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Katsuki has always thought that the fire would be the thing to burn them. That they would crumble into nothing because they were too alike, not too different.
If he stops to think about any of it, it sounds ridiculous. The wannabe hero with anger issues bigger than the whole damn school and the prodigy whose own father gave him more reasons to become a villain than anyone else. It shouldn’t work. It doesn’t. They should, by all means, burn out.
But—it’s not the fire that bothers Katsuki. He doesn’t mind watching Todoroki burn. There is a way, he knows—has had to learn—to take even the worst things that happen to you, and shape them into strength.
(Granted, it doesn’t come without a good deal of mental and emotional trauma. But no one reads the fine print when your dreams shine bright enough to be blinding, and your lungs ache with the strain of chasing them.)
With Todoroki, it’s—
It doesn’t feel like running, for once. It feels calm, steady. Like ocean waves lapping at the shore. A game of back and forth. Like—like holding hands. The first time Todoroki had taken his hand with no warning, a gesture so casual it could be instinct, Katsuki had had to quickly come up with a convincing excuse as to why the sleeve of his school uniform had spontaneously caught fire.
Todoroki’s smile had made the whole thing ridiculously worth it.
It makes Katsuki ache in the strangest way, the sight of Todoroki not smiling.
He doesn’t yell. He never yells. But the sparks of happiness in his gaze will grow dim, and the tension in the line of his jaw will be visible if you know how to look for it. Katsuki has grown up having to learn people. Of course he notices.
Even if Todoroki grew up learning to hide his weaknesses. (And, yeah, Katsuki has considered marching straight to the Todoroki estate just to punch that old bastard more than once through the years for what he’s heard Todoroki call weakness before.)
It had taken a long, long time for both of them to learn simple truths. Truths like: feelings aren’t a weakness. Truths like: it’s okay to take an offered hand. Truths like: sometimes a single, whispered word will be enough, will give you the strength to carry on.
A handful of scraggly years ago, Katsuki wouldn’t have known the first thing about being there for someone. About sitting back, and trying to help. His favored method of solving issues was (still is, most days) to set things on fire. As much as he wished he could, you couldn’t simply explode your way through years of emotional abuse.
It had taken learning. The first time he had wrapped a stiff arm around Todoroki, Todoroki had flinched, and Katsuki had tried to pull away on instinct, had thought wrong, wrong, wrong. Had thought I can’t do this. Had hated it. Himself.
But, rather than storm off, he’d taken a deep breath, and then, slowly—learning, learning, learning—Todoroki had pulled him into another awkward hug. They had stayed like that until Todoroki’s breathing had gotten a little steadier. Katsuki remembers jokingly whispering Is this going to become a thing, halfie? with Todoroki’s hands still clutching at the back of his shirt.
It had, in fact, become A Thing.
They don’t talk about it. Or, well—talking isn’t usually the point.
Jirou had mentioned something about seeing Todoroki walk out of Katsuki’s room at three in the morning once, a bit after the first or second time, and the dorm had gone deadly silent for three extremely painful seconds, but that had been pretty much it. Now, it’s just something everyone knows. Sometimes, Todoroki will sit at breakfast with messy, uncombed hair in a shirt that clearly didn’t originally belong to him, and no one will say anything about it. Katsuki least of all.
It’s not about talking. It’s about Todoroki needing help. About him trusting Katsuki enough to ask for it.
Sometimes—not often, because sleep is a rare commodity, and he will take as much of it as he can—Katsuki wakes up first, and gets to stare at Todoroki’s sleeping face. At the way he tangles himself around Katsuki’s body. It makes him want to laugh, even if he usually stifles the urge for fear of jostling Todoroki. (Sometimes, sometimes he doesn’t laugh at all, just thinks mine until the thought grows too heavy, too guilty.)
It’s not planned, not really. Even if, according to Iida’s meticulously gathered data, it’s 12.7% more likely to happen on a Tuesday. Todoroki just shows up. He curls up in his bed, and eventually, Katsuki joins him. Sometimes, they watch Ghibli movies. Sometimes, Todoroki puts on one of those sappy, overproduced romance movies he likes to watch with Yaoyorozu, and Katsuki does his very best to hate it. Sometimes, they just—
They stay there, and Katsuki gathers up the courage to wrap his arm around Todoroki’s waist.
It starts, usually, with a soft knock. With Todoroki asking sheepishly if he can come in. With Katsuki scoffing, “Of course you can, halfie,” because it’s safe.
Which—
Which is why Katsuki is a little bit more than surprised when he pushes the door to his room open and finds Todoroki already there. In his bed, wearing the pajama shirt he had left out for himself.
“Shou—Todoroki?”
Todoroki turns to look at him. The shirt he shamelessly stole from Katsuki rides up when he pushes himself to sit higher on the bed. Katsuki, for obvious reasons, gulps.
“I thought you wouldn’t mind,” he says, and—
And of course Katsuki doesn’t fucking mind Todoroki Shouto in his bed. That’s—that’s not the issue here. (The issue maybe has something to do with the longstanding bet between Kaminari and Ashido Katsuki’s not even supposed to know about but it’s not like any of those idiots could keep a secret to save their own life. So.)
“I—I don’t.” Katsuki coughs.
Mercifully, the literal goddamn stuttering doesn’t alert Todoroki about his internal turmoil. As a matter of fact, Todoroki seems extremely content to keep stretching like some kind of boy-sized cat, and Katsuki has to exercise a great deal of restraint not to stare at the strip of skin that keeps flashing before his eyes.
“Come on then,” Todoroki says, patting the empty space next to him. “Sit.”
Katsuki considers his options. Option a. he makes a fool of himself by refusing. Option b. he makes a fool of himself by not refusing, and then spontaneously declaring his eternal, undying love just because Todoroki was within touching distance while wearing his clothes. Option c. he flees Japan and changes his identity.
“Please?” Todoroki says.
It’s just a word. No eyelash-batting or pleading looks. Just—Todoroki.
Katsuki is a goddamn idiot.
“Move over.”
Todoroki’s mouth curls into a smile. “Missed you,” he says, and that part is probably never going to stop shaking Katsuki to the core, just a little. Because Todoroki says these things like they’re easy, like they’re simple, like reaching for each other and saying I missed you is just something they do. Which it isn’t. Or—it hasn’t been, until this very moment.
He’s heard Todoroki talk about his past and his parents and himself, heard him lay out the ugliest bits of it all and he’s tried his best to keep him whole through that, but—
Maybe that was the easy part. Maybe the whole hero thing has reached way too deep, because the part that scares Katsuki isn’t holding Todoroki through the bad days. It’s—
Well. The last time Katsuki got sick, Todoroki came over with chicken soup, and after he recovered Katsuki found out he’d recruited half the class to help him make it. (There were scorch marks at the edge of the counter still, and Katsuki had to try really hard not to smile each time he glanced at them.)
So. Maybe Katsuki is still a little horrible at asking for help. Maybe it feels too big, when it’s about him. Maybe there’s something stuck at the back of his throat, and—no matter how many encouraging looks Deku throws his way over dinner—he doesn’t have a single clue how to untangle it into words.
Touch is—surprisingly easier.
And okay, yeah, maybe some kind of strange, Todoroki-specific arrhythmia happens when Katsuki finally wraps an arm around his waist. Maybe that happens. Because he didn’t fucking plan on this when he picked out a bed frame and a mattress so there’s really not that much space anyway. Pressed this close, it’s impossible to ignore that Todoroki smells like him.
“Is—is everything alright?” Katsuki asks, wills his voice not to shake.
(Even if Todoroki already knows and is just being nice about it because that’s kind of who he fundamentally is as a person, still. Katsuki would like to keep some scraps of his dignity.)
“Yeah,” Todoroki says. “Just—long day. And I felt like coming here. That’s okay, right? I’m not—intruding?”
He looks at Katsuki, mismatched eyes so earnest and open, and, really, the intimacy of it all shouldn’t hit Katsuki now of all times, but—
I want to kiss him.
It does. It does and it’s terrifying and the worst of it might be that he can’t think of a single reason not to.
(He’d actually made an alphabetized list once, after Deku had emphatically asked him what could go wrong? It must still be crumpled around here somewhere.)
“Bakugou?” Todoroki says.
Katsuki snaps out of it. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry, I got—distracted.”
Too pretty. It’s a curse. Katsuki wonders if he’s even realized it, yet. If Todoroki notices the way people look at him, if he notices the way Katsuki looks at him, as much as he tries not to, or if it’s still just another one of those things on the long list of Stuff Todoroki Shouto Doesn’t Bother to Try and Notice.
He doesn’t know which would be worse.
“You do that a lot,” Todoroki points out, reaching to tug at one of the drawstrings on Katsuki’s hoodie, fiddling with the metal bit that keeps it from unraveling.
(The first time Kaminari had seen him do that, he’d shrieked, and Iida’s well-timed strategic intervention had been the only thing keeping Katsuki from murdering him on the spot. That. And Todoroki.)
Katsuki’s throat feels dry. “Do what?”
“Look at me,” Todoroki says, “and kind of—space out?”
Ah. So he does notice.
“Oh,” Katsuki says. “It’s, uh—it’s because—”
“Do I bore you?” Todoroki asks, tone completely, utterly serious.
This fucking idiot, Katsuki thinks, both immensely relieved and horrifically fond. “Of course you don’t bore me, halfie,” he says. “You’re the most interesting person in this entire goddamn school.”
“Is the competition intense?” Todoroki asks, and the almost-smile on his face makes Katsuki hope for just a second.
“Not really.”
“Good,” Todoroki says.
He sounds strangely satisfied about that. Almost—almost like he’s glad, like being Katsuki’s favorite person here, Katsuki’s favorite person in the whole damn universe, not that he needs to be informed of this currently, is something to strive for.
“What about me?” Katsuki asks. “How’s my competition?” He’s always been both brave and foolish. Hero qualities, if you’re lucky. Stuff that gets you killed if you’re not. (Katsuki doesn’t feel like he’s dying, but that could change with a single word from Todoroki’s mouth.)
Todoroki blinks up at him. “There is none,” he says, with that same unshakable seriousness.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Fuck his whole life. Katsuki cannot survive this. Will not. It’s painfully obvious that Todoroki doesn’t understand, but he’s killing him. Each word that he says while looking into Katsuki’s eyes like that, a stab to the softest parts of his heart. Painfully just out of reach.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Katsuki says. “You’ve got plenty of friends.”
Todoroki goes silent. “Is—is that what we are? Friends?”
“Of course we’re friends,” Katsuki says.
Todoroki keeps touching him. Soft. Gentle. Intimate. Makes it difficult to pick something to concentrate on. Something that’s not how much Katsuki wishes he could kiss him.
“Is that all?” Todoroki asks.
This is the part where he should retreat. Find a way out of this before he bares it all. His ridiculous, mushy, pathetic crush that’s grown so far past a crush Katsuki would call it something else if he knew how to be brave about this stuff.
But he’s an idiot. So.
“Of course that’s not all,” he says. “You’re—you’re amazing. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever fucking met. In my whole life. And, like, even though I’m pretty sure you’re currently in possession of five of my favorite hoodies and you’re painfully obvious when you’re trying to convince me to do something for you, I still—I still want to see you every day. All the time. And I can’t help but think about you when I see some of that stupid, cheesy stuff I know you like. It’s terrible.”
“I’m terrible?” Todoroki asks, an eyebrow arched.
“You’re wonderful.”
“I don’t feel like it,” Todoroki says. “Don’t get me wrong, you’ve been—you’ve all been amazing at helping me deal with stuff, but—it’s hard, you know. It’s hard not to think I’m just—a failure. Irreparably damaged.”
“You’re not,” Katsuki says. He reaches for Todoroki’s hand, clasps it tightly. It’s number one in the long list of things he’s never been good at, being considerate, but, for Todoroki, he wants to try. “If anyone’s damaged, it’s that asshole father of yours. You’re perfect, and you didn’t deserve any of that shit.”
“I think,” Todoroki says, sounding pleased despite it all, “that you might be a little biased.”
“Who, me?” Katsuki asks. “I’m the most impartial person to ever walk the earth. You’re just objectively flawless.”
Todoroki laughs. “You really think so?”
Katsuki doesn’t know what possesses him, but he reaches up, barely has to move at all, with how close Todoroki is, and presses a kiss high on his cheek, right below the edge of his scar. “I do. I really fucking do, halfie.”
Todoroki goes rigid against him, completely still. His hands clutch at the fabric of Katsuki’s shirt, and Katsuki waits to be pushed away, but they just tighten into fists, tug him closer instead. “Mean,” he says, finally.
“What?” Katsuki asks.
“Mean,” Todoroki repeats, more firmly. “You can’t just—do that. Think about my heart rate.”
Katsuki is extremely confused. “Your heart rate?” he echoes.
“Yeah,” Todoroki says, cheeks tinged red. “My heart rate. It kind of sucks when you do stuff like that without telling me. Because then I feel even more selfish.”
“Selfish?” Katsuki asks, because apparently, he can only perform the function of a chorus in ancient plays and nothing else, currently. “Why would you be selfish?”
“It is selfish, isn’t it?” Todoroki asks. “When you have so much more than you ever thought you’d get to, and still—still want more?”
Katsuki swallows. “Not—not always. You can—you say it. The thing you want. It’s okay. It’s not a sin, you know, wanting stuff. We all do.”
“You don’t want the same thing I do,” Todoroki whispers, and—why would that matter? Why would Katsuki matter at all when it comes to the things Todoroki Shouto wants, unless—
“I want you,” he blurts. “I want you to be happy and to smile the way you do when I show you kitten pics and your eyes scrunch, like, all the fucking time and I really, really want to kiss you. When you’re in my bed. And also when you’re not. And—always. All the damn time.”
“But,” Todoroki says. “But I—I thought you weren’t, um, you know, interested.”
Katsuki blinks. “Why the fuck would you think that?”
“You never—I put my hands under your shirt that one time, and you didn’t do anything.”
Katsuki remembers that. Vividly. He’d been too busy trying not to get hard in the same bed as Todoroki to do much else, really. “I thought you were cold,” he says. “I thought you were trying to get warmer.”
“You thought,” Todoroki repeats slowly, “that I was trying to get warmer.”
Katsuki nods.
“And the only way to do that in a room with heating, on a bed with blankets, was to touch your abs?”
Oh. Did Katsuki mention he’s an absolute goddamn idiot?
“Please fucking date me.” He runs a hand over his face. “I can understand why you wouldn’t want to by now, but—”
“Took you long enough,” Todoroki says, and kisses him.
It’s sudden. The warmth takes Katsuki by surprise. Todoroki is always clinging to him, always a little colder than Katsuki, despite his quirk. But this is just—warm. He runs a hand through Todoroki’s hair, which is just as offensively soft as he’s always pictured it, and kisses him deeper.
And, really, he would love to keep going. To keep kissing and kissing him. To find out what makes Todoroki’s breath hitch. But he needs to say something first.
“I hope you know,” Katsuki says, breathless and winded more because it’s Todoroki than anything, “that I’m neck-deep in love with you.”
“You—love me?” Todoroki asks, flushed and wide-eyed.
“Of course I do,” Katsuki says, cupping his cheek. “I’ve loved you since, like, first year. It’s pathetic.”
“It’s not,” Todoroki says. “I just—I love you too. I thought you knew. I thought you were being nice about it. What the hell, Katsuki.”
“I thought you knew,” Katsuki says. “You’re—you. I couldn’t possibly stand a chance.”
Todoroki hits him. “I hate you,” he says. “I tried so hard—I even asked Momo for seduction tips.”
“You did?”
“Yes,” Todoroki hisses. “I did.”
His pout is adorable. Surely he must know this. It’s obviously a ploy to get Katsuki to kiss him again. Obviously, it works.
“Does this mean,” Todoroki asks, his mouth a breath away from Katsuki’s, “that I can touch your abs some more now?”
Katsuki laughs. “Whatever you want, Todo—Shouto.”
(They don’t make it out of Katsuki’s room for a while.
It’s fine, until Kaminari yelps Is that a hickey? when Katsuki’s shirt slips down Todoroki’s shoulder, and then the room erupts into unadulterated chaos.)