Dormleaders with a Zaun!Reader that used to be a shimmer addict?
Dormleader with a s/o who's a old shimmer addict
Synopsis: Once addicted to Shimmer in the undercity of Zaun, you’ve fought your way to sobriety.The dormleaders slowly uncover the truth about your past, each reacting in their own way to the strength and pain you carry beneath your calm exterior.
What is shimmer?:Shimmer is a dangerous, glowing chemical from Zaun that enhances strength and abilities but causes severe physical and mental side effects, often leading to addiction and deterioration.
When you first arrived at NRC, Riddle noticed you immediately,but not because you were loud or rebellious. It was because there was something in your posture, in your eyes. Sharp, alert. Like you were always expecting something to go wrong. Like a coiled spring. It reminded him of the tension he used to live in himself.
You didn’t tell him about the Shimmer right away, but your body told its own stories.
Your movements were too fast, sometimes frighteningly so. There were moments where you reacted before something happened,jerking back from a sneeze, ducking at a sudden sound.
Your strength, too,Riddle saw it in how your fingers crushed a glass jar by accident when you were too distracted. In the way you once pulled a heavy table back into place like it weighed nothing. And after, you looked at your hands like they didn’t belong to you.
Riddle never commented on it. Not until you opened up.
You explained the enhanced abilities, the edge Shimmer gave you. The strength, the speed, the clarity,how it made you feel like you were finally enough. And then how it all collapsed. How it left you shattered, panicked, and hollow when it was gone.
He listened without a word, his eyes filled with something complicated. Not pity. Not fear. But fierce, quiet sorrow that you had ever felt the need to break yourself just to feel whole.
"You don’t need power that harms you," he said, reaching for your hand. "You’re already strong. You survived. You recovered."
Riddle helps you manage the aftermath,because the changes didn’t go away entirely. Your body still remembers Shimmer, and sometimes your hands shake from phantom surges of adrenaline. Sometimes you still overestimate your strength, or feel a craving for that edge when you’re pushed too far.
Mentally, the scars are deeper.
Some days you can’t focus. Other days you hyperfocus until you're dizzy. There are nights when your dreams turn violent, your breathing shallow and fast even as you sleep. Riddle studies everything about you,not to control, but to understand.
Riddle learns to anchor you when the world starts spinning. He lets you talk when the past comes clawing back, and never once calls you "unstable" or "dangerous." He corrects others if they whisper or judge.
"You are not your past," he says firmly. "And if anyone dares reduce you to it, they’ll answer to me."
Sometimes he forgets himself in how protective he becomes.
But more than anything, he’s proud of you. Every moment you choose to live gently, to breathe, to rest, to heal,Riddle sees it as a victory. He doesn’t care that your strength came from Shimmer. He cares that now, your strength is truly your own.
You weren’t planning to tell Leona. Not ever.
He wasn’t exactly the kind of guy you thought would understand. Too proud. Too blunt. Too smart to waste time on someone like you,someone who had clawed their way out of an addiction that promised power, only to lose everything in the end. Someone who still woke up some mornings with trembling hands and an ache in their chest, mourning something they weren’t even sure they wanted anymore.
But of course, Leona noticed.
He always noticed things no one else did,how your reaction speed was a little too sharp for someone with no combat training. How your eyes stayed too wide in dark rooms. How you carried yourself like someone used to being strong, but suddenly unsure of your own body.
“Oi,” he muttered once, watching you crush a training dummy with a little too much force. “You always fight like your life’s on the line?”
He didn’t push but his eyes stayed on you.
You told him on accident. Not with words, at first. You were both lying in the shade of a tree in the Savannaclaw training yard, sun heavy on your back, and he was half-asleep beside you. You thought he was out cold when you said it,soft, broken, bitter:
“I miss how it made me feel. The strength. The clarity. The speed. Like I was finally enough.”
The silence that followed was heavy. You froze, heart racing.
Then: a deep sigh. A rustle of fabric. Leona cracked one eye open and stared at you not with anger or judgment, but something quieter. Sharper. Sadder.
“You were enough before it. You’re enough now.”
You scoffed, bitter. “You don’t get it.”
And that was the first time you saw it,that under all that arrogance and sleepy apathy, Leona knew. He knew what it was like to chase power because the world told you you weren’t good enough without it. He knew what it meant to want to matter,to be the strongest, the fastest, the best, because otherwise you’d just fade into nothing.
“You don’t owe anyone a damn explanation,” he said one day as you confessed more,shaky hands, lost time, scars you kept covered. “But you do owe yourself a future. Don’t waste it mourning the past.”
He didn’t treat you like glass. He didn’t treat you like you were fragile. But he did learn how to tell when the withdrawal was getting bad.
When the old instincts surged back,when your fingers twitched with phantom power, or your legs couldn’t stop bouncing, or you snapped at someone for breathing too loud,he didn’t scold or soothe. He simply dropped a weighted training vest in your lap, arms crossed.
"You wanna feel strong again? Earn it. Come train.”
You hated him for it. Then you loved him for it.
And on the worst days,when the craving was so loud you couldn’t hear anything else,Leona didn’t say a word. He’d just pull you into a quiet room, sit with you on the floor, and let your body tremble until the storm passed. No shame. No guilt. Just warmth. Just presence.
“You think I care what you used to be?” he murmured once when you tried to apologize. “You’re not broken. You’re just healing. There’s a difference.”
You looked up at him, your voice barely a whisper.
“What if I always feel like something’s missing? What if I never feel that powerful again?”
Leona’s eyes burned gold in the dark.
“Good,” he said, voice low. “Because that power wasn’t yours. It was borrowed. Rented. Forced. This? What you build now? That’s yours. That’s real.”
He never tried to save you.
He never looked at you like you were less.
He looked at you like someone who’d survived something monstrous and still had teeth left.
And when you flinched from a sudden sound or moved too fast, and someone whispered about you behind your back, Leona bared his fangs.
“Say that again,” he growled to one of them once, “and I’ll show you what fear really looks like.”
That day, no one dared whisper again.
Because Leona didn’t just accept your past,he defended your future.
And you realized, slowly, painfully, beautifully:
You didn’t need to be powered by Shimmer to be strong.
You had people now. You had Leona.
And somehow, for the first time in years,you felt enough.
Azul is not unfamiliar with ambition or the ways people break themselves in the pursuit of it. When you confide in him about your past with Shimmer, he listens in complete silence. No interruptions, no judgment. Just a heavy, still sort of attentiveness, like your words are sacred things, even the painful ones.
He’s read about the drug before. Knew of it as a weapon disguised as salvation. Shimmer promised clarity, strength, purpose and stole everything else. But knowing it from books is nothing compared to hearing it from the lips of the person he cherishes.
He notices how your hands sometimes shake, how your gaze occasionally zones out as if haunted by a phantom rush. The toll on your body is quiet but relentless: your limbs ache like old metal gears, your stamina falters more than it should, and sometimes your heart races without reason. When your strength surges in strange, uncontrolled bursts, the recoil leaves you sore and nauseous.
Azul adjusts to your rhythms. He memorizes the signs of fatigue in your posture, the way your shoulders slump when you’re fighting the weight of your memories. He studies you the same way he used to study business contracts,meticulously, with care and precision but this time with gentleness at the center of it all.
He never treats your trauma as a flaw. To him, it's a quiet war you survived, and surviving is admirable in itself.
The emotional damage is deeper, trickier. Some days you question your worth without the artificial brilliance Shimmer once gave you. You remember how it sharpened your focus, how it made you feel capable,powerful, even and now, off it, you sometimes feel like a shadow of what you were. Azul recognizes that hollow ache far too well. It mirrors how he once felt, years ago, trying to earn respect through false confidence and borrowed power.
He doesn’t push you to open up more than you want to. But when you do, he listens intently. And while he rarely says much in return, his actions speak clearly: the way he organizes your routine to avoid triggers, how he adjusts the lounge’s lights when you seem overstimulated, how he never lets you face your bad days alone.
He knows how withdrawal leaves you frayed,emotionally volatile, exhausted, unable to connect your thoughts the way you used to. He never blames you for your lows. He sees them as part of the healing process, not a regression. Recovery, to him, isn’t a straight line but a tide,sometimes rising, sometimes falling, but always moving.
He makes space for your strength to return on its own.
And on the rare days when you catch yourself smiling with no effort, when your body doesn’t ache and your head feels clear, he watches you like you’ve conjured a miracle. Because to him, you have.
Not through magic. Not through borrowed power. But through your own stubborn will to keep going.
And that,more than any potion, any contract, any deal is what makes you extraordinary in his eyes.
Kalim has never lived through anything like what you’ve been through, but he listens. He listens with his whole heart.
When you first told him, he didn’t flinch. Not because he wasn’t shocked, but because he didn’t want you to think he was disgusted. He wasn’t. Just... quietly heartbroken. Not at you, never at you but at the thought of you suffering in silence, once needing something so harmful just to feel enough.
He notices the way you wince when you get up too fast, the strange tremors that come and go, the headaches that roll in like waves and leave you curling in on yourself. Shimmer didn’t just damage your body,it rewrote it. Strength that used to surge like a storm now comes in erratic flashes, often too much, or not at all. Sometimes your hands are too quick, your reflexes too sharp, other times they’re useless.
You used to feel unstoppable on it. Strong. Brilliant. Like the world finally made sense. But the crash was always waiting. That hollow, panicked void that tore through you once the glow faded.
Kalim never pretends to understand what that was like but he knows what it’s like to want to be better, to be more. And that’s something he connects with deeply.
Emotionally, recovery is harder. Shimmer took more than just health,it took your confidence, your ability to trust yourself. You sometimes shrink back, questioning your place, questioning why someone like him would care so much. Some days are loud inside your head, louder than even the chaos of the dorm you used to call home.
But Kalim doesn't see you as broken.
He sees your courage in every step you take without it. Every morning you wake up and choose to keep going. He builds routines around your comfort. He fills the silence at your pace,gently, patiently. He never tries to drown your thoughts with noise but offers his presence like a sunbeam breaking through the fog.
When your moods swing unpredictably, he doesn’t judge. When your energy falters mid-day, he’s already handing you something warm to drink and suggesting a nap, no pressure. When you relapse emotionally,when guilt eats at you or you hate your body for how it’s changed,he doesn't give speeches. He just stays. Close enough for comfort, far enough to let you breathe.
And when you smile again,not the forced kind, not the polite one but the real, soft, almost-teary one... it makes him tear up too. Because he knows that smile wasn’t easy. You earned it.
You’re not your past, and Kalim never ties you to it. He sees all of you,tender, tired, healing and loves you for the strength you don’t even realize you have.
And maybe, slowly, you start to believe it too.
Vil first suspected something was wrong during a training session.
You moved too sharply. Not the kind of grace born from control, but the kind that came from compulsion. The snap of your limbs, the way your breath caught mid,motion, your eyes,too wide, too aware, like you were constantly scanning for a threat.
You were fast. Too fast. Stronger than your frame should allow. And when you sparred with someone, your eyes glittered not with challenge but with fear. Desperation.
At first, he chalked it up to nerves. Maybe a traumatic past. NRC wasn’t known for coddling its students, after all. But it was the way your mask slipped, late one night in Pomefiore’s lounge, that shattered his assumptions.
You had been sitting on the velvet couch, knees to your chest, staring into a half-empty cup of lukewarm tea. Your hair was messy, your breathing shallow. You didn’t flinch when he entered,you never flinched but you didn’t meet his gaze, either.
“I used to use something,” you said without preamble, voice cracked like dry glass. “A drug. Shimmer. It made me faster. Stronger. Smarter. It made me feel amazing. Like I was finally enough.”
Vil stood there in silence.
You continued. “But it was fake. I fell apart. Everything collapsed. I still feel it in my bones sometimes, like my muscles are screaming for something that isn’t there anymore. And I’m terrified I’ll never be whole without it.”
The room was thick with tension. Vil crossed the space between you with slow, calculated steps, like a dancer walking on stage.
And with more gentleness than you thought possible from him, he placed a hand on your cheek.
>“You are already whole,” he murmured. “Shimmer did not make you beautiful. It only blurred the mirror.”
You almost broke right there.
Vil didn’t look at you with pity. He looked at you like someone who understood. Like someone who knew what it meant to chase perfection until it destroyed you from the inside out.
He asked questions,not out of curiosity, but from a desire to help you regain control of your narrative. What did the withdrawal feel like? Did your body still tremble when you were alone? Did you ever look in the mirror and feel wrong?
The crushing fatigue. The nightmares. The muscle spasms. The haunting silence that followed the drug’s voice in your head,the one that whispered you were only worth something when you glowed.
"I don't even remember what I was like before that.."You mumbled
Vil cupped your face in both hands, eyes sharp as diamonds.
“Then we relearn them. Together.”
He became your anchor in a way no one else could.
He built you routines. Skincare rituals to ground your mornings. Meditation to center your breath. Meals tailored to rebuild what Shimmer had drained from your bones. Exercise but not the brutal kind that punished your body. The kind that taught you to trust it again.
He held you when you shook.
He watched over you when the tremors hit, and he never turned away from the panic in your eyes. If you tried to push him away, he only stepped closer.
And when you started to mourn the power,because gods, how addictive that strength had been,he didn’t scold you.
“Even the most dazzling illusion cannot compare to true brilliance. You’ve endured something few survive. What shines from you now,that is real.”
He helped you feel beautiful again.
Not because of how you looked. But because of who you were despite it all.
And the first time you told him, “I feel like I’m starting to come back to myself,” he smiled,not his poised, public smile, but something softer. More personal. Almost proud.
“Good,” he said, brushing a lock of hair behind your ear. “Because I’ve missed you.”
You thought it would break him.
Idia didn’t exactly strike most people as someone strong enough to handle something that dark. He was awkward, closed-off, and anxious even on good days. So when you finally admitted your past,the addiction, the withdrawals, the hallucinations,his silence was deafening.
He didn’t speak for what felt like minutes.
Just sat there, eyes hidden behind the soft blue glow of his hair, fingers fidgeting with the hem of his hoodie.
“…Wow,” he finally mumbled, voice barely above a whisper. “You’ve… been through final boss-level hell.”
You blinked. That wasn’t the reaction you expected.
He wasn’t looking at you, not yet,but he kept talking.
“I mean, I—I don’t know what it’s like, obviously. But, um. Shimmer. That stuff’s no joke, right? Like, super high risk. I read somewhere it's practically chemical warfare in a bottle. And you got out of that.”
You still didn’t know if that was admiration or fear in his voice. Maybe both.
And then he looked at you.
His eyes were wide and uncertain, but not disgusted. Not judgmental. Just… overwhelmed. “You’re still here. That’s like… major protagonist energy.”
A breath escaped you,half a laugh, half a sob. “You’re not freaked out?”
“Of course I’m freaked out!” he exclaimed, hands flying up, voice rising in pitch. “But not at you! I’m freaked out that someone I care about almost didn’t make it. That you had to go through that alone. That no one,no one helped you!”
The room was quiet again, save for the faint beeping of something in the background from one of his monitors.
He shifted a little closer, awkward but intentional. “I mean, I can’t exactly, like… slay your demons or anything. But I’m pretty good at boss support roles, y’know?”
His fingers grazed yours, hesitant, but steady. “So if they ever show up again,those urges, or memories or whatever,I’ll be here. I got buffs. Shields. Emotional potions. Whatever you need.”
You smiled at him. Not the fake kind. The kind that trembles because it means something.
Idia cleared his throat, hair flaring pink at the edges. “Also… uh… if you ever want someone to stay up with you on the rough nights… I already don’t sleep, so… you know. I’m optimal for 3AM emotional support.”
He wasn’t a knight in shining armor. He was a gamer gremlin with social anxiety and a deeply buried heart of gold. But he meant it when he said he’d be there.
And somehow, that meant more than any heroic rescue ever could.
You didn’t expect him to understand.
After all, how could a prince,an ancient fae raised in dignity and power,ever truly grasp what it meant to claw your way out of a place like Zaun? To live with something as suffocating and corrosive as Shimmer? You weren’t sure why you told him. Maybe because you were tired of hiding it. Or maybe because… a part of you hoped he’d stay anyway.
“I used to be addicted to Shimmer,” you said quietly one night, eyes on the moonlit sky outside Ramshackle’s broken window. “It nearly destroyed me.”
Malleus didn’t speak at first.
Just silence,profound and weighty, like the pause between thunder and lightning. His eyes glowed faintly in the dark, but there was no fear in them. No revulsion. Only a quiet, aching sorrow.
“...And yet,” he murmured at last, “you still stand before me.”
You turned to look at him, heart in your throat. “You don’t… you’re not disgusted?”
“Disgusted?” His voice was calm, but a flicker of something sharp echoed underneath. “No. I am angry. That the world failed you so deeply. That the path you walked was one where such suffering became survival.”
He rose from where he sat, crossing the room until he was close,so close you could feel the magic humming gently off his skin like a storm barely contained.
“I have lived for centuries, Y/N. I have seen kingdoms rise and fall. But you… you survived something far crueler than time.”
You couldn’t help it,you looked away, shame crawling under your skin. “It wasn’t strength. It was desperation.”
Malleus’s hand was suddenly on your cheek, cool and gentle. “There is strength in desperation. Even dragons, in the end, fly because they must.”
Your throat tightened. “It changed me. I’m not,lean. I’m not whole. That poison… it left pieces in me I can’t even name.”
“I do not seek perfection,” he whispered. “I seek you. All your cracks. All your scars. All the shadows you carry. You are not broken,you are proof that even in the darkest night, something beautiful can still burn.”
His other hand found yours, curling his fingers around your palm with infinite care. “Let the world say what it will. But I, Malleus Draconia, will never abandon you for the fire you survived.”
And in that moment, it didn’t matter that you had once belonged to Zaun’s underworld. That your past was laced with hallucinations and sleepless nights and cravings that ate you alive.
Because to him,you were still worthy.
English is not my first language !
