Absolutely! Sorry for the delay, Anon. I have a cold and am a lot slower at basically everything, writing included, right now. I’m going to try to play catch up a bit today and tomorrow though~
Previous ficlet can be found here.
Shouto goes everywhere with Izuku. This isn’t because he doesn’t trust Izuku, it’s just the nature of their lives at this point. Yuuei decided to keep their dorm program even though the war is over. Being neighbors with Izuku, sharing classes with Izuku, having mostly the same friends, and spending time together in the common area. There isn’t much that Shouto and Izuku don’t do together and Shouto has to admit that it’s nice. He feels lighter, somehow, when Izuku is around and Izuku always has this special smile just for him. This is the closest to happy and content that Shouto’s been for a very long time.
Maou Ryuushin is a bit of a snag in Shouto’s otherwise content life. He’s a grade below them, wide eyed and bushy tailed and completely obsessed with Izuku. He’s tall enough to loom, produces water from his mouth that freezes on impact with objects, and he pops up at Izuku’s elbow all the time. Izuku smiles at Maou, because of course he does, and it makes Shouto feel sick and dark whenever he thinks about it for too long.
Maybe Shouto is being ridiculous. He lets it get so bad that he grandstands his power in front of an underclassman, making it quite clear where he and Izuku stand with each other and where Maou stands in relation to that; which is nowhere. He’s embarrassed by his own actions and Izuku forgives him, Izuku always forgives him. Shouto is content to think that now that Maou knows that Izuku is taken that he will be free of the constant irritation that is Maou’s presence.
He, apparently, underestimated Maou.
Shouto cuts back across campus in the fading light of sunset after running some forms to the administration building for Snipe. He spots Izuku a little ways ahead and the warm happiness that usually settles in his chest at the sight of his boyfriend is put on hold because Izuku is talking to Maou. They’re alone, a backdrop of orange-red trees and mood lighting, and Shouto isn’t stupid enough to not recognize the romance of the moment. Kirishima cried last week at a movie that had a scene just like this.
That hot, sick, darkness is back in Shouto’s gut. He’s frozen mid step, watching the scene play out like a horror movie.
Maou leans over Izuku’s shorter frame and says something that makes Izuku laugh. The wind picks up and shakes a few leaves from the trees. Izuku bundles a little deeper into his hoodie. His curls are tousled everywhere by the wind and Maou reaches a long fingered hand towards Izuku’s face, to brush one out of Izuku’s eyes like Shouto does sometimes.
Shouto moves, he has to move. It’s like when he sees a villain about to strike, slow motion with nothing but the sound of Shouto’s heart beating. He barely gets a few steps, he won’t make it in time. He’s not sure why he has to, he just knows that he does. Maybe it’s irrational but some small part of him that sounds like his father still tells him that if Maou touches Izuku in a situation like this that Izuku could fall in love with Maou Ryuushin. Shouto doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do if that happens.
He doesn’t make it. He doesn’t have to.
Izuku moves, fast as green lighting. His hand shoots up and catches Maou’s wrist before Maou can touch him. There’s something hard in Izuku’s expression, hard like when Izuku killed All for One, and Shouto’s body and mind automatically react to the danger that Izuku must be facing. It’s only lasts an instant, barely a glance, before Izuku lets Maou go and steps back. His face is serious but not so serious that Shouto panics.
“-not really interested, sorry Maou-kun.” Izuku is saying as Shouto gets into hearing range.
“I don’t want to accept that,” Maou says.
“Please try,” Izuku says, gentle and yet firm.
Shouto stops only a few meters behind Maou. “Izuku.”
Maou stiffens. Izuku looks at Shouto and smiles that soft smile that’s just for him. “Shouto.”
“Are you ready to go?” Shouto asks, unable to stop himself from glancing at Maou’s back. “Satou and Bakugou are having their bake-off today.”
Izuku’s face goes slack and then brightens in excitement. “That’s right, I forgot.” With that, Izuku walks. He passes Maou right by and walks to Shouto’s side and Shouto’s chest feels warm.
“Midoriya-senpai,” Maou calls, turning quickly. Izuku glances over his shoulder at Maou and Shouto can’t stop his glare. “I’m not going to give up.”
“You really should,” Izuku says. He sounds annoyed. He rarely sounds as annoyed as he sounds now. “I’m not going to change my answer.”
With that Izuku leads the way back to their dorms, muttering the entire time about guys who won’t take no for an answer. With every word Shouto feels himself relax back into contentment.
Tag: this is the good shit
Eowyn becomes queen of Rohan
- Éowyn, Lady of Rohan,
goes to her knees in the mud of Pelennor Fields, and rises up a Queen—split lip and still reeling, blinking up at
Eldwyn
as though it will somehow change what she has become.
- He touches the crown of her head with his hands, and says, “I am sorry. I pray it is enough.”
- It is. It isn’t. It is both. Théoden is dead and Éomer lost, never to wake from the feverish sleep of a Black blade, there is only her. She is all Rohan has left, and Éowyn wonders if they are glad of it, her decision to ride for Minas Tirith instead of throwing in her lot with the other women.
- (At the very least, it makes the coronation easier. She is there, in the mud, already. No need to send for a man, her hair falls over her shoulders in a cascade of Rohirric
gold.)
- Still—Aragorn looks at her oddly when she strides into the Merethrond wearing the shield and helm of
Eorl, the Horse-lords’ sigil painted in flaking gold on her breast.
- “You called,” she says, taking her place at the Council-table without so much as a by-your-leave. “And the Oath of Eorl is fulfilled in me.”
- In Gondor, they call her names after some creature of their mythological past—Health, or something like. They have a tendency to do that, she’s learned, Gondor is so in love with its own stories.
- In Rohan she is only Éowyn, Queen,
daughter of Éomund.
- (It also keeps her from becoming too proud, the knowledge that most of Edoras remembers her running shiftless through the Meduseld, shrieking at Éomer to give her back her poppet.)
- She becomes close with Faramir, son of Denethor, in wake of Pelennor—they are both thrust, an ill-prepared, into a role they had not expected to play. After all, she was three persons removed from Rohan’s crown, and he was the younger brother of the immortal, burning Warden of the White Tower; neither of them had ever imagined being here.
- “I will miss you most,” she says stiffly, once it all has calmed, and the Men of Rohan are free to return to their plains and stables. Faramir, son of Denethor, smiles in a way that makes the light of him shine through. Her chest aches.
“I as well,” he says, and she is grateful for the pace Winfrith sets as they ride for the border after, the wind dashing her tears away.- They greet her with—only slightly less joy than they might have greeted her uncle, and Éowyn rides through the streets she knows well, touching hands and murmuring thanks and thinking, you are Rohan’s now, you are King of the Mark, earn it. Deserve it.
- Being King is slightly less tedious than being the King’s niece, if only because they must listen to her now. She holds counsel, so when they mutter to one another and complain about her unwomanliness, she is already there. She may glare at them, pointedly, until they stop.
- The news from Minas Tirith comes late, and piecemeal—she doesn’t hear about Aragorn riding for the North until they are on her doorstep.
- “King Dernhelm,” Aragorn says, embracing her like a king instead of bowing to a queen. Éowyn laughs and kisses his hands, calling him Royal Elf-fucker in Rohirric. (She’s not sure he understands, but more than one of her men suddenly erupt into coughing fits, so that’s enough.)
- “Why are you riding north, Aragorn?” she asks. The welcome feast is burning itself out, and Meduseld is almost dark; only
Éowyn and Aragorn remain. Two kings—alike in dignity, and equally conflicted about who they are to be now. (Aragorn is a Ranger-king, and she is a Shieldmaiden-queen, they understand one another, this way.)
- “My people have suffered,” he said, sounding morose—she could have guessed he’d be graven, once the drink got to him. “The darkness in the East is only one enemy, there is—old darkness, that lingers still in the North. I must protect my people.”
“All of Gondor are your people now,”Éowyn said quietly, murmuring mostly to the mug of beer she lifted to lips. (Aragorn is High King, but in a way she understands him—Rohan is her people, still, no matter how longingly she thinks of the warfront, of Minas Tirith where the news comes from.)
- Afterwards, she foists him onto one of his second-lieutenants, or—something like it, a Gondorian soldier with soft grey eyes, who assures her he will get the High King back to his bed. “Take care,” Éowyn says, “he is my friend.”
- (She is surprised—lying in bed, staring up at the plaster ceiling, chewing on her lower lip—to find it is true.)
- “Do you ever regret it?” Aragorn asked as they departed, his head tipping forward heavily—it might have been the leftover of his drinking, if there hadn’t been so much shame in his eyes.
- Regret, that was a better word. So much regret.
- And Éowyn thought of Faramir, son of Denethor, who was dark and fair both, and she thought of Eomer, her brother, who might have been king in her place, and she thought of Aragorn, King to Come, who was more a story than anything else. More than a person.
- Except where he cared for Northmen above all else, despite himself. That was real, she suspected, if only because it was so inconvenient to his overall political goals.
- “No,”
Éowyn, daughter of
Éomund said finally. “No. I don’t regret it.”
just moving along like everyone else 