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─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
It’s evening. They’ve drawn the drapes in their place but pinkish golden light seeps through the gaps and enough of it flutters over Shouto’s face to make him squirm and squeeze his eyes shut in his sleep. Such a baby, Katsuki thinks. It’s just a little light?! But he puts his own hand down gently over Shouto’s eyes anyway. It's better than getting up, displacing them both and closing the damn drapes tighter. Plus he can't just do nothing and risk Shouto getting up.
Especially since the whole point of this position is to help the both of them sleep.
Shouto sleeps with his mouth slightly open while Katsuki tends to grind his teeth. The little discoveries like this had been stupidly exciting in the early days of living together. Sometimes they still are. Because nobody else gets to know him like that, it’s only for Katsuki and the part of him that’s a possessive little shit thrives on knowing Shouto’s secrets.
He liked discovering that Shouto likes to read at night by the light of his own fingers (fucking fire hazard), that he quietly hums when he does any sort of household tasks and that he can only fall asleep some nights if he’s lying prone on Katsuki’s chest with his fingers grasped tightly into Katsuki’s shirt. The TV has to be on, running some program or another as white background noise. Shouto falls asleep best like this. At a reasonable hour too, which he never does when left to his own devices. Idiot. Then he likes to be (or has to be) carried over to their bed later.
He’s so spoiled, honestly.
Katsuki does it every time though. When Katsuki's starting to nod off on the sofa and he’s had enough of judging people on cooking shows (or really any competitive show, he has the range), he checks his watch. Any time after nine it’s probably a good idea to take them both back to where they belong. (He still likes to sleep early and wake up early, sue him).
He’s careful to extricate himself from under Shouto while making as little movement as possible. He fucking bridal carries this long limbed idiot from the living room to their bedroom and lays him down on the sheets. Katsuki takes care to make sure his feet or his head or any part of him doesn’t knock against the walls or the doors or anything when they go in...Not that a few knocks about the head would make him any more head empty than he sometimes tends to be. Shouto’s the dumbest smart person he’s ever met. That includes Denki.
Shouto never comments in the morning about how he fell asleep one place and woke up another, but he knows. Or he notices. He has to, right? I mean, come on. It’s good for him, Katsuki thinks.
Katsuki’s dad used to do shit like that for him, when he was a kid. It was easy to take for granted. But obviously, Shouto’s never had someone do that for him.
It makes Katsuki so mad when he thinks about Shouto’s shitty childhood that he has to do things like this. Not to make up for it. 'Cause you can't and it's shitty to think love is there for fixing someone. He does it for another reason. Just so that he feels he’s doing his absolute best to be the greatest boyfriend this Icyhot bastard could ever have. The number one, even in this.
This particular evening, they’re doing just that. Their little ritual. Katsuki’s hand is actually throbbing, because he punched a guy on patrol. Maybe it’s weird, or would be, for some people having a hand like his, that’s done so much damage, touching them so intimately. Shouto doesn’t seem to mind though. Nor should he, really, considering his hands can be burning and freezing respectively. In that way they’re both explosive to the touch.
Katsuki can totally be gentle. He feels a little bitter when people assume that he can't. (Like he does when people assume he can't do anything. Because. What do they fucking know???! ). Because who do they think he is? Someone who never thinks and never learns? No. Fuck no. He's stayed himself but he has learned what else he has in him and how best to bring it out. He's been getting stronger at that all this time. Even at the things that are the most difficult for him.
It sort of makes sense, in it’s own fucked up kind of way. Katsuki’s greatest ambition, from an early age, was to be the strongest. It’s taken him much, much (add another much, for the sake of Best Jeanist and his efforts over the years) longer to figure out that the greatest strength of a hero is having power but applying restraint. But he has it now. He's got that restraint. Hard won as it is.
He doesn’t have any restraint when it comes to loving Shouto though. He gives and he gives and he gives and the spring of his affection never runs dry. (It’s more of a volcano than a spring anyway. Fits his brand better too, what with the way it just explodes some days, whenever Shouto gets hurt, and he has to hold, and touch and see every part of him at all times to make sure the doctors or whomever the fuck put him back together correctly).
He adjusts Shouto’s phone to filter out blue light, he adjusts his wristwatch to trick him into sleeping more. He cooks for him. A lot. He talks to Shouto's family regularly. He's even in a group text with them, the fucking Todorokis: poster children for what-the-fuck happenedness. Katsuki did that to himself willingly.
He lets Shouto reach for him even when he’s blazing mad and lets Shouto take him down from the brink time and time again.
After all this fighting that he’s done all his life, no one fucking told him he would get peace like this.
Shouto never says shit like, “I didn’t know you could be like this.” Or seems surprised that Katsuki can do both, be the insurmountable force of nature that he is in battle and the person he is at home. The same person, but with openings that allow for him to caress and savor as well as bend and break. Which is good, because if there’s one thing that Katsuki hates, it’s being underestimated.
Maybe Shouto knew all along, that he’s not just notes of anger, pain and perseverance. Maybe Shouto saw him for that and loved him for that but also knew there was more and fought to see it. Or maybe it was just a cosmic accident, and the universe threw them together when it saw that Katsuki was on the road to becoming an unhinged workaholic adult after years of being a feral future-career-obsessed child.
Katsuki remembers how they fell in love in the first place. It was the adrenaline. The heady rush of having someone like Shouto, still water that runs deep, lose all composure in his pursuit of Katsuki.
Shouto fought for him, in his own quiet way. He demanded more from him. Not letting him get away with any of his usual bullshit walls up and chipping away bit by bit.
(Something else Katsuki will not admit, seeing Shouto fight has always made the monkey part of his brain go wheeeee. Seeing the walls of ice he can make, the way he could freeze entire buildings, it had been like a slap in the face the first times, in school. But the wheeee was underneath there the entire time. Katsuki’s always been attracted to strength in its purest form, and after his raging jealousy/hate boner for Todoroki had cooled down somewhat, the wheeee was unfortunately all he had been left to work with. Small wonder then that he ended up in his arms. It’s not his fault that’s what he likes. Hands that can do that, fucking hell, put them on me.)
Their early days were chaotic. Messy kisses in dark alleys. Like a pair of young criminals rather than young heroes. Groping at each other, overheated and desperate. Wanting to act like this was just a release, and pretending neither of them was doing anything so stupid as actually liking it. Or at least, Katsuki pretended. If he thinks about it, maybe Shouto didn’t know, and thought that this is just how it is.
It was Katsuki that reacted badly when the facade started to slip. He started making mistakes. Kissing Shouto again and again without the pretense of anything to follow. Whispering baby, because he couldn’t help it and staying nights when he should have run. Shouto’s earnestness had held them together then. Katsuki’s pride, his prejudice against all forms of soft and sticky attachment stood no chance, in the long run, against it.
'I don’t care if you call me things like that. You can. I just want to keep doing this.'
'Use my given name, if you want to.'
'Do you want me to call you something nice, too? I can think of something.'
Who says that?!!! It made Katsuki livid, in the moment, and he said so. But it also made him want him more. Because what was the alternative?! Let him be like that for someone else? No. God no.
They still have that wild animal passion. Even today. Shouto’s insatiable and Katsuki isn’t much better. Maybe it’s the heat in their blood, borne from their quirks, or maybe they were just meant to fall against each other that way. Angry about how the rest of their lives had left them wanting, starving and filling that need, that hunger together. Finally. Fucking finally.
The sweet, wet heat of chaos wouldn’t be what it is without their order though. Evenings like this follow such a clean pattern that if it was anyone but Shouto in his arms, Katsuki would be bored out of his mind.
Since it is Shouto, he can take the time just to look at him in the fading light. Breathe in the smell of his hair, strawberry shampoo. His skin is soft, cream and porcelain along the contours of his face except when it’s hard and coarse, angry pink.
“Do you feel it?” he had asked once, in the afterglow, stroking the pad of his thumb under Shouto’s left eye. “I didn’t know. ‘Cause nerve endings and shit…”
“I can feel it,” Shouto had said, and from his expression Katsuki was a little concerned that he’d actually forgotten how to breathe. Shouto had just held his breath, staring back, and oh, he doesn’t know what this is.
“Breathe, you idiot.”
He had let out an icy breath that tickled Katsuki’s nose. “I don’t really know why you would want to touch me like that.”
How can you not know?! To Katsuki, what he’s been acting like is the most obvious thing. Nothing has ever been clearer. Fuck.
‘Cause I wanna memorize you... Have you. Ruin you for anybody else. Fucking consume you. Wanna read you from memory and recite you with my eyes closed. Wanna know that only I ever could.
“Because it's you... And that's it."
No one’s ever seen them like this. Katsuki for one, really hates displays of private, intimate affection. Shouto probably doesn’t care either way, but doesn’t bother to actively advertise or deny that he has this.
There’s not that many things Shouto bothers to actively do. Besides acquiring way too many houseplants, eating cold soba, doing hero work at the elite level and being Katsuki's own personal dumbass and annoying him as much as he possibly, probably can.
The houseplant thing is fine, really. Katsuki didn't even notice it happening. Until one day he did a quick count of the plants around the room, and oh my god they’d taken over. Shouto would make an excellent criminal mastermind, with how innocent he looks at times like this. Not breaking under Katsuki’s questioning and just insisting that he didn’t mean anything by it, they just kinda got there. Bullshit. As if plants can grow legs and walk around themselves.
Shouto subscribes to a newsletter about plants too. He has Katsuki read it out loud to him while he lounges against Katsuki’s chest. Honestly, who does he think he is?!
Icyhot bastard makes little interjections saying, “Skip this part,” and “next section,” and “I already knew that.”
Katsuki reads about a lot of things he doesn’t actually care about this way. He reads articles out loud on Shouto’s phone, and tells Shouto what’s happening on his twitter feed. The fact that he voluntarily opens that hellish bird app is proof enough of his affection, he thinks. It’s a fucking dumpster fire in there.
(While he’s there he spots thirst tweets about Shouto too. Which are always funny. Since they either assume Shouto is completely pure or just a total freak in the sheets. The truth of which is somewhere in between for Katsuki, and Katsuki alone, to know. His mind purrs happily. HAH! Mine. I win. You lose. Suck. It. )
Shouto even trusts him enough to reply to messages for him during this time they have together. That’s how he phrases it to himself, because ‘I’m enough of a sucker to let him dictate his replies while I type them out on his phone’ is just, it’s a lot.
He gets a little insight into how Shouto’s brain works at times like this. Sometimes, if it’s to someone they know, he even parses out the Shouto speak that he dictates into Katsuki speak in the text (an easier medium, for most). Those times though, their friends sus him out right away. Fuckers.
-Is this Bakugou?
-No you fuckshit, it’s me. Shouto. Answering your stupid questions.
-It’s Bakugou.
They can talk when they’re like this too. It can be challenging, sometimes. Since being trapped under Shouto means he’s a bit of a captive audience. Shouto has interesting theories, and funny dreams, and he’s so serious about all of it. Weaving stories out for Katsuki in vivid detail. Sometimes there are too many details. Unnecessary details that have next to nothing to do with the point. Just, Shouto thought they were important, so he included them. Fucking hell.
Sometimes Shouto doesn’t tell stories at all. He just kisses at Katsuki’s neck, the underside of his jaw and basically every patch of exposed skin he can get at. He ghosts his hot breath everywhere and raises goosebumps. He nuzzles his nose at places, and sometimes all of it, his breath, his hair and his kisses all over...it can tickle.
“God, stop it,” Katsuki has to say, even though he doesn't mean stop stop.
When that happens he has to coax Shouto into starting it up again. There's history to that too.
It took Shouto a long time to learn that he could touch Katsuki however he liked. Even if it was weird, and experimental, or just something he was doing because he hadn’t done it before and he wondered how it felt. How it would make Katsuki feel. It makes Katsuki's heart hurt in weird ways just to think of it.
Physical affection, the aggressive kind, had always been there in his family. With his friends, later. Kirishima and Kaminari and them. Sure, he was standoffish and kinda snappy at school. Still is. But touching and clapping hands on peoples’ backs, hugging, thwacking people upside the head. It was normal. Sure, Katsuki bristled at being touched in soft ways at times but touch itself was more or less natural to him. Pushing and pulling. Shoving and grabbing. It made sense.
Not to Shouto. If he thinks about it, at school Shouto would always stand off to the side. Even when All Might patted both of his heads that one time. It had seemed to reset Shouto, or almost short circuit him. He had seemed surprised and Katsuki knew then, like he knows now, people didn’t touch Shouto like that before U.A.
That’s why it took so long to get to this point. Shouto in his arms acting like he belongs there. He was so stiff the first time they cuddled, Katsuki couldn’t help but get mad about it. It seemed to work on Shouto. The whole getting mad thing. Katsuki would get frustrated about it and goad him into doing more, asking for more. Shouto would do it. Then rinse and repeat.
It’s fine. It’s fucking fine. He repeated that, again and again. It’s fine if Shouto puts curious hands under Katsuki’s shirt. He can run his fingers along Katsuki's skin. Feel him up whatever way feels good to him. He can try and suck or bite at places, and he can touch Katsuki's pecs and use his dumb half-and-half hands however he likes. He can kiss with tongue and put his hands in Katsuki’s hair. He can try and pull and see if that’s something they’re into. Just. Jeez. Get in there. He wanted to tell him. Don’t hold back with me when I can see the truth in your eyes and I know, I fucking know you’re burning with it. Be a little selfish, see something you want? Just go and take it.
That’s not to say Shouto doesn’t take care of him too. He does. Shouto builds a life with the two of them at the center. When Katsuki wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat Shouto is there. He takes him in his arms wordlessly and mumbles stupid, off-topic shit sometimes. Other times he says things that would ordinarily make Katsuki very, very mad. But at night it’s so stupid reassuring, especially the way Shouto says it, cold and matter-of-fact.
'They’ll burn in my flames before they ever put a finger on you again.'
It’s the kind of thing he would punch anyone else for saying: I won’t let anyone hurt you. The audacity?! When Shouto says it though, it’s...fine. ‘Cause Shouto will protect him. He’ll protect Shouto right back.
It’s so, so, so stupid how much he needs to hear it.
'Katsuki, you’re awake now. We’re home. You’re with me.'
Shouto’s fingers pressing into his skin bring him back to reality, and away from the spinning thoughts and the suffocating. He can’t panic or feel stuck or trapped in his own skin, helpless, when they’re together. ‘Cause as stupid, and pathetic as it sounds he believes it. At that moment, in the middle of the night. Katsuki can breathe easy for a second because Shouto’s going to protect him.
They don’t mention it in the morning. It stays a secret of the night. That Shouto said those things and Katsuki let him say those things. They don’t mention how Shouto ended up in the bed even though he fell asleep on the sofa. They don’t feel like they owe each other anything for any of it. They reciprocate easily, as if they’d been doing it all along. Like they didn’t start at the opposite end of the spectrum, Katsuki holding him up with one hand, both of them bruised and battered at the sports festival. Angry at being underestimated. Angry about a lot of things.
If he thinks about it, that’s the first time he saw Shouto like that. Spent, with his eyes closed. He’s seen so much since.
“Right, time to go,” he says, mostly to himself. He slips out from under Shouto and he picks him up.
Fuck, he’s heavy.
“Don’t make it easy, do you?!”
Shouto stirs.
“Sssshhh. Don’t you dare wake up on me now, not after I spent all that time getting you to fall asleep.”
Shouto’s eyes stay closed, even though he scrunches his nose a little in his sleep. He isn’t waking. Which is good. Katsuki however is very close to having an aneurysm over how cute this fucker is. (But this isn’t about him.)
“Yeah, that’s right. You listen to me.”
He puts Shouto down on the left side of the bed. (Shouto’s side depends on the season, when it’s hot he puts Shouto on the left so he can cuddle up, nice and cool on his right. It’s so damn convenient. Everyone else? Read it and weep.) Then he goes to the foot of the bed and takes his socks off of his feet, like Shouto prefers. He’s in his sleep clothes already.
Katsuki’s practically memorized this part. Getting into bed himself, and yanking the covers up and tossing them over Shouto’s sleeping form as well. Turning out the light.
They’ll be here again, tomorrow. After a day of arguments, fights, blisters and blood. The rough going that is their life. They’ll do all of that and end up back here. Between these soft sheets.
He’ll say “Good night,” and look at Shouto. Even though he’s asleep and doesn’t hear him. Even though tomorrow this same idiot will meander around, invade his space and ask the most dumbass fucking questions without a shred of self-consciousness.
Despite that, or maybe, in a fucked up way, because of it, because oh fuck, tomorrow. Is also, oh. Fuck. Tomorrow. I get to have it. Katsuki still looks at him.
If he’s feeling particularly nauseating he’ll look at him a little longer and just wonder if he closed his eyes if he could recreate the image from scratch... Just cause he’s seen it, you know, hundreds of times.
Then again, he’s Bakugou Katsuki. ‘Course he can.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───