Work Text:
The silence of their home was welcomed. A change from the busy noises of the outside world. This was the calm during the storm of being pro heros. Aizawa was huddled on his side of the couch, the left, and was sleeping soundly. His golden locket had found its way into his hair. Yagi could barely stifle a chuckle as he looked at his boyfriend. Aizawa’s breathing was soft and his body was relaxed. Yagi wondered what Aizawa dreamed about.
Yagi’s dreams were filled with fingers sticky with fruit, flowers in their hair, smiles on their faces. Lives free of pain, suffering, no dark clouds to ever hang over their heads. It was bittersweet, but sweet nonetheless. He had long since trained himself to only taste the sugar in things. Yagi slid on his side of the couch making sure not to cross the middle cushion. With the shifting movement, Aizawa softly opened his eyes.
“Yagi-san, how are you?”, he blinked before rubbing at his eyes.
“I’m fine; better now that you’re awake,” Yagi smiled easily.
Aizawa let out a soft hum and sat up straighter. The brunet’s face twitched a bit as he laid his hand, palm up, on the middle cushion. Yagi ran his fingers over the other’s hand before holding it gently. Aizawa seemed to relax more and more as the minutes passed. Soon, the younger man was once again asleep. Yagi looked down at where they were connected. Hand holding was their thing again since Aizawa realized that hugging was a lot harder than he thought. Yagi Toshinori didn’t mind a bit. The warmth that spread from his hand to his heart was welcomed. Appreciated. Craved. Yagi understood why Aizawa was apprehensive; spending your entire life watching others obtain something you could never have. Having the object of your dreams dangled in front of your face. What was the point of reaching when you knew it could slip straight through your fingers?
If they never grabbed it then it couldn’t be taken away.
But..
Aizawa was reaching out nonetheless. It was more than what Yagi deserved. Yagi was old, washed up, nowhere near what he once was. What he could be. He was a ghost, a husk, the cracked and decaying foundation of a world he stood just outside of.
Yagi rubbed his thumb across the palm of Aizawa’s hand.
“Your hands are so warm,” Aizawa’s sleepy voice hung in the room.
The brunet’s hand curled around the thumb in his palm. For a moment they sat like that. Then, Aizawa sat up slowly and let the other’s hand go. He stretched—bones popped with a sound that shouldn’t be made at thirty-one—and sighed before taking Yagi’s hand. He gave the hand a small squeeze before leaning back.
“What would you like for dinner?”, Aizawa asked as he looked at the other.
“Salmon and fried rice please,” Yagi allowed a smile to cross his face.
One thing Yagi learned about the Erasure Hero was that he enjoyed helping others (a given truly) and cooking. Something that seemed to increase tenfold once they started dating. After a particularly heated argument, Aizawa spent four days reading about the process of a gastrectomy. Then, another two days figuring out foods that his boyfriend would like. It was on the seventh day of radio silence that Aizawa entered the teacher lounge with several bentos in a lunch box. “
That was nearly a month ago. Now, Aizawa spends his Sundays prepping breakfasts and lunches for the two. Plus several smaller meals for the retired on hero. For dinner, they take turns picking foods.
They’ve both put on some weight. Yagi was certainly appreciative of Aizawa’s growing muscles. Aizawa was simply happy that Yagi was starting to look healthy again.
Yagi came from his thoughts as the smell of marinated salmon filled the sitting room. Yagi left the room and began to set their table. Originally, Yagi lacked the amount of dinnerware needed to accommodate his boyfriend and his new work friends. Aizawa was more than happy to give him their mother’s dining ware. Which had been sitting in storage since the moment he became an underground hero. “Too sentimental to replace if he ever had to abandon his apartment” was the title given to the items hidden in the storage locker.
The dinnerware set was a mix-max of colors but an odd coherence. They all featured the same delicate brush strokes of gold around the rims and throughout the rest of the design. They were all brought from the same artist, perhaps it was their signature in a way.
Yagi’s musing on dinnerware was cut short as Aizawa came in with their dinner. A bridged tray was sat on the table. The salmon was fragrant, marinated in whatever Aizawa had brought from the grocer and plucked from their garden. Yagi watched with barely contained excitement as he watched his lover pour their tea. Since starting his new diet, his appetite had returned. Not that a normal person would be able to ignore the allure of Aizawa’s cooking.
“Here--”, Aizawa slid over a cup of tea.
“Thank you,” Yagi answered softly.
Their dinner was eaten in companable silence. Yagi felt jealous of himself. Able to enjoy a quiet and delicious meal beside his love. An evening fitting of a retired hero. Moments like these allowed him to pretend that evil no longer existed.
Nothing mattered beyond the press of Aizawa’s fingertips.