Pillows (Patreon)

Can you do a story in which a hero decides to save the villain’s younger sidekick from injury, even though the hero knows it will weaken them and put them in a vulnerable position to be captured by the villain? And the villain is partly thrilled to have the hero at last, but also hesitant to take the hero prisoner because they’re confused and grateful to them for saving their sidekick? (I would love a part in which the villain is torn between gloating and demanding why the hero was willing to give up their own freedom like that.)

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The villain saw their sidekick’s body laying on the floor of the alleyway, saw the hero bent over them on their knees, and for a second the villain saw red. They took a step forward, fists clenched and –

The hero looked up. They were haggard, all the colour leached waxy from their face, wobbling a little where they were sat. Blood covered their hands.

“They’ll be fine,” the hero said. “They’re going to make it.”

The villain looked down at their sidekick again, and saw it then. The way that, yes, the hero was kneeling over their sidekick covered in blood, but also the way that the paler and more ghost-like the hero got, the more colour and health flooded back into their sidekick from where the two of them touched.

The hero was saving them.

“At least,” the hero said, gaze dropping back to the sidekick. “They’re going to make it if you don’t roundhouse kick me into a wall right this second. I have to keep touching them. Five minutes, maybe, and they’ll be good to go.”

The villain had seen the hero’s powers at work before. Their ability was such that they could transfer energy from one thing into another; sometimes for violent force, but most often they used it for barriers and healing. Of course, there was only ever a finite amount of energy in the world. It could change. There couldn’t just be more. It couldn’t just vanish either. One time, the villain had seen the hero husk, wither and blacken an entire garden full of wildflowers in order to save one of their little friends. It was one of the few times the hero hadn’t given the energy back to where it started.

But this…

The villain couldn’t see any flowers on the concrete floor, not even dirt. There was no corpse of a bird, nothing that would give the hero the kind of kick to do…

Oh.

A second click happened, the spin from rage to realisation so fast they almost felt woozy.

They had never been able to get the drop on the hero before. They could get the drop on them now, because if the hero was using their own energy to heal, their normally constant and impenetrable barriers would no longer be active. They’d be vulnerable. The villain would be able to take them in. Elation, giddy and dizzying, swelled in their chest.

The only reason they’d be able to do that was because the hero was saving the sidekick’s life. An enemy’s life.

The villain’s mouth dried.

The elation soured, poisoned by confusion, by a tinge of…

“Why?” they managed.

“Hm?” The hero’s brow furrowed with concentration, clammy sweat beading on their forehead.

“Why would you save them?”

It made the hero look up at them again, confused.

“You’re using up your own energy,” the villain snapped. “You’re going to be weak. Do you think I won’t capture you because you saved my sidekick’s life? You think you can manipulate me, is that it?”

“Dude,” the hero blinked at them. “You only just got here. I didn’t even know you were going to show.”

“Why then?”

“Because,” the hero said, slowly like they were talking to a total idiot. “It’s the right thing to do. They’re – what – seventeen? You think I’m going to let a seventeen year old bleed out when there’s something I can do to help?”

“You injured them!” The villain’s spine straightened, with triumph. That had to be it. They had no reason for gratitude, and certainly none for guilt if they took the hero in, because the hero was only fixing the terrible damage that they themselves had caused.

“No.”

“Then what happened?!”

“That’s not my story to tell?”

“Excuse me?” The villain’s eyes narrowed. Deadly. They took a step closer. “I don’t think you appreciate-“

“If you want to know, ask your sidekick. The last thing they said to me—" There was a snap, exhausted but equally lethal, in the hero’s voice then, “—was not to tell you.”

The villain stopped again. Incandescent, flabbergasted, too many damned things. They managed an indignant splutter. The hero was lying, right?

The hero looked worse than ever. Their shoulders had slumped like even kneeling upright took far more effort than they had to spare, and dark circles had appeared beneath their eyes. Their hair had turned greasy and limp against their scalp.

“Are you going to die?” the villain asked, and it wasn’t worry in their voice. It wasn’t. It was only that the hero dying, and not even at the villain’s own hand, would simply be such a waste.

“Probably not,” the hero mumbled. “I have a – a lot of me.”

“You really don’t look so good.”

“Aw, babes. Do you mind letting me concentrate?”

The villain fell silent, tracing the way their sidekick’s breathing evened out, more like comfortable rest than unconsciousness. They bit their lip.

The hero was normally a glorious sort of beacon of good health, it was – startling, seeing them brought so very low.

“You really are a fool,” the villain said then, in their most withering drawl. “This is what you’re losing to me, for? Giving up your freedom for?” A ready sneer appeared on their face, because it was better than (the other thing). “Pathetic.”

“Would you like me to stop?”

The villain felt a cold lurch of fear.

“Mm,” the hero said, glancing up a third time, a bit unfocused but as mentally sharp as ever. “That’s what I thought. Gloat in your own time. Not theirs. I don’t have the spoons for whatever crisis you’re having right now.”

The villain’s mouth worked, but – well. They watched the hero’s miracle hands, caught somewhere between envy and horror and relief and terror. Gratitude. They folded their arms and quietened. It wasn’t obedience. It was only…well, common sense.

Their sidekick wouldn’t be thrilled if the villain’s thanks to the hero was kidnapping them. They’d say it was rude. They’d have another one of those lectures about how villains were supposed to be charismatic and charming, not have all the manners and seductive abilities of a fish flopping about in a too small puddle of water. Dead, but still twitching. Insolent, cutting, brat. They were devastating.

The villain couldn’t have imagined the kid dying. The very thought…the villain couldn’t even think about it. They flinched from it.

The desperate, broken ‘thank you’ burned in their mouth like bile, so it was just as well the hero needed to concentrate.

The hero’s body swayed even more unsteadily, like they were about to crash to the floor and pass out. When they finally let go of the sidekick, they stayed sitting, shivering, arms curling around themselves. Their eyes were closed. They looked like a paper hero; easily torn, easily blown away.

The villain had never seen them like that before. The hero had always been the most powerful thing they’d ever known. Radiant.

“Pillows.” The hero’s voice had lost the edge, all slurred instead. Soft.

“What?”

“I want pillows,” the hero declared. “In my dungeon cell. The finest you have!” They had the sheer oblivious audacity to pout at the villain. Actual tears shimmered in their eyes. “…My head is owie.”

And then they pitched on the floor unconscious.

Defenceless.

“Pillows,” the villain said into the silence, trying to get themselves together, trying not to feel absurdly shaken. “I can do that.”