Work Text:
Just like any other day.
That’s what Bakugou keeps thinking to himself as he walks over another bunched knot of tree-roots, marching with practised ease through the underbrush of the damp night-time forest. He's surrounded by gentle swishing of leaves in the autumn breeze and hooting owls. Bakugou keeps his eyes and ears focused on the world around him, searching for the slightest disturbance that would mark out his prey.
The self-styled Barbarian King had been passing through the local village, unheeding of the baleful eyes and loose lips of the peasants around him. He’d experienced the same and much worse besides in his travels and the words of peasants could mean nothing to someone destined to greatness like him. That was until he heard one villager mention that a scaled monster was living in the surrounding forest, stealing livestock, scaring away prey and causing injury to any who attempted to remove it.
Tssk! Trust peasants to not know a dragon when they see one. He thinks, but he doesn’t say that. Peasants don’t deserve to know how he feels about them. He’ll let them know where they stand by the force of his actions and leave with a hefty reward to boot.
It doesn’t take him long to prepare. He travels light and alone, only taking time to sharpen his blade to a deadly edge before he’s ready. He listens for the dragon’s location before he finally sets out at dusk, planning to return with a dragon’s head.
Bakugou pauses as he comes upon a clearing. A deep scar of ash tells him the dragon had already been here and the residual heat tells him it wasn’t long since they left. Oh, this was almost comically easy. Really, this is barely even a challenge. Come on Lizard-Brain, let’s get this over with.
Bakugou continues walking, following the trail of snapped trees and burnt foot-prints until he comes upon him. A tail thicker than a man’s torso swings dangerously around as the beast turns to him, revealing a form larger than most houses. Flaming eyes set in a head of razor-sharp teeth watch his every move, understanding immediately the threat Bakugou poses. Dragons are uniquely gifted in seeing the magic that flows through any living beings’ veins and Bakugou knows well what the dragon sees in him. The boiling magma of fire magic. Scales the colour of hot coals brighten to an almost white-hot intensity, crackling with power as flames begin to seep from the dragon’s maw. A rumbling growl pushes through the silence and Bakugou smirks.
“So you understand, huh? That’ll make this simple then.” He unsheathes his blade. A simple click of one hand and the oil along the blade ignites, the flames painting his body and grin in harsh shadows and points. To any observer, it would look like they were both monsters. “You’re mine, dragon!”
With that, the dragon’s jaw open and Bakugou charges forward.
Months later, Bakugou is lying on his side, cape curled tightly around his body to chase away the thin, deathly fingers of the winter cold. It doesn’t help much, but it’s better than nothing. Or at least, that’s what he would be thinking if he hadn’t recently come into possession of the most dangerous living furnace in the land. Bakugou shifts to hide a shiver and grumbles internally.
Where the hell is the Lizard-Brain anyway? I told him not to move more than half a mile from me. He’d been stuck halfway between sleep and wakefulness for the past hour now and he’d seen hide nor scale of his servant. Bakugou knew the dragon wouldn’t have run though. It was a law among dragons that they never broke their oaths of loyalty, or at least that’s what he’d always been told.
Just as his eyes begin to drift closed again, his question is rudely answered by a shouting voice approaching him, followed by the heavy sounds of something being dragged.
“Bakugou! Bakugou, wake up!” Kirishima’s voice is cheerful, overly familiar and loud. Bakugou cracks open one eye to see his servant dragging a bison’s carcass into the clearing. The seared smell of cooked skin and deep gouge marks along its flank tell him all he needs to know about what Kirishima had spent the past hour doing. The shifter even has the gall to look proud, sharp teeth set into a grin and tail waving happily behind him as he drops the kill into the centre of the clearing. Bakugou snarls, shifting into an upright position. His cape loosens from around his body, but Bakugou refuses to move it again as both eyes lock onto Kirishima’s.
“Scales for Brains, are you fucking deaf or something?” When Kirishima opens his mouth to confirm the negative, Bakugou cuts him off with a growl, “Because you don’t seem to be fucking listening to me. I told you not to go hunting without me. Ever.”
Kirishima holds his mouth open for a moment, thinking and then clicking his tongue like Bakugou’s point was anything new. It wasn’t. Kirishima grins and paces forward, muscular arms drawn behind his back in a long stretch that nicely flexes his biceps. Shit.
“Well hey, I just thought you’d like to wake up to food seeing how the cold apparently makes you even more bitchy than usual, Blasty.”
Bakugou starts. “You want to say that again Lizard Breath? I’ll fucking kill you.” Bakugou almost reaches for his blade before he remembers he placed it away from him before he’d slept. A quick glance tells him it is now lying near the burnt-out firepit from the night before. Immediately, regret sinks in. Not wanting to back down, he bares his teeth in a sneer and continues. “If I remember correctly, you’re my servant. You do what I fucking say. And that includes calling me ‘Master’!” He hopes Kirishima’s grin will drop, but his words provoke the exact opposite result. Kirishima laughs, loud and deep. “You think that’s funny, shit head?” Bakugou roars.
“Huh? Not at all Bakugou.” Kirishima drawls, pulling every syllable of Bakugou’s name over his tongue like it’s a spell. Before Bakugou can speak again, the space around Kirishima starts to crackle as his bones shift and grow, the tattered travesties he calls clothes fading into scales. By the time he finishes his approach, he’s in full form. “I just find it so cute,” he continues through their mental link, “that you worry about me so much.”
Fuck it. Bakugou moves for his sword, but before his fingers can graze the pommel, Kirishima surrounds him. He curls his form around him in a semi-circle, squashing his sword underneath his tail. Bakugou may be strong, but even he knows he can’t lift Kirishima’s tail if he chooses to be stubborn about it. It also doesn’t help the bastard is immune to his magic.
Warmth floods the air around him as Kirishima’s body heats it by merely existing and Bakugou bites his tongue to prevent a small sigh of satisfaction. Instead, he hisses and straightens his back, not daring to move towards Kirishima’s warm, vulnerable stomach. It’s just like a dragon to feel so overconfident. He glares into one of Kirishima’s huge eyes, raising one brow into a perfect arch.
“You were shivering.” Kirishima answers the non-verbal question, “I owe it to the human who spared my life to make sure he is warm and well-fed.” Kirishima leaves it at that, either thinking that was enough for his actions to make sense or not wishing to explain further. Bakugou wouldn’t say they disliked each other. It was more that this was a new stage to their already strange partnership.
“Whatever. Know your place, stupid dragon.” Bakugou grumbles.
Sometimes, he regrets ever bringing Kirishima under his banner. Sure, having a dragon to aid him turned out to be a major boon to his reputation across the continent, but it came with its downsides. Having to deal with said dragon’s personality was one of them.
Kirishima chuckles, though in this form it comes out as short huffs. “Of course. Now, let’s eat!”
A few minutes later, Bakugou is tearing into his meat while Kirishima licks off the burning fat that is still drips from the foot he cooked it on. If Bakugou wanted any sort of conversation, he’d remark how similar Kirishima is acting to a cat. But he didn't, so he stays quiet. As he swallows another bite, lethargy seeps into his once cold body and he shuffles slowly towards Kirishima’s belly. He ends his short trip by leaning onto it, letting his muscles unwind slightly. Kirishima's belly is softer than the rest of him in this form and he doesn’t mind the rumble that echoes from within it and into him. He looks up to see one eye staring at him.
“What?” he demands. “This is my fucking food dragon, eat your own.” He moves the meat closer to himself, taking another bite while staring right back.
Another rumble. “It’s not that. You’re an interesting human, Bakugou. You’re not afraid of me at all. Most humans run even from the sound of me, but not you. I was curious why.”
“Hah, that’s easy.” Bakugou barks out a laugh, pointing one finger directly at Kirishima’s eye, which sports the only remaining scar from their encounter. “Because you’re not scary, Lizard Breath. I beat you once, I can do it a thousand times over. Even on my worst day. But, lucky for you, you’re mine. So, you don’t have to meet my steel as long as you listen to me.” They both pause at the end of Bakugou’s speech and Bakugou settles with his food, confident he’s once again declared his authority. Then the bastard starts laughing. He laughs so much that Bakugou has to pull away from his stomach to prevent it fraying the edges of his cape. “What the shit!”
Slowly, Kirishima stops and lays his head down, completing the circle around Bakugou. From this angle, Bakugou could almost think the dragon was looking up at him in awe.
“You are a very interesting human, Bakugou! I’m glad you let me travel with you.” Another shiver convulses through Bakugou, though he refuses to admit it’s of a different kind than before. He hates dragons.
“What-fucking-ever. Now let me eat in peace, Kirishima.”
Kirishima seems happy to leave things at that.
If less than an hour later, Bakugou is dozing peacefully against Kirishima’s stomach, Kirishima swears he’ll never tell. He simply covers them with his wings and lets Bakugou rest. He can just let his ‘Master’ think it was his idea to travel at night.
It’s not long after that they meet the reason why Bakugou doesn’t like Kirishima travelling alone. Along a mountain pass into the next kingdom, they meet a band of Nomu, who brace for attack as soon as they see Kirishima’s tail. A shifter demands a high price in any place and the head of a well-known barbarian couldn’t hurt either. Not like they had the intelligence to process that thought. While Bakugou expects the Nomu, he doesn’t quite expect the magic user. Kirishima jumps into the fray, tearing in with claws and daggers. He moves too far into the horde and as he goes to transform, his body is contained in a dark prism, preventing him from moving, and thus shifting. Kirishima roars, elongated claws scratching at the sides of his prison in an almost blind rage. A man, covered head to toe in blackened scars and tattered robes, splits the crowd of bandits, focusing on Bakugou. Dabi.
“I’m surprised it took so long to find you.” Dabi’s scars pull taut around his mouth as he gives a poor facsimile of a friendly smile. “Now, would you be willing to make this easy on us, or do we have to watch you struggle before you die?” The Nomu lean forward, gnashing serrated teeth, cutting off the path between Kirishima and Bakugou with their useless bodies.
Bakugou sneers. Who the fuck do they think he is? “What do you think, you roasted asshole?” He clasps the hilt of his sword and loosens it from the sheath. “You’re trying to take what’s mine. No-one touches the Barbarian King’s property and leaves with all their fingers.”
Kirishima, still trying to escape Dabi’s hold, gives Bakugou a brief yet meaningful look. There’s a lot of them. He knows that. He doesn’t care. No-one touches the dragon except for him.
Dabi’s smile drops into a thin line. Purple flames light from his palm. “Fine. I’ll send the One True King your regards, Pretender. And your ashes.”
The Nomu howl and run forward as Bakugou pulls his sword.
They can try.
At times like this, Bakugou regrets ever letting Kirishima convince him to talk to more people. He was fine alone and now here he is, lying bloody and broken in the middle of a blackened battlefield, fighting a war he shouldn’t ever have been involved in. And all for some magicless nerd who didn’t even want to be a King.
Bodies of Nomu and men lie around him. Charred, cut open and slain. In front of him, an army more of them wait, licking disjointed jaws at the thought of his fall. All more fools are they. The nerd’s party has already taken the opportunity to sneak around them and bring the fight to the One True King himself. This war will be over and if that new world of hope needs to be built atop his corpse… he can find some peace in that.
He sees through the one eye not blinded by blood that the archers behind the Nomu are raising their bows. If he’s going to die, he’ll die like a hero. As the archers light the arrows, he shuffles into a kneeling position, what’s left of his shattered blade sinking into the damp mud.
Bakugou closes his eyes.
The arrows fire.
At first, he mistakes the bellowing roar as the sounds of the storm of arrows. That is, until he feels a familiar rush of comforting heat surround him. Arrows that should pierce his skin instead bounce off leathery wings. Some pierce into it them, but Kirishima doesn’t complain. Instead, he shouts into Bakugou’s mind.
“Bakugou! Bakugou, wake up! You better not be dead!”
Bakugou groans, rasping through his dry throat screamed hoarse. “Are you fucking deaf, Kirishima? I thought I told you to leave.”
A rumbled sigh answers him and Bakugou is only a little ashamed when he considers how much he made Kirishima worry.
“No, Bakugou.”
“I thought I told you to leave?” Bakugou shouts though the pain in his throat forces him to splutter at the end of it. “I ended our fucking contract. We’re done, you can be free to do whatever the hell you want now.” His hands tremble as he sucks in air for the next few words. The words he’d told Kirishima when he’d left on this suicide mission. “You’re no longer mine.”
Kirishima huffs and if the straits weren’t so dire, Bakugou might have thought it was a laugh. “I won’t ever leave what’s mine, Katsuki.” Kirishima’s wings tighten around him. “You taught me to be selfish with the things I like… to protect them…” Bakugou isn’t given time to fully grasp those words before he hears the sounds of the Nomu approaching beyond the safety of Kirishima’s wings. Kirishima’s voice drips challenge now and Bakugou can imagine his pointed grin even without seeing it. “Now, how about we win this war?”
Bakugou, despite himself, laughs. Bracing himself on his sword, he stands up. “Tsk. Sure. Let’s fuck ‘em up, Eijirou.”
“With pleasure.” Kirishima flexes his wings and the arrows fly out, a wave of heat travelling with them as they fly into the incoming horde of Nomu.
They both roar to the sky, determined, whether they live or die, to do it together.
It was touch and go for a while, and Bakugou will swear forevermore he died at least once. As he opens his eyes, he finds himself in a medical tent in the Capital of Musutafu. Kirishima sits on a stool by his bedside in human form, watching him with keen interest. Well, that’s nothing new.
“Hey there, Sh’tty Hair.” Bakugou slurs, tongue addled slightly by the powerful potions and spells he is under. “Wha’ you doin’ ‘ere, ‘uh?”
Kirishima tries his best to frown, but the illusion is shattered by his twitching lips and glassy eyes. “I should punch you right now…” He takes a deep breath, but Bakugou doesn’t miss how it shudders. “I thought I was going to be too late to save your dumb butt from dying a pointless death. You almost…” His voice trails off and if Bakugou was capable of feeling any pain right now, his heart would be breaking. He’d royally fucked up.
“’Ey…” he raises one hand with difficulty and places it on Kirishima’s cheek, rubbing soft circles into the proto-scales that line the edges of Kirishima’s face. “I’m sorry. Shoulda asked you first…”
“Ask me if you could die, Katsuki?” Kirishima tries to sound angry, but he just leans into the touch instead. “What do you think I would say? Obviously no. You don’t get to die. Not as long as I’m still here.” Kirishima grabs Bakugou's remaining hand between his, worrying it gently between his claws. It’s soothing, despite the danger of it. Maybe because of the danger. Without danger, there’s no need for trust to grow.
They stay like that, letting each other feel before Bakugou needs to say something.
“So… what’s our new fucking King called himself then?”
Kirishima smiles for the first time today.
“Constitutional Monarch… and he’s Deku the First.”
“You’re fucking kidding me?” Bakugou’s eyes widen and his jaw splits into a grin. “He really took on that stupid nickname as his royal title? Oh, I’m never going to let him live this shit down. Never.” He starts cackling before the violent movements twinge something and he coughs to a stop. “Shit.”
“Calm down.” Kirishima places both of Bakugou’s hands down by his sides and straightens him out. “You’re still pretty rough right now.”
“Who the fuck do you think I am, Lizard Brain?” Bakugou snarls, pretending he’s just being tough and not pouting because Kirishima’s no longer holding his hand. This dragon made him too soft. “I’m the greatest Barbarian King there ever was or will be. I could take you down a thousand times on my worst day! I can handle a fucking broken rib or tw–”
He’s shut up with a kiss. Full-bodied and warm like the sweetest mead. He settles down, letting Kirishima card his fingers in his hair and direct everything. He doesn’t mind not being the best right now. He just wants to be touched and held and reminded that this is all real. He wants Kirishima. Eventually, breathing becomes an issue and they separate, though only by a hair’s breadth.
“I love you,” Kirishima purrs, little thrums echoing from his throat. Maybe it’s the medicine, but Bakugou can’t resist.
“You a dragon or a shitting cat, Eijirou?”
Kirishima frowns, softly punching Bakugou in the arm which causes him to wince audibly.
“Don’t ruin the moment, Katsuki. It’s rude.”
It was entirely worth it, but when Bakugou catches sight of plump lips and intense red eyes, his thoughts focus on more important things. He pulls Kirishima down by his jacket, kissing the daylights out of him as they both settle into this new world of peace. They whisper countless things to each other as the day wears on. Confessions and secrets and promises. At least a thousand times, they both say the two words most important to them.
“You’re mine.”
And at least a thousand more, they respond with two new ones never before spoken, but always meant.
I’m Yours.