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Ah, sleep.
Going to bed after a long day of work, forgetting about your day and falling into the sweet embrace of almost-but-not-quite-death. Who didn’t love sleep? Probably a lot of people, but Izuku wasn’t one of them.
That wasn’t to say he’d rather sleep all the time, he always liked having something to do, but because his hands were so full throughout the day, he appreciated that moment when he finally closed all the blinds, turned off the lights, burrowed himself into his bedsheets and closed his eyes, prepared for a good night’s rest.
If his boyfriend didn’t have a different idea, that was.
“Hey...” Mirio’s voice broke through the dark abyss his mind had become, “Izuku?”
Yawning, he cracked one eye open, “Yeah...?”
He could make out the silhouette of the nightstand from here. Brushing the gathering tears in his eyes with one hand, he reached out with the other and turned on his phone. 1:00 AM, damnit. They were both supposed to get up early tomorrow. Not that he minded, but what could have Mirio wanted?
“What do we call those things we use to type words with again…?” His boyfriend’s voice was soft, close to hesitant, completely unlike the peppy and upbeat tone he almost always had during the day.
“Um…”
Izuku had almost blanked out at his question, what did they call…?
“Keyboards?”
Instantly, Mirio’s voice brightened up, as if he’d just found the answer to world hunger and capitalism, “Yeah, those! Why do we call them keyboards? I mean, shouldn’t actual keyboards be made of wood and have room keys on them?”
...Oh. Oh, no. This was one of those nights. Those nights when Mirio just couldn’t sleep, and instead of suffering in peace like a normal human being, decided to drag everyone around him to hell. And by ‘everyone’, Izuku meant himself, since that was who he was stuck with at the moment.
Ignoring him wasn’t an option, that would be mean, and not in his nature at all. It would be physically impossible for him to do so. But, if he continued humoring him, he would only go on and on, it was a lose-lose situation. He checked his phone again, 1:03 AM.
Goddamnit.
Hesitantly, very hesitantly, trying to vocally convey that they both should sleep, he asked, “Why are you bringing this up now…?”
“I-Dee-Kay,” Mirio sing-sung, as innocent as the Vault Boy, “I just thought of it.”
Mr. Toogata didn’t just think of things—well, okay, yes, he did, but not in the way he’d just implied. The little shit knew what he was doing, Izuku was certain of that. Desperately trying to sound as firm as he could, he insisted, “Go to sleep, Mirio.”
One second of silence, two seconds of silence, and a third second of silence. His stupidly beautiful mess of a boyfriend didn’t reply to that. Was that it? Was that finally it? Was he finally free? He’d better take the chance before it was too late. Hastily shoving his phone back on the nightstand, he pressed his face against the pillow, shut his eyes closed, and slept.
...Slept.
Sleep, damnit! Before—
“What if,” Izuku’s groan almost drowned out Mirio’s voice, “bike was just short for ‘Bichael’—”
How the hell could he hear the capitalization in that name?
“—and Mike is just short for ‘micycle’?”
Bicycle, Bike. Mike, Michael. Micy—
“Mirio,” he peeled himself off the pillow, turned around, and stared at his boyfriend, the blue dots of his eyes innocently meeting his gaze, “it’s too late for this.”
“I know,” he chuckled, “but just—hear me out, okay?”
“I am hearing you out,” Izuku reached forward, laid both of his fingerpads across what he thought were Mirio’s eyelids, and closed them. Tried to, at least, “and I’m telling you to go to sleep.”
“...Sheet music is just sound recipes.”
“And training schedules are just workout recipes.”
His attempt at a comeback clearly didn’t land, because Mirio then giggle-snorted, as if he’d said something ridiculously funny.
“Nuh-uh!” He shook his head, as certain as a toddler who knew their shit about the candy they wanted their parent to buy, “They’re more like a menu, get it? You circle through the recipes, instead.”
“Mirio,” he freaking pleaded, “please, go—”
“Hey, so I was reading something the other day—why do people hate fanfiction? I mean, historical fiction is basically that, but like, you gotta pay for it.”
“Because people hate everything they think is out of the norm.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Naturally, they fell silent then, because Izuku was just an expert at killing the mood, a lovely remnant from his middle school days. But it was fine this time, because that was his goal. He’d apologize in the morning, but for now, they just needed to—
“Our bones are wet.”
But his boyfriend, of course, was an expert at bouncing back from any killed mood and reviving it like a necromancer of shitposts.
“What.”
“If blood is circulating through our bodies all the time, then—”
“N—no, I get that, just… What.” He squinted, and tried to make out his boyfriend’s face through the darkness, as if that would somehow open the key to his brain and let see what in the absolute fuck was going through his mind.
Something about Izuku’s face must have been absolutely hilarious to Mirio, because instead of stopping or maybe, just maybe, falling asleep, he smiled wider. The only hints that he’d been lacking sleep were the bags under his eyes. If anything, he looked even more energetic now. Oh, no.
“Hey hey, have you ever realized that our belly button is just our old mouth?”
“I…”
Every single biology class he’d ever had flashed through his mind, and to say he wanted to go back in time and let Overhaul kill him was the understatement of the century.
“Do you think Adam and Eve had belly buttons? I mean, if they were the first humans made, and they weren’t born…”
Hm, maybe the League of Villains would do him that favor if he walked into their headquarters?
“How do you expect me to answer…?”
“Our nipples are older than our teeth.” Mirio whispered, as if he’d just had a spiritual awakening. Izuku was having an awakening too, but of a different kind, one that he’d had before and one that he did not want to have again.
“How many times do I have to tell you to go to sleep? It’s too late to give me an existential crisis.”
“The skin on your lips and your butthole are the same.”
Um.
“I’m sorry…?”
“Like, it’s the same type of skin, did you know?” Mirio stated as if that were some common knowledge you just shared with people on the daily, “When you lick your lips, you’re basically licking your second butthole. Or maybe it’s your first?”
Izuku Midoriya, Mr. Can-Deduce-Your-Entire-Life-From-How-You-Move-Your-Pinky-Toe, honest, to God, had no idea how to process that.
“So that means that if I—”
“Please don’t finish that sentence.”
He fell silent then, but Izuku could just hear him thinking. Even while burrowing his head into the pillow, and even with how little lighting there was in their bedroom, he could just hear the cogs turning inside Mirio’s pretty blond head while he figured out the perfect way to respond. Which is why Izuku, since he clearly couldn’t trust his usually-blessed boyfriend, stated once again for good measure:
“Don’t.”
This once, he succeeded in steering the conversation in another direction. But after a few seconds of silence, Mirio being Mirio, he just had to ask another cursed question.
“If you drank cyanide and peed it out in a cup, could you poison someone with it?”
Thankfully, he had an answer for this one:
“Cyanide activates instantly. You’d die before it could develop into pee.”
Mirio’s eyebrows furrowed then, he could see that even through the coat of metaphorical and literal darkness in Izuku’s mind and room. His boyfriend was considering.
“If you even think about doing that I’m putting my ashes into a super soaker and splashing you with them.”
“Izuku!”
He gave no fucks at this point.
“Gonna put the fun in funeral.”
“You sound like Tamaki!” Mirio chuckled, sounding like a strange mix between amused and disturbed. Good. That was his intention.
“Anyone can sound like Tamaki if they’re sleep-deprived enough.” Plus, he added mentally, I learned from the best.
Mirio humphed, cheeks puffed, “You can’t outdo me.”
“If it’ll get you to sleep then I will.”
That was a challenge he’d just presented, he realized too late. As his words invisibly lingered in the air, his heart sunk. He’d fucked up, he’d fucked up. Mirio’s cheeks unpuffed, not even a single hint of a smile was present. It was unnerving, too unnerving, more frightening than any villain or angry teacher he’d ever encountered.
Then, the corners of his mouth quirked upwards. Distantly, Izuku could hear the faint traces of piano notes. Mirio’s mouth continued quirking and quirking upwards, until it became a smile, then a grin, a grin that belonged to a maniac. Goddamnit.
“Hey, have you thought about the fact that the brain named itself?”
“Uh…”
“Did you know that water isn’t actually wet? You can use it to wet something, but in and of itself it’s not wet. It’s just water. Fire can burn things, but you can’t say it’s burned, right?”
“Um—”
“And I mean, when you actually think about it, the sky isn’t blue. If it’s only like that because of the sunlight’s reflection, then we just think it’s blue. Same goes for the sun itself—like, we see it as yellow, but it’s just a bunch of colors in one. Our sun is a chameleon!”
“I swear to God—”
“Isn’t the ‘I’ve got the power of God and anime on my side’ Vine kinda redundant? If anime was created by humans, and God created humans, then by proxy you already have the power of God on your side. You’d have the power of God times two.”
Silence. Complete, and utter, silence. Izuku didn’t respond, didn’t even breathe—he’d forgotten how to. His mind had become a black hole, absorbing all information, processing it, and then chucking in that little bin that only fed to his daily despair. He half-wondered how come an evil bear hadn’t abducted him into a killing game by now. Mirio had fallen quiet, too, now it was his time to be unnerved by his boyfriend’s silence. Waiting, waiting for his response.
And respond, Izuku did.
“I’m sleeping on the couch, bye.”
Right as he moved, ready to get up, Mirio jumped up and started waving his hands like a madman, exactly like how Izuku did whenever he was embarrassed, “I—I mean, it’s not like it’s important. The Bible is just the most famous RPF ever created. It doesn’t really matter—”
Izuku turned, and stared Mirio down, “Is that supposed to persuade me to stay…?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head, completely baffled. Only this buff version of Tintin, only him, “How, the fuck.”
Mirio reached forward, and wrapped his arms around his torso, hugging him tight, resting his head on Izuku’s shoulder. It had no right to feel as good as it did, “Sorry, please don’t go. I’m just messing around.” He whispered, and he sounded genuinely sorry. Izuku tried, tried his damndest to just keep looking forward, to not look at this hulking mass of a man that had an uncanny ability to win him over with his puppy dog eyes. Don’t look. Do not.
He squeezed his side, and Izuku sighed. Slowly, he looked to the side. Mirio’s blue eyes looked at him, shiny even in the darkness. His eyebrows were pressed upward against each other, mouth a thin line that curved downward. He looked sweet, he looked pure, he looked sorry and Izuku was doomed.
“Fine, I’m letting it slide, but I’m serious—we need to get up early tomorrow—”
“Technically today—”
“—so please, let’s just go to sleep.”
He laid his comparatively smaller hand on Mirio’s much larger chest, and his boyfriend nodded eagerly. He’d finally gotten through to him, it seemed, as he flew down to the bed and wrapped himself in the sheets like a mummy faster than Izuku could see. Chuckling, he shook his head and laid down beside him, pulling the bed sheets over himself. What was he going to do with him?
After another two seconds of quietness, mulling over whatever the fuck had led his life up to this point, Izuku spoke up again.
“We’ve done this before.”
“Yeah.” Mirio somehow managed to nod in spite of his caterpillar-like state.
“And we’ll keep doing it.”
“Yup,” He looked at Izuku, eyes that peeked through the sheets still shiny, “but you love me anyway.”
“Yeah, I do.”
He lowered the sheets, head becoming visible, hair adorably messed up, and winked at him, “Just like I love you~”
“Which is why we’re sleeping now, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. Night, ‘Zuku.” He reached forward and kissed his forehead. Izuku sighed softly, those never failed to calm him. He huddled under his chin, and closed his eyes. Mirio’s chest rose and fell, steadily, then softly. He wouldn’t mind going through this every night, if it meant he could sleep as comfortably as this.
Closing his eyes, Izuku slept. Tried to sleep, at least. Every element was there for him to fall asleep, but he couldn’t for some reason. Mirio was thinking again. He had a sixth sense for whenever that happened, it seemed. Especially on the verge of sleep.
He sighed, “What is it, Mirio?”
For a second, he failed to reply. Then, with a mild lilt to his voice, said, “Justice is always served cold, because if it was served warm, it would be just water.”
Silence.
“Get it? Just-ice...”
“I’m breaking up with you.”