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White light illuminated the room and gave it a pale glow that blurred at the corners of his vision. The air smelled clean, sterile, the blanket on top of his tingling skin was warm and soft as he shifted under its immense weight ever so slightly. Shouto blinked, slow and deliberate, and it cleared some of the mist clouding his vision. A bag hang on a metal pole by his head. Clear fluid dripped in a tube, which dripped to a thinner tube, which flowed in a needle and straight into one of his veins. He closed his eyes at it, rejecting it, searching through the smudges of his memory. A fire-quirk using villain. Screaming. Crackling of stone against stone as the walls closed in on themselves.
Searing pain spread from the base of his skull all the way to his forehead. He gritted his teeth until it was reduced to a dull ache on top of his head.
When he opened his eyes again, he noticed a figure shift in his periphery. He stood by the window showered in the same white light, slim, but strong-looking and wide, pale in the colors, but the uneven golden halo around his head made him glow brighter than the moon in the middle of the night's sky. Shouto's breath caught in his throat. He couldn't move his head against the odd pressure holding it in place, so with a weak, shaky hand, he tried to reach him. "Angel," he called out, his voice scraping the walls of his throat raw.
The angel whirled around and the narrow red eyes that caught his brought him to the ground again. They shone even in the absence of light, alternating from unbreakable rubies to molten lava as emotions fluctuated in their depths.
"I fucking wish," Bakugou snapped. His voice was rougher than the hillsides he loved to climb, "So I could personally drag your sorry ass to the pits of Hell."
Shouto's lips tugged at the edges. "No wonder you didn't have wings."
Bakugou leaned on the wall, cradling a casted arm against his chest. There were bandages on his face and neck, and probably in other places Shouto couldn't see, but it was his expression, hard like stone that had Shouto's blood run cold. He didn't speak. He waited; he waited for the torrent of words to come.
Moments ticked by in silence. A droplet of fluid slid down the tube.
Bakugou sighed right then and his shoulder relaxed. With three swift steps, he closed the distance between them and his height towered over Shouto's laying figure. He could see it in Bakugou's burning eyes before he heard it from his mouth — "You're a goddamned idiot."
Shouto winced at the acid in the tone. "What happened?" he asked.
"A flaming building collapsed on top of you and you almost fucking died. That's what happened, moron."
Hints of memories tickled the corner of his mind, but the aching of his head wouldn't let him entertain them. Shouto narrowed his eyes and sought out to assess the damage, only to realize again that he couldn't. He glanced up at Bakugou again. "I can't move my head," he said.
Bakugou huffed. "You're in a collar because you almost broke your cervical spine. Your right arm is in a cast because your radius and ulna were shattered under debris." Then, through clenched teeth he added, as quiet as the night, "You were comatose for four days."
Shouto then saw it; the raw pain ceasing the features of Bakugou's face. He was never one to understand the words coming out of Bakugou's mouth, his mood changes and whipping snaps, but he could always seek out their source on his body — on the way his shoulders trembled, on the fluctuations of his voice, on the way tears made his eyes swim in their sockets. With a steady hand, he reached for Bakugou's good one and gripped it tight in his. "You were worried," he said.
It earned him a caustic, humorless snort. "Fuck you think?" Bakugou retorted and he squeezed Shouto back, hard enough to break him without actually doing it. "We both were."
"Where is he?"
"Sleeping on top of you." Bakugou motioned with his chin. "It's the only time he has actually slept since then. He didn't break anything, but he fucked up his hands and arms tearing through debris to find your sorry ass."
Shouto let go of Bakugou and sought out the mop of red hair. He threaded his fingers with it as soon as he found it, splayed right on top of his stomach and weighing him down instead of what he had thought of as blankets. A shaky breath escaped his mouth. He was alive, he realized, he was alive because of them. "Thank you," he whispered.
The mattress next to him withdrew and the bed creaked under Bakugou's additional weight. With his back to the white moonlight, his face was deeply shadowed, edgier than usual, every worry-crease accentuated. The bandaids were three, Shouto noticed then; one above his brow, one across his jaw and one under his chin. He closed his eyes, waiting. A pair of lips then touched his, the touch so light it was almost not there. "Don't thank us," Bakugou murmured, "Just never do it again."
"I won't," Shouto promised.
Bakugou kissed him harder to seal it as one. Tongue on tongue now, Shouto could taste the despair pouring out of Bakugou's body in tidal waves and he gave it all back one hundred times more, to give him some comfort. Bakugou grunted and his teeth scraped Shouto's bottom lip and Shouto moved his broken arm, slightly, careful not to hurt Kirishima, and spread the tips of his fingers that jutted out of the cast over Bakugou's heart. The pulse that thudded against him made his own pulse quicken. It was always like that with Bakugou. An earthquake, rattling him from the inside out.
Just when Shouto's mind began to float, Kirishima started to stir on his stomach. He drew a deep breath and pushed his face in the fabric of the blanket, followed by a hoarse grumble and a hefty exhale. Bakugou heard him too because he withdrew his tongue from Shouto's mouth and straightened up. His gaze fixed over his shoulder, eyes softening at the corners.
"Katsuki?" Kirishima's voice drawled. A gasp then echoed and a face Shouto knew all too well sprang into his limited line of vision. "You're awake!" Kirishima exclaimed, "Thank God!"
Circles dug underneath his eyes, deep and dark, wounds on his top and bottom lips and a bandaid across his cheekbone where his quirk had probably failed him in overuse. Kirishima, too, welled up with tears as soon as Shouto mustered up a smile, and he barely caught some with his thumb before they spilled. "You'll ruin your bandaid."
"We were three minutes away," Kirishima whispered shakily, "After you sent out your location to our agency, me and Katsuki were three minutes away." A punch, a tenth of Kirishima's usual strength landed on Shouto's chest, knocking the air out of him in a whistle. Kirishima's tears kept spilling. "You reckless bastard."
Shouto exhaled through the nose. His throat was tight when he tried to speak next. "They told me there were people in the building. It was on fire. I can handle fire."
"You can't handle a ten story building falling on top of you though!"
A hand clenched on Kirishima's shoulder and both their heads snapped at Bakugou's direction. He wore one of his usual scowls. "Give it a rest," he hissed, "Already told him he's an idiot."
Kirishima held Bakugou's gaze for seconds, and finally, with a noisy exhale he removed his weight from Shouto's chest and sat back on the mattress. Bakugou bent over, fiddling the something on the side of the bed until the bed began to whir underneath him, half of it shifting Shouto to a sitting position. Then, Bakugou, too, took a seat next to Kirishima, but on the opposite side of the bed. He handed him a handkerchief. "Wipe your snot," he chided, "You look ridiculous."
Kirishima pouted and waited without moving, and Bakugou rolled his eyes, pressing the handkerchief on Kirishima's upturn nose. "Fuckin' baby," he muttered. It earned him a sniffle and a grin beaming brighter and warmer than ice under the sun.
"Everyone was rescued from the building, no casualties reported," Bakugou added. He tossed the crumbled now handkerchief to the corner of the room and a smirk blossomed on his face — a sign that he made it in. Then, he turned to Shouto. "Our sidekicks scanned the area for twenty four hours."
"Katsuki arrested the villain," Kirishima continued, "He hunt him down and turned him purple with bruises. The arm you see broken, though, is 'cause he overused his quirk blasting rocks to find you."
Bakugou flicked him on the forehead. With his thumb, he pointed at the white bandages wrapped snugly around the entire length of Kirishima's arms, disappearing under the sleeves of his white tee. "Like you were any better, shitfuck."
"Needless to say," Kirishima continued, rubbing the abused spot, "Recovery Girl was livid. She chided us both as if we were still in high school." He stared at Shouto pointedly. "She has some in store for you too."
"She was just being a prick," Bakugou reasoned. "If she's dealt with Deku, she has seen worse idiocy."
"She healed your spine, then operated on your bones. We should thank her after Shouto gets discarded." With his elbow, he nudged Bakugou on the arm, right where the asbestos white of the cast ended. "I'm talking to you too, Katsuki."
"Shut up!"
In the stillness of the night, a casted elbow pressed against a grinning cheek and the room shook with Kirishima's laughter and Bakugou's petulant growls. Shouto smiled, small as his eyelids drooped once, heavy as lead. "How come the hospital let you both stay until so late?" he asked.
Kirishima chuckled. Bakugou lowered his arm and smirked. "They didn't," he explained, "But no one can move him when he turns to stone and no one dares to pick up a fight with me."
Shouto laughed weakly. "Fair enough."
His eyes closed again and it was harder to open them up this time. Kirishima reached over at him with gentle eyes and pushed hair away from his forehead. "Feelin' sleepy? We can shut up."
"No," Shouto rushed to say. He leaned in when Kirishima's touch spread across his cheek, a thumb caressing him. "I'm just happy you two are here. That I'm here."
Bakugou and Kirishima exchanged a glance. "He did hit his fucking head," Bakugou said and they laughed. All three of them together.
"I'm sorry," Shouto then added, when the laughter died down. "For being careless."
Bakugou's gaze turned piercing and with a subtlety that didn't normally characterize him, he slid his fingers on top of Shouto's hand and lingered. Kirishima crawled over to kiss him, and Shouto knew, even without them speaking of the words, that he was forgiven. His chest moved easier now with each breath he took.
"You two are taking a break from work by the way," Kirishima said as he sat back. "I have arranged it be so. And before you yell Katsuki, I'm taking a break too — to take care of you two."
"I don't need to be taken care of, fuck off."
Kirishima wrapped his arms around Bakugou's narrow waist, pulled him flush against his body and nuzzled his cheek. "You certainly don't need to be taken care of," he cooed, "But I want to take care of you because I love you and you'll, this once, put up with my selfishness because you love me."
A few nuzzles, kisses and sweet nothings whispered above pouting lips and Bakugou's brow unfurrowed, his grumbling turned to a low petulant hum, and his complexion took the same color with Kirishima's hair. It was a mighty power the one Kirishima had — to melt the coldest of hearts, to smoothen out frowns etched deep into one's skin, to be the bright sun during rainy days. Shouto was as weak to that power as Bakugou, and he loved Kirishima for that the most.
"Alright, okay," Bakugou mumbled, "Shut up now, you manipulative bastard."
"It's gonna be great," Kirishima crooned. He dropped his head on Bakugou's shoulder. "Under unpleasant circumstances for sure, but at least we'll get to spend more time together. That's always a bonus."
"We can—" Shouto exhaled deeply, struggling to keep his eyes open. "We can finally go to Switzerland...to my family's winter house."
Bakugou stood up, slipping out of Kirishima's embrace. "Before that," he said, "You're going the fuck to sleep. Kirishima, you too — you haven't slept in days."
With a curt nod, Kirishima straightened his legs and crawled all the way up to Shouto's chest. The bed whirred alive as Bakugou pressed the buttons by the side of it, and Shouto was soon staring at the room's ceiling all over again. A weight pressed on his stomach again.
"You too, Katsuki," Kirishima then said. He tugged at Bakugou's good arm. "C'mon, join us."
"I'll crash at the chair. Three grown ass men won't fit on a hospital bed."
Bakugou disappeared from his field of vision and, blindly, Shouto reached for him. His fingers fumbled, then curled tight around fabric. There was a pull until it stopped. "Make us fit," he said.
Silence stretched. Had it not been for the shirt crumbled in the palm of his hand, Shouto would have thought Bakugou had sat on the chair and had fallen asleep already. Then slowly, Bakugou reappeared before his eyes, wearing an unfathomable expression and the bed creaked under their combined weight. A head landed on his shoulder, a casted arm thrown over his chest, a leg over his middle. Bakugou sighed.
"Why do I get talked into doing stupid things by two stupid idiots?"
Kirishima snickered in the blanket and Shouto smirked at the ceiling. Grumbling, Bakugou added. "If my good arm hurts in the morning, I'll break one of yours."
"Shouto's is already broken!"
"I'll break both of yours then, Shitty Hair!"
Shouto took a deep breath and nodded. "The curse of the Hand Crusher," he said, mostly to himself, "Can it be contagious? Katsuki, ask the doctors about it tomorrow."
Kirishima's rowdy laughter echoed in the room, probably across the hospital halls too, while Bakugou slapped his palm on top of Shouto's mouth and between stifled snorts, he ordered him to shut the fuck up. A joke wasn't in his intentions, but at a time like this, hearing their joy was the only remedy Shouto needed to the wounds his recklessness had caused.
He waited until their breaths evened out, until he made sure their sleep wasn't endangered by nightmares. When Bakugou, ever the fussy sleeper, finally stopped twitching, Shouto chanced a sideways glance at the room's window. The moon was gone and the sky was trying out the pastel colors in its palette. He then closed his eyes too and drifted off to a pool of pink, orange, blue and purple, with gold and red in the palms of his hands.