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He didn’t know what made him get out of bed at two in the morning.
But the feeling that washed over him when he stepped into the hall from his room was so strange he had to continue, it was as if there was a gravitational pull, perhaps a silent call or a gentle whisper from that of a spirit, urging him to move his feet forward. He had an excuse for himself in case he felt stupid for finding there was nothing to see, he would simply tell himself he needed to get water to brush off his own mild humiliation, which he was strongly preparing for.
He shivered slightly at the chilly temperature in the building and made it down the stairs. Subconsciously, he changed the way he walked immediately, taking more careful and silent steps, though he didn’t know what for—
And then a halt.
Shouto paused quickly, shoulders tensing to the point it made his neck ache when he heard a sound from the common room he’d just stepped foot in, then another one, similar. It sounded like light sniffling, a shuddering breath… Someone was crying.
His first thought was Midoriya, but somehow he brushed it off as quick as he thought it.
He couldn’t think of anyone else and he didn’t want to see who it was, as he would be of no use. He had no idea what to do when a person shed tears. That was Midoriya’s job ironically. And still, no matter how hard or how long Shouto watched Midoriya easily deal with other people’s emotions, he couldn’t do it himself.
So he kept his arms stiffly at his side and carefully turned in the other direction.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Shouto blinked a few times. Was that Bakugou?
Shouto shook his head in ridicule at his own thought. There was no way Bakugou would be sitting on the couch of the common room crying his eyes out. He had to have been past typical levels of exhaustion because—
“Look, if you’re gonna go can you just fucking get out already?”
Shouto pretty much choked when he realized that voice did, indeed belong to the one and only, Bakugou Katsuki.
The shock came in when he realized his voice was choppy and croaky and watery. Shouto turned around again; He couldn’t see much of the ash blond, especially since he sat in the dark, but his face was in his hands and the tip of his ears were flushed which was quite a clear sound if the quiet cries and broken voice hadn’t given it away already.
Shouto parted his lips before he closed them again and then opened them once more.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He wanted to punch himself. He just should’ve run; He’d already established he wasn’t good at this stuff. “I was… Going to get a drink. Did, um, did you…?”
There was another sniffle, and judging by how watery that one sounded paired with how much his shoulders shuddered, he just shed a fresh batch of tears.
“I don’t fucking care.” His voice was quiet and he was heaving just slightly, obviously trying his best to hold it back.
Shouto nodded silently to himself before turning to carefully make his way to the kitchen.
He made two glasses of water.
One was placed on the coffee table in front of Katsuki, and one was held to his lips as he took a seat on the comfortable couch, silently.
Shouto didn’t bother to reach a hand over or pull him close or even speak comforting words. He had no idea what Katsuki needed to be comfortable when he was upset, but something told him that he didn’t want to hear anything. It'd most likely make everything worse.
So they sat there, Katsuki trembling, face in hands, and Shouto sipping his water, staring up at the ceiling thinking of nothing in particular.
And then the blond beside him spoke up. His voice was scratchy and raspy and low, “You’ve been through some fucked up stuff, right?” Shouto kept his gaze on the ceiling, somehow feeling the question was rhetorical. He didn’t move an inch even as Katsuki continued, “...The scar and your— pathetic excuse for a dad… You still think about that shit?”
Okay, interesting.
Shouto took in a breath and finally shifted, pulling his brows after setting his glass of water down in front of him.
“Yes. A lot. Too much, I suppose.” He turned to Katsuki, pulling his lip between his teeth. “Not on purpose—I don’t do it on purpose. It’s random, but a lot. So it’s more like I haven’t stopped thinking about that stuff.” His voice went quiet and he turned his head away, feeling the urge to apologize. He held himself back.
“It follows you.”
Shouto tilted his head and nodded. “Mh… It follows you.”
“That's so shitty," Katsuki threw his head back into his hands and kept his mouth shut after having spoken the words.
Shouto blinked and once again, nodded with a light hum. "Mh, yeah... It's pretty shitty." He repeated, tilting his head back to the ceiling.
He wondered what Katsuki was currently thinking or what he was going through that caused him to act so out of character. Never would he be caught dead in tears in front of Shouto. He'd actually expected Katsuki to immediately threaten to kill him if he told anyone or perhaps blast him out the building for even daring to take a seat next to him while he so clearly was having a hard time.
"Why doesn’t it go away?” Shouto sat up at the sudden and very quietly spoken words, staring at Katsuki. He was crying again and it looked like he was trying his best not to. “Just fucking go away. Shut the fuck up—shut up.”
Shouto almost said something multiple times, but he kept it in, unsure, confused, and wanting to approach the situation at hand with care. Katsuki was sensitive, everyone knew that. He never showed his emotions with… Tears, however. Not in front of him, at least. So he concluded what he was witnessing was the result of holding everything in for too long, whatever everything was, being unknown to Shouto.
He shifted closer to the teen, not touching him, still.
“What’s 'following' you?”
Katsuki shook his head, the back of his hands pressing against his eyes as his tears rolled down his chin and dropped onto the floor of the common room.
“Nothing.” His voice was rough. He sat up before leaning back on the cushions of the couch.
Shouto didn’t usually pry.
He never made an effort to get things out of people if they didn’t easily give him something to figure out the situation, but seeing Katsuki like this was… Upsetting.
Unsettling?
Seeing Katsuki so vulnerable and fragile and raw—he wasn't putting on an act or hiding anything with loud shouts or explosions or angry remarks, he simply looked defeated. Exhausted and drained, like he’d been fighting a battle for far too long and he was finally putting in his surrender. And that was just—just completely wrong.
Bakugou Katsuki did not surrender.
It was pulling something inside Shouto’s chest and dropping something heavy in the pit of his stomach. Whether the explosion-quirked teen wanted to acknowledge or admit it, his current situation was clearly a cry for help. And what kind of hero would Shouto be if he didn’t help someone falling apart right in front of him?
“It’s something if it's got you like this.” Shouto answered him, turning his entire body around on the couch to face him. he made a point to glance over the teen before looking back to Katsuki’s face, glossy, yet still hard red eyes staring back at his heterochromatic ones, “What is it?”
Katsuki's lips pinched, brows following as he scowled, turning his head in the other direction.
“I’m not telling you shit about anything. Fuck off.”
Shouto concluded he went too soft on Katsuki for just a moment.
Katsuki didn’t want to feel like he was being looked down on, seen as weak, or pitied. He was a man of pride and strength even in his weakest moments. He wouldn’t openly admit to struggling with something. He'd hold it in until he exploded at the tiniest poke. And even then, he wouldn’t accept help—he was stubborn like that. Shouto would have to try something different.
So, he sat back against the couch like Katsuki, resting his hands in his lap.
He took a breath, “Sometimes I can’t sleep. Or sometimes I get woken up by nightmares,” He sighed, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth again. “The nightmares start off as memories. And then they turn—transform into something worse. Sometimes I wonder if they’re turning into something that could have been if… Or something that would have been, had not…”
He smiled a little, “They’re annoying. And stupid. But they’re terrifying, too. It just... happens.”
Katsuki didn’t say anything, but when Shouto looked over, his left hand was at the front of his neck. Not holding it. Kind of just there, smoothing his fingers against the skin of it from time to time as he stared at the floor. His other hand, however… Shouto carefully reached over and closed his fingers around the wrist of his right hand on his lap.
“You’re trembling.”
“Has it gotten any better?” Katsuki ignored him. “The nightmares.”
Shouto nodded. “A little, yeah.”
There were a few beats of silence before Katsuki sighed and snatched his wrist away from Shouto's with another hard glare. Shouto simply sat back once again and kept his mouth shut.
“...Can’t get any damn sleep, either… fucking nightmares or whatever,” Katsuki was speaking under his breath and he kept his gaze elsewhere, but he was finally admitting to something he was struggling with.
Shouto sat quietly and stayed patient, watching Katsuki take a few deep breaths. He had to calm himself before talking about it, which wasn't a good sign. His fingers moved to circle his neck, lightly scratching at it.
“Feels... it feels so fucking real sometimes.”
“Your nightmares?”
The way katsuki frowned and nodded almost hopelessly made Shouto’s heart ache.
“It’s just the same damn thing every night. Then like you said, it gets worse, and it’s stupid, but I just—I can’t fucking breathe anymore. His hand is still—t’s still just there - and i can’t ever do shit—I—fuck…” His fingers got tighter and he turned his head away, pulling from the closeness Shouto was slowly working up to. He kept himself at the edge of the couch, face tight, “Nevermind. just fucking forget it, it's stupid. I'm so fucking…”
“Bakugou? Are you...?”
“Go back to sleep, Half N’ Half.”
Shouto shook his head, sitting up, “But what you were saying... It sounded like—”
“Just fucking leave.” Katsuki was raking his fingers through his hair, his leg bouncing anxiously, and sniffles getting louder, once again crying. “Just let it go. Forget it, I’m fine, alright? I'm fucking fine—it doesn't even matter.”
Katsuki sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“Bakugou…” He pushed himself off the couch and crouched in front of Katsuki, gently setting a hand on his knee to halt the bouncing.
Katsuki seemed too upset to make any kind of protest against Shouto’s actions, the split-haired male removed the fingers Katsuki had in his blond locks with gentle care, smoothing his own over his fingers.
“You don’t have to let any of it go… You really don’t. Not being fine doesn’t make you weak or pathetic. They’re all very different things. And I'm not leaving you. Not right now. It's fine if you have an issue with that and with me, I don't mind. But you’re… hurting. And you’re beating yourself up because of it. That isn’t something you should be doing.”
“Shut up," His response was weak and quiet. "You’re so fucking annoying.”
Despite the aggressive words, his tone sounded almost—well. Maybe Shouto really was tired, thinking Katsuki was beginning to sound grateful toward him.
They sat there in silence, Shouto looking up at Katsuki and Katsuki gnawing on his lip with a new stream of tears running down his face every time he blinked, staring back at Shouto.
Shouto carefully lifted a hand and ran his cool fingers gently across Katsuki's warm, pale face, wiping away the tears. It was a useless action. Katsuki looked like he was trying his hardest to keep them from falling, but it also looked like he was unable to stop them. Uncontrollable tears had never looked so beautiful. Everything about Katsuki’s vulnerability was quite beautiful to Shouto, actually.
The way his shoulder slumped in defeat, eyes going tired and lips bit chapped. He was completely raw and unfiltered, he was seeing Katsuki in a new light. Shouto wondered how many people got to see him in such a way— and who? He wasn’t trying to be creepy or weird. It just shifted his beliefs on Katsuki as a person, what he was capable of feeling. Strangely enough, up until then, Shouto had been under the misconception it wasn't much. He was realizing now, though, that Katsuku was…
He went to wipe at Katsuki’s face again, fingers wet with tears as he did so, and found himself blinking in surprise when Katsuki stopped his movements.
“Stop it.” The words were quiet, once again.
“You’re beautiful.”
Shouto hadn’t meant to say the words out loud.
They slipped. His shifted belief of Katsuki was that he was beautiful.
Shouto’s eyes followed the way Katsuki swallowed hard, parting his lips just slightly, and then he was leaning down, getting closer to Shouto until they were pressed at each other’s foreheads. They stayed there like that for just a few seconds, and then Katsuki ran his fingers through Shouto’s split-colored strands, pulling him close and pressing his lips to Shouto’s.
Shouto sat up and followed the blond’s movements, shivering at the cool wetness on his cheeks; Fresh tears.
Katsuki’s shoulders shuddered involuntarily, cries swallowed by Shouto’s lips as the split-haired teen cupped his cheeks which so much care it made Katsuki’s heart hurt— Shouto pulled Katsuki to his feet with him, pulling away from the salty taste of tear-stained lips and pressing his own together.
Katsuki looked wrecked.
He was absolutely a mess. Red rimmed eyes, face flushed, tired, and stained with thin wet streaks, his hair was matted and the corner of his lips pulled down in a pout. He was everything— he wasn't hiding behind bared teeth and narrowed eyes, and he was fucking gorgeous.
“I know your nightmares are bad,” Shouto told Katsuki, drawing his brows. “I’ll stay with you tonight.”
Katsuki’s glossy red eyes held hesitation as he seemed to be contemplating. Shouto didn’t care what he had to say, he would stay with him.
“Stay with me... Stay with me even after I’m asleep.” His voice was worse than before. Rough and scratchy, it sounded like his throat hurt.
It probably did. Shouto nodded, staring directly into his eyes as he sealed his promise with a soft press to his lips.
“I’ll stay even after you wake up.”