Chapter Text
The tour was blurring into an array of sweaty summer nights and tuned guitars and secret notebooks and soft eyes Eijriou pretended not to notice.
Get on the tour bus, nap for a few hours or talk to Mina or catch up with whatever content Denki was consuming, get off and get ready in a green room that kept getting more cramped every venue, perform and feel the rush of being alive, meet the bands and the hosts and mingle for what felt like hours, crash in the bus and then do it some more the next day.
Eijirou’s life was feeling like a rock star’s. Blazing, out of body and out of control, too quick to hold and too much to grasp. He felt like he was on fire and like he was drowning at the same time.
Bakugou was always there.
Texting him in the tour bus, Eijirou watching him get ready from the corner of his eye - swatting away the makeup artist and grabbing the eyeliner for himself - watching his infernal drums block out the sound of everything else on stage, feeling his gaze on him as RIOT performed even though he was never in the front row, feeling him curl his hand on Eijirou’s shoulder as they feigned excitement at the afterparty, watching him finally rest when it was just the bands at the end of it all - eyes closing, drifting; legs touching, burning his skin raw.
Bakugou always waiting for him at the end of the day at the empty lot near their tour bus.
Every day, without fail, be it eleven in the night or 3 am, Bakugou was always there. Waiting for Eijirou to wrap up the commotion - always one of the last ones to leave the party - dropping someone to their respective rooms or buses as needed, before stumbling back to his own.
Bakugou would be leaning against the entrance to the lot, casually scrolling through his phone or looking up at the night sky. Sometimes, Eijirou even found him crouched over the sidewalk, smoking a cigarette.
The first time, Eijirou had blanched at the site. Bakugou’s eyes still littered with smudged eyeliner, his outfit abandoned for his signature tank top and sweats but his skin still hidden underneath the necklaces and piercings - and a thin, long cigarette hanging from his lips, smoke curling around him like he’d just let off a trail of mini explosions.
Bakugou didn’t smoke often, if at all. But that night had been particularly stressful. Had been particularly entertaining for Eijirou, but stressful for the blonde.
He’d performed one of their new songs - something RIOT and Ground Zero had made a habit of over the course of the shows - Eijirou choosing to file away the lyrical analysis and the way it made his heart run laps around his body for later.
Eijirou knew what the lyrics were about in his songs. He’d written them all with a puff of blonde hair and a war-winning grin in mind.
And he (kind of, sort of, maybe, hopefully) knew what Bakugou’s stream of new lyrics was about too.
It made him feel like he’d jumped out of his skin. Like he’d permeated through a wall and somehow gotten stuck halfway. Like he was on the precipice of a leap, his security harness unsecured, but the falling felt like flying.
And Bakugou had performed the song with such fervor, such gusto - piercing holes into Eijirou’s eyes from the stage, red on red, like it was all or nothing.
Eijirou had nodded, held his gaze, and grinned so big as he could feel the lyrics pulling the strings of his heart. The earth beneath his feet seemed to be moving whenever Bakugou was on stage, and yet, he’d never felt so steady in his life.
It had been an ecstatic day for Eijirou.
For Bakugou, maybe not so much.
His hair stylist had pissed him off. He snapped a drumstick half way through the chorus of the new song and they had to take a moment to redo it on stage, which Eijirou was sure made him feel like he’d cost them the momentum the crowd was holding onto with their clawed hands. Midoriya had tried to give him a warm smile after, and Todoroki had patted him on his shoulder, as if to say “It’s okay, it was still amazing, we’ll be perfect next time.”
It could be any of those things.
Eijirou just took the space next to the blonde, bumping their shoulders as he sat down. He grunted in response, a silent acknowledgement.
They hadn’t gotten a chance to talk much after the show, due to the after parties and the mingling that was supposed to make or break their careers. This, right here, was their moment of peace, of reconnection, of letting the world pass them by as they just breathed.
This was often the highlight of Eijirou’s day.
Wordlessly, he nudges Bakugou’s hand, still curled around the cigarette stem. The blonde looked at him now, studying as he always did, before passing it over.
Eijirou takes a drag. The filter is wet and it tastes like nicotine and smoke, and it tastes like something sweet.
Eijirou realizes, with a start, that the sweet taste must be Bakugou. Lingering at the end of the cigarette, open for Eijirou to decipher.
A beat passes between them, silent, as Eijirou takes in the taste and the things it seems to be doing to his mind.
“They’re pretty damn bad for you, ya know.”
He knows. And despite it all, he wants them anyway.
“Then why are you the one with the lighter?”
Bakugou raises his head to look at him, immediately and impossibly too close. Eijirou can count the freckles on his cheek from this distance, even underneath the single flickering lamp in the dead of the night.
There was something electric in the air, something burning. Some kind of heat curling at the base of his stomach that had nothing to do with the dart in his hands.
Everytime he looked at Bakugou, something in his mind made a little more sense. The lingering touches, the fiery eyes, the way he always seemed to wait for Eijirou, no matter the time. The way he’d practice his music, texting lyrics to Eijirou in the dead of the night - lyrics he hadn't even shown his bandmates. Sometimes, they were lyrics that won’t see the light of day for a long time, as though they were for Eijirou’s eyes alone. Eijirou found himself not minding it one bit.
Somewhere along the way, things were making sense. Eijirou recalled what Mina had said to him months ago, the morning of them leaving for the tour. Something about how Bakugou always noticed what Eijirou needed.
Eijirou did not mind that one bit, not at all.
“Um. Anyway. Hi,” he found himself saying, suddenly a little spacey. As though a couple drags of the cigarette were all it took to elevate him.
Bakugou smirked, the shy kind - Eijirou had been filing away his expressions and what they meant ever since he’d met him. He pushed his knee toward Eijirou, and now they were touching, feather-light. Like the tips of the fingers that were currently rolled around their shared cigarette, the ones lifted to Bakugou’s lips. Irrationally, Eijirou found himself wanting to replace them with his own.
“Hi,” Bakugou replied. His voice was low, though gruff as usual - laced with a kind of softness Eijirou was growing used to when it was just the two of them. “What are you thinking so hard about?”
“I think I want to kiss you,” Eijirou found himself saying before really thinking about it. It was true. He did want to touch Bakugou’s lips with his, roam his fingers through his plush blond hair. He wanted to wrap his arms around Bakugou’s waist, and found his heart hammering to never let go.
It was a risk, saying this out loud. But Eijirou reviewed their times together, the way Bakugou was pressed to his body, the way his face had bloomed pink at Eijirou’s words - and he found himself almost sure that the rewards are going to be greater than the risks. “Is that okay?”
Bakugou’s eyes were blown wide, like he hadn’t expected the conversation to turn to this. To be fair, Eijirou hadn’t either. It had just sort of slipped out, but then again, that’s how things usually went in Eijirou’s life. He was the kind of guy to jump first, and make do with where he landed.
And right now, as he looked into Bakugou’s incredibly red eyes, he felt like he had been falling for a long time.
“Kiss me,” Bakugou replies. He grabs Eijirou’s collar, urging him forward himself before Eijirou can catch up to the way his heart pounds out of his body. “Stupid,” Bakugou whispers against his lips, eyebrows furrowed like he’s so annoyed by it all, eyes frantic like he simply can’t wait. Eijirou has exactly one second to smile at him - his signature brand of nervous confidence, before Bakugou’s lips are on his, and nothing in the world remains.
Bakugou Katsuki commands the room like he is the burning core of the blazing sun. Bakugou subverts attention towards himself without even realizing that’s what he’s doing - but all Eijirou knows is that once he’s in the vicinity, the sound of his footsteps heavy, ringing, ushering in a hero’s welcome - that is all anyone can hope to care about. He seems to be built for the stage, like anything but absolute glory is an insult to the man, and to the gods themselves.
That has always been one of Eijirou’s favorite things about him.
That, and his unending talent of coming up with a fresh batch of creative insults every week, and his tolerance for tongue-burning spice that makes Eijirou’s mouth numb for a day, and his affinity for laying down the rhythm to a song he hadn’t begun thinking about that would put Apollo to shame.
All that, and the way Bakugou’s eyes soften when he looks at Eijirou across the room. All that, and the way Bakugou guides his bandmates, scolding but gentle, laying them to bed after a long night of post-show drinking - a bottle of water and two tablets for their hangover headaches on their bedside tables. All that, and the way Bakugou reads everyone around them like a book - the way he motivates Eijirou without so much as a word, the way his eyes burn with passion and grit when he talks about his ambitions - like meteors crashing into Eijirou’s unbreakable spine.
Eijirou wasn’t sure if there was a single thing about the man that didn’t entirely enrapture him anymore. That didn’t consume his very being, make him hyper aware of his presence - no matter how far away - and entirely thrust itself upon him in a way that was so Bakugou and so welcome by Eijirou.
“This your way of distracting me from the performance tomorrow?” Bakugou asks him between kisses. Grinning, Eijirou simply weaves his fingers through his hair, and pulls him closer. “Couldn’t find a simpler way?”
“Just showing some appreciation,” Eijirou replies. He sighs into the kiss, feeling free like never before. “For all those songs you keep writing about me.”
“Like you don’t?” Bakugou teases him, running his hands up Eijirou’s thighs to hold him around his waist. The cigarette lies somewhere in the puddle on the ground, entirely forgotten. “It’s sickening, Eijirou.”
“‘Sickening’?” Eijirou echoes, if only to calm his racing heart at the use of his first name. He opts to pepper kisses on Bakugou’s throat, his neck, moving up to bite his ear before diving right back into his lips.
“Mhm,” Katsuki hums, though the amusement laced in his voice suggests anything but.
“You know I can’t help it, Katsuki,” Eijirou fires back, never one to back away. At the use of his name, Katsuki groans into the kiss, urging forward the ferocity with which he devours Eijirou’s mouth.
“As long as you promise not to stop,” Katsuki murmurs against his lips, staring deep into his eyes. Red on red, the sun rising and setting and bursting in the shadows behind them. “What do you say?”
It’s dizzying, Eijirou decides. That’s the word for this, for him. He should write a song or a million about this feeling.
Under the neon lights, the smell of smoke and sweat around them, half a country to explore ahead of them, Eijirou thinks of Katsuki.
Katsuki, as he does his rounds on stage - driving the beat, grinning at Shinsou, singing his verse. As he captures the audience like his devoted army, as he sings the words Eijirou just can’t help but find a little familiar, as he kisses him with the same ferocity he puts in his music - the acceptance hits him like the quietest of earthquakes.
Like you wouldn’t notice the ground moving in your sleep, and yet, your body knows in the way it tenses when it wakes up. In the way your heart is filled with unexplained relief at the thought of being alive.
It could only ever be Katsuki. And Eijirou would always say yes.