquid spreading across the bathroom tile and soaking into Dabi’s clothes. You pushed your panic aside as you immediately switched into emergency mode. You knelt by his side and rolled him over onto his back, cupping his face in your hand. His skin felt hot to the touch.

“Dabi??” You called. No response. You checked for a pulse and felt it fluttering beneath your fingers. “DABI??” you shouted as you lightly smacked his cheek. He didn’t respond. His color was lifelessly pale, but his chest rose and fell in slow breaths. He was breathing. You checked his pupils – dilated. He definitely still had your drugs in his system. How much, you weren’t sure. Once again, you were grateful that he had managed to throw up what he could.

His skin was burning. Was it already hotter than a moment ago? Was it a fever from the withdrawal? Or was it his quirk acting up, going haywire without him being able to consciously be in control of himself? The idea of his cremation randomly unleashing itself in the small bathroom made your throat dry up with dread.

You had to cool him down somehow. Dabi’s bathroom had a walk-in shower just a foot away, and you gave a silent thankful prayer to the universe. A bathtub would have made this entire fiasco exponentially more difficult.

First, you had to remove his clothes. They were trapping in his body heat at the moment, compounding his fever.

It wasn’t easy. Dabi was lean, but he certainly didn’t lack muscle, and what he lacked for in bulk, he made up for in height. It was awkward in the small space as you pulled his sweatpants off of him, exposing scarred legs with metal staples curving along his thighs. You left his boxers on. You couldn’t bring yourself to take them off of him while he was unconscious. His head lolled to the side while his eyes, now half-lidded, stared with an empty, unconscious gaze. His shirt was next, wet with sweat, water, and specks of bile. The fresh bandage that you had recently applied fell off as soon as the cotton fabric wasn’t there to hold it in place. The wound was healing, but it was still pink and raw. The slightest amount of pressure would reopen the sensitive tissue, undoing your hard work.

You needed your med kit.

Once he was undressed, you rolled him to his side. You didn’t want him to aspirate if he ended up vomiting again. Then, you ran the shower to let the water warm slightly. It needed to be lukewarm – cool enough to bring down his fever, but not so cold that it would shock his system and make him shiver. Shivering helped to increase body temperature, and that was the last thing he needed.

Once the water was running, you took one last look at the man laying unconscious on his side before making a mad dash out of his room and into yours to grab your medical bag by your bed. There was no time to double check the supplies in it; you only hoped you had what you needed. You grabbed a couple of clean towels from your own bathroom before running back into his room, thankfully unnoticed in the empty hall. It took less than a minute.

You bandaged his wound back up quickly, while he was on his side. It wasn’t the neatest work, but it would do for now. Already, his body temperature was noticeably higher than when you had left him. There was no time to check it with your thermometer - it was a race against the clock, now.

You rolled Dabi back onto his back to try and rouse him once again, picking him up slightly so he lay in your lap, while you called his name and cupped his cheek. His eyes fluttered open slightly, his head shifting at the sound of your voice, before his eyes closed again. You cursed under your breath and laid him back down the way you had him before while you checked the water temperature. It was warm enough, or so you hoped, since his own temperature kept rising. You turned off the water briefly to retrieve the unconscious man.

Finally, you were ready. You tried to grab Dabi from under his armpits, but his skin was almost too hot to touch for an extended period of time. Definitely quirk related. You grabbed a spare towel and tried again, this time protecting your hands and arms against his scalding skin. You wrapped your hands around his chest, your arms under his armpits, and began to drag him to the shower stall. You tried your best to be mindful of his scars and staples, hoping that dragging him across the floor wouldn’t tear anything. For a shower that was so close in proximity, it took a painstakingly long time to get him into it and properly positioned before you could step out and turn the shower back on.

Lukewarm water sputtered out of the showerhead, drenching his body from the chest down. The water steamed upon contact, reacting to the heat rolling off of him like asphalt on a hot summer’s day. Dabi stirred slightly, roused to consciousness by the sensation and the change in temperature. He looked around groggily until his blue eyes settled on you. You waited for him to say something, but no words came as his dazed eyes seemed to lose focus. The only sign that he was still somewhat conscious was the occasional slow blink while he watched you take a wet washcloth and squeeze it over his head to let the cool water soak his hair and dribble down his face and neck. The water trickled down his forehead to his brow, and you tenderly wiped it away with the washcloth to keep it from getting into his eyes. You followed the contours of his face with the cool cloth, along his jawline, across his cheeks.

Dabi closed his eyes for minutes at a time, only opening them briefly as you adjusted the water temperature slightly and again as your ran your fingers through his wet hair, moving the dripping strands from his forehead so you could see his face better. Color slowly began to creep back into his skin, the water no longer steamed. What you were doing was working, and you were grateful – so grateful – that you hadn’t left him yet. The rush of time slowed down. Dabi’s eyes closed again as you quietly hummed to yourself as you cared for him. It helped to calm your nerves and pass the time.

After what felt like ages, you finally checked his temperature, this time with the temporal thermometer you had in your bag. The number that beeped back at you satisfied you enough to turn the water off. You gave Dabi’s shoulder a small shake, and his eyes opened to look at you under heavy lids.

“Come on.” You whispered. “I need you to stand up.”

He licked his chapped lips as he braced himself into a standing position with your help and made the two feet distance to sit on his toilet, his wet boxers dribbling puddles of water onto the floor. You covered him in two towels, one for his head and one for his shoulders, before you stepped out of the bathroom for a moment to get him fresh clothes.

You realized quickly that he’d need to change out of his wet boxers – something you hadn’t considered earlier when you undressed him. You gulped briefly. Could he even do that on his own right now? He still was out of it and needed assistance just to stand.

There was no way around it. You’d have to help him.

You grabbed a pair of fresh boxers, black jersey shorts, and a white tee before returning to the bathroom. He was in the position you left him, the only difference being that he was now leaning against the wall while he sat on the toilet. His eyes were closed at first but they opened slightly when you nudged him gently. He still looked completely out of it.

Even so, you talked to him. “Dabi,” you whispered. “I have to change your boxers so I can put dry clothes on you. I’m going to help you stand up.”

He gave a slow blink but made no attempt to move or speak. As you wrapped your arms around his chest to help him up, he didn’t fight you, leaning his weight into you just enough to rise slightly from his sitting position. You weren’t sure how conscious he really was for this. Was he aware of what was going on, of what you were doing? Or was his body going through the motions, barely registering his environment? You hoped it was the latter.

“I won’t look.” You promised. You looped your fingers into the wet waistband and pulled it down, before letting him sit back down on the toilet. With your eyes respectfully averted, you pulled the wet material off the rest of the way down his legs and off his feet. You quickly dried his legs off before grabbing the clean boxers you had set up on top of his sink, the only dry spot left in the bathroom. Through the use of touch, you were able to put his feet into them and pull them up just above his bent knees. His shorts followed until both items were pulled up as high as they would go in his sitting position.

“One more time.” You said. With him braced against you, you grabbed both waistbands and pulled his clothes on. A moment later, he was sitting back down, properly covered. You proceeded with your administrations now that the hard part was done. You dried his hair with the towel still on his head, and then dried his torso and arms using the towel on his shoulders. By the time you were helping him with his tee shirt, he was starting to show some cognizance, pushing his arms out through the holes himself once you got them into position.

Quickly you flushed the toilet he was sitting on, washing away the contents from earlier, and gathered the soiled clothes and towels from the floor before taking them to the laundry hamper in his room. It was still dark outside, and you wondered what time it was. 3:30am? 4? You had no way of knowing; you had left your phone in your room. With the situation no longer critical, your adrenaline finally started to drop. Exhaustion pulled at you, a heavy blanket threatening to smother you until you surrendered. You were so tired, that even Dabi’s bed looked inviting at this point.

You forced yourself to keep going.

You grabbed one of the water bottles from his nightstand, hoping that you could finally get him to drink something now that the vomiting was over and he was starting to gain awareness again.

When you came back to the bathroom, Dabi looked up at you as you entered, his eyes truly seeing you for the first time.

“You’re still here.” He slurred, his voice raspy.

“You noticed, huh?” you gave a small smirk, an attempt to lighten the heavy atmosphere.

He was quiet for a moment and looked down, confusion on his face. “I told you to leave.”

“Yeah, well I was going to, but then you passed out on the bathroom floor.” You replied. “I couldn’t just leave you there.”

He didn’t respond. The fight in him was gone for the moment. He was placid now, almost childlike. You opened the water bottle and handed it to him, but he turned his head away.

“Please, Dabi…” you begged.

He looked back at the item in your hand and stared at it for a moment before finally taking it and taking a small sip. He grimaced painfully.

Of course; after all that vomiting he did earlier, his throat probably hurt like hell.

You pointed at his neck. “May I?” You hoped he understood.

He seemed to. He lowered the water bottle from his lips to allow you access to his throat, and gently you placed your hand over it, feeling the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed against your cool touch. Your quirk seeped into him like honey into a cake, coating his throat and washing the burning pain away.

He swallowed again, this time without flinching. His eyes stared at you, still hazy, but with the hint of something lively in them –a flicker of kindling. He took your hand from his neck and moved it down to his abdomen.

“Here.” He spoke.

You understood, but you hesitated. Would you be able to keep your quirk focused on just the nerves of his muscles? Or would it go deeper than that, impacting the nerves in his gut? That could have its own effects – he won’t feel the burning in his gut, but he also won’t feel hunger for a while, and may not feel that urge to vomit again even if his body needed to later.

“Just a little bit.” You replied.

You felt your quirk trickle into him, like water through cracks in concrete. Once your quirk felt the resistance of the deeper layers of muscle and tissue, you pulled your hand away. If you pushed any further, it’d be too much. He might feel some pain still, but it should be mitigated at least.

“Drink more now. Please.” You ordered.

He obliged, drinking the water in large, thirsty gulps for the first time that evening. Once he was done, he wiped his mouth and handed the empty water bottle to you. You set it on his sink next to the faucet, in case it needed to be refilled later on.

“Come on,” you said. You kneeled down and put his arm around your shoulder, helping him stand. “Let’s get you into bed.”

He didn’t respond; instead, he let you lead him out of the bathroom to the edge of his bed where he fell into it. You debated on whether or not you could leave him there and finally retreat to your room for much-needed rest, but you decided against it. The meds that were flowing in his system were going to start wearing off soon. He will be hungering for more, and you won’t be able to give it to him this time. If you left him alone here, he’d either somehow end up back in your room hunting for that hidden bottle, or he’d go out on the street to try to score whatever he could, no matter the consequences.

There was no choice. You had to stay. And when his pain became too much, you’d help out as best you could. Maybe you could mitigate the symptoms enough to last him until tomorrow evening. By then, you could start him back up on your pills.

You hoped you could handle it. You’d already used your quirk three times tonight - twice just now, and once earlier when you treated his burn in your room. Already, the environment seemed a little harsher to you. Light was brighter, noises louder… It wasn’t too terrible just yet, but all of your senses were heightened more than they were before. The damaged nerves on your back, always hidden by your shirt, itched irritably. It was still bearable – for now.

A sense of trepidation filled you. You’d gone so long without over-exerting your quirk… it had taken only one time to experience it, and you vowed to never let it happen again. Then again, you never expected to be single-handedly dealing with drug addiction and withdrawal for a man who takes enough opioids to take down an elephant.

You peaked at him in his bed where he lay curled up on his side. His eyes were closed for the moment, but you weren’t sure if he was asleep or not. Without disturbing him, you managed to steal a spare pillow from his bed. Then, with a heavy, resigned sigh, you laid down in front of his door, his pillow your only comfort. If he tried to leave, he’d have to go through you. The window was unguarded, but you weren’t too worried – you were three stories up. The building was an old hotel, so all fire escapes were located at the end of the hall, and he was in no condition to try to climb down the rusty drainpipes.

Despite the hardness of the floor and the coldness of the air, sleep claimed you within seconds, the scent of Dabi enveloping you.

As you slept, Dabi stirred restlessly in his bedsheets, his mind drifting between a vague wakefulness and dreams.

There was humming. Someone was singing. It soothed him.

He blinked.

You were talking to him, but he couldn’t make out the words. Something cool and wet passed across his forehead. Was this real?

He blinked.

Your face peered up at him, filled with a loving concern as your hand cupped his cheek, your thumb stroking across his stitches softly. Was THIS real?

He blinked.

He stared at himself, his scars gone, his hair a deep red. His blue eyes echoed his other self like an infinite row of mirrors.

He blinked.

He tried to speak, but pills kept falling from his mouth, choking his words. He couldn’t breathe. His other self stood before him, hands cupped and outstretched as the pills filled them and overflowed, scattering over the floor like a child’s marbles.

He blinked.

All he could see was a blue sky, but there were sounds. The sound of children’s laughter, the sound of a ball being kicked. The was a faint smell of dirt in the air. He was happy.

He blinked.

A woman sat near a window, bathed in sunlight with a white bundle cradled in her arms. Something about her was oddly familiar, yet he couldn’t place her. She sang. “My little Shouto. My sweet, little Shouto…” A baby cooed. Her face turned to him, but her features were hazy, hard to see through the dust that danced in the sunbeams. She reached out a long, slender hand. “Come here, Touya. Meet your little brother.”

He blinked.

He saw the woman again, standing at the end of a lake dock in a white dress, her hair billowing like a white flag of surrender. The lake was smooth as glass, a white mist ghosting over its glossy waters. He knew her.

Mother.

He tried to call to her, but his words were silent, falling from voiceless lips like birds with broken wings. She put one foot out over the water and fell silently, disappearing beneath the murky depths without a splash. A cold dread filled him. Frantically, he ran towards the water, but before he could dive in, the water on the lake erupted into orange, writhing flames. The wood beneath his feet crackled and charred, flames licking at his legs, his arms, his face. The dock broke and suddenly he was drowning, boiling water filling his lungs. Unseen hands grasped at his limbs, pulling him down, down, into the darkness, his flesh turning to ash beneath their touch.

Dabi woke with a shout, his eyes wide and filled with a wild fear. He felt restrained, his legs unable to move.

“Hold him down.” Said a familiar, gruff voice. The smell of cigarette smoke choked him. “I told you this would hurt, kid.”

Suddenly, your face came into view, hovering over him with your hands on his shoulders, shaking him. “Dabi. Dabi!” you called. You stared down at him with worry, dark circles under your bloodshot, tired eyes.

You were here.

The waking nightmare lifted and suddenly he was gasping for air like a deep-sea diver, heavy breaths filling his lungs as he broke through the surface into consciousness. “Y/N?” he said, his voice sounding strangely strangled to his ears. His eyes looked around frantically, taking in his room. A dark twilight was starting to emerge from the clouded, early morning sky outside, dark blue-grey contrasting with the yellow light seeping from the edges of his closed his bathroom door. The colors framed your face as you spoke to him

“Hey, it’s okay.” You said soothingly. “It was just a dream.”

His bedsheets were tangled around his bare legs like a snake. Dabi kicked them off and sat up in his bed with a wince. “I need some water.” An open water bottle appeared in front of him, which he gratefully took and drank.

“Are you okay?” you asked.

Dabi handed the bottle back to you without looking. “I’m fine.” He said gruffly; more so than he intended. But he wasn’t fine. Everything hurt. His head was pounding. His damaged nerves were starting to scream while his body felt as if it had been forced into a box that was too small, aching in places he never thought it could ache. Underneath it all, humming low like a wild animal growling a warning, sat an uneasiness - a dark, nervous energy - threatening to envelop him and wrap him up tightly in despair. Flashes of dreams – or were they memories? – threatened to drag him back down into the darkest parts of himself.

Dabi grappled for control, but he was losing.

You placed a concerned hand over his and he withdrew from your touch, the affection foreign to him. The heavy weight of shame sat deep in his gut as he took in your weary face. Somewhere, beneath the noisy din of his mind, a thought occurred to him: this was taking its toll on you too.

“Why are you still here?” he asked as he laid back onto his damp pillow, his arm over his eyes.

“Because you need me.” You replied.

He clenched his jaw. “No, I don’t.” The words were feeble and weak in his mouth, not an ounce of truth in them. You both knew it.

“I’m too tired to argue with you.” You stated as you rubbed at the bridge of your nose.

“Then go to bed.” He replied.

You wanted to growl in frustration, your own exhaustion making your fuse especially short. If he could just not fight you every step of the way, that’d be great.

“The last time I almost left, you fainted on the bathroom floor in a puddle of water while your body tried to combust itself. So no, I’m not leaving.”

Your tone allowed no more room for argument, your words forcing Dabi to sulk silently. He sat up from his reclined position, his long, scarred legs swinging over the side of the bed to plant firmly on the ground. His leg began to bounce and jitter, an attempt to relieve the irritated, unfocused energy that swirled inside of him like a cyclone. He felt like hell. He was a desert, his body and mind parched as the drugs in his system began to dry up. Even the slightest bit of movement set his nerves ablaze, pain coursing over his skin like a wildfire. He was tired… so fucking tired.

You reached across him, your proximity allowing him to smell the shampoo in your hair as your arm and shoulder pressed against him. For the briefest of moments, he felt something akin to peace break through his stormy mind like sunlight. It was short-lived though. Your closeness left as quickly as it had come, taking the sunshine with it.

“Hey…” you whispered next to him, a pack of crackers in your hand. You opened the packaging and handed him one. “Try to eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.” He replied.

“I don’t care. You need to eat.” You replied.

He didn’t have the strength to fight you. Begrudgingly, he took the cracker and nibbled on it. There was no pleasure in it, his jaw going through the motions like a machine as he chewed and swallowed.

You continued to talk to him, your voice soft, as you handed him another cracker. “You’re going into withdrawal again.” You stated.

“I know.”

“It might actually feel worse this time.”

“It does.”

Your face blurred as another wave of fiery pain washed over him, making him double over, the cracker crumbling like ashes in his fist. He gasped and panted against it, his body shaking from the stress.

You placed a gentle hand on his arm. “Let me help you.” You said. “Let me use my quirk.”

For the briefest of moments, Dabi’s pained expression lifted, and you could see the desperation in his eyes. “It won’t be enough.” He replied.

“Let me try.” You begged.

He stared at you. It was either this, or drugs.

He nodded.

You took his hand in yours and began to trace your fingers along his staples, your quirk seeping in. He inhaled a sharp breath. The pain dissipated where your touch landed. It soaked into his aching bones like heavy rainfall on a burning forest. There was a moment of clarity, the sensation so shocking that it distracted him from his suffering. Slowly you let your hands follow up the length of his arm, following his scars and leaving a humming numbness in its wake. Then, you took his other hand to continue the same treatment on the other side.

Dabi stared at his painless hand in vague fascination. It didn’t seem like it belonged to him. His vision blurred, memory replacing reality.

His hands were smaller now, the stitches gone. The skin was bubbled and blistered, and he could hear his own quiet sobs as hot tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Hey, sweetie.” A soft voice called. Pale, white, delicate hands wrapped around his own damaged ones.

He looked up to see his mother smiling at him. It was a sad smile, full of love, but never quite reaching her tired eyes.

“It hurts.” He sobbed.

“I know.” She soothed. “It’s okay.” A cool frost began to ghost over his damaged skin, soothing the burning, throbbing pain.

“Why does my quirk hurt me, mommy?” he heard himself ask.

“It’s my fault, honey.” She whispered, tears stinging her grey eyes.

“It’s not your fault.” Dabi whispered.

Your touch on his collarbone pulled him back to reality on a thin, white thread.

“What was that?” you asked, your fingers pausing in their work.

“What?” he replied, disoriented.

“You said ‘it’s not your fault.’” You replied with a confused look. “What’s not my fault?”

“Nothing.” He responded as he turned his head away from your prying gaze.

You didn’t pursue it. Dabi was grateful. Instead, he felt your cool touch return to his collarbone to trace along the muscles of his neck and shoulders. While your touch helped initially, the cloud of suffering followed close behind from the places you had yet to reach, a parade of aches and throbs blaring their horns against his brain. His body focused on the noise and continued to shiver and shake while he struggled to keep himself focused.

His face was next, so you cupped his cheek in your hand and gently returned his averted gaze to you. His blue eyes locked with yours, and you stared into them for a moment, captivated by their beauty, aching with their suffering. He didn’t deserve this. Any of this. You could only hope that what you were doing was enough, that it could make a difference.

Your fingers rushed and fumbled clumsily across the lower half of his face and beneath his eyes. You couldn’t quite explain why. Perhaps it felt too personal, even after all you two had been through so far. You barely touched his lower lip, the sensation of its roughness sending electric tingles up your fingertips. You desperately wanted to slow down, take your time, and cherish. But you couldn’t. Such exploration was far too intimate to happen here, now, under such heavy circumstances.

You paused for a moment in your administrations as sweat started to break across your brow. The light from the bathroom felt unusually bright to your eyes and you could feel a headache start to form. A shiver began to take you as your body became increasingly sensitive to the cool temperature of the room, each soft gust of air from the open window feeling like an icy blast. Even your hearing was more sensitive – you could hear Dabi’s heavy breaths as his body struggled; you could hear the early morning sounds of songbirds beginning to sing as the sky gradually lightened outside. The rumble of a car passing by on the street sounded like a freight train. All of your nerves were beginning to tingle, and you became increasingly aware of the texture of the clothing on your skin, the feel of Dabi’s staples beneath your hands. Most of all, the scarred nerves on your back were beginning their own little dance, sending small shoots of tingling pain up your spine.

It was already happening. The feedback from your quirk was starting to cross the threshold into painful overstimulation. It was happening far sooner than you had hoped. But then again, you’d already used your quirk three times within the past eight hours, and your body was already at its limits in other ways. Even quirks could be impacted by physical fatigue, dehydration, hunger… it was like trying to run a marathon on zero sleep and an empty stomach.

Dread settled into your empty gut, making a home there out of wild, thorny weeds. They tangled themselves in your limbs, slowing your movements as your mind began to race. Would you really be able to help him?

Your worried thoughts were interrupted by the sound of multiple ‘dings’ coming from Dabi’s phone that sat neglected on his nightstand, as a series of text messages came through. Each ding vibrated your inner ear at the loudness. A few minutes later, you heard the sound of bedroom doors opening and closing in the hallway. Your hands froze over Dabi’s skin as you waited and listened. Muffled voices vibrated on the other side of the thin walls, your sensitive ears picking up every word.

“Why the hell do Kurogiri and Shigaraki have us getting up so goddamn early?” Twice complained.

Spinner’s voice answered. “He said he’ll explain it to us downstairs. Something about our next mission, I guess. Something to do with the Yakuza.”

A loud yawn came from Toga. “Couldn’t it have waited?? I still need my beauty sleeeeeep….” She whined.

Magne’s voice soon followed. “You’re already beautiful, sweetie.”

“You’re the best, Magne…”

Their voices faded as they entered the old elevator at the end of the hall, it’s off-key ding marking the closing of the doors.

A heavy silence followed. You and Dabi were alone now, the entire floor empty. A confusing combination of relief and anxiety washed over you. The privacy was good, but then again, there was no one around to help if you really needed it.

You returned your gaze to Dabi who sat in silence while his withdrawal continued to wash over him. If your quirk had helped so far, you couldn’t really tell. His breaths were still labored and his vision unfocused as his body shook slightly. He sat there as if waiting. Waiting for you? Or was he still falling in his mind, waiting to crash hard across the sharp jagged rocks of his withdrawal before you could catch him?

He had more scars you needed to tend to… on his legs, his back, his left side just below his ribs, and over his hips, the dark tissue disappearing beneath his shorts. This wasn’t even counting the rest of the pain he felt everywhere else in his body simply from not having any drugs in his system. You were only able to do damage control on the parts that hurt the most. What if it wasn’t enough? It wasn’t a possibility you had considered before.

You swallowed, your mouth and throat dry. You had to try.

“Let’s take off your shirt.” You said. “It’ll make it easier for me to reach your other scars.”

He didn’t respond to you, his gaze unfocused.

Scars… scars….

The word echoed in his mind, and he followed it as it led him down an invisible road to another memory.

“Eww, look at his scars!” a kid said to his friend, his finger pointing.

The friend wrinkled in disgust. “Gross!”

“Dabi?” a voice called. He turned and saw his sister. His brow furrowed. Something wasn’t right. The name didn’t match the movement of her lips…

“Dabi??” your voice cut through, and the memory disappeared.

Dabi looked up at you, confused. “Hm?”

“Your shirt. We have to take it off.”

He silently lifted his shirt over his head, while you watched him with worry. It wasn’t hard for you to figure out what was happening. He was having long moments of non-responsiveness, getting repeatedly lost in his thoughts. You didn’t know much about him, but you could hazard a guess that this guy probably did not have a happy backstory. Villains never did. No doubt the lack of drugs in his system was bringing up that backstory for him right now. The concern, however, was that that was something that was completely outside of your scope. Physical pain was one thing. Mental pain was an entirely different beast. All you could hope for was that your physical treatments could help him enough that he could handle his mental issues by himself.

You took a moment to assess his body and how it was responding to your quirk. His leg no longer bounced, and the shivering was reduced. He showed no hesitation or pain when he removed his shirt. It was definitely doing something.

It gave you hope.

You kept going, your hands washing over wherever the scars presented themselves. Your relief continued to pour into him, but it was impaired now, impacted by your body’s need to limit itself. It was like holding your hand in increasingly hot water – at some point your body was going to recoil to protect you before you burned yourself. You were pushing yourself dangerously far, but you didn’t have a choice. If you stopped now, all of this would be for nothing.

As you struggled to treat every damaged part of him, your heightened senses became worse and worse. And the scar on your back… the one that you always kept covered, the one you never told anyone about because of what it represented… that hurt the most. It burned nearly as fresh as it had when you first got it, a hot searing pain, and panic started to seep into your mind.

You forced yourself to focus on the present, to keep yourself in control. Your hands were on his legs now. You counted the staples as your fingers passed over them.

One, two, three, four, five…

This was the reason you needed your meds. Everything else you could handle on your own. But the scar… the scar always hurt if you pushed too far, and the memories associated with it were never far behind. And this was the farthest you had pushed in a long time

Six, seven, eight, nine…

But you couldn’t take your pills. And you couldn’t cry. Dabi would see it, and there was no telling how he would respond. You silently clenched your jaw and hoped that he didn’t notice the sweat across your skin or the way your hands were shaking now.

Finally, your hands reached his feet, and you couldn’t deny your fingers rushed across the staples that marked the end of your journey. Your touches were done, your quirk spent. Your body was tensed now, each muscle tightened in an attempt to keep yourself together.

You looked back up at him and watched him intently, hopefully, forcing your eyes to focus on him and only him, as you tried to tune out the rest of the environment that was demanding your attention. His body no longer shook. But his eyes were still glazed over and his hands were still wrapped around his core. Was he still in pain? Or was he holding himself for comfort?

Although the battleground of Dabi’s body was more balanced now with your help, the war within himself was far from over. His muscles still ached where your hands had yet to reach, and his head still hurt almost to the point of sickness. But most importantly, while your touch soothed the physical, the mental was left unbarred. The demons of the flesh were replaced by demons of the past, as memory after suppressed memory crashed back into Dabi’s defenseless mind.

“Don’t stop.” He begged in a strained whisper. “I need more.”

Your eyes widened. You didn’t have any more. You gave everything you could and now you were hanging on by a thread.

You no longer had the will or strength to hold in your emotions. Tears slipped down your cheeks, wet roads marking your failure, your failure to subdue his suffering as you had promised.

“I can’t.” you sobbed.

He stared at you foggily, confused by the tears on your cheeks. Were you crying?

“Are you crying??” demanded a deep, angry voice.

Dabi squeezed his eyes shut against the sound, as memory mingled with reality. It sounded real.

Dabi knew he was hallucinating from the withdrawal. Years of dependency had the wires in his brain crisscrossed, and now they were misfiring as it tried to process the trauma he had neglected. Even so, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his father was here. He sensed his towering, overbearing presence, could feel the heat of the fire rolling off of his broad shoulders. He wasn’t ‘Dabi’ in that moment. He was ‘Touya,’ small and weak. He couldn’t suppress the fear that followed, crawling up his skin like a thousand ants. He wanted to run from it, but he couldn’t.

This was hell. He was in hell. He couldn’t make the voices stop, couldn’t make the memories disappear. He was cornered, with no way out.

Dabi craved surrender, to satisfy the addiction and let it wash over him. He wanted it drown his shame and agony, leaving nothing but that comforting, vengeful rage he was so used to. It was the only thing that worked, the only thing he believed in. If he could just get the right drugs, enough drugs, then all of this would go away. It was his only option. Earlier was just a mistake, his broken mind reasoned. He wouldn’t have thrown up those pills if he ate something, after all. This time… this time, he’d be okay. He ate those crackers, didn’t he?

Desperation fueled him, fear and exhaustion consumed him as he locked his eyes on you with intense purpose. “I need those pills. NOW.”

You shook your head vigorously as your words fell from your trembling lips. “I don’t have them.” More tears slipped down your cheeks.

“ARE YOU CRYING??”

A child sobbed.

“Get up. I SAID GET UP.”

Dabi’s blood went cold. He knew this memory. No, no, no…

Dabi leapt out of his bed, nearly knocking you over in the process.

His frantic eyes spotted your medical bag against the wall and before you could even get off the bed, he was dumping its contents all over the floor. Scissors, gauze, over-the-counter pain medicine, and a variety of other items rolled across the hard wood with a clatter. You winced. He threw the bag aside when he couldn’t find what he wanted.

“Where did you put it??” Dabi demanded. His world spun, but he managed to find the wall with his hand and used it to brace himself up.

“I can’t tell you that.” You replied as you stood up.

“So now you’re keeping them from me?” he seethed.

Now that he knew the drugs weren’t in the room, you knew he would try to leave. You made yourself stand up, stifling a cry with a bite of your tongue as your shirt rubbed against your back, to position yourself between him and the door. Fear coursed through you. Even though he was weakened from all that he’d gone through, you knew he could easily overpower you.

You put your hands out towards him cautiously. “We either deal with this now and be done with it, or we deal with it all over again later when the pills run out. You’ve already been through so much. Please, Dabi, don’t give up. You can fight this.”

“You’re pathetic. Weak, like your mother.”

He covered his ears, a futile attempt at blocking the voices from within.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t fight this. The pain was too much, the exhaustion too heavy, the emotions too raw. He needed the drugs. His survival depended on it. Without them, he would go insane. Hadn’t he suffered enough? He wanted to scream, to break things, to ignite his cremation and send everything to ash, including himself. But he didn’t. Perhaps it was the cowardice of dying, or the dissatisfaction of unfinished business, or even the simple fact that you were here with him. Instead, he tried to step around you, but you matched him move for move, blocking his exit. He was trapped.

“Get the fuck outta my way.” Dabi growled.

“No.” you said firmly, even as your body shook in fear and pain. Your eyes were trained on his hands. What if he decided to use his quirk? He wouldn’t… would he?

His face contorted in rage. Betrayal, his mind seethed. You cared more about protecting your precious stash than you did about him. How could you be so fucking selfish?

“You just want to keep the pills for yourself.” He spat.

His accusation shocked you. “W-what?”

“Admit it. You’re a fucking addict just like me. THAT’S WHY YOU WON’T LET ME HAVE ANY!”

“I’m not!” you protested. “Dabi, I’m trying to help you!”

“I’m sorry!” Touya begged. “Let me try again. I just wanna be like you! I wanna be a hero, too!”

“You’ll NEVER be like me! You’re a DISGRACE! A failed experiment!”

“No, no, NO!” Dabi shouted as he squeezed his eyes shut, his fists pounding his head. He opened his eyes, a wildness in them that terrified you. He grabbed at you then, his long fingers wrapping around your biceps with shocking force as he prepared to physically move you from his path. You cried out in pain, his touch like knives against your sensitive skin.

“Dabi, stop it, you’re hurting me!” you cried.

Your frantic words cut through his crazed mind. He stared at you, bewildered, taking in the terror in your eyes, the tears on your face. He saw his hands gripping you, your arms bent up in front of you defensively in fear.

In fear of him.

He let you go, stumbling back a step. He stared at his open palms in horror, his chest heaving. He’d grabbed you. Hurt you. It was his worst fear come to life. He really was like him.

His hands morphed before his eyes, the scars and staples vanishing, and suddenly they were bigger, rougher. They were his father’s hands. And as he looked up, he no longer saw you. Now, he saw his mother, her eyes holding the same fear yours did a moment ago, a fear he’d seen countless times as she tried to defend her children. Those eyes were now trained on him, and it felt as if his soul was being ripped to shreds.

“I-I’m sorry.” He stuttered. He needed her forgiveness. Did he even deserve such a thing? He fell to his knees with a choked sob. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He repeated.

You stared in shock as you watched him fall apart before you, rambling apologies and broken words falling from his lips. You whispered that it was alright, but he couldn’t hear you, too far lost in whatever nightmare he was stuck in. You knelt next to him and placed a gentle hand on his back, rubbing small circles in the space between his shoulders.

He could feel it… his mother’s touch, cool on his back and warm on his soul. He was falling and no longer knew where he was. He only knew that this touch between his shoulder blades was an anchor to a place he couldn’t reach, a place he longed for but never believed existed for him. It was an exoneration, made of mercy and love, sewing together his broken pieces with a golden thread. He wasn’t worthy of it. He cried.

Tears rolled down your cheeks as you bore witness to his agony, this unknown monster that haunted him as he sobbed, completely dismantled and unaware of your presence. There was nothing you could do, no way you could help him through this. All you could do was be here for him. You wouldn’t let him go through this alone

You wrapped your arms around his head as you buried your face into his black hair, your own tears running down into his dark strands. His body responded, lean, strong arms wrapping around your waist as he pressed himself against your stomach and suddenly the two of you were entwined, with him halfway in your lap, gripping you like a child would his mother as his body shook and his tears ran hot into your clothes.

With every inch of you on the brink, your body screamed at his iron-like grip around your waist. Even so, you twined your fingers into his thick hair, bracing the palms of your hands against his sweating skull. With one last surge, you drew what you could of your quirk, scraping the dredges of your ability, and pushed, deep into his brain where the pain still sat like a bullet in a wound that couldn’t heal. A choked sob escaped your lips as your body was pushed passed its threshold, your world exploding in color, sound, and pain. Dabi’s own sobs fell silent and his body went limp in your lap, his arms around your waist going slack. He was unconscious.

A deafening silence fell across the room, slowly replaced by the sounds of daily life from outside – the bustle of traffic, someone’s radio blaring, people laughing. It felt out of place in contrast to all that had transpired and clashed harshly with your ears. The sun was completely up now, the grey haze of morning burned away. It seeped past the cracks in the curtains, a beam of light streaking across the floor to kiss the face of the man now passed out in your lap. The brightness of the sunlight made you squint against it, but you couldn’t take your eyes off of him. You watched the tension in his face disappear, furrowed brows and wrinkled forehead smoothing over, his lips parting in a relaxed breath. It was the first time you’d ever seen him look so peaceful.

You watched as your tears fell on his pale cheek to slip down and catch onto a metal ring. Suddenly, you were doubled over him, sobbing violently into his shoulder. The rollercoaster of all that had happened crashed over you in unrelenting waves as your body screamed at the entire loudness of the world around you. As you cried, the broken man beneath you slept. There was no waking him now; his own exhaustion had claimed him once you hit his withdrawal at its source.

After what felt like ages, your sobbing subsided, and your tears dried up. Your body and soul were spent. They screamed for relief, for silence, for sleep. Slowly, you removed Dabi from your lap before finally staring at him, asleep on the floor. There was no way you could get him back into his bed, but you’d do what you could to make him comfortable. Even the slightest bit movement was agony, but you forced yourself forward with painstaking slowness. You managed to get the pillow you had borrowed under his head and draped his blanket over him before you grabbed a water bottle for yourself and downed its contents. You followed it up with a banana, although your stomach roiled slightly, the pain in your lower back bringing forth a wave of nausea that you fought with clenched teeth and deep breaths through the nose.

Every movement was stiff and calculated to try to mitigate your own suffering as you gathered the items Dabi had emptied across the floor earlier. When you finally left his room, it felt like entering another dimension, the hallway oddly quiet and peaceful.

On tired, aching feet you crossed the hallway to your room and entered. As soon as the door closed behind you, you dropped your bag and headed straight for the bathroom. As you passed your closet, you eyed the duffle bag stashed up high in your closet, your mind longingly thinking of its hidden contents. You did your best to ignore it. The idea of having to go through it all again because you couldn’t exercise self-control was enough to keep you from giving into temptation.

Instead, you pulled your over the counter pain relief pills from your medicine cabinet and took four of them; they might not work as well as what you were used to, but it was better than nothing. Your body screamed for sleep, but you knew that sleep would elude you as long as your senses were going haywire and your back burned.

So, you closed your bathroom door to plunge yourself into darkness and turned on your bathtub, adjusting the temperature to an equilibrium that matched with your own body. You undressed yourself, slowly, grateful to no longer feel the itchiness of the cotton on your skin while the soles of your bare feet complained about the cold hardness of your bathroom floor. Once the tub was full and the faucet turned off, you entered the water slowly and submerged yourself until only your mouth and nose were above water.

Immediately, a familiar, comfortable silence fell over you as the water entered your ears and muted your hearing, your closed eyes blocked out any remaining light that the bathroom door couldn’t eliminate, and the water caressed your skin in a gentle, numbing embrace.

This was what you needed – sensory deprivation. Or, at least the best you could do with your current situation. A heated pool was more ideal of course, but clearly not an option right now. You could feel the edges of the tub press on your skin where you couldn’t quite fit or where the water wasn’t quite deep enough to fully support you with its buoyancy. But still, it was far better than anything else you had at your disposal.

If it weren’t for the fear of water getting into your nose and lungs, you would have fallen asleep right there in an instant. Instead, you lingered, your mind filled with memories and thoughts of the gauntlet you had somehow managed to survive. You wondered if Dabi would remember all of it when he finally woke up, or if some of it would get lost or buried.

Will he be okay after you used your quirk on his mind? You hadn’t thought about it when you did it – your instinct took over, fueled by desperation and emotional turmoil at seeing him fall apart in front of you against his will. You’d never used your quirk like that before, and it scared you.

There was nothing you could do but wait. Wait and see what happened.

You left the bathtub once the water started to get cold and dressed yourself in your softest article of clothing before falling into bed. Your blackout curtains did their best to block out the daytime, but nothing could be done for the noise, the old windows made of thin glass. But fatigue pulled heavy, its weight stronger than your quirk’s feedback. Time lost its meaning as sleep finally found you, pulling you into its gentle arms while visions of Dabi filled your dreams. __________________________________________________________________

Part 7

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Taglist (always open!): @lemonfvck @vs-redemption @inanabsentia @sheedaabee @toshiuwuu @marydragneell @chillinwithmybakubros @genuinelytodorokisbitch @sam-i-am-1025 @redflannel @axerrri @necccomancy @miadraws0 @hot-pocket01 @hopelessdisasterr @dummythiccwitch @villainsdeku @aquzairus @officialtrashbusiness @hemdem018 @purplesweethart @doebopeepeebbod @ghost-of-todoroki @marvel-philosophy @lysawayne @udontneedtokno @citrussaurus @littleladdty @starsforannie @zunmie @mae-rd @mrsreina @ohh-takuuu @ih8beefnoodles @kellyyween @jojoniles @steale24

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tobesobri · 4 years

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𝓐h okay sorry again for the delay, my last two brain cells don’t work apparently but I really hope you guys don’t hate me too much after this one 😬

huge massive thank you to the incredible @youresogolden-h for editing ❤️

CHAPTER EIGHT: HURTS WHEN I’M LEAVING YOU (3.7K)

Harry and Y/N are friends…. with benefits, but not the kinds you’re thinking of.

🥥MASTERLIST 🌃INSPO TAG 🌻ASK TAG 💃PLAYLIST 🛌

Harry placed two silver-plated keys, bound together by a thin piece of faux leather tied in a secure knot, on her thigh while joining her on his couch. She had just finished tying up her shoes when he reappeared in the living room.

She stared at the keys carefully before picking them up and looking at him quizzically until he gave her an answer.

“I thought it a bit weird if you stopped sleeping at your coworker’s place the same time I was out of town.”

She glanced at the keys again in her hand. He wanted her to come over while he was gone. To sleep in his bed without him. To simply be in his house when he wasn’t, knowing full well how his last relationship had gone and still he trusted her with something like that.

He was quieter the next time he spoke. “And if you want to come over to look at the lights while I’m away.”

He wanted to tell her it was overdue, that he’d wanted to give her keys their first consistent week together because it would have been easier. But he had been too scared of how that might come across because it was a huge step for him, letting someone in, and he was worried she might think he deserved what happened to him in the past if he was truly that reckless. But now, there was no fear at all. He trusted her with a huge portion of his life, if not all of it.

“Why are there two?” She finally asked.

He glanced at them in her palm and then back at her. “There’s two locks on the door. The smaller one,” he picked up the one he was talking about, “opens the lock on top. And this one,” he set the small key down and pointed at the next, “the main lock.”

He scooted closer to her at some point when explaining the keys and she only knew it because of how her heart raced, which was the weirdest thing for her heart to be having a meltdown over, since Harry being close was nothing new to her at this point. But here she was, hyper fixated over the way his knee touched hers and how his fingertips had brushed against her palm and how close his voice was to her ear, she could suddenly pick out the intricate details of his broken accent. Like how some words he pronounced were as British as it got, and others were a little more California. She wondered if, when he spent more time home, his accent bounced back to how it was supposed to sound.

“Should also mention there’s a security system,” he pointed his gaze to a pin-pad on the wall near the front door she had always known about, having seen him punch numbers into it countless times before they went upstairs, but never thought about in too much depth. “I’ll leave you the code. You have to put it in when you get here and before you go to bed.”

There it was. The confirmation that she was fully allowed to sleep here if she wanted to. She had assumed that’s what he meant when he gave her the keys, but it settled her worries knowing she had verbal permission to do so.

And with everything she needed to know about his home while he was away, and their sarcastic little goodbyes to one another out of the way, the only thing he had left to do was pack a suitcase and meet his team at the airport.

Amongst searching his drawers for a particular pair of jeans he wanted, however, he came across her drawer. The one that kept filling up with her clothes, whether it was various pieces from her work outfits or her spare pajamas, it had become her little space in his closet. And once his eyes landed on one of her plain heather grey shirts, there was no stopping him from smuggling it into his suitcase. Just for good measure.

Just so that when he was in his lonely New York hotel room, the nights went a little easier knowing he had a piece of her with him. It wasn’t nearly enough, however, when he still lost vital

hours of sleep and showed up to his six a.m. meetings looking and acting hungover even though he hadn’t had a stitch of alcohol.

“It’s the jetlag,” he had excused when Jeff had asked about the bags under his eyes and the third cup of coffee. He knew very well he was running on about four collective hours of sleep since Tuesday and it was getting a bit ridiculous at this point.

Thursday night was when things changed, or at least he hoped they would. Sick of going back to his room alone before eight o’clock, he finally agreed to get drinks instead. He finally had some amount of human interaction outside of work. Outside of discussions about album sales and what his sophomore era might look like.

He was done with all of it by the time he got down a burning shot of tequila that Jeff had ordered for their entire group.

“You look tired, man,” Dan planted his arm around Harry’s shoulders, practically shaking him back to life. He was a new producer they’d been working with on the album and right now Harry preferred the sting of the alcohol over the way Dan squeezed his shoulders so recklessly. It made him long for the way Y/N touched him, always careful and delicate.

“He doesn’t sleep,” Jeff offered, recalling the three a.m. text messages he’d received from Harry on Wednesday to prove his point. Harry remained quiet with a permanent grimace on his face, seeking out more alcohol.

“You need to get laid!” Dan exclaimed, shaking his poor shoulders again, and just about doing Harry’s head in. As much as he tried to hide it, a look of pure disgust rolled onto Harry’s face because for the first time in... however long, he didn’t want sex. Didn’t even want to think about it. He just wanted Y/N. That was it. If it wasn’t her in his bed, he wanted nothing to do with it.

And he realized at that point that Will had been right. He was helplessly in love with someone who might not ever love him back.

He took another shot and found his attention being pulled away from his immediate table to a flash of hair swooping halfway across the club from where they sat. It was definitely his mind, and the alcohol swimming around in it, doing tricks on him, but he could have easily mistaken her for Y/N. It was the hair, he thought. It was the exact same, at least under the piss poor lighting, but to the point where he smelled coconut in his nostrils even though there was nothing physical around him that was remotely close to smelling like her. His nose was so used to her, and missed her so much, it was making shit up out of thin air.

And with a few more shots and a little bit of flirting later, he wasn’t so alone when he stepped through the door of his hotel room Thursday night.

He wasn’t alone when he got to his bedroom, when the girl’s hands were already undressing him and he was comparing it to when Y/N had unbuttoned his shirt that one drunken night. She’d been so soft and gentle, though. So very unlike how it was now. It was going too fast for him, especially when she accidentally scratched her nails against his abs and kissed him so impatiently, he wasn’t even sure what he was doing anymore.

Nevertheless, he was drunk and she looked like Y/N if he squinted hard enough, so he let her undress him all the way to the bed where she crawled on top of him and undid his jeans. He had no clue what her name was and although he felt horrible about it, he was positive it was better that way. Particularly when she got her hands on him and he saw stars behind his eyelids. He tilted his head back towards the wall behind them with a gasp when it was her mouth next. Her name was extremely unimportant when he pretended it was Y/N every time the girl traced her fingers across the tattoos on his hips.

Even when she was on top of him, giving him all the warmth he’d been craving, he still pretended she was someone else when she kissed him again, when she ran her hands through his hair, and when he dug his fingers into her hips.

He closed his eyes through all of it and imagined being with Y/N like that.

He was so fucking fucked.

The ding of his phone as it vibrated on the bedside table woke him hours later. It was still dark outside, that much he knew. He also knew that whatever sloppy sex he’d had was not worth it when the girl had turned the other way and fell asleep with her back facing him, several inches apart. He could have gone without the sex, but holding on to someone while he slept? That was harder to go without.

Shaking his head clear of his stupid, drunken mistakes, he pressed the button on the side of his phone, lighting the entire room with his screen before he lowered the brightness and read the text message waiting for him.

He squinted at it at first, realizing it wasn’t a message, but rather a picture. Either way, he swiped it open quickly because the least he knew was that it was from Y/N.

Tapping the picture open, he quickly saw that it was of her when he zoomed in on what she hadn’t cropped out of her face. It was her, standing in front of the mirror in his closet dressed in her typical casual attire apart from one thing.

She was wearing his bright pink suit jacket he’d worn on the Today Show a couple years ago.

He couldn’t help but smile, even wider the longer he looked at it. When he pulled the covers off of himself and sat up on the edge of the bed, he even laughed at it, as quietly as he could manage, while he attempted to tame his hair by pulling his clammy fingers through it.

While typing his message, he tried not to think about her rummaging through his closet. Her light touch spreading across the various colors and textures of his clothes. He tried not to acknowledge the overwhelming fluttering in his chest.

(Harry, 3:13 am, NY time)

Looks better on you.

He waited patiently while the three little dots from her side of the conversation disappeared and a new bubble from her popped up in its place.

(Y/N, 3:13 am, NY time)

I know.

He couldn’t help his laughter then, glancing behind him only when he heard the other girl shuffle under the hotel sheets, realizing for the first time in the past few minutes that she was still there.

Instead, he gathered himself and went out into the living room, snagging a shirt from his drawer to slip on and turning the heater up a few notches on his way out.

(Harry, 3:24 am, NY time)

Finally missed me then?

His next text was sent once he was settled on the couch without a single light on. He had the moon and his phone screen though, and that was enough.

(Y/N, 3:25 am, NY time)

I missed the heated floors in your bathroom actually.

He laughed again at her response, not having been this happy his entire trip. Not even remembering the last time he genuinely smiled since he’d been with her on Tuesday morning. It was very much needed. Even if it was past three a.m. in his timezone.

While he thought about what to say next, he slipped his shirt on over his head for some relief from the chilly room. What he didn’t expect, however, was to smell her shampoo again. And then her perfume. He smelled all of her like she was there in the room next to him. And it wasn’t his nose being a little bitch again.

Looking down at himself, he realized he’d grabbed her shirt. The light grey, oversized one. It had fit a little baggier than all the ones he had packed, but he didn’t make much of it until his senses were filled with everything he loved about her.

He was really, really fucked.

His phone dinged twice more.

(Y/N, 3:27 am, NY time)

Sorry I didn’t realize how late it was there.

Goodnight harry :)

She set her phone down on the top of one of his shelves. If his closet was anything, it was well-organized. After slipping out of Harry’s pink jacket, she neatly replaced it back onto the rack with his other nice coats. She didn’t want to know how much money she’d just squeezed herself into, but Harry didn’t seem to mind.

And she hoped he wouldn’t mind her wandering hands as she slipped them into a drawer she knew he kept his shirts in. She’d meant to go in his closet, secure her own pajamas, and be out. But she saw the bright pink and got distracted. And now she was even more distracted while she pulled out a black t-shirt of his and slipped into it instead. He would never know and she would get a little bit of relief.

Once she had it on though, and she looked at herself in the mirror, she felt horrible about it. Here she was snooping about his wardrobe like she wasn’t supposed to be doing. He didn’t give her his spare keys so she could try his clothes on while he was away. Quickly, she pulled his shirt off and folded it neatly back into its spot.

She flipped off the light in his closet after getting what she needed from her designated drawer and retreated to his bed. It didn’t look the same as when she’d left it. He’d cleaned it up between then and now, making it neat for her again just in case she ended up here at some point. She didn’t expect to actually follow through, but her own sleepless nights got the best of her and by Thursday, she broke down and made the drive up to his house. She punched in the security code to turn the alarm off while she ate her takeout she’d picked up after work in his kitchen. Then she cleaned a little bit for him, putting away the dishes drying out on the counter and organizing his collection of cookbooks that were slowly falling over.

And now she was here, standing in the middle of his room while the whole of L.A. watched her sneak back into his closet to retrieve his black t-shirt once again.

With it secured, she removed her bra from underneath and then her jeans. And the cool air on her bare legs felt too good to cover herself in her plaid pajama bottoms. So, she went without them. She had never lived alone before, but she imagined this was what it felt like. Like she was

free. She could go around in a shirt with no pants on and not worry about anything. And it’s not like he would ever have to know the shirt she was walking around in was his.

She became obsessed with the way his shirt looked on her in the bathroom mirror as she finished her nightly routines. It was just a normal fucking crewneck but the fact that it had previously hugged his body at some point and smelled just fucking like him, it made her feel all sorts of ways. She especially felt not as alone anymore while she crawled into his bed by herself. She sat upright against his pillows for a while, on top of the blanket with her legs spread straight out in front of her and her ankles crossed over each other, flipping through apps on her phone until she had enough and then stared out at his all-too-familiar view.

She missed it almost as much as she missed him. She missed the feeling of him looking at her while she looked at the city. She missed his touch that pulled her back. She missed talking to him like she’d never missed talking to anyone else before.

She missed the way he sometimes glanced at her lips. The way he had giggled when she’d practically taken his shirt off of him in her bedroom and how soft his skin had been that made her feel less guilty about the whole thing. The way his muscles pulled tight across his back. The way his arms stretched over her body, flexing when he hugged her closer.

The way she was currently lost in her dreams about him. And his back and his shoulders and the beads of sweat that might exist on his silky skin if he were to...

She shook her head clear of that image. Because frankly, she really needed to stop thinking about Harry like that. It would never happen, and she knew that. But in her head, it made sense. In her head, he liked her back. He liked her enough to more than just sleep with her. He liked her enough in her head to be on top of her, filling her up while the entire city watched.

And then it just happened. Not that she didn’t feel bad about having her hands down the front of her panties in his shirt and in his bed at just the mere thought of him, but she couldn’t quite help it. She wished he was touching her instead, something she never thought about anyone else in real life before. And with her eyes closed, teetering her head further back into his pillows, enough that she got stronger whiffs of his scent, it was so easy to imagine him doing so.

She saw his hands behind her eyelids, gentle but eager to touch her, and she heard his voice close to her ear, his broken accent telling her it was okay to let go. Her mind had completely left reality, lost to the clouds even though her body remained in Harry’s bed. Her head in the clouds was a better place to be, however. Harry was there and he liked her the way she wanted him to.

She felt it in her chest before her mind even fully comprehended what Will was saying. It was a kind of pain she didn’t let herself feel often but when she did, it was the worst kind of hurt she ever faced.

Her morning had been the best she had all week, mostly due to the events of the previous night. Then there was the text from work telling her not to come in until eleven because of a cancelled meeting that only made the outlook for her day that much brighter. She cleaned up around Harry’s house some more, throwing his clothes into the laundry, including the shirt she’d slept in, while she showered, almost succumbing to her fucking thoughts all over again, but witholding by some grace of god.

She drove home to eat before going to work, craving a bowl of her usual Lucky Charms that not a single drive through breakfast could suffice.

But, when she was at the table surrounded by her roommates again, it had all gone to shit. She wished she had just gotten that fucking McMuffin and driven her ass to work instead. But no. She had to sit and listen while Will gave them all the daily report on Harry’s personal life. The part of him Y/N thought she knew quite well, but apparently she couldn’t have been more wrong.

Will showed off photos of a girl in Harry’s car taken earlier this morning in New York and Y/N suddenly lost her entire appetite.

“Do you know who she is, though?” Violet asked, having taken Will’s phone from him to scroll through all the candid photos and zoom in to try and figure it out.

“No, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’s the girl he told me about.” Will explained, causing Y/N’s eyebrows to furrow. Harry had talked to Will about a girl that he liked?

Why hadn’t he mentioned her to Y/N? Not even just last night when they were texting? Her mind started spiraling from there. She went as far as thinking that Harry might feel bad for her, that he didn’t know how to break off their situation and he’d just been stringing her along. All while he had someone he really wanted.

Or maybe he hadn’t been stringing her along at all, maybe she was just imagining something was there when it clearly wasn’t.

She shut it all off quickly before she found herself getting mad at Harry. “He told you about someone?” Violet asked, far too invested in Harry’s love life.

“Well, not much.” Will answered vaguely, “He was writing songs about her but he wouldn’t say who she was.”

“Found it!” Violet exclaimed, sharing the screen with Will again, “It says her name is Jessica,” Violet added fuel to the fire burning behind Y/N’s eyelids.

She hated that the first thing she thought of was his journal and the way he hid it away from her that first night she’d been at his place. She stared, empty, at her half-eaten bowl of cereal until she completely lost her appetite. Part of her knew her roommates were jumping the gun. Harry could be seen with a girl and not have any kind of romantic connection. But it didn’t explain his songs. He was writing them about someone.

She felt like an idiot. Like a stupid, goddamned idiot. And worse than that, she felt the same way she did all those years ago in high school and she hated mixing Harry in with any of those feelings. But he made her feel stupid. Like she had any bit of a chance with him when he was clearly interested in someone else. She’d trusted him with so much, especially the last night she’d spent with him, and now she was doubting if he even cared at all this entire time or if he just didn’t know how to tell her he was done with her.

Taglist: @afterstylesmadeit @cxnyon-moon-deactivated20200417 @and-im-not-okay-with-it @chrryblsms @whydontharry @harryinsweatersandbandanas @idkthisisjustforfanfic @teddysoldbird @shawnsblue @thurhomish @theasstour @hufflepuff-always-and-forever @staceystoleyourheart @granolagrannie @defineharry @iambabyharry @1142590m @ashtondene @smokeinherperfume @cherryyharryy @mellamolayla @chrryblsms @cassiopeiaskies @sunflowerjens @detroitkiwis @brwnskin-bunnyteeth @cock-a-doodely-doo @strawberrycaramelmocha @meetmeinfleetwood @harriesgolden @rachkon @caritocp @sspidermanss @forestliz @grandfunnyemopainter @metalmerida @httpsmoony @iconicharry @amberlovestombrady @ainatirb-j if you’d like to be added, go here :)

#harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles writing #onlyhuman

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here4theheartbreak · 4 years

Text

Eat the Rich (Because They're Rotund and Delicious) (JinKook)

AO3 Link Here!

Relationships: Jin x Jungkook Genre(s): Smut, Dark (ish), Dark Humor

Rating: Explicit Tags: smut, dark au, serial killers, cannibalism, vigilantism, serial killer Jungkook, non-graphic violence, dirty talk, bottom!Jungkook, top!Jin, rough sex, bareback, coming untouched

Summary: Jungkook had a mission. That mission may involve killing people and burying the bodies. It's going great... Until the bodies go missing.

Word Count: ~6.5k A/N: Written for @bangtanxm ‘s March drabble prompt! If you love mxm bangtan go check us out! We have a discord open as a safe and welcoming community for mxm readers, writers, betas, etc.

From an objective standpoint, most people would say that murder was bad. But on a more broad scale – is anything really objectively bad or good? Could certain things, seen as unlawful and therefore as “bad” by the wider community, be good in some circumstances? Jungkook believed the answer to that was yes. Jungkook was had also killed six people in the last year alone, so he knew his response may have been somewhat biased.

It wasn’t that Jungkook planned to become a serial killer, those he killed just sort of ended up under his knife, so to speak… But that wasn’t entirely true. He planned his kills, down to the finest detail. It was how he escaped notice for so long. The victims deserved their punishment anyway, and it wasn’t as if he enjoyed what he did.

Except the look in their eyes when the pain from his initial slice, always a paper-thin nick between the fingers, almost too shallow to bleed, hit them… That was fun. Or the way they begged for forgiveness as if he were a priest taking last rites. Jungkook was no priest. He was a punisher, some would even call him a devil.

But the devil was the men and women he killed. The lives he snuffed out for the greater good of the community. He wasn’t a serial killer, he was saving people. He never killed an innocent man or woman, he never killed anyone that had a chance of being saved, or even those that would be caught for their crimes. No, he killed the ones that got away with it. The ones that hurt their children and the system turned a blind eye. The ones that rigged ballots and bribed the police. The ones that leered at school girls and boys and kept encrypted files of despicable material on their computers. Jungkook didn’t hurt anyone that didn’t deserve it.

The punishment in today’s world never fit the crime, his adoptive brother always ranted. Really, it was Namjoon that he got the idea from. His brother was a genius, and passionate about justice and the law… But he was soft. He was passive. All bark and no bite. But Jungkook could bite. So, he started listening to his brother’s rants. Memorizing names and researching himself, determining if the person was really as evil as Namjoon had implied. Most of the time the answer was yes. Jungkook drew his first blood when he was sixteen, a porcine lawyer in his forties that had bribed the judge to let a fraudulent business owner off the hook. The man had tried to bribe Jungkook too, saying he would pay for his college, get his family into a nice home, give him any sum of money if he would just let him go. The hot, bitter spray of the man’s punctured carotid artery was sweeter than any bag of Banana Kick he’d ever had. Just over a month later, he sliced the throat of the fraudulent businessman and buried him in the same deep grave as his (now literally) slimy lawyer.

Jungkook had been doing his job for four years when he met Jin. Tall, broad shouldered, an amazing cook, and stunning in both looks and personality (and bed, Jungkook learned a few months after their first date) – Jin was everything he dreamed of in a partner. And what was more, Jin didn’t seem to question his unwillingness to talk about his background before he was adopted by Namjoon’s parents, or his quirks that other partners had found obsessive, clingy, or annoying. Jin also didn’t mind the odd hours he kept, and that was vital. Lover or not, Jungkook wasn’t going to give up on his work. So a year later, when Jin asked him to move into his spacious apartment, Jungkook almost said no. But his affection for Jin, and his trust in him, despite his vow to himself that he would never trust someone outside of his adoptive family, made him say yes.

And things were going splendidly. That was, until Jungkook turned on the news one morning while Jin cooked breakfast only to find out that the location of his dumping grounds for the past twelve months was being dug up and converted into an apartment complex.

He made a point to switch dumping grounds every year so his kills wouldn’t be so overcrowded. He also made a point to clean up his mess to the point of neuroticism… But the risk was always there. His psychiatrist as a young teen had called him obsessive compulsive, and even Namjoon had mentioned it a few times, but Jungkook preferred organized. He needed things done a certain way, that was all. And Jin didn’t seem to mind. If anything, Jin was similar, especially when it came to the industrial style kitchen he used to manage his catering service.

Panic settled in like a heavy stone in the pit of Jungkook’s stomach, ruining his appetite for breakfast and his ability to focus on his work that day. He kept the news on constantly, updates about the building project. What would the headline say, he wondered? Serial killer burial ground discovered? Maniac graveyard unearthed? Six corpses found – serial murderer at large? Getting caught was something Jungkook had frankly never planned for. He was doing a good thing. He was helping. He was careful. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Two days later, the news showed the plot of land. It had been almost entirely dug out. Surely deep enough to uncover the remains of his victims. Panic turned to confusion. Why would the police hide the discovery of the bodies? He’d murdered some wealthy people; their relatives were offering large sums of money for information. This would make headlines. Or it should have, at least.

Finally, the tension got to be too much for Jungkook. Late Saturday night, when he knew the construction site would be shut down, Jungkook donned his hoodie and snuck out of the apartment, citing a need for a jog at Jin’s adorable and questioning glance.

He drove as far as he dared before getting out and walking to the site, pulling up his hood to hide his face from cameras that may be lurking. As he’d suspected, when he shined his flashlight over the dig, it was definitely deep enough to have unearthed every one of his corpses. And not to mention, it was directly over where the majority of them were – at one point – buried. The flashlight swept over the gargantuan yellow machinery before landing on an innocuous spot behind a bulldozer. His newest victim should have been buried right there.

Jungkook skimmed the area for any obvious cameras before grabbing a shovel and pocketing his flashlight. He was used to doing this in the dark. He began to dig, counting his shovelfuls steadily.

When he reached the allotted number of shovelfuls (the burial had to match the crime) he dropped to his knees and pawed at the wet ground, expecting to drive his hand through a liquifying corpse. But he only pulled out fistfuls of wet dirt. Panic bubbled up in Jungkook’s throat and he spun around on his knees, eyes darting over the construction site. He didn’t make a mistake. Jungkook didn’t make mistakes. This was where she was supposed to be. Jungkook pressed his palms against his temples, a low groan vibrating from the pit of his stomach. His breathing increased as he replayed the murder in his mind. How could he be so useless? A mistake like this would cost him everything. His family would hate him, Jin—Oh God, Jin would leave him, he’d end up rotting in jail, he was so fucking stupid.

A voice seemed to whisper through the night, calling his name. If he believed in ghosts, he’d say it was the ghosts of the ones he’d killed, asking where their bodies were? What good was he as a savior if he couldn’t even lay them to rest properly?

The voice echoed again, a little stronger and louder. Jungkook opened his eyes, pulling his flashlight out and flicking it on. The beam darted over the various machinery before landing on a human shaped form a few feet away. Jungkook gasped, jerking backwards. His hand clenched around the shaft of the shovel and lifted it. The person raised their hands in surrender and lifted one hand higher, shoving the black hoodie back from their face.

“Seokjin?” Jungkook hissed.

“Yeah, it’s me, Jungkook. Just me.”

“What are you doing here?”

Jin smiled softly, taking a tentative step toward Jungkook. “You’re not going to find her.”

“Who?”

“The body. Don’t worry. They’re all gone. You won’t be caught.”

Instead of relaxing him, Jin’s words knotted Jungkook’s nerves a hundred times more tightly. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“JK. Come on. I’ve known you for two years. You think I didn’t know? I’ve known since before you moved in.”

Jungkook gripped the shovel tighter, rising to his feet. Jin’s eyes darted down to the shovel and back to Jungkook’s tense face. “Hey… I know you’re scared.”

“You can’t know.”

“I’ve known for a while, baby. Just put the shovel down. I promise, your secret is safe. Nobody will find any traces here. Let’s go home. It’s cold and late.” Jin took a tentative step forward, but stopped when Jungkook raised the shovel a few inches.

“How do you know?” He hissed.

“I will explain it all. I just would prefer to do so at home.”

“No! How! You can’t know! You—You can’t, you wouldn’t understand…” Jungkook began to shake, his vision greying as he gasped for breath. Jin rushed forward and Jungkook tried to swing. He was too slow, and Jin caught his wrist, squeezing and twisting just enough to get him to lose his grip on the shovel. It fell with a thud to the dirt. Jin wrapped his arms around Jungkook, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“I do understand, Jungkookie. I do. I promise, I don’t hate you, I understand. I love you. Please, let’s go home, safe, so I can talk to you, hm?”

Jungkook shivered in Jin’s grip, his mind racing like a rabbit on a track. Jin couldn’t. He had to be hallucinating or worse. Nobody would understand. They’d think he was a monster, they’d hate him and leave him all alone. And maybe he was a monster – he killed people.

Jungkook barely noticed as Jin pulled him forward, keeping a firm arm around his shoulders. He let Jin push him into the passenger seat of the car and buckle him in, his entire body feeling numb and cold. He’d been so careful. There was no way Jin could know. The reality of what Jin said was really hitting him; he knew, he’d known for a while, he didn’t leave. Why didn’t he leave? Nobody wanted to be around a freak that murdered people. Unless he was a freak himself. Jungkook glanced over at Jin. Was he a murderer? Did he kill at random? Would he kill Jungkook now that the secret was out?

Questions circled round and round in Jungkook’s head, each without an answer and each more concerning than the last. Even as they reached the apartment, Jin hadn’t spoken a word. Which was potentially most concerning. Jin was always happily chatting during their car trips, almost to the point that it drove Jungkook crazy at times. The silence was worse.

They entered the apartment Jungkook had called home for a year, and Jin guided him to the couch, sitting him down before disappearing into the kitchen.

What was next? Jungkook wondered as he sat on the couch. Was there any coming back from this? Jin returned shortly, carrying two steaming mugs. He set them on the coffee table and took a seat next to Jungkook.

“Can you look at me, baby?”

“Do you hate me?” Jungkook whispered. His voice sounded hollow to his ears, ragged from stress and fear.

“I love you,” Jin said firmly. He grabbed Jungkook’s chin and tilted his head up, their gazes meeting. “I love you and that’s why I didn’t tell you I knew. I knew it would send you spiraling, just like this, it would make you question yourself and me. I thought it would be better if I helped in silence, instead of risking unsettling your patterns.”

“Where are the bodies?”

Jin’s jaw twitched. He glanced at the couch between their laps and then reached out for his mug, sipping at it. “That’s…. Hard to explain,” he whispered.

“What did you do to them?” Jungkook asked again. “I need to know, you know I have to know.”

“I know. I just… Jungkook, you’re not the only one with secrets like this.”

“What do you mean?”

Jin stayed silent a moment. “The bodies will never be found, I can assure you of that.”

“How, Jin?”

“Well, because we… We’ve eaten them.”

Jungkook reeled back on the couch instantly, barely noticing the way Jin shied away from his abrupt movement.

“I had to have misheard that.”

“I cooked them. And we ate them,” Jin whispered, hanging his head.

“No… You’re… I don’t eat people!” Jungkook cried.

“I do. I have for a very long time. I used to…” Jin shrugged. “I used to just make deals with funeral home directors. Little things here and there. A special treat. But when you and I started dating and I found out your secret, it all seemed like fate. I could get a supply of meat and you’d be safe.”

Jungkook covered his mouth, a sick feeling settling into his stomach. “And you fed them… To me.”

“I’m sorry. I just—Once you moved in, I – I couldn’t make up lies for why you couldn’t eat the food I was eating. I went through great lengths to make sure they were safely prepared, just like any other cut of meat.”

Jungkook rose, turning away from Jin. He was full of nervous energy. A knot of nausea and something else… Some undefinable emotion… Rolled around in his stomach. His hands felt clammy and forehead damp with sweat, his muscles were tense and tight. He began to pace, wringing his hands together. “You eat people!”

“Please, Jungkook, please don’t hate me. It worked so well, I was helping, I thought, I—I wanted you to feel safe and I knew telling you the truth would just scare you and I—”

“Because you eat people, Seokjin!”

“And you murder them!” Jin snapped back, shooting up from the couch. “What’s really worse?!”

Jungkook pulled back, his eyes widening. In all the time they’d been together, Jin had never yelled at him, not like that. A tight fist clamped down on Jungkook’s heart at Jin’s words when they sank in past the anger.

Jin sat down, shaking his head. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“But you did. I know I’m… Different and… What I do a lot of people would say is evil.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t say you don’t think it, Jin. Please don’t lie to me.”

“I don’t think you’re any worse than me. I truly don’t. I’ve seen the people you murder. They’re not nice.”

“I’ve never hurt someone that didn’t deserve it.”

“I know. I know you haven’t. I didn’t say that to—To imply you’re worse. Just to make you see things my way. I might eat human, and that’s frightening. You kill bad people and that’s also frightening. Why are we saying one is worse than the other?”

Jungkook sank back onto the couch, his brows furrowed together. Jin’s words did make sense. It was… Frightening, looking at the man he thought he knew so well and finding out such a big secret, but he supposed Jin probably dealt with the same when he discovered Jungkook’s secret.

“Have you ever killed, Jin?”

“No. I’ve considered it but you know how squeamish I am.” Jin chuckled a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t think I could actually stab someone.”

“But you can cut them up?” Jungkook laughed a little. “Isn’t that just as bad?”

“No way. Once they’re dead it’s just another cut of meat. I’ve butchered animals my whole life. It’s just a matter of knowing where the good meat is and how to prepare it.”

Jungkook picked up the tea Jin had brought him and took a small drink, scowling into the dark depths of it. “You’ve fed me… People. How do you know it won’t make you sick?”

“About the same risk as most other meats, I suppose. I would’ve told you but I was trying to avoid well… This.”

“I get it.” Jungkook frowned a little at his own words. In a weird way, he did get it. He was freaked out by it, but it made sense. And it did help him, in the long run. “Thank you for taking care of me.”

“I love you, Jungkook. I really do. All of you, even your darkness.” Jin reached out and took Jungkook’s cup, setting it aside before grabbing his hands. “Are you going to leave me?”

Jungkook looked up, a little surprised. Jin’s gaze was gentle and earnest, his eyes seeming to search Jungkook’s face. In all the time they’d been together, Jungkook had asked regularly if Jin was going to tire of him; it was sort of his thing. But Jin had never asked, never like this.

“You know my secret now,” Jungkook whispered.

“And you know mine. It’s even. We’re bound to silence, in that way I suppose. I’ll never tell. Even if your answer is yes, you want to leave… I’ll keep your secret.”

“I don’t want to leave,” Jungkook admitted. All tension seemed to leave Jin’s body at that.

“You don’t?”

“But there needs to be some rules established,” Jungkook said firmly. Jin nodded.

“I shouldn’t have lied to you.”

“No. I understand why you did it… But I feel violated, Jin. I wish you would have told me you knew, and what you were doing, even if you thought I’d get mad.”

Jin nodded again. Jungkook let go of Jin’s hands and scooted a little closer, holding the back of his neck. “Show me?”

“What?”

“My last kill was just last month… Have we… Eaten… All of her?”

“No.”

“Show me what’s left.”

“Are you sure?”

Jungkook nodded. Jin rose and took his hand, leading him out into their kitchen. Clean and spotless as always; if Jin was obsessive over one thing it was the cleanliness and orderliness of his kitchen. Jungkook was beginning to realize why. He opened the freezer and motioned to the stacks of white wrapped cuts of meat. Some were stained with a brick red, others clean as snow. Jungkook looked over it all, swallowing hard. “I thought this was beef or pork.”

“Not quite.”

“All the meat we’ve eaten in the last year….”

“Mostly human. Some, I mean, of course, some wasn’t. Months you didn’t kill or when we had a dinner party or two, of course the meat would go faster and I’d have to stock up with other animals.”

“You haven’t shopped at the local morgue since we started dating?”

Jin chuckled a little. He reached in and grabbed a couple of packages, putting them into the refrigerator.

“Dinner tomorrow,” he said when Jungkook cocked his head. “And no, I haven’t. Your kills are fresh enough and I’m always able to grab them the night you do them, so they don’t go bad. Then it’s just a matter of butchering it and getting rid of the inedible parts.”

“And what do you do with those?”

Jin grinned. “Not a piece goes to waste. I figured since they were so horrible in life, they may as well be useful in their death. Bones get ground down into fertilizer after I get the marrow out for our own meals or for the food I give some of our friends’ dogs.” He patted his grinder proudly. “The fertilizer goes into the garden, bone dust is a great fertilizer, it’s how my veggies and fruits are always so juicy. I burn the hair – I guess that part goes to waste, and smells something awful. And then the skin either gets added to the dog food or turned into rinds. Brain and a handful of other organs that I just don’t care for get pureed and put in my dehydrator so I can add it to the fertilizer as well. And of course, the meat and organs that are delicious end up in my freezer for our dinners.”

“Those pork rinds! Weren’t pork?” Jungkook spluttered. “I eat like a hundred of those!”

“Delicious, aren’t they? I can’t make them for every person you kill, unfortunately. Only the really girthy ones.”

“So, you’re saying if I kill more overweight criminals, you’ll make me pork rinds more often?”

Jin laughed. “Well, I can’t say that they’ll be pork rinds, but I can make them. But not too often. We only eat so much meat and bigger people usually also give bigger cuts of meat.”

Jungkook nodded. He turned, looking around the kitchen he’d grown so familiar with, seeing it in an entirely new light this evening. Now he could visualize the grinder filled with the bones of his victims, the cutting boards stained rusty with their blood. His stomach twisted in a delightful little knot, surprising him. He’d been doing his work alone for so long. While he was okay with that… Maybe having someone to share it with wasn’t such a bad idea.

Jin’s hands landed on his shoulders, brushing his nose and lips gently over Jungkook’s ear. “You okay?” He asked softly.

Jungkook turned, staying close to Jin. He nodded, brushing their noses together. “You’ve known for a while.”

“I have.” “How did you find out?”

Jin stepped back, rubbing the back of his neck. “Before you moved in. I didn’t mean to… When I was at your place, I accidentally saw one of your victim’s schedules on your computer. It was unlocked and I’d planned on hopping on to check a news article I wanted to show you. But it bugged me, so I researched the man afterward. I didn’t put it together until he went missing the following week. So then I dug on purpose… Just a little. I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. Then one night I followed you. And I saw you.”

“But you didn’t… Run away screaming or tell.”

Jin shook his head. “I’d seen the type of people you were looking into. They were ones the world is better off without. I asked you to move in with me instead… So I could keep you safe.”

Jungkook chuckled a little. “You see a serial killer and ask him to live with you. Aren’t you a little afraid of me?”

“No.”

Jungkook cocked his head, surprised at the answer. “But I kill people.”

“Bad ones. I’m not bad. You love me.”

“You eat people… You’ve never thought about eating me? Even in passing?”

Jin shook his head. “You’re much more fulfilling for me alive. You make me happy and feel complete… The only time I want to eat you is in bed.” Jin winked. A bubble of laughter rumbled out of Jungkook before he could stop it, his face heating up.

“Really?” He cried.

Jin grinned broadly, the stunning smile that had drawn Jungkook in when they first met. “What? Bad timing?”

“Horrible timing,” Jungkook cried with no venom, shoving Jin playfully. Jin laughed and stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Jungkook’s middle.

“You’ll really stay?”

“I’ll stay. You were right. We both have secrets… We both have things we hid that we probably shouldn’t have… But I do love you, and I trust you. And I’m willing to work with you on it.”

Jin’s smile softened a little. “Me too… Would it be bad timing to try and kiss you now?”

Hm… Only a quick one. I need a shower. I smell like dirt.”

“Sorta.” Jin brushed their noses gently. “Can I join you?”

Jungkook let his arms rest loosely over Jin’s shoulders. “That just sounds like a proposition.”

“A bit. You’ve been so stressed over the construction work… You realize you’ve barely looked at me, let alone anything else.”

Jungkook scowled. He thought back, trying to come up with some argument to refute Jin’s claim. But he realized that his lover was correct; since the construction news had begun, he’d barely thought of anything else. Especially something intimate.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered instead.

“Don’t be. I knew what was bothering you. I wanted so badly to say something but I knew it wouldn’t… End well. So, I just figured I’d wait until you did the inevitable… Went and looked. And then I would.”

“You can shower with me. I’ll make it up to you.”

Jin shook his head. “You don’t need to. I mostly just want to be close to you. With everything, I guess the prospect of losing you was too real tonight. I’ve never told anyone about what I do and with everything…”

Jungkook silenced Jin with a gentle kiss. Their lips molded perfectly together, the light tickle of Jin’s breath on his cheek as he deepened it, the way their tongues brushed almost instinctively over the connection between their mouths. Jungkook pulled back, nudging Jin’s cheek with his nose.

“I get it. Thank you for sharing with me, no matter how it came out. And thank you for not judging me for my own secrets.”

Jin answered wordlessly, opting instead to kiss Jungkook once more, a deeper, needier one that sent sparks of need down Jungkook’s spine.

“Come shower with me,” Jungkook whispered, letting his arms drop from Jin’s shoulders. He grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the bathroom.

They both stripped wordlessly, sharing quick kisses and soft smiles as they did. Though they had done this about a hundred times in their years together, this felt… New somehow. Jungkook wasn’t sure if it was the knowledge that he wasn’t the only one with such a dark secret, or the weight that was lifted from his shoulders at sharing his secret after so long, but whatever it was, it made everything feel fresh. Jungkook’s heart skipped a beat when Jin’s hands slid down his biceps and across his bare stomach. Jungkook leaned over, slipping out of the back hug to turn on the water. He didn’t bother to hide the little cry of surprise when Jin cupped his ass and squeezed.

He shot upright and Jin wrapped his arms around him, spinning him so they were chest to chest and nearly nose to nose. “I missed this,” Jin whispered. He pressed soft kisses over Jungkook’s cheek and neck, letting his teeth graze his shoulder

Jungkook relaxed into his arms, resting his head on Jin’s shoulder and inhaling. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Fighting you. Scaring you. Hiding this. Thank you for taking care of me.”

“I’ll always take care of you, Jungkook. I love you.”

Jungkook smiled against his skin, sighing contentedly when Jin nipped at his earlobe playfully. “Water’s warm by now. Come on,” he whispered releasing his grip on Jungkook.

The two climbed into the shower and fell into a rhythm learned from their time together, taking turns with the spray of the water, passing bottles and loofas to one another between water wet kisses. Jungkook washed Jin’s back, kissing his shoulders as he did, the hot spray of the water soothing his own muscles. They switched, and Jin did the same. His attention, however, shifted decidedly more to the point quite quickly. He pressed against Jungkook, allowing him to feel his hardness against his ass. Jungkook leaned his head back, shifting his own hips back to tease.

Jin’s breath hitched, and Jungkook smirked. It was his turn to gasp when Jin reached around and palmed his slowly hardening cock. He began to stroke it with a soap slicked hand, placing kisses along Jungkook’s shoulder.

Jungkook giggled, wiggling his hips back against Jin again. “At least let me rinse off,” he whined. Jin grumbled against his skin but stepped back, letting Jungkook step under the warm spray. As soon as the suds had rolled from his body, Jin was pressing him to the wall of the shower, lips warm and wet and desperate. Jungkook buried his fingers in Jin’s hair. Their bodies shifted together, each moving just enough to drag little whines and sighs from the other.

Jungkook pulled back, pushing Jin back a few inches and slapping the shower off. “Bedroom.”

Jin grinned in response, stepping out of the shower. They toweled off haphazardly, and hurried into the bedroom, still sharing quick kisses and needy touches as they did so.

The back of Jungkook’s legs hit the mattress before Jin shoved, sending him onto the bed with a satisfying creak of springs. Jin crawled over him, placing open mouthed kisses up his leg and chest before biting gently on his shoulder. Jungkook chuckled. “Thought you didn’t wanna eat me,” he teased.

Jin laughed, huffing warm breath over his skin. “And I warned you I did when we got into bed.” He flipped on the lamp, casting the room in a comforting orangeish glow. He pushed Jungkook’s legs open with his own thigh. “Now if you don’t mind... I’m starting with dessert.” He moved down and spread Jungkook open, running his tongue over his hole.

Jungkook’s back arched, a groan slipping from his mouth before he could stop it. Jin’s fingers dug into his hips as he held him down. He began to lick, suck, and bite at his hole and the sensitive skin around it, obscene noises filling the air. Jungkook whined, twisting Just hips down. He buried his fingers in Jin’s wet hair, tugging as he struggled for more each time Jin pulled back.

Jin drove two fingers into his spit slicked hole, bordering on painful when he spread them. It faded quickly when Jin’s tongue drove into the gap, teasing the hypersensitive nerves just inside his rim.

Jungkook sobbed his name, writhing on the bed. “Please!” He finally begged.

Jin looked up. His lips were plush, wet, and red, chin damp.

“What?”

“Fuck me, please. Please, I need you,” Jungkook begged. His cock twitched on his stomach, seeming to echo his plea.

Jin pouted. He blew a puff of cool air against Jungkook’s gaped hole, causing goosebumps to erupt over his skin.

“But I was enjoying my meal,” he teased. “I wanted to see if I could make you come just from eating you out.”

Jungkook shivered visibly at that. His cheeks warmed as he imagined it. “As sexy as that sounds... Please, Jin... I’d rather come with your cock fucking me open. I’ll let you eat me until I come another night. When I’m less desperate. Please.”

Jin bit his lip, considering.

Jungkook wet his lips. “I’ll let you try it in the kitchen... You can bend me over the counter and eat my ass until I come all over the floor.”

“Fuck,” Jin hissed. “Deal.” He glanced at Jungkook, shaking his head. “But you’re still so tight. I need to prep you more.”

“Just a bit. I want it tight... Like the night you took my virginity. The way I screamed for you... Tonight feels...”

“New,” Jin finished, nodding. He spat against Jungkook’s hole and added a third finger. He began to twist and stretch quickly, locking gazes with Jungkook as he did.

Jungkook remained quiet, chewing his bottom lip against the sting of the abrupt stretch. He pawed their lube out of the drawer and handed it to Jin, whining when Jin poured a bit into the gap made by his fingers. “It’s cold.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll warm it quick.” Jin slicked himself and lined his cock up.

Jungkook lifted one leg, resting it over Jin’s shoulder. He let the other fall to the side. “I’m ready.”

Jin drove his cock in, both crying out at the tightness of Jungkook’s hole. He arched his back and grabbed Jin’s thighs. Jin held onto his hips, beginning to thrust shallowly almost immediately. Jin pushed his leg off his shoulder and laid over Jungkook, twisting his hips to work him open.

Jungkook held onto him, whining and moaning as his body began to get used to the thick penetration. Jin’s teeth grazed his earlobe.

“Jin—“

“Do you need me to stop?” Jin panted, snapping his hips forward for good measure. Jungkook groaned and shook his head no. “No! Please... Keep going. Harder—“

Jin huffed against Jungkook’s shoulder. He obeyed, snapping his hips forward hard enough to make the bed groan.

Jungkook screamed happily. His rim aches delightfully, stretched to the limit whenever Jin pushed as deep as he could go, and again when his tip caught against that little circle of muscle. He felt delightfully full, each inward pump of Jin’s cock bordering on discomfort as he worked himself deep into Jungkook’s body.

His own cock was pinned between them, achingly hard and leaking against his tense stomach, neglected. He never had to touch himself when Jin was fucking him; Jin knew just how to make him come.

Jin pulled out, making Jungkook shout in annoyance. He flipped him onto his stomach and spread his ass, adding more lube before driving back in and laying himself over Jungkook’s back as he began to pound into him from the new position. Jungkook screamed into the pillow, arching his hips up to give Jin better access. Jin found his hands, gripping the sheet under the pillow; and twined their fingers, kissing his neck almost delicately despite the aggressive pumping of his hips.

“That’s it, JK,” he panted, his tone going straight to Jungkook’s belly.

“You take me so well. Open right up for my cock, huh? You love it.”

Jungkook whined and nodded, baring his neck for Jin to kiss and nibble.

“It’s sexier now, isn’t it?” Jin huffed, vocalizing the echo in Jungkook’s mind all night. “Knowing the truth. Knowing what I do. What you do. What I feed you.”

Jungkook whined, nodding. “It is... Please—“

“I’ve fed you them before. Your male victims.”

Jungkook’s face heated up more than he thought possible. “Did I—“

“You loved them. I was actually jealous.” The snap of his hips was almost painful as he spoke. “The night I fucked your face right at the dinner table... Then bent you over and made you come right there...”

Jungkook moaned, his eyes rolling back at both the pleasure and the memory. “It was so good— Oh God! Please — Fuck— You fucked me so good that night...”

“I had to make you mine again,” Jin growled. His hips were beginning to lose their rhythm.

“I’m always yours!” Jungkook cried. He bit down on the pillow and shouted at a particularly good angle, teetering on the edge. “Please! Fuck me, oh God, Jin please— Make me come, come on me, God don’t stop—“ He knew he was rambling; a side effect of his impending climax. Jin obeyed though, leaning back and pinning his hips down. He began to slam into him hard and fast, pulling almost all the way out before driving in as deep as he could go.

Jungkook screamed until his voice broke, his entire body going rigid. His cock throbbed and twitched against the bed, spilling rope after rope of milky come onto the sheets as Jin ooh fed his ass. Each thrust had his balls clenching, another dribble of come added to the puddle.

Jin groaned his name, his own hips twitching. He stiffened and then shuddered, his thrusts slowing and weakening as he came, still pumping into Jungkook.

Jin pulled out gently and collapsed next to Jungkook, his chest heaving as they came down. Jungkook giggled tiredly . “Wow.”

“Wow is right,” Jin panted, wiping sweat from his brow.

Jungkook rested his head on Jin’s shoulder, letting his breathing normalize. He shivered when Jin began to wipe his sticky body down with a wet wipe, moving only as much as was necessary to be well taken care of his lover. Jin chuckled, making Jungkook crack one eye open.

“What?”

“You’re utterly boneless,” Jin joked.

“Take it as a compliment,” Jungkook grumbled, shifting to let Jin pull the come soiled blanket off the bed. “You fucked me good.”

“Oh I do, trust me.” Jin flopped back into bed, kicking the clean sheet over them. Jungkook tilted his head up, pouting his lips for a kiss. When Jin obliged, he smiled. The two laid in silence for a moment, basking on one another’s company.

“So, I have a couple of targets I’m looking at…” He began, cracking open one eye in time to see Jin smirk.

“Who’s on the chopping block?”

“A slimy vice president of a small company or a cop who took a bribe that got a criminal off… Any special requests?”

Jin chuckled. “Well, do you have any special dinner requests?”

“You know I love everything you cook… I have been craving your stew though, you haven’t made it in forever.”

“Are either of these potential carcasses fit?”

“The cop, actually. About my size.”

“If you want stew, I’ll need to butcher something with well worked muscles so I can slow cook it. We do have that dinner party coming up early next month… I bet my stew would be a hit with our friends.”

“Oh, you know it would – Taehyung would die for it.” Jungkook hesitated. “How often do you serve my kills to our friends?”

“Regularly – but not as often as you and I eat them. I don’t want to risk them asking what meat it is if it’s too gamey or unique tasting.”

Jungkook nodded. “I’ll work on the cop then.”

The silence stretched on. Jungkook was deep in thought, considering what he’d learned about his potential next victim, as well as the realization that he was doing it entirely with Jin’s knowledge. Jin cleared his throat.

“I have a question.”

“Sure.”

“I know you want to do this alone and all of that but… Would it be okay if I picked up the carcass fresh? Rather than you burying it?”

Jungkook looked up at Jin, cocking his head. “Well, I guess that makes more sense… Since you know now… Yeah, I’ll text when I’m done. I’ll give you the address ahead of time.”

Jin nodded, relaxing a bit into the bed.

“Maybe I’ll show you how to butcher them.”

“Can you teach me how to cook it too?” Jungkook asked.

“No way.”

Jungkook scowled. Jin grinned. “If I teach you how to cook it, you might become better than me, then what use would I be for you?”

Jungkook laughed, wrapping an arm tight around Jin’s middle. “You’ll always have a place in my life, no matter what.”

“Promise?”

Jungkook smiled against his shoulder. “Promise. Now let’s go to sleep.”

Jin grunted in response, turning the lamp off and nuzzling deeper under the sheet. Jungkook relaxed into his embrace as easy as breathing, a sense of profound comfort slipping over him as he drifted to sleep.

#bangtanarmynet #btsbookclub #armiesnet #ficswithluv #bangtanxm #jinkook #jin x jungkook #jungkook x jin #seokjin x jungkook #jungkook x seokjin #dark themes #vigilantism #cannibalism #serial killer jk #mywriting

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blahblog · 4 years

Text

The Promised Neverland

Warning Spoilers!

I have heard a lot about this show from Tik Tok. I finally finished watching it last night, and it pretty much deserves its hype. It still isn’t my favorite, but it was very good.

Basically the premise of the show is that there are a bunch of kids at this orphanage. You learn pretty early on that they are actually on a farm that raises them to be fed to a bunch of demons. The demons want to eat their brain, so the smarter and more creative a child is the better tasting they are. Children are eligible to be shipped out by age 6 where the ones who perform the lowest on their tests gets shipped out first. The ones with the highest test scores are allowed to live until age 12 when they are saved for a special demon called “The One”. The kids find all of this out, and this 12 episode anime is basically their escape attempt.

There are three main characters.

Emma:

First off, she totally reminded me of Hinata from Haikyuu. The orange hair, smile, athletic ability, and positivity all line up. Anyways, she is described as the most physically talented, but she’s less smart than her two male counterparts. She has this heart of gold, and she’s led by her emotions making her a little impulsive at times. She is the one who insists on bringing all the kids on their escape attempt even the little ones who would most likely slow them down.

Norman:

He is also described as kind. His main trait is his intelligence. In the first episode, it’s clearly shown that Emma is much faster and stronger than him, but he still beats her in a game of tag by outwitting her. He is much more logical than Emma, but he says himself that he is in love with her, so he generally goes along with what Emma wants. He ends up being the ultimate mastermind in the escape, but he also sacrifices himself in the process. Honestly, I think a lot of people cited his death as a major tragedy, but I never really got that invested in him.

Rei:

Rei was my absolute favorite, and the twists in the end just make me like him even more. He is also a mastermind; he spends his days reading and studying instead of running and playing. It is later revealed that he is the one that planned for Emma and Norman to find out the truth, and he had a 6 year long plan to get them away from the farm. He acts as a sort of double/triple agent, and he has been leaking information to mom since he was 6. In the last episode you find out he is mom’s biological son, and that hit me so hard. Honestly mom’s whole backstory hit me kind of hard.

These three kids plot against basically the whole world. I love underdog stories like this because they don’t just win by sheer luck or perseverance. The characters are genuinely smart, and their plans (though farfetched) are really thought out in advance. The levels of mental chess Norman and Rei were playing with each other had me on the edge of my seat. I never knew what was going to happen next. It was the kind of mental games Death Note is known for, and that is one of my favorite animes. I love complicated plans and last minute twists.

I was told by a friend that the more you re watch it, the more clues there are that foreshadow the revelations that occur. I LOVE shows that put in that kind of detail into their craft.

I think another thing this anime does really well is that they show us morally grey characters. The mom and sister Krone were in the same position as these kids, and they did what they needed to survive. The show even shows clips of them as kids.

And not going to lie, when Isabella was a kid, she paralleled Emma a lot. She was bubbly and athletic, and she had to say goodbye to a childhood friend who resembled Norman a lot. I think Emma could have ended up just like her if things had gone even a little different.

It’s shown at the end that Isabella was the other kid who had found out the truth and tried running away all those years ago. She was smart and agile. She even climbed the wall the EXACT same way as Emma and Norman. But I think losing her friend broke her spirit. She allowed herself to get talked down and to work within the system. I think she though shipping out Norman would make Emma react in the same way as herself. She didn’t take into account that Norman would still inspire Emma even after he was gone. His master plan really was the work of a kid genius.

When she loses, she even wishes them luck which made me think she really did love them, and she thought being oblivious was the best life they could have. She knew the truth; she suffered, and I don’t think she wanted that for her kids. She seemed so evil, but when she said she loved every single one of her kids I believed her. I’m sure the kids have a rough journey ahead, and since she can no longer stop them she wishes them the best.

And when they had Rei sing her dead friend’s tune, I almost lost it. You can see she’s still traumatized. And those last words between the two akjdfeatffsef it was beautiful to watch. Honestly those two are my favorite characters.

Also I have a theory:

They did not milk Norman’s death enough. It could have been way sadder. PLUS they didn’t even show that he died. So I have a theory that Norman isn’t actually dead. Only little girls can one day become a mom, but they need to be impregnated by someone. And that someone needs to have amazing genes, so that the next kids can have juicy brains. So I think that Norman was chosen to be a dad. I guess we will find out next season.

ALSO ALSO I thought it was so precious when all the younger kids started helping with the escape and plotting behind mom’s back. When Emma bosses them around and they just look so unfazed while Rei is at a loss for words--PRICELESS. Ugh especially the two onion head boys. SO adorable.

Anyways, always question things and fight the man!

With love,

#ThePromisedNeverland #PromisedNeverland #anime #kids #escape #blog #mythoughts

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iheartseo · 6 years

Text

dancing with the devil pt.3 | ashton

requested: yes

word count: 2.7k+

synopsis: it takes two to tango, it also takes two to fuck. everything about us is messy yet fun yet something that shouldn’t have begun. but my god, dancing with the devil is so much fun. aka is there such thing as being “exclusive fuck buddies”?

warning: mentions of drug use

a/n: sorry that it took so long! the ending is blehh but whatevers! sort of angsty? or like at least i tried to make it angsty. feedback is appreciated.

part 1 // part 2

inspired by my personal experience & the song ‘Dancing with the Devil’ - NIKI

masterlist // writing prompt list

It was just another ordinary night. I was in my bed texting Ashton with my laptop just playing a random youtube video for white noise. This routine was almost like embedded into our brains where we would just message each other for hours on end without realising it. We talked every day without even realising it. Even if it was a simple ‘good morning’ text, they would still occur every day which was one of the reasons why I couldn’t personally understand my true feelings towards Ashton.

One of the things that Ashton suddenly hated, especially after his last failing relationship, was PDA. Any sort of PDA to him, he just somehow found annoying, even if it was just a simple hand hold; he just didn’t like it at all and found it way too cheesy. So, whenever Ashton and I were in public together, any moment that I would he would be okay with just a simple touch that conveyed the message of us being more than just friends, he hated it, would instantly pull away and act as if nothing happened, which would cause me to play it off like it was an accident. Whenever he would do that, for some reason it would break my heart just a little.

Ashton is such a sweet and charismatic person that it would be weird being rejected constantly by someone in public yet in private, he would be a whole different person. He would turn into this soft hearted man and would be begging for my attention constantly. His hand would reach over and grab mine first. He would initiate the spooning and cuddling first. He will even as far as pulling me in close for a cuddle and just stare into my eyes in silence. Not saying a word, but just admiring.

Holy fuck. I hated it when he did that because it would mess with my head so much. He shouldn’t be allowed to just look at me like that and make me feel like that, like we were the last two people on earth and the only thing that mattered was us two in that moment. He would also give me the soft and sweetest smile. It wouldn’t be a huge smile, just a small one but it felt like it was made for me, especially when he leaned in and kissed me after giving me that smile. And the kisses would be different too, my god, were those kisses something else.

Saying that they gave me butterflies was a cliché and no, his kisses didn’t give me butterflies. They never did, instead they have me this gut turning feeling where my insides started to tie together like knots but I like that feeling. I like the feeling of having my stomach feeling funny and weirdly enough my heart beating so fast to the point where it would actually hurt my chest. I like the feeling of him giving me a slow and soft kiss whilst his hand caressed my cheek like my body was made out of fine china. I like the feeling he gives me and I like him… I think.

Maybe.

‘what are you doing atm?’ his grey bubble read.

‘nothing, just chilling in bed honestly.’

‘on a Friday night?’

‘well not everyone can party as hard as you, hun ahah.’ I sent, back, ‘speaking of which, don’t you have a bday party or something tonight?’

‘lols, yeah I do. I’m actually here atm.’

My eyes widen slightly at his message, realising that him and I have been texting back and forth for the last 20 minutes. I suddenly felt guilt for taking up his time when he should be having fun with his friends and not talking to a girl who isn’t even his girlfriend. Quickly sending him a text that was basically apologising for keeping him away from the fun, I finished it off by sending a quick ‘have fun, let me know when you get home.’ before locking my phone and trying to preoccupy myself with my laptop instead of his attention.

I didn’t know when I fell asleep and I have no idea how long I have been asleep for. All I know is that one minute I was watching a random cooking video on youtube and the next, I was being startled awake by my ringtone going off. Furrowing my eyebrows, I grabbed my phone from underneath my pillow and answered it without looking at the caller ID.

“Hello?” I mumbled, the sleepiness seeping through my tone of voice.

“Oh fuck, did I wake you?”

“No no, I was gonna get up anyways.”

“At 2:30 in the morning?”

“… Ashton what do you want again?”

Shifting in my bed, I turned onto my side and balanced my phone on top of my cheek so I would be able to sleep and still be on the phone with him at the same time.

“I just needed someone to talk to.”

“How much did you have?”

“Honestly, not that much… but I can feel myself crashing, Y/N.”

Hearing those words, I suddenly realised what kind of phone call I was going to have with Ashton right now. Letting out a quiet sigh, I felt myself suddenly more alert and awake in order to tend to the high boy’s needs.

“How many lines?”

“Like 4 or 5.”

“Jesus fucken Christ, Ash.”

I rubbed my face, remembering what Ashton would be like when he was on the come down of cocaine in his system. I wasn’t too sure why him and the boys dabbled in the Hollywood drug. I guess they personally didn’t care too much about the price tag affect their bank accounts or the fact that they would use the excuse of not doing it often, only here and there.

“Okay, where are you now? Are you home?” I asked, worried that the drummer was still at the house party and had no way home. I bit my lower lip in anticipation for his answer. When he mumbled that he was actually in his own bed, I let out a sigh of relief, deciding to try and take his mind off of his crash.

“How was the party? You hook up with any hot girls?” I teased. His laugh then quietly echoed through to my side of the phone call, making my heart skip a beat. His laugh. All of his different laughs made me feel the same way every single time; actual pure joy and happiness where I couldn’t help but just smile.

“The party was pretty fucked honestly. Like it was fun but so fucked. I am surprised that I even got home. I think Mitchy had to carry me and Cal into the Uber and then me and him had to carry each other up to the house.” He explained, letting out a few chuckles here and there. I rolled my eyes playfully, chuckling along with him as I could vividly imagine the tragedy it would’ve looked like with the two band members trying to help each other out up into the house.

“You guys are so fucken tragic. I am not even sure how you are even alive right now.” I laughed, shaking my head even though he wasn’t able to see it. “Any hot girls?” I teased, repeating my earlier question. I wasn’t too sure why I always asked him that question. I guess it was my own little way of verbally establishing to both him and myself that what we have and what we share is nothing but physical and that we shouldn’t limit each other to just the other. We both have no ties or actual obligations to each other. So why is it that it hurts me a bit to think of him with another girl?

“Yeah there were plenty of hot girls, one of them even came up to me and was chatting me up.”

“Oh okays. Good for you. Make out with her?”

“No. I couldn’t cause if I did, I would feel guilty.”

“… oh.”

This was the first time I ever heard something even remotely close to Ashton possibly having some sort of feelings for me ever since our little arrangement started. Swallowing the lump that suddenly started to grow in my throat, I shifted slightly in my bed, trying to mentally prepare myself for a long phone call with him.

“W-Why would you feel guilty for making out with another girl? We’re not together.”

“I know we’re not. But I feel like if I hook up with another girl, that in some way, I’m gonna be hurting you and that’s not fair on you. Like, I know we’re not together but I just feel like if I went out and hooked up with random girls and then come back to you, my guilt conscious will just eat me alive. And I just don’t want to upset you or make you cry. Like would you care if I actually ended up making out with her? Be honest.”

It was back. The massive lump in my throat. I hated it and I hated it when he would ask me questions like this. Why couldn’t he be the type of person who just wants to go to sleep during their crash of cocaine? Or just simply mellow out and chill out after it? Why did he have to be the type of people who suddenly get all emotional and deep about their thoughts, especially when it comes to relationships?

“Y/N?”

“… y-yeah. I mean… I would care if you were to tell me that you did hook up with some random girl tonight or any other night, but like I said. We’re not together. As much as it hurts or like as much as it will annoy me that you went off and did it, I can’t get mad at you, cause I personally have no right to. Why would I get mad at you when again, you’re not my boyfriend.”

Those words started to taste more and more stale and heavy the more they naturally flowed out of my mouth. Between him and I, I was the sober one, which meant I had to be the sensible, and the logical one in this conversation. As intelligent and articulate Ashton was, he was in no mindset to be making any actual sense and then remember it in the morning, or at least once the phone call ends.

However, it made sense what I said to him and it was the truth. I would care, of course I would. Any girl who was tied to a guy like Ashton in any sort of romantic or sexual way would care if he went off to try and find something better than her. Any girl with the right mindset would care that someone she has been extremely intimate with, both physically and emotionally went off and repeated those vulnerable moments with another based on pure lust and alcohol driven thoughts. Of course, she would care… but again… Ashton isn’t mine.

And I hate that.

“Would you care if I went out and hooked up with another guy?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes honestly.”

“… yeah I would.”

Hearing his answer, I thought it would make me feel better, like him and I understand each other and that we could both work on this to something greater and better than just a fling with benefits. But, it didn’t. Instead, it just created a new invisible weight, pressing down on my chest slowly as I tried to breathe. He fucks me over so much and he doesn’t even know it.

“Why would you care, though Ash?”

“Because I do. I know it should cause like you said. We’re not together but that’s why I like you. You’re actually so smart and sensible and logical. I need that in my life. Like I feel like you will be such a good influence to me and I will just care if you make out with another guy, might get turned off a bit, but I mean… I will never get mad at you cause I can’t. Just like how you can’t get mad at me.”

Although he was venting, I couldn’t focus on anything else but the sentence of ‘that’s why I like you’. Those words just started to echo through my head as his rambling voice went in one ear and out the other. I wish he didn’t say shit like that because then he is just unknowingly building my hopes up.

‘He likes me. He just said he likes me. Holy fuck. Ashton Irwin actually likes me. What the fuck?’ were the thoughts that were running through my head.

“You know Luke asked me a question about you at the party. Earlier on.”

I snapped out of my overthinking trance, clearing my throat to try and focus all of my attention on his drunken and high words. However, it was slowly proving to be difficult especially at the fact that he just openly admitted to having feelings for me and that he would most definitely care if he were to ever see me with another man even just barely touch me, let alone kiss me the way that he does. My mind was slowly going insane as I found myself being so hung up on that tiny detail; a tiny but incredibly important detail.

“O-Oh? What did he say to you?”

“He asked me when I was gonna ask you out, cause he saw you texting me.” Before any words could come out of my mouth, Ashton continued to his little story without realising the little damage that it was going to cause to me.

“And honestly, I fucken hated it when he asked me that cause it put me on the spot and like I just hated how he expected me to ask you out. And like it wasn’t only him. The other guys came up to me during the party and was like ‘oi, where is your missus? Where is Y/N? did you not bring her?’ and it was just getting to me because I don’t want a relationship. Like… I like you and all but I don’t want anything at the moment and the fact that everyone around us is already building this expectation around us is just annoying me so much and I hate the fact that I can’t just kickback and relax. I have to apparently be in a relationship with you just because everyone else thinks we should and that’s fucked.”

Listening to Ashton’s rambling, I could feel my heart start to get heavier and heavier with each word. Aside from the fact that his words sounded as if him and I being together would be the most horrible idea ever, the tone in his voice just further emphasized it. It was like he grew ill of the thought of a possible relationship with me, which honestly made me feel like absolute crap. Ironically though, the only person who could make me feel better was him. He is the only one who can somehow push me so far down to the ground and yet just casually pick me up so effortlessly as if he wasn’t the reason why I would be crying in the corner with my knees up to my chest.

But I put up with it.

I put up with it because I care about him.

Both as a friend and as a “boyfriend”.

Which is why I stayed up till 4am talking to him on the phone, helping him through his emotional crash of the cocaine where he would tell me secrets that no one else knew about, including his own band mates, his biggest and darkest insecurities and worries because talking to me apparently made him feel better. But whilst it made him feel better, it just made me feel weaker because even though he seems to trust me with his entire life secrets, he still doesn’t want to be with me.

But I mean, maybe… just maybe… he will come to his senses?

Or maybe I’ll come to mine…

But tonight is not the time to. Instead, I will just continue to lie in my bed with my phone pressed up against my ear, helping an Australian drummer try and get through the consequences of his partying decisions and making sure that he knows that he isn’t alone, especially since I am just a phone call away for him.

tagged: @nostalgia-luke @cashton-queen @cashtonspicelatte @bbylonxcal @bbycal @irwinkitten

#5sos imagine #ashton irwin #luke hemmings #calum hood #michael clifford #5sos #5sos imagines #5sos angst #ashton irwin imagine #writing #ashton 5sos #luke 5sos #michael 5sos #calum 5sos #5sos smut

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ko2vo · 6 years

Photo

THIS BLOG IS THREE YEARS OLD TODAY HOLY SHIT (edit: i started this post months ago and forgot about it, this blog was 3 years old on Sept. 7 pffffff-)

Anyway, its been a long time since i last did this, here are a bunch of OCs of mine and, below the read more, is some context for each of them. Probably gonna get long and rambly ‘cause i love them all. You dont have to read about them but please read about them i love them.

Guess the first thing to know is that these aren’t my only OCs. These are kinda the ones that I’ve had around the longest and kept coming back to. Plus, I have some for specific projects that I don’t really elaborate on cuz they exist in a game/writing/something self contained and to say anything would be to say too much, I guess?

Yeah. Overall, I guess these guys are either so developed or underdeveloped that it wouldn’t be spoiling for me to say things about their personalities/relationships! And some of the stories have changed so drastically over the years, I don’t even know what kinda canon will be canon when i get around to making it.

SO they’re categorized by their different worlds/purposes. ALSO if you want to see more pictures of a particular OC, I made their name clickable and it will bring up their tag (some.... won’t have a lot of drawings tho criesss).

CANDY HERO has been my dream comic project since I was 14 oh man. It’s a superhero story, about homeless kids that have to save the world. The reason for saving the world has changed a lot, from alien invasion to robot uprising to super virus subtly ruining everything. But the plan has always been like a grungy futuristic city setting and long term ideas where each chapter would be a self contained episode.

Soda is one of the main characters and the only person that has superpowers. However, his super powers are candy-based and wicked unstable. He could intend to create crystal rock candy to make a barrier of some kind but accidentally whip up a cotton candy tornado. His superhero origin story has changed a lot, but I usually stick to the idea that he swallowed some nuclear experimental bubblegum and it unexpectedly manifested inside him in a way that gave him these capabilities.

Why would he eat questionable chewing gum?? Well, he’s pretty young when he does so most likely he didn’t realize gum wasn’t for eating at that point. He’s also homeless and isn’t picky about what he eats. He probably ends up on the street when he’s around 7 or 8 and his story takes place when he’s 14 or 15. So, somewhere between there is when he acquires his powers.

His personality is basically relentless positivity and optimism. Always looks on the bright side and can be counted on as a morale booster. Super loyal and supportive of his friends. Believes in ideals and hopes to make the world a better place, believes the world can be changed for the better. It’s very difficult to upset him. However, his outlook often jars when he has to deal with an emotionally sensitive situation. His general response is “everything will be okay and I believe in you and support you” and, for a lot of people, it doesn’t work like that and it just makes them more upset, especially living among the homeless. Even though he can relate to suffering, his way of dealing things has always been to repress or move on since it couldn’t be helped and that’s usually what he subconsciously advocates.Depending on the person, it can be reassuring or it can feel like a rehearsed script.

All in all, he has a lot of issues he’s left unresolved and ignores in favour of smiling and focusing on the positive and he doesn’t really understand why people will fixate on the negative. So he’s not really good at handling any kinda negative emotions. ALSO his trusting nature makes him a victim in gullibility too. Even with someone that’s been a complete dick to him twenty times over, he’ll always give the benefit of a doubt and allow them second, third, fourth chances.

SOME EXTRA RANDOM FACTS ABOUT SODA - His real name is Felix but he’s only ever gone by Soda. Rafter was the one that gave him the nickname cuz he’s bubbly and too sweet. - When he’s actually sad and can’t force himself to be happy, he isolates himself. - He’s always wanted to be a super hero! His earliest memory is running around with goggles on and a blanket tied around his shoulders like a cape, playing pretend. - He has an evil doppelganger named Seltzer; they look exactly alike, except Seltzer’s eyes are orange instead of blue. - He smells like a carnival’s trash can.

Rafter is Soda’s best friend. Both of them have been on the street for a similar amount of time, but Rafter’s circumstances for getting there are a lot more harsh. Soda ends up there almost by choice, but Rafter is forced onto the streets. He’s really mature as a result and pretty cautious. Generally, he prefers to be a lone wolf but Soda persisted in helping him cuz they were both kids and logically he understood that it was safer to have someone around. Most of the time, he appreciates Soda for his overabundant friendliness but it also makes him super nervous because jeezuz Soda, don’t talk to that shady dude behind the dumpster what if he harvests your kidneys or something plz exercise some self preservation.

Rafter is relatively quiet, thoughtful, and skeptical. He doesn’t trust people very easily and he tends to keep his circle of friends small. But when he does trust someone, he’s very dependable. Even though he doesn’t have superpowers, he’s got a keen eye for details and analysis. If he were older, he’d probably be a detective. More defensive than offensive, and a strategist.

He ends up in contention with Soda sometimes, because of Soda’s instinct to jump into things indiscriminately (where Rafter likes to plan and evaluate) and also because of his inability to deal with emotions. Rafter is pretty stable emotionally, but when he does feel upset he goes to Noyal or TOI for support rather than Soda. Rafter needs to work through his feelings with someone else and understand why he reacts the way he did in order to feel better.

Overall, Rafter is very level headed. He thinks realistically and practically. But his caution borders on paranoia sometimes and prevents him from making many meaningful connections for fear of being hurt. And, when in contrast with Soda’s positive outlooks, he worries that he comes off as less realistic and more negative and jaded by comparison. It’s a thought that eats away at him sometimes.

SOME EXTRA RANDOM FACTS ABOUT RAFTER - He plays piano and its the best way for him to relax. - Rafter isn’t his real name but no one knows it. - His dream career is to be a psychologist and help kids like him when he gets older, in order to help them avoid being homeless. - Dogs make him nervous. Especially big dogs. - Even though he lives on the street, he’s very careful to stay as clean and hygienic as he can. Can’t stand feeling grimy or dirty.

TOI is an illegal android. She was a young boy as a human who was dying and her father was a scientist that transferred her consciousness to a robot. There is a law that states that any person under the age of consent cannot have their consciousness transferred because androids are not subject to the same laws as humans. It is completely legal for an adult to choose to become an android but there are really fucked up, blurred moral lines with the production of androids. Even if they have a living consciousness and not an AI installed, the only real law they’re required to follow is to be registered and have an owner.

Short of that, anything that happens to androids is damage against the owner, not the android. Because android parts are replaceable and, even if a consciousness is human or a highly developed AI, they are subject to selective memory wipes and can be transferred to other vessels. So androids are kind of resented by some people, able to forget their traumas with the push of a button and recover from damage that would be irreparable for something organic. There have been a lot of attempts at acquiring self ownership and more protection for robots in general, but overall it comes down to “if you can choose to forget, why are you remembering.” It’s a system that kind of works, but only for robots that have owners and owners who care about their well being (which logically they should, because an android costs about as much as a new car would and, if they are spending that much and the consciousness is someone they know, the assumption is that it’s an act of love).

ANYWAYS I could ramble about the messed up robot-human relations of this world all day, but essentially TOI is illegal for many reasons. For one, she was about nine when her consciousness was extracted. Though her mind does continue to age, it’s still morally grey because the public assumption is that all robots are considered consenting adults, even when they have a body that appears younger. It’s a means of avoiding fucked up shit that developers know would happen anyways by at least making it fucked up shit that only happens to adults??? If that makes sense??? im avoiding specific words, cuz its too dark for how PG i want the story to be and its not something i would really explore in canon, its just something i think about when considering TOI’s choices.

She’s also very illegal because, when she turned 15 her father died and her father was her ‘technical’ owner. She wasn’t registered but she had some protection with him around as his ‘scientific property’ but with him gone, no one faces any consequences for damaging her. It leaves her in a very vulnerable position should anyone find out she’s an android and unregistered. And she can’t advocate for robot rights because without an owner, she can just get wiped and no one could do anything about it.

Personality wise, TOI is very snarky. She likes to sass and tease and outsmart people. In canon, she’s about 32 years old, so she also takes a sadistic pleasure in making adults think they’ve been outwitted by a child. She is highly intelligent but operates under the radar because of her situation, usually relying on her human connections (Noyal) in order to save money or sign important documents.

In Candy Hero, she currently isn’t planned to appear for a handful of chapters. Soda and Rafter have a few adventures themselves, then they meet her when she is visiting Noyal. She trusts them as Noyal’s friends and sticks around, their antics amusing her. Plus, since they all look around the same age, TOI feels more secure moving around in public with them.

SOME EXTRA RANDOM FACTS ABOUT TOI - TOI doesn’t need to eat or sleep as a robot, but she does need to recharge every other week depending on her exertion, and she needs regular maintenance. - She was a trans girl even before her consciousness was put into her robot body but socially closeted, except to her father and Noyal. - She loves cats and her favourite clothing items are cat themed. - Whenever she’s able to, she attends art galleries and musical events. - SHES GONE THROUGH THE MOST DESIGN CHANGES like, she used to be a super sexualized animu lady with big boobs and no pants (i want to fight 15 yr old me when i think about it honestly) then she was skinny dude with a gas mask and hood, then lost the mask but became purely a program, then a virus trapped inside a phone Soda had, and now she’s where she is and I’m happiest with her newest design

Noyal is a quiet guy that lives on a boat. He doesn’t say much but he’s empathetic toward Soda and Rafter as street kids. I haven’t really thought about how they meet but my guess is that Soda and Rafter are jumping around different places for food and shelter during the winter and Noyal notices them since he jumps around to the different places for his work. He doesn’t approach them though, it’s Soda that approaches him offering to help him with something (much to Rafter’s horror cuz holy shit Noyal is scary looking) and they all eventually begin to talk. Well, Noyal mostly listens but he talks more with them than he does almost anyone else (TOI being the exception).

Eventually, he offers them a place to stay for the worst nights. They can’t stay with him all the time cuz his boat’s pretty cramped as it is and Noyal likes his solitude. He can’t handle the idea of being a father figure to Soda and Rafter so he makes sure they understand that he views them as friends, not as children he needs to be responsible for. Even though Rafter was nervous about him at first, it turns out that he and Noyal have very compatible personalities and the equal ground he offers in defining that “I’m not an authority over you just because I’ve lived longer” ironically makes Rafter really look up to and respect him.

I’ve not really thought out Noyal’s history to the same extent I’ve thought out TOI’s. He’s always been quiet, somewhat mysterious, but willing to help a friend in need. I imagine he’s been helped through a lot of things when he was young and that’s what makes him willing to extend altruism and sanctuary when he encounters someone that needs help. However, unlike Soda, he doesn’t go out of his way or beyond what he’s comfortable with. If he wants to help and is capable of doing so, he will.

SOME EXTRA RANDOM FACTS ABOUT NOYAL - He owns a dog; an elderly and blind Schnauzer affectionately called Old Russ, who sleeps on his bed with him. - I’ve always imagined him with a Newfoundlander accent. - He’s actually a year younger than TOI and she’ll never let him forget it. - He has a twin sister that he doesn’t like to talk about; she sends him a care package every few months. - He works at a million different jobs. One of the running gags I’ve established in my writing is that he’s just everywhere; Soda and Rafter go to a circus, he’s running the ticket booth; they go to a theatre, he’s a janitor; they head to the mall, he’s working security. HE IS A BUSY MAN. - Covered in scars not because he gets into fights but because he loves animals, regularly works at places with big animals, and would willingly get mangled by a bear if it meant he was able to help it.

PURE FLUFF isn’t the name of anything but I just have no other designation for these two OCs (I used to call their story Day by Day but I’ve abandoned that name). I made them with the intent of doing a really fluffy gay webcomic and I still want to! But it probably won’t be a linear storyline like i originally intended, more like random snippets of their time together. I also specifically wanted to focus not on falling in love, but staying in love. Like, usually the plot and conflict of romance ends with people becoming a couple. Yet, there are so many fun and ridiculous issues that pop up while being a couple??? LIKE COME ON??

Also, it’s a super pure and wholesome story overall so the issues aren’t anything really terrible (at least, between Evan and Love). Usually its like “i dont care how in the zone you are, you havent slept in over 72 hours and im forcing you to sleep” and “dude i know you wouldn’t cheat on me but your hot tutor is making me wicked jealous and possessive and i need attention plz” and “oh nooooo looks like they accidentally put pineapple on both sides of the pizza, guess you’re gonna have to eat pineapple too.” Y’know. Small issues.

Evan is the epitome of lethargy. He’s tired 24/7 and monotone in his speech patterns. Emotions are difficult for him. He experiences them but numbly and has trouble dealing with other’s displays of emotions, particularly in the extreme. He doesn’t really understand people with strong passions or hatreds but he tries to be supportive in his own way. And he really does try but when people don’t know him, they assume his muted reactions are out of disinterest. He can’t force himself to react the way people want so he struggles in a lot of social situations. A lot of the time, he ends up overwhelmed and exhausted if he spends too much time with a crowd.

He doesn’t have the best relationship with his parents and moved out the moment he turned 18 but he has younger siblings that love and adore him so he tries to keep in touch with them at least. Evan is in post secondary and is majoring in computer science and programming. Again, not exactly because it’s his passion but he understands it and it’s an independent activity that he can work on. He also is minoring in ancient history because he enjoys the mythology and guesswork of studying ancient civilizations.

SOME EXTRA RANDOM FACTS ABOUT EVAN - He is probably trans. Honestly, for a lot of my characters, I tend to keep things flexible unless it’s important to their story or I’m being self indulgent so most of them are like ‘maby they are maby they aren’t it doesnt matter’ if i dont say anything. I mention it for Evan cuz its been something I’ve considered as the reason his relationships with his parents being tense. - He is about 23-24, which is two years older than Love. They met in high school because Evan had to take a lower level art class to complete his diploma. Often, people think he is younger than Love because of his baby face and being so much shorter. The assumption tends to annoy him. - Evan is colourblind! Protanopia, or red-green colourblindness. - He has a history of self harm that only Love knows about and he’s since found healthier coping mechanisms. - His favourite thing is spending a lazy afternoon at home, reading a book while Love draws beside him

Love is an artist and an asshole. He likes to tease and press buttons, but generally doesn’t overstep boundaries (and feels terrible when he accidentally does). He is a positive person, looks on the bright side but he has a lot of feelings and not all of them are happy. He’s sensitive, gets disheartened at the slightest off tone. Conversely, he’s extremely easy to please too, the slightest praise sending him buzzing. His mood jumps around a lot depending on where he is, but Evan tends to keep him balanced because he understands and appreciates Evan’s tranquillity.

As an artist, Love focuses on painting and sketching. He loves to use a lot of colour and tends to lean toward impressionism and abstraction in his work. He likes deep thinking but he tends to lean toward making work that’s pretty and aesthetically pleasing to look at (which he gets shit for as an art student). However, a lot of the worst of his habits are associated with painting. He’ll go for days without sleep and eating if he’s in a good painting mood, usually much to Evan’s concern. In high school before dating Evan, he experimented with some hallucinogenics for the sake of artistic venture. He also used to smoke somewhat heavily. Evan helped him ease away from those habits, just as he helped Evan ease away from his.

Also, Love is absolutely enamoured with Evan. Evan loves him back of course, he wouldn’t be with him if he didn’t feel anything, but Love is way more deeply attached. He hovers and will do his best to accommodate Evan, he worries about Evan and tends to talk about him as a common subject in conversation, and he’s happiest when spending his time with Evan. Evan is a lot more independent in the sense that he doesn’t fixate on Love like Love does him, but Love is still the most important person in his life. Love doesn’t really try to tone down his affection either, he’d probably yell in a public space “GOD MY BOYFRIEND IS WONDERFUL??? IM SO LUCKY???” and get kicked out. But it’d so be worth it. He loves making Evan embarrassed.

SOME EXTRA RANDOM FACTS ABOUT LOVE - His name, Love Jaakola, is pronounced Low-vay Yak-oh-law. His father was Swedish and his mother is Chinese (she’s the only one he’s still in contact with). He is an only child. - His hair is naturally dark brown but he regularly dyes it blonde. The ‘streak’ in his hair is actually dried acrylic paint from pushing his hair out his face, the only way he’s able to get rid of it is to cut it off (but it comes back cuz he’s in the habit of running his paint coated hand through his hair at this point). - Love is Evan’s first date person, but Love has dated about 4 people before Evan. Two were girls, one was a boy, and one was nonbinary. However, most of those relationships only lasted a few months, he has been with Evan for about 4-5 years (they’ve known each other about 6-7 yrs). - Ironically, he’s a bit of a technophobe. Evan keeps telling him he should post his artwork online or that he should network with people more to expand his art career, but Love’s like ‘maby.... one day... not today.......’ - His favourite thing is to draw/paint on Evan’s skin. Nothing really planned or meant to impress, just lazing around in their underwear and doodling thoughtlessly.

BAD SEEDS oh god. this is... my sin comic. Sort of. Last year around this time, I was fucking ITCHING to make a webcomic. It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and like, in the time frame of Aug-Nov, my urge to make gore art goes through the roof (like, most people dont get how gross i am cuz i only draw it around this time, i tend to quietly absorb other’s gore during the rest of the year). So the plans for this comic came around. Psychological horror, gore, plants and flowers, bones, I threw a lot of self indulgent shit into this comic.

Bad Seeds is about two terrible high school kids that cause one another to do awful things by encouraging each other’s violent impulses (i say “kids”, they’re both 17 and would experience their 18th birthdays in canon, i literally just wanted a high school setting cuz bullies weeeeps). I did a lot of sketched out comics in my small travel sketchbook of really climactic, messed up scenes, then I tried to do an actual story line so I could do a comic. I made the first 14 ish pages and they’re still floating around but.... wow i hate the beginning. And need to rewrite it. Cuz I still like a lot of the scenes I made for the middle of the story and the messed up dynamics please me but, unfortunately, the main characters need to meet somehow.

Daniel is a nervous, paranoid boy. He’s very jumpy and always feels like he’s going to be yelled at for doing something wrong. He feels like an outcast and kind of makes himself out to be one by thinking that way. Doesn’t go out of his way to make friends, isn’t interested by sports or clubs, and his grades in school are average or below average. However, people that do know him would say he was polite, quiet, and accommodating. Even though he looks awkward, they’d insist he was just shy and warms up to you.

In reality, he behaves that way because he’s almost been conditioned and guilted into being selfless by his dad (his only family). He takes up extra shifts at work if someone asks him, he’ll lend someone he doesn’t know money if they ask, and he will help with cleaning/organizing after school if he’s asked. He doesn’t volunteer and generally doesn’t want to do a lot of things he agrees to but he just can’t say no unless it clashes with other things he’s agreed to do (usually, his job).

Other than that though, a lot of his internalized guilt stems from his fascination with the morbid and a fear of people finding out. In my old draft of Bad Seeds, he became fascinated after being exposed to guro on the internet, but I want the time setting to be late 90s-early 2000s, so I’m compiling a lot of texts and paintings that would feed that interest and be more time appropriate. I’m also trying to figure out if that would make him more interested in art history and specific classical literature but honestly, I don’t think it would; he’d probably fixate only on the most gruesome things and skim over all else haaah.

SOME EXTRA RANDOM FACTS ABOUT DANIEL - He is a masochist. Whenever he gets injured, it tends to take three times as long to heal as it should because he picks and scratches and makes things worse. He also self harms on his upper arms for this reason, to watch it bleed and heal (though, I’m certain a warped idea of atonement for his guilt also plays into the action). - Before meeting Poet, he’d been watching him from a far for two years. Not exactly stalking, he doesn’t go out of his way, but they’re in the same small town school; he stares at him from across the cafeteria at lunch and glances at him when they have classes together and listens extra hard when he hears people talk about Poet. - He works at a small cafe that doesn’t get a lot of traffic. - He sleepwalks and has really vivid dreams. Sometimes he self-induces insomnia to avoid them but that tends to have bad side effects. - He really enjoys his hair being played with/petted/pulled.

Poet is seemingly perfect. He’s one of the top students, with exceptional grades in all of his classes. He’s the president of the student council and he’s well liked by most of the student body because he’s humble and, though hard working and busy, he tries to treat everyone kindly and make good impressions. The only thing he could be considered average in is sports, but he stays active by gardening and hiking. He takes to positions of leadership well, he’s good at improvising, and speaks eloquently. All of his hard work is contributing to his career goal of becoming a medical doctor or surgeon.

However, he has the same morbid fascinations as Daniel. Though, while Daniel is exposed to creative sources like fiction and paintings depicting violence or gore, Poet is more grounded in reality. He uses medical textbooks and pays a lot of attention to real life surgery photos. There was a point where, with the mental excuse that he would need to be comfortable with the grotesque, that he would look for dead things in order to do mock autopsies. He’s killed animals before but always with his version of a justification; to end something’s suffering or in self defence. He rarely kills animals because of this need for a proper explanation. In the old draft of Bad Seeds, his and Daniel’s meeting is him trying to explain that he killed a wild dog that had backed him into an alley and struggling to come up with a reason for why Daniel found him elbow deep in its guts.

HE’S SUCH A BAD DUDE HONESTLY i hate him. Especially with Daniel, after they acknowledge one another’s fucked up impulses, Poet becomes really attached to Daniel but in a messed up abusive and jealous way. He begins to manipulate and gaslight Daniel, whose already isolated, to become even more isolated and only trust Poet and lets himself get talked into a lot by Poet. Well, they talk each other into things. Poet, at the beginning of their relationship, is still extremely preoccupied with appearances and knows what they’re doing is wrong as tempting as it is to have a willing participant and gives Daniel a lot of chances to say no to things. But the more Daniel says yes, the more of a power trip Poet goes on and god, they just make each other so much worse over time and it’s awful and unhealthy and i hate that I’m absolutely into this kinda psychological shit (ONLY FICTIONALLY THO i hate that i need to specify that; if this happened in real life, id fucking call the cops in a heartbeat).

But yea, if he and Daniel never met, they’d both be way better off in the long run honestly haha.

SOME EXTRA RANDOM FACTS ABOUT POET - Probably goes without saying, but he is a sadist. Like, he likes to think he is clinically scientific about everything he does, but when he gets the chance to act out fantasies with Daniel, he starts paying a lot of attention to expression and reaction when he does things. - I mentioned he enjoys gardening but he really likes gardening! He does all the gardening and maintenance of his parent’s home during the warm months, and keeps a lot of plants inside too. - I usually draw him with black hair, but at some point he dies his hair silver/white. - He has a fluffy medium sized dog named Styx, not sure about the breed. Probably a mutt but lots of collie. - Poet existed before Bad Seeds, as a character in Love and Evan’s story! He was still kind of awful but more harmless. He wound up having a crush on Evan while tutoring him in English, but Evan wasn’t interested and also is dating Love. Love had a small crush on Poet cuz he’s lowkey poly and super into intellect/glasses/charisma, which he talked over with Evan. Evan accepts it as part of him but personally wouldn’t be comfortable dating him if he were dating others, so Love compromises because hot damn he loves Evan. ANYWAYS Poet is still awful because, even after Evan says no, he pines and obsesses and tries to monopolize his time as a “””friend”””” (thankfully tho, Evan is not susceptible to his bullshit - which sadly makes Poet like him that much more criesssss)

Ray is a bit of an enigma. He’s technically in his senior year with both Daniel and Poet, but he’s actually two years older and is only back at the school to complete his high school diploma. But no one really remembers him as attending their school? Despite this though, he settles into the school atmosphere well. Even though he’s 19, he’s generally mistaken for younger. He has classes he does well in and classes he skips, but his passion is for music. He’s a skilled, adaptable guitarist who gets called into a few bars and clubs when a band is short and was practically adopted by the school band the moment they found out his skill level. Thing is, he’s also very lazy and wants to avoid things that feel like work, usually causing them to send the drummer to kidnap him in order to get him to attend practice.

He gives off an air of being laid back and aloof, but he’s rather observant. Ray is probably the closest thing to a friend that Daniel has, because Ray noticed he was a bit of a black sheep and decided to keep him company. At first, out of concern that he was being bullied, but after some time it was a little more personal because he realized that Daniel had a crush on another boy (since this story is set in a small town during late 90s early 2000s, repression and institutionalized homophobia are a concern but not really the focus). Personal because he is actually gay and trans and he becomes a little protective over Daniel, having figured this out. Though, his protectiveness doesn’t stop him from teasing Daniel (about having a crush, not about being gay of course).

Ray is also a little eccentric. He refuses to sit in seats properly, he wanders around the streets at like 3am and during rainstorms, and always packs a lunch but never eats it, usually giving it away to Daniel or some first year. He comes off pretty confident and he’s decent at improvising but overall he has no shame and no idea what he’s doing.

SOME EXTRA RANDOM FACTS ABOUT RAY - He has an ex who I haven’t developed but he’s also important, he’s a coworker of Daniel’s. Ray’s ex is actually a decent and understanding dude, but Ray broke up with him because he wanted to get rid of things that reminded him about being “Rachel” (his deadname). - He shares a basement apartment with like, five other lgbt people, but he doesn’t spend much time there and has a tendency to fall asleep where ever. - He’s an orphan. Dad died when he was young, and his mom was a police officer who died in the line of duty during the time he had disappeared. He has an older sister who’s moved a fair distance away. - Daniel thinks of him as a weird mom. Ray considers himself something of a big brother, since he can be a bit of an asshole. - Ray is driven by spite. His hair at the beginning of Bad Seeds is the fluffy mullet he has, influenced by other guitarists cuz he’s a nerd, but when he meets his ex again and his ex tells him his hair looks cute, he gets an undercut immediately after.

STAINED is a project I used to be passionate about but honestly, it’s kind of abandoned. It had something to do with tattoos and corrupt hierarchical systems and someone unknowingly supporting the status quo before learning how fucked up and inhumane it is and trying to change the way the world works. I think I was reading a lot of dystopian things that influenced my ideas. Some of the characters from this project will probably be redesigned and put somewhere else but this project itself is kinda dead to me.

ALSO, ITS GONNA BE JARRING HOW SHORT THINGS GET FROM HERE ON like, the rest of these characters are not as developed/ I don’t care about them enough anymore to try to adapt their personalities elsewhere criessss

Marz was what I considered one of the most complex characters at one point. Bare bones, he goes from being sheltered but curious to really vindictive and dark following his best friend/lover being martyred. At the moment though, he’s very much a blank slate and, even though he was the main character, a lot of the initiative and plot was driven by his lover. I... literally have very little to say about Marz anymore IM SORRY MARZ, I LOVED YOU ONCE MABY ILL LOVE YOU AGAIN.

Stone is a happy dude. He was in the same universe as Marz, working on the outskirts of the city palace town, dealing black market potions and magic in a shop he inherited from Iris (who is dead in that universe - probably another reason i don’t like Marz’s story anymore). In his current canon, he still works at a shop dealing in occult things, but alongside Iris. Prior to their meeting, Stone was a very proper, uptight man, overly concerned with etiquette and very polite. However, he was also really tired of denying what he enjoys (he is bisexual and more feminine than his posh family find acceptable). One day, he decides to explore the grimier parts of the city and ends up cornered in an alley cuz pretty boy doesn’t think ahead that walking around looking clean and expensive in a sketchy part of town will get him into trouble.

Thankfully though, he’s saved by Iris and, to repay her, he works at her shop. Stone is a quick learner and finds his niche in the dark arts that Iris teaches him. He’s happiest when he can sneak over and help and, eventually, stops going home. He and Iris are in a relationship but they’re not exactly monogamous; Iris loves him but also knows that he’s bi and has been sheltered his entire life. She wants him to be able to explore his interests and not feel restricted by his attachment to her, especially since she’s had so much more time to love and be loved. So essentially, an open relationship.

Stone is laboured with a lot of learned prejudice and a concept of tradition that Iris helps him identify, understand, and either overcome or work on in the means of becoming less toxic. He finds Iris fascinating and loves to learn from her, both about the occult and about himself (because most of the time, he feels like she knows him more than he does himself).

EXTRA RANDOM FACTS ABOUT STONE - After a few years of working with and knowing Iris, Stone accidentally blinds himself trying to make a difficult potion. This is the version of him I draw the most. Before the accident, his eye colour was hazel. - Eventually, he and Iris get married. - Following the accident, he’s immortal. Nowadays, I focus on him during his days with Iris, but in the past I focused on his life after her death as he becomes slightly deranged. She grows quite old and dies of natural causes and he tends to pretend that she didn’t, keeping her skeleton around and lovingly talking about his wife with his customers.

Iris is a very ambitious woman. She doesn’t have much of a history at this moment, but she runs her own business, fends for herself, and has developed some very powerful connections. People that know about her but don’t know her personally tend to call her a witch and a sorceress and sometimes she plays it up to scare kids away from the dangerous area that she’s located. She’s intelligent and very down to earth, growing an indoor garden with plenty of plants that have magical properties.

She can be brash and spontaneous sometimes though. She’s had some close calls with death by picking the wrong fights and mixing the wrong ingredients while experimenting. She mellows out a bit when she has Stone to focus on, but she can disappear for weeks on end with only a last minute notice for him to take care of the shop while she runs her errand. There are a couple of times that she lets him tag along but he’s really not in his element with fast action and near death stunts so he stops asking and just wishes for her safety.

MISC is OCs that I’ve always had but have never really settled into their own world. I honestly have tons like this oh man. But these three are ones that show up a lot.

Cinnamon and Chowder are two gay gals I started drawing way back. They’re both alien pop stars who came to earth and no one knows they’re actually aliens. Cinnamon is much shyer than Chowder, self conscious of her height and general... everything, but Chowder is super supportive and smitten and protective. Cinnamon is an alien from a planet where her entire species “identifies” as male; its a toxic, hyper masculine planet and, when she met Chowder, her entire world kind of expanded and she decided to escape with her somewhere that they wouldn’t be found. They found earth and made their place in the fashion and music industry.

I drew a comic for class once, where Cinnamon tells Chowder that she feels ugly, but like, she knows she doesn’t look ugly, but she feels the anxiety like an itch and can’t get over it. And Chowder’s like “Oh! Like a Kiwi right? See, they’re all fuzzy and brown and probably feel ugly? But look at how nice and bright and lovely they are inside!” and then they eat a kiwi together PFFF yea that’s the extent of how much development I’ve put into them.

Liko is my baby. He is a chinchilla hybrid human and was created purely for self indulgent things. His personality for the most part is mischievous and absolutely hates clothing. For how much I draw him, he is embarrassingly underdeveloped as a character. I began to think of him as a splicing experiment that escapes from a lab somewhere but not super deeply... Honestly, his purpose is art trades, requests, and commissions. He’s the only oc I usually ask for art of because I like his design haaah

AND YEA THOSE ARE MY BELOVED OCS i honestly love you if you read through all this or even a little, please talk to me about your own ocs !!! I’m more than happy to do OC art trades and bounce world talks anytime !!

#korvo draws #oc #EVERYONE #i... wrote so much omfg you dont have to read if you dont want BUT ID APPRECIATE IT criesss #skip Bad Seeds if you arent about gore and psychological horror but maaan #i forgot how much i loved my ocs #PLEASE TALK TO ME ABOUT MY OCS and about your own ocs because fuck #i love ocs and i dont have any friends that consistently do oc shit aaaaaaaaaa

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chimmy-joos · 7 years

Text

Three Years Time

Description: Three years after Yoongi and you break up, he shows up at your workplace.

Pairing: Yoongi x Reader

word count: 3.9k

Tags: angst

It was the time of the year where sky was always a muted, dull grey that tinted the rolling rain clouds. The sidewalks dark with the thin wash of rain from the night before and the streets were still draining the heavy rainfall. The shower left an earthy scent in the air, although you wondered where it came from since there wasn't an inch of grass nor dirt in the concrete jungle where you resided. At least this was better than living in the suburbs and being forced to look at the same creamy yellow and baby blue painted houses everyday, divided into neat portions by the clean streets. You were happy to be living in the center of the city in your small studio apartment away from the humdrum of the monotonous lifestyle of the suburbs.

This time of year was your favorite. You would willingly volunteer to walk to work, to the small coffee shop located on the corner of 15th Ave, next to the record store. There, you were safe from the noisy honks of cars and the ringing of bikers as they whizzed past bystanders just trying to get from point A to B. The soft classical music that played in the background as you brewed coffee made your job all the more calming and enjoyable. The only people that came to the coffee shop were elderly people and millennial hipsters who tried to find the perfect novelty coffee shop in the midst of the city that had hot coffee spots sprinkled all over.

It was a slow day at work, one reason being the lazy air that covered the city because of the rain as well as the early hours of the day in which nobody was awake. You spent this time cleaning around the store and every now and then someone would walk in asking for a coffee with an extra shot of espresso, or two, especially for those college students that had an essay due that night.

As the day ended, which seemed like an eternity, you decided to take a break from cleaning and sit down as you took your phone out to check social media. It was just to pass time, but you realized even that would be dead since nobody would be awake at this hour to update the inter-web of their new puppy or another relationship or getting married.

The thought lingered fondly on you and you were taken back to when you used to dabble in love. The tingling feeling of starting a new relationship as you learned more about each other; the small things about the other person would make you fall in love with them even more. Their compassion, determination, ambitions, and drive for success... and more specifically, the way his voice rolled with a deep purr even in the middle of the day. The way his hands felt as they intertwined with yours; a bit cold to the touch, but you were always too distracted by the way your heart raced and how your face flushed whenever you two were together. How he would always listen intently to your problems without you having to ask and you would always reciprocate by asking about his day, but he kept silent. Perhaps it was because he was just a secretive person by nature, or maybe his day really was just "alright". You never wanted to think about it because the thought always caused your heart to ache with the hypothetical where he just didn't want to tell you. Then again, the lack of communication was the reason why you two weren't together anyways.

The bell to the door jingled and you were pulled away from your thoughts. You stood up when you realized the time and how you had closed up just a while ago, but hadn't locked the door. You stood up abruptly.

"I'm sorry, we're closed--" you stammered the words out so quickly that you didn't even have time to register the person's face. Instead, you took in their attire.

Black, was the first thing that came to your mind. Just as dark as the creeping night sky that blanketed the city in darkness. He wore ripped, black jeans and a thick turtleneck sweater that hugged his chest and barely--just barely--defining the toned muscle underneath. Thrown on over that is yet another dark piece of clothing: a long, cashmere cardigan that reached down to his legs. Black locks fall over his eyes and you can see that the top of his hair is slightly damp, as if he had been walking in the rain for a short period of time. He's not looking at you right away and instead his eyes wander your shop in an attempt to take in his new, warm surroundings. And then he looks at you. You didn't realize it at first because you had never seen him in them, but he's wearing glasses. Thin frames that shape his pale face to look even slimmer, and again, it's the first time you've seen him with glasses on, but all the oxygen in your lungs seemed to have been stolen. And then you realized it wasn't just the glasses, it was him.

"We're closed." You said again, this time your voice more authoritative, like the owner you were supposed to be. You saw the man's shoulders sag and his thin lips curl downward in a disapproving frown as if he was disappointed in your first words towards him.

"I know, I just..." he spoke up and although his voice was low, it seemed to dominate the entire room. You were struck with the intensity of his tone and the nostalgic raspiness squeezed at your chest. Suddenly you were brought back to the past for the second time that night, to when you would wake up in the morning and drowsily shuffle out of the bedroom to find him already awake and drinking his coffee. He would smile and mutter a 'good morning' in the same voice, the same gruffness that reverberated in your ears in the present.

"Long time no see." He said awkwardly, his pale hand reaching up to scratch the hair on the back of his neck. You frowned and shot your eyes to the door.

"I said we're closed. I'm going to have to ask you to leave before I call the police." You said and reached for your phone. The man jerked up.

"Please, I just want to talk." He said in a pleading tone. You had no intention of calling the police in the first place, but the last thing you wanted was to see his face.

"Get out of my store." You demanded. The man stepped forward, his dress shoes clacking on the polished wood beneath him.

"Y/N, please," he said. Your hands clenched around your phone and you resisted chucking it at his face.

"Yoongi..."

"Please, five minutes--no, three. Just please, hear me out."

You couldn't even handle a couple of seconds of thinking about him without wanting to rip his throat out let alone sit down with him for a few minutes to talk. The thought sounded very displeasing, but seeing the subtle panic that flashed in his eyes and his flustered manner made you realize just how strange this must be for him. He was always calm and collected and carried out actions with ease and never complained, yet here he was, eyes darting back and forth as if trying to think of more ways to stop you from kicking him out. You felt sorry for him, in a way.

"Three minutes," you said and reached behind you to untie the apron around your waist. You pulled it over your head and laid it over the counter. "Any longer than that and I'm throwing boiling water on you."

You saw yoongi's lips jerk into a smirk at your hostile remark. He simply shook his head and sat down at the nearest table. You reluctantly sat down in front of him. It wasn't too late to run out of the store, was it?

Before the temptation took over you, Yoongi cleared his throat. You glanced at him and saw him sitting up straight with his hands folded neatly over the table. You had yours beneath the table, so he couldn't see you fiddling with your thumbs nervously. He was mimicking the same action, but didn't seem ashamed of it at all.

"So, uh," he started off, clearing his throat once again. "I see you've finally opened up that shop you were talking about. Congratulations." His mouth pulled back into what seemed like a smile, but was definitely too awkward and forced to be called one. You nodded and pressed your own lips into a thin line.

"Thank you."

A thick silence laid over the two of you. It had been years since you two had last seen each other. After you two had split, you had so many questions for him. How was he doing? Did he get that promotion he was looking forward to? Did he finally rent out his own place and if so, did he finally buy that new surround system that he had been saving up for for months? Did he finally go back to the pound to adopt that dog that he immediately fell in love with? Was he living with someone now? Was he in a relationship? Why was he here right now? What did he want from you after all these years?

Why did you leave me?

"I know you're wondering why I'm here after so long, and I don't blame you. I did leave so suddenly and-and I realize now that that was really selfish of me and I--"

"Just get to the point, please." You stopped Yoongi's blabbering and left him with his jaw hanging open. He clamped it shut and you saw his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed his words.

"I'm sorry." He said softly. Your eyes raised to meet his and his crescent eyes shielded behind thin frames carried hints of sadness. You cocked your head and looked at him in confusion.

"For what?" You asked, but you knew the answer. Or, you hoped you did. You hoped he wasn't apologizing for accidentally knocking over your glass bottle of perfume that you had gotten for Christmas or when he accidentally put too much detergent in the washing machine causing a sea of soapy bubbles to line your apartment.

"For everything," Yoongi replied after a second of hesitation. He inhaled sharply before continuing. "For calling you and telling you that we were over, for suddenly grabbing my stuff out of your apartment,"

You closed your eyes and remembered the night you came home from work. Yoongi had just called you and the words 'we're over' played over and over in your head the entire way home. When you opened the door to your apartment, it seemed so much emptier and... lonely. Yoongi had just taken his stuff and gone and you realized after the fact that he must've called you after getting his stuff. That meant he had been planning on breaking up with you long before the call and the fact killed you every night as you tried to sleep. It was hard; every night you were seeking warmth underneath the sheets now that Yoongi was gone. It was the one time you actually resented Yoongi.

"I'm sorry for making you cry and ignoring your calls. I'm sorry for not giving you a reason--for not saying anything at all." Yoongi lowered his head and his eyes fell to his lap. His hands were still folded over the table and you were amazed as to how his knuckles could get any whiter as he clenched them tightly.

Hearing his words as they dug up old memories and feelings made your stomach churn. The sudden overwhelming sadness lurched at you and you felt the corners of your eyes sting and your nose itch.

"Why are you saying this now?" You asked, keeping your voice low to not reveal the shakiness of your voice. Your hands were still clenched tightly underneath the table and you could feel your nails digging crescents into your palms, but you didn't care. The pain distracted you from breaking down in front of Yoongi.

"To be completely honest, I don't know what I thought I would get out of this. You know I kind of do things on a whim," Yoongi said and you stifled a scoff under your breath with a snort. So visiting you was a simple errand for him? A chore that he decided to get out of his schedule?

"As always," you mumbled.

"But I was thinking about you," Yoongi said quickly. Your eyes widened at his words. "I was thinking about us."

You blinked profusely to fan away your tears. "W-What used to be us, you mean." You corrected Yoongi. Your eyes were focused on your trembling hands so you couldn't see yoongi's expression, but he must've been frowning then.

"Yes, what used to be us," He repeated. "I'm a... really fucking shitty person, Y/N," Yoongi chuckled pathetically at himself. You glanced up at him with a creased brow.

"You didn't deserve what I did to you." Yoongi said and when he realized you were looking at him, his gaze locked onto yours. "And I'm sorry, again, for putting you in that position."

All of a sudden, anger bubbled inside of you and you leaned forward. "Are you kidding me?" You snapped. "After three years, you think you can just waltz in here and apologize, thinking everything is going to be okay after that?"

Yoongi's stone expression stared back at you and you knew he wouldn't answer.

"It was one thing for you to break up with me without an explanation or anything and no matter how many times I tried calling you and messaging you for one you just--you just didn't answer. I was fine with the break up, but a reason would've be nice."

Yoongi's expression seemed to drop when he heard that. His mouth curled downward and his body stiffened as he inhaled sharply.

"You were fine with it?" He asked softly.

"Life goes on and so do people, Yoongi. You can't expect me to be caught up over some relationship forever." You said and realized the context of your words were a bit harsh, even through your outrage. Your relationship with Yoongi wasn't just some relationship. It was a connection, an indescribable bond was present between you two and you both knew it, but never chose to point it out. There was no need to, in all honestly. You were content with just being by yoongi's side, but if asked, you wouldn't deny the fact that you were in love with him.

But apparently it was only you. It was only you who looked forward to coming home to Yoongi curled up on the couch watching old episodes of the tv show you two started together because he wanted to wait for you to come home so you could watch the new release together. You were the only one who loved the way his hands ran through your hair soothingly, opening up a new form of therapy that you never knew you needed and sometimes during stressful days of making coffee, you found yourself rubbing your scalp subconsciously as you reviewed your bills and receipts. You were the only one who looked forward to opening this coffee shop, together, with him.

Emotions overwhelmed you in a strong wave once again, but this time the tears broke through the surface and streams of tears ran down your cheeks. You were quick to reach up and catch them before they fell onto your lap and you turned your head down, refusing to look Yoongi in the eyes.

It was silent again between the the two of you and you felt embarrassed knowing that Yoongi was most likely watching you break down in tears.

"T-Three minutes are up." You didn't care if your voice cracked as you stood up. You quickly turned away and march off. Every fiber in your body screamed escape, to run away and crawl in a hole of your own regret and humiliation. How could you break down so easily? Three years was enough for you to build up walls against these feelings and yet with just one sitting with him, you reverted back to a puddle of pathetic tears.

You were pulled back abruptly as Yoongi's hand grabbed your wrist. You stumbled back into his chest and you fought for him to release your hand.

"Let go of me!" You exclaimed, your voice a string of squeaks and croaks. You jerked your hand forward, but Yoongi's grip was too tight. His other hand went up to grab your other wrist and before you knew it he had you cuffed tightly. Yoongi turned you around so that you were facing him and your head shot down, refusing to make eye contact with him.

Y/N, look at me." Yoongi pleased and you shook your head vigorously. "Please."

"Don't-- please don't--" You would've screamed if it weren't for your weak voice that trembled from the oncoming tears and hiccups that shook your entire body.

"Y/N!" He exclaimed back, asserting his dominance. You immediately clamped your jaw tight and stopped struggling. You would've been completely still if it weren't for the occasional hiccups that made your body jump. Yoongi let out a long sigh and loosened his tight grip around your wrists, which you didn't even notice was that tight before.

"Okay, you don't have to look at me, just listen," he said and he took a deep breath. "I have never, not once in the past three years, forgotten you."

Yoongi paused to check for a reaction from you, but you stood frozen.

"I thought about you everyday, wondering what you were up to, wondering if you finally bought those new sheets you wanted. If you moved out of that apartment that was too small for the two of us but too big for just you. I wondered if you met someone new--someone better than me that would make you feel happy and safe and make you fall in love again... And I wondered if you opened up that coffee shop that you couldn't stop talking about," Yoongi chuckled and took a look around at the pleasant shop around him that gave off such a relaxing vibe. It was so much like you and just standing in the middle of it, he felt as if he were standing back in that apartment room with you.

"I may have been in a relationship with you, but I felt I was married to my job. I always seemed to put that above everything and everyone else. And I'm-I'm sorry you had to take the blunt end of that. I didn't break up with you because I lost feelings or-or because I found someone else. I was just under a lot of stress and I didn't want you to deal with a pissy, immature guy like me who could only complain about how hard his work was. I know everything I'm saying right now must sound like an excuse, and I don't blame you. I broke up with you over the phone and left you alone only to show up three years later with a pitiful fucking excuse for an apology,"

Yoongi laughed at himself bitterly.

"I don't expect you to forgive me or anything and I'm most definitely not expecting you to take me back, but just know that... I didn't come here to mock you or purposely bring back bad memories. I just wanted to let you know that... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for every single thing that has made you sad or angry. I'm sorry for making you insecure and doubtful. And I'm sorry for making you cry..."

At that, Yoongi's hands squeezed yours and his cold touch served as a reminder for your to breathe.

"I don't blame you if you resent me. In fact, that would make me feel a lot better. It reminds me just how strong of a person you are, and that you're so so beautiful." Yoongi had to stop himself before he went on blabbering more than he already had. He released your hands slowly and they dropped to your sides. He took a step back, the loud footsteps from his dress shoes echoed through the silent store.

You stood there, still frozen. What could you say at this moment? Could you forgive him? Could you look over all of the nights you laid awake in your bed, crying in confusion and frustration as to why you were alone in your bed? To brush away the piercing aches you felt in your heart every time you looked in the mirror, thinking he left you because you were ugly and not good enough for him? Could you forget about the nights when you had a little bit too much alcohol inside of you and all of the voice messages you sent to Yoongi only to completely regret them the next morning? The past three years you spent by yourself, wallowing in your own tears and conjuring this mixing pot of self-pity and self-hatred couldn't just be forgotten in a blink of an eye, and yet with Yoongi standing there, you felt as if it could. And you weren't afraid to let it happen.

"I think I've over stayed my three minutes," Yoongi suddenly said and turned to leave. He walked past you and you felt his coat brush past your arm; the slight touch was enough to bring you back to reality. He was leaving again, for the second time in your life, and you weren't going to let him go this time. You gasped inwardly and pivoted around.

"Tomorrow!" You suddenly exclaimed which stopped Yoongi in his tracks. He turned back and you met his wide eyes. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you continued, "The shop is closed tomorrow, but uh... do you... want to grab a cup of tea? Or maybe lunch? Or-or if you're busy during the day, we can always grab dinner or something. And it doesn't have to be tomorrow, I just... I was just suggesting..." your sentence trailed off as you shrunk inwards, your face blossoming a rosy red.

Yoongi couldn't deny the way his heart skipped a beat. And he couldn't stop the way his lips stretched out into a gummy smile after hearing your flustered speech.

"Yeah, that sounds nice. How about dinner tomorrow at my place?" Yoongi suggested, noting his heartbeat which pounded through his eardrums. He felt like he was a teenager again, asking a girl out for the first time and feeling the nervous butterflies in his stomach. He felt like he was falling in love again, although he probably never fell out of love.

Your eyes widened to the size of marbles. "Y-Your place?" You gawked. Yoongi nodded.

"Yes, is that too much? I can always reserve a spot at a restaurant or--"

"No, no, its fine. I just..." you blushed and pressed your lips together nervously. "I guess I'm feeling a bit nervous. Gosh, I feel like a high schooler again." You giggled and cupped your red cheeks. Yoongi's breath hitched and his mind raced obsessively with, I love her.

"Great," Yoongi finally said after calming himself down. "I'll see you tomorrow."

#yoongi angst #yoongi scenario #bts angst #suga angst #bts scenario #debating on a part two #but enjoy :)

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karinakamichi-fanfictions · 7 years

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Crimson Tears, Chapter 1 (TRIGGER WARNING) (If you don’t like this, please don’t read it or be mean.)

A fanfiction where Rukia self-harms. This will be eventual light RenRuki(which is why I tagged RenRuki). Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

This is something I've been wanting to write for a while, but I couldn't bring myself to get around to it, until just now(and I feel extremely nervous posting this). Also, you'll have to forgive me. It's been a while since I've written for Bleach, so it may seem slightly out of character at points. I wanted to do something a little different, that develops Byakuya's relationship with Rukia and that develops something with Renji and Renji. So far, there is no self-harm story with RenRuki that I know of, so, like I said, I wrote this. Though I was also kinda venting too, so... Hope you guys will stick with me through this.

By the way, this will be a slow build and will eventually contain some light RenRuki(nothing explicit though, just saying).

Rukia sat in the bathroom of Ichigo's house. Lately, dark thoughts had been returning, no matter how much she tried to reassure herself. Despite Kukaku's reassurance, she still blamed herself for Kaien's death. No matter what Renji had told her, she didn't want to be a burden to her friends, as she couldn't bring herself to drag them down with stupid feelings. And even though Byakuya had said he was sorry, she knew she wasn't worthy of the Kuchiki name, feeling just as distant as ever, if not more so. She had been dealing with dark thoughts and terrible nightmares for a while now, was constantly restless, and her feelings wouldn't go away. To make matters worse, she had a terrible secret that she didn't want anybody to know.

Unknown to anybody, self-inflicted cuts littered both of her arms, from elbow to wrist. Anymore, she had been pulling away from Ichigo and the others, much to the obvious irritation of Ichigo and even more obvious concern of Orihime, Renji, and her captain. While Byakuya seemed to have possibly noticed something off about her, he hadn't once questioned it. Perhaps he felt he didn't have a right to after revealing such a truth to Rukia. Not that Byakuya had never seemed that emotional and empathetic to her to begin with. (It's ironic that he's truthfully such a hothead down deep. xD;;)

Not a single person had questioned why she had been insisting on constantly wearing long sleeves, though she doubted many would notice such a tiny detail unless they had the same problem she did. Still, she was glad they hadn't seemed to notice that because it was best that way. She didn't need them finding out the truth, because it would unnecessarily worry them. And that wasn't a reality she wanted to be faced with right now. Though, knowing Ichigo and Renji they would probably be pissed to say the least and Byakuya would probably be disappointed in her more than he ever had been before. But this was her coping mechanism, something she didn't want to be taken away from her right now. So the only option she had was to hide it, since it was so addictive at this point.

Bringing the razor blade to the once pure and clean skin of her arm, which she had leaning over the bathtub, she bit her lip at the sharp sting it caused when she dug the blade into her flesh. Soon, however, the feeling of pain was replaced by relief and satisfaction as crimson oozed out of the cut, trailing down her arm and dripping into the tub to mix in with the water already in it. Knowing that the blood by itself would have likely stained the white surface otherwise, she had already had a bit of water in to begin with keep the crimson from doing just that - that way nobody would know.

In her mind, the fallen blood was a symbol of her pain. One could say it "matched the outside to the inside", and while part of her knew she was cowardly for resorting to such a means of emotional release, it was the only thing she could comprehend; the only way she could distract herself anymore. In a way, watching the blood pouring out of her wounds replaced the tears she could never get out and would never fall. But with that thought in mind, it made her more frustrated, because she hated that couldn't she shed tears when she needed to. Instead they just bottled up, along with her anger, frustrations, anxiety and depression. So very rarely was she able to cry of her own volition, though, when she did, it was only because she had been holding things back for too long, even though she didn't think she wanted to hold it back. No, wait, she must have wanted to if it was causing this much pain, so in some way it must her own unknown pride causing it. It was her fault she was like this, but truthfully, she hadn't asked for it.

Unlike Renji, Tatsuki and even Ichigo, who seemed more blunt with their feelings, she was more like Byakuya and maybe even Orihime in how they internalized their pain and true feelings and held back from expressing their true self at times. She was good at dealing with other people's emotions perhaps, but not her own emotions in any way, shape or form, unless she was just too good at it to the point of locking them and her heart away. In other words, she was just running away from them? It wouldn't be the first time she had done it. In fact, that was something she hated about herself the most. She envied some of the others for their abilities to be so honest with themselves. Meanwhile, she was constantly running away, like a coward, because she was too afraid to be decisive. Just like back then. If she had went against Ukitake's words back then, Kaien might have hated her, but at least he'd still be alive, even if she wasn't, right?

Swallowing, she felt a lump in her throat from holding back her tears. It was painful, felt swollen and sore, but, no matter what, the tears just couldn't fall. She felt her anger rising, and yet somehow feeling numb at the same time, when she began slashing at her skin faster than before, more than ever, just to watch the blood dripping into the bathtub. At this point, she wasn't really thinking about what she was doing. All she knew was that she was angry at herself, and at the world, and so frustrated with everything. But it was better than taking it out on somebody else and getting them involved with her own personal and petty problems, especially since she knew it was all her fault anyway. It was her fault Ichigo's life had been thrown into turmoil and that he was constantly fighting hollows even though he should be enjoying life as a normal teen should be doing. It was her fault for being too damn weak to defeat the hollow back when she met Ichigo. It was her fault that Renji had stayed in the Rukongai district for so long, instead of honing his strength to get something far better out of life; she had held him back for so many years. She didn't want to get ahead of herself, but she didn't doubt that he might have even become a captain by now, if she hadn't met him. It was her who surely reminded Byakuya of Hisana every single day by just looking like her. Despite his cold aura, she could see the pain hidden in his eyes; she could see just how much hurt she had caused him. And even if indirectly, it was also her fault that Orihime and Chad had got caught up in her world and Uryu all the same.

She brought those around her nothing but misfortune, just by being around. Not to mention the pain she had caused Ganju and Kukaku by killing Kaien.

So she could never forgive herself. Should she even be here? She had been sent back to the world of the living for more hollow business, but perhaps she could stay at Urahara's instead. It would probably be better for Ichigo if she was involved with him and even his sisters as little as possible, right?

"Hey, Rukia? You gonna be out soon?" Ichigo's voice suddenly called out in question, from outside the door, startling Rukia as she heard him twisting the door knob to see if it was locked.

"Y-yeah!" Rukia squeaked, her heart skipping a beat, as she suddenly jerked the razor a bit to deep into her skin. But, assuming it probably wasn't deep enough to cause her to pass out, she didn't let the blood bother her.

"Dammit, thanks, Ichigo..." she hissed mockingly beneath her breath, her heartbeat erratic, hoping she didn't hear him. She immediately felt a bit of irrational and unprecedented irritation at the orange haired teen bubble up in her system.

"Knock instead of messing with the doorknob next time, you dolt! I'll be out in a minute, so don't rush me!" She growled at him, with unintentional hostility, as she used her hand that was holding the razor blade to reach over and unplug the bathtub and allow the blood-tinted water to drain out of the tub.

"Geez, I wasn't rushing you, so don't have to be so hostile! What's with you practically biting my head off lately?!" Ichigo retorted, obviously offended by her tone.

"...It's... nothing." Rukia then said after a minute, trying to regain her composure. "I'm just been going through a lot right now is all, Ichigo."

"I'll say..." she heard Ichigo muttered irritably from the other side of the door.

"...I said sorry. Anyway, is there something you wanted to tell me?" Rukia brought herself to ask, trying to be as nice as possible, knowing that it was her with the problem and not Ichigo.

Ichigo sighed, not bothering to point out that he could have had to use the bathroom that she was hogging up, but answered her question. "Yeah, I know it's a little early, but I think I'm gonna head on to school. I was wondering if you wanted to come on, or are you gonna wait a little longer?"

"...I'll probably be out in about five minutes." Rukia told him, using some toilet paper to wipe of her arm as much as possible, hastening to get her most recently injured arm wrapped up with bandages, before slipping on her grey long sleeve high school uniform jacket(or whatever that thing is called) to cover up her arms. She ignored her trembling arms and body, even though she felt a little unsteady on her legs. She hadn't really eaten much lately, so that was probably partially having an effect on her, on top of all the blood she a had just lost and was still losing to a degree. Cutting herself enough always caused her arms to feel shaky and weak afterward, so it wasn't like it was much different than any other time, though she might have cut a bit too much, but she couldn't focus on that right now. "If you don't wanna wait, you can go ahead and I'll catch up with you in a little while."

"...Well, if it's only five minutes, I guess I'll wait then." Ichigo said after a minute, sounding slightly concerned.

...

"Hey, Rukia..." Ichigo muttered, stopping to look back at Rukia, who was looking down at the sidewalk. She then responded to him gazing up at him to meet his gaze.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Are you... feeling alright?" He wanted to know, scrutinizing her. It was clear this time that he was worried.

"Yeah, why do you ask?" Rukia tried to act like everything was okay, and needless to say Rukia wasn't that bad of an actor, so she felt this would probably be easy to get out of, since Ichigo was pretty dense at times.

"Just wondering... You've been really quiet lately, and don't really talk to the others much anymore." Ichigo scratched the back of his head. He had never been that great at being sentimental, but for his friend, he would sure as hell, since nobody else was around. "Orihime and Karin has mentioned it to me as well. They're worried for you."

"Well I'm completely fine, Ichigo, so I'll probably have to clear that up with them. But, wow, how nice of you to be concerned for me, Ichigo. I had no clue you cared so much." Rukia smirked, obviously trying to mock him.

"Sh-shut up!" Ichigo retorted, feigning a glare. He didn't buy Rukia's words at all, and clearly remembered her saying she was going through a lot just about 15 minutes ago, but he decided he would trust Rukia and her decision, so left it at that. After all, she was one of the strongest people he knew. However, he wasn't done. And, apparently, Rukia wasn't as great of an actor as she thought she was, though she was a bit too nervous and jittery right now.

"Look," he sighed. "I'm not a mind reader, not to mention I suck at comforting people or knowing what to say to make others feel better a lot of times, but I'm not the type to just stand by and act like I don't notice when somebody is suffering either. This is the way I see it. You and I are friends and friendship is a mutual thing, so friends are supposed to share each other's pain to some degree, right?"

Ichigo looked at her with an awkward expression. "So even though I'll probably never be able to understand exactly what you're feeling, I'll always be here to at least listen when you decide to open up to me, kay? Because I care about you just like everybody else does."

Rukia's eyes were wide, and she just stood there for a moment. That's when she recalled something.

"Kuchiki-san, just remember that you always have people that you can lean on when you need somebody the most, even if you don't think you need them. Cause that's what friends are for," Urahara had once told her, "and it's not just Ichigo, either. You also have Inoue-san, Abarai-san, your captain, Matsumoto-san, Sado-san, Yoruichi, and even your brother and me. You might even be surprised how understanding Ishida-kun can be times too. So you're never alone."

Why does it hurt so bad...?

"...Thanks, Ichigo." Rukia gave a soft and pain filled smile.

"No problem. Now let's get to school, yeah...?" Ichigo smiled back, before turning back around.

"Yeah..." She wished more than anything she could rely on them, but the truth was... she had already betrayed them by taking it out on herself instead of trusting them. They would never forgive her if they knew. As she had considered before, Renji would be so angry if he found out what she had been doing to herself, and even Uryu, who didn't even have much connection with her aside technically from being Ichigo's friend, would probably be shocked, though most likely disgusted. And, again, her brother would be so disappointed in her for being so damn weak. After everything everybody had done for her... Hadn't she basically just been throwing it back in their face, by tearing up the person they had faught so much to save? Even though it wasn't like she had asked to be saved, she still...

She couldn't deal with the thought of it at all and began to hate herself even more.

"I'm sorry, Ichigo,... I just can't rely on you or anybody. This is my battle, and one I must face alone."

...

"Kuchiki-san, aren't you going to eat?" Somebody asked, snapping Rukia out of the trance she appeared to be in. Gazing up, the raven haired soul reaper saw that it was Orihime who had asked the question. Ichigo was apparently off somewhere on the school grounds with Keigo. Mizuiro was oddly out sick, and Chizuru hadn't came to school either.

"Ah, no, I'm not really that hungry right now." Rukia smiled softly, waving her off dismissively. "I'll eat something later."

The truth was, anymore, she couldn't bring herself to eat much of anything, because it just made her sick and nauseated to. She didn't know why, though, and was no expert on the subject, so she didn't bother trying to figure it out, assuming it was nothing but a simple result of high anxiety.

"I see. Well, if you say so...!" Orihime said, uncertainly, before leaving it at that. "...Um, hey, if something is ever bothering you, just know that I'm always here to listen, Kuchiki-san."

As she said, Orihime gave a small and kind smile, receiving a nod and a thanks from Rukia.

"I understand if you don't want to talk about stuff... But sometimes it helps, you know? Even if you don't think so."

Rukia didn't know how to reply to that. Soon, after a bit of conversation about food on Orihime's behalf, Rukia had got up, excusing herself to the restroom.

...

"What's wrong with her? She looks like she's about to pass out..."

"Maybe she's sick?"

"Let's hope it's nothing contagious."

Whispers had filled the classroom, as students looked at Rukia, who seemed to be nodding off. One could tell, just by looking at her that she wasn't feeling well at all. The teacher had left the room to get some paperwork, so the class was free to talk for the time being.

"Kuchiki-san, are you feeling okay? You look kind of pale." Tatsuki noted, catching Orihime and Rukia's attention.

"I do?" Rukia looked up at her. Truthfully, she was feeling extremely lightheaded, and knew the most likely reason, but she couldn't let them know that. So she played it off, going along with them to feign innocence. "I guess I am feeling a little sick..."

"Maybe you should go to the infirmary. I can walk with you if you want." offered Tatsuki.

"Ah, no, you don't have to go out of your way to do that, really! I'll go by myself." Rukia told her, standing up and smiling slightly. She didn't want anybody following her.

"...Are you sure?" Tatsuki asked with uncertainty.

"Yes, I'll be fine. Thank you." Rukia told her, bowing, before leaving the room.

Tatsuki noticed that Orihime hadn't said anything for a while now, so she grew a bit worried. "Orihime?"

"Huh? Ah, sorry, Tatsuki! I know, that's just Kuchiki-san being Kuchiki-san! Really, I shouldn't worry so much. Stupid stupid me, am I...right...? Ha-ha-ha-ha..." Tears were threatening to fall from Orihime's eyes.

"Hey, I was about to ask if you were okay..." Tatsuki said softly. "Man, you're really worried about her, aren't you...?"

"...Yeah, she's so important to me, Tatsuki... To everyone. But... it kind of seems like she doesn't want to be around us anymore..."

"You really think that...? She wouldn't-"

"No, of course I don't think that. She's our friend, so I know she wouldn't want to hurt us, but maybe there's some reason she's been distancing herself lately..."

I wonder if something has happened between her and the Soul Society again...?

Orihime desperately wanted to know what had caused her friend to distance herself so much lately and behave so oddly. What was causing her to push them all away? She couldn't help but worry for Rukia, but felt there wasn't much she could do. Ichigo or Renji had a better chance of helping Rukia. Still, maybe she could do something nice for her to at least reach out to Rukia in some way or another, right?

What could she do to help?

As of late, because of Rukia's distance, she didn't even know where to start and felt extremely conflicted.

But that's when she got an idea.

...

Little did Rukia know that Uryu had been watching her, and followed her down the hall.

"Kuchiki-san..." he finally called out to her in an area he felt nobody was listening in.

Rukia stopped, slightly startled. glancing behind her and turning to face him. "Oh, Ishida-san. Do you need something?"

"Yes, I want to ask you something. I'm not the type to sugarcoat things or beat around the bush, so I'm going to be direct with you, because I know you're stubborn like Ichigo and are not the type to just open up to others. Perhaps Ichigo and Orihime would probably just tell you that you could rely on them if you need to talk to somebody and leave it at that because they want to respect your boundaries," Uryu told her, pushing up his glasses. Rukia's eyes widened, her heart skipping a beat, as panic set in. She didn't like where this was headed. There was no way he could know, right?

Uryu continued, "but I'm the son of a doctor, not to mention I have a bit of experience myself with that specific subject, so I tend to pick up on things that nobody else thinks to pay attention to." Uryu said, almost as if reading the question on her mind. "I saw the bandages, and I know you haven't been eating at all. What I want to know is why."

Rukia swallowed, clinching the fabric of her skirt nervously, knowing that there was no way to deny what he had said. Uryu wasn't ignorant, and would most definitely see right through any act she tried to put up at this point. It was ironic that she had been cornered by a Quincy; and she was surprised that he seemed to be showing concern for her. "Wow, I didn't know that it was in a Quincy's interests to interfere with other people's affairs, and it's certainly not like you to worry for a Soul Reaper, no?" Rukia inquired, obviously trying to get some kind of rise out of him. However, Uryu didn't even flinch.

"I don't recall saying I was worried." Uryu told her softly. "I simply don't like to watch innocent people like Inoue-san worrying so much. So I want an answer. What could be worth the pain she and all the others are feeling right now due to you pushing them away?"

Rukia was silent for a moment, looking away, unable to face him. "Nothing."

"Nothing?" Uryu repeated in question, before stepping forward and reaching out to grab her arm. "That's a lie, and you know it."

That wasn't what Rukia had expected him to say at the slightest. Instead, she had expected him to scold her by saying that nothing was worth it, that what she was doing was wrong. "What do you mean? I've been hurting them for no reason."

"If that were true - If it really was for 'no reason', your arms wouldn't have cuts and bandages covering them right now and you wouldn't be feeling like you were going to pass out. Not to mention... you wouldn't be running away. But for some reason, you feel alone, despite the lengths everybody went to save your life."

"You're right, but, look, it is not even something I could explain if I wanted to."

"That's where you're wrong. It's because you decide to avoid putting a name to your feelings and pain by cutting yourself instead." Uryu didn't hesitate to say, taking Rukia aback with how spot-on the analysis was. If she didn't know he had experience in the medical field, she'd assume he had done it himself and was able to relate. "You want to have control over something because you feel everything else in your life is unattainable right now. You're in emotional pain, so you create another bigger pain to pull yourself away from it, am I wrong...?"

"..." Rukia couldn't bring herself to speak. She felt cornered, but faced him, trying to keep up her composure. However, it crumbled before her within an instant, her breathing picking up, as she started to panic. Uryu knew. Somebody knew. This was bad. What if word somehow got back to somebody else, like her brother or Renji? She had wanted to keep the truth to herself, nobody was supposed to know. It was her fault they had found out. It was her fault for not hiding it better. This wasn't supposed to happen!

"You... you don't understand anything at all...!" Rukia denied weakly, her voice shaky, as she moved to pull away, but was startled as Uryu suddenly pulled her into an embrace. Her eyes widened as he then spoke in a soft voice.

"You know, even though I never once said I was concerned, I don't recall said I wasn't a bit concerned either. Kuchiki-san, you need to let somebody in, because your scars will only consume you otherwise. You have to trust me, self-harm won't just go away on its own, but I'm sure you already know that down deep. I'll always be here to listen to you as a friend, even if I don't support you as Soul Reaper."

It took a moment for Rukia to register that Uryu had just acknowledged her as a person. She didn't know what to say, and was shocked that Uryu had just called her his friend. Still, she decided to try to be sarcastic. "So we're 'friends' now...?"

"Even so," Uryu decidedly ignored her sarcasm, knowing her goal was to distract him. "somebody needs to know about this soon, because you seriously need help..."

Rukia couldn't deny it. Cutting was all she thought about at times, but there was no way she could just abandon the habit right away. It was something she relied on. So she decided to throw Uryu an offer in hopes that he would leave her be for the time being. "...If I tell you why I'm doing it... will you give me some time to think about it?"

Uryu was silent for a moment, noticing the desperate look in her eyes. He wanted to tell Ichigo or somebody about this. And, while he really didn't want to associate himself with soul reapers, what could he do, since Rukia wasn't a resident of Karakura town, and, in fact, might as well be from a different world altogether? Rukia's brother would be a good one to tell, or maybe Rukia's captain, perhaps even the red-haired soul reaper, Renji Abarai. But how would they react? Could he really bring himself to do such a thing and face such people?

No, he would do it without hesitation. Because, even if they were soul reapers, they were basically her family from what he understood. They had a right to know, more than anybody else, and were pretty much entitled to. Not to mention that Rukia was a danger to herself, so it was only right. Maybe Urahara would be able to assist in getting up with them... He highly doubted Rukia would really tell anybody the whole truth, and would probably just trying to delay talking as long as possible, as many self-harmers and anorectics would. So he thought of something, responding to her offer, as he pushed up his glasses once more. "I'll agree to it..., but only on one condition."

- End of Chapter 1.

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