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“Shinsou-kun!~”
Monoma beams as he rushes forth. It’s an adorable, almost ridiculous sight, a grown man practically skipping like a smitten teenage girl as he makes his way through the crowded restaurant. His excitement is so endearing, Shinsou can’t help but smile too as his old friend reaches their table, his soft cheeks flushing as he comes close.
“It’s so good to see you! Have you been waiting long?” Monoma gushes out.
“No, not too long...” Shinsou replies, scratching the back of his head. “Maybe a couple of minutes. Not more than ten...”
“Wow...” he murmurs, easing into his chair. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you show up this early to something in my life.”
“Hey,” Shinsou grumbles, though he still wears a small smile. “I wake up early sometimes. You’re making me sound like such a slacker.”
“No, no, not a slacker,” Monoma hums. “You do love your beauty sleep, though...”
“That’s because I actually need it,” Shinsou replies easily. “Not all of us can be blessed with good looks like you, Monoma.”
It’s an uncharacteristic compliment that makes Monoma stop and blush, his cheeks warming all the more with a cute pink flush as his eyes widen. Shinsou smirks a little, admiring the flutter of his long, golden eyelashes as he blinks, trying to recover smoothly and utterly failing.
“... Blessed,” Monoma finally scoffs out with a small laugh. “More like I know how to invest... I’ve offered to share my abundance of knowledge with you before, Shinsou-kun. You would benefit so much from learning even a single thing about skincare...”
He rolls his eyes lightly. “I think I’m fine.”
Monoma chuckles a little, eyes drifting over to his face before he smirks. “I’ll say,” he concludes, smirking, before he grabs for the closest drink menu. “Well! Let’s get started, ah~ Do you mind if I get a drink? I know it’s a little early but-”
“Oh, go ahead,” Shinsou replies, and he returns his smirk. “But only on one condition: You let me pay. For everything.”
Monoma blinks, caught off guard again. “Oh, you don’t have to do that...” he murmurs in the lazy, falsely humble purr of someone who adores being spoiled in such a way.
“I insist.”
“Ohoho,” Monoma chuckles again, grinning back at him. “Well then, don’t mind if I do...”
“Yeah.”
Shinsou sits back in his chair, his head tilting just so as he admires the sight in front of him. It truly is beautiful. He’s been waiting a long time to see it. “Get whatever you want.”
“Well...”
Monoma’s eyes flit to his, like he’s waiting to see if he’ll take back his offer. When he’s met with nothing but an encouraging smile, he beams once again, brightening childishly as he snatches up a menu and immediately dives in, rambling out a stream of colorful thoughts as he tries to decide what to get.
It’s beautiful. It almost reminds Shinsou of a starving animal finally being offered food, the way he occasionally checks to make sure he’s still being allowed to proceed before sinking so easily into warm, cozy happiness. It makes him imagine a shivering orphan dipping themselves into a hot bath for the first time. It’s a precious, cherished sight, filling something gnawing inside him so perfectly he can’t help but sigh.
“... You’re staring,” Monoma murmurs, blushing as he lifts the menu up somewhat, trying to be subtle in the way he hides his flushing cheeks.
“Sorry,” Shinsou mutters back to him, reaching for his own menu now. “S’been a while, I guess.”
“... It has...” he replies softly, almost meek, almost sad. After a moment, he reaches over and finds his hand, letting a few of their fingers touch before ducking back into his menu again, muttering something about the varied flavor notes of a certain expensive selection of wines.
Shinsou doesn’t look at his menu. He doesn’t stare at his face again, either. He looks down at where their hands are touching, staring at his long and delicate fingers, his fingernails clean and polished, cuticles neatly and freshly cut. His gaze follows along the path of his slender veins, traveling up and up, disappearing towards a bony wrist. The sleeve of his shirt has a darling little cuff to it, folded just so, and just under the fabric something red and swelling peeks out, a dark, harrowing imprint curling around the burn.
Monoma shifts slightly and the burn disappears. Not that it matters, trying to hide it like that, but Shinsou lets him, shifting his gaze elsewhere as he ponders what he’s seen.
He has a lot of wounds like that. Purpling marks all over his body. Blisters and bruises and hideous scars that ripple and wrinkle his otherwise perfect skin. He tries to hide them, tries to smile through them every time they’re acknowledged, but Shinsou knows.
Shinsou knows because he’s been watching him.
“... Have you decided?” Monoma asks softly, glancing towards him again.
Shinsou flashes him a reassuring smile, shifting just enough to loop their pinkies together. “Yeah,” he assures him easily. “Let’s order.”
♡♡♡
Shinsou had a rather cerebral process, honestly.
His days passed by as a bulleted list of actions and their various consequences, the things he’d gain and the things he’d lose if he behaved in one way versus the other. He’d learned early on that crime was hardly rewarded unless it was done exceptionally well, that the world favored the just and powerful, no matter how false and feeble that rally for justice was. He considered himself a good person, if only because he resented the other options so damn much, if only because good people got what they wanted in the world when they worked hard enough to get it.
But even good people had needs. Even good people slipped, now and then.
Before Monoma, Shinsou never needed anything. Friends were few and far between, a thing he perhaps coveted, once upon a time, a prize he earned as he settled into school and learn how to navigate the halls and its many unconscious rules.
And love... Love was something he never wanted.
It was something he never felt he could hope for.
Fairytales insulted him growing up, the idea of the beauty falling for the beast, the ridiculous concept that affection and intimacy could rip one’s dark nature straight from their corpse and allow them to resurrect into something new. Pure. It was disgustingly unrealistic to him, even as a child.
He learned that early, as a shitty little kid, skulking in the playgrounds, watching his classmates avoid him. In real life, no one wanted to get to know the monster. No one was interested in the beast they were convinced was lurking in the shadows, waiting to sink their fangs into him. Shinsou spent his earliest years scorned, ignored and avoided by all. Love was something he’d forgotten about.
Before meeting Monoma.
Before then, his thoughts tended to lean towards logic. Emotions unnerved and, honestly, frightened him, and he strayed from them as much as possible, finding comfort in the rational, in detailed plans, in what he could pry at and pull apart with his hands. Meeting him made that difficult. Meeting him made his thoughts flutter in his skull, skittering across his mind, impossible to track and sort out. It made his heart race in his chest, made him feel like he’d felt the first few rays of sun after a long, long winter.
It turned him into something starving. A void yawned open inside of him, its maw dripping, teeth itching, waiting to be filled.
Shinsou waited a long time. To make sense of those feelings. To categorize them into thoughts he could understand. To make a plan. Years passed as he obsessed over the details, listing them out, focusing any extra attention he had between his training, his lessons, his life. It had taken ages. He felt ready, now. He felt calm. He could look him in the face, and feel that love, and know it was going to result in something... good. Good enough for them both.
♡♡♡♡♡
“I was thinking,” Shinsou says suddenly, halfway through the meal. “We should get champagne.”
“What?” Monoma blinks. “Really? Haha... isn’t that a little much?”
“It’s a special occasion,” he explains evenly. “It’s been years since I’ve seen you. I want to be able to celebrate.”
Monoma smiles warmly before looking away, blushing. “Still. An entire bottle between two people... Unless you’ve suddenly learned how to hold your liquor?”
Shinsou grins a little. “Not particularly.”
Monoma shakes his head, amused. “Trying to get me intoxicated, Shinsou-kun? Shame on you...”
Shinsou shrugs a little and feigns a careful amount of guilt, ducking his eyes some. “I just thought it’d be nice,” he mumbles.
“... It would be nice...” Monoma replies hesitantly, a vagueness in his tone that makes it obvious he’s trying to keep from sounding shy, and awkward. “Nice and expensive. It’s your wallet~” he ends up singing out with a little shrug and a flourish. “You know I’d never truly say no to champagne...”
“I know,” Shinsou says with a knowing little smirk.
“Wonderful...” Monoma says softly, glancing around them before brightening suddenly. “Yes, order away! In the meantime, as it’s arriving, I think I’ll freshen up some in the bathroom. Powder my nose, as they say~” he hums as he stands, making a twirling gesture with his fingers. “Can’t be looking bad for our celebration, can I?”
“I guess not.”
Shinsou smiles as Monoma flits off. Then, he looks at his watch, counting the seconds until he can officially start.
♡♡♡
The first thing that endeared Monoma to him in the first place is his mouth and all the strange, stupid ways he used it. That’s the first thing he ever conjured up on his own, a beauteous picture of Monoma, wrists tied behind his back and mouth stuffed shut, tears streaming down his face as he screams through his gag.
That’s how this all initially started. A fantasy that appeared suddenly to him all at once in the middle of the night, and it’s something he remembered fondly as the very first sign that he was really, truly... in love.
Of course, he vaguely considered the idea that this wasn’t the most normal thing. But wasn’t it? It’s not like his fantasy was any different from the top videos on any porn site he visited. Online, he sees his ideals reflected tenfold, and everything he sees feeds that perfect image in his head. The details initially form like that, fantasies feeding fantasies until they spiraled out of control, until he could practically feel the cold sting of freezing metal against his fingertips as he wrapped chains around Monoma’s throat...
Not that he would ever.
No, in real life, as much as he fantasized the opposite, he really wanted to show Monoma he cared for him. He wanted every stereotypical romance movie moment, opening doors, holding hands, buying him flowers. Walking down an aisle as everyone they ever loved bared witness to just how strong their bond truly was, the whole world watching their first, beautiful kiss together as one whole, rather than as two desperate, lonely halves.
He thought constantly as to how it’d start. When their first kiss would be. How clumsy those first few shows of affection would be. What tragic events could spark their relationship into getting deeper, more serious, growing from childish infatuation into something soulful and meaningful, something permanent.
But it never happened. Life never came close.
School was hard. They were given every opportunity to get close, but after the war, after the villains destroyed that golden peace that had settled into the world, there wasn’t ever any time anymore. Every moment of the day was dedicated to training, getting stronger, strong enough to prevent that next inevitable piece of decay that would further rot the world. Any shreds of happiness that were earned immediately was drowned in guilt. People were suffering. There wasn’t time.
Lessons got harder and harder. Everyone’s relationships suffered for it. There was hardly a reason to stay a hero anymore besides sheer stubbornness at the face of such a harsh, unforgiving world.
And Monoma...
Monoma left.
And he never forgave him for that.
♡♡♡♡♡
It’s been a few minutes now. Their waiter has returned and left and returned again, smiling cordially as he pours Shinsou’s drink. When he sees the empty chair in front of him, Shinsou offers him a casual chuckle, assuring him that he hadn’t been stood up for his date and encouraging him to leave the bottle on the table.
As the man walks away to tend to another table, Shinsou shifts in his chair once before he stands, obscuring the view from the rest of the people around him. He takes the champagne and pours it into his glass, and as he cradles the nose of the bottle and tips it down, he sprinkles the smallest pinch of powder in, unable to keep his lips from twitching into a smirk as it coyly dissolves amongst the bubbles.
It’s so easy.
He reviews the plan as he pours:
It’s risky, but it perfectly conveyed the exact fantasy he wants to actualize.
First, the date itself. Harder to plan for but easy enough to depend on Monoma’s natural charisma, his confidence and coyness and the passion he puts into every relationship. It’s been ages since they’ve talked. And since it’s been ages, it’s the perfect time to reignite the old chemistry they’ve had in high school. They can catch up. Monoma can dodge questions, avoid explaining why he’d suddenly dropped his duties as a hero and disappeared into obscurity, meet his eyes with the same delicate sadness he’s always quietly fawned over. He’ll hint at sins he can never confess to, maybe even try and distract him away from the truth with a sorrowful kiss...
And then they’ll go home. Part ways. Shinsou made special care to make plans after this. He’ll meet his friends at a local bar and loudly pine over a beer or two.
“I can’t believe how much I missed him,” he’d say. “He’s so much more beautiful than I remembered.”
“I think you actually stand a chance now!” they’d comfort, and with drunken confidence, he’d agree, “yeah. I think I’ll go for it!”
Then Monoma’s house will burn down.
A romantic tragedy for the modern era. His friends would call him sobbing, shellshocked with the irony. How could this happen now? Now, when they were just getting reunited again? What kind of god would allow this? Does the cruelties of this world ever end?
And then the headlines would start rolling in, details spiraling through the news, rattling off horrific truth after horrific, fucked up truth. No body in the wreckage; had the flames really been so devastatingly hot that not even ashes of him remained, or is there more to the story? Was he a target of something worse? What had he been doing, prior to the tragedy?
Why had Monoma left the hero world?
The questions will pile up, conspiracies and theories spooling through the internet. It isn’t difficult to see flames and blame a certain villain, and all the pieces would start to fall into place, rallying and support groups, demands for more answers. When he’s later declared missing rather than dead, heroes will spring up to look for him, desperate to offer a ray of sunlight and hope. Shinsou would be among them, of course he would, working tirelessly, working until he bleeds, working despite the way his friends beg at him to rest, working until he finds him and brings him home to them all.
And all the while, as he publicly trudges through the darkness in search for him, he’ll have him. Safe. Protected. Privately, he’ll sneak him away as his house burns and keep him in a precious little room, restrained to a precious little bed, and he’ll take care of him. He’ll feed him, brush his hair, get him all the clothes he wants, nurse him back to perfect health, turn him back into the boy he’d first fallen in love with.
And when he’s well again... when he’s finally his... when the world has found a sadder charity case to obsess over and he’s left the only hero still searching, to the point where even his friends pity him for the lost cause he’s foolishly dedicated the rest of his life to...
Shinsou imagines it like a movie. Monoma stumbling into the world again, maybe found wandering somewhere, clothes mussed and heavily sedated but otherwise fine. Everyone would regard it as a miracle. They’d scoop him from the dirty streets, rush him to the hospital, and everyone will watch as they tearfully reunite, Monoma completely beside himself with gratitude, a proposal falling immediately from Shinsou’s lips as he vows to keep him protected from the world forever.
So that was the plan. Monoma will go missing for a little while. And it all starts tonight, with this one-
“Oh! Have our drinks arrived already?”
Shinsou tenses. Just barely. He doesn’t jump, or flinch, or halt what he’s doing. As Monoma slides out from behind him and down into his seat, he only smiles, finishing topping off his glass before he sets the champagne down and settles calmly into his seat.
“Just in time,” he replies with a small smile, and glances up, watching their waiter return with two platefuls, practically overflowing with treats. “Impeccable timing, actually,” he comments. “Here’s our food.”
Monoma smiles at him, his eyes glinting with sudden mirth.
“Perfect.”
♡♡♡
Monoma predictably dodges every question.
“Such a dreary topic, really. Besides, it’s boring just talking about myself, how have you been?”
He avoids explaining why he quits.
“It’s just a brief hiatus anyway, no need to worry about it. Besides, I’m sure I’m hardly missed, not with someone like you soaring through the ranks...”
He meets his eyes and lies, fucking lies, fucking lies
“I’ve always had a knack of business, you know,” he murmurs as he sips. “And my family, well, they supported every one of my endeavors, but I think they all knew where I’d end up once I had my fill of the spotlight. Well, being sidelined from the spotlight.” A bitter giggle leaves him. “I won’t lie and say I prefer it, but... you meet the most interesting people in the office. I’d love for you to meet them one day, they’re so... the way they think and go about their lives, it’s so interesting.”
♡♡♡♡♡
Interesting. Yeah.
Right.
Shinsou remembers following Monoma into the dark once. He can’t remember if this is before or after his mind really started to warp around him, but it was late, and he’d been worried, and there’d been no sign of Monoma coming home at the usual time. He waited outside of his house for hours, biting his lip and picking at his nails, fighting through a never-ending storm of anxiety and desperately trying to muster up the courage to call him, or somebody.
When Monoma finally arrived, he wasn’t alone. Even now, he can still remember the sudden chill of seeing that bastard’s face as he lingered behind him, rotten sneer stretching across his pierced, scabby lips, his blue eyes bright, the smell of smoke and burning flesh following after him as he slipped through the door and deeper into Monoma’s home.
♡♡♡♡♡
“... Maybe one day,” Shinsou agrees softly, taking his own sip from his drink.
♡♡♡
Sometimes, Shinsou got this bad feeling, one that he largely ignored, like he couldn’t accept what his intuition was trying to tell him. Because that would mean everything, everything, was already fucking ruined.
But ever since that day he learned Monoma’s secret, that feeling had become more frequent. Sometimes it felt like blue eyes boring into the back of his neck, a steady, hungry stare resting on his body like a spotlight, waiting for him to slip up. Sometimes, it just felt like the nagging truth digging in, pressing into the base of his spine, drilling and impaling as it sits.
Monoma knows, that feeling told him. He knows and you’re in trouble.
Obsessing was the only way to drive that feeling away. Knowing more than Monoma possibly could figure out on his own. Finding out his schedule, every location he frequents in the morning, every shady building he disappears into at night, what he wears when he meets whoever he’s meeting. It wasn’t a simple matter of curiosity or infatuation, though, of course, there were elements of them mixed into the fervor in which he followed him throughout his life. In the end, this was about Monoma’s wellbeing.
Why was he meeting with Dabi, of all people? Was he fraternizing with the enemy? Was he a spy, and for which side? Had Monoma truly betrayed them all? Or was there more to the story?
There had to be more. Shinsou could remember their first conversations so clearly, back when it was Monoma doing all he could to fight to be closer with him, days he missed with every cell of his body as he only drifts and drifts away.
“You may not agree with how I go about things, but you have to admit, it gets results,” Monoma purred one day, rolling onto his back to eye him mischievously. “And results are the only thing that matter in this world.”
It was a good justification. A useful one. When Shinsou broke into Monoma’s house for the first time, sneaking in just after the sunset, he thought of that. It was just unconventional, but it worked. It was wrong, and anyone who found out would judge him for it, but the world didn’t work in black and white like everyone wanted to believe. There was no simple magic, no fairytale endings, no true, untainted good. In the end, it was all just actions, and what they resulted in. Consequences, and rewards.
And the pleasure of getting to watch Monoma as he fell into bed, eyes drifting close as he lost himself to his newest dream... that was simply worth all the pain in the world.
♡♡♡♡♡
Ten minutes before the worst of it is supposed to hit, Shinsou excuses himself for a moment.
“Agency left a voicemail, I only just noticed,” he assures him. “I’m just going to call really fast and make sure nothing’s happened.”
“Of course,” Monoma replies with a gentle smile before downing the rest of his drink.
Shinsou flashes a grin in reply before he heads off, taking a few steps to the back of the restaurant before pulling out his phone again. On it is a special surveillance program, something he’d borrowed from his agency, and as he clicks on its icon, the phone screen suddenly fills with a dozen monitors, each one depicting a different section of Monoma’s home.
It’s a precautionary measure before he begins. He just wants to make sure there’s no one waiting for them when he drops him off home. God forbid Dabi’s still staying over for some reason, or some other fucking villain... maybe another lover of some kind...
The universe continues to stay on his side, though, because the house is dark and empty. He watches for movement for a long moment anyway, just in case anything is lurking in the shadows.
When a few moments pass by, Shinsou glances up to check on Monoma. He knows that, roughly, the effects should be kicking in soon.
He peeks over at the table, and Monoma is staring off thoughtfully, his chin pressed against his hand as he seems to daydream. He’s so cute. The way his hair curls just so along his soft cheek and against the nape of his neck. How long his lashes are. The way he pouts to himself after a moment too long of being alone, searching the air for anything to entertain himself.
He shifts a little, pokes through his pockets before he glances around, trying to find him. When he doesn’t see him, he reaches for Shinsou’s champagne, snickering to himself as he brings his lips to it and starts to drink.
That little minx.
“Hey,” he calls out, coming closer. “That’s mine...”
“Oh? Oops~” Monoma sings, covering his mouth with a hand as he giggles, letting Shinsou snatch his glass back and chug the rest. “I couldn’t resist~”
♡♡♡♡♡
Shinsou didn’t always recognize the men Monoma had over. Looking back, maybe Monoma’s current jeers of being involved in business wasn’t completely a lie, because he remembers seeing an unappealing few in their tightly fitted suits and their cropped, slicked back hair, candidly slipping into his bed, eager to fuck him and make him moan.
When he’d first started installing the cameras into Monoma’s room, it wasn’t with the intention of watching every illicit affair he was a part of. It wasn’t the intention, but it’s what inevitably transpired, and it’s what became his nightly ritual, until he was unable to sleep until he’d finished watching Monoma be fucked into unconsciousness for the night.
The first time he watched him falling into bed with Dabi...
The man was brutal, so much more so than the CEO’s and administrators and all the other corporate men Monoma allowed to ruin him. Dabi wasn’t satisfied until Monoma was screaming and sobbing. He’d hurt him, before, afterwards, choking him as his hips rammed into him, flames ramping across his fingers and searing into every inch of his skin that it could.
It was agonizing to watch. But Shinsou could never stop himself. Helpless on his side of the monitors, he vowed to do what he could to save him, protect him from all this, make it so that he never hurt again.
One time, Monoma was particularly out of it. No longer screaming, no longer even really there, he stared at the ceiling, letting himself be lolled about and jostled, hardly reacting as Dabi frantically humped at him.
It had entranced him, that awful feeling weighing in, urging Shinsou to lean closer to his screen and devour his love’s every muted expression.
That was when it happened.
Monoma’s gaze skimmed across the air. The sight of it nearly stopped his heart, the way his blue eyes seemed to catch the lens and stare right at him. He’s sure he’s caught. He’s sure Monoma knows.
And then his gaze moved on. His eyes rolled up and he arched off the bed, white streaking across his belly as he whimpered in pain. And Shinsou kept watching.
♡♡♡♡♡
It starts off luxuriously slowly.
It’s a fun thing to start to notice. Monoma’s staring at the wine menu with just a little too much concentration, brow furrowed just so and a forced intensity in his eyes like he’s trying to force his pupils to constrict and focus. There’s a sad little flush on his cheeks, the rest of his face turning a clammy pale. He looks so cute.
“Are you okay?” Shinsou asks.
“I’m fine,” Monoma says a little too fast and forces a quick smile, eyes falling back onto the menu to attempt to concentrate once again. “I’m... I’m fine.”
“It’s okay if you aren’t,” Shinsou says softly.
Monoma doesn’t answer, and the next moment passes in silence, Monoma’s eyes only growing hazier, the conflict on his face giving way to an uneasy exhaustion.
Smiling to himself, Shinsou takes a sip from his drink before he continue:
“What wine were you thinking of getting?” he asks and Monoma makes a sad, sighing sound to himself in response.
He puts his head down. Actually puts his head down against the table before he pops back up again a delayed moment afterwards, shaking his head, rubbing his eyes, leaning his forehead against the palm of his hand.
He sighs again, his lashes fluttering.
Shinsou sits there for a moment, smirking.
“... What?” Monoma finally mumbles, more than a few minutes too late.
Shinsou gestures at the menu. “What did you want to drink?”
He blinks at the paper before putting it down gingerly, with all the careful deliberance of a drunk. Then he shakes his head again, eyes closing for a moment before he sighs.
“I’m sorry to do this...” Monoma murmurs, placing his hands on the table like he means to hoist himself up, though he doesn’t actually move past that. “I just, I’m feeling a little strange...”
“That’s okay,” Shinsou replies warmly.
“I just,” Monoma repeats, apparently not hearing him. He wobbles in his seat a little. “I feel- I’m feeling really tired.”
“It’s okay,” Shinsou says again. “It is a little late, you’ve been working a lot, I’m sure. You probably need some rest. Where have you been working, by the way?” he asks with a curious tilt of his head. “I haven’t seen you on the field.”
“No?” Monoma hums. “That’s strange...”
He trails off. Shinsou waits a moment as Monoma’s head droops.
“Do you need to go home?” he suggests as it almost hits the table again, pulling out his phone. “I’ll just call you a cab. We can reschedule.”
“Yeah, we can... r-reschedule...” Monoma repeats, shaking his head some more. “I’m really sorry about this...”
“It’s okay. You don’t live far, right?” He’d carefully measured the drugs. Tried them out on himself a few times, just to make sure. The usual dose took about twenty minutes, but he’s halved it, and halved it, and he hopes to have at least twice that time. He wants to have him lightly dozing in the cab at worse, his condition easy enough to excuse as one too many drinks, only to fall into something deeper as the fires rage around him...
“Okay. It’ll be here soon,” he adds after a moment. Monoma stares blearily at his glass, quietly grinding his teeth to himself. He must be so disappointed in himself. He’s so cute.
“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” Shinsou reassures quietly. It’s a bad idea, because it’s not a part of his plan at all, but he can’t help but reach out and place his hand over his. “Either way, it’s been good to reconnect with you. I hope we’ll be seeing a lot of each other from now on...”
Monoma pales.
“Sorry, I need to?” He staggers to his feet, stumbling into the table, and Shinsou tries not to wince as everything on the surface is loudly jostled. “I need to use the bathroom?” he mumbles and lets out half a laugh, making a dazed gesture, a dizzy wave of his hand towards his face. “Freshen up... p-.. powder my nose,” he jokes like he can’t remember doing the same before, and then he lurches off, his steps heavy against the floor.
♡♡♡
Shinsou checks the time. Fuck.
He regrets letting him get away from his sight for even a moment. But what were the alternatives? It could have been too suspicious to demand he stay with him instead of pop into the bathroom for a few moments.
It’s fine, he assures. Just a few more minutes and he’ll have him in a taxi and he’ll send him back to his house, and he’ll go to the bar and chat it up with Kendou until it was time to sneak back to the scene of the crime. It’ll be fine.
♡♡♡
The car he’d called is here. The check had been taken, their table had been cleared, and Monoma is still not back.
He assumes the worst. He prays for lesser alternatives. Maybe he got the dosage wrong and Monoma is quietly unconscious in the bathroom. Maybe he’s nervous and went to the restaurant’s bar. Maybe he’s simply just answering the phone.
Chewing on the inside of his cheek, he stands up and starts to look.
♡♡♡
He’s not by the bar.
♡♡♡
He doesn’t find him anywhere nearby on his phone.
♡♡♡
There’s still the bathrooms.
Numb and jittery, Shinsou follows a few signs pointing the way, feeling sicker with every step as he goes. There’s blood in his mouth from biting through his cheek with worry, his stomach twisting with fear and nausea.
Images fill his brain: Monoma running through the streets, collapsing into an alley, finding solace in the arms of another. He imagines him going to the cops, going to the hospital, having them test him for drugs, having him drunkenkly tell them all about their night. Everyone knowing what he’s done. Everyone finding out.
Shinsou freezes. He stares ahead of him.
What’s in front of him looks like something out of a scene in a horror movie.
The hallways just outside the dining area had a few decorations lining the walls, flowers in intricately designed pots and expensive looking paintings, all of which have been knocked to the ground, strewn about in a disastrous trail leading to the bathroom door.
His thoughts go blank with panic.
He’s sprinting down the hall before he knows it, chasing the wreckage and slamming through the door.
What meets him there is even worse.
The sink is running. Water floods the basin, spilling onto the floor, splashing around in wild streaks and soaking through the paper towels that cover the ground as well. The dispensers have been knocked half off the walls like something - someone - had slammed hard into it. There’s no blood. He doesn’t know why he expects blood, but it’s all he can think about and all he can hear hear, his heart racing in his ears, pulse pounding through his temples as the stress overwhelms him.
It’s all going so wrong. How - how could it have gone so wrong?
Scrambling, Shinsou ducks further inside- and he doesn’t even get a full step into the room before he hears him.
“I’m freaking out, you need to get me out of here--” Monoma slurs feverishly from inside, his voice thick and hushed, a desperate call for help. “No, there’s something-- he did something to my drink-”
Shinsou’s blood goes cold.
“Are you okay, Monoma?” he asks quickly, loudly.
There’s a sudden fumbling sound, a quick clatter, a phone scattering against the floor perhaps, and then Monoma squeaks out from the furthest stall.
“I’m fine--”
He falls silent as Shinsou’s quirk activates.
♡♡♡
Shinsou deposits Monoma hard on the bed.
He stares at him like he doesn’t recognize him or the room he’s in now. The set-up is as perfect as he designed it to be, modeled partially like Monoma’s old dorm room and partially like the studio apartment he holes away in now. The furniture is expensive and beautiful, the bed is huge with lush sheets and a soft, mattress.
But it looks wrong. Monoma laying there sprawled, sagging against the mattress as he whimpers in pain and sweats through his clothes, that’s not how it’s supposed to be.
He feels half out of his mind. Finally having him here, having him here like this, even if everything’s gone wrong, maybe, even, especially so... It has lightning shooting through his veins, sharper than any triumph and warm, steely satisfaction he’d always expected out of this moment. His breath comes out short. His vision tunnels. Monoma is the only thought in his clouding head.
(This is strange, isn’t it? Why can’t he breathe? Why can’t he think? Why does he feel so--)
He tears his eyes away from him, and a dizzy groan leaves him at the sheer effort it takes to look away.
There’s a small little desperate rustle from the bed.
“Shinsou-kun...” Monoma whimpers out.
“Shut up,” Shinsou snaps, pacing in front of the bed. “I’m trying to think.”
Distracted, he tugs at his collar, feeling himself sweating as he only grows warmer. He can’t be imagining this, the room must be getting hotter, or maybe he’s coming down with something-? Maybe-
“Please, I can’t...” Monoma whispers, voice shaking, and then he squirms along the bed, arching as he rolls onto his back. “Oh, it’s so hot...” he sobs out as Shinsou stares in horror. “I can’t breathe...”
He can feel his whole body flush from head to toe at the sight of him. He can’t take his eyes off him. Monoma wriggles around and it’s the most sensual sight he’s ever had, far more heady than the first time he saw him, infecting him deeper than the first words he’s ever spoken to him.
“It’s so...” Monoma rolls, his beautiful mouth parting just so, his lip trembling delicately. “Please...”
Shinsou hardly feels his legs moving under him as he crosses the room suddenly, climbing onto the bed, on top of him. Monoma whines softly, arching up towards him with a gasp, his hands coming up sluggishly to push him away.
“Oh...”
Heat radiates from his body, his touch melting through him
Shinsou reaches up with shaky hands. A few of Monoma’s buttons are already fashionably undone, and Shinsou lets the two halves of his shirt fall open all the more as he frees a few more buttons, revealing creamy, flushing skin. His chest heaves with his every breath, and as he’s exposed, he whimpers again, panting softly, slowly starting to settle into the bed. Hovering over him like this, he can practically taste his fluttering heartbeat, his own breath quickening all the more when he watches a drop of sweat trickle along his bobbing throat.
“... Is that better?” Shinsou asks softly.
“Mm...” Monoma whines. “Worse...” he suddenly sobs and shakes his head, eyes teary as he lets out a pained gasp. “What did you do?”
Shinsou stares at him helplessly. The question sends a painful amount of guilt jabbing through him, an emotion he doesn’t expect, a feeling he’s completely unfamiliar with. It’d be different if things had gone his way, he’s sure. But this is completely out of control. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with himself.
“Oh God, I...” Monoma arches again, sucking in a desperate gulp of air. “I need...”
And then he moans, and the way that sound lances through him sends another heavy, ugly dose of shock through him. Everything swirls and tunnels and collapses around him, all he can see is Monoma’s lithe body as he bows off the bed, his head gently lolling, his lashes fluttering.
His question floats through his head again. What did you do? What had he done wrong? Why couldn’t he think all of a sudden? He’s so close to Monoma, closer than he ever thought he could be. He’s wanted him so much. Missed him. Loved him so much.
He leans in and kisses him without thinking. A sad whimper leaves Monoma, but his mouth opens easily as he accepts Shinsou’s tongue.
He’s beautiful.
He seems to come alive at Shinsou’s touch. So reluctant before, but now he arches and moans with every move, letting himself be devoured as he’s kissed and only returning a desperate eagerness as his lips move against his.
Or, maybe it’s him himself who comes alive as their bodies are brought together. There’s a fervor inside him that he’s never known he had. He doesn’t feel like himself. His flushing hot body is the only thing that exists, everything inside him fizzing up like foam, drowning under fiery, bubbling need. For once, he’s not thinking. He’s not planning, scheming, analyzing every inch of detail in the room. Everything inside of him empties. It’s only him. It’s only Monoma, illuminating the world like moonbeams filling an underwater cavern.
“God,” Shinsou whispers, reverent and buzzing. “I’ve waited so long for this...”
Monoma doesn’t respond to him. Instead, he’s staring at the ceiling with blank eyes, still as a statue save for the frantic pants he can’t stop gasping in. It looks like his eyes were replaced with panes of moon glass, they’re so glazed over, pearly pupils eating up the blue, turning his irises into opaque pools.
“No...” he whispers. “No... it’s not supposed to be like this...”
“Like what?” Shinsou pants. “Have you been thinking about this, too?”
He leans in close, covering his face with kisses. “Do you dream about me?” he whispers frantically. “Because I dream about you every night. I have ever since I first saw you. You’re just like me, you know? You’ve always said that, and you were right. I need you. Fuck, I need you so much. Need to be inside you...”
He pants hard, running his hands down his front, groping between his legs as he moans.
“You want that, too, don’t you?”
Monoma frowns. “You want to know what I want...?” he breathes.
Shinsou groans. He grinds into him, desperate and feverish, electric heat surging through him. “Yeah...” he grunts before suddenly--
Suddenly, he stops.
Fuck.
Monoma grimaces. “Get off,” he demands, and Shinsou finds himself rolling off him in an instant, flopping down with his back against the mattress instead.
What the fuck.
In all his years, he’s never struggled against his own quirk’s control more. It isn’t the first time he’s been put under his own brainwashing, of course it isn’t, the sheer amount of times the two have trained together makes this feeling of everything being fucking robbed from him in second about as familiar as breathing.
But it’s never been like this. It’s never been so strong, so encompassing. His mind feels completely intact, but his body feels like it’s disappeared from under him, like he’s been banished to a far off corner as the heavy lump of meat that makes up his form just lays there, useless. It makes him want to scream.
“Just stay there and don’t move,” Monoma pants, as much a plea as it is an order, and Shinsou lays there, immobile, watching Monoma wobblily crawl across the floor.
At the very least, he’s allowed his vision, and he can see Monoma’s pale, naked legs catching the light, so gorgeous, shaky as a little doe. It only makes frustration and rage sear through him all the more as Monoma - as he gets away, he’s getting away--
Or he’s trying to. As Shinsou watches, Monoma gasps again as he finally gets both feet on the ground, his knees threatening to buckle under him. He stumbles, covering his mouth and hugging his stomach, making a muffled sound of dismay as he staggers forward a few shaky steps before tilting, stumbling, nearly falling. Shinsou can feel it intimately, just how much he struggles and fights, the way control over his own body and him is slipping just as much.
Monoma suddenly staggers, knocking into a desk, setting all the things he’s bought to appease him scattering to the floor, and suddenly Shinsou can feel his hands again and curl his fingers into fists. Monoma straightens, standing, and he’s gone, floating in a void, and then Monoma hits the wall, letting out a soft moan as he slides down, clutching weakly at the plaster, and Shinsou feels his consciousness bleeding through, drop by drop, until Monoma hits the floor and suddenly Shinsou is free.
In an instant, he’s on his feet. Shinsou crosses the room in an instant as Monoma lets out a soft wail of despair, trying to crawl away, clawing at the floor.
“Don’t, don’t touch me...! Get away from me!” he shrieks.
“You don’t have the control here any more,” Shinsou snarls, and he grabs him by the wrist.
He hauls him back onto the bed, Monoma fighting all the while, and as he throws him down onto the mattress, Monoma whimpers out in actual, genuine fear. The sound of it curdles at his mood, but he can’t deny the way it twists deliciously inside of him at the same time, relighting the fire that had started the second he’d first latched the door shut behind him.
“I can’t believe you would actually use my quirk on me like that,” Shinsou snarls. “After all these years - like you don’t trust me.”
“Shinsou-kun...” Monoma whimpers.
“No.” Shinsou drags his hands to the headboard of the bed. It has an elaborate, fantastical style to it, something he bought only because he knew Monoma would like it, hoping that his admiration for its design would distract from the silver cuffs hanging from each wooden spoke.
“I didn’t want it to be like this,” Shinsou mutters as he snaps the cuffs around each one of Monoma’s wrists. “Do you think I want to have to hurt you?”
Monoma sobs and he presses his lips shut, reluctant to answer out loud and relinquish control to him as a result.
He nearly snaps at the sight.
“You better answer after what you just did,” he growls. When Monoma shakes his head, he grabs him, shakes him, snarling out at the top of his lungs, “Answer me!”
“No...!” Monoma wails. Just before his eyes go blank, he whimpers out. “Don’t hurt me...”
And then he’s quiet.
His utter submission drags in a sudden silence in the room.
Monoma is completely under his control now, bound and restrained in a room perfectly made for him. He truly, truly, owns him completely, now. That knowledge, that realization, it smashes into him, heady and addicting, and he can feel that feeling coming over him again, fresh and powerful. He can do anything. It’s in his right to do anything.
Monoma is his.
...
Waiting any longer is pointless. Shinsou stares down at him, statue still against the mattress, and he feels that frantic lust rushing through him like a drug in his veins. He’s held back for all these years. He can’t hold back anymore.
He rushes forward, smashing their mouths together as his hand hurries to his pants. It’s a sloppy kiss, Monoma’s lips hardly moving against his until he manages to mumble a quick “kiss me back,” and then suddenly he’s lost in the feeling of their tongues slipping together, panting harshly against his mouth as they all but devour each other. It’s all Monoma knows how to do anymore, a fact that’s only hammered further into him when he starts to rip at his clothes and he doesn’t react, he tears off his shirt and reveals bruises and burns that Monoma doesn’t react, doesn’t shy away from or flinch as his fingers just barely skim along the flushing edges of his wounds. He just lays there like a doll, lips and tongue moving mechanically.
And he’s beautiful. There’s no doubt in the world that he’s still beautiful like this, preserved like a living mannequin with his unseeing eyes still open. In some, rare ways, he’s even more so, because this is his fantasy realized, this is all his doing, this is his.
Monoma is finally his!
Groaning out loud, he tears his mouth away from him, rocking frantically against his body as he feels him up fast.
“You can still hear me in there, can’t you?” he pants out against his ear. “Can’t you?”
It takes all he has to keep the words from babbling out, the thoughts he spends every morning repeating as he wakes up, and every moment throughout the day as they ferment and fester until he falls asleep, haunting his every gory dream. I love you, he thinks, chants, over and over. I’ve always loved you. I’ve always wanted you. I want to have you. You’re mine.
As he thinks, as he ruts against him, he babbles instead, “Bet you’re so fucking tight, Monoma, you feel so good...”
Mine.
“You’re mine.”
No one else can have you.
“I’m going to keep you here...”
No one else will get in the way.
“... and fuck you...”
No one else will take you from me.
“.. until there’s no other thought in your head but me.”
He tears down his zipper, yanking his cock from his pants and stroking fast, panting against his neck as he lines himself up. He can’t fuck him fast enough. He shoves into him with a sudden, harsh snap of his hips, a gasp wrenching out of him as he buries himself into tight, tight, perfect heat.
Monoma arches straight off the bed, throwing his head back as a sharp gasp is wrenched from his mouth. Shinsou feels his control over him split apart at the exact moment he feels his own sanity unraveling. Suddenly, life rushes into the body under him, animating the doll he’s been using, sentience returning, limbs jerking as he moans out. Shinsou can feel his insides clenching around him now, hot and tight, and a slow groan drools out of him, satisfaction washing through him so violently he can’t help but shudder.
“God,” he whispers, already drawing his hips out.
“Oh God,” Monoma echoes him as he screams out, only to let out another loud cry as Shinsou thrusts again.
He can’t help but fuck him frantically after that. There’s just so much pent up inside him that can finally rush out of him. Years of pathetic pleasure as he jerked off into his hand and thought of him, thought about this. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to stop again. He sounds mad as he fucks him, growling and grunting, fingers digging into him at random, pawing at him and leaving claw marks, scratching up his porcelain skin, marking him with everything he fucking has.
Monoma makes a strangled noise, bowing off the mattress as his cock spurts between them. Shinsou groans, burying his face into his neck, biting down hard, hard enough to make the mark he’s leaving permanent. Blood seeps into his mouth. It must hurt, but he can’t help it, he’s never been able to help how he feels about him, it’s always been so much. And it feels so right, digging into the flesh like this, not only making his love known but making it sink in permanently.
He writhes as Shinsou drills into him, nails scraping at the sheets, his legs kicking as he lets out a delirious scream. The pleasure in his voice is undeniable. He’s drooling with it, his eyes rolling back as he rocks back into every frantic, violent thrust.
And then, something happens.
“Hah...”
Monoma throws his head back.
“... haha...”
His lips curl, his teeth glinting in the darkness.
“... that’s perfect...”
Shinsou lifts his head, bewildered and nearly stopping before Monoma’s hands claw at him, gouging at his shoulders as a sudden flood of pleas pours from his mouth.
“I love you,” Monoma suddenly starts panting out, sounding deranged as the words fall in a constant, insistent stream. “I love you, I love you, f-fuck, I...”
A chill shoots up his spine. By the time he registers it, by the time that persistent, needling thought impales through his skull again, something is going horrendously wrong, Monoma’s moaning again, letting out sobs as he clutches onto his back, his fingers digging in like his life depends on it. And he sounds so sweet. He’s waited for this.
He lets himself plunge into that pleasure again, and this time, he doesn’t stop until he’s taken his fill, until he’s overflowing, a dribbling mess all over the sheets, fucking him until all Monoma can manage to do anymore is weep as he shatters under him.
♡♡♡
Monoma cries for a long time afterwards. There’s not much he can do for him at that point.
He tries to reassure him. He tells him promises. He strokes his hair and holds him and kisses his wrists, trying to shift the cuffs away from where they’ve already rubbed his skin raw.
“It’s only temporary,” he whispers to him, explaining his plan over and over. “I just can’t have you leaving me again. It’ll get better.”
Nothing seems to soothe him. Shinsou holds him close, like he could absorb him into his body, and he thinks about how all this pain will be worth it in the end, when they’re all finally past this.
♡♡♡
The door closes.
Monoma spends exactly seven more seconds faking sobs before he stops, relaxing against the bed. He lets out a slow sigh, his lips slowly, sensually, curling into a smirk as he starts to shift against the mattress, testing his restraints and stretching as far as they’d comfortably allow. His eyes search the room, trying to find the cameras - knowing there’s only so much time before Shinsou reaches his special watching room to find him right where he belongs to be...
What a long time coming. What a wondrous plan.
He chances a small giggle, swaying happily in his chains, thinking about it all. Such a grand gesture of love, Shinsou’s offered him. Such a masterful performance he’s given. Such an elaborate ruse, a fun little game, a romantic thriller from start to end, ever since he let that first little seed of a thought plant into Shinsou’s head.
Of course he’d known. Of course he always did.
This has all played exactly like he wanted.
♡
He wanted him violent.
♡
All these sweet nothings are cute - they’re precious, really, they are. Shinsou’s precious little confessions, the uncontrollable adoration that spills out of him like water rushing over a cliff’s edge. But there’s nothing more delectable than a man overflowing with rage and a dying need to show his love. He proves that with every stumble, every desperate plea for freedom, every second of struggle as his darling throws him down and climbs on top of him, his expression unrecognizable, contorted into something bestial at the mere chance of him being able to escape him.
♡
He wanted him controlling.
♡
The bathroom falls apart easily with a dramatic stagger. He claws and kicks everything around, relishes the scrape of his nails against the walls as he tears down picture frames and decorations, bashes his failing body into anything near him that can break. Then he clambers into the stall and waits, giggling with his phone ready, a false plea for help on the tip of his tongue.
♡
He wanted him jealous.
♡
It’s dirty work, but he doesn’t mind laying back and letting a cruel, disgusting man have his way when it’s useful. Monoma sighs as Dabi takes his fill, and he lets him bite and dig his fingers in, tugging his hand to his hips and begging to be burned.
♡
He wanted him...
♡
Monoma’s eyes skim the room for the usual cameras. He catches a particular one, small, beady, and he imagines Shinsou’s impassioned gaze.
♡
He wants him.
♡
He drops a pill from his mouth straight into the amber of his champagne, glancing upwards and offering a coy giggle as he’s caught sneaking sips.
♡
He wants him.
♡
“I see right through you, y’know,” he says one day with a distant smile. “You’re just like me. The world isn’t big enough for what we think and feel. That’s why...” he leans in, close enough to watch the goosebumps form on his skin. “... we have to resort to other methods...”
♡
And he always gets what he wants.
Monoma smirks to himself, settling back, getting himself comfortable. After all this time, he’s finally ready to reap his every deserved reward.