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“Shouto.”
The voice was far away and loud at once, blasting in his head over the music. He felt his mouth stretch into a smile. He liked it when Katsuki said his first name - the way he pressed on the letters with his tongue, stomping sharpness and familiar intimacy. He was used to hearing it, and wasn’t that a kicker? Katsuki said his name all the time these days.
“Shouto, you feel dizzy?” Shouto shook his head no and swayed, a giggle bubbling in his throat, unrealized. There was a hand on his arm, steadying. He fell into it, not because he was dizzy, but because it was warm and familiar and Katsuki’s. And Katsuki was his.
“Hungry?” At that Shouto hummed and let his eyes refocus on a concerned scowl, some extremely frowny eyebrows, and eyes like unsettled blood, rushing. He encircled Katsuki’s neck with his arms and stumbled into him, nuzzling into his sweaty neck.
“Yeah.” He whispered, and made no other movement.
The arms that tightened around his body made him shiver and press closer. The music was loud and muted at the same time, he felt enveloped by the one scent that always made him stand at attention and then relax into it, like melting, a drizzle of caramel slipping down his throat and settling, making his mouth water.
“Let me take you home.” Katsuki's voice was going gruff, dropping low, and the shift made Shouto want to whimper. He would have, if they were home, or maybe he did because Katsuki was holding fast and tight and making a growly noise, a rumble in his chest migrating towards Shouto like a warning.
“‘Zuku.” He managed through his haze.
“Already sent him a text, though I doubt he saw it.”
Shouto considered him, head cocked to the side trying to remember what the thought swirling in his mind was exactly and how words were taped together to form a string of meaning.
“Why.” He settled, and Katsuki snorted and grabbed his jaw, which Shouto was fond of, so he let him.
“Fuckin’ clueless.” Katsuki moved his face towards a corner of the dance floor where Izuku was draped over a flushed Eijirou, barely swaying, clinging to each other.
Shouto let himself look, shifted around so he could lean back against Katsuki’s sturdy chest, ever solid and unmoving, his protection from the world. He grabbed his hand and dragged it across his own torso, Katsuki bunching up his shirt and pulling, ever possessive.
“They’re happy.” He observed.
He didn’t think he’d said it loud enough to be heard but he still got an answer.
“They’re fucking disgusting. Sappy shit.”
“Right in front of my salad.” Shouto added, doubling over in fits of laughter, and snapped back into standing tall by strong, sure arms that made his knees wobble. Just a little.
“Good thing they stopped being fuckin’ wusses, about damn time.” Katsuki added and Shouto turned around again, hands straying under Katsuki’s shirt and staying there.
“Normal people would say “I’m happy for them”.”
“Since when ar’we normal people?”
Shouto cocked his head and gave him a glad you asked look, before letting their mouths mash together, sloppy tongue kissing on the dancefloor of some underground club, just another couple blending into many in a multicolor array of light.
Shouto pulled back barely, still pulled into Katsuki’s orbit, forever called into the heart of it.
“Take me home, Katsuki.”
Katsuki’s answering grin sent him into a fuzzy haze, the room was spinning, it must have been, that’s why he felt lightheaded all of a sudden. Or it was just that smile - it always had sent him into a spiral, down down, and into breath-taking ascents, clawing to reach the top side by side.
Then he was being ushered away from the crowd, laughing and laughing as Katsuki pushed them along and kept him close enough that people couldn’t even brush against him.
His protection against the world.
The next morning he wakes up bundled in blankets - a replacement of warmth - and pads into the kitchen to slump against a sturdy back. Katsuki lifts his arm and lets Shouto slither inside his embrace as his free hand turns on the electric kettle. Katsuki reads the news on his computer, glasses slightly askew as he fiddles with the small hairs at the nape of Shouto’s hair, lulling him into an in-and-out of sleep state in his lap.
He doesn’t know how long they spend like that.
He just knows it’s never long enough.