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An unusual chill wakes Katsuki in the middle of the night, not because being cold in his bed has been anything unusual in the last six weeks, but because the source of the cold tonight is from a draft and not from a quirk left unregulated deep into the night.
His bed is empty.
It hasn’t been since they started this… arrangement.
He knows what it is, doesn’t need to put a name to it, and Shouto isn’t in that much of a hurry to either.
He does though, when someone asks. I’ve got someone at home rolls off of his tongue as easy as brass even if it isn’t quite true, and he says it without a second thought or a third until he’s alone again and the heat stirs in his chest, rising to his ears in a flash. It’s not shame, exactly, but it is embarrassing how easily he claims him as a shield or barrier, something to put up between him and whoever it is he doesn’t want.
And even if it’s easy (or pathetic) he does want him.
But he isn’t here.
Katsuki sits up and looks around his room and sees that it’s empty.
Shouto’s things aren’t gone which is what saves him from losing his stomach, but Shouto not being here is enough to keep him unsettled.
He’s been here every night for the past six weeks, maybe longer if Katsuki really thinks about it. It started with late night reviews over old case files that turned into naps on a couch he couldn’t be fucked to wake Shouto up from, and then it turned into him telling him he couldn’t sleep there anymore because it was bad for his neck.
The first time they slept together in Katsuki’s bed, it was awkward as fuck, and Shouto almost went home to avoid doing it, but it was late, and there had been a couple bottles of sake, and leaving was kind of out of the question.
They slept back to back, if they slept at all.
But then soon Katsuki found that sleeping with Shouto is easy, easier than sleeping alone, that’s for sure. It’s cold sometimes, more so than he’s used to, but Shouto sleeps quietly on his back—like a vampire, Katsuki thought once—and most importantly he looks good in whatever clothes he digs out of the drawers. Don’t ask him why that matters, it just does.
Earlier tonight Shouto grabbed a Deku shirt and swiped a pair of boxers before kissing Great Explosion Murder Paws on top of her head and climbing into what has now become his spot (which is a significant improvement from the pile of etiquette books Best Jeanist makes him read), so Katsuki knows Shouto should be here.
He reaches for his phone on the dresser to see if Shouto left in a hurry, but there’s nothing there but a few HeroNet notifications he doesn’t care about. His lockscreen is Shouto asleep with Katsuki’s cat on his chest, and he almost changes it right then and there in a full leap of self preservation.
If Shouto left then fuck him.
But there isn’t anything to leave because at the end of the day, Katsuki might know what they are, but that doesn’t mean Shouto does.
They’ve never talked about it, never laid out the rules or figured out the basic steps. Deku says they need to, but what does he know? Nothing, that’s what.
Stupid nerd.
What are you afraid of, Kacchan?
His voice comes in loud and clear, and Katsuki swears under his breath as he yanks the covers off of himself and slings his legs off the bed at once. He’s not afraid of shit, that’s for damn sure. Especially not a goddamn Todoroki.
He makes his way out of his bedroom, almost stomping from the level of vigor proving Deku wrong brings out of him, and Murder Paws bumps into his leg at the doorway as if to signal that she’s ready to join him in battle, as any faithful sidekick would.
And his apartment is quiet the way it always is at night, the way it still somehow is even when Shouto’s here, and he thinks with a certain degree of resignation that looking for him is stupid, and that he isn’t here, and no matter which way he proves himself right, it’s going to sting.
But then Katsuki’s wrong.
Once in the living room he sees a figure on the couch, out cold but very much supposed to be there.
Sort of.
He’s supposed to be here in the cosmic sense because Shouto is supposed to be in this apartment getting a full night’s rest before his shift tomorrow, but he’s not supposed to be on Katsuki’s goddamn couch.
Katsuki walks over, padding lightly over the tatami floors, and sits down in the dip where Shouto’s body doesn’t reach.
Shouto doesn’t normally sleep on his side, but tonight his cold side is tucked beneath him, and the cushions are practically frozen to the touch.
He puts a hand on him, not sure if he should wake him or not, but it’s instinctual nonetheless. Touch the thing that confuses you, put it in your mouth to learn what it is, basic human baby info-sorption 101.
Shouto is so cold he doesn’t feel alive.
“Candy Cane,” he says quietly.
Shouto’s breathing is steady but otherwise undisturbed, and Katsuki looks around for a solution, a spark of inspiration maybe. A blow horn, anything. He sees a blanket tossed over one of the chairs and decides it’s good enough. If Shouto is cold, he’ll make him less cold. It’s a simple solution he doesn’t have to think about.
He gets up to retrieve the blanket, an old duster his mom gave him when he moved out, and he makes quick work of draping it over Princess Icepick and tucking it into all the nooks and crannies. It will work, and it’ll be a good thing. Shouto will be his usual temperature again.
Cold, but reasonable.
Hot too.
He’s supposed to be both.
“What are you doing?”
Shouto’s eyes are barely open as the question croaks out, and Katsuki is just ashamed of himself enough to jerk his hands back, losing the last tuck and leaving his whole masterpiece undone. Damn it.
“You’re fucking freezing,” he says. “It’s weird.”
Shouto only hums at that, eyes heavy and barely hanging on.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I had a nightmare,” he says.
Katsuki frowns. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“There was no need,” he says. “It was just a dream.”
“Fucked you up enough you left,” he says, kicking himself for the phrasing, but Shouto doesn’t seem to notice.
“I didn’t want you to be cold.”
“Yeah, well tough shit, I woke up freezing my ass off.”
Shouto looks up at him, quiet and probably more tired than he looks if Katsuki knows anything about dreams fucked up enough to get your body temperature out of whack, quirk or not.
He exhales through his nose, sharper than he means to, and he pulls the untucked part of the blanket up enough that he can slip underneath it with him.
It’s a tight squeeze, and he has to get closer to Shouto than he’s ever been on purpose, and he doesn’t look at him as he indignantly lets his nose rest against his collar.
Fucking height difference.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to sleep,” he says. “Shut up.”
“Do you have to face me,” Shouto says.
“Better than you spooning me.”
Shouto hums, and Katsuki squeezes his eyes shut. He called himself helping, but now he just looks like an asshole climbing into Shouto’s arms uninvited like that’s supposed to fix the problem.
He should get up.
Shouto is stiff for a moment like he always is before his arm settles over Katsuki’s chest, and he relaxes just enough that it seems to be a silent and unconscious acceptance of this particular situation they’ve gotten themselves in.
So he won’t move then. He’ll stay here and spend the night on his stupid couch with his stupid loser ass Candy Cane who can’t sleep in a bed like a normal person because now apparently Katsuki can’t sleep without him.
It’s Shouto’s fault he has to do this.
But Shouto is still cold, pure ice to the touch without that hint of fire Katsuki’s grown used to, so he rubs his hand over him trying to bring back whatever warmth he can muster.
He doesn’t ask him what he’s doing thank god because he’s pretty sure he couldn’t answer that without choking, and if Shouto had to tell him it wasn’t working (which he would) he’d probably burst into flames.
“That feels good,” Shouto mutters, the words barely slipping past his lips, but here in the quiet Katsuki hears him loud and clear.
Something in his chest tightens, but he doesn’t acknowledge it, used to it by now but aware enough that it means something to not get too comfortable with it, and he continues rubbing over Shouto’s body, the fabric of his own clothes Shouto swiped hours before soft to the touch.
Maybe he needs more. Pants that won’t come to his ankles, or socks, or anything to fix whatever kind of cold this is.
A hot breath feathers through his hair, a deep sigh he feels expelled from Shouto’s lungs, and it settles into his own chest.
He tilts his head up and places his mouth to the underside of Shouto’s jaw, the closest he can get for now.
The hint of stubble is rough and new, but he can’t say he doesn’t like it.
Shouto moves, dragging the pointed tip of his nose over his until a pair of chapped lips, warmer than Katsuki has ever felt on anyone else, finds his.
It isn’t much of a kiss, if it’s even a kiss at all, but it will be considered their first, a secret shared along with the aftershocks of a nightmare no one else will ever know Shouto had.
Because they have an understanding.
They know what they are, they don’t have to put a name to it.
Sometimes Katsuki does, quietly to himself or when a stranger wanders a little too close. He thinks Shouto does too based on the way his mom smiles at him when he brings her food, or when Endeavor nods at him when their paths cross, or how even if Shouto has a whole drawer of his own clothes right below Katsuki’s, he still only reaches for his.
“Move in with me,” he says quietly against his mouth, not even sure if Shouto is still awake or if he’s drifted back off to some other place a little more peaceful.
The flash of heat against his mouth, a flame of surprise that burns enough to alert them both, tells him that Shouto was, in fact, not asleep, and that that wasn’t a question he expected to hear right now of all times or maybe ever.
His mind says take it back, but he doesn’t, frozen in place like he’s the one who woke up unsettled.
But did wake up unsettled because Shouto wasn’t there, and Shouto was supposed to be there.
He’s supposed to be here.
Katsuki moves back away, tilting back to Shouto’s chest and not pushing the point any further. Shouto can think about it and decide for himself, sleep on it or whatever. He doesn’t need to be persuaded or talked into anything. He’s a big boy.
“We will have to get a better couch,” Shouto says.
“There ain’t shit wrong with this one.”
“You said it hurts your neck to sleep on.”
“Because it’s a fucking couch.”
“My couch doesn’t do that.”
“Then bring yours here, I don’t give a shit.”
Shouto exhales, and Katsuki pretends like Shouto can’t feel his heart pounding against his chest, tells himself that he isn’t that perceptive, and it works almost.
He’s almost convinced.
“You want me to,” Shouto says, not quite a statement or a question.
“Yeah.”
A weight drops down on them followed by the uncareful jabs of four dagger-like paws ungraciously climbing over the blanket covering them both.
Great Explosion Murder Paws kneads into Shouto’s shoulder, and Katsuki bites back a laugh, not willing to startle the cat when he’s doing such an excellent job of poking holes into him.
“You two make a compelling argument.”
“I know we do,” Katsuki says. “Lay down, damnit.”
“Mmrrrp.”
And for the rest of the night Shouto is packed in, tucked away where unwanted dreams can’t find him, and the unusual cold doesn’t return again.
Now they can sleep like they’re supposed to, not in a bed like two smart people who have to kick villain ass for a living, but together where it’s warm, and good, and just a little uncomfortable.
The cat settles in in the dip of the blanket, rumbling softly into the night.
Well, maybe not uncomfortable for everyone.
It’s clear to see that Shouto belongs here. Maybe that will be something he can learn to say out loud.