todoroki touya (dabi) x reader “[3:07 a.m.]”
warnings: swearing, angst with no happy ending (i think?? m not sure 🫠) this is like a. vent, ig, haha. also probably shitty cus it's stupid and unedited and like. three in the morning.
[3:07 a.m.]
when dabi finally slips into your room, reeking of burnt flesh and ash and ruin, you’re already fast asleep,
(the shape of you heart-wrenchingly small under the thick covers, as if you were trying to protect yourself from- his heart clenches. from him.)
but that’s just as well, or so dabi thinks. the hour is ungodly, and he comes home late - later than late, actually, late enough that it’s early. late enough that you probably thought he wasn’t coming home at all, and who could blame you?
dabi is a man that commits arson and felonies on tuesday evenings and grins at the rising smoke and flames. he’s a man that burns to the touch, if he lets you in close enough - an icarus with melting wax wings, forever falling under the sun because some shitty feathers and a twisted ambition isn’t enough to keep him from burning.
but the thing with you is that you don’t mind the smoke or the ash - even if it means you’ll burn from tending to fire.
because you’re selfless and kind like that - you’ve always been, you with your soft healing hands gentle upon his skin (as if you think he’s actually a thing worthy of such redeeming softness, like he’s actually, really good) and your tender, open smiles and your stupid endless patience that never seems to run out even when he doesn’t come home for days, and when he finally does come, it’s to end up shitfaced and bleeding all over your couch, stealing the change on your counter or running hot when you beg him to stay, and -
dabi doesn’t deserve you, not when he hurts you as much as he loves you. but love has made him selfish - if not a little cruel.
but tonight, he promises, is the last.
the moonlight makes soft of your peaceful, sleeping face, and you’re so achingly beautiful like this, no furrow to your brow or wobbling curve of your mouth.
mindlessly, one of his hands drifts up to trace over the plump of your cheek, the bridge of your nose and then your jaw, stroking softly.
his breath trembles.
there are shadows under your eyes, dried tears on your cheeks. all because of him. what else does he need to see to know that this is what he does to you? that this is why he needs to leave?
for a world-muffling second, there is only the slow rise and fall of your chest, the soft lull of your breathing. the cadence of your heartbeat slow and sleepy as it beats against his own chest, thump thump thumping with your every breath.
and dabi lets his hand fall away, makes to stand up. he loves you, but you’re better off without him. this is for your own good, this is for his own good–
your eyes blink open in the darkness, tired and dark and mournful as you peer up at him through the shadows, your pinkie slowly, unflinchingly curling around his.
“stay,” you murmur, and he can hear the hoarse exhaustion in your voice.
“stay. please.” you whisper again, and dabi doesn’t have the heart to say no.
he slips back under the covers, lets you grip his hand tightly like you’re afraid he’ll disappear again, because it’s not entirely false. kisses your forehead, your cheeks, your fluttering eyelids. your trembling mouth.
“i love you, dabi.” you murmur, eyes fluttering shut again.
“love you too.” he tells you, guiltily waiting for when you’ll fall asleep again.
FIN-
46 notes
·
View notes
expectations (a due south fic)
F/K, 1.5k words, additional tags: first kiss, stupid phone conversations, drama over a duffel bag
I'll tell you what I told ao3:
"My writing hit a wall a while back. To deal with it, I decided I'd write the only way I can now—short fic I can seat-of-my-pants in one day. A piece for each ship/fandom/idea where I have wips or thoughts that I can't make into actual works. This is the first one.
Thanks to @nigeltde-fic for dragging me down with this ship, and generally being a champion. <3”"
Maybe it really is a damn Groundhog Day type situation. Only twice as boring and nobody gets the girl, like, ever.
One thing he never pictured when he thought of the after-fraser-life, which he didn’t do very often, or, well, maybe he did, but he didn’t like doing it, point being—one thing he didn’t imagine was that it would be the same. As in, poof, never happened, must have daydreamed it, off you go, Stanley, play well with the boys.
And, well, it isn’t really a never-happened kinda deal, because Fraser, he just lives in a pocket in Ray’s head now, twenty-four-literal-seven, like friends do, you know, or something close. And what with Vecchio and Stella fucking off to Florida and Frannie doing her thing all while they were still doing the big adventure stuff, between all that it’s hard to not notice the change. But other than that—it’s the same job, the same desk (his desk, The Kowalski Desk), the same bottle in the cabinet above the sink and the same—the inside of his head is the same, too, giving him trouble like always.
more under the cut or on ao3
The way they left things—if that’s even what happened, left things, huh—it’s not what he feared. Not what he expected, either—and it took him many, many frozen-through adrenaline-drunk days to put a finger on it, that there was an expectation. And now back here, it’s like one of those tip-of-the-tongue moments he’s so familiar with, only with that expectation; it circles him all predatory with every lonely shuffle around his dance-apartment-floor and every stupid late night reruns session and every finger of drink he takes with that, and then it wafts away on the wind, leaving him feeling like he missed a step and twisted his ankle. Which is kinda stupid, when you come to think of it, since it looks like all his worst-case scenarios solved themselves and left him with a cushy little offering while he was playing explorer, and wasn’t that what it was all about.
And maybe it wasn’t, because Fraser calls, like he does, which floors Ray a little every single time for reasons he can’t even begin to articulate, he calls on a Friday and brings him up to speed on Dief’s aversion to the nearest Tim Hortons (nearest being a few hours’ trip to Yellowknife) because quote he says it’s cheating and Chicago ones tasted better and frankly it’s insulting end quote and how you pay and pay and pay and how he fixed up the cabin now and the second bed is new and really much better than the one Ray had to deal with up there, he made sure of that (felled the best tree he could find, Ray wagers), and Ray finds himself nodding and humming and gripping the stupid station handset, knuckles gone white, biting his cheek, hell if he knows why, not like his smile could do any damage at this point. “There isn’t a waiting list for that bed, is there?” he says, no reservations worth stopping for. And, “no,” says Fraser, and there’s that expectation, clarion as you please, ten-four, roger that. “Greatness,” Ray says, and hangs up, and does a little shimmy he’s not even ashamed of.
And then Fraser doesn’t call for three weeks, in which Ray is very productive, managing to vent drunkenly at Turtle who looks so unimpressed Ray thinks he actually hears him sigh, pack the bag, unpack the bag, consider terminating the lease, call in with Welsh then come in anyway, chase the latest case into almost three whole days awake and get sent away by Welsh anyway once the Bonnie and Clyde of small-time food truck GTA are locked up, pick up the phone roughly thirty-seven times, put it down thirty-six, and that last time, Fraser picks up and calls out for him softly and he’s too much of a chicken to do it back. Where exactly they tripped in a dance Ray felt resonate in his bones, he can’t guess.
Week four, Fraser calls, only it’s Ray’s doorbell that rings this time, and he picks himself up faster than he would the phone.
“Fraser,” he says first, then swings the door open, “Frase,” gripping his wrists way too tight, “what in god’s name was that—scratch that, don’t say, one thing it was is not buddies.”
“I don’t see what you mean, Ray,” Fraser says, and it’s supposed to make him angry, this far in, only this time Fraser is wrapped up in a soft green-gray flannel instead of the red walking coffin and he has his beat-up bag and the stupid hat on, so even Ray can see through the reflex of it. Fraser tugs gently at him. “Ah, Ray, if you could just let me put my bag down—thank you kindly.’
“You do, Frase, I know you do.” He lets Fraser’s wrists go for half a second it takes for the bag to thud onto the floor—other side of the threshold, damn it—and not a moment longer. “Did you come to stand outside my home and bullshit me?”
“Yes. I mean, not for that, no, but yes, I forgot about—oh, darn,” he says and tugs one hand free to take his stetson off, which is how you know, if you’re Ray, things are afoot. Big things. Momentary events in history. So when Fraser steps one foot in and leans back against the doorjamb and pulls him near—with hands snaking under his arms to land just below his shoulder blades, one half of a hug not yet given, a freakish way only Fraser would go with, which fires Ray up instantly, heat flooding his face like a punch he has to close his eyes against—when that’s done, Ray can find his mouth blind he’s so ready.
“You’re off,” he mumbles, because Fraser is the one with eyes open and he still landed somewhere around where Ray’s lips turn into his cheek, and then only corrected half an inch down, catching the corner of his open-eager mouth.
Fraser presses a kiss there, with intent. “Not,” he says, and then, then he hits the bullseye, fucking A, bingo, job done, you get a sticker—or a mouthful of tongue, because that’s faster where they stand.
“Momentous,” Fraser says into Ray’s hair, some breathless minutes later, and Ray says, “wha—’ and Fraser says, “you said, or rather mouthed, something about momentary events, if my memory serves—well, it must, it’s only been three minutes. I suppose you meant momentous, given the context.”
“Jesus, Shakespeare, come the fuck in, what do I have to offer to get you both feet inside.”
Fraser straightens but doesn’t move an inch to displace Ray where he’s giving him the second half of a hug. “Well, Ray, I didn’t mean to stay, per se.”
Ray disentangles them and tugs at the lapels of Fraser’s really very soft shirt, whenever he’s grabbed those, huh. He blinks once, twice, and thinks about how many bottles he will have to get for that cabinet now, because fucking hell. The bastard didn’t even have the courtesy to rub at his eyebrow, so to him it all makes sense somehow. He looks down and frowns.
“What’s with the bag?”
When he looks back up, Fraser smiles, an honest to god I’m-back-in-ten-foot-snow-and-alive-again grin, eyes kind of superglued to Ray’s face. “Promised Dief to get some of those Chicago donuts, which are, apparently ‘the right kind’.”
Ray steps back, shoves at Fraser’s chest, no way-like, and folds in two with laughter. Fraser looks at him all affectionate, and the absurdity is so familiar it gives Ray a headrush. Or maybe that’s all the wheezing he's doing.
“A bag? A whole bag of donuts?”
Fraser gets this look where his eyes get all liquid and light, and now that Ray’s got the manual he knows that translates to scared and hopeful in downright unhealthy measures. “I didn’t count on being back to Chicago soon.”
Ray can feel he’s doing the superglue thing now, too.
Fraser clears his throat. “Oh dear. Unless—I didn’t mean to presume, it’s only that on the phone—”
Ray cuts him off in a voice that’s too rough to seize the reins of, so it will probably break in there somewhere but it’s all a-okay now, isn’t it—says, “You’ll have to get in here, Frase. I think I’ll want some pants with my donuts, and I’m now in the bag-unpacked phase—uh, anyway.”
He heads inside and hears Fraser shut the door and toe off his boots.
So maybe there was no tripping after all. Just Fraser and his insane moves Ray always learns, dancing skills be damned. Good thing he isn’t Bill Murray—would be awkward to explain this to the girl.
21 notes
·
View notes
suicide and general negativity ig
i hate that english doesn't have a good word for מיואש (filled with despair. hopeless? ig) bc this is how i'm feeling fr
there is just. nothing good. and there is so much bad - both BAD bad bc of the war but also mundane bad bc yknow, Life - that i'm getting so overwhelmed i can't handle anything
my whole month is filled with medical shit and there's probably gonna be even more bc i need more tests and they're all just. such a pain to do (it sounds whiny but genuinely i can't handle them. just thinking abt them makes me so anxious bc they all require lots of painful preparation, sometimes for a few days, and they're so gross and require being poked with needles which my medical trauma certainly isn't helping with. and even tho i did so many already they can't find shit and i'm so tired i'm so done with this body
and like. it'd be one thing if i wanted to live. if i wanted to make my life better or thought it was possible. but by now i know it's not and i know i won't so it just becomes infinitely harder. like if i compare life to being in prison, it feels like the warden decided to torture me just for fun to make it even worse
but there is nothing good there is nothing to look forward to bc everything is shit and nothing's worth it and i hate when ppl tell me to enjoy the little things bc there is nothing to enjoy about them either. i can't have most of them anyway. i wish i could. but this shitty ass body and fucked up brain won't let me
there is no future for me i know i'm never gonna amount to anything when i can't even do the most basic shit about being human, literally how am i gonna be able to fulfill my """"potential"""" when i can't even do stuff like eat or sleep normally. when i can't go outside. when i can't handle being around people. when my body crashes and burns after standing for a few minutes or walking for more than a couple hundred meters. what even IS there for me to achieve in such a state. the only win i can have is getting out of bed and it doesn't feel like a win because i don't. want. to live. i have fucking professionals, people getting paid to help me do at least some of these things, and i can't bring myself to even take the first step bc just thinking about it makes me clam up so bad i can't move or talk and everything starts hurting so much more
there's not even. mundane fun. or joy. bc no one i know has time or energy for that. bc that's just what being an adult is ig. not that there's much to do in order to have fun anyway. like i said nothing to look forward to everything is so shit and nothing actually brings me joy anyway and it's not like i can handle being around people enough to help with that
i was not meant to be alive i am not designed to exist and like at this point I'd assume my who knows how many near death experiences may have been the universe trying to correct the mistake that is my existence and for some reason not managing to pull through the final stretch
i'm so tired i'm so done with this i wish i could be killed in some certain quick way bc i can't. i can't handle any of this. this is too much
5 notes
·
View notes