Keith finds him on the hill before the house. The others are inside, waiting for answers, an explanation, but Keith touches Shiro’s shoulder and looks at him. They talk. Keith can’t begin to describe how much has changed, how he’s been searching while Shiro had been through unspeakable things that left his skin ashen and hair white and cost him flesh all over his body.

He still reaches for Shiro’s hand. “Let’s go inside,” Keith says, wants to pull him off that hill and somewhere safe, but Shiro flinches away from him. “What?”

“I’m not me anymore.” Shiro looks at the ground, left hand curled around his metallic wrist, knuckles clenching tight enough to lose all blood. “This hand isn’t mine. They put it there, I don’t know what it does, and if I’ll hurt people.”

Keith watches him for a long moment. Then, he says: “That’s stupid. Typical Shiro-thing to say, but still stupid.” This time he doesn’t give Shiro a chance to react. Keith snatches his hand, the cold and sharp-edged one, gripping it as hard as he can.

“Seems like I can still grab you and pull you out of things you don’t belong in. So I guess it works for a hand, meaning it’s yours and it’s you.”

He doesn’t wait for Shiro’s reaction. “C’mon,” Keith says, “they’re waiting.” When he turns to stumble down the hill, Shiro follows without a word, but his fingers squeeze Keith’s hand carefully. The metal is warm now.

Today is a wonderful person’s birthday. I wish you a strong, inspired and happy new year of life, dear @hachidorikun – I think my private message said enough, but: Don’t ever forget your own luminosity. This drabble is all for you and I think you’ll remember our talk about it. Keep gleaming.

“Of all the things you could have lied to me about – “

“I’m sorry,” Kentarou says. Or, well, he tries to, because Shigeru is having none of that. A hand slams into Kentarou’s field of vision, and even if it doesn’t touch him, Shigeru’s expression paints such a clear picture of calm before the storm that Kentarou snaps his mouth shut immediately.

“I need you to shut up. Right now. I’m so angry, I – this is – oh my god, you make me lose my words. This is terrible.”

Kentarou looks at the floor. His claws are still out, and he blushes all over his face before roughly pushing them underneath his thighs to sit on them.

Shigeru narrows his eyes. “If you tear my sheets, I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.”

“I’m not gonna tear anything. Look, I’m really sorry – “

“Of,” Shigeru presses out, the word almost a growl between his teeth, and the irony of that thought makes Kentarou swallow a laugh, “all. The. Things. I would have understood if you hadn’t told me about what an absolute bloody bastard your dad is, okay, I really get that one, and I’m still eternally grateful and happy that you told me so we could do something. But still, I want to yell at you. A lot.”

Kentarou gives up then. He moves off the bed, turning to make his way over to Shigeru’s window where he’d entered half an hour ago. “Okay. That’s that, then.” It hurts more than the bullet (oh wait, plural, bullets) wedged between his ribs. He’s used to that. Seeing how your boyfriend screams in horror when you climb into his window at night in your quote real form unquote, that’s something else. A bit like swallowing acid while hanging upside down from the ceiling of a hunter’s basement (Kentarou’s Friday nights are never ordinary, okay, so he’s got that going for him and that’s nice. Or life-threatening, anyways, it’s not boring).

“Where do you think you’re going?” Shigeru is by his side, eyes softened from dark anger to something bright that Kentarou doesn’t deserve. He flinches when Shigeru reaches out, but the touch against his jaw isn’t a slap.

“Did you think I was – “ Shigeru says, voice cracking on gentleness, and Kentarou can’t.

“I’m not gonna bother you anymore.” He takes a deep breath. Shigeru’s fingers cradle his cheek then, thumb tracing Kentarou’s mouth where he’d kissed it just yesterday. This is the last time he gets to feel it. There’s no boyfriend anymore, just Shigeru who has a normal life and Kentarou who’s always going to protect him in secret.

“I can see your brain running,” Shigeru whispers. He’s close, and leans in even more, both hands reaching now to push Kentarou’s lower lip down a bit. The moon is bright outside, pale and harsh, and there’s no chance for Shigeru to miss the sharp fangs sliding out of Kentarou’s mouth. His claws are stuck where he’d slammed them into his pockets. “Ken.” Shigeru tugs at his wrist. “Ken, look at me.”

“I get it.” Kentarou hates himself for closing his eyes to breathe in Shigeru’s scent. This is home. Shigeru is everything good he’s ever had, the only precious thing he hadn’t ruined until now. Shit. “You’re scared, I get it, I’m a monst-”

“Cut me some slack here.” Shigeru sighs, annoyance swaying in his voice before he tugs Kentarou’s hand free and takes it into his own. “I’m a modern and tolerant man, but you bursting into my room at fuck o’clock with blood all over you and oh, the small detail of you having been a pony-sized wolf until you turned back into my boyfriend, that would scare anyone.”

“It’s not my blood,” Kentarou says, then hesitates. He doesn’t want to lie anymore. “Mostly. I heal fast, I practically can’t die, and the few bullets that – “

Shigeru makes a sound like someone punched his lungs. “See! You keep doing that, hiding things from me because you want to protect me! Ugh.” He pinches Kentarou’s cheek until he opens his eyes, and then Shigeru kisses him, makes him breathless and growling in his throat. Kentarou swallows when Shigeru pulls back, dares to rest a clawed hand on Shigeru’s hip, so careful that he almost doesn’t touch him. “You’re not running away. Yet. Are we still together?”

“I’m still angry at you – oh don’t make those puppy eyes, and oh my god! Now that I know what you are, they’re actual puppy eyes, that’s the best irony of my life. I know so many dog jokes. Anyways. I’m angry because you didn’t tell me, because you didn’t trust me.” Shigeru pulls him to the bed, and Kentarou follows fluidly, immediately tucking Shigeru into his arms so he can nuzzles his neck, humming happiness against his skin. “Can’t believe you still like me.”

“Not like,” Shigeru corrects, leans back into his embrace with a smile playing around his lips. “I love you, okay, memorize that. And why wouldn’t I? Ken, you treat yourself like you’re a bad person. You thought I’d leave you after you told me about your dad, even if he was the guilty one.”

“That’s because he was the monster in that case. This time, it’s me.”

Shigeru is silent for a long time after that. When Kentarou slides his chin onto his shoulder, pushing it forward to look at his face, Shigeru’s eyes are wet.

“Hey,” Kentarou says. “Hey. Shi, don’t, don’t cry.”

“You’re not a monster.” Shigeru shifts, and then he’s flipping around in Kentarou’s arms and catapults himself on top of Kentarou, collapsing both of them on the bed. Kentarou doesn’t tell him that he’s pressing on the bullet between Kentarou’s ribs (it’s gonna heal), so he just cups a hand around Shigeru’s neck. “Okay. I’m just glad that you… still, even after knowing.”

“Idiot.” There are tears dripping into Kentarou’s neck, but nobody mentions it. “I told you, I don’t ‘still’ like you. I love you, not ‘still’ but ‘since’ and then indefinitely. And now you’re gonna let me look at those wounds or I’m gonna put another one into your leg, do you understand that?”

Kentarou kisses him on the crown of his head, closes his eyes. “Yeah. ‘course.”

“You can’t fight a dragon by running away,” said the companion to the hero when he saw her flinch before the beast.

“I am not running,” the hero said. She walked backwards, ducking below the monster’s fire, and then dropped her sword. Her companion called after her when she started to climb up the mountain’s side, away from the valley where the beast roared for blood. “You won’t defeat it like that! Only cowards run, only cowards drop their sword and go for the easy way!”

The hero had found a ledge in the wall. Pulling herself up on it, she stared down at the monster, and told her companion: “Move out of my way.”

“You’re giving up,” her companion whispered, disappointment bright in his eyes.

And the hero tucked an arrow from her quiver, raised her bow, and shot the beast right in its mighty neck, where a sliver of flesh had shown itself between the raised spines.

The companion was silent. As the beast fell, its scales crumbled apart, a last roar shaking from the body before it thundered to the ground. All that was left after the dust had settled was silver ash that spread through the air, and a gleaming pile of gold underneath.

“I didn’t run,” the hero said when she was back on the ground, helping her companion back on his shaky feet. She smiled when he threw his arms around her and began sobbing. “Why,” her companion whispered.

The hero put her bow on her back and brushed some ash off her shoulder.

“I didn’t run, I changed my angle. And I didn’t give up either.

I just took a run-up, and I took aim.”

Everyone can see who Tooru is, clear as day and bright like sunlight that catches in his hair during games. Nobody’s blind to his motions, the grit of teeth when he sets, the fluid grace that flows in his muscles when he orchestrates his team. Tooru has never thought about being invisible.

When Hajime joins the same college as he does, Tooru learns what it means. The volleyball team, one of the most prestigious in Japan, only takes one of them. Hajime doesn’t seem surprised or disappointed. His kiss tingles on Tooru’s lips throughout the first practice.

It’s the girlfriend of one of his teammates that points it out. She’s next to Tooru on the bench when he chugs down water, and her face is gentle when she says: “Iwaizumi is your boyfriend, right? I was surprised to hear that, to be honest. You’re so extraordinary, Oikawa. Don’t get me wrong, he’s nice even if he mocks you sometimes, but he’s so average. Almost ordinary.”

Before he could reply, the girl’s boyfriend (their libero, sweet guy actually, even if Tooru hates him for his choice in the opposite sex now) had called her name, and she’d run off. Tooru had stood there, speechless, then dropped his bottle.

He’d understood one thing then – that none of them sees Hajime.

Where Tooru is shrill and colourful like a rainbow in the sky, Hajime isn’t on the spectrum. There’s no red or blue in him, no hue of flower petals, no dark green of the forest, and now that Tooru thinks about it, he can’t describe Hajime as violet, white, night-black or ivory-soft.

It’s sad, Tooru thinks, that none of those people have the receptors in their eyes for something before crimson, after ultramarine. They’ll never get to see the ultraviolet gentleness of Hajime’s fingers on Tooru’s skin, mouth whispering in new octaves of love across his temples until Tooru shivers so hard that he fears he’s going to burst at the seams. They’ll never get to see the infrared loyalty that is Hajime hugging his parents, both families spending holidays together and Hajime locking his fingers into Tooru’s below the table while just smiling when Tooru’s baby niece climbs onto his lap.

And god, it’s sad to know that none of them has eyes brilliant enough to see the gamma rays of Hajime’s words when he talks about becoming a doctor to save souls, when he speaks to his mother in a softness that singsongs love with every syllable, and when he kisses an oath into every inch of Tooru’s skin until the echo of it leaves wave-shaped cuts on Tooru’s heart.

Voltron’s Bond.

It’s Pidge who initiates the whole thing without even wanting to.

They’re all exhausted. The team building exercises did nothing for them, they still can’t assemble Voltron again, dinner tastes like slimy slippery goo and it’s so quiet except for the sound of their spoons against the bowls that Pidge can’t bear with it anymore. “I’m done for today. Night. I’ll be in my quarters.”

Everyone looks up, but nobody does anything to keep Pidge from leaving the table. They just watch, young eyes dark and tired, as a thin frame disappears through the door, outworn and hunched over like all of them.

Hunk is the next to stand up, five minutes after. “Pidge’s right. I’m done, too. See you guys tomorrow.” Then he stomps off. The silence around the table thickens, and it’s no surprise to Allura that the rest of the food stays untouched until one after another, the boys get up and nod at her.

It’s Keith next, quiet and with gritted teeth, fists curled by his side. It’s Lance, not even cracking a joke at her, worrying his lip between his teeth. And after he’s stacked the rest of the bowls and mumbled a quiet “thank you for the training today”, Shiro follows after them, having stayed for over an hour since Pidge vanished.

The night has fallen over the planet when Coran steps to stand by Allura’s side. She’d been watching the virtual model of the galaxy, counting planets that needed saving, but turns her head to him. “I don’t know how to get them to bond. They’re so young. They’re scared, and I can’t make their fate easier.”

Coran tilts his head and, for some reason, smiles. “You should see this.”

And she really should. Coran leads her to Pidge’s room, at the very end of the corridor, the door carelessly open. Allura prepares for a lecture about safety in one’s quarters and underestimating the enemies’s stealthiness, but Coran simply points into the room… and Allura can’t help but smile, too.

In a pile of blankets and pillows, the five paladins of Voltron are asleep.

Pidge lies in the middle, legs stretched out long, glasses somewhere on the floor because Hunk’s big hand cradles that fragile jaw and pulls both close against another. They had been drawn here, one by the other – Keith next, legs tucked to his own chest and curled up so tightly that he’s a tiny fraction of his usual temper and red-hot wildness. His nose touches Pidge’s back, and the strong arm around his waist that belongs to Shiro seems to be what holds him together. And there’s Lance, wedged somewhere by Shiro’s hip, head on his stomach and Shiro’s fingers calm in his hair.

Allura turns and closes the door again. She says good night to Coran, walking to her room in silence. She thinks about the paladin’s slow breaths. She thinks about Pidge’s fingers gripping Hunk’s shirt, Shiro’s fingertips reaching against Pidge’s back just below where Keith looked vulnerable. She thinks about Lance, looking in place, belonging, safe.

“Bonding, huh,” Allura whispers to the stars outside the castle. “I see.”

inspired by this beautiful artwork of demon Iwaizumi by LordIzxy.

The ink stains Tooru’s fingers for three days. He has dreams about it, how the darkness drips from his fingers as he paints the night sky’s colour on each of the warrior’s skin, hundreds, passing by and getting a touch of Tooru’s finger from shoulder to the back of their hands.

The crown on Tooru’s hair is cold silver. Not a prince but an emperor, not a warrior but a mage. Not in the front line but upon the highest tower of the castle, there he will be in few hours, magic echoing off his trembling muscles and sweeping over the enemies’ fighters in a roar of bursting sparks. But now, he is casting protection.

And the last in the long line, their commander, naked as all of them are with skin that withstands fire, is the man who knows Tooru’s fingertips like he knows war.

“Iwaizumi,” Tooru says softly. The leader of the demons bows his head. There is no smile on his lips, nothing but death waiting silently in the sharpness of his claws, on hand and feet. His wings are folded, the tips trembling.

Tooru waits until the others have left the throne room. Then, a dam breaks. “You will return to me, soldier,” Tooru whispers, “and that is an order you are not allowed to disobey.” His black-dripping hand grabs Iwaizumi’s arm, nails digging deep where shoulder slopes down to arm, and his mouth crashes against that of the man who has taken him apart between his legs just hours ago.

“Then you better cast your spells well.” Iwaizumi’s growl has the windows in the throne room quiver in their frames. He kisses Tooru, no, devours his mouth with a snarl, teeth leaving a puncture of red-hot-pain flaring up at the edge of Tooru’s bottom lip. He tastes copper, shudders when Iwaizumi licks it off, just like last night when he’d buried his face between Tooru’s thighs, slid between them moments later, made him howl and writhe and beg until he fell, bloomed open and grasped his neck to pull Iwaizumi closer, deeper, sheathed in his heat.

“You will come back home.” Tooru wraps a hand around his horn, whispers a spark of magic into Iwaizumi’s mouth until his body shivers, skin glowing with the protection on it. “And if I have to reap them all with my own hands, I’ll take you back into my arms. Now go. Lead them to victory.”

But Iwaizumi laughs, low and sharp. “I’m not whom they obey.” He steals another kiss, burning hot like the fire that suddenly illuminates the windows from outside, followed by a deafening explosion. Tooru lets go, fingers tracing Iwaizumi’s shoulder, and the long line is crowned by a circle just on the top. “Of course you are. You are as much their demon warrior as you are mine.”

“No.”

And the demon spreads his wings, horns elongating, claws growing from sharp to lethal. He turns, approaches the window, the glass shattering in a new burst of fire. Iwaizumi doesn’t look back, yet Tooru hears what he speaks before he soars down into the war.

“They don’t follow a warrior. They follow their ruler.”

‘The Worth for and of Everything.’ – fic. iwaoi.

Iwaizumi Hajime / Oikawa Tooru.

Rating: General Audiences

Characters: Oikawa Tooru, Iwaizumi Hajime

Tags: First Kiss, Misunderstandings, Miscommunication, Love Confessions, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Dorks in Love, Fluff, Friends to Lovers

Chapters: 1/1 (complete)

Words: 3,057

Summary:

Hajime stares at him. “Let me get this as crystal clear as possible. You thin you don’t – correct me if I’m wrong, seriously – you think you don’t deserve to be kissed?”

“It sounds stupid if you put it like that.”

Read on ao3.

‘The Worth for and of Everything.’ – fic. iwaoi.

Your stories made me cry

“I don’t understand,” frowned the child that had been listening to the storyteller all night. “My dad always said that you shouldn’t say things that make people cry, because you’ll make them sad.”

The storyteller smiled. “Yes. Your words shouldn’t be spoken or written with the intention to hurt someone. If the words of a story make the reader cry, it should be because they hurt for the world that you have created, because they sob their soul out for the pain of growth and change that your characters suffer through.

Do not hurt them – let them love together with your creation, and let them laugh and cry and live with it. Let them feel your story.”

Kenma’s eyes are gone. Dark, hollow caves swallow the light where they used to be. His contours are shifting, bones cracking in his body. Kuroo can’t run. His leg is broken where Kenma’s claws have rammed into it, and the pain is so intense that his mouth tastes white and searing and his vision is smoky.

“Three questions,” Kenma sing-songs. His mouth is tiny and red. He’s licked some of Kuroo’s blood from his claws. The gym is empty. Kuroo is against a wall, crying, silent and pathetic because he can’t wrap his mind around this.

“Wh…” Blood is in his mouth. Kuroo chokes, whimpers. “Why?”

Kenma takes a step. “A person has to eat.”

“You’re not a person.”

Kenma smiles, soft, almost fond. “I was, for you, for the years I was weak and grew in this body. But no, I’m not. I’ll count that as a question, so you have one more left.”

The gym is quiet. Nobody knows he’s here. He wants to know many things. Kenma takes a step. His naked toes touch Kuroo’s, trace his sneakers.

He can’t close his eyes, not even when Kenma’s jaw makes a terrible crack, when it unhinges and reveals a maw that’s so red and wet it’s almost pretty.

Kuroo lets his head fall against the wall. The thump is a dull echo in his skull.

“Was Kenma ever in there, or was it only just you?”

The hollow caves of Kenma’s, no, the thing’s eyes seem to grow. Black envisions Kuroo. Something wet touches his skin, and he feels numbness spread throughout his – oh. Poison. He can’t feel anymore, then.

A whisper reaches his ears.

“Help me.”

A slow grin spreads on Kuroo’s lips. “Hey there, kitten.” He rips his eyes open, fingers shooting forward, and before the thing can so much as snarl, Kuroo’s hands go up in flames, shoving down its throat with a burst of sparks.

The thing roars. Black goo spurts from its tongue, spills over Kuroo’s arms, but he just grins, grins, fingers twisting and the tips pressing deep into the thing’s esophagus.

“You know,” Kuroo says, tilting his head as his fire takes the monster apart, its agonizing screams almost drowning out Kuroo’s voice, “that’s the thing with you monsters. First off, you think you know humans, but you don’t. We lie, and some of us are pretty good actors. We also know when someone’s lying, just like you did before about all those years. Bullshit. And second, we really don’t appreciate it when you engulf the gorgeous boys that we’re bonded to into your disgusting bodies, and especially not when it’s on their anniversary. So.” He takes a deep breath, plants both feet on the ground, and his smile vanishes.

“Either you give me back my boyfriend, or I fry you from the inside like a goddamn chicken nugget. Or – oh well. Too late. Guess my magic reached him.”

Kuroo takes a step back and pulls his hands out of the thing’s throat. It’s a trembling lump of black goo now, all the outer shell of Kenma’s imitation melted away. The gym is silent for a few seconds. Then, an angry hum fills the air.

“Too bad. You could have had this quick, mostly pain-free, but you pissed him off.” Kuroo sits down, crosses his legs, waiting with a smile. The thing makes a hurt noise somewhere in its body, and then the entire gym begins to shake.

“’s not really a good idea to mess with a mage and their dragon.”

“What do you mean, you don’t want to celebrate your birthday?”

Hajime shrugs. He’s curled up in the grass, chin on his knees, and Tooru thinks it’s really cool that he doesn’t even flinch when his mom puts salve on his scraped shin. She doesn’t say anything, just looks worried, so Tooru keeps talking. “Well my birthday is next month, and then I get presents and mom makes my favourite food and my friends come over!”

“I can’t celebrate. I have to help my dad,” Hajime says quietly. He turns his head, puts his cheek on his knee. Tooru frowns for a bit. “What do you mean?”

Tooru’s mother starts wrapping a bandage around Hajime’s leg. “Say, Hajime, when did you last eat? You look,” Tooru thinks she’s going to say skinny, because he is, Hajime’s kind of tiny for being five years old just like Hajime, but she says, “very hungry.”

There’s a beat of silence. Hajime keeps still until his leg is all wrapped in white. Then, he stands up. “Sometimes,” he shuffles his feet, looks down. “Dad is sad, I think. Since mom d- went away. Sometimes he doesn’t go to work. Sometimes he doesn’t cook. He cries a lot and stays in bed. I – I don’t know what to…”

Tooru whips around to his mother. “Mom. Mom.”

“It’s okay, honey.” Her smile is gentle when she takes Hajime’s hands, crouches before him. “How about we go to your dad and talk a bit, and maybe we can help? I can bring you some food here and there. And I think I know a person that he could talk to that could help him. What do you say? And then we celebrate your birthday. Okay?”

Hajime looks at her, then at Tooru. He bites his lip. “Is he going to be okay again?”

Tooru hugs him before his mom can say: “I don’t know that. You never know, and sometimes not everything is like it was before. But he can try and we can help him, and you’re already helping him. Let’s go, okay, Hajime?”

—

“Look, dad sent me a snap.”

“You taught him how to use snapchat?”

“He’s doing his best, okay.” Hajime snuggles up against Tooru’s side on the couch, stretching himself out extra-wide and obnoxious. “Here, he’s having a third portion of Akemi’s curry rice.”

Tooru hums, sliding a bit closer so he can bury his nose in Hajime’s hair and still glance at the screen. “They’re having anniversary soon, huh? We should send them a gift or something.”

“Yeah, five years. Shit, gifts, that reminds me, we gotta get going! I don’t know why you always insist on celebrating like I’m the king of something, it’s just a-”

“Your birthday,” Tooru whispers. His arms are tight around Hajime’s waist, refusing to let him escape. Hajime falls back against him with a little not-serious growl. “You’re impossible. Also, your mom asked me again when I’ll get you a ring.”

“Well, your dad asked me that when we were seventeen, relax. It’s not like you could find better than me.”

“Confident much?” Hajime grins and surge in for a kiss, nips at Tooru’s soft bottom lip until he’s breathless, all pliant and sighing Hajime’s name. “Yeah well,” Tooru manages then, swallows heavily. “I just know that I love you more than anyone, so I kinda hope that’s enough. Also, happy birthday, dearest.”

Hajime can’t help but groan. He hears Tooru’s laughter above him when he buries his face in the pillow, slamming his boyfriend in the face with it seconds later, before the situation ends in lover’s tickling quarrel and a panicked search for shoes and coat when the doorbell finally rings.

Before they open up, Tooru kisses him again, and smiles.
“Let’s go. I want to celebrate you.”