Work Text:
The cold feel of the metal of the car hood cools Izuku’s flushed skin.
Sunset was over about an hour ago, the sun long dipped in the horizon to greet the other side of the world. Despite that, the heat of the day sticks to him, making him feel slightly clammy and his skin to stay flushed. Making his white tank top stick to his skin where he had to tuck it out of his black shorts.
His popsicle stick is abandoned to his left, sweet stickiness of the lemonade flavouring staying on his tongue and lips.
Izuku knows, if he were to look down at the ground, he would find dead sparklers lying around. They’d gone through a few packets, just lighting them up and playing around with the light. Spelling their names, sparkler duels, drawing hearts and stars and anything their hearts wanted.
He turns his head to look at the boy lying next to them, their pinkies wrapped around each other’s because it was too hot to hold their undoubtedly sweaty hands together.
And, wow, doesn’t he fall in love all over again, seeing the boy like this?
He’s gazing up at the stars with such wonder and awe that he usually hides from their classmates, even after becoming friends with all of them. Izuku’s chest always gains a warm feeling as he realises how much his love trusts him, to be vulnerable like this.
The boy releases a sigh of relaxation, eyes blinking upwards.
And his eyes. The striking lilac that switches to a darker amethyst when he uses his quirk, making the whites of his pupils stand out further. The same eyes that used to guarded, full of defences and rebuttals and snark and snappy comments, now completely open and gliding across the stars, searching for constellations he knows off by heart. Izuku’s seen the way those eyes light up when talking about the stars, about the patterns they make and the stories that make up their origins.
The silver of the full moonlight bathes his pale skin in pure magic, illuminating the faint white freckles he has scattering across his skin. Izuku thinks it’s similar to his pupils, instead of having brown freckles, he has sprinkling of white across his skin. Like he has actual stars embedded into his skin.
A small smile rests on his face, a barely there tilt of his lips.
His free hand is running through his lavender hair, and Izuku feels like he can see the hard work that he’s put towards his dreams, towards his want—no, need—of becoming a hero. Izuku admires him so much for that, for the dedication and the drive and the determination he has.
“Zuku?” The boy says, sending Izuku a small smile as he clicks in front of his face.
Izuku shakes his head. Giving the boy next to him a soft smile. “Yeah, Hoshi?”
Hoshi—well, his name’s Hitoshi, but Izuku started calling him Hoshi the first time the pair went stargazing back in first year—rolls his eyes fondly at the nickname. “I asked you what the time was, and you sort of zoned out.”
His voice is a soft whisper, a murmur that pulls Izuku in until its like he doesn’t want to leave, wants to drown in the soft lullaby that is Hitoshi’s voice.
“Just admiring how pretty you are,” Izuku whispers.
Hitoshi sends him a soft smile. His eyes crinkle slightly and the dimple on the right side of his face appears, and Izuku’s hit by the need to kiss it. “You still haven’t told me the time.”
Izuku blushes at that, reaching just above his abandoned popsicle stick to his phone. Hitoshi’s small chuckles ease his embarrassment at getting caught admiring his lover, though he’d never apologise for doing so.
“It’s 10:35.”
The lavender-haired boy hums as he faces the sky again before reaching out his right hand towards Izuku. He looks at the hand with confusion.
Hitoshi makes grabby motions, and Izuku realises what he’s asking for.
He grabs his hand, allowing him to pull Izuku to straddle him.
And here, holding onto his lover’s hands, Izuku can feel that callouses that mar his palms. Feels the scar that runs from area between his index finger and thumb and into his palm. Feels the hard work that Hitoshi puts in everyday so he can achieve his dreams.
Izuku stays sitting up, looking down at the boy lying down as he squeezes Hitoshi’s hands, who returns it before rubbing his thumb up and down Izuku’s.
“So,” Hitoshi says, still in that rumbling timbre that calms Izuku down, “what’s got you staring at me so intensely?”
Izuku flushes at that, but he’s never been afraid to shower his Hoshi in praise. He hums, faking thinking.
“Well…There’s the fact that you’re my Hoshi,” he whispers. “My star, my moon, my planets. I fall in love with you every time I see you. Whenever I see the constellations rooted into your skin, that I only ever see in the moonlight, I want to map them out and tell stories as if you were the great abyss that the ancient cultures worshipped so.
“Or the way that, even when you don’t speak, your eyes always draw me in with their lilac and indigo and violet and just the mash of purples that seem to sing a constant lullaby to me. Or when you do speak, it’s like I’m out in the universe—and I know sound doesn’t travel across space, but if anyone could make it happen, it would be you.”
He takes a breath, but doesn’t give Hitoshi the chance to speak. “Or maybe it’s the way I can tell how much work you’ve put into becoming a Hero. By the callouses on your palms, or the scars you’ve gained from saving people, or the way you’ve grown and gotten stronger and just everything about you shows me that you’re a determined, strong, and brave person; that you’re going to be an amazing hero.
“So, in conclusion, I was ‘staring at you so intensely’ because you’re you. And that’s the only reason I’ll ever need.”
By the end of his long-winded ramble, Hitoshi is looking at him like he hung all the celestial bodies in the sky, as if he hand-crafted the universe and everything that lives in it, designing every star, every planet, every plant and animal to his tastes.
“C’mere,” he mumbles in that gruff voice that Izuku has no choice but to obey.
Leaning down, Izuku feels his eyes closing as his Hoshi does the same. But…
He has a thought, an incredibly cursed thought, but he has to get it out or it’s going to bug him for forever.
“And there’s also the fact you kinda look like a troll doll and Dad had a child,” he mutters right in front of Hitoshi’s mouth. He leans back, giggling lightly as his love cracks his eyes open to stare at Izuku.
Hitoshi stares for a few more seconds before tilting his head back, his eyes looking up at the sky. Not in wonder, but in exasperation. He sounds so defeated when he speaks. “Why? Why would you say that?”
“I’m sorry.” He’s not, and judging by Hitoshi’s glare, he doesn’t sound it, either. “I had to get it out.”
“I expected that from Denki, maybe Katsuki, but not my boyfriend.”
Izuku just shrugs from where he’s still holding Hitoshi’s hands, who groans. The pair look at each other, appraising each other with searching gazes, before Izuku begins leaning down again, closing his eyes.
“I didn’t need the mental image of Dad fucking a troll doll,” Hitoshi mutters, right as Izuku’s lips land on his.
Izuku snorts out a laugh as he leans back again, throwing his head back towards the sky. “And…And you think…I did?” he gets out through laughs.
Hitoshi shrugs, mimicking Izuku’s reaction. “You’re the one who started it.”
After that, every times Izuku leans down to try and kiss Hitoshi, he starts laughing. Or Hitoshi will huff own something close to a laugh, and Izuku will lose it again.
A few minutes of trying—and failing—to kiss, Hitoshi shifts so he’s sitting up, using his boyfriend’s hands to pull himself up. Izuku stays where he is, now seated in his lover’s lap.
He feels his body shifting down Hitoshi’s thighs because of the angle of the car hood, and squeezes to try and stay upright.
Hitoshi notices this, and releases his left hand to hold onto the small of Izuku’s back.
They just sit there, staring into each other’s eyes like they hold the answers for everything in life. Izuku stays admiring his loves lilac eyes, mapping the small flecks of indigo like they’re their own constellations; like Hitoshi is a universe of his own that Izuku so desperately wants to explore, to learn, to understand.
Izuku knows what his Hoshi is thinking, has been told it every time they get intimate like this, the next time more believable than the last.
And, it seems, he’s going to tell him again.
“I always feel myself getting lost in your eyes,” Hitoshi says, “and I know that sounds cheesy, like, a cliché line in every romance novel or movie, but I mean it.”
Izuku stays quiet as he raises his free hand to cup his lovers jaw, sliding his fingers above and below his ear to feel his soft lavender curls.
“There’s a whole forest in your eyes, and sometimes it changes from simple woods with small woodland creatures and blooming flowers, to a deep rainforest with jaguars and snakes and poisonous plants and just full of power. I find myself wandering aimlessly through the emeralds and jades and shamrocks and pine of your eyes.
“I love how expressive your eyes are. Yes, everyone talks about your smile and while I do adore that, I love how I can always tell what you’re feeling by looking into your eyes. How the dark juniper of your anger and determination lights up to a bright parakeet colour when you’re happy. Or the lazy fern that peeks out of your eyes when you first wake up in the morning.”
Hitoshi takes a break, just caressing up and down Izuku’s back. Before starting again.
“I’m always in awe when I look at you, kitten. I could go on a day-long rant about everything I love about you, but that’s for another time.”
No matter how many times he hears it, Izuku will always feel tears build up in his eyes. He won’t let them fall, there’s not enough tears for that to happen. But the first time he heard it, back at the end of first year, he’d burst into heaving sobs into Hitoshi’s shoulders.
He’d never been so loved and cherished by someone before. Not romantically, and not so genuinely.
Hitoshi’s always been good with words. Yes, Izuku mumbles his thoughts (though he has begun breaking that habit, at least out on the field), but Hitoshi has always been able to weave his words to do what he wants. Knows when and how to say things to get certain reactions out of people, knows how to make every word count.
They sit, basking in the comfortable silence that always comes out of their alone time, filled with love and tenderness and fondness. Hitoshi’s eyes continue roaming around Izuku’s face, searching for a reaction. Or admiring his face. Could be both, really.
“Hey,” Izuku whispers, barely a breath past his lips, but Hitoshi’s eyes flick up to his, paying him his full attention. “Let me tell you a secret.”
Before Hoshi can get a word out, Izuku leans towards his lips, keeping his hand cupped to his jaw.
He hovers over Hitoshi’s lips for just a second, letting their breaths intermingle as one, where Izuku can smell the slight sweetness of strawberry from his love’s popsicle. Before breathing out, just as quiet as the entire night has been, the only thing that’s been on his mind since they started this day. “I love you. So much.”
Hitoshi’s lips curl up into a genuine smile, one he rarely allows to show at the dorms. It’s soft around the edges, so unlike the sharp grin he gives during Heroics training, or when he’s challenged at game night.
Izuku returns the smile. It’s small, smaller than the one he gives to his friends; the determination filled one that stretches his lips and lifts his cheeks and makes his eyes squint as he bares his teeth. A simple tilt to his lips, apple of his cheeks barely lifting. But it’s genuine, it holds all the love he feels for the boy sitting in front of him, and Hitoshi knows that.
They just sit there, Hitoshi moving his head forward so their foreheads are resting against each other. Izuku runs his thumb across his cheek, basking in the solitude of each other’s presence.
After a while, they begin talking quietly to each other. About gossip they’ve heard about people they know, about their classmates and teachers. New relationships, internships, what they think their friends are going to do after they graduate. Whispering secrets against each other’s lips like it’s the way the Universe intended for them to do.
Then, they move on to confiding to each other.
About how Izuku is terrified of what’s going to happen beyond this next year, about upholding the pillar that All Might left behind and expects him to pick up. About how he wants to be a different sort of pillar, one that not only symbolises peace, but hope. Hope for people like him and Hitoshi. Not only that they can be heroes too, but that they have worth even if they don’t want to be a hero.
About how Hitoshi is afraid of disappointing Aizawa—or Dad—somehow. That these past years have been a dream, that he’ll wake up one day and he’ll be back to the boy shunned for having a ‘villainous’ quirk. How he’s afraid he’ll be forgotten, not in the way of wanting to be a limelight hero, but in the way that their friends will forget about him, that Izuku and Dad will leave him behind, that he’ll be alone for the rest of his life.
Time gets lost as they enter their own bubble, and an unknown amount passes before they’re pulled out of their trance of each other long enough to realise the time.
“11:40,” Hitoshi mutters as he checks his phone, lock-screen photo of a cross-eyed Izuku pursing his lips with Hitoshi squishing his cheeks lighting up. They’d taken it when they went to the beach back at the beginning of summer. He gives it a small smile before turning it off.
“We should probably head back, shouldn’t we?” Izuku asks as he stifles a yawn.
Hitoshi nods lightly as he stands up, gripping Izuku’s waist to steady him. “Do you need my help to pack for the dorms?”
“Yeah, we could do it tomorrow. I know Mama wants to have you over for dinner again,” Izuku murmurs as he rests his head on his loves shoulder.
“I’d love to.”
They stand silently for a few minutes, the heat finally beginning to seep away to make way for the cool of night. Hitoshi soothes his thumbs across Izuku’s waist for a few seconds before letting go and cradling Izuku’s head. He uses that hold to tilt Izuku’s head back.
He gives him a quick kiss on his forehead. “Let’s go, kitten. Don’t need you falling asleep out here, now do we?”
Izuku gives a sleepy smile as Hitoshi leads him to the passenger side of the car. Then he remembers something, tired eyes widening slightly. “Oh, wait, the sparklers. We can’t litter, Hoshi!”
“Don’t worry, love,” the lavender-haired boy responds, opening the car door and settling Izuku into his seat as he smiles at his lovers care even in his sleepy state. “I’ll pick them up. Go to sleep, I’ll wake you up when we get home.”
“Mhmm.” And Izuku trusts his Hoshi to do that, already dozing off to sleep as he does up his seatbelt.
Hitoshi runs his fingers through Izuku’s curls before turning around, quietly shutting the door, and picking up all the used sparklers before just throwing them into the back seat. He’ll pick them up later.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, he begins humming a song that his kitten had shown him when they started dating. It had quickly become their song when they sung it together for the first time.
It’s slow with lilting notes and soft instrumental. He decides to play it on his phone connected to the radio, allowing himself to quietly sing a few of the lyrics as he starts up the car.
As he drives, slowly getting to the chorus of the song, Izuku whines quietly in his sleep and Hitoshi looks down as he stops at a traffic light.
The darkness of the road and the clear night gives way for the full moon to shine into the car, bathing the boy beside him in silver. It makes his tan skin glow, darker freckles popping out at the pale light.
Aside from the beauty that is Izuku, Hitoshi notices that the boy is shivering and flinching lightly every few seconds.
He whimpers, lip trembling like he’s about to cry.
“Aw, love,” Hitoshi mumbles as he reaches out his head to grasp Izuku’s, giving it a tight squeeze at the pinched look on the boy’s face. Probably a nightmare.
With that in mind, Hitoshi starts to sing properly, letting his baritone voice project inside the car and to Izuku, who automatically begins to relax at his voice. Just in case, he continues running his thumb up and down his hand, squeezing back every time the sleeping boy grips his hand tight.
Driving along the highway, Hitoshi thinks that Izuku has long since fallen into a deep sleep, surpassing nightmares, and his usual sleep talk, until…
The sleeping boy hums. “Love you, Hoshi,” he mumbles, almost incomprehensible, before he falls silent.
Hitoshi’s heart skips a beat, but he keeps his eyes on the road as he squeezes the boy’s hand again. The song he’s currently listening to is fading out when he responds, even though he knows Izuku won’t hear it. He hopes it’ll bring the boy comfort in his land of sleep.
“I love you more, kitten.”