The-broken-pen - Oh Love, I Was Always Going To End Up The Villain

Assumption: you prefer chocolate over vanilla cake

I do prefer chocolate, and red velvet is my favorite which I think (?) is also a subset of chocolate (??)

As another request, maybe the villain and hero are fighting , and the villain notices that the hero reacts suspiciously numb to his attacks. And when he taunts him about it, the hero sisimply says something to the effect of being used to it. And the villain is suspicious by the tone so he follow the hero and find out he’s abused by family . Cue villain saving the hero, comforting him and showering him with the love he never got

The villain should have known something was wrong the first time he hit the hero, and he simply braced, pain flickering along the muscles of his jaw, before hitting back. Face blank, a mask stronger than concrete. As if pain played no part, and it was just the give and return of kinetic energy, and nothing more.

He should have known when he said something so cruel it felt like graveyard dirt upon his tongue, and the hero merely stuttered for half a second, everything within him freezing, before he continued like nothing had happened. Nothing cruel in return, nothing biting in his face. Just–complete nothing.

“You never flinch,” the villain said, and it wasn’t a sudden realization, but it was close. Again, that momentary pause, like the hero had been grabbed and stopped by some otherworldly being on a molecular level. It allowed the villain to catch the next hit the hero threw at them.

“What?”

The hero, to his credit, didn’t sound upset, and in this line of work the villain was especially good at noticing the tiny pieces of that kind of thing. He just sounded confused, maybe.

“When I hit you. You don’t flinch,” the villain clarified. The hero just stared at them.

“You only really flinch if you aren’t used to it,” the hero said finally.

“Used to it?”

“You heard me,” the hero replied, and this time, there was irritation behind his words.

The villain tossed the hero’s fist down, and the hero stumbled back.

“And you didn’t answer my question.”

“I wasn’t aware there was one.”

“Are you intentionally being annoying, or is it just natural for you?”

The hero’s breath shuddered.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry–you–I don’t want an apology,” the villain sputtered. This conversation felt above his pay grade; and he wasn't entirely sure why, either, which irked him, itching under his skin.

“So–” the hero snapped his jaw shut around the rest of the word, and it looked like he was doing everything in his power to stop himself from finishing it.

Before the villain could prod further–about the flinching, or any other confusing aspect of it–the hero blew out a breath, and said, “I’m done here.”

The villain blinked.

“You can’t just decide when a fight is over.”

“Watch me,” the hero said, but his voice didn’t have the heat that usually went along with that phrase.

“You’re a hero, isn’t this kind of your entire job? Finishing fights, not walking away from them?”

“I said, I’m done,” the hero snarled, and it was the first hint of emotion he had shown the entire day, explosive and aimed entirely at the villain. The villain was taken aback for a moment.

The hero turned and left before the villain could even think of a response. He didn’t look over his shoulder.

Of course, the villain followed him home.

The fact that he had been able to at all was something to be worried about.

He watched as the hero entered, shutting the door behind him. Heard the sound of his bag hitting the floor, his jacket being hung up. Normal, quiet little things. Shuffling through the kitchen, making a cup of tea. A quiet conversation with his mother.

The villain was about to leave when he heard the slap.

He was through the door before he realized he was moving, leaving the handle to slam into the wall.

He caught the barest edge of a conversation as he rounded the corner–a curse word, then a vile sort of thing that was somehow worse than anything the villain had managed to say in his entire life–and slotted himself neatly between the hero and his mother.

The villain caught her wrist before it could touch any part of the hero. His grip was too tight to be anything but painful.

The hero’s mother gaped at them.

A bruise was beginning to bloom across the hero’s cheek.

The hero was shaking, slightly, face tense and drawn as he stared at the villain. Like the villain was the unnerving thing in this situation, and the hand his mother still had raised was the normality.

A rage, raw and unfathomable, ravenous within him, descending down so deep into the white hot of fury that it passed anything that had a name, uncurled itself along his bones.

“Touch him again,” the villain seethed, voice shaking with all that feral untamed mess within himself, “and you lose the hand.”

“Villain,” the hero said quietly, and the villain had never heard him so meek.

How long did it take for a person to learn that kind of quiet?

“Villain, leave it.”

The villain didn’t release the hero’s mother’s–no. The woman in front of him wasn’t a mother. She was something twisted, and broken, and cruel, upper lip curled with displeasure. Not that the villain was within her kitchen; but that he had stopped her from hitting her child.

The villain wanted nothing more than to vomit on her spotless white tiles.

Maybe in another life she would have been the kind of person the hero, with his kind heart, would have saved before it got to this point.

Maybe in another life the villain would have let the hero try.

But that was not this life.

And there was a bruise blooming on his hero’s cheek.

“You have no right–”

“Did I not make myself clear?” He said, and it was black and poisonous in the air.

The woman in front of him swallowed, and for the first time, fear flickered across her face.

Good.

“Villain,” the hero said, voice strangled, and the villain turned to look at him.

“She’s hurt you before,” the villain said, and it wasn’t a question. The hero looked at him wide-eyed, and he wondered how many times the hero had walked into a fight with him with pre-existing injuries. Injuries he would pretend later that the villain had given him.

The hero swallowed, hard.

“Yes,” he whispered, and that was all the villain needed. He turned back around.

“The only reason you are alive right now is because I think killing you would upset him,” he informed her, and he watched her face pale. “That, and getting blood out of shoes is a bitch. Isn’t it, hero? See, you wouldn’t know. Nobody’s ever made you bleed, I’d wager, because if they had, you would understand it isn’t the kind of thing you do to someone you love.”

He grinned, feral.

“You’re going to leave,” he continued. “Matter of fact, you’re going to vanish. And you’re going to do it so well that if he wants, he’ll never have to think of you again. The only way you’ll ever see him again will be because he wants it to happen, do you understand me? If you don’t, we’ll make you vanish my way.”

The hero made a choked noise behind him. “I don’t think you’ll like that very much,” the villain confided in a whisper.

He wasn’t sure the woman in front of him was breathing.

“Hero,” he said after a long minute. He was going to leave bruises on her wrist. She was shaking, and it soothed some of the yawning rage within him. “Pack a bag.”

The hero vanished into the halls of the house.

The villain didn’t say anything, just stared at the woman in front of him, as if he looked long enough he would be able to see the rotten core inside of her that had made her this way. Turned her into something violent. Or perhaps, the thing that had been inside her since birth, broken and seething. Inevitable.

He didn’t like to believe people could be born evil.

He would make an exception.

The hero appeared back behind him as silent as a wraith, far faster than the villain had expected, duffel bag in one hand.

He wondered how long the hero had had a bag tucked away, packed and ready to run if it got too bad.

He wondered what the hero considered ‘bad enough’ and his jaw clenched hard enough he could hear the bones creak.

“That all you need?”

The hero nodded, mutely, and the villain finally dropped the woman’s hand. She pulled back, hissing as she rubbed her arm, but she had the sense to not glare at the villain.

He tipped his head towards the door.

“Let’s go,” he said, as gently as he had ever heard himself.

The hero followed him out, and they didn’t say anything until the villain’s apartment door locked behind the both of them.

The villain blew out a shuddering breath.

The hero looked like he wasn’t entirely there, eyes glassy.

“Hero,” he said softly, and the hero’s gaze snapped to his face. He stopped himself from reaching for him, a helpless effort to do something, to fix it. “Can I touch you?”

He made sure it didn’t sound like a demand, because if the hero said no, the villain would die before crossing that line, no matter how much it stung. A moment later, to his relief, the hero gave a jerky nod.

He moved slowly, a gentle palm on the hero’s jaw to tip it up, inspecting the bruise with pursed lips. He brushed away the tear that slipped down the hero’s cheek with his thumb, and left it there.

“It could be worse,” the hero offered quietly.

“The fact that it exists at all is worse enough,” the villain murmured, tipping the hero’s head back down. “I’m so sorry.”

The hero blinked, brow furrowing. “For what?”

The villain shrugged one shoulder. “That it happened. That it has been happening. That I didn’t notice.”

“I’m good at hiding it,” the hero said, like it was supposed to make the villain feel better.

“You shouldn’t have had to learn how to do that at all,” the villain said, and the hero’s lip wobbled.

The hero wavered slightly, like he didn’t know what to do with himself. He carried himself like the entirety of his body was an open wound, every second spent breathing a second spent in agony.

The villain couldn’t pretend he knew what this felt like, but he could do his best to soothe it as much as possible.

“Come here,” he said softly, and the hero melted into him, shaking as he tried to cry quietly and failed. He tucked the hero against his chest, and hand coming to curl into the hero’s hair as he let out a desperate keening noise.

He rested his chin on the top of the hero’s head. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered. “It’s not right now, but it will be, I promise. Even if it takes a while.”

The hero shuddered against him, then nodded, just once.

It wasn’t okay, but it would be.

The villain had promised.

And he never broke a promise.

Fav book/genre?

I am a lover of fantasy/sci-fi. As for favorite book, Once Upon A Broken Heart, The God Key, and always and forever, The Foxhole Court.

Funny story I was talking about how a trilogy I really liked was coming out with a sequel and my English teacher who has seen me cry and made paper cranes to hang from her ceiling with me went “oh what series?” And I was like 😅 “you probably won’t know it” and she went “try me” so I said “the foxhole court” and she was like “oh! Yeah I know that it was really popular on tumblr back in the day.” Forgot how to breathe for a sec, my life flashed before my eyes, was reaching for my phone to delete my account immediately before she assured me she was no longer on tumblr.

And that’s how I found out my English teacher used to be a popular person on tumblr in the book/writing community.

a villain who has cat based powers and a henchman who really like cats . do as you will -🐏

The villain came in through the window, paws pattering onto the floor, and the henchman jerked their head up.

A moment later, they shifted, lounging against the desk as if they hadn’t just gone from cat to human.

The henchman had to look away, fighting a squeal as they flushed furiously.

They had loved cats as a kid—cultivated a hoard of them that amassed in their house no matter how much their parents complained. When they had moved to the city, into a tiny shoebox of an apartment, they had left them all behind. And no matter how many photos their parents sent them, it was never truly enough.

So when the henchman had taken this job, on the tiny scrap of information they were allowed to have “heightened senses, shifting, good pay” they hadn’t known what to expect.

They had not expected a cat.

Thus, the furious fight to not lose their mind.

Out of the corner of their eye, they caught the edge of the villain’s smirk and raised eyebrow.

“Every time I come in here as a cat, your heart rate sky rockets,” the villain observed, and though the henchman hadn’t thought it was possible, they flushed further.

“Umm.” They tried to articulate a response that wasn’t along the lines of senseless mumbling, and amusement settled onto the villain’s face.

The villain pushed themself onto the top of their desk, settling their head into their hands as they sat cross legged.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who loves cats as much as you do,” the villain said. They sounded mildly fascinated.

The henchman was going to die, right there.

“I grew up with um. A lot of cats,” the henchman managed. “I think they’re great.”

The villain looked like they were fighting a smile.

“Always good to find a fan.”

The henchman’s face was on fire.

“That’s not—“

“Mhm.”

“Oh god.” The henchman covered their face with their hands.

The villain laughed.

“You’re fun to mess with, you know that?”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

The villain grinned, all Cheshire Cat, and the henchman could imagine a tail swishing. If they looked closely, they could just barely see the diamond shape to the villain’s pupils.

“Whoever hired you is getting a pay raise.”

“I’m-I’m sorry?”

The villain shrugged. “You’re fun. I hate boring people, especially when I have to pay them. How awful is that? Paying for your own boredom. Should be illegal, really.”

“Oh,” the henchman didn’t have a response for that. “And I’m not boring?”

“No, you’re adorable,” the villain waived them off. “Hence the pay raise.”

They searched for something to say, before blurting out, “You really have nine lives?”

“Gathering intel on me, huh?”

The henchman had to sit on their hand to stop themself from slapping it over their own mouth.

“I don’t know why I said that.”

The villain laughed again.

“Enhanced hearing and vision,” they pointed to their own face. “And, of course, the shifting.”

The villain shrugged one shoulder. “As for the nine lives, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

“Hopefully not.”

“Awww, you don’t want me to die?”

“I don’t want anyone to die,” the henchman agreed. The villains smile sharpened, all canine teeth.

“So I’m not special, then?”

“No—”the henchman stopped. “You’re messing with me.”

The villain slid off the desk in one fluid movement. “You catch on quick. Come on,” they jerked their head to the door.

The henchman stood eyeing the villain.

“What are we doing?”

“Bank robbery,” the villain said easily. They tilted their head slightly. “Or maybe knocking some construction equipment over. Crane or two, you know?”

The henchman had known about the shifting, but they hadn’t realized just how cat-like the villain was in behavior.

“….Because you’re a cat?”

“No,” the villain blinked. “Because it’s fun.”

Overall, it was the best job the henchman had ever had.

Hello I promise I am not dead but I moved and the owners of this household have decided Wi-Fi is not a priority so I am in hell :(