Work Text:
You saw through me
All this time
~
Bakugou had long taken off Kirishima’s hoodie by the time he trudged downstairs, having folded it up perfectly and left it on Kirishima’s bed shortly after walking out of his room. Only when he’d put it down had he noticed it was the same bright red colour as the bedsheets and the idiot’s hair, as the Crimson Riot posters and too light for the ketchup stain on the sleeve. The scent of Kirishima had clung to it still, not yet properly overwritten by his own burnt sugar stench.
He’d stared at it too long.
(Frowned at it, really. He was thinking about just how ridiculous it was to make an entire room so red. It wasn’t longing that stirred in his chest, or the desire to be wrapped in something soft, comforting. He didn’t miss the weight of it around his shoulders, didn’t mourn the warmth on his skin.)
The school week had gone by in a blur of classes, hero training and homework. Bakugou couldn’t remember most of it, if he was being honest, but that was becoming more and more common as the weeks dragged on after Kamino – he’d find himself somewhere he didn’t remember going, or else holding something he didn’t remember picking up.
Just another way they fucked me up, he supposed.
With the weekend came a welcome respite of slightly longer lie-ins, the promise of a class-wide movie night (which Kirishima would absolutely insist on dragging him to, even though he secretly would’ve gone anyway) and study sessions with his idiots, all away from the increasingly concerned eyes of Aizawa. He wasn’t fucking blind – he could see the way the man looked at him, as if he knew fucking anything – and it was taking all he had just to ward off any further suspicion, keep himself from freaking out in class.
(The nightmares weren’t going away. He’d tried everything, everything he could think of, but by now he’d just accepted he was hardly ever going to get a decent night’s sleep. He was learning, slowly, to panic quieter, to smother the urge to scream out until his throat was raw because someone on his fucking floor had to sleep well, even if it wasn’t him. And every time his traitorous, traitorous mind urged him to go talk to an adult, or else break the carefully crafted illusions he’d put up during class just to see if anyone gave a shit, he’d immediately remember middle school, and the one time Deku had decided to be helpful.)
(News flash: Deku had rarely succeeded back then.)
So he was happy to finally be catching a break.
Chilling in Kirishima’s room early Saturday morning while the rest of the idiots took turns on Sero’s racing game was his idea of a perfect way to spend time, something that demanded neither his attention or contribution but didn’t exclude him from everything either.
(He wasn’t sure who’d planned this or if it had happened by complete accident, but he was glad. He couldn’t have joined in on anything more energy-consuming than watching his friends laugh and squabble over the cars while he fired off the occasional sarcastic line, because it was one of those off days where time was skipping a little and he kept forgetting how to breathe.)
(It got better, though. The way the idiots would take it in turns smiling up at him kept him more and more in the present.)
Kirishima came to sit beside him, at some point, entire side pressed firmly into Bakugou’s arm as he leaned back against the wall, the light streaming in through the window highlighting all the best parts of his face – made his red eyes glow, his jawline sharpen. And the smile he gave Bakugou just then, filled with joy for just being there… Bakugou didn’t know what to do with the feeling, but it certainly wasn’t a bad one.
(He’d never understand how Kirishima could get so close so fearlessly, without any reservation; never get how someone so kind could deal with the sharper edges of his personality with so much patience, so much tolerance. Made him wonder where the limit was, that had made so many people before him leave.)
~
“Hey Bakubro?”
Bakugou looked up from his work to find Kirishima frowning at him, his own homework long abandoned.
“What?”
Ectoplasm had set them extra work on solving and sketching quadratics and it was a pain, but Bakugou didn’t mind. He just wished stupid fucking shittty hair would stop leaving the goddamn window open all the time.
“Are you cold?”
Bakugou huffed, rubbing his arms. Yes, he had goosebumps, but if Kirishima could stand the permanent freeze than so could he, thank you very much.
“No,” he said, and then for good measure, “You got number four wrong.”
Kirishima made some kind of pained sound as his head snapped to the sheet they were completing, before he finally groaned.
“No fair! You can’t distract me with my bad maths skills.”
“Try fucking abhorrent.”
And yeah, he felt a little bad for saying that, but it was a necessary evil. Thankfully, Kirishima didn’t look too offended by it.
“Dude, if you want a jumper you can just ask.”
And… what?
Bakugou narrowed his eyes at him, scanning his face for any sign of it being a joke. Or some cruel test, or… something. He remembered the incident in his room just a few weeks ago, and the way Kirishima’s clothes had felt on his frame. Too big, always too big, because apparently the idiot didn't know what size charts were, and always smelling vaguely of body spray and detergent. He thought about all the nights he’d spent thinking about how good it’d felt, to be enveloped in something huge and warm and Kirishima, something that didn’t reek of nitroglycerin and ash.
Panic that he was being called out was quickly abated when Kirishima leaned over to grab a bright orange monstrosity from the back of his chair, ugly in a way Bakugou couldn’t even describe.
And yet when Kirishima threw it over he didn’t complain. How the colour hadn’t faded in the wash was probably some kind of cruel miracle, but wearing neon beat being cold.
(He’d deny it after, but he spent almost the full two hours they had for studying in it. Somehow he suspected Kirishima had gotten pictures but he was yet to find any evidence, unless Kaminari sniggering every time he saw him counted.)
~
There were still moments where things were terrible, in between the bursts of quiet peace he found around his idiots. Moments where things hurt, where his mind bled poisons he knew he didn’t have antidotes to. There was a monster in his mind, in his chest, and he’d long accepted he was the prey. It ate him alive, sometimes, caving him out until he wasn’t sure what was his own anymore.
(He felt it, up against his heart as it squeezed out his lungs, like a constrictor. Made him suck in air without really breathing, made him choke on the fumes of his own thoughts. It was getting worse, he knew it was getting worse. But what to even do about it? He wasn’t about to admit to the same people who’d muzzled and chained him for having principles that he was going fucking insane.)
Parts of his duvet were now charred black, in distinctive patches shaped like fingertips or palms, and he hated the sight of them but he couldn’t do very much about it. (Not without telling Aizawa, anyway, and that was not happening.)
He hadn’t had to deal with this shit since he was a kid and only just getting used to his quirk, and that humiliating reminder – that he was losing control of himself, that something was wrong and it wasn’t getting any better – made him want to break something. Or scream for hours on end, until his voice was hoarse or someone fucking heard him, which was stupid because Kirishima was right there most of the time and more than willing to listen to anything Bakugou had to say, but it wasn’t that easy.
Sometimes he wouldn’t have known what to say.
And other times, words didn’t seem like a big enough thing to stop the ache.
(Plus, Kirishima doesn’t deserve it. His mind was heavy, a burden he had no choice but to carry. It was his own responsibility to shoulder the weight. Just had to go and get himself traumatised. A real pain in the ass, but ultimately no one else’s problem but his own.)
(How he wished someone could take some of the edge off, though. Break his crumbling illusion of sanity and make him whole again, or as whole as he’d ever be again. He was tired of pretending.)
~
“Keep still!”
Bakugou sighed, and stopped trying to fight it. Kirishima made a content sound and Bakugou felt the need to sigh harder.
(There’d have been a time when Bakugou would’ve cursed him out for trying to do what he was doing. But perhaps it was the otherwise quiet of the room, or the intimacy of the moment with only Crimson Riot posters as their witness, but Bakugou found he didn’t mind. Made his insides a little warm, that Kirishima was doing this.)
(Not that he wasn’t going to pretend to be annoyed, though. Even if only a little. Reputation and all that, you know.)
Kirishima’s mom had sent a small canvas in the mail along with some paints, and something in the note attached had apparently inspired the redhead to try his hand at portraits, of all things. Or more specifically, a portrait of Bakugou.
Which… okay, he was a little flattered. Annoyed, mostly annoyed, but also a little flattered. Sitting in the soft light streaming in through the window he was sure his hair looked more gold than its usual ash blond, his face less harsh and sharp.
“Dude!”
“Fuckin’ fine.” Bakugou rolled his eyes, resigning himself to lie back against the bed and keep still for a while. “But if I’m gonna be sat here ‘til next week, at least give me your shitty jumper. It’s fuckin’ cold.”
Kirishima poked his head around the easel and shot him a smile, wide and unrestrained. Whatever anxious knot had formed itself in the pit of Bakugou’s stomach dissolved immediately, the knowledge that Kirishima didn’t think the request was weird making him relax minutely.
(Request might’ve been a strong weird for anyone who didn’t know him, but Kirishima did. He understood Bakugou rarely asked permission so explicitly. Too much of his life had just been take what you want.)
“Sure! Here.”
He reached around the back of his chair and grabbed the most violently red jumper Bakugou had ever seen, before tossing it over. It had paint on one of the sleeves, a smudge of yellow and pale pink.
Bakugou bit back the fondness and put it on.
He wasn’t sure how much time passed, like that. Kirishima had allowed him headphones after he threatened to up and leave, and he’d had his phone as a distraction too. Occasionally he’d glance up and find himself drawn to the way Kirishima was biting the end of his paintbrush or the myriad of colours dotting his skin all the way to his forearm, where his sleeves had been rolled up.
The sun did wonders to his hair too, and cast long shadows on his face that made his features look sharper, stronger.
Bakugou pulled the sleeves of the hoodie further over his fists and crossed his arms, going back to scrolling through his phone.
The next time he glanced up Kirishima was leaning back to admire his work, proud smile pulling at his lips. Bakugou almost smiled too, at the sight, before catching himself.
“You fuckin’ done yet?”
Kirishima turned to him then, smile only growing wider. “Almost, but not yet. Need to add the finishing touches, and like… name it. On the back. And you can’t see ‘til I’m done, so… bye!”
He made a little wave gesture like the true shameless fucker that he was, and Bakugou huffed but stood up anyway. This was an opportunity to stretch his legs, at least. And he had to admit he was at least a little curious about how it would turn out.
About half an hour later Kirishima sent him a text saying he was ready, and Bakugou was relieved to have somewhere to go that wasn’t the four walls of his dorm. He knocked ad Kirishima opened the door, all anxious-looking in a way that didn’t suit him, and Bakugou tried to make a point of making his expression les pissed off.
“I, uh…” Kirishima started, laughing nervously and scratching the back of his neck. “It’s not that good. But I’m also kind of proud? It turned out better than I thought. I just hope you like it.”
Bakugou made some non-committal sound and walked over to the desk, where the easel had been turned to face the window. He noticed Kirishima’s messy scrawl on the back, the words King Explosion Murder written in all caps, plus something else in much smaller writing underneath. He stepped in front of it, to where the desk chair Kirishima had been painting on was, and his breath caught when he saw it in full.
It wasn’t the best thing ever painted. He blending was poor, the strokes too big and blocky to allow for any kind of finer detail. It was clear this had been made by an ameteur, with very little art experience at best, but…
It was him. In the soft glow of the morning light, headphones in and bright red jumper hugging his frame. There was the bed behind him, equally red, and a mass of darker colours he could only assume were the posters on the wall. The words on the back sounded ridiculous, now, too brash for such a delicate composition. The irony of it made him smile, smile wider than he thought he was capable of, until he was grinning and so was Kirishima, albeit a lot more tentatively.
“You like it?”
Bakugou glazed back down at the work, the imperfectness of it somehow more appealing than anything more life-like. It was him, and he was messy and smudged in places but his edges were soft, and the colours were more pastel than anything he’d ever think to associate with himself.
Briefly, he wondered if this is what Kirishima saw in him.
“Yeah,” he said, and he couldn’t remember the last time he smiled like this. “I like it.”
~
It went on his wall.
The wall behind the door, mind, so that you’d have to be all the way inside and with the door closed to be able to see it. Kirishima had insisted it wasn’t good enough to be hung up, that it had just been a bit of fun, but Bakugou had eventually shut him up with a threat or two. He had to admit, it clashed horribly with most of the decor — minimalism and bad art weren’t exactly the greatest combination — but he’d found that staring at it through the worst of his nights made the hollow feeling less intense, the panic less visceral. He’d die before he admitted it but he kind of liked the Bakugou in the canvas; liked even more that he already was that, to Kirishima.
Years of being told he was too much like his mother, like a knife’s edge or a bomb or a volcano primed for eruption, and all he really wanted was for those quieter parts of him to be seen, to be acknowledged too a part of his strength.
(He liked the idea that someone believed he could be gentle. That Kirishima believed he could be gentle. That Kirishima saw him, through and through, and would never think less of him for it.)
It had become routine, by that point, for Kirishima to hand Bakugou his hoodie whenever they hung out. Sometimes the others joined them too, and Bakugou felt too safe in the neon atrocities to take it off so he tensed and waited for the worst of the teasing, but it never came. None of his friends really comment on the distinctively not-his hoodie choice, and he doesn’t quite know how to express how grateful he is for it.
They don’t make fun of him when he shifts closer, either, or when he closes his eyes during certain scenes, during class movie nights. They don’t question the way he flinches, or the way he snaps, or the way he asks for space when he can’t take it anymore, the overbearing way in which they make the walls close in faster.
And they just… respect it. Respect him. Seem to know where the line is and why not to cross it, and he’s not sure if Kirishima’s done anything but he’s relieved he hasn’t had to explain himself, dissect all the ways in which his head is fucked up. They don’t get tired of him, either, and somehow that’s the most confusing part — because how could they not? Even he’s tired of himself.
But every time he reaches out they’re there, in their own way, and he’s terrified of coming to rely on it like a safety net but he sees no inconsistencies, in the way they care.
Asking for help wasn’t a weakness, Bakugou was slowly realising.
He’d been self-sufficient his whole life. Fiercely independent because nobody else was reliable enough to trust with things that could so easily break him, destroy the careful image he’d been building for years. People were cruel, and judgemental, and the only thing that got you anywhere in life was undeniable power, unchallenged strength.
(And friends, it seemed, but Bakugou had never been good at those. Hadn’t been good at those. Now… now it seemed things were changing.)
He didn’t have to be any of that anymore. Not invincible, not all-powerful. Not even strong, not all the time. People expected something human of him, something breakable and just as fragile as everyone else, and at first he’d taken it as an insult but now it had become a blessing, a breath of air after so long trying to surpass every expectation of brilliance put upon him.
Because for once there were people in his life who gave a shit about whether he was alright or not, who’d be there in an instant if he asked. He was getting used to the idea that he didn’t need to be something for people to want him, that affection didn’t need to be conditional.
Asking still wasn’t easy, but at least now it didn’t feel like failure.
There were still moments where he was right back to square one, of course. Moments where he spat curses and meaningless, angry words just to get a little breathing room, because it didn’t always feel safe to hurt in front of others. Moments where he pushed everyone away and refused to acknowledge the knot in his chest because it wasn’t like anyone actually gave a fuck.
Except they did.
They always did, and they were always there. No matter how difficult he became, no matter how many opportunities he gave them to just give up, they didn’t. And at first it was terrifying and it made no sense but now, now he understood.
(Friends don’t just care on good days.)