Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Enji couldn't sleep. No matter how he lay, he couldn't find comfort. The blankets felt stifling, the room too close. He wanted to blame the man beside him, but he'd begrudgingly allowed Hawks into his bed enough to know his treacherous body found that slim, muscular warmth more comfort than confinement.

Still. Enji was tempted to wake him up and force him back to his own room just to be contrary. It was late. Hawks couldn't even use the excuse that someone might see him, so he better wait until morning when the halls around the sleep quarters were active enough that no one would notice which room he had come from.

Restlessness consumed him and when he could take no more, he pushed the sheets aside and moved to his desk, to a pitcher of water, a small stack of letters that required his attention. He'd intended to read them and begin his responses tonight, but Hawks had proved sufficiently... distracting. He was a weakness Enji had not counted on. The scent of sweat, of physical intimacy, still hung thick in the room and taunted Enji with every inhale, like a cloud of poppy smoke blown from an addict's pipe.

And he was addicted.

He turned his eyes and his attentions to the letters. The first was inconsequential-- a report from the western ramparts that confirmed what Enji already knew. Katsuki Bakugou had not sent more soldiers to his eastern border. All was quiet on the contested front.

Enji hated it. He had no idea what the savage was up to and there was nothing more infuriating than an enemy who didn't do what was expected of him.

And then of course, there was Shouto.

Enji tore open the second missive, from Hawks’ connection in the barbarian castle and felt his blood begin to boil when she too had nothing at all useful to say. She only reported that his treacherous son had partaken in yet another wedding ceremony, this time full of savage custom. The spy was proving to be useless. A servant could only be expected to be capable of so much-- there was a reason Enji had sent Shouto to begin with.

He couldn't believe the boy actually had sentiment for that savage, but nor could he fathom any other possible reason for Shouto's treachery. He was young, true. And he hadn't shown any interest in lovers before-- Enji would have known if he had. So he supposed it was possible the fool was just lovedrunk, ready to fall on his knees for the first pretty face that made him feel--

Enji absently glanced at Hawks, sprawled across Enji's four poster bed, and scowled.

Intimacy, the need for such, could make a man do... foolish things.

But it was Shouto. Enji knew he was not as stupid as he pretended to be. He had too much of his father in him, and too much of his brother too. Too much thirst, too much pride, too much power.

There had to be a reason, and Enji was determined to root it out.

"Stop it." Enji turned his head when a frustrated whine sounded from the bed. "It's too dark to read,” Hawks complained. Enji wordlessly reached to an unlit candle on his desk and pinched it to life with a spark between his finger tips. He looked back down at the letter and Hawks groaned.

"Go back to sleep," Enji told him. "Or leave."

Hawks did neither. Instead, he crawled out the bed, red wings tucked close to his body, and padded across the thick carpet with an intoxicating, slinking sort of grace. He was a small man, much smaller than Enji and about twenty five years younger too. Unseemly. If only Enji wasn't so infatuated with smooth skin and sly eyes, with compact muscle. A fit body. A firm ass. Hawks was everything that made Enji weak carved into one lithe, muscular shape.

And though he hated to admit it, there was youth to consider too. To consider that Hawks could have any man he pleased, was pretty enough and charismatic enough and sly enough to slither into any bed.

He swore he would have wanted Enji even if he wasn't king, but Enji knew better. That Hawks found him attractive was just... convenient.

Hawks snatched the letter from Enji's hands and skimmed it quickly-- Enji let him. There was nothing noteworthy contained in the missive. And though it had appeared sealed, Enji was mostly certain Hawks had already read it.

"Shouto, Shouto, Shouto," Hawks complained. "Would you like me better if I dyed my hair and scarred my face?"

"Don't," Enji snapped, snatching the letter back and catching Hawks' wrist in a bruising grip with his other hand, "be vulgar."

He looked down his nose at Enji when Enji grabbed him and gave a soft, deliberate little moan like Enji was hurting him when he knew Hawks could take much more than that. He tightened his grip, just a little, just to feel those slim, delicate bones shift under Hawks' very bruisable skin.

"You love it when I'm vulgar," Hawks answered around a pointed wince. Enji knew most of it was all show. He wasn't a complete fool. But unfortunately it was a show he immensely enjoyed. "Don't you…” Hawks trailed off and met Enji’s eyes before he added viciously, “Daddy?"

Enji pushed him away and turned back toward his desk. "Go, Hawks."

He did it to hide the shameful beating of his heart, the flush creeping up his chest. It was embarrassing, really, that Hawks could make him feel like a younger man, could make him burn from the inside out when he had thought his days of such... frequent, enthusiastic lovemaking were behind him.

Perhaps it was simply his pride again, unwilling to be bested, outdone, by a mere boy.

Hawks slide his hands over Enji's shoulders and ran his teeth along the shell of Enji's ear. "Come to bed," he countered, voice low and sinuous and scintillating. "Your treacherous son will still be fucking his savage barbarian in the morning."

"You're trying my patience."

"Do you want me to try harder?"

Enji grunted in response, and skimmed the later part of the letter. There was something else, something about that Midoriya person. The spy mentioned that the three of them had been practically inseparable in the handful of days between this wedding ceremony and when she had sent the letter, which Enji did not like at all. That fight he'd seen between the savage king and this-- chief-- it had been concerning to say the very least. The two of them-- the three of them, really-- working together was not something Enji had planned to contend with.

Hawks' hands slipped lower, down over Enji's naked chest and he whispered slyly around a very pointed pout, "Are you tired, daddy? Need me to take care of yo--"

Enji twisted in his seat, furious that Hawks would say such a thing and furious that Hawks knew it would anger him. Furious that Hawks was going to get his way, because Enji certainly couldn't let him think--

He caught Hawks by the hair, twisted him down so Enji's lips were on a level with his ear when he said, "If you keep testing me like this, one day you are not going to like my response."

Hawks licked his lips, breath sweet and warm when he did it. "Are you sure? Don't you know I love you mad?" Enji pulled harder, twisted his hand so Hawks' head craned down toward Enji's waist, so his shoulders were bent and his wings skewed and knees bowed to hold his weight. He gasped, softly. Probably deliberate, but he'd timed it right. Every sound he made was so pretty, he might have been pulling them from Enji's darkest fantasies. When Enji just held him there, Hawks-- because he was Hawks-- said very quietly and with painfully obvious taunt in his voice, "Come on. Hurt me, daddy."

Enji yanked further, forced him to his knees and loathed how entirely Hawks had crawled under his skin, how effortlessly he'd picked apart every hidden seam until he knew just want to say and do and how to sigh and goad and moan.

He was a problem.

He was... a problem.

Enji stood up, pulled Hawks up by his hair when he did. Hawks was so small, his knees skimmed away from the floor and he hissed a little, hands coming up to wrap around Enji’s wrist.

He looked up at Enji through his impossibly long, thick lashes, teeth clenched against his discomfort and a familiar taunting spark in his eye.

“Open your mouth.”

Hawks gave himself away, dropped his jaw so quickly Enji could see the flash of shock in his eyes, shock at his own desperation, shock that he hadn’t even pretended to put up a fight. In the end, he never really did.

Enji was a well endowed man; Hawks liked that about him, so to bend him over the bed and for Enji to take what he wanted played nicely into Hawks’ hands. To pin him down and fuck him senseless was more reward than punishment.

So this would have to do. Hawks didn’t love this quite as much, even if he did moan like a whore and blink tears onto his cheeks and stare up at Enji with those wide, angular eyes while Enji did it. He was too selfish to enjoy this as much as Enji did. Hawks liked to be manhandled and fucked rough but he wasn’t the type to take his pleasure from causing pleasure in others.

They both knew no matter how much Enji enjoyed fucking that pretty mouth, Hawks was still going to get his, in the end.

Enji reminded himself of that often-- that Hawks was out for himself. He reminded himself of that when Hawks’ lips were wrapped around Enji’s cock and he was staring up through those lashes. He reminded himself of that when Hawks was splayed out on the bed with his ankles over Enji’s shoulders, boneless and senseless and covered in his own seed. He reminded himself of that every time Hawks put his lips to Enji’s ear and whispered, Please, daddy? For me?

This, these lips and that tongue and that mouth were preferable at least for that, to stop that vile voice, those filthy words, and the sinful way he said them. If Enji wasn’t damned already, Hawks had his feet in the flames and would lead Enji in with hands outstretched.

Hawks gagged and choked and squeezed Enji’s hand, then his fingers, eyes streaming while Enji yanked him around by the hair. There was so little resistance. It always surprised Enji how light he was. Enough that he’d amused himself, on more than one occasion, with the thought: like Hawks had hollow bones.

Enji wasn’t going to come anytime soon, not after what they had done mere hours ago. So he took his time, waited until Hawks’ cheeks were flushed red and he had drawn blood digging his nails into Enji’s wrist, before he dropped Hawks to the floor and watched him cough. He sat back hard on his ass, palms splayed flat on the floor in front of him, tears running down the tip of his nose.

“Pick yourself up.”

Hawks’ lifted his head instantly, face turned toward Enji, and his cheeks were still red and wet and his chest was still heaving while he caught his breath but he still smiled like he was fresh and untouched when he asked, “You need a break, old man?”

The tenuous grasp Enji had been maintaining on his sanity snapped and he wondered what it said about him that this was his weakness.

He hurled Hawks bodily against the foot of the bed, throbbed all over, like one enormous ache, when Hawks breathed, “Oh, fuck yeah--” and tapered off into a high pitched sigh of a moan when Enji pushed into him. He was still so sloppy from earlier, still covered in oil and come, and Enji’s cock was wet with his spit.

At the root of it, though, Hawks was just a fucking whore. He could preen and prance and do his damndest to ruffle Enji’s feathers, but there was only so much he could hide like this. Enji could tell the difference, knew when Hawks was goading him and when he couldn’t control himself. There was a difference between Hawks’ sly, insinuous ‘Hurt me, daddy!’ and this, these breathy, choked off little whines, this high, airy, yes, daddy, harder, fuck me, harder, daddy, fuck--

Enji had never told Hawks to call him that. Enji hadn’t really protested, perhaps, but he hadn’t requested it. That was Hawks’... desire. So Enji could tell when he was full of shit, and when Enji was fucking him so good he couldn’t fucking think straight--

That was Hawks talking too, all vulgarity insinuating itself into Enji’s head. In that voice.

“Louder.”

“Yes, yes, fuck me, fuck me--”

Enji did, held Hawks’ face into the blankets and twisted one hand up behind his back, around those ridiculous wings. They were pinned tight to his shoulders, but the edge of the right one was hanging too low, twitching in a flustered little rhythm.

The world narrowed to those points, to every facet of the man spread out beneath him, screaming for him, begging him, thanking him. Hawks always got his.

Hawks’ words started getting garbled, getting cut off in desperate yelps, or dragged out until they were unintelligible. And Enji-- Enji started to lose himself, couldn’t hold back the low sounds he was making, couldn’t stop squeezing his hands into Hawks’ skin, and trying to fuck him harder, harder-- make him beg-- Enji deserved to hear him beg--

There was a loud crash, and a shout close to Enji’s door and the instant he heard it, Enji realized the sound had started somewhere else, was creeping closer--

Hawks shoved Enji away, solid and strong all at once, and whirled, breathless, toward the door. His knees shook and he hung onto the bed for support; a less observant man than Enji might have missed it. But then he just peered at the door and… looked. Enji did too.

They both stared at it in silence, Hawks crouched low with a feather in his hand that Enji hadn’t seen him pluck.

The crash sounded again, and another shout, and Enji hissed, “Get dressed.”

Hawks waited until Enji had tugged breeches, slippers, and a tunic on, eyes locked on the door and listening to the shouts turn to screams as they crept closer.

"Now," Enji snapped the moment he was through dressing. Hawks spun from the door then and shimmied into his discarded breeches so quickly, Enji almost couldn't see him actually doing it. He yanked his overcoat on and, one of his wings tore through the bottom of the slit he was trying to slip it through. Enji had always found it patently ridiculous that Hawks wore common clothing, that laced in the front, instead of garb more befitting his station. It seemed to Enji that being laced in at the back would be the simpler way to deal with those wings, rather than how he dressed now, carefully slipping his right wing and then his right arm into the proper spaces and then repeating the tight, controlled motion on the left.

Enji knew now, why Hawks wore commoners clothes. He wouldn't have been able to dress quickly in noble things, even if he did shred the supple leather of his embroidered spymaster's uniform in his haste.

They both leapt out into the hallway, Hawks leading the way, and then paused, staring up the corridor toward the sound. There were loud crashes, pained, horrified screams, the sounds of heavy feet stalking up the stairs. Enji could smell smoke.

Hawks cursed, "Damn it," and then flicked his wings like he was trying to fling water from the tips of his feathers. Four feathers on each side stuck in the walls, narrowing the corridor so only one body could pass through the space at a time without being shredded.

"Go to your family," he said curtly, voice low.

"You don’t give the orders here," Enji snapped, watching the end of the corridor with his fists wreathed in flame.

"I'll slow them down. There's only two soldiers stationed at the entry to Fuyumi and Natsuo's quarters. By the sounds of it, there's a lot more people here than what two guards can handle."

"So we stop them here," Enji replied, though he knew that was foolish before the words had left his mouth. He simply found himself strangely unwilling to leave Hawks alone, even though he was one of the most capable fighters Enji had at his disposal.

"I like my skin not on fire."

Enji ground his jaw.

"Go. I'll buy you some time to get them away."

Enji turned to go without another word, belly tight and fury simmering in his chest.

Hawks said, "Be careful."

Enji froze with his back to Hawks and didn't have it in him to turn around again.

"You will meet me at the panic point when you are through here or I will be very angry. Do you understand me, Hawks?" He didn't turn around to see if Hawks looked back at him.

Hawks said, "Go."

Enji went. He ran without really seeing the halls he was navigating. Screams grew all throughout the palace; once a servant came careening around a corner and shoved past Enji without stopping or apologizing.

The guards were no longer at the entrance to the wing where Fuyumi and Natsuo slept. When Enji arrived, he could already tell everything was deserted. It was very quiet, and a few doors were left open, furniture overturned. There was no damage, and no bodies-- it looked like the area had been evacuated, like everyone had fled all at once. Enji still went to each of their rooms, calling their names to be sure they weren't hiding away somewhere.

If they weren't here, and they hadn't been taken, there was only one other place they could be.

Enji took the servant's path between wings. The place were Natsuo and Fuyumi kept their rooms was connected to the southeastern wing of the palace by a long, narrow corridor usually used by servants to move through the palace unseen. From the exit, Enji would only have to climb the tower to Rei's quarters. He stepped out into the hall, looking around to reorient himself, and heard someone moving about, slowly, in the grand hall this corridor opened up into. Enji went quickly, but cautiously, taking light steps and wasting no time to pause and reconsider.

There was one single man standing in the entryway. As Enji watched, he bent at the waist, falling forward like he was boneless, like his joints didn't work quite right, and set something on the ground. Enji let his eyes track from the man's back down to the floor.

He was laying a line of hands down, one by one. Severed hands. They were affixed to his body somehow, and he was pulling them out of his pockets, and a bag at his side, setting them in neat rows. At least ten of them.

"Why don't you come out?" he said without turning around. "You can't see the show from there." He turned his head sharply, and Enji saw the slit of one narrow red eye through the fingers of yet another hand he'd affixed to his face.

"Who--"

"Who, who, who," the man mimicked before Enji could even get the words out. "How about you call me king?"

Enji had had enough. He flared the flames about his wrists, let them crawl up his arms as he prepared to incinerate this man where he stood. But then, the man dropped one last hand to the floor where it landed with a dull thud that made Enji's skin crawl, and said, "Show time."

Enji smelled it. Necromancy. Thick, oozing, stinking necromancy that bled from this creature in waves and spread out in an awful web to the discolored hands he’d laid on the floor. And not just there, Enji realized. He’d left more at every entry and exit to this room.

And before Enji could blink, all of those hands started to twitch and move, and then in one massive wave they lifted off the floor, shadow spewing from the severed wrists and shaping into hulking, monstrous, man-shaped creatures with featureless, beak-like faces.

Enji blasted the one closest to him, one that had been left to guard this door, with as much heat as he could muster, and nothing happened. The thing just kept-- coming-- kept hulking toward him and that was absolutely unacceptable.

Enji flared hot, pulled his magic in tight and stoked it before he let it go in a massive roiling wave that rushed out from his body and washed over the creatures.

One of them collapsed and disintegrated. The others did a very strange thing: they protected their hands.

Enji fought. Enji fought harder than he had in years, tried to get to the door that seperated Rei’s tower from this nightmare, tried to destroy the necromancer where he stood. He was more threat then just his magic, however. He was whip fast, and the one time Enji got near him, he punched Enji so hard Enji felt his bones creak. He was tired by that point, had taken out what felt like so many of those creatures only for more to spring up in their place. And the man looked so frail and thin, Enji had underestimated how strong he would be.

Enji couldn’t sustain this.

He destroyed another shadow creature. He’d confirmed his suspicions quickly: the hands were their weak point, but the rest of them were so impervious to damage, it was almost impossible to get a clear shot. And to destroy the creature required complete annihilation of its hand-- if Enji left even a sliver of true flesh behind, the thing would keep moving, keep coming for him.

“And the walls came tumbling… down.”

Enji turned his head, arm up to catch a massive blow aimed at his head, and watched the necromancer drag his spider-like hands along the wall attached to the main exit-- Enji’s way out.

The wall crumbled, like it was suddenly ancient, like it couldn’t stand the weight of time any longer.

He was trying to keep Enji trapped here. The only other way out was that servant’s corridor, or the small secondary exit all the way across the hall, and guarded by even more of those creatures.

“I will kill you for this,” Enji growled, catching another massive, hammer like blow and billowing heat from his body when he did it. The thing dissolved. He turned his head just to watch the necromancer casually pull another hand from his pocket and fling it into the room.

“Do you think that’ll help?”

“I--”

Enji grunted, blasted another creature, and shifted his weight when a flash of blue drew his eye. He turned his head just in time to see Hawks soar from the secondary corridor, twisted sideways to fit. He was chased by a tunnel of blue fire that exploded out into the room after him, singed the tips of his feathers, and propelled him bodily into the cluster of creatures in front of him.

Hawks yelled, “Go!” and then he was a red and brown blur, slicing into those things with a massive feather in each hand. The feathers didn’t do much damage, mostly seemed to bounce off the creatures, but they were also so slow compared to Hawks. He kept them occupied, distracted, always dancing out of range.

“No, no, no, no, no! What are you-- Stop it!” The necromancer shrieked and buried his fingers in his hair. “This isn’t how it goes.”

“Go for the hands!” Enji bellowed.

“Get your family safe, old man!”

He was being ridiculous. Hawks couldn’t take all these things by himself, and not the necromancer too. And not--

A slow, creeping laugh was billowing from the hallway Hawks had come from. Blue flame still licked along the walls, and the laughter was getting closer, closer-- there was... something ungodly familiar about it.

“Same halls, same walls, gonna burn--”

The awful sing song voice made Enji draw up short, skin going cold in waves.

It wasn’t-- it couldn’t be--

“Not gonna say it again, old man!”

Enji turned and ran. Ran toward the door into Rei’s tower, barreled past three more of the creatures and threw his shoulder low to protect himself. He felt his body creak and give when his shoulder hit the door and a red hot spear of pain darted down his arm before the door finally gave way and Enji tumbled past.

He’d broken the lock, and when he slammed the door behind him, blocked himself off from a shadow thing reaching for him, he melted the metal in all the hinges and locks so no one would get through.

No one.

Enji couldn’t think about it. He pounded up the stairs, checking every deserted room on the way, and then hurled himself against the door to Rei’s bedroom, at the very top of the stairs. Inside, he heard someone shriek.

“Fuyumi?!”

He threw his shoulder into the door again, pushed past the pain, and felt it give a little. “Rei? Open this godsdamn door!”

He pulled back to ram it again, and almost fell in when the door swung open. Fuyumi threw herself into his arms, squeezed him in a fierce hug that Enji only briefly returned before he pushed her away and stalked into the room, assessing the damage.

The children had done well. Natsuo was positioned in front of his mother, a sword in hand and a look of utter relief on his face when he saw who had walked through the door.

“Is anyone else here?”

“They all ran,” Natuso answered. “Everyone. The guards, the servants--”

Fuyumi added, “We knew you’d find us here!”

Rei blinked blearily at him and said quietly, “You look so tired, my love. Are you ill?”

Enji slammed the door shut and seared it closed.

“What’s going on?” Fuyumi asked. “There was… so much screaming…”

“A necromancer,” Enji told her grimly. “With an army of… spirits. We need to get out of this room.”

“There’s no way out,” Natsuo answered. “You burned the door closed.”

Enji shook his head and looked to the window.

“You can’t be serious!” Fuyumi hissed. “Father.”

He caught her by the arm, and took her face between his hands, forced her to look him in the eye when he said, “You will be brave or you will die.”

She backed away from him, wetting her lips, looking nervously to her brother.

“Such lovely music,” Rei said suddenly, looking toward the door. “Did you bring me a gift? Flowers again?”

Enji almost told her to shut up, but he couldn’t risk her going into hysterics yet again. “I--” And then he realized what Rei was hearing. That laughter, that awful insidious giggle, and with it, a wave of heat that filled the room.

“So lovely,” she said serenely. “Lovely song.”

Enji threw open the window and peered down. It was a long drop to the bottom. He could perhaps climb part of the way. The tower was riddled with handholds. But the children-- and Rei-- she couldn’t die. The second Rei Todoroki passed into the next life, Natsuo would be crowned and… Enji couldn’t allow that. Not yet.

For a moment, he stared and thought nothing. No solution came to him, no answer. And then he realized the capital was burning. Those things were running all over the courtyard. People were screaming. Enji turned his head and saw the palace crumbling, pillars of blue and orange flame climbing into the sky.

He could smell it on the air.

Magic he knew. Magic he would never forget because at its core, it belonged to him.

So the brat hadn’t been lying or deranged after all.

“Come, come quickly,” he called, motioning to Fuyumi and Natsuo. Natuso got there first, looked down, and jerked his head back in.

“Father…”

“You must,” Enji hissed. “You are young and fit and my children. There are plenty of hand holds and ledges. You’ll be fine. Go.”

“But--” Fuyumi looked past Enji at Rei, who was certainly far too feeble to climb out onto the roof of the palace never mind find her way safely to the bottom.

“You can’t be-- father!” Natsuo exclaimed, voice pitched low and eyes furtively shooting toward the door.

“Do not argue with me, Natsuo! Go now!”

“You’re not a boy anymore!”

“And you’re hardly yet a man,” Enji snapped. “If we leave now, we may yet live, but if we stay in this room, any one of you could die.”

“What about mother?”

“I’ll worry about her,” Enji hissed. “Both of you. Go now.”

Somehow, somehow, he coaxed them out on the ledge, and watched them both cling fearfully to the tower wall. They were young and strong. They could do this. He was certain, if they could just make it to the base of the tower, they could find a way back inside and then sneak out-- somehow-- they had to--

Enji jerked around and Rei screamed when the door crumbled and blew inward in a shower of sparks and burning wooden splinters.

Enji felt the blood in his veins freeze into solid ice. An absolute horror of a man stood there, gray skin, burned, stitched back together. A horrible imitation of the man his son had been, years ago, before--

He grinned, none of Touya’s light left in his eyes. He was--

A wave of nausea hit Enji in the chest, sudden and unexpected. This thing wearing Touya’s skin-- it was dragging Hawks behind it, one hand tangled in the feathers of his right wing.

Rei very quietly, “No. No. No.”

The thing that had been Touya said, “Mother. Father. I’ve missed you so much.”

Enji stepped away from the window. If he and Rei-- and Hawks-- at least, maybe the children-- the Todoroki line--

“Abomination. How dare you speak to me in his voice?” Enji growled. He could at least-- at the very least buy the children time. He could do that much.

“No, no, no, no,” Rei whispered again. She drew her hands to her face, fingers spread and peered through them at that thing.

“Abomination? Is that how you greet your son? It’s been so long.”

“You are not my son.”

Enji jerked around in shock. Rei’s voice was harsh, jagged at the edges, and before he could even think, she’d thrust both her hands out, fingers splayed like claws and suddenly there was just-- ice--everywhere--

“Where is he? What have you done with Touya!”

Perfect-- Enji could use this. He had to move quickly to avoid getting encased in Rei’s hysterical burst of magic. The ice sprayed out from her hands, coated everything, and caught that thing by surprise so he actually dropped Hawks when he flung his hands up to protect himself.

It wouldn’t distract him for long; Enji knew that, and he lashed out with a delicacy he hadn’t bothered with downstairs with all those things. He couldn’t risk hurting Rei-- or-- if he was still alive--

Five threads of fire like molten metal unfurled from Enji’s finger tips and sliced across the man’s chest. He screamed and clawed at himself, bellowed, “Tomura, they hurt--” while Enji threw himself in front of Rei. If she died now-- Enji would not stand for it.

“Get away from her,” the thing that had been Touya said.

“I won’t let you hurt her,” Enji hissed back.

“Cracks, so many, so many cracks, darling, don’t let--” Rei was muttering, hands locked over her face again. Enji glanced at her once over his shoulder and then didn’t look away from the abomination.

When Enji spoke, the abomination laughed, loud and crazed, and raised the hair on Enji’s arms. “She’s not who I came for!”

Rei had her back to the window. Hawks was on the floor behind the abomination, limp and-- Enji watched one of his wings twitch and then lay still. He looked bruised and bloodied, singed but not badly. He didn’t seem like he shouldn’t be moving.

“What do you want?” Enji demanded, though he hardly cared. He just needed a few more minutes to think, a few more minutes to allow the children to reach safety and for Enji to figure out how to get Rei out of this room. He couldn’t fight here. Not without risking her safety.

The ice was already melting. The abomination was dripping blue flame like water and it was so hot.

“What do I want!” it screamed. “I want you to pay.”

Of course it did. It thought it was Touya. It wasn’t. Enji had killed Touya. This thing was just a brutal, twisted imitation.

“Who did it?”

Enji ground his teeth and almost turned to cover Rei’s mouth when she spoke again, but he couldn’t risk turning on this thing. She stepped out from behind him, just a little, and demanded again, “Who did that to your face?”

“No,” the abomination said sharply, hands going to his cheeks and flame licking along his shoulders. Enji watched the door frame catch fire. “Don’t, don’t say--”

“Who did that to you?”

“Rei,” Enji hissed from the corner of his mouth. “By the gods, woman, be quiet.”

“You shut up!” the abomination screamed.

Enji took a step back, arm out to keep Rei from the flames. This was bad. This was bad-- two insane people screaming at each other was the last thing Enji needed when he was trying to think.

“Such a handsome boy, such a beautiful boy, look what he’s done to you.”

“Fixed, he fixed me-- put me back together again--”

“My sweet boy,” Rei whispered again, horror suffusing her voice along with something else, something solid and present, some lucidity that made Enji’s guts twist again. This was worse if Rei was actually here, actually present in her own mind. Enji didn’t want her to remember any of this.

Enji hissed, “Rei. Enough.”

“No!” the abomination suddenly shrieked again, whirling on Enji. “Enough, enough, enough. You-- you--”

And then Enji watched his face go slack, watched him let go of whatever thought he’d been trying to cling to, or struggling to form, and he said, “I’m gonna burn you now.” His voice was serene. He might have been telling Enji he was going to enjoy a bite to eat. Or a walk.

Heat flared in the room so suddenly, Enji felt his sweat dry on his skin. He turned, did the only thing he could think to do, and hurled himself-- body wrapped around Rei-- out the window.

There was a sound like a cannonball going off and Enji twisted, saw the roof blow off the tower as a spurt of blue fire flared toward the sky. Enji was falling away from it, Rei tucked against his chest as he fell.

Enji fell. It was a long fall. His thoughts twisted and whirled and he reached out into space, wondered if he could slow himself with fire, break his fall-- if he could do that and still save Rei-- if he could do that without incinerating her too--

A streak of red seemed to be thrown from the billowing blue flames, and Enji had a split second to feel his heart skip before a small, delicate hand curled around Enji’s wrist and stuck.

Enji jerked, slowed, and Rei tumbled away from him. He had to twist to catch her and when he snagged the neck of her nightgown, felt her body jerk against his, yank his arm so he couldn’t bite back the shocked shout of pain, he also heard a tight, strained voice hiss, “Fuck.”

The ground was still rushing up so fast, so fast, and they weren’t going too-- Enji twisted again, flung Rei into Hawks’ chest.

He hit the ground hard and rolled heavily across the cobblestones, breath forced from his chest and all his limbs and joints snapping taunt at the impact. But when he stopped moving, he was aware that he absolutely was not dead.

He jerked up, found Hawks tangled up with Rei, and then looked toward the tower. The whole top half of it was on fire.

Natsuo and Fuyumi were only momentarily safe. They were standing on a decorative ledge about halfway up, still far enough from the relative safety of the palace roof that if they fell, they’d be killed. The fire was spreading, and debris was raining down so heavily-- they couldn’t move from those spots. They were stuck.

“Hawks!”

Hawks turned his head, looking dazed and exhausted, but still conscious, and saw what Enji saw.

Enji flung himself toward Hawks and Rei-- Hawks was struggling to his feet, climbing out from under her. Enji pulled her into his arms, tried to gather her up, but his right arm didn’t seem to want to cooperate.

Hawks rushed himself back toward the tower, launching up in the air to meet the children, wings laboring and moving so fast. Enji heard him yell, “Jump.”

He almost didn’t want to watch. If the children didn’t listen-- if Hawks was a second too late--

They both leapt from the tower, Fuyumi with a close lipped shriek, and Natsuo with a curse, and just as he had caught Enji, Hawks grabbed both of them by the backs of their tunics, wings flapping and straining to slow the fall. The children were lighter than Enji and Rei had been, and they hit the ground far less forcefully than Enji had. All three of them raced toward him.

“Is she--” Fuyumi was saying, eyes on Rei.

“The stables,” Enji replied. “Go for the stables.”

It was an awful sprint. Those shadow creatures were everywhere. They hadn’t avoided detection, and Enji had to kill a few along the way.

After the third one, Natsuo hissed, “What are those things!”

“Necromancy,” Hawks answered. “Keep moving, your highness.”

They did manage to make it inside the stables without anything new noticing.

Tenya and Tensei Iida were already there. They were sheltering in a corner of the room, Tenya tending to his brother, who wasn’t moving at all.

Tenya gasped when they came in and started to draw his sword. His shoulder dropped when he saw them, and Fuyumi threw her arms around his waist. “Lord Iida! Thank the gods you’re alright!”

“And you, my princess,” Iida said grimly. “Is the queen…”

“Not dead,” Enji grunted.

“We dove off a tower,” Hawks said, voice almost bright. The effect was ruined by the hoarseness. “She’ll probably be unconscious for a while.”

“You-- dove--”

“Saddle that,” Enji interrupted, setting Rei down gently, leaning her against a wall, and pointing toward a horse.

“Is Tensei,” Natsuo began slowly.

Iida didn’t step away from his task. “He thought we’d be better able to help from horseback, but he was--” Iida swallowed hard. “It threw him. Into a wall. I barely got him here.”

“Natsuo,” Enji snapped. “Saddle.” Enji pointed.

Later, Enji would lose the strain of things after that point. He’d remember telling everyone to saddle a horse, and he’d remember pulling Rei into his lap, and Natsuo helping Iida lash his brother to the back of Iida’s saddle.

He would not remember the flight from the capital. He would feel it like a fuzzy dream. His city filled with screams and fire. Hawks leading them all down back alleys and crumbling streets where Enji normally would never think of setting foot. The city gate in shambles, all his soldiers fleeing into the darkness.

Enji angled for the nearest guard outpost. The sun was rising by the time they arrived, exhausted, sagging in their saddles.Tensei still hadn’t woken up, but Rei had, and they paused in their flight long enough for Enji to shift her over to share Fuyumi’s horse. They’d both appreciate the closeness, and it would be easier on the horses. The guard tower, when they approached it, looked silent.

Hawks drew them all up short.

“I’m not sure about this, your grace,” he said quietly.

“What?” Enji demanded. “You think my outposts are compromised?”

“I think those things appeared in the middle of the palace with no warning. They had to get in somehow. It’s possible the soldiers…”

“Possible they’re what?”

“Acting under someone else’s order, your grace,” Hawks answered, voice grim for once.

All of them were silent, considering that possibility, when it had clearly not yet occured to them.

“We shouldn’t risk taking on an entire contingent of soldiers in our current state,” Hawks said quietly.

“What do you propose we do?” Enji hissed, eyes on the tower in the distance.

“Your son,” Hawks answered, voice going impossibly lower. Fuyumi and Natsuo both looked sharply at Enji when Hawks spoke. “Request aid from the barbarian king.”

“You’re out of your gods cursed mind,” Enji spat.

“Sir,” Tenya said very quietly, “King Katsuki is not the monster we thought he was. The outlanders treated us with the utmost respect. If we ask, they will shelter us.”

“Shelter us?” Enji spat. “Keep your mouth shut, boy, we--”

“I will not.”

Enji felt shock flare throughout the little circle as all of them twisted and looked at Iida, sitting tall in his saddle, his brother draped like a corpse against his back.

“I abandoned my life in the capital for the mountains at your whim, and I abandoned the life I built there again without even the chance to say goodbye. But I will not abandon Tensei’s. I have paid my service to my kingdom and I will do so at the expense of my family no more.”

Enji ground his jaw, shocked in spite of himself. Tenya Iida was a good soldier. Nothing more. He did not talk back. He did not have thoughts of his own. He did what he was told.

“They have a healer there,” Iida said, turning and looking at Hawks of all people. “Like nothing I’ve ever seen. If anyone can help Tensei, she can.”

“Your grace,” Hawks said seriously. Enji found himself listening. It was very rare that Hawks spoke seriously about anything. “We’re sitting ducks.”

Enji scowled, turning and looking toward the tower again.

Hawks said, “We can’t fight a whole platoon by ourselves, En--” Hawks cleared his throat. “Sir. We can’t trust-- and we can’t risk this.”

“We have no food, no clothing, no money-- we can’t travel through the mountains with nothing but a handful of horses and our nightgowns.”

“Beautiful stars aren’t they?” Rei interjected, looking up, arms still tight around Fuyumi’s waist.

Silence fell, everyone following Rei’s gaze. It was so silent. The capital was nothing but a warm glow on the horizon now. The sky was so clear here.

Hawks was right. Iida too. And Enji knew it. They couldn’t trust anyone right now. Those things had swarmed the whole capital. Someone had to have let them in.

“There should be a supply wagon here.”

Enji looked over at Hawks, who was turning to peer around at the outpost. He looked back at Enji, and slowly, a plan formed.

They managed to steal the wagon without killing anyone, along with a few extra blankets and shapeless uniform tunics. They loaded Tensei into the back-- he woke up blearily, long enough to dispel the fear that he was fully comatose, and then fell into unconsciousness again. Rei went into the wagon too. Enji and Hawks covered themselves with blankets. Fuyumi and Natsuo dirtied their strikingly obvious Todoroki hair.

Tenya Iida lead the way.

***

Enji sank into the rough wooden chair and put his head in his hands. The room was tiny, the bed flat and stuffed with straw. It was clean, which was more than Enji could say for most of the places he had slept in the days since he had fled his castle and his kingdom with nothing but his family and his name.

How far he had fallen. How quickly it had all crumbled.

It was the first time he’d been alone since the escape. The tiny country tavern had a room for Fuyumi and Rei, another for the Iidas and Natsuo. Hawks had said he’d sleep in the wagon.

Enji hadn’t even had a proper bath. He’d wiped himself clean with wet rags like an urchin.

There was a knock at his door, and he almost snapped, go away, until he remembered he was playing a very different part now, that of a family man, desperately searching for a safe place for his children and his ill wife and nephew to sleep after the catastrophe in the capital.

“Yes?” he asked tightly.

Hawks came in the door. He was dressed in a stolen cloak, hood pulled up to hide his face, and wings hidden under the fabric so he looked like a hunched old man instead of a nubile, young menace. The second he was through the door, he flung his cloak to the floor and flexed his wings with a sigh. He’d had to keep them wrapped in that cloak whenever they were traveling, lest he be seen.

“What?” Enji demanded.

Hawks cracked his neck and then threw himself forward, crawled all over Enji like he-- like he needed it and Enji hated that even now, even in the middle of all of this he couldn’t-- he couldn’t push him away. He let Hawks kiss him, let Hawks tear at his clothes and whisper sweet, pleading obscenities in his ear. He opened his mouth to call Hawks a whore, a desperate, disgusting little slut who’d do anything for a firm hand and a thick cock but that wasn’t what came out.

Enji twisted his hand in Hawks’ hair and looked him in the eye and what came out was something Enji had never intended to say, had never even thought before this moment.

“I’d be dead. They’d all be. If you hadn’t--”

He cut himself off, heart suddenly aching, it was beating so fast.

Hawks’ eyes were wide. So brown. He looked away and hissed, “Come on.”

Enji threw him down on the cheap straw bed and gave him what he wanted. When they were through, Hawks did something he’d never done before: he left without a word, or a backward glance, slinking away under his cloak like a common whore.

In the end, Hawks always got his.

Enji didn’t watch him go. Instead he stared at the ceiling and thought of what was to come. In the morning they would cross the border. In the morning Enji would complete the abandonment of his kingdom, his responsibility, his power.

In the morning, Tenya Iida would lead the Todoroki family to the mountains, to Katsuki Bakugou, to Shouto.

It wouldn't do. If Enji was going to throw himself at the mercy of the heathens, he needed a plan. Enji Todoroki did not beg for the protection of a hotheaded upstart heathen commoner.

Not without reason. Not without a purpose.

Enji wanted his kingdom back.

Katsuki Bakugou was the key.