Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s ten until twelve midnight, and he’s standing in front of the entrance to his new shared apartment with you. He stretches his arms and legs, faint pops in his joints with each step he takes inside, his mind laced with fatigue induced by hours and hours of labor.

His birthday is close to its end. Katsuki is tired from patrolling the city and apprehending a corrupt asshole or three or five. But, annoyance does not find a home in his bruised muscles and throbbing bones. He holds not a single ounce of frustration for letting the morning and nearly the whole night pass—it is an oath he swore after all.

He least expects you to be awake when he arrives, especially when exhaustion has been eating away at you too. Warmth seeps into his body, spreads like newfound wings, and ushers him into a sweet embrace as soon as he finds you standing in the hallway, hair disheveled, eyes barely open, a toothy smile appearing the longer he stares in surprise. 

A cupcake sits in your hands, candle unlit. Katsuki closes the distance, gauntlets long forgotten somewhere on the floor, and he leans in, breathing and not breathing, fighting the impulse to pull you into his body and kiss you with everything he has. 

"Happy birthday, Suki," you whisper. 

He brings a bare palm to the wick, secreting nitroglycerin-like sweat and releasing tiny sparks to set it alight. They say wishes come true on these days; when you look into the fire, speak with your heart, and let the wind carry the desire, the universe will show you miracles and magic beneath its sleeve. But, he doesn't need to hope for the unattainable—not anymore, no, since he already has you here. 

With your eyes reflecting the flickers of the candle, you appear as a saturated sunrise, divine paradise, the very life carefully created with clouds and celestial dust. He brushes your lips with his, grinning, inhaling your scent, taking the slightest of seconds to admire you closely before his next move. And, a long caress, mouth to mouth, entangled in quiet words dipped in warm syrup and drunk on its passion.

So, if someone were to ask him if he wished anything for the day to be different, he would rumble with laughter from the pit of his belly. Though, of course, not before cursing them to hell and back for questioning his choices because there is nothing more irresistible, more flawless than being home, being with you at this moment.

Time, he has learned, is valuable, often neglected of its worth. Humans, whose lives are written from beginning to end, finite in the gleam of their irises and the blood in their veins, don't realize the world will move on and bury what they once were. Very little time, while there's so much to do, and it's exactly why Katsuki is grateful for yours. 

He holds you against his chest, slow dancing in the middle of the living room, clad in his hero uniform, and you in oversized pajamas and sleep still peppered on your face. The room is dim, near dark save for the moon peeking through the curtains and sharing glimpses of gentle starlight. Silence, but every pitter-patter of your hearts echoes in an emotional song deep-seated within and composed only for you and him.

It’s five until twelve midnight, and he's thinking about love, how he can feel it in the curl of your fingers on the fabric of his top, how each inward draw of air shared between you both, he can almost hear the flutter beneath his ribcage say I love you more than love has ever allowed. He wants to say it, give himself to you, but he's terrified. Katsuki has never known this peace, this fragile yet powerful force for someone. And, as you nudge his arm up, press your lips to his hand, he's being smothered by pure bliss. 

There's a war between his head and his heart.

It's one until twelve midnight, and he's hopelessly falling, falling so hard into you. His skin feels on fire like he has swallowed the sun, but it doesn't blister and sear; it is otherworldly, a strange sensation of tenderness and intimacy he can only compare to a spot of brightness on a dark, cold day or the budding of tulips and roses in the spring.

For now, he stays unspoken. Pulse racing, core starving for more. He would continue to look at everyone with his usual chaos and exasperations. Although, as soon as his eyes catch you, he would reveal all the secrets he has locked and tucked away. Every time.

Little does he know, he has loved you before it came across his mind.

He loves you. Desperately, unconditionally.

There is a boy who has risen to greatness. In his hands, he carries raw power; in his self, a stubborn resilience and a cutthroat ego to match, but loneliness, excruciating loneliness written on the lines and curves of his skin. He is equal parts heaven and hell, a strange human with the mind of an angel and lips and limbs of a devil, a perfect balance between pure and dangerous.

Highly respected, highly feared; he buries expectations that have gone in failure, blame and doubt and confusion, convinces himself of unrequited affection for particular individuals. These have been his bitter secrets, silent weaknesses carefully guarded behind walls stretching miles and miles from his heart. 

He hides himself to deny, to safeguard. To keep himself from shattering when he is on the verge of achieving the absolute best.

And so, this boy, with an impenetrable poker-face, lies here and now, in the dark, swallowing the aches he can never speak a word of, the regrets scarring the life beating below his chest. 

Katsuki is at a point in his life where he has grown familiar with the scoundrels monopolizing his mind. Though tonight, he finds them overwhelming; their hauntings creep to him, slithering through the shadows like venomous snakes and wrapping their bodies around his neck until he is cold, numb, desperate for air. 

He's quietly pleading for help, but he pounds his head, grips his hair, murmurs no, no, no; this is fine. There is something about the darkness, he ponders, that creates worlds and languages of its own, and maybe, he has discovered the wrong one at the wrong time. 

It is twisted, an unpleasant thought to have—what it would be like to run away from it all. Run, run, run until his bones fracture, his lungs crumble into powder, and he is nothing but a hazy spot in the background. A groan and a punch to the gut keep him at bay. He's not a coward; he's not one to surrender, not one to let the monsters bend him to their will. He is the Bakugou Katsuki. However, he can't be certain if he's feeling alive or not, especially when this moment calls for such a concern. 

Hot liquid prickles at the corner of his eyes, and his chest heaves harder; he bites the gummy wall of his mouth, teeth like sharpened fangs to draw specks of blood. The room is too loud, too silent, too much for him to handle. Katsuki loses his grip on reality, and with the sinister smirk of gravity, he takes a nosedive into the void. 

However, light emerges from the darkness, its brilliance growing and growing; a warmth grabbing hold of his wrists, pulling him into a pair of arms, and he is suddenly opening his eyes, seeing something, someone, that appears to him as—love?  

You come to him, singing words sweet and soft like the first bite of cotton candy or warm honey soothing a sore throat. In any other instance, Katsuki would be sick to his stomach for allowing his vulnerability to be so blatantly seen by you, except he finds his mind drifting elsewhere. Somehow, the darkness seems like a blanket. That his space is no longer empty because all he can feel is you, filling every corner, every crack, being the fiery sun within his frozen palms.

He parts his mouth, his upper lip beginning to tremble. He doesn't know what to say, what to do. The walls are breaking. Have been breaking. 

It's not that he doesn't expect you to be here. And, it's not the first you have slipped into his room. Although, he considers it to be a miracle that you chose this moonlight to be beside him. For whatever explanation, you understand the chaos creating cyclones inside his skull. You tell him all the right things, the things he desires to hear.

"You're not any of the things people have said about you. What I may have thought about you," you begin.

"Doesn't matter; they can say whatever they want," he growls, but there is grief marinating within his voice. Katsuki doesn't push you away. Instead, he pulls you closer, burying himself deeper, digs his fingers into your sweater and into your flesh. He's hurting so badly, and then thinly, "I don't need their damn validation." 

"Maybe you don't, or maybe you do, and it's okay. Regardless of what it is, you're more than the names and thoughts and words they associate you with," you persuade, drawing shapes on his back, grazing your nails gently over his scalp. "I don't expect you to change for them because you're fine the way you are. You're good, Katsuki. You are good." 

His heart restarts. The flow of his blood stops, only to pump in an entirely different direction, but it gives him the ability to live, to be so, so alive. He's breathing as if he has lost everything, breathing as if he has gained everything, breathing as if he can conquer the world, and he's gasping. 

He shuts and opens his eyes, forces out sleep like he has woken up from a nightmare. And, it is exactly that. A nightmare—a bad dream that does not exist, one that felt a little too real this night. However, he's in your embrace, safe and sound, away from the wicked dark and into a dark that now carries light; and he is okay, okay, okay. 

Sometimes, a heart is a heavy burden to bear, and sometimes, Katsuki doesn't believe he deserves to have such a delicate thing inside him. He's destructive, reckless, gets lost in a fight because aggression and indiscretion are his means of obtaining false refuge or uncertain atonement. You are his reminder that he is worthy of the excellence marked on his palms, worthy of tenderness from those he cares about, worthy of being part of a world that, in truth, needs someone like him. 

It's in this hour, he thinks, love is in the air. It has to be. 

But, what does he know? 

He has no experience of it, other than the belief he holds. He swears that, perhaps, this is what it tastes like. Him, you, here in this bedroom, in each other's arms, hidden in the farthest corners and set apart from prying eyes. And, he's curious, determined to find more, to see you, to feel you.

It's fifteen until seven in the morning, and he's steering apart from slumber, the chill of the blankets less than comfortable. His hand searches for warmth, for the body that was curled snug next to him. Eyes closed, he motions up and up, mindlessly, until the sound of paper crinkling beneath the weight of his palm quickly tempts him to check. 

An envelope, addressed to him, written in red ink: To, Katsuki. 

He holds it in his hands, lying on his back, quiet; his skin is heavy, feeling moisture-laden as if the room is somehow humid and sweltering. The air is drier, and his chest heaves a bit harder, a flavor of nervous curiosity at the tip of his tongue. There is little to know, little to expect since, inside, a folded letter carries uncertainty. 

Meticulously, he separates the contents from its shelter, peeling back the crisp corners with soft wonder that still once in a while comes to him as a daze or as an unfamiliar friend, but a friend nevertheless. 

Happy birthday is the first that he reads. 

It's eleven until four in the afternoon, and he's watching you scurry away with a smile that leaves him ripped open and overfilled with sunshine, and for whatever reason, he has found such perplexing tranquility in the burning. He has a letter, now the seventeenth—and still counting, it seems. 

Among the lines, periods, and exclamation points, he grows obsessed with the things floating in every nook of your skull, every vessel that loops and moves in a straight path to the substance beating under your ribs. You breathe love in all ways possible, and even after these years with you, he has yet to figure out how you manage to make him feel good, feel like you have plucked all the villains that have stapled themselves inside his head for more than a decade in a matter of seconds.

He believes your heart is too big for your body. 

The hours drift by, calmy, pleasantly, not dressed in a thrilling adventure as most would opt for in commemoration of another four seasons of health, another four seasons of life, and perhaps, in a separate instance, it would have piqued Katsuki's interest. However, in the meantime, he is content to settle indoors. For the gigglings that take his breath away, for the corny jokes followed by exaggerated groans like in those morning dramas, for the tender kisses he doesn't see coming, for the passionate kisses he silently demands, for the one with a beautiful face and a beautiful soul.

It's six until eight in the evening, and he's smiling at a letter you have written; it is the last among the twenty-something he has now piled next to him on the desk, celebrating each year of his birth. He places it down, tilts his neck back. Releasing a shaky breath, he contemplates what these mean to him.

Humanity. He thinks of its faults, associates humans with greediness and their wars, a language he hates yet knows well. As a hero, he's subject to remember the fallen, dirty his hands and swallow blood, sometimes being a little meaner than the demons roaming around. Yet, there is more to these beings, and it is with your horizons, he discovers beauty in the madness, the emotions in them that also inspire the stars to climb higher. There is a peculiar complexity to humans, to individuals like him, like you. 

When you stealthily crawl into his lap, poking and prodding your head to his arms, Katsuki can't but chuckle. He opens up, making room for you against him, and it is as soon as you fill the space, he sees the world through your eyes in a brand-new light.

"I miss you," he murmurs. A simple and forward declaration, though they convey a deeper, different meaning that you don’t catch. Unusual since you’re empathetically in tune to recognize these kinds of implications, but he’ll allow it.

Beneath the guise of his words, he tells you stories, his delicate daydreams of the present and the future, the things he has said, the things he will say.

He takes your fingers, colored like the crimson in his irises, closer to his mouth, his breath teasing the tips and igniting your pulse. You pause, let your thumb trace his cupid's bow, and in a cracked whisper, "Why are you saying that?" You bump your nose to his and smile, "It's only been a few minutes, and we've been together this whole day."

"I know,” a sigh, “but I still miss you," he insists, kissing one digit at a time. Love, love, love, he's drowning, being pulled into the center of a storm. It is through each letter, each phrase that you have etched onto paper, onto him, that he understands why hurricanes are named after people. You have so much power. He's desperate, aching to memorize you all over again; stain your lips with his, permanent like the pen you have used.

All he can think about is love, how love is you.

There is a man who thinks so much, feels and feels more than he should. He is a living, breathing, impervious bubble with an endless stream of thoughts, emotions unwanted and wanted, troubled and relaxed. Though, every so often, he wonders if these qualities will eventually become lesser than benign because he, for some rationale, still holds the impression that fortune can only last so long. 

He is unkind to himself. 

Despite these years to sort his thoughts, he finds himself drowning in the ocean of his silence. Katsuki continues to fall—as much as he does fly. Every now and then, hopelessly, victim to the doubt and the fear he unwillingly married, and they have planted tiny seeds inside his head, flourished into branches that wait for the proper moment to catch him with their grip and choke him slowly. 

But, you exist in his soul, keeping his feet steady on the ground or pinning him back to the sky where he shines the brightest. Slashing away the vices around his throat, you are the hero to a hero. 

And, he comes back to life, back to reality once again. You are the first that he sees, always. This man is reminded of your compassion, your unshakeable willpower to be his pillar. It is your unadulterated loyalty and energy that he appreciates. Even when he doesn’t confess it often, he hopes you understand through his efforts. 

Katsuki thinks of you every minute, every hour, even now as he bursts through the city, unable to pay mind to the screeching honks of cars and trucks, the collective shouts and wonders of the civilians that watch him. He takes the atmosphere by storm, leaving trails of smoke and sonic booms vibrating the glass windows of business towers and apartment complexes. 

His eyes find you in the distance, past the tacky yellow hazardous tape barricading the area, standing among the dirt and damage that have smeared your cheeks, forehead, to the backs of your ears, and the ends of your hair.

People are not meant to be stars, yet the longer Katsuki looks at you, a halo brilliantly flashing above your head, he reckons you are an exception to that impossible rule.

The brightest and rarest body of light to exist within the universe is none other than you. 

As you both return home, he crawls into the box of his musings. You protect and fight because you are a champion, a defender for those unable and for what lies ahead. And, like you, he protects. He fights and fights, blemishes the tissue of his skin, splits fibers of his muscles, snaps lengths of his bones all for the sake of another tomorrow. But, he reaches a revelation (perhaps, selfish) as you guide him to the bedroom and lie down beside him: he does not want to, does not know if he can, fight if he cannot guarantee a tomorrow, a future, with you. 

When he reaches over, takes your hand, and entwines his callused digits with yours, he remembers there is warmth in the world, his world. He would swallow fire and lightning, rip himself at every edge, eat his own heart if it promises your presence. Katsuki drifts into a trance observing the mellow rise and fall of your chest, your breathing so serene. Oh, how he would tear and give limb for limb just for you. He's aware that no matter how far gone he is, no matter how broken he is—he is healing, will heal because every piece of him is safe with you.

"Am I dreaming?" you ask loudly, detaching him from his thoughts. He stares at you, notices your arm motioning up and down, and he follows your gaze, stopping at the end where you two are connected.

"No," he replies, dragging the word as he strokes his thumb over yours. Katsuki blinks, raises an eyebrow, "Why?" 

With the opposite hand, you tap your index finger against your chin, feigning deep contemplation and releasing a low hum before speaking again, "You're awfully sweet." 

He immediately props himself up on his elbow, scrunches his face in annoyance, "Hah? I can be sweet too. What do you mean—"

As soon as you cackle, there is a quick stifle to his outburst that leaves you very amused. Bringing your joined hands over your mouth, puffs of hot air and the point of your nose tickles the ridges of his knuckles; and your joy reveals miniature constellations that twinkle in your irises, "I love you."

Katsuki melts. As he always does. If only he could bottle your voice, your words, and listen to them until he's impossibly intoxicated. Whenever you tell him, it feels like the first, though better each time. 

"Mm, say that again," he breathes, drawing you in and placing his lips at the center of your wrist. One kiss, two kisses, and then gently squeezing as if to convey I love you more than you know. 

You lie on your side, quiet. Katsuki watches you, and you to him, and there is a peculiar tenderness in your eyes that mirrors the tenderness in his voice when he mutters your name. His heart beats faster, rattles along his ribcage. He could scoop you up, take you to a place where it is only you and him, lose himself in you again and again like he is now. 

The moment is intimate, profound. Nothing short of perfection. 

He has you, but he still wants you. God, he always wants you. He realizes you keep him on his toes, trembling, and dying for oxygen, the same way he does you. While he is far from ideal, far from soft-spoken, he is not incapable of such. He is everything he wants to be, everything he can be, everything you yearn for.  

He makes you ache and ache just like him. You are full, unbearably so, and you are catching your breath with all that he does, all that he speaks. He finds that the less he says, the more weight his words seem to carry. He recognizes his strength. 

Through you, he remembers it is okay to be kindhearted to his friends, his family. He remembers it is okay to desire things because he does, in fact, deserve them. He remembers it is okay to let himself be happy. You have him inside and out, and honestly, he wouldn't have it any other way. 

He loves you. He loves who he is. He loves who he is when he is with you.

That is what they mean when they talk about love.

It's twenty until six in the morning, and he's floating among the clouds, overcome by absolute weightlessness. He lies on his side, arm bent under his head for support, gaze entirely on you. 

Immaculate. 

His heart is in his throat, threatening to explode as he spends the quiet hour of the sunrise watching the air you draw in and out, the dreams that leave a sliver of drool, some dry, some wet, and an adorable, crooked smile on your face—and every bit of the moment echoes this, this is why I breathe.

There is nothing about you that he cannot imagine not loving with every fiber of his being. You are in all the marvels and miracles in the world. You are the sun he sees at the first light, the only star he watches at night. Something as simple as one or two strands of hair hanging against your forehead when the breeze hits or the croaks of laughter when a game or snarky remark tickles your fancy, or the way you speak his name, how it seems more like a call than a formal label to his person.

He moves in slowly, delicately, until he is a kiss-length away. With a finger, his touch ghosts a trail, back and forth, back and forth, just above the apple of your cheek, shy and apprehensive about disturbing your rest. A pang to his beating core makes him hesitate his motions, and now he's silently panting for oxygen, for anything that can stop his brain from flipping like coins in relentless heads or tails.

"I love you," he confesses and curls his tongue, takes a shallow breath, and repeats, though this time, barely speaking at all. Squeezing his eyelids tightly, the skin between his brows begins to wrinkle from pressure; his torso stutters, struggling and struggling to push away the lava from invading his lungs and forming him into charred flesh and liquid bones. 

How much he could only begin to confess—you are the source of great beauty, the promise to better days. 

It's nine until six in the morning, and he's sure, unequivocally sure he doesn't want to be without you. 

Katsuki recoils when you shift and stretch your limbs, hiding evidence that he may have woken you. A mute exchange from his vermilion pools to yours; the planets and nebulas flashing, laying bare the unspoken. He is aware that you are the one that makes him see galaxy after galaxy, the one that memorizes every curve and bump, every scar, every shiver of his body, the one that ruins him yet builds him. 

"Happy birthday, darling," you tell him, voice raspy; golden glints of sunrise at the rim of your drowsy eyes. He learns by heart the scrunch of your nose, your knuckles escaping the warmth of the blankets to rub off sleep from your lashes, your sideways gesture to scoot yourself further into his embrace. You are so sweet, so effortlessly sweet.

After a tender kiss to his neck, he cups your face, brushes his lips to yours, joining your mouths in short, innocent caresses, and it is through this act of affection, he expresses thank you. 

He is melting, spilling over into a single wave in the vast ocean as if his body can no longer contain him. He can't pick himself up, gather himself whole, stop himself from carrying this sensation that you will always, always, always uncover the means to push his blood into a raging tsunami as you did the first time.

It is three until six in the morning, and he's feeling alive, so very alive. You are real, and his to have; a precious soul that doesn't deserve to wait. Then, he is reminded of the small box covered by shirts and sweaters and folded socks inside the drawer. 

By now, he is used to having you in his world, be his world. You are his first thought at the crack of dawn, the last thought after the dusk and the moon has risen. He will never be tired of you, for he has given his heart to you ages ago. He wants you to stay with him and never leave. Katsuki can't bear the notion of spending a day in his life that does not have you in it. 

You know how he is with his actions, his words—you love them all the same, and that is enough to reassure him. Everything; the loud and the aggressive, the sharp and the witty, the cynical and the fearful, the intense and the passionate, the gentle and the true. These are him. This is how you remember him, how you keep him engraved in your heart, how he finds genuine peace and happiness.  

His gaze is steady. And so, he believes, it is time.

Even when this world comes to its conclusion, and it is nothing more than mere gravel and forgotten dust in the rivers of the universe, he loves you, will love you. 

He wants to be forever with you. 

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