Skin Hunger (Chapter 2) -- A Shigaraki X F!Reader Fic

Skin Hunger (Chapter 2) -- a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

There's no such thing as a good night at work when you work in the world's most infamous brothel for monsters, but your night takes a turn for the worse when you find yourself serving drinks to visiting half-vampire Shigaraki Tomura. You don't mean to catch his interest, and you don't mean to start a conversation. You definitely don't mean to get him drunk. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Life in Asylum continues, and in the endless scroll of days and nights, cleanups in empty rooms and mop-ups in private parties, it’s almost possible to forget about the half-vampire who will be back at the next full moon. Almost, but not quite. Vampires are a rare enough occurrence in Asylum that everyone’s talking about Shigaraki Tomura and his master, and since they’re going to be regulars, Overhaul provides more than a little education for the staff about the one type of inhuman next to no one has experience with.

Most of the workers don’t care, but you pay close attention. Your knowledge of vampires contains next to nothing concrete. You need to learn, if you want to hold your own during your next conversation with Shigaraki Tomura.

Vampirism is spread through a bite – true. Everyone who’s bitten becomes a vampire – false. Apparently, creating a new vampire requires intention on the part of the vampiric sire, which probably helps to keep the population down. The mechanism that causes half-vampirism is unclear, but what’s perfectly clear is that half-vampires are something unusual. They need to consume blood, just like vampires do, but unlike vampires, they also need to eat. They still have heartbeats, still need to breathe, still need to see the sun every so often. Beyond that, though, no one’s able to describe what powers a half-vampire has, or the degree of strength advantage they have over an ordinary human, or whether they can turn into a true vampire – or how they do it. The question of what Shigaraki’s capable of is one you’re not able to answer, and it bothers you. Then again, if Shigaraki had correctly guessed what you are, he’d be equally in the dark as to what you’re able to do.

Most inhuman species have some sort of biological limitations, just like humans do. Werewolves still need to eat and sleep, and while bullets will damage them, silver bullets are the true threat. Liches and demons can’t set foot on holy ground, no matter which faith has consecrated a given spot, and shapeshifters lose their forms if they get too tired. Everybody knows all about vampires and sunlight. Faeries don’t have limitations. Faeries have rules.

Faeries can’t lie. Lying has physical consequences. Faeries have given names and true names, and while the true names are the most dangerous, even knowledge of a title or nickname can grant some degree of power over them. Faeries are vulnerable to iron, but not in the same way werewolves are vulnerable to silver. A gift offered by a faery is never just a gift; either it comes in repayment for an earlier favor, or it comes with strings attached. Nothing your father’s people give is ever given freely.

And that’s where you got yourself in trouble. You did Shigaraki a favor by using your glamour on him. If that particular rule applies to you as a half-fey, you’ve bound Shigaraki to you until he can repay the debt.

All of that would be enough to deal with heading into the next full moon, and you feel like it’s possible to handle. But three nights before the vampires are set to arrive, the itching starts, and things go from manageable to impossible in the space of an hour.

The last time this happened, you took a few days off of work until it was over, but it’s occurring over a much larger area on your body – your entire left arm, shoulder to wrist, and it’s not going to peel away until it’s ready. If you try, you’ll open yourself up to infection, and if that doesn’t kill you, the way it’ll look once it’s healed will probably make you wish you were dead. You can manage not to scratch while you’re on shift, but when you’re off, you’re scratching constantly, and every last one of your coworkers has something to say about it.

“Better not do that where the boss will see,” Nemoto remarks as you’re all eating in the cramped servants’ mess. “He finds fleas disgusting.”

Nemoto knows damn well you don’t have fleas; he just doesn’t like you, because his demonic ability to force confessions doesn’t work on faeries, and that includes you. The maid you’re sitting next to recoils away from you, and across the table, Tengai rolls his eyes. “It’s not fleas,” he says. “Haven’t any of you seen a half-fey molt before?”

“It’s not molting,” you say uselessly. It would only be molting if you did it regularly.

“Of course none of you have seen it,” Chrono says. Usually he eats with Overhaul, but sometimes Overhaul can’t stand being around even his right-hand man. “Half-fey in general are rare, and her variety of half-fey is rarer still.”

Everyone looks at you. You can’t tell if they’re waiting for you to explain or thinking that they’ll figure it out if they just stare hard enough. Either way, your face turns red, and Chrono heaves a dramatic sigh. “For most of you half-breeds, it doesn’t matter which of your parents was the inhuman. It matters for faeries.”

Tabe burps. “Why?”

Why questions are usually safe to ask Chrono – asking Overhaul a why question results in either a flat, irritated look or a two-hour lecture about the minutiae of the topic. “It’s unclear,” Chrono says. “What is clear, however, is that half-fey children take after their fathers in appearance and lifespan, and their mothers in magical ability.”

“Huh?”

Chrono doesn’t have his mask on. This time you can see him roll his eyes. “Children of human fathers and faery mothers resemble humans, and have human lifespans. Despite that, they have significant magical abilities.”

“How strong are they?” Rappa asks through a full mouth. “Stronger than regular human magicians?”

Chrono shrugs. You, meanwhile, think about a conspiracy theory you read in one of Overhaul’s books – that all human magic-users are secretly matrilineal half-fey, whose mothers either abandoned them to their fathers or swapped out the child of an unknowing human couple for one of their own. If that was the case, nobody would ever know. Other than the magic, matrilineal half-fey are indistinguishable from ordinary humans. “Hang on,” Setsuno says. “If half-fey take after their fey parent in how they look, how come she looks so human?”

“She doesn’t,” Chrono says. He looks to you, and you lower your hand from your shoulder. You’ve been using the cover of the conversation to scratch to your heart’s content. “Show them.”

You give him a pleading look, which he ignores, and finally you rise from the table and back away. You’re still wearing your uniform, so you pull up the skirt on your right side, revealing your leg. The table recoils as a group, and you’re pretty sure everybody’s thinking exactly what comes out of Rappa’s mouth. “What the fuck?”

“Patrilineal half-fey inherit their father’s lifespan,” Chrono says, “and their appearance – or some of it. They appear to be completely human until they reach physical maturity, at which point they begin a partial transformation. You can see the patches where fey skin has grown in to replace human skin, creating a patchwork which renders the half-fey unable to conceal their true nature.”

It’s not just your skin. Your ears have begun to change shape, growing pointed at the tips, and the natural color of your eyes has taken on a strange iridescent overlay. You need to blink less than you used to, sometimes – other times, it’s a struggle to keep your eyes open in the light without sticky, pearlescent tears oozing from them. If your father had been one of any of half a dozen varieties of fey, you’d have seen changes with your mouth, with your hands, even with the way you breathe. But while your mother never told you anything concrete about your father, she was at least able to confirm that he didn’t have gills.

Your transformation is mainly cosmetic. That doesn’t make it any less terrible, and cosmetic is a relative term. “Due to their appearances and lack of other gifts, half-fey used to make frequent appearances in human freak shows,” Chrono continues. “Some also theorize that the reason they’re unwelcome in faery society is due to their ugliness.”

“Oh.” Your coworkers are nodding at this, like it makes sense to them. Nemoto’s looking right at you when he responds. “I get it.”

You know you’re not pretty, but that doesn’t mean you like having it hammered home. You drop the right side of your skirt back down and sit again, and spend the rest of the meal picking at your food. Your appetite’s gone, and your shoulder is still itching. Even though you’re exhausted from your shift, you’re going to have a hard time falling asleep.

You’re making a beeline back to your quarters, with the intention of trying to shower off the itch and falling asleep immediately afterwards, when Chrono catches up to you. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”

“Thank you?” Backtalking to your boss is a terrible idea, but you can’t hold onto your skepticism. “For what?”

“I explained your situation, so you wouldn’t have to.” Chrono looks pleased with himself. “I did you a favor.”

“You could have done that without calling me ugly.”

“Should I have lied? It’s not as if you’re unaware,” Chrono says. He reaches out, hooks the neckline of your uniform with one finger, and pulls it aside. “How much skin are you going to lose this time?”

“Everything on my arm,” you say. Chrono looks surprised, and you seize the opportunity to shy away from his hand. “Goodnight, boss.”

“Your arm,” Chrono muses. “That’ll be a sight to see.”

Yes, it will. The juxtaposition of smooth, perfect, oil-slick shimmering faery skin with plain human skin on the same body is enough to make anyone’s skin crawl, yours included. You turn away from Chrono, and you’re almost out of earshot, almost to safety, when you hear him speak again. “You’ll have to show me when it’s done.”

That’s not the first comment like that you’ve heard from Chrono in the past year or two. They’re becoming increasingly frequent, and you know what they mean, just like you know you don’t want anything to do with them. You mumble another goodnight and duck into the female servants’ quarters, shedding your clothes and slipping a faint glamour over yourself as you step into the shower. You’re pretty sure there aren’t scrying mirrors in here, but at the same time, you’re pretty sure that if any guests wanted to pay to watch the maids shower, Overhaul would find a way to make it happen.

The hot water helps dull the itch, for now. You dry off and change into your sleeping clothes, noting every spot on your body where your heritage has surfaced. Your right leg is covered, thigh to calf, wide sashes and ribbons of fey skin interrupting your skin, jagged and gaudy. Your torso is covered, too, but you were smarter with that – when it was time, you peeled your dying skin away in a single piece rather than clawing it to ribbons. There’s some on your lower back that you never tried to peel away at all, and as a result, the fey skin is pitted and scarred. It looks hideous. You look hideous.

You know it’s true, but at the same time, you know you’re lucky. You’ve seen photos of half-fey whose fey skin broke through on their faces, unmistakable and impossible to hide. At least you’ve got a prayer of hiding this. Or you will, once you’ve peeled this next sheet of skin away to reveal what’s beneath. You crawl into bed and close your eyes, hoping that the itching will wake you in the middle of the night, so severe that you’ll have no choice but to peel the skin off right then and there. The waiting is the worst part. You just want it to be over before the full moon.

But it isn’t over before the full moon. It’s the biggest piece of skin you’ve lost – the last big piece you’ll lose, if only half your skin changes – and it’s clinging on for dear life. You beg Overhaul to help you, to employ the magic he uses to reshape the workers’ bodies when they’re injured, but he refuses. “The reaction between your meager magic and mine is too unpredictable,” he says. “I can’t help you.”

“Then let me have the night off,” you plead. He shakes his head. “Please. I won’t be any use if the skin breaks through.”

“You have my full permission to take your break to remove it,” Overhaul says, and you bite back tears. You were barely functional after you excised the skin on your torso. There’s no way you’ll be able to work with your left arm freshly peeled. “Not only is it a full moon, it’s also the autumnal equinox. We’ll need your glamours if any of the half-dozen rituals scheduled to take place here get out of hand.”

The equinoxes are the only nights where ordinary humans are allowed into Asylum, and they’re barely ordinary – they’re cultists, devoted to the worship of specific demons, conducting rituals that would get them thrown in prison in the human world. “And even if that were not the case,” Overhaul says, “there is a certain half-vampire scheduled to arrive with his master, and I doubt anyone else will be able to get him drunk.”

You were already stressed about running into Shigaraki Tomura again, but the idea of seeing him tonight sends you into a near-panic. “Sir –”

“That’s enough,” Overhaul says, and you fall silent in a hurry. “The moon is about to rise in Kiribati, and you aren’t in uniform. Get changed.”

You won’t win this. You know you won’t. You leave Overhaul’s study, hoping that the skin on your arm will hold out for another twenty-four hours – and hoping that Shigaraki Tomura’s master decided to leave him at home.

The autumnal equinox is fairly quiet as far as equinoxes go, but it’s not often that it occurs on a full moon, and from the moment the moon comes up over an even slightly populated area, Asylum devolves into barely-controlled chaos. The casualty count for workers exceeds an average full moon within the first three hours, and for the first time in a while, Overhaul comes out of his study to help repair the bodies rather than expecting them to be brought to him. Chrono equips the workers with alarm sigils, which will trigger a warning if their heart rates drop below a certain threshold. It’s an unusual precaution, but you know better than to think it’s out of any concern for the workers’ health – more that if too many of them die, Asylum won’t be able to serve all the guests who are flooding through the door.

You’re doing some of everything – a little cleaning, a little mopping up, a little belting a demon in the face with a mop when they won’t let go of the badly injured worker you’re trying to take back to Overhaul. You’re busy enough that you can almost forget about the itching, about the faery skin that’s trying to erupt through your skin on your left arm. For the first seven hours of the night, you run yourself ragged, doing whatever Overhaul’s ordered you to do, racing from floor to floor and trying to spot trouble before it begins. You’ve lived in Asylum your entire life. There’s nobody who knows their way around better than you do.

At hour eight, Overhaul summons you to the makeshift infirmary. When you get there, you spot a pile of discarded gloves on his right, a bubbling cauldron on his left, and a newly healed worker sprawled out in front of him. “Get out,” Overhaul orders the worker, and she scrambles upright, falls, and crawls unsteadily towards the exit. The instant she’s gone, Overhaul plunges his hands into whatever’s boiling inside the cauldron.

You don’t want to know what’s in there, and based on the grimace on Overhaul’s face, you don’t even want to go near him. But he summoned you. You step forward. “Sir?”

“The first ritual is about to begin. You’ll be supervising it.”

Your stomach drops. “I can’t,” you say. Overhaul mutters a curse under his breath. “I can’t! I don’t have magic –”

“You think throwing more magic at an out-of-control ritual will solve the problem? Playing stupid won’t get you out of it.” Overhaul lifts his hands from the cauldron and you startle at the sight of them. His fingers have been eaten down nearly to the bone, and in spite of the fact that he’s repairing them before your eyes, you can’t help but feel nauseous. “There are supply kits in my study, with the measures necessary to contain a ritual. All that’s required of you is to deploy them. Go.”

“Sir –”

“I don’t have time for this,” Overhaul snaps at you, and you flinch. You’ve never seen him this stressed before. “Chrono is needed elsewhere. None of the others but you possess a sensitivity to magic, and no one other than me is able to perform the repairs. Succeed at this and you’ll be rewarded appropriately. I don’t need to tell you what will happen if you fail.”

You know exactly what will happen if you fail. You nod mutely. “The supply kits can be found in the furthest cupboard. Hold out your hand,” Overhaul says. When you do, he traces a rune into your right palm. “Use this to unlock them. Go.”

You have more questions – like how to figure out which countermeasure to use first, or how to tell when they’re needed in the first place – but Rappa’s coming through the door carrying another worker, and Overhaul’s attention shifts from you. He’s not going to change his mind, and there’s no one else who can do the job. There’s nothing for you to do but head for Overhaul’s study. Being expected to supervise a ritual is bad enough. Being late to it is probably worse.

The cultists are making final preparations for their ritual in the smallest of Asylum’s three gardens. You’re not sure which cult this is, but they brought their own sacrifice, bound hand and foot in spite of the fact that they’re unconscious. You try not to look too hard at them. You don’t look too hard at the cultists, either. You pry open the supply kit and study the items within. Now that you’re looking at it, they seem pretty straightforward. Salt and consecrated chalk, for sealing the paths leading to the garden off from the rest of Asylum. A set of wardstones to keep anyone from entering once the ritual begins. A sheet of runes to trace in midair, as an extra precaution. None of it requires more than the tiniest amount of magic. Maybe this is doable.

You confirm that all the cultists are in the garden, then get to work, starting with the salt and chalk across each path leading into the garden. Next it’s the wardstones. The cultists are using a pentagram in their rituals, which means you need a hexagram to contain them properly. Wardstones are simple enough to set. You set them spinning with a twist of your fingers and leave them to hover. A few more of these, then a few sigils, and then you’re all set. You can do this.

A single footfall and a shadow falling across yours are the only warnings you get before a familiar voice rings out from behind you. “If you don’t want people to think you’re a witch, you shouldn’t spend so much time casting spells,” Shigaraki Tomura says, and you nearly jump out of your skin. “Did you miss me?”

It takes an effort not to throw the wardstone at him. “I’m not a witch. And this isn’t a spell.”

“It looks like a spell,” Shigaraki says. He looks way too pleased with himself for reasons beyond your understanding. “That’s two spells I’ve seen you do. Your boss is a warlock, so I don’t get why you’d lie about being a witch.”

You were dreading meeting Shigaraki again, in part because you were sure he’d guessed that you were half-fey. Apparently not. “That wasn’t a spell, and neither is this,” you say. “I’ll show you.”

“Huh?”

You motion for him to come forward, and he does, looking way too suspicious. What does he think you’re going to do? You’re not the one who drinks blood. “Hold this,” you say, and push the wardstone into his hand. “Now, do this –”

You show him the proper gesture to activate it, and he tries it – and drops it, just like you did the first time you tried it. Before you can tell him to try again, he picks it up and looks at you. “Show me again.”

You show him the gesture, and this time he copies it much more closely. The wardstone spins out of his hand and hovers in midair, the last piece of the hexagram you’ve been constructing falling into place. Shigaraki looks surprised, then pleased with himself again. You’re less annoyed with it this time, mostly because it’s given you a chance to prove your point. “You can do it, and you have even less magic than I do. It’s not a spell.”

“This one isn’t a spell,” Shigaraki agrees. He’s mimicking the gesture again, even better on the third try. “The other one was.”

A glamour’s not a spell. If it was a spell, it could be replicated by anyone else, but your glamour is an extension of your nature as a half-fey. You won’t be able to convince Shigaraki otherwise without outing yourself, so you keep quiet, and you set back off around the garden, headed for where you left the supply kit. Shigaraki follows you. “I went to the bar. You weren’t there,” he says. “Are you avoiding me or something?”

“I don’t work in the lounge most of the time. That night I was just filling in.” You’re conscious, suddenly, of the fact that you’re in the maid uniform – and that the maid uniform doesn’t come with even the most useless of masks. “To be honest, I didn’t know you were here.”

Shigaraki makes an affronted sound, but you’ve reached the supply kit, and you have runesigns to trace. In the garden, the cultists are moving into position to begin their ritual. You hold the sheet in one hand and begin to trace the sigils in midair. “What do you do most of the time, then?” Shigaraki asks. “If you’re not down there.”

“I clean.” You make the mistake of gesturing at your uniform, and Shigaraki takes the invitation to look you up and down. “And whatever else Overhaul needs me to do.”

“Like this. What is this?”

“There are cult rituals happening tonight. Overhaul and Chrono are both busy, so they asked me to keep an eye on this one.”

“Huh.” Shigaraki looks away from you, into the garden. “My master had a cult for a while.”

You really don’t know what to think of that, except that if it had been relevant, it would have been the first thing Overhaul and Chrono told the staff about. “How old is your master?”

“Old,” Shigaraki says, which tells you absolutely nothing. “What about your boss?”

“Also old.”

Shigaraki snorts. “What about you?” You clam up instantly, and he rolls his eyes. “Come on. Either your name, what you are, or how old you are. Give me at least one.”

Out of those three pieces of information, your age is the one that won’t get you in trouble. That doesn’t mean you won’t make him work for it. “You first.”

“Come on,” Shigaraki complains. You wait, watching as the cultists pick up their unconscious sacrifice and lay him out on the altar they built out of bones they brought from home. “Not that it matters or anything, but I’m twenty-three. Your turn.”

“Twenty-three,” you repeat. You can’t tell if you’re surprised by his age or not, but the fact that he’s still counting it means he’s still mortal. Your age stopped mattering two years ago, but you’ve kept count anyway. “Me, too.”

“Was that so hard?” Shigaraki grins, just a little too widely. The only thing that keeps you from calling it a leer is an instinct that it’s not born out of triumph at getting one over on you. A moment later, you’re proven right. “I knew it.”

Why does it matter to him that you’re the same age? A low hum begins to vibrate through the air, and the sigil hovering just in front of you wavers. The ritual’s beginning, and you need to focus. Unfortunately for you, Shigaraki’s still here. You need to shake him off. “I’m surprised you’re not with your master. Aren’t you here to feed?”

“He’s here to feed. I’m here to learn,” Shigaraki says. Learn what? “This looks more interesting than whatever else is going on around here.”

The hum in the air intensifies. Beneath the sleeve of your uniform, you feel your skin beginning to crawl. “If you’re going to stay, keep quiet. I need to concentrate.”

“Right. Witches need to concentrate when they’re doing magic.”

You’ve decided not to respond to any more witch jokes. The cultists are chanting in one of the demonic languages, drawing in close to surround the altar and obscure the sacrifice. Now that you think about it, you’re not sure what kind of sacrifice this is, and regardless of whether it’s symbolic or literal, you don’t want to watch it. You especially don’t want to watch it with Shigaraki – Shigaraki, who’s standing next to you, head tilted to one side, scratching idly at his neck. Seeing him scratch makes you want to scratch. You peer down into the supply kit instead, wondering which of the objects inside you’re supposed to use first if things get out of hand.

“Is there food here?”

Out of all the things Shigaraki might have said, you weren’t expecting that. “Huh?”

“Food,” Shigaraki says again. “Is there food here?”

It feels like round two of the WiFi conversation, except this time, you’re able to give him the answer he’s hoping for. “Yes. Why?”

“After this. We should get some.”

“Um –”

“You get breaks, right? Even witches have to eat.” Shigaraki’s scratching harder than before, and he’s not looking at you. “I’m hungry.”

He is really skinny, but he’s also a half-vampire. You know half-vampires still need blood, and you focus on that question instead of the other, worse one. “Not thirsty?”

“I have money. I can pay for it,” Shigaraki says, ignoring you. “And you helped me out the last time I was here.”

“I’m the one who got you drunk.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I don’t owe –”

“Stop talking.” You’ve interrupted him, but it’s not enough – he’s already opening his mouth again, and you slap your hand down over it before he can get another word out. “I mean it.”

Shigaraki’s red eyes are wide. You can’t tell if it’s with affront or with shock. His lips move against the palm of your hand, dry and rough, and a weird jolt travels through you, raising the hairs on your arms and the back of your neck. It’s drowned out a second later by a vibration through the air that makes you stagger. The sigil in front of you dissolves, unable to stand in the face of another wave emanating from the site of the ritual.

The wave abates, for a moment, and you think you’re safe – but the next thing you know, you and Shigaraki are both staggering as the vibration travels through the ground in addition to the air. You don’t need anybody to tell you that the ritual’s gotten out of hand, and you dive into the supply kit, searching desperately for something that can counteract a demonic curse. Something whips past you from the opposite direction, slicing your cheek. You don’t look up. You’re busy.

Shigaraki catches Overhaul’s message and pries it open, reads it aloud. “Your boss wants you to play a song. How are you supposed to play a song when phones don’t work in here?”

“Tell me you don’t really think that music only comes out of phones.” You pull a music box out of the bottom of the supply kit, dust it off, and open it. No music comes out – you must have to turn the handle. “Be quiet.”

Music begins to emanate from the box after two turns of the handle – a thin, quiet voice, singing what sounds like a lullaby in a language you don’t speak. You doubt the cultists speak it, either. But it doesn’t matter what the words are, or even that the singer is at least a little tone-deaf. All that matters is the glamour that drips from every note, stronger and heavier than anything you’ve ever called up. It’s a faery’s voice, and it’s already affecting Shigaraki. He sways sideways, falls hard against a column, the curse he mumbles more slurred than his voice was when he was drunk. The glamour is almost overpowering. If you weren’t half-fey, you’d fall prey to it yourself.

It’s strong enough to stagger Shigaraki and disorient you, but it’s not having much of an effect on the ritual itself. The vibrations are still traveling through the air, and worse, you can feel them in the ground beneath your feet. You keep turning the handle of the music box with no change in the strength of the demonic curse emanating from the center of the garden. Why isn’t it working?

The answer occurs to you just as Shigaraki speaks up. “It’s too quiet,” he mumbles. “Witch. Make it louder.”

You can’t. The despair barely has time to settle in before the answer occurs to you. You can’t make the voice from the music box louder, but you can make sure it’s not the only fey voice in the garden. You clear your throat, coat your voice in your glamour, and begin to sing.

It’s nothing – some song you liked when you could walk freely in the human world, the first thing that comes to mind. You make an effort to match the key the music box is singing in, and you project both your voice and your glamour, doing your best to build on what the faint fey voice is already providing. You think it might be working. You’re not sure.

What you do know is that Shigaraki’s figured you out. You can see him out of the corner of your eye, still slumped against the column, staring unabashedly at you as you turn the handle of the music box and sing. You’re able to console yourself with the thought that your uniform hides your patchwork fey skin before you realize what a stupid thing that is to think about – right now, or ever. Your throat is starting to hurt, your vocal cords straining under the weight of the glamour. You aren’t sure how much longer you can keep this up.

The vibrations from the ritual begin to fade just as your voice begins to crack, and it gives you the willpower to hold on a little longer, the notes you sing growing increasingly fractured and hoarse. By the time your voice gives out completely, the demonic energy’s faded to the point where the music box is enough to counter it. Your ears are ringing, so much that you almost miss Chrono’s footsteps as he approaches. He notes Shigaraki, then looks to you. “You should have called for help.”

“From who?” Your voice sounds awful. You cough. “I took care of it.”

“If that demonic energy had gotten into the flux field, it could have destabilized the entire dimension,” Chrono snaps. “Someone as weak as you has no business trying to contain –”

“If she can’t contain it, you shouldn’t have sent her to watch it.” Shigaraki levers himself upright. “Something was off about that ritual. Isn’t it your job to catch things like that? Or are you really okay with a bunch of human cultists sacrificing half-demons in your pocket dimension?”

“Half-demon?” Chrono swears. “They wouldn’t dare.”

“I can smell its blood.” Shigaraki shrugs. “She saved your ass. Give her a bonus or something.”

Chrono handles being told what to do by people other than Overhaul about as well as Rappa handles being told what to do by anybody. His shoulders stiffen, and his hand closes around your upper arm, venting a sharp jolt of magic into you rather than loosing it at Shigaraki. At least, that’s what you think he’s doing. Then the skin on your right arm, itchy and crawling since three days ago, erupts with an itch so sharp and acidic that it almost feels like a burn.

Your arm is on fire. You’ve felt this before, and you know instantly that you can’t leave it a second longer. “I need my break,” you say to Chrono, your voice strained.

He lets you go with a sharp nod. You turn and all but run from the garden, already clawing off your apron.

No time to get back to the servants’ quarters, but Asylum is full of places to hide if you know where to look. And you know where to look. With a master rune like the one you carry, you can open up passageways and closets that even the savviest of guests don’t know exist, and you’ve used them more times than you’d like to admit. You reach the nearest of the passageways and raise the rune to tap against the wall, only for the agonizing itch in your left arm to flare to new heights. Your body contorts in discomfort, and your right hand falls back to your side – and then, so fast that you barely register it, someone slips the rune from around your wrist.

It's Shigaraki, and he’s got enough of a height advantage over you that he can hold the rune out of reach just by extending his arm. You don’t have time for this. You really don’t have time for this. You can feel the fey skin beginning to eat through yours from below. “Give it back!”

“So that was why you wouldn’t let me say I owed you. You’re a faery, not a witch.” Shigaraki’s grinning like he’s figured something out, even though the clue you gave him was a thousand times more obvious than the clue you got a month ago. “Why didn’t you want me to owe you one? My master is powerful. You could have asked me for anything.”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“Except this.” Shigaraki studies the rune. You reach for it again and he holds out his other hand to forestall you. “You want this, and I want a straight answer. The ritual’s done. Do you want to go get food with me or not?”

The small part of you that’s not panicking, caught in the desperate need to get the rune back, to get away, notices how he’s phrased the question. He knows that faeries can’t lie, and for some bizarre reason, he’s decided to corner you on a question so mundane that you wonder if you’re hallucinating it. Why would he waste a question he thinks you’ll have to answer on something this stupid?

It doesn’t matter, because half-fey can lie as much as they want, and because you’re done playing around. You glamour your left arm, faking a clumsy feint, and when Shigaraki shifts away from it, you snatch the rune from his hand with your right. He’s between you and the wall, so you turn away, pressing the rune against the opposite wall and opening up the passageway there. You dive through it, the relief at being out of the hallway marred only by the fact that Shigaraki followed you in.

The passageway you were aiming for originally had space. This one is a close fit for one person, tight for two, but you’re out of time to be picky. You can’t get your arm out of your dress without unbuttoning it partway. “What are you doing?” Shigaraki asks, clearly startled, as you undo the buttons one-handed and draw your arm from your sleeve. “Are you transforming?”

Even the slightest motion of your arm sets off a wave of pins and needles, and you grit your teeth as you work it free. Bared from wrist to shoulder, your arm looks awful, mottled, bulging in odd places, almost writhing in others – like the fey skin really is trying to claw its way to freedom from the inside out. Seeing what it looks like only hardens your resolve. You dig your fingers into your shoulder, trying to pry up a piece of skin. If you get a good enough grip on the first one, you can peel off the rest in one sheet.

But you can’t get a grip. Your hand is shaking too much, or your nails are too short, or something. You remember too late that the only other time you peeled the skin back, you made the first incision with a pocketknife. Overhaul doesn’t let the staff carry weapons. You don’t have anything on you that’s sharp enough to cut through your skin, and if you can’t – there’s no way you’ll be able to scratch all your skin away before the fey skin eats through. It’ll be agonizing. It’ll take forever. And Shigaraki will be watching you the entire time.

Shigaraki. You turn to him, desperate and hating yourself for it. You know that guests are searched for weapons when they arrive, but maybe – “Do you have anything sharp?”

“Like a knife?” Shigaraki shakes his head. Then his expression shifts, and he raises one hand to his mouth, pressing the pad of his thumb against one of his incisors. You see blood well up where the tooth breaks his skin. “My teeth aren’t as sharp as my master’s –”

If they can draw blood, they’re sharp enough. You beckon him forward. “Please.”

Part of you is expecting him to bargain. Any inhuman would, if they had one of the Fair Folk at their mercy – they’d never get better terms for any deal they wished to make. But Shigaraki steps forward, closing the slight distance between you without asking what you’ll give him in exchange. His hands are dry, his palms rough like before, as they close around your wrist and raise your hand towards his mouth. “Here?”

His breath is hot against your wrist. You shake your head. “My shoulder.”

Some part of you is terrified at the thought of letting a vampire this close to your throat, screaming in terror at the thought of those teeth meeting your skin. Shigaraki edges even closer to you, as close together as you were when you were dragging him drunk down the hall. His mouth brushes against your shoulder, and you freeze in place. What is he waiting for? You don’t need him to peel the skin off for you. You just need him to –

At least one of Shigaraki’s incisors punctures your skin, and you flinch, hiss – less at the pain, and more at the fact that he’s touching you, one hand on your waist and the other around your wrist, keeping your left arm extended and keeping the rest of you close. But you’ve got what you needed from him. You dig your fingers into the breach, get a good grip, and pull.

It hurts when you peel your human skin away from the faery skin that’s grown beneath, but the human skin is already dead. As it breaks contact with your body, it goes ashen, then transparent. There’s next to no blood. The faery skin glistens, slick with serous fluid, as it’s bared to the air for the first time. You mess up a little bit at the end, peeling away a piece of healthy human skin on the back of your hand by accident. It feels like a hangnail, and your entire arm stings. The pain would be worth complaining about if you didn’t know exactly how bad it was before.

Shigaraki’s still way too close to you. You try to sidle away, and he lets go of your waist, but not your arm. He’s peering intently at it, almost fixated. You brace yourself for the kind of comments you’ve heard every time someone’s seen what you really look like. “Wow,” Shigaraki says. “It looks even cooler than I thought.”

You’re not sure you heard him right. “Cool?”

“Don’t fish for compliments. I’m getting to it,” Shigaraki says. He hasn’t looked up from your arm yet. “I thought it would look cool, and I was right. Do you have more of it?”

You’re feeling weirdly lightheaded. You nod, and you can tell Shigaraki’s grinning just by the sound of his voice. “How much more?” he asks. “Can I see?”

That question snaps you out of whatever fog you’ve been floating in. “No,” you say, and pull away from him completely. “You weren’t even supposed to see this.”

“But you’d have been in trouble if I wasn’t here.” Shigaraki’s eyes follow you closely, not just focused on your arm this time. You can feel his gaze roving over you. If you had to guess, you’d say he’s trying to figure out where else you’re hiding fey skin. “I helped.”

He helped you, after you helped him. “We’re even, then,” you say. “Is that why you did it?”

Shigaraki’s not even subtle in how he ducks the question, and before you can press him for an answer, you hear someone or something knocking against the wall outside – a sharp, uneven rattle that startles you both. You start wrestling your arm back into your sleeve. The serous fluid will glue the fabric to the fey skin and removing it will be painful later, but you don’t have a choice. You need to get out there, and you need to beg whoever’s knocking not to tell Overhaul that they found you in the world’s smallest secret passageway with Shigaraki Tomura and your dress unbuttoned.

The knocking intensifies. You miss a button at the collar of your dress and Shigaraki’s hands knock yours aside, undoing it and buttoning it properly again. Is he trying to get you in his debt officially? You decide that’s a problem for later and open the wall again. There’s no one there but one of Overhaul’s paper cranes, battering itself to death against the wall. You grab it clumsily out of the air. Overhaul’s message is blunt and to-the-point – he wants you to assist Chrono in containing the next ritual, which starts in half an hour. Shigaraki is peering over your shoulder. “I can’t read it.”

“That’s because it’s not for you. They can only be read by the person they’re intended for,” you say. Half an hour. That’s not much time. “Look, I have to –”

Another paper crane zips past you, headed for Shigaraki. He whips his head to one side to avoid it, but he read the trajectory wrong. The wing slices into the dry skin on the side of his neck and he swears, clapping his hand over the now-bleeding paper cut. You capture the crane instead and hand it to him. His expression, already annoyed, deepens into frustration and discomfort as he reads. “What does it say?” you ask.

“What does yours say?”

“Mine says I have half an hour before I’m supposed to help with the next ritual,” you say. “What about yours?”

“My master wants me to feed while I’m here.” Shigaraki scowls. “I don’t want to feed. I’m hungry.”

He’s hungry, and he helped you, and he’s a guest – but it’s not any of those things that decides your course of action. It’s something else, something you’d go mute rather than admit to out loud. “I’ve got half an hour,” you say. There’s almost certainly something else you’re supposed to be doing with that half an hour. Overhaul can be angry with you later. “We can go get something to eat.”

Shigaraki looks surprised. “Really?”

“Sure.” You can’t figure out where that surprise is coming from. He’s been bothering you about it since before the ritual went sideways. Was he not expecting you to say yes? “And we should cover that cut on your neck.”

Shigaraki pulls his hand away from it, grimacing. “It’s not that bad. I get worse all the time.”

From scratching? “It’s still not a good idea to walk around bleeding in here. Let’s go.”

You steer clear of the infirmary and make your way instead to one of the supply caches, using your master rune to open it, and then to open an alcove where you can patch up Shigaraki’s injury in peace. Shigaraki complains as you try to clean the wound. “Why does he fold those things so sharp, anyway?”

“So people will snap to it faster,” you explain. “Most of us would rather drop what we’re doing and do what he wants than risk getting a papercut like that.”

“Your boss is an asshole.” Shigaraki tilts his head to the side at your request, then freezes. “What are you doing?”

“I just moved your hair. It was in the way.” You don’t care that he’s uncomfortable. After what happened tonight, after how much of you he saw, you feel like he deserves it. You get a fingertip full of some salve from the supply caches and start daubing it onto the cut, to the tune of a sharp hiss. “Sorry. I’m trying to be gentle.”

Shigaraki doesn’t respond to that. It’s quiet as you fish through the supply kit for a bandage, a quiet that feels awkward but not necessarily tense. Shigaraki doesn’t speak again until after you’ve placed the bandage. “Can you use one of your spells on it? Whatever you did last time,” he says. “If my master finds out –”

“It’s a glamour, not a spell,” you say. “No problem.”

A phantom itch travels along your left arm as you set the glamour, fading before you can scratch it in earnest. You store the supply kit, open another passageway that will lead directly to the kitchens, and start off, counting on Shigaraki to follow you. The awkwardness follows, too, and just like before, Shigaraki speaks first. “I get it now. Why you wouldn’t tell me what you were.”

You find yourself tucking your left arm close to your body, shielding it. Shigaraki keeps talking. “You helped me just now. I owe you a favor again. Ask.”

Earlier tonight, you’d have asked him to leave you alone. Now – “We’re even. Don’t worry about it.”

“You can’t do that,” Shigaraki says. “I know how this works. You can’t just cancel a debt because you don’t want anything from the person who owes it.”

“I’m only half-fey. I don’t know which of the rules applies to me,” you say. “You’re off the hook.”

“What if I don’t want to be off the hook?”

You can’t imagine why he’d want to be on the hook. The Fair Folk are notorious for driving cruel and twisted bargains. Whether it’s due to their morality, which doesn’t map onto human morals particularly well, or due to a desire to hurt others, everyone who’s ever found themselves in debt to a faery has been keen to get out of it as quickly as possible. Why on earth would Shigaraki want to carry around a possible debt to you?

You don’t want to ask that question. You stay quiet. “I guess I’ll have to stick around, then,” Shigaraki muses. “See about paying you back.”

You glance at him and find him smirking, or grinning. You can’t tell which. Your glamour is shimmering at the side of his neck, obvious to you but subtle enough to escape his master’s notice, and his lips, which would have cracked at a smile this wide even an hour ago, look smoother than before. You have a bad feeling about why that is – and at the same time, you aren’t as worried about it as you were before. Now that he knows what you are, interacting with him is significantly less stressful than before. It’s not something you’ll look forward to. But it’s not something you’ll dread.

“I guess you have to,” you say, and his smile brightens. Even that’s not enough to dredge up the ambivalence you felt before. “Let’s get some food.”