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Bakugou glares hard at his desk in his dark bedroom and mentally curses every person he can think of. Moving into the dorms had been a whirlwind of constant activity, people and talking. Way too much talking. It was all he could do to shut himself in his room to try and get some fucking peace and quiet. Turns out, his mind tends to be louder when everything else is quiet. So now he’s staring dumbly at the math homework, every trigonometric function he’s ever learnt falling out his ears and replaced by nothing but scenes he’d rather forget. Bakugou can’t say he’s surprised. He knows he has a tendency to fixate on things, so why should Kamino be any different?
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
The pencil he’d been holding drops onto the desk with a quiet clack and his hands card roughly into his hair, pulling harshly at the strands. He hates this. Why can’t he calm down? It’s too much, but why is it? He’s Bakugou Katsuki, the future number one hero! This shouldn’t affect him. Nothing should affect him!
Suddenly, Bakugou hears pounding at his door. His spiral pauses momentarily as his senses jump into overdrive. His head snaps to look at the door, but he remains silent. Enough that he can hear the various giggles coming from the hallway. With no response, the knocking continues and is now accompanied by a voice.
“Hey, Bakugou! We know you’re in there!” Fucking Pikachu. “C’mon, we wanna show you something!”
Bakugou glances at his alarm clock. 7:53pm. He should be finishing the homework and getting to bed. His attention goes back to the door when he hears the handle attempting to turn. He can hear Mina’s whine from here.
“Awh, come on Baku-bro! Why’d you lock the door? We don’t bite… much.” More giggles and some mumbled words. Was Kirishima there too? Fucking figures. As to her question, he’d locked it for exactly this sort of reason (and because he didn’t feel the threat of his presence afforded quite as much security as it used to).
Bakugou gets up and pads over to the door. He tells himself he’ll open it for just a second. To yell at them. The lock clicks open just as the handle turns again and suddenly four idiots fly into his personal space. Why were they leaning against the fucking door!?
“What the hell? Get offa me!” Bakugou pushes Kaminari and Mina off of him, who then push Sero and Kirishima with them. With a modicum of distance between them now, Bakugou sends a hard glare at them all. They must all be blind because none of them even flinch.
“Hey, Blasty!” Kaminari nigh yells, practically bursting Bakugou’s eardrums. “We missed you earlier! The movies stopped without you.” Bakugou had no idea why they would even think he wanted to watch movies in the first place. He didn’t get a chance to voice how little of a shit he gave before Sero chipped in.
“Yeah, so we thought we’d do a small thing with just us! Seeing you’re such a sourpuss when everyone else is around, we thought it’d do you some good to get acclimated.” Sero grinned dumbly (as he always does).
“I’m not a fucking pet, you dipshits! And who said I want to watch movies with anyone, huh?” He bares his teeth in a sneer, hoping that’ll convince them to back off. Instead, Kirishima steps forward, smile in place.
“Hey man, don’t be like that. Look, just come watch one movie with us, then we’ll be out of your hair.” Bakugou instinctually moves to twist the statement into an insult about Kirishima’s own dumpster fire hair. When their eyes meet though, he stops. Images flash of a hand reaching down for him. His mouth clicks shut. Bakugou hates when Kirishima throws those determined eyes at him. It makes him feel guilty.
Straightening out his spine, Bakugou rocks on the balls of his feet and growls. “Fine. One movie… one! You happy?” The group cheer and before Bakugou can even think, he’s being dragged out by four pairs of hands. Once he’s cleared the threshold of his room, the hands loosen, but they still hold onto him as they march down to the common room. The contact sends static shivers across Bakugou’s body and he considers shouting at Kaminari to knock it off with the quirk before he realises that’s not what this is. It’s the same feeling he gets when anyone touches him for more than a moment and there’s no battle to distract him. He grits his teeth. They don’t need to know that. The thought doesn’t stop his skin crawling.
When the group reach the common room, Bakugou sees they have made a complete mess out of it. The contents of 3 or 4 beds have made their way onto the floor in between the couches and the flat-screen TV. Sheets and duvets and pillows lie in no particular arrangement, though the intention is obvious. It’s a makeshift bed. Fucking sneaky bastards. Bakugou moves to sear holes through Kirishima with his eyes, but Kirishima just shakes his head and grins.
Finally, they all let go and Kaminari, Sero and Mina rush around to do various things. Kaminari throws a DVD into the player while Sero busies himself grabbing snacks from the ensuite kitchen and Mina plumps some pillows and sits down. Kirishima is left with Bakugou and just as Bakugou thinks he can get away and turns to leave, he feels the back of Kirishima’s hand graze his own. Electric shivers flood his system and it’s all he can do not to flinch.
“One movie. You promised…” Kirishima gently reminds him without looking at him. It's not a reprimand, but a request. Bakugou’s lips pull into a deep frown.
“Fucking whatever. Wasn’t leaving.” Bakugou pushes through the feeling everything is collapsing in on him and goes to the pile of sheets. He attempts to sit on the couch behind all the madness, but as soon as his butt meets the upholstery, he’s tugged unceremoniously by his ankles to the floor. He gets ready to yell at the punk who thought they could manhandle Bakugou Katsuki, but she just smiles at him.
“Bakugou, I’m disappointed in you!” Mina gasps mockingly. “You’ve gotta keep in the spirit of things!”
“Oh yeah,” Bakugou snaps back, “and what’s the ‘spirit of things’, Pinky?”
“It’s a floor party, so you sit on the floor, duh!” She proclaims like it's some freaking law or something. Bakugou gets ready to argue, but now Kaminari and Kirishima close in on him, taking their places on the sheets around him. Wait, he didn’t say they could do that! Sero walks in with a few candy bars and a bowl of freshly popped popcorn and vaults the couches with ease, jumping over the group and landing with a pose in front of them.
“Your hors d’oeuvres, gentlefolk.” He bows low and the rest of the idiots clap. Bakugou just hopes the popcorn didn’t go everywhere because he’s not cleaning that up. Sero takes the opportunity to sit close to Bakugou as well, just as Kaminari clicks the remote a few times and the movie’s title screen comes up. It’s an action movie. One Bakugou’s seen before. Plain and dumb, but a lot of decent special effects. It could have been worse.
“Okay, is everybody ready?” Kaminari holds a finger above the play button.
Everybody, except Bakugou, shouts in kind. “Ready!”
Kaminari doesn’t press the button as Bakugou expects though. Instead, he realises they’re all looking at him. He sighs deeply, grabbing a stray pillow and leaning into the couch.
“Do it, you dumbass.” There’s a soft click and the movie starts to play.
They’ve just gotten past the set-up of the plot (the standard, world needs saving, blah, blah) when Bakugou realises that his friends (he calls them that for mere convenience) have no sense of personal space. Each of them is too close, sides and backs and arms innocently keeping contact with his pyjamas. He would tell them to shove off, but the shivers have slowly started to coalesce into a pleasant buzzing sensation. His eye-lids are starting to feel heavy and he adjusts again, letting out a held breath. He tries to think of anything, but his mind is just filled with the buzzing and he realises he doesn’t mind that. So, he allows it. Only for now though, only for one movie. He can let himself relax for that long, right?
Bakugou wakes up slowly, head foggy and hands heavy as he looks around for a non-existent alarm clock. The room is dim and he can’t tell how much time has passed; only that it had been at least an hour. The DVD’s home-menu is stuck on loop, playing the same minute or so of audio quietly as images of the main characters pass and fade across the screen. Instinctually, he gets ready to blame his so-called ‘friends’ for leaving him. He’s got it all figured out. He’ll get up, cuss them out, turn off the TV – because apparently, they were too lazy to – and go to fucking bed. And no shitting way was he clearing up their mess.
As he gathers the will to stand, he finally registers the various weights draped on and across him and breathing decidedly out of sync with his own. Bakugou freezes, going rigid as his eyes flick from side-to-side, quickly taking in the scene.
Mina’s head has made camp on his right shoulder, the girl snoring softly into his ear as she leans her soft body heavily onto his arm. With her hands lying limply in her lap and her neck craned at an awkward angle, her position looks the most like it was accidental. She’d most likely fallen to the side when she’d dropped off, though Bakugou can’t help but be suspicious that she’d fallen on him rather than onto the nest of pillows right next to her.
Meanwhile, Kaminari seems to have a death wish. He’s curled up on Bakugou’s left leg, his head pillowed on his thigh and his hands wound tightly into his chest. Luckily, the bastard is quieter than Mina, only blowing out deep, even breaths. The relief is short-lived when Bakugou feels moisture on his knee through his clothes. He curses every god out there that the fucking drooler decided to sleep on him.
Sero is less bold, though somehow just as annoying. Rather than sleeping on top of Bakugou, he’s lying sprawled out like a starfish across the pillows and sheets. The top of his head presses hard into the side of Bakugou’s other thigh. One hand covers over both his calves, effectively completing the cage of people that Bakugou now found himself in.
Bakugou’s brain attempts to compute what he should be doing right now. A part of him – the part that pretends he hates any and all human interaction – tells him to jump, blow everyone up, go to bed and never speak to any of them again. But a small, intangible part of his psyche tells him to stay. To enjoy it. He needs this after everything he’s been through and maybe he’s just too scared to admit he wants it. Bakugou hisses under his breath. He’s never fucking scared. He raises one hand, pushing it above Kaminari’s head to execute his first plan of explode to kill when he hears footsteps.
Rage and surprise and a hint of embarrassment cause Bakugou to freeze again. Shit, shit, shit. Someone’s going to see this whole sorry scene and Bakugou’s reputation will go up in a puff of fucking smoke. Not like he cares what others think of him, but a future hero like him doesn’t need to be seen as a god-damn softie and—
His train of thought screeches to a halt when he sees Kirishima walk into the room, yawning, hair down and rubbing his eyes with his arm. Their eyes catch across the common room and suddenly everything is tense and heavy and Bakugou wants to say something, but he just can’t. Fortunately, Kirishima seems happy to take that choice away from him.
“They, uh… they really missed you, huh?” Kirishima points to the three bozos and smiles. Not the sneer of someone who wants to hold this above Bakugou’s head. Not even his usual glowing smile that attempts to brush everything off as being okay. It’s softer, smaller and unsure. For once, Kirishima is walking on eggshells around Bakugou. And Bakugou fucking hates it and wants it to stop.
“Yeah,” he grunts, forcing himself to relax and telling himself it’s fine if it’ll stop Kirishima being so weird. He thought they were okay after Bakugou paid him for the night vision scope and told him to go back to his usual self. Kirishima had loudly declared everyone should go to a barbeque and Bakugou thought that was it. So much for that.
The hand poised to blow Kaminari away instead lands in his hair and the Pikachu bastard has the nerve to snuffle happily before snuggling closer to Bakugou. Bakugou does his best to ignore it, though he can’t help but visualise Kaminari’s idiotic sleeping face as he turns to watch Kirishima some more.
Kirishima makes short work of the distance between the door and the couches, grabbing the remote from where it landed a good metre from the sheets and turning the TV off with a soft click. Bakugou blinks furiously to get used to the now pitch-black room and when he does he sees Kirishima walking towards the impromptu cuddle pile. He sits down on the only unoccupied space, close to Bakugou’s left side but with a clear bit of distance between them. He drapes his legs over Kaminari, who doesn’t seem to notice other than breathing another mumble against Bakugou.
“So,” Kirishima starts, though he quickly putters out and closes his mouth, the sentence hanging in the air. A few seconds of chocking silence float between them before Bakugou finally snaps.
“Kirishima, I thought we’ve already gone over how this awkward shit ain’t gonna fly with me?” Bakugou gestures between them with his left hand, too conscious of how moving his right one would affect Mina. Bakugou doesn’t want to know why that matters so much to him, or why he’s whispering. That involves things he doesn’t have the headspace for right now. Focus on the now.
Kirishima blinks owlishly at him like Bakugou has two heads and a forked tongue. “Uh, right!” He nods furiously when his mind blinkers back into functioning. “Sorry, it’s just…”
Bakugou doesn’t let the silence hang. “It doesn’t fucking matter.” He looks down at his feet and catches Sero shifting in his sleep, rolling towards Bakugou. His hand curls around Bakugou’s knee as he settles again. Bakugou must be exhausted because he can’t even summon the mental energy to be angry. “Just tell me what’s up with you Shitty Hair, before I blow it out of your skull.”
Kirishima chuckles and Bakugou doesn’t want to say the sound calms him like a mountain breeze. He’s always been good at lying. “Alright, you got me. It’s all just so weird, y’know? Everything’s been so big. You being gone, all that stuff in Kamino.” Kirishima pauses, likely to assess Bakugou’s reaction but when he gets nothing except a flat glare, he continues. “And then we come back and it’s like it was before… well, not really, but kinda?” Kirishima starts fumbling with his hands like movement can help him express what he means.
“Kirishima, if you don’t start making some fucking sense, I will throw both you and everyone else in this room out a fucking window.” Bakugou can’t help but get tired again. Emotional shit isn’t his wheelhouse, it’s way past his normal bed-time and the weight and warmth around him are lulling him into a sense of security he only barely realises he’d been missing.
“Right! Right.” Kirishima nods again. “Well, I guess what I mean is that… I missed you.” Bakugou almost chokes at the sincerity on full display in those words and Kirishima backpedals immediately. “U-uh, but I mean so did everyone else! Kaminari and Sero and Mina and Izuku—“ Bakugou growls and Kirishima switches tracks. “But the important thing is…” Kirishima pauses one last time and Bakugou is just about to explode before Kirishima nods to himself resolutely. “Welcome home, Bakugou.”
Bakugou doesn’t know how to process that statement. Home. His home? His face scrunches as he thinks over that word. It’s like a puzzle. Maybe if he examines it from every angle, he can see how that word fits into his jumbled shitstorm of a life. It’s a fruitless effort and he abandons it quickly. But the word remains, stuck in the corner of his mind where it seems determined to stay.
“Whatever.” He murmurs, avoiding looking at Kirishima. Kirishima is complete shit at hiding his emotions and Bakugou doesn’t think he can handle what he’ll see in those eyes now. “Just stop thinking so much about it…” They both pause and Bakugou continues. “I’m back, stupid.”
Bakugou doesn’t see Kirishima move but certainly feels it when he’s pulled into his chest and embraced like he’s the most valuable thing in the world. Bakugou opens his mouth to shout but turns to stone when he feels Mina fall into his lap, taking up the last free real estate of his legs. Mina snorts to life, eyes cracking open. She sees Kirishima hugging Bakugou, Bakugou looking like a caged animal stuck between the slaughter and the trap. She gives a dopey smile and mumbles.
“Just kiss already, you losers.” With that, she closes her eyes again and falls right back to sleep. Bakugou’s face, neck and ears burn bright pink and his hand tightens in Kaminari’s hair so much that the latter groans and moves a hand up to pat it clumsily. It doesn’t help, but it breaks Bakugou out his embarrassment long enough to relax again. Kirishima is already leaning away from him, looking like he wants to run. He stops him with a hiss.
“Oi, where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
“Uh, nowhere, I’m just—”
Bakugou decides not to overthink for once.
“You’re going to stay here and be my god-damn cushion if I’m not allowed to throw off these extras and sleep in my own bed.” Bakugou ignores the fact that he is completely allowed to do that. Kirishima stops moving and just hovers, still leaning half his body into him. Before long, another chuckle vibrates through his chest into Bakugou and he’s shuffling again.
“You didn’t have to add the ‘stupid’ part, Bakugou. That’s rude.” He shimmies closer to Bakugou’s side, grabbing a few stray pillows to shore up his back as he presses their sides together. Despite never having done this before, Bakugou follows the instinct to lay his head on the junction between Kirishima’s neck and shoulder and lean into his best friend. He doesn’t know if that’s really what they are now, but to his rapidly emptying mind, it’s as good a title as any.
“’s not rude if it’s true, dumbass.” His words are starting to slur into a pile of mush. Kirishima is warm and solid, but just yielding enough that Bakugou can sink into him. He hears a shuddering thud through Kirishima’s collar bone but ignores it. Bakugou doesn’t react much as Kirishima’s arm pushes around him, holding him around his waist and resting on his hip. He just falls harder into it, his right arm draping around Mina’s shoulder. Finally, the two of them settle. Their breathing starts to sync up, rising deep and even as their combined warmth acts as a perfect blanket. Bakugou would be fine to just drop off, but Kirishima isn’t done.
“Don’t ever get kidnapped again, you hear me?” Bakugou can’t see Kirishima’s face, but he knows he must be frowning. It isn’t a good look on him.
“Not like I fucking meant for it to happen.” Kirishima tenses and Bakugou sighs, goosebumps prickling in his breath’s wake. “I can’t promise that.” Those words are a fact and they both know it.
“Right.” It’s not like Kirishima to sound defeated.
“I’m sorry.” Bakugou doesn’t really know what’s he’s saying. If he did, he’d have chocked himself for apologising. But his words feel like they’re being said at the end of a long hallway and he can’t be assed to wake up enough to listen to them.
“Don’t be. Just…” Bakugou feels a calloused palm travel down his left arm, sliding over the top and then below until their hands touch on top of Kaminari’s head. “Promise me you’ll take my hand if that happens?”
Bakugou, a step away from unconsciousness, must find that hilarious, because he smiles into Kirishima’s skin. He mumbles a single word. Doesn’t even know if Kirishima hears it. He just falls into one of the most peaceful rests of his young life.
Izuku, Ochako and Iida walk briskly through the halls of the new dorm the next morning. School isn’t due to start for a few more hours, but the three of them thought it would be nice to meet up and have some quiet breakfast and talk over some stuff before everyone came around and things got rowdy again.
“So, do we know what’s going on in class today?” Ochako says through a yawn, rubbing her eyes as they approach the common room that leads to the exits.
“Besides the usual schedule, nothing has yet been announced,” Iida confirms, arms crossed as he thinks. He taps his chin with a finger before continuing. “But seeing as our Provisional Licence Exam is approaching, maybe something will happen with that?”
“Ooh, sounds fun… or scary. One of the two!” Ochako smiles and the two boys can’t help but follow her.
“It’ll be fine.” Izuku pumps a fist in front of his face. “Plus Ultra, right?” His friends mimic the gesture and they continue chuckling and making small talk as they enter the common room. As soon as they see what’s going on, they all freeze to the spot.
Mina, Sero and Kaminari are in much the same positions as the night before. Sero’s wayward hand has found its way into Kaminari’s hair while one of Mina’s is loosely holding the back of Bakugou’s hand to keep it in place around her shoulders. Bakugou’s hand. Izuku’s face blanches. Trailing up Bakugou’s right arm, he sees the explosive blonde is leaning heavily into Kirishima, who seems all too content to do the same. Bakugou’s face is hidden in Kirishima’s neck, but Izuku has known his Kacchan long enough to see when he is completely relaxed. For his part, Kirishima is softly smiling in his sleep, remarkably unbothered by the fluffy hair in his face. Finally, their eyes move down to Kirishima’s and Bakugou’s joint hands laying close to Sero’s on Kaminari’s irretrievably mushed hair. None of them stirs and simply sleep on, completely oblivious to everything except themselves.
Ochako’s eyes positively sparkle. “Oh my god! Phone, phone, I need my phone!” She whisper-shouts, rummaging through her pocket. She snaps a few pictures from various angles, sending them immediately to Mina, Kaminari, Sero and Kirishima. She would send them to Bakugou too, but she doesn’t have his number. Iida is staring hard at the ground, internally fighting himself over whether he should wake them up to tell them that this technically isn’t allowed by school policy. Izuku just stares at Bakugou, hemmed in by more people at once than he’d previously ever allowed to touch him in his lifetime. Okay, maybe an exaggeration, but it doesn’t make the sight any less extraordinary. Eventually, he finds his face splitting into a grin. He’s so uncontrollably happy, but he doesn’t want to wake his friends up just yet. So, he quickly gathers Iida and Ochako and moves them towards the kitchens where they can talk.
The silence and peace last for another hour or so before they hear Kaminari shout, waking everyone up and setting off a chain reaction which literally ended in explosions.
“What did you monsters do to my hair!?”
Well, so much for that.