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Some days were so much harder than others. There were plenty of times that Katsuki had broken down in his life. Despite what people might sleight him for he was a fairly emotional person. Anger was an emotion, something people often sincerely forgot, attributing “being emotional” to only sadness. But he was always filled to the brim with emotion and threatening to spill over, threatening to break and burst at the seams like a dam with structure failures and fractures under pressure. A lot of his meltdowns in his youth had just been seen as him lashing out in anger or screaming, usually both. Back then they often came with tears but what people didn’t see was the horrible sensory overload and the desperate scramble to make his stupid brain make sense. It was like there was a disconnect between what he wanted to say and what came out of his mouth. His thoughts always jumbled and manifested in physical and verbal tics that everyone read as aggressive. Everyone except Izuku Midoriya. Somehow that damn nerd had always stuck with him, even through the meltdowns.
Nowadays there was less anger present in his life. He still experienced it, still got and felt angry, but he felt it far less than he used to and could manage it a little better. Therapy was helping him immensely, assisting him in unlearning and relearning behaviors as well as developing better coping mechanisms to deal with it and channel it elsewhere. But in the face of overwhelming emotions, be they anger or otherwise, the tears of his youth still persisted and the meltdowns were no easier to deal with as an adult than they had been when he had been a teen. Just different. Everything felt the same, but different. At least he could say they were easier than when he was a young child. Back then he had understood even less than as an undiagnosed teen, and Mitsuki had simply screamed at or hit him whenever he “acted out.” Now he was met with understanding, not more anger. That awful, cyclical echo chamber was far behind him.
But regardless of his past and everything it entailed, the fact remained that he still dealt with difficulties of all sorts even with therapy and talks of medication. And for reasons he knew but still didn’t get get some days were so much harder than others. It was almost like they ganged up on him all at once, sensory issues and processing issues manifesting alongside that age-old snap-anger that he’d been working to control for so long now. On any other day he would deal with any of that in stride, especially the anger flareups. Just center and ground and fucking breathe and it would be fine because nowadays, it almost always was. He almost always managed to use a pair of specific grounding exercises that helped him calm down, a sensory one and a breathing one that he found he liked because he responded well to them. The only time his anger got the best of him typically now was on the battlefield dealing with dangerous Villains and other inherently bad people. There his anger served him though. In the heat of battle it cleared his head and made him sharper. In his day to day there was no such balance. Just white noise, TV screen static, a detachedness that overtook everything rational that mind tried screaming at him. Nothing but the strange, dissociative back-seating he had to become a part of, sitting in the back row of the theater of his mind while his body lashed out and screamed or broke things, or worse.
Therapy had really been his initial step toward recovery, as it was with many people. He wasn’t alone in having to seek it, wasn’t even alone in wanting to. Once he’d really gotten the bug in his ear he had realized, finally, that he did want help. But the person to actually push him to do it was Izuku, and that had been before they even started dating. Katsuki had always had something akin to a soft spot for him. Back in their school days there was nothing soft about it but he’d still always gotten under his skin no matter what. Izuku couldn’t speak without the blonde rising to the challenge. Every offer for help back then had been met with explosive anger that made the atmosphere crackle with impending danger. And somehow in that strange functional dysfunction they’d cultivated together Izuku had managed to convince his closest friend to seek help managing his problems. And while perhaps soft spot wasn’t the right term after all Izuku had always had sway over Katsuki in a way no one else did and no one ever had.
That made it even more difficult when he had what felt like relapses even if his therapist insisted that they weren’t. According to his therapist there was no such thing as backwards progress as long as he kept trying but days like today felt like exactly that. Like jumping headfirst into a canyon after finally reaching the precipice. Like trekking along a long, long journey only to turn around five minutes away from the final destination. These sorts of days may not have been a relapse but in fact a flareup, but he still felt that bone-heavy, sinking weight of defeat and disappointment when he ran into them. He felt angry again and short-tempered again and worse he felt so drained and so keyed up at the same time. He felt like a failure. It was as though at any second he was going to snap; like a rubber band twisted around a bundle of cables too many times. Just one bit of tension in the wrong direction would be the thing to set him off and make that rubber band snap, and he knew it. He’d known it from the second he’d woken up.
He’d tried to start off his day right. Naturally on waking he made himself and Izuku both breakfast, a simple traditional Japanese breakfast of raw egg over scalding hot rice and some miso soup with finely chopped scallions. He’d already been good in the kitchen when he was in high school, and his skills had only increased since then. Cooking for the both of them was part of his love language, the silent show-not-tell kind of love language that he was better at than words. But although he could usually go all out and often spoiled them both with nice breakfasts and lighter lunches, today was one of those days where light would be best all around. A heavy breakfast simply sounded awful, enough so to be stomach-churning and distressing. Angry, dark days also brought along a lot of sensory sensitivities that were more muted typically, and he had to do what he could to prevent overload. He knew that Izuku would understand and he also knew that even if the man didn’t, forcing himself would only trigger the impending meltdown he could feel climbing its way down his spine. And again, since therapy, he’d gotten far better at not leaning into self-defeating behaviors and passive self-harm like not paying attention to what his mind and body were telling him.
His sensory-sensitive state made the cooking process a quiet activity, knife hardy making noise against the cutting board and minimal scraping and tinging from the cooking utensils because he made sure to use the hard plastic ones. Once the food was done he set the table and went to look for Izuku. He didn’t find him in the bedroom or bathroom which meant he’d already wandered into the living room since they were both off today—on call, but technically not working. Sure enough, Katsuki found his boyfriend sitting in front of the couch with one knee pulled up and the other leg folded on the ground for balance with his eyes glued to the newest All Might-themed game he’d purchased (at midnight on launch night of course. Katsuki had stayed up with him instead of turning in early.) He was so honed in on what he was doing, expression almost slack in concentration and eyes a little fierce, that he didn’t notice the blonde until he walked over and nudged him with a sock-covered foot.
“Mm?” Izuku didn’t look up, making a noise of questioning much like a cat might when you disturbed their nap or their stare-into-space moment. He was still almost entirely fixated on the game, trying to make it through a particularly intense QTE sequence. But because he was that hyperfixated he didn’t look up after he’d finished it and cleared the cutscene, instead sinking right back into his game. When Katsuki nudged him again, this time something closer to a light kick, he blinked rapidly and looked up in confusion. “Oh. I’m sorry did you need something? We can sit together if you’d like!”
But the blonde just shook his head, pointing to an ear to indicate that he needed quiet right now. A studious glance from Izuku showed that he hadn’t put in his behind-the-ear aids in that morning. The man picked up on it and cut himself off with a soft noise of acknowledgment, having been about to go on about some of the features of the game. It wasn’t like Katsuki minded listening to Izuku ramble. Nowadays it was actually one of his more favorite things, not that he would ever admit it to anyone’s face, at least not verbally. But waking up so sensitive and a hair-trigger away from sensory overload or an angry outburst left him semi-verbal at best and wanting to avoid verbal communication as much as possible. Izuku understood and leaned into it, mostly using Sign to communicate with him unless he needed his attention from there forward. Breakfast was quiet because of that other than the couple of times Izuku raised his voice to get Katsuki’s attention to ask an important question. Then the freckled man helped clean up the breakfast dishes rather than leaving Kat to do it by himself like the blonde usually preferred, washing and drying them by hand so there wouldn’t be anything to do later. Messes were another set-off for Katsuki, not quite a trigger, but it would make his already sensitive mood worse if left unattended. His boyfriend was naturally keyed into these sorts of things, and knew what extra steps he could take to stave off something bad. They cared for one another, both emotionally and in practice, and when one was struggling the other readily stepped in to assist.
After that Katsuki spent most of the day sinking into some video games or watching his boyfriend game instead. He needed the escapism and to detach from reality so he could keep himself stable and focus on something until he could handle existing a little bit better. Naturally Izuku always kept captions on now even if Kat wasn’t in the room—they helped him process words better anyways—so the blonde didn’t have any issues knowing what was going on. When he played himself he used earbuds so he could get the gist of the sounds and what was being said. He wasn’t totally deaf, at least not yet, and having the audio that close was helpful. Really, though, he just wanted to watch Izuku game and continue to be a stationary fixture in the living room, glued to the couch with his phone in his hand. This wasn’t the most ideal way to spend a day off, being a single trigger away from a sensory meltdown or a fit of shaking anger, but at least he wasn’t alone.
Izuku pitched in on lunch rather than asking Katsuki to get off of the couch and cook. It didn’t matter though because the blonde followed him into the kitchen, not wanting to be left alone in the living room. He would never voice it and never had but over the expanse of time they’d lived together Izuku had learned that his boyfriend was fairly clingy when he wasn’t feeling well. And that was fine by him, as he was always sunshiny smiles and little soft giggles when Kat was around and that seemed to keep the blonde grounded, too. It was in similar affect that the green haired man made them some simple sandwiches, cutting both on the diagonal and cutting the crusts off of his own. He hated them with a passion. Bad texture, bad taste, turned everything into a bad sandwich. Even his toast had to be crustless please and thank you. Katsuki was extremely grateful for the simple food, signing as much before taking the sandwich back to the couch where he’d made a small blanket nest. Bad sensory days were often sensitive food days and having someone around who knew his safe and same foods was a lifesaver in more ways than one.
They ended up watching a movie they’d seen a thousand times while they ate, one of the All Might specials that had gone straight to Blu-Ray. Despite the fact that it hadn’t received good reviews both Katsuki and Izuku both absolutely adored it, one of their favorites among the many All Might pop culture pieces they owned. Cozying up and watching it made Kat realize that he should get a warm drink into his system because that tended to be a huge comfort for him. So he signed to Izuku that he was going to the kitchen after getting his attention—another small ordeal because naturally he was extremely fixated on the movie—and headed to make himself something without caffeine. Coffee made him jittery and more prone to snapping at people and he’d been a bit firmly advised not to drink it very often and to absolutely abstain from energy drinks. That had been a hard transition to go through since most of his high school career had consisted of copious amounts of Monster and Bang and five too many coffees.
Once he was in the kitchen he laid out the things he needed to make some decaf tea: tea infuser, the small tin of loose-leaf tea they kept next to Izuku’s coffee beans, and a single sugar cube. The last thing to grab was a mug and he’d decided as soon as he knew he wanted a hot drink that he was going to use: his favorite All Might mug. It was one of those special interest-indulgent days now, turned just slightly away from impending-explosion to under-the-skin crackle. They had an entire cabinet full of mugs—Izuku collected them—and somewhere down the line the mug Kat was looking for had ended up on the top shelf. He had to go up onto his toes to reach it as he’d only grown a couple of inches since graduating, never really hitting a growth spurt, but it was facing handle out and he knew if he leaned on the counter the right way and hooked a finger the right way that he could knock it into his hand.
Except that wasn’t how it went. He knew how precarious it was to try to grab it without getting a stool. He knew that there wasn’t a guarantee that the mug wouldn’t fall but he’d never had it happen before and he was insistent on doing it without assistance. Even something like grabbing a stool or a chair or a fucking book to stand on felt like taking a handout and while that was absolutely self-defeating and backwards he couldn’t get his brain to wrap back around to it being okay. And because of that, because he was being so fucking stubborn on an already bad day he didn’t catch the handle in time and the mug toppled off of the shelf, missing his hand by a centimeter and causing him to let go of an involuntary, panicked noise. It hit the counter and the handle broke off but even worse it bounced and went to the floor, shattering into too many pieces to salvage.
The mug had been a limited production, limited release article.
Sometimes it was the stupidest, smallest things that set him off. Sometimes someone breathing too loudly or tapping their foot too hard or clicking a pen would set off misophonia and make him irrationally angry and he’d have to get up and leave or start fidgeting to keep his palms from popping. Sometimes it was a situation more tangible to other people, like a Villain who was harming innocent people, or just a normal evil non-Villain person hurting kids. But sometimes it was things like this. Someone else might have been upset about it, maybe even pretty upset since it was a limited edition premium collector’s item. But not only was it a limited item, it was a limited item from his biggest special interest. It was something precious to him. And he’d broken it in a state of negligence and stubbornness and he had ruined it he could have done something else anything else he shouldn’t have tried reaching it on his own and he’d broken it broken it broken it he’d fucking broken it-!
Izuku hadn’t heard the panicked sound his boyfriend let out, a little louder than he’d normally speak. He also hadn’t heard the sound of the mug hitting the counter or it shattering on the floor. He was still so engrossed in the movie, Kat having told him not to pause it, that he didn’t pick up on anything that wasn’t right in front of him. But he picked up on the anguished, hoarse half-scream that ripped through the apartment and the console controller he used to navigate the menu was still halfway to falling to the floor by the time he was already running out of the room.
The tears started first. They always did. Unbelieving, hot tears stinging at and then flooding from horrified, wide crimson eyes that saw absolutely nothing but the destroyed mug in front of him. And then reality just stopped and an awful chest-deep scream ripped through him without him actively trying to vocalize and that was all he could comprehend before that impending metldown took over.
Izuku rushed into the kitchen in time to watch Kat dropped hard to his knees, already choking and coughing around another strangled cry. His fingers were buried deep in his hair, tugging and scraping at his scalp, trying to cover his ears because his own voice hurt them. Izuku tried to call out to him but it backfired and only made things worse and before he knew it he could smell burning hair as Katsuki’s palms popped and crackled while still pressed against his head.
He flew to his side, prying his hands away carefully and trying to speak to him in soft tones. Katsuki was extremely touch-averse during meltdowns and threw an arm out to get his boyfriend off of him, lashing out blindly to shove him off. But Izuku had to get his hands off of anything that could be harmed. He had to get them at least away from his body. The apartment was so much less precious than Katsuki himself. It wasn’t easy work. Kat was shaking and sobbing loudly, thrashing to get his hands and arms away as Izuku tried to be as calm but firm as he could be in trying to help. Every time Izuku got a hand away from singed blonde hair Katsuki would make another awful sound and bring it back. He couldn’t think rationally, brain in such severe overload that having something near his head and ears was the only thing that felt safe. Izuku was starting to realize this and rather than keep fighting him and distressing Katsuki more, he got up and bolted to their bedroom.
He came back on soft steps with a singe-proof beanie Katsuki had gotten from Mei back in high school. It was a small effort to help him put it on—the blonde was somewhere between calming down and getting worse and now more than ever Izuku needed to do something to help or this would blow completely out of his control. But once he had, despite Kat’s hands flying to the sides of his head again, fingers pressing indents into the tightly knit fabric, the popping didn’t hurt him or singe his hair. And with the pressure of the beanie on his head and the way it slightly muffled himself in his own ears he finally started to come down. He’d been hyperventilating between cries and screams, breathing erratic and only serving to make him feel suffocated and sick to his stomach. The hyperventilating started to die down, turning into a coughing fit that had him doubling over his knees. The coughing cut off a sob and then cut a hoarse scream short and then he dissolved into whimpering, pained crying. The peak of the meltdown was over, but he was far from being in the clear.
From the worst of it he fell into a loud fit of sobs. After the screaming and the lashing out, the tears always came so much harder. He had broken one of his favorite things and it was irreplaceable. And while that wasn’t the end of the world, not realistically, right now it felt like it truly was. It felt like bone deep pain and sorrow. He had fucked up and now one of his favorite things was ruined and all he could do was cry. Izuku moved in and held him close, on his knees and pulling Katsuki to his chest. He had to blink tears from his own green eyes, desperately trying to keep it together for his partner’s sake. And this time when Katsuki’s fists balled in the front of Izuku’s shirt, his palms didn’t crackle or so much as spark. The heavy, anguished tears doused the emotional flame.
The crying faded into sniffling and small whimpers after a time. The rest faded into heavy silence. Izuku held him close the entire time, keeping him in a firm and protective embrace, in all-encompassing safety. It took a while after the silence began for Katsuki to start sitting up straight on his heels, pushing away from Izuku slowly and heavily. He looked like a complete mess, eyes red and puffy, cheeks still splotchy, pain and exhaustion etched on his every feature. He very slowly focused his eyes on a piece of broken mug which he reached down to pick up. It was a piece of the rim of the mug, the words All Might! mostly visible in the squashed almost-triangle piece. Careful, tired fingers closed around the piece softly and Katsuki sniffed, wiping under his nose with the back of his hand. The tears formed in his eyes once more, almost falling, but after a sluggish blink they were gone again.
Izuku helped him stand after that, letting him keep the ceramic piece in-hand now that he knew he wasn’t going to accidentally hurt himself with it. Kat slipped it into his pocket before he started to head for the broom and dustpan in the cabinet just off of the kitchen. His partner rushed in to help but he just gently pushed him back, needing to do it himself for closure. He had to be extra thorough cleaning up the mess, feeling he owed it to the mug. Hyper-empathy wasn’t easy on a good day. Bad days made it much less manageable and he felt very real pain in having brought harm to one of his favorite things. That was just the way it was in his life, in his head. And although so many people had always skewed the blonde as non-sympathetic, the fact of the matter was that he swung between the two extremes. He didn’t throw it in the garbage bin yet, though, instead dumping the mess and debris into an unused shopping bag from that same closet off the kitchen. He’d throw it out in time, but he needed time to be able to let go. The entire time his eyes stung but were dry.
When everything had been cleaned up and salvaged Katsuki felt like he weighed ten thousand pounds. He was exhausted down to his core and his limbs felt leaden. His eyes ached, eyelids feeling tacky and too heavy. His hair was singed at the tips and his scalp felt slightly raw where he’d managed to burn himself lightly. Everything ached and his throat was sore and all around he just wanted peace. It was as if in slow motion that he grabbed a mug off of a lower shelf and turned on the electric kettle. He pulled one down for Izuku as well, tugging his sleeve and pointing at the teas without looking at him so he could choose which one he wanted. Eye contact was physically painful now and would be for a while, maybe until tomorrow, or at least until he’d slept for some time. Once Izuku chose one Kat went through all the motions of making the teas, steeping them both for the appropriate times and adding his own things, the sugar cube and a splash of cream, before tapping the counter lightly with a knuckle for Izuku to do the same. Then the blonde wordlessly headed to the bathroom to wash his hands and face.
Once he came back out he brought his drink into the living room where Izuku was already waiting. The Blu-Ray was off and the main streaming service they used had been pulled up instead. Kat set his drink down and curled up on the couch, feeling like gravity was working double time on him. Izuku didn’t ask what he wanted to watch because he knew he didn’t want to make any decisions right now. Instead he put on something simple and somewhat mindless for them to either watch or not, something that wouldn’t really matter if they missed it. Then he climbed up onto the couch, nearby but not close, keeping a careful distance unless his partner wanted otherwise.
He did in fact. Katsuki didn’t always like touch after a meltdown, couldn’t always handle it, but this time he reached over and tugged Izuku’s arm pointedly, pointing to the big blanket Izuku had been wrapped in while he gamed that lay still on the floor. The freckled man got the picture quickly and went to get it, sitting down hip-to-hip with Kat and fluffing the blanket out over them both. The blonde leaned into him heavily, slouching sideways and adjusting his beanie so it covered his ears completely and rode low on the back of his skull. When Izuku reached out to grab his hand under the blanket he let it happen, loosely squeezing them back. It was fine by him. He needed the contact, and didn’t feel like talking with anyone. He wouldn’t be needing his hands.
They stayed like that for a while. The short movie was only an hour long and neither of them really absorbed it, but they moved on to something else mindless and new anyways. Izuku was sure to avoid All Might things for now just in case but a few hours into their movie binge Katsuki took the controller from Izuku and navigated to the newest one to hit the streaming service. Watching it made him feel better even though it reminded him of the mug. This was something he couldn’t ruin.
It was during the credits to the movie that Izuku turned to his partner, brushing cool fingertips against his cheek softly. When Katsuki looked up and over at him still in a largely nonverbal, spacey state, the freckled man smiled sweetly. “I love you, Kacchan.” He didn’t expect a response back, just wanted to make sure Katsuki still knew, wanted to make sure he could give him some of those quiet affirmations.
“Love you too nerd…” Kat’s voice was rough, more gravelly than usual, and the words were unexpected on top of that. Izuku blinked widely but smiled wider before he leaned in to place a chaste kiss on the blonde’s cheek. Minimal contact was still preferable, but the affection and attention were important and appreciated.
The rest of the night was equally as quiet. Dinner was small but Katsuki cooked, wanting to be productive because it helped him feel more human and less like a fuckup. Then they got back to games and movies after they ate, and around 8 PM Kat got up to head to bed. Rather than stay up half the night with his new game Izuku went with him to the bedroom, not wanting the blonde to have to be alone any longer than necessary. Bedtime found Katsuki curled up close to his smaller boyfriend, face buried in his neck and one hand gently clutching the green haired man’s nightshirt. It didn’t take him long after that to fall asleep, body and mind both exhausted fully and completely. The real solace was knowing that he would feel better in the morning, and knowing that he was well loved. Even through the meltdowns.