SUMMARY: A makeup artist at a haunted maze, all you want to do is make it to the end of the season with a little extra cash in your pocket and no murder convictions on your record. Scare actor Todoroki Touya makes that last part a challenge. (7.8k)
CONTENT & WARNINGS:no quirks au, halloween, enemies to lovers, fem + afab reader, slight scumbag touya, haunted maze workers, smut, semi-public sex, smoking, heavy swearing, touya likes having his hair pulled + girls who are a little mean to him, sort of good girl vs bad boy vibes, 18+ minors please dni
NOTES: Happy Halloween from me!! This fic is part of the Willow’s Haunted House collab. Dedicated to cat-slippered and ofmermaidstories, for workshopping what eventually became this fic with me about a thousand years ago. I’m sorry I turned Bakugou into Dabi. And I’m sorry for dedicating the now Dabi fic to you. But not sorry enough to not have done it. Love you. :)
If there was one thing you hated about Halloween, it was Todoroki Touya.
Shockingly, this was not a commonly-held sentiment, which was the only reason there even was a recurrence of Todoroki Touya darkening your Halloween seasons in the first place.
For the last three years, you’d spent your fall semester working as a makeup artist at the Musutafu haunted maze alongside a slew of other college and local kids looking to make a little extra cash. The hours were fairly flexible, and the wage covered your textbooks, with a little left over to keep you in the occasional coffee between lectures.
But your wages did not nearly cover the amount of psychic damage you had been dealt, managing Todoroki Touya’s obnoxious, sarcastic, chain-smoking ass day after day for seasons on end.
On lucky days, someone else was on Touya duty. But on unlucky ones, you found him sprawling in the plastic makeup chair opposite you, those intense blue eyes tracking you with no small amount of pleasure, like he was this afternoon.
You stopped in the doorway, a curse slipping out of you. You’d been hoping that you’d get lucky today, as the day was otherwise an excellent one. You’d invited a group of friends to do the maze with you after you got off shift, and you had been looking forward to it all week.
But it figured Touya could never let you have too good of a time.
“Missed you too, sweetheart,” he drawled over the noise of displeasure that escaped you. He was at least already dressed in costume, so he wouldn’t go smearing his makeup as he pulled it on, a tumble of stitches and frayed edges that had once been a dark-blue duster, but now just mostly gaped open to show the hard planes of his chest.
“I’m so sure,” you told him, averting your eyes from his pecs. You sighed, resigning yourself to his presence, and made your way in, dumping your bag on the staff room couch.
“This is a very hostile work environment you’re creating,” Touya rasped, his grin sharp. Years of chain-smoking outside the maze had left his voice even lower and raspier than when you’d first met him three years ago.
“Don’t worry, it can always get more hostile,” you told him, affecting your own sweet grin as you moved over to the vanity, digging through all the makeup and prosthetics for the ones he’d need.
It is so telling that “quiet quitting” aka doing what is expected of you at your job, arriving and leaving on time, and not overworking yourself by continuing work at home is considered “slacking” when in fact it is just. Doing your job
Reading the Silmarillion, the elves seem so active and full of life.They’re always doing things. When you get to the Lord of the Rings, they just seem so tired. Elrond holds a meeting and then he’s out. Galadriel has some guests stay with her. They’re so done. They just wanna leave.
pokemon trainer au! gojo x f!reader. reader is a fairy gym leader and satoru is league champion and a flying type trainer. fluffy fluffy. couldn’t have done this without my beloved @moondust-lore so thank you as always nesi 😚 wc 1.5k
divider by @/cafekitsune
All good adventures start with two rivals.
At least that’s what you’ve been told your entire life, your own mother regaling you with tales of her rival for as long as you can remember, long before your now full grown Lapras was even developed enough to sing her song.
Your Lapras was a gift to you from her rival and your first Pokemon, gifted to you by a man she grew up several houses away from that was once a wide eyed boy with big dreams of opening a Pokémon academy to encourage the study of these creatures in their natural habitats. He successfully opened said academy, you even attended it for several years of your life, but your rival never came along through the years that passed.
The children in your neighborhood paired off quickly, setting their own parameters for their journeys and leaving you on the outside. Your schoolmates paired off and most of them have opened their own gyms, just like you, or settled into other aspects of their lives with or without their rival.
You never really minded and still don’t, though, pleased to enjoy life flat on your back in the grass of the surprisingly large meadow that backs up to your gym, gazing at the clouds floating overhead. A rival isn’t a necessity and you’re glad, honestly, that the stress of having to keep up with someone else is something you have been able to dodge for the most part.
“Hey!”
Until today.
You sit up, brows furrowed, and that’s when you see the man who may very well be the rival you’ve been looking for.
Satoru Gojo, current Pokémon League Champion.
His starlight colored hair flops over his eyes that are covered by glasses but you know what they look like behind the dark frames because they’ve been plastered on every magazine for several months. You know his name, everyone does, and it’s hard to truly imagine why he has come back after your many declinations of his requests to battle.
“Satoru,” you huff, his name leaving your lips with a tinge of amusement as he approaches with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He grins at you and it’s cheeky as it ever has been, glistening teeth tucked between pretty mauve lips and topped with dimples.
Infuriatingly charming and handsome, as always. It isn’t enough to be powerful, he hit the lottery in more ways than one.
“Ah, is that any way to speak to an old friend?”
Snorting, you slowly rise from your spot on the ground to your feet, your beloved Espeon bounding to your side to look up at you quizzically. You shoot a wordless glance in her direction and she wraps her twin tail around your legs, looking between you and the man.
She wonders if today will be the day you give in and finally say yes to his requests for an actual battle. It has been a long time since you’ve utilized her in any sense beyond as a companion and while she doesn’t ache for battle, there are times she wishes you’d push yourself and the rest of your Pokemon a little bit harder. Less leisure, less tenderness, less lazing around.
But she also knows you, her trainer and friend, and knows this is the life you’ve chosen for all of them out of compassion so her eyes flit expectantly in Satoru’s direction while you stroke between her ears.
“We’d be friends if you would learn to take no for an answer but until then we’re just acquaintances.”
You smile and it’s sweet, no bite despite your sassy words, and the man shakes his head. He finds you equal parts fascinating and amusing, the tales of how fiercely you and your team used to battle on your own journey to become a gym leader spurring him in your direction two years ago.
“I didn’t come to ask you to battle today.”
Despite your firm no’s, he keeps coming back for no other reason than being around you. You are refreshing, unaffected by his power and status, something he has longed for since becoming Champion. It’s just you and your companions and he can never shake just how happy all of you look when he stops by impromptu.
