Chapter Text
Keisuke said nothing. He wasn’t even really sure if he could, or what it would even matter at this point.
Kirishima said nothing. The forceful determination, the positivity Keisuke’d always come to associate him with, just slid off his face. It made him look younger.
It made him look lost.
And Keisuke stood then, even when his muscles felt like they were carved from nothing but stone, because this was — he never wanted to see this in his face. Never.
He never wanted to see a future where Katsuki wasn’t around, either, but —
Kirishima didn’t follow him.
Keisuke didn’t know if he hated that or not.
The park was quiet in the dark. Keisuke watched the skies and said nothing, because he was pretty sure he had no words left in his mouth for the rest of his lifetime.
The wind was cold. It felt strange, when the only thing Keisuke had been aware of — for what seemed like hours? — was the sky as it changed color. The cottony-numbness that rubbed against itself with every breath he couldn’t feel himself taking.
The thought disappeared after a moment, and Keisuke didn’t have enough energy to chase after it. The skies turned pink, and then blue, and then pink again.
He was really cold.
Sighing, Keisuke stood up — had to consciously will himself not to throw up or pass out from staying seated for so long — and made the long, slow walk home.
The apartment was dark when he got back. It was late. Some distant part of Keisuke noted these things, felt like there was some part of him that should care, maybe do something with this information, but the thought was snatched out of his reach, just like before (before? What was before this moment, this breath, and then the next) and he sighed.
Automatically, his feet turned him toward the bedroom. His body caught the mistake before his mind did, taking the single tiny step forward before stopping.
It was dark.
Keisuke was cold.
Because Keisuke slept on the couch, he heard Eijirou before the other man saw him. Coffee, from the sounds that Keisuke had gotten used to hearing for so long. He also heard the moment that Eijirou pulled out three mugs instead of one, and the small gasp of his breathing catching, the little whine that followed, and something about the breathless expression of agony brought something within Keisuke up and rushing to the surface, and he was standing.
Eijirou was still looking at the three little mugs on the counter, and didn’t see him at first. Keisuke crept forward — any kind of noise in the stillness of the moment felt like nails against a chalkboard — before tapping twice against the wall.
It sounded a little like a gunshot, or an explosion, with its concussive sound in the silence. Keisuke flinched despite himself. Eijirou hardened upon hearing it, before even turning, and frozen when he saw Keisuke, cringed into himself.
“Oh,” he said, and then breathed out again in a sigh. “Oh, hey.”
Keisuke said nothing. Still, he moved forward, running a hand through his hair and moving until he was near enough to touch Kirishima, even if he didn’t.
What even was there to say? About any of it? Keisuke shuffled his feet, and then slowly took the third mug from Eijirou and put it back on the shelf.
“Oh,” he breathed again, and this sounded like someone had hit him, and it hurt Keisuke to hear it. Keisuke turned to Eijirou, expression closed off and blank, and sighed, just a little.
He’s alive, Keisuke signed, after a moment. He had no words. He could barely breathe against the weight in his chest.
Eijirou nodded, but his expression crumpled. He looked defeated. Keisuke hated it. “Yeah, I — I know.” Eijirou shuffled his feet against the wood of the floor. Keisuke ducked his head to watch the movement. “Do — do you think.” Eijirou sighed deeply, curling into himself. “Do you think that — that Katsuki, he — ?”
Keisuke tapped once on the counter. The sound made Eijirou flinch, but then he looked to where Keisuke’s hand met the black of the countertop, slowly following it up to Keisuke’s face, which was hollow. It looked like it hurt Eijirou to look at Keisuke, and that was like a physical lance of pain in his own chest.
He’s alive, Keisuke signed again, because that was all he had. Eijirou winced against the words. Keisuke flexed his scarred fingers, trying to hide the shake in them, and breathed out very slowly.
Keisuke was scared, because it’d always been Katsuki that was better at all this than Keisuke. Katsuki, who pushed Kirishima when he needed it. Kirishima, who could push just as hard back and get the same depth of feeling and response. Both who were locked down, and Keisuke just felt — outside of it all. A little lost, like trying to pick up a language he’d never really known but heard enough to barely understand the gist of it.
Eijirou, Keisuke signed, holding his hands out so that Kirishima was forced to really look, really see. Katsuki is alive. I’m here. Keisuke paused, searching for words, before giving up a little and settling with, We’ll deal with whatever.
Eijirou blinked at Keisuke and said nothing. Keisuke felt the anxiety well up in his throat, and Eijirou saw it, just like always, but hesitated, because there was a piece missing, and the absence of it set off all of the other pieces and broke them and just made them just out of their reach.
It felt a little strange, though Keisuke supposed it shouldn’t really be so surprising, that Eijirou Kirishima — the most socially adept one of their little trio by far — was at a loss for words. That he didn’t know what to do next, that Eijirou, who always knew how to fix things between the three of them, just couldn’t this time.
Keisuke’s hands were shaking more obviously now, and maybe his breathing was hitching a little at the edges, but still he held moved one of his hands until he gently twined his fingers with Kirishima’s.
Eijirou didn’t react for a long moment. Keisuke shuffled just a little bit closer, slowly but with some slight, renewed determination, and laid his forehead against his partner’s chest, breathing slowly.
Kirishima sighed again, and Keisuke could feel it against his frame and tensed with its movement, but then Kirishima wrapped his free arm around Keisuke’s shoulder and squeezed the hand that Keisuke had claimed, and it all at once was painfully, overwhelmingly not enough, but —
It was something. It was a start. Keisuke released a shuddering breath and brought his free hand up to cling tightly to Eijirou’s t-shirt and desperately tried to believe that the third part of them would be back soon.
The hospital, when they were actually allowed in for the first time about a week later, was cold and sterile. Keisuke, who still felt frozen and all the words were still stuck in his throat like burrs that clung and itched, let Kirishima take his hand and tried to squeeze back, but it kind of felt like all the air was being strangled out of his lungs, so he’d take the fact that he was moving forward with its own kind of pride.
“Do you think Katsuki will like the bear?” Kirishima asked quietly, fidgeting with the handles of the gift bag in his free hand.
Keisuke smiled slightly. Regular-strength Bakugou? He’d hate it, or at least pretend to, and only when Kirshima began to pout about it sigh and admit that he “didn’t hate it” (which was totally code for he really liked the damned thing and was too stubborn to admit it). And then snap at Keisuke to fuck off when he started to laugh at the pure spiky-softness that was Bakugou when he bothered to try.
Two gentle squeezes on Kirishima’s hand, and the spiky-haired hero beamed, even if it was softer and more anxious than usual.
The halls were too white, too echoey, and too clean, but Keisuke followed Kirishima and the hero that led them to Bakugou’s room now that it wasn’t being quarantined with the rest of it all.
Kirishima didn’t ask for updates as they walked, and all of Keisuke’s words were still stuck his throat, so he walked silently next to the other two heroes. Keisuke’s heart felt like it fell out of his stomach when he saw Recovery Girl and All Might standing outside of Bakugou’s room, looking grave, and Keisuke’s legs stopped without his conscious command.
Kirishima looked over at Keisuke in slight alarm, and Keisuke was trying to sign, but his hands were shaking too much to really do it all that well, and eventually he just settled with, Alive?
“Yes,” Recovery Girl murmured, and Keisuke heard more than felt the embarrassing whimper that escaped his own throat. Kirishima grinned, but it was so fragile, and he was looking back into Bakugou’s room.
“Alive,” All Might said, his voice so, so weirdly subdued it made Keisuke want to throw up, “but very, very weak. He’s just now stable and out of surgery, and hasn’t regained consciousness, so we don’t know what we’re working with just yet.”
Keisuke nodded, throat working. It was a moment before the right words came to him. Will he be able to resume hero work?
That’s what Bakugou actually cared about, over almost everything else. Maybe more than everything else. All Might and Recovery Girl exchanged a look, and then Recovery Girl said, “We’re not sure if he’s going to wake up at all, sweetheart, even if he is alive.”
The whole world zoomed out for Keisuke, and he crumpled in on himself without feeling it, curling into himself on the floor, wrapping his arms around himself. There was a high-pitched whine that stuttered and gasped, and Keisuke only recognized it as his own when the ever-present pain his throat worsened and harsh coughs made him gag.
Keisuke really, really didn’t mean to break into ugly, uncontrollable sobs in the middle of the hallway, but the only thing he’d been banking on — that Bakugou was alive — wasn’t enough anymore, because even if he was alive, what did it mean when he was so far out of reach? When he was just so, so far gone?
Kirishima slowly dropped to his knees next to Keisuke. For a moment, it was just a gentle pressure over the back of Keisuke’s head, and then guiding him upward and against Eijirou so that they could cling to each other, and selfishly, selfishly —
It helped, against this agonizing pressure squeezing his lungs, against the way his hands hurt and shook and the way he couldn’t stabilize himself, didn’t know how to get out of this — strange agony, compressed all at once inside of his skin and yet also outside, like a hurt he’d nurse with bandages.
“Katsuki,” Keisuke gasped, and it was so very little, but it was all he could do, maybe the best he could do, and even if it was painfully not enough, it was still his. “Katsuki. Katsu — ”
His voice crackled and died. Eijirou tucked Keisuke’s head under his chin and they stayed like that for a long, long time.
It was sad, it was scary… but it was also strangely boring.
Keisuke and Eijirou sat together in the hospital room when they could, and left in shifts when they could not. Neither of them wanted Bakugou to wake up alone; it seemed to outweigh the overwhelming press of loneliness and loss when they were alone, but Keisuke privately wondered for how long.
Eijirou and Keisuke were supposed to return to their hero work at Red Riot and Ruin, and Keisuke knew how important it was, to let the public — those that were scared, those that needed them — see that Red Riot and Ruin weren’t defeated, that they were still alive and going strong, but.
But. Maybe Ruin and Red were going strong, but Keisuke felt like he was shattering and just barely catching the pieces before they could hit the ground and spiral out into something that he really couldn’t control. He watched Eijirou do the same, and all over again Keisuke felt like he was at a loss, because there was something he was supposed to be doing, right?
And still, Katsuki slept on.
Keisuke stirred his coffee slowly in his hands. It was the first time in — weeks, maybe — that Kirishima and him were together in their shared apartment. Kirishima, very obviously, hated being at home without Bakugou there too. Keisuke didn’t love it, not by any stretch, but a lot of the things he was sure would never be okay, never be the same, were fading into the same gray cloud of this is what life is now. No use for it all, as far as Keisuke was concerned, except to just live with it. Even if he didn’t sleep in the bed, ever. Or touch Bakugou’s precious All Might mug Keisuke had gotten him as a joke when they had first started dating but had carefully observed the ways that Bakugou’s eyes had grown soft with affection and then strained with emotion. Or the blankets that were warm and fuzzy because Bakugou was cold, apparently, all the time. Or —
Maybe he wasn’t coping, either. Keisuke rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, and sighed.
Keisuke tapped the counter twice to get Eijirou’s attention. Placing down his mug to free up both hands, Keisuke signed, I think we should go back to work.
Eijirou’s eyes widened. “I — what — ?”
I’m not giving up, Keisuke said, clenching his hands and letting the words hang there for a moment so that Eijirou could see the strength of Keisuke’s conviction. But us being there isn’t helping anymore.
“He needs us,” Eijirou rasped, and Keisuke could see the panic rising up behind his eyes, and Keisuke quickly moved around the counter so that he could cradle Eijirou’s face in his palms and breathe, very softly, “Eijirou.”
He was gasping, and Keisuke pressed his forehead against Eijirou’s and gently moved his thumbs against Eijirou’s cheeks when the tears began to fall. “Eijirou,” he said, a little miserably, and even when his voice broke — first from emotion, and then strain — he whispered it, over and over, because it wasn’t enough, and yet —
All he could do.
He felt like such a coward.
A month before they really went back to hero work. They visited afterward, and then when full-time shifts ramped back up and Kirishima and Kaijin were barely keeping themselves awake enough to drive to the hospital, nearly fell asleep while there, and then again when they were on their way back, they switched it to the weekends.
Keisuke could feel his friends’ worry like a thorn, and avoided it at all costs. Kirishima, with more grace than Keisuke could ever managed, balanced it all — their friends, himself, Keisuke, their jobs, Bakugou.
Keisuke did his best to keep their friends in contact with Kirishima, because it seemed to help. He tried to keep everything at home — bills, finances, chores — together. He tried to keep a schedule, because it seemed to help Kirishima.
Cooking was hard, so they did it together when they had to — too expensive to eat out all the time, and microwavable meals could only get them so far. They spent time out when they could. They were.
Trying. Maybe actually coping, but sometimes that felt like its own trap — to get too used to life without him, in any capacity.
Keisuke never, ever went into the bedroom.
Three months since it all, and Keisuke — well, he hated it, but they were managing, or something close to it.
The hero work had ramped down into something less arduous, so they had more time to spend with Bakugou when they could. Red’s hero agency was a little less strict than Ruin’s, so he spent more time with Bakugou.
(Except, that was, just a little bit, of a lie — walking into the room with wires and tubes attached to a person that barely seemed alive, that Keisuke needed so badly to be alive and awake, and sometimes, more and more, he just. Couldn’t do it.)
Something was changing, but Keisuke had no idea how to cross over that divide, how to breach the gap before he got too far to one side of it, or maybe gather up all his strength to hold on to the pieces like maybe he could force things to stay the same, but. He wasn’t really sure what was changing; he wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to do about it; he wasn’t sure if he cared enough, anymore, to fight back the way he might have three months ago.
Talking to Eijirou was like talking to his family, because there was no one in the world that knew each other better than the other did at this point, but that polite familiarity was becoming more and more formal and distant and cold.
And Keisuke just… didn’t have the energy, anymore, to do anything about it. Barely had the energy to pretend like things weren’t changing, even if it was only for his own benefit.
Selfish, cowardly, stubborn, stupid. But Bakugou was the brave and reckless, and he was hurt because of it, so what really was the point of it all.
Keisuke didn’t know.
Maybe he didn’t care.
Five months.
Keisuke felt like a ghost.
Six months in, and he began to think that maybe he was one.
Keisuke stared off and to the right, because he really wished the meeting would end. But, then again — he didn’t actually need to be here, anyway, so maybe it was his own fault anyway. Karmic justice, and all that.
Keisuke turned his phone over in his hands, over and over, trying to pay attention. As it was, it was probably the only reason that he felt the vibration against his fingertips, and he was so surprised he froze and then nearly dropped the damn thing.
Only one person got notifications when he was at work — professionalism and all that, but also just personal disinterest that had been vague around everyone he didn’t know and now around everyone he did. Keisuke excused himself, and then dipped into the hallway, quickly scanning through his phone, cursing his shaking hands.
Cursing the hope, too, as it made his throat feel too-thick, and the anxiety clenching his stomach. Was Kirishima hurt? Was Bakugou — ?
Just as Keisuke got the text app open, Kirishima’s ring tone buzzed against his hands, fueling the panic rapidly expanding behind his chest, because Kirishima never, ever called Keisuke, because it was difficult for Keisuke to respond vocally. Keisuke did drop his phone for real this time, but caught it after a moment, accepting it while still knelt on the floor.
Kirishima spoke quickly, words rushed and thick like he’d been crying. “He woke up,” he gasped, and then he was crying in earnest. “He woke up, Keisuke, he — ”
“Fuck,” Keisuke whispered, and then closed his eyes, perversely thankful for his hero costume’s mask. “Details?”
“Right, right,” Kirishima gasped, and it was a moment until he could calm down enough to speak. Keisuke was already out the door, whisking past the interns and sidekicks that watched his passage with wide eyes.
“He hasn’t been awake, just really opened his eyes, but holy shit, he woke up, Keisuke, he — ”
Liberties of being a superhero, as far as Keisuke was concerned. Feeling the blood in his own body, he jumped, using the force of it to lift and carry himself to the top of the building, and he was running, and thank every god in existence for the way that no one stopped him, a shadow against the rooftops for anyone that wasn’t paying enough attention, and just recognizable enough as Ruin to get away from the people who did.
“Prognosis?” Keisuke croaked. He quickly ducked his head away from the microphone to hide the hacking coughs.
“Should wake up again soon,” Kirishima said, just as bright and happy. “I just — can you believe it, Keisuke, after all this time — ”
Keisuke was almost there. He dropped down the alleyway, rolling to absorb the blow, and quickly strode through the hospital parking lot.
“Keisuke?” Kirishima said. Keisuke didn’t reply, and Kirishima said, just as hesitantly, “Kaijin? Are you on your way?”
“Yes,” Keisuke said.
“Oh,” Kirishima said, and Keisuke could hear him shuffle.
“Here,” Keisuke said, and hung up before Kirishima could hear the hacking coughs that shook his whole frame.
Once steady enough to continue, Keisuke moved quickly, ignoring the alarmed nurses that trailed after him, and made it to Bakugou’s room without incident. Kirishima stood up suddenly, when the door swung open, but one hand was still twined with Bakugou’s.
It looked… not really any different than all the other times before. Suddenly feeling — Keisuke wasn’t really sure, maybe embarrassed? Self-conscious? — he ducked his head, removing his mask and hood, and it was enough for the nurses to chill out and leave with a warning.
Kirishima and Keisuke stared at each other for a long moment. Keisuke shuffled his feet, and then awkwardly took the chair on the other side of the room, reluctant to — interrupt.
Yeah. He felt — in the way, as he hadn’t since the three of them had first met. It was easy to fit with the two of them, but Keisuke was aware of the gap he’d felt growing four months ago, the one that he knew was some great cliff between him and the rest of the world at this point, and just. Didn’t feel like worrying about it, anymore, not that he’d done much worrying at any point of any of this, honestly.
Kirishima watched Keisuke settle in, and there was something pained about his expression, but then he looked back down toward Kastuki and his expression settled again.
Hope, love, determination. Keisuke smiled a little to himself; it was nice to see Kirishima feeling like himself again.
Keisuke tried to stay awake like that, but gave up and went into dozing instead. Kirishima knocking things over woke him abruptly, already tensed and in motion, but he froze when he saw Kirishima leaning over Bakugou, murmuring quietly to him.
The chair. He’d knocked the chair over. Tentatively and silently, Keisuke edged closer, behind Kirishima as he looked over Bakugou.
His eyes were barely open at all, but still he glared up them both — at Keisuke, which knocked something straight of his lungs with a surge of emotion that he wasn’t even really sure he still possessed anymore.
His mouth moved, working for a moment, and then he muttered, “Idiots.”
Then, asleep.
Keisuke let out a single, hysterical laugh, one that grew, and then he was bent over his knees laughing and coughing and sobbing. Kirishima laughed right next to him, and in the end, his sobs were just as convulsive as Keisuke’s.
Keisuke went home just one time to gather the things he thought he wouldn’t need anymore — the little kit under the sink that Kirishima and him had put together back in the early days of it all. A lot of it was still good — clothes, stuffed animals, blankets, pillows — but some of it Keisuke quickly replaced, discarding the candy that was too hard to eat anymore and the little cookies that Keisuke had made so long ago.
It felt like a totally different person had made them. Keisuke stared down at the little bag of cookies he had made and then decorated with Kirishima, and he felt physically nauseous with the memory, because honestly? Who was he, anymore? Who were these people that had been hopeful and happy? Who was his partner, either of them, anymore?
Keisuke slowly sat down, resting on his knees. The doctors said that it would probably be a while before Bakugou woke up fully; he had time.
For a long time, Keisuke sat on his knees on the cold tile of the bathroom floor and breathed.
Kirishima never, ever left Bakugou’s bedside, so everytime Bakugou woke up, Kirishima’s spiky hair was the first thing he saw.
Keisuke didn’t really mind — seeing any kind of movement from Bakugou’s bed was such a far improvement to it all that it was hard to care at all, honestly. He tried to stand so that Bakugou could see him, know that he was there, even if it was a little bit of a fleeting hope; Bakugou was barely conscious at all, not remembering what Kirishima said — and it was the same script every time, that Bakugou had been asleep for a little while, that Kirishima loved him, that things were going to be okay and that it was okay to sleep for a little longer, if that’s what Bakugou needed —
Manly, Keisuke had signed once when Bakugou slipped back into sleep and Kirishima looked like he wanted to cry.
“Huh?” he said, and then startled. “Oh, yeah… you think so, Kaijin?”
Two taps against the cold plastic of the chair. Kirishima smiled a little, and then the sweet was swept over by the bitterness, and Kirishima looked away. “Yeah,” he said, after a moment. “Thanks, man.”
Two taps. Keisuke went back to his book, and that was about the only thing they said to each other.
When Bakugou woke up — really, really woke up this time — he was glaring at Kirishima. “You look like shit.”
It was — surreal. Keisuke just blinked at the sound of it, because it was like listening to someone else’s conversation, in a time that was far from just then.
Bakugou’s eyes swung over to Keisuke, and he automatically, just barely, tensed. Bakugou, who hadn’t spent the last couple months trying to pretend everything was fine, caught it immediately, and looked to Kirishima, who was just smiling at Bakugou without any other thought in his mind.
Keisuke read the tension in Bakugou’s eyes quicker than Kirishima. He tapped twice on the bed, nodding once to Bakugou.
Kirishima looked surprised, eyes briefly flicking over to Keisuke. He gestured to Kirishima vaguely, and Kirishima watched him blankly.
Keisuke sighed. Taking two tiny steps forward, Keisuke signed, movements deliberately slow, We’re fine, Bakugou. Don’t worry about anything, okay?
Bakugou huffed. “Don’t tell me what not to worry about, you little shit. You look like shit, too.”
Pot, meet kettle, Keisuke signed before he really thought about it, and, yep — the shock on his face was equal to that of Kirishima’s, even if he controlled the expression better.
Months. Months since Keisuke had even bothered to respond to anyone when it wasn’t strictly necessary, let alone make a joke, not even to Kirishima —
“Idiots,” Bakugou murmured. He sighed, looking over them both. “I’m… glad you’re okay.”
Keisuke blinked slowly, and then looked at Kirishima, who seemed to mirror the expression, because — were they?
Keisuke smiled for Bakugou’s sake, but it was bland and fake.
At least they were alive, and now awake.
Kirishima rarely left, but even he had to get himself into something mostly presentable, so Keisuke promised to wait with Bakugou and promised to text with updates, and it took no less than four rounds of promises to get Kirishima to take a shower, but Keisuke could mostly understand, so he tried not to let it bother him.
Sitting in Kirishima’s seat next to Bakugou’s bed felt awkward, but he sat there anyway, fiddling with his phone and keeping it angled away from Bakugou so that the light wouldn’t bother him. The only light in the whole room, really, even if the night sky looked like it was glowing. Keisuke looked out into the city and the stars with the open window, the one that Kirishima had been keeping closed during the day so that Bakugou could sleep more peacefully but
Keisuke stubbornly insisted on leaving open at night.
The room still felt like a coffin to him. Watching the lights change and cars pass by in the extreme distance made him feel better. Like there was something alive in the dim room, because it sure as fuck wasn’t Bakugou, pale and listless against the white sheets, or Keisuke, whose spells of sitting in silence for hours at a time were worse than before, not better, and still felt like a ghost, or Kirishima, who felt like a living person but one so far from Keisuke that he hardly felt like it counted.
The little movement that was Bakugou twitching in his sleep made Keisuke’s eyes snap to Bakugou even if the rest of him stayed very still. He didn’t expect Bakugou to wake up; for some reason, it felt tied to Kirishima’s presence, like he was what breathed life into them both when he was around.
He should tell Kirishima this, he thought vaguely; make sure that he understood how important it was to Bakugou, even if the shithead would never, ever say it. Maybe how important it was to him.
With that, Keisuke discarded the thought, but not out of some childish desire to keep his feelings private and secret but more because he wasn’t sure if that was what was important to him. Everything had changed. Being around Kirishima was viscerally uncomfortable, and Bakugou too, but he figured it was for the reason that he felt so different from the Keisuke that had been there seven months ago.
So, when Bakugou’s eyes blinked open, red glaring blearily up at Keisuke, he froze, just watching Bakugou out of his peripheral, before he gained enough wherewithal to turn, breathing out slowly to calm his nerves, offer Bakugou some water —
All this died on Keisuke’s tongue when he read the concern behind Bakugou’s eyes. Keisuke waited for him to say something about it — he’d grown into that, as they’d gotten older, and Keisuke felt too tired to pry it out of the other man tonight.
“Where’s Shitty Hair?” Bakugou managed after a moment.
Keisuke said nothing for a moment, and then signed, At his home.
He realized his slip a moment late, when Bakugou raised one of his brows. “His home?” He paused a moment, visually struggling with his words, and Keisuke waited. “…You and Shitty Hair still together?”
Keisuke blinked, confused. Together?
“You know,” Bakugou snapped. “Like… I don’t know. You guys look weird.”
Playing the conversation back while looking at Bakugou, he tried to find his partner’s confusion, and his own, before he got too far. We still live together, Keisuke managed after a moment, looking back over the night sky and city landscape. We’re still all married, if that’s what you’re concerned about.
Bakugou didn’t respond. Keisuke watched the sky for another moment longer before resuming studying Bakugou, who glared in challenge as retaliation. Why?
“Because you two keep dancing around each other,” Bakugou snapped, each word short and slow and lined with anger but also something a little vulnerable that Keisuke knew his spouse couldn’t stand. “Because you won’t look in his face and he won’t look you in the eyes. Because Shitty Hair won’t stop hovering, and that’s usually his thing for you.”
Keisuke grew even more still than he had before. He wanted — he wanted to do whatever it took to avoid this conversation. At all costs.
We’re fine, he said. Still together.
Bakugou studied Keisuke this time, and this time it was Keisuke’s turn to glare in challenge. Bakugou’s brows lifted a little in surprise before he looked right back, scowling. “The fuck you fighting about, anyway?”
Keisuke didn’t answer, at first because he was searching for an answer, and then because he realized he didn’t have one. He sat in that silence for a long while, watching Bakugou grow more and more impatient, and he asked Bakugou instead, You want me to make Kirishima stop hovering?
Bakugou studied Keisuke for another long moment, long enough to let Keisuke know that he’d fucked up again, but Bakugou just ended up saying, “’S fine.”
Keisuke hummed in acknowledgment after the words hung, heavy and uncomfortable, in the silence that followed Bakugou’s obvious, frustrated lie. And, yeah, it would probably be more convenient for everyone if Keisuke could just get over himself and make Kirishima stop, see what Bakugou actually needed and then forced Kirishima to examine what Kirishima was needing himself, but —
Keisuke was tired. So, so fucking tired, and still just as much of a coward as he had been this whole time, and he knew he would do none of these things.
There were also things he knew he should ask Bakugou, like how he was doing, what he was thinking about missing so much time, if he still wanted what he had before, if he had any dreams he wanted to talk about, but Keisuke took one look over his face and saw that Bakugou didn’t want to talk about any of these things — the same questions everyone else had been asking him — and Keisuke refused to be just another extra to Bakugou, to make him go through the motions he clearly hated.
Instead, he signed, They came out with a new All Might documentary. We’d have to watch it on my phone, but do you want to see it?
Bakugou glared at Keisuke suspiciously for a moment, but Keisuke read the exhaustion there and knew before Bakugou did that he was going to watch it with him.
And so they did. When Bakugou complained that he couldn’t see all that well, and then that he was cold — making Keisuke remember years of Bakugou using that excuse when all he actually wanted was to cuddle, much to Kirishima’s amusement and their dual teasing whenever Bakugou was and was not in earshot to hear it — Keisuke slowly, carefully, climbed into the little hospital bed beside his partner and settled his smaller frame against Bakugou’s side, twining their hands together and holding his phone between them.
He smelled… nothing like Bakugou. Didn’t really sound like him, either, all gentle and unhappy the way that Bakugou more rarely was, or feel like him, thinner and more tired than he had been perhaps ever, but it was undeniably Bakugou, with the little huffs of laughter in all the right places, the murmured trivia or the snapping when they got it wrong.
Keisuke felt… oddly energized by the whole thing in the way that he had not for months. Awake and alive in a way that he could only barely remember feeling so long ago.
Bakugou fell asleep before the documentary was over, but Keisuke let the whole thing play and moved out of the bed only when he was worried about losing the thin semblance of control over himself that he had kept together for so long.
And when Kirishima came in the next morning, Keisuke left silently, but more steadily than he had in months, off to his job when everyone was telling him he should take a break, but he knew — he knew — that Bakugou, a fellow non-believer in rest and relaxation, would be alright with it.
Watching his friends visit Bakugou was painful in a way that Keisuke had not expected.
He had, thank any and all of the gods to have ever existed, missed the first round of tears that Bakugou had had with each person that had come to visit, because he was working, because Keisuke was always working, especially when he was avoiding something, and Bakugou and Kirishima were big enough somethings on their own to, in Keisuke’s opinion, warrant the behavior.
Even if it was childish. Unlike him, almost, especially at this point — or maybe just before seven months ago, when it was the three of them and before Keisuke’s illusion of peace and safety had been shattered —
Whatever. Keisuke would pretend he didn’t care until his legs fell off, fuck everything else.
Still… he couldn’t fully avoid it all. He visited the hospital as soon as his agency ran out of paper to push around, which was appreciatively a lot but not enough, and sometimes, he caught the others as they visited.
The first was Midoriya. Bakugou was asleep, again, but that didn’t really phase Keisuke at this point, so he just dropped his coat across his customary chair by the window, across the fucking room from Kirishima, who looked exhaustion as he held Bakugou’s hand and visibly struggled to stay awake, and Midoriya, who sat across from Kirishima and looked — Keisuke wasn’t sure. Sad? Upset? His brows were pinched together like he was thinking when Keisuke came in before morphing into something like panic when he saw that Keisuke had settled into a chair across the room.
“Oh, Kaijin!” Midoriya said, a little loudly at first before quickly quieting his voice. “Did you — um — I’m sorry if I took where you — I mean, if you need me to move — ”
“Huh? Oh, Kaijin always sits there,” Kirishima said sleepily, gaze not wavering from where it was trained on Bakugou.
“What?” As if not believing Kirishima, Midoriya looked over at Keisuke, who nodded once before returning his gaze to the night sky.
He still didn’t miss the genuine distress across Midoriya’s face at the news, but he, thankfully, didn’t say anything else. Keisuke tried not to flinch when Todoroki — who Keisuke had definitely not been expecting to walk in — slipped inside, one cup in either hand, and he handed the one in his left hand to Midoriya.
“Sorry, Izuku,” he said quietly, moving to sit beside Midoriya. “The machine wasn’t working properly.”
“It’s alright, Shouto,” Midoriya said warmly before returning to his vigil. He looked — significantly more uncomfortable by the silence than Todoroki, who just absorbed it all with his regular aloofness, but Keisuke knew he was thinking, even if there was zero indication of that on his face.
Keisuke even got to hear the conversation a few nights later, when it was late and Kirishima had finally been persuaded to drag his ass home to shower and sleep, and Keisuke had gone to get a pastry — he vehemently hated coffee — from the cafeteria downstairs.
Todoroki and Midoriya were talking, and even if it was quiet, Keisuke could hear them in the more silent space.
“Did you see the way that Kaijin sits away from everyone else?” Midoriya murmured, fidgeting.
Todoroki tilted his head, and the thoughtful expression — still barely emoting, this was Todoroki, who had been called the Ice Prince by those who didn’t know him well throughout high school (and jokingly by those who did) — was so much more lively than anything that Keisuke had ever seen from him that he felt almost startled by it. “I did,” he said after a moment. “He looks tired. A little sad.”
Keisuke paused from where he was currently buying an apple fritter. Did he? Was he?
“I thought Kirishima would — I don’t know, say something, but he just — brushed the whole thing off.” Midoriya finally quit fidgeting to look Todoroki more fully in the face. “Do you think — ?”
“I don’t know, Midoriya,” Todoroki said, and Keisuke wanted to be annoyed for not knowing what Midoriya thought, but he was more just — impressed with the way that they could obviously read each other.
Keisuke fought back the little pang of agony, that the three of them had been like that, but now Kirishima and Keisuke called each other by their family names and they did not talk anymore anyway.
Keisuke threw away the food, and returned to his silent vigil beside Bakugou’s bed. He didn’t think Midoriya knew that he heard, but one look at Todoroki and Keisuke knew that he knew.
It didn’t really matter, he tried to assure himself, and he hunched further into himself to try to sleep.
It was a lost cause.
Denki Kaminari and Hitoshi Shinsou were laughing.
That really wasn’t particularly surprising, but Keisuke felt glued to his spot in the doorway of Bakugou’s room at the sound, because it wasn’t just Kaminari and Shinsou that were laughing, it was Bakugou — though his was more of a huff, the kind he only released when he was really amused and also really exasperated — and Kirishima, and Keisuke hadn’t heard the sound in so fucking long —
“Huh? Oh, hey, Sparks!” Kaminari said, spotting Keisuke more quickly than everyone else. Keisuke blinked, still feeling — weird, off-balance, off-guard — and he watched Shinsou absorb all of this more quickly than everyone else.
Except Bakugou, who noted this and then waved with one of his hands — both of them free today, which was a little surprising, considering the way that Kirishima had more or less been clinging to his palm since he had woken up for the first time. “You gonna sit or not, Eye Bags?”
The nickname was tired, and Keisuke barely huffed at it before dropping off the food he’d grabbed Kirishima and Bakugou on his way up and taking his customary seat away from them all, looking out the window — open today, letting the afternoon sun warm the whole place — instead of at his friends.
He felt the awkwardness settle over his friends, and Keisuke tried to ignore it, feeling — sad, upset, that his very presence made everyone else uncomfortable, threw off the more fun rhythm that had been just a moment before.
“Anyway,” Kaminari said after a moment. “That’s why I’m not allowed to charge myself into the wall anymore.” He paused a moment, considering. “You done anything stupid lately, Sparks?”
Keisuke slowly turned his head to give Kaminari an unamused look, knowing exactly what the hero was trying to do and less than thrilled about it. No, he signed, and then resumed staring at the window.
“Not even one thing?” Kaminari cajoled, and Keisuke turned his head, glaring for real, except he saw Kirishima’s expression for the first time, and it was hopeful. He wanted a stupid story from Keisuke.
The little part of him — smaller all the time, but grown a little since Bakugou had first woken up and he’d heard Kirishima sobbing over the phone — that still cared about anything at all ached all over, and he sighed.
“Faceplant,” he rasped. “Window.”
Kaminari made a sympathetic face, while Bakugou looked amused. “Yeah?” he said, grinning a little. “Where? When?”
Keisuke sighed. I’d stayed up too late, he signed. Hadn’t been back to the apartment in, what — He looked to Kirishima, and then quickly away when he realized that Kirishima wouldn’t even know. Maybe three days. Had been awake for, maybe, 36 hours at that point. Ran right into the glass door of my agency, coming back from patrol. In front of all my interns.
Bakugou laughed, because he was an asshole, and Shinsou would be too if he wasn’t so devoted to his mask of silence and aloofness. What did your interns do? Shinsou asked, signing just as fluently.
They looked horrified, Keisuke admitted, because he liked the sound of Bakugou’s laugh, just like he knew Shinsou was only asking because he liked the sound of Kaminari’s. One of them tried to ask if I was okay, but another one was just like, ‘We don’t ever speak of it.’
“Oh my God, man,” Kaminari said, snickering.
Keisuke spared a brief glance at Kirishima, who looked sympathetic, and amused. They made eye-contact after a moment, and Keisuke read the heartbreak in Kirishima’s eyes and knew it was mirrored in his, too.
They’d lived together for years, since before they were even together, and it was like talking to a stranger. Keisuke gave Kirishima a half smile, letting some of the same bitterness creep into his expression, even if bitterness was never, ever how Kirishima dealt with anything.
Kirishima broke the stare after a moment longer, and Keisuke watched the others look over them thoughtfully. Kaminari wouldn’t get it, he was pretty sure, and Bakugou’s eyes were narrowed, but Shinsou saw way more than he ever should, and Keisuke glared at him in response to the pensive look in his eyes.
Signing in his lap, so that only Keisuke and him could see, he asked, Do you ever want to talk about it?
No, asshole, butt out, Keisuke replied, but he didn’t bother to hide his hands the way that Shinsou had, making the other man furrow his brows and look back to his partner, Kaminari, who just shrugged, despite the shocked look on his face just a moment ago.
Keisuke left not long after that, annoyed with the friction he caused just by existing in the room, and he slept on the cool tile of the bathroom floor, liking the bright silence of the room for reasons he could not quite describe.
Keisuke turned the corner, headache blooming behind his eyes, hands shoved in his pockets. He sighed, rolling his shoulders, before entering the room like it was a new challenge, another obstacle.
And, lately… it kinda felt like it was.
Keisuke stiffened though, mouth falling open in shock and tensing like he needed to prepare to run when he saw Bakugou more or less upright on his own power as the nurses murmured — something to Kirishima, who laughed awkwardly and promised something or another.
Kirishima froze completely when he saw Keisuke, and Bakugou just peered over at Keisuke, looking even grumpier than usual. “You just gonna stand there, or what?” he snapped.
So, he felt vulnerable, then. Keisuke could only observe that it made sense — he’d done a little physical therapy, but he wasn’t anywhere near the power house he had been before his capture. Keisuke understood that he was likely just feeling self-conscious about it all.
Still, Keisuke — feeling weirdly overwhelmed about it all — rasped after a moment, “Discharged?” He turned and coughed into his elbow.
Kirishima was frozen for another moment longer, and then bobbed his head. “Yeah,” he answered, and he looked away guiltily, like he didn’t want Keisuke to see it.
Keisuke stood there for a moment, feeling — something. Something strong, barely restrained under his skin, and he sighed, very slowly, trying to step out of the emotion. Bakugou watched this expression with his sharp eyes and did nothing else but scowl, which Keisuke could understand — his partners weren’t right with each other, he might even blame himself, what with how he felt about All Might, but Keisuke wasn’t sure — and regardless, he was probably feeling vulnerable in the soft clothes he preferred for no one else but Keisuke and Kirishima to see him in at their safe apartment that was sheltered from the rest of the world.
So. Keisuke could guess, at least, that Bakugou was uncomfortable. Angry, to cover it up, so he didn’t take it personally when Bakugou swore at him as he pushed the wheel. They all knew Bakugou was too weak to do all that well by himself, when Bakugou complained about the draft and the car ride and the music, even if it was clearly grating to Kirishima, who looked hurt about the whole thing.
And, after another round of arguing with Bakugou to take his meds and then go to bed, Kirishima leaned against the closed door of the bedroom — somewhere Keisuke, now almost habitually, still refused to be in — and closed his eyes, looking like he was refraining from crying.
It hit him, maybe a little abruptly, that they were about to slide into a new kind of normal, different from the hell of the last few months, and that it was rapidly going to become its own kind of problem. Keisuke breathed through his discovery, trying to feel more — okay with it, than he had last time — and stepped forward into Kirishima’s space. When Kirishima did not change his expression from the pained thing that looked seconds from crying, Keisuke tapped the wall behind him so that Kirishima would watch his approach as he very gently, very slowly, laid one hand on Kirishima’s cheek, just watching.
When Kirishima’s breathing calmed a little from the quick gasps he’d been taking, Keisuke pulled back a moment, but only to sign, He appreciates everything you’ve done. You’re doing it all right, Kirishima, and we appreciate you for it.
We? he signed. He looked miserable.
“We,” Keisuke confirmed, out loud. Kirishima sighed, face twisting, and then he blurted, because unlike Keisuke and Bakugou, he’d never, ever been very good at keeping his feelings and words kept inside,
“I’m so sorry, Kei — Kaijin. I’ve been — super unmanly, about this whole thing, and — I should have told you, that Katsuki was being discharged, that I love you, that I — I miss you, even… even when — ”
Keisuke laid his palm on Kirishima’s cheek again, catching the tears he knew that Kirishima hadn’t realized were there just yet. I know, he signed. He paused a minute, considering his words, and then just signed, very simply, I love you too. I’m sorry.
Kirishima’s breathing stuttered, and then he was crying, painfully earnest and open, and Keisuke reached up to hug him, and Kirishima squeezed him back for all he was worth.
It didn’t feel like safety. It didn’t really even feel like things were going to be okay, because Keisuke knew so much had changed, but he was here, and Kirishima was here, and Bakugou needed them, and Keisuke was determined to take it one step at a time, until they got to the finish line.
Whenever, and wherever, that might lead him… even if it would lead him to a studio apartment across town, alone in the silence he’d always been more comfortable in.