Chapter Text
Katsuki and Shouto have been roommates for many years, dancing around each other in some sort of twisted tango. There has never been anyone else for either of them.
It started at UA. Shouto was always deprived of what he felt was human connection. Never having access to the simple easy soft joys of life. Even when he gained that access he was too shy to reach out and grab it. Many tried.
Shouto is beautiful. Even back before he realized who he was. With long hair and pretty dresses, lip gloss and knee-highs, he turned heads. When he shaved it all off, he didn't lose those pretty, captivating eyes or soft features. He could still make jaws hand low.
Not that this ever mattered to him. Too lost in his head and insecurities to see himself as something worth desiring. Too focused on his scar to ever look in a mirror and smile.
When people approached him, he would always assume it was because of his father, his legacy. The flirting that came from many would always go unnoticed. Any attempts at friendship were to get closer to that coveted number one spot.
Again, affection was something so foreign to Shouto.
Friends had tried to break his barriers, and they had. Izuku was the first. The first person Shouto had ever confided in. The first person Shouto had ever kissed. Before Shouto had come out, before he was Shou. Izuku was questioning his sexuality, and he wanted Shouto to kiss him. To confirm he didn't like girls.
. It was a silly moment, but a sacred one. After this kiss, Izuku liked the feeling; it confused him because he still felt like he was gay. He never knew how much this made Shouto happy. Made him feel proper and whole. They helped each other.
Momo was the second. He cried in front of her. In his defense, she was crying first. She was in love with Jirou.
That was the first time Shouto ever said it aloud, “I'm a boy.” It was the first time he had cried since he saw a kettle hover over his face and heard his mother's screams.
He didn't just cry, he sobbed. And Momo wiped every tear, and they held each other.
There were a few moments of weakness here and there, but overall, Shouto wasn't one to be… physical. Still touch-avoidant, still scared, and angry at the world, at his body, at his mind.
After letting a few in, it was easy for Shouto to build them back up. His close-knit friends are inside, but everyone else on the outs. He was satisfied with this. Katsuki wasn't.
Shouto would always catch katsukis gaze from across the room. It was constant. Burning into him. Sometimes he caught it, but he should've known better than to think Katsuki would shy away. If anything, when Shouto held his gaze, it became more intense, more suffocating. Shouto was always the first to look away.
Shouto thinks he can pinpoint the day Katsuki became… someone to him. During their provisional classes. There was a kid who reminded Shouto so much of himself. The little girl was wearing all blue, the most boyish haircut possible, her name on the attendance sheet was different than what she had introduced herself as, Hime, and he classmates snickered as she walked by.
Camie made some crude jokes, which ended with Katsuki singing off some of her hair and Insasa scolding her. The little girl seemed to always have speckles of tears in her eyes.
All day, Shouto had wanted to approach her, but he was too scared to say anything, so he watched silently while he suffered, and he felt like his father.
When one of her classmates pushed her off the icy slide and yelled, “You'll never be a girl,” no one could blink before Katsuki had thrown him into the hallway, and five minutes later, when they came back, the boy looked like he'd seen hell itself.
Katsuki pulled Hime to the side, and he whispered something quiet to her. Shouto wishes he had heard it, but the next part, Katsuki says aloud. “I think you're beautiful, princess,” and he handed her a flower with his crooked smile.
Something changed for Shouto that day.
He felt an odd connection to Katsuki. On the train ride home, he sat next to his rather than in an aisle down. He asked Katsuki questions. Simple ones. “What's your favorite color?” At first, he didn't get a response, only a middle finger or a “die loser,” but he wore down Katsuki's walls like Izuku had done to him.
He considered Katsuki his friend even though he knew the other would never admit the same. They started to eat lunch together every day after training. Sometimes Inasa and Camie would join along, but it felt different than when it was just the two of them. He felt more pressure, like he had to perform friendship with them. It was never that forced with Bakugou.
They could just sit in silence and eat, the quiet comfort that made Shouto smile into his pillow when thinking back on his day.
Katsuki was the second person Shouto had come out to. It was random. Shouto can't even remember why he had said something, but he had.
“I don't feel like a girl.” He held his head down, turned, not wanting to face Katsuki. He regretted letting the words slip out, regretted being vulnerable. They were in their usual cafe, quiet and intimate, no one but them in this hidden gem they'd found.
“You don't feel like a girl?” Katsuki asks, no malice in his tone, just… curiosity? He wants confirmation.
“N-never mind,” Shouto gasps out, suddenly feeling like he wants the earth to swallow him. Asking himself why he chose to open his big mouth.
He felt a hand on his chin. He flinched at the touch, but then he leaned into it like a lifeline. His head was tilted up to face the blonde, but his eyes were closed, still too scared to see whatever look was on katsukis face.
“What do you want me to call you?” Katsuki breaks the silence, his hand still on Shouto's face, only it shifted. From his chin to his cheek, thumb running along the edge of the scar. It dupped closer, runder shoutos eye wiping a tear. The presence was grounding.
“Still Shouto,” it was said through a whisper. He opened his eyes, and he was surprised to see Katsuki smiling. It's a rare sight. It wasn't crooked, or malicious, or snarky; there was only his pearly whites and a pretty glint in his eyes. “Okay, Shouto,” Katsuki said so softly and definate.
After that day, every word spoken between the two of them was lighter and pillowy. Even after their training had ended, they were attached at the hip; their lunches continued. They became more touchy.
Shouto was quick to hold onto Katsuki whenever he was unsure of where else to go or put his hands, and Katsuki was quick to let him.
When Shouto had revealed to Katsuki that he was sick of how he felt every time he wore whatever was in his wardrobe. The clothes endeavor had approved of or the sweet gifts Fuyumi bought him. Skirts and frilly pink blouses, Katsuki gave Shouto free rein of his closet.
That worked for a while, but skulls and all black wasn't really shoutos style. Not that he ever complained, but Katsuki knew.
So one day, Katsuki showed up to the dorms with bags full of clothes, expensive, name-brand clothes, shit that Shouto was sure he had saved on Pinterest. Stuff that Shouto would never buy for himself, cuz he'd rather die than have Endeavor check his bill and see what his favorite daughter is doing with her trust fund.
“Katsuki, this is too much.”
“Nothing is too much,” Katsuki muttered, ignoring the way Shouto paced around the room with his arms crossed and his breathing heavy, overwhelmed. He finally looks up when he knows Shouto won't just accept this. “I have enough. It's not that serious.”
“It is that serious, Katsuki! These are- theres are fucking a lot.”
“Well, I want my fucking closet back,” Katsuki says, but they both know that's not why.
“Katsuki,” Shouto says so simply, and it's enough to make the blonde crack.
“I don't want you wearing my old fucking rags so you can feel better. Don't you think you deserve some nice fucking clothes, cuz I do! I want you to feel like you're yourself, okay. And I don't mind spending a couple bucks to give that to you, princess.” Katsuki yells back
“Now try this shit on,” Katsuki throws some flannel in Shouto's face. That's the end of the argument.
After the fashion show, they'd settled on katsukis twin bed together, limbs twisted and tangled. Comfortable.
When they wake up next to each other, it's anything but awkward. They don't need to say anything to know how special this is. They wouldn't be this vulnerable for anyone else. Only each other.
Of course, their classmates notice, but no one ever says anything, at least not to Shouto. He always suspected the reason he never had to deal with any comments was because of katsukis intervention, but the blonde denies it. He usually denies the credit for all the things he does to make Shouto smile, but Shouto always knows.
Shouto never has a big coming out of the closet. Katsuki took care of everything. He simply went to class one day and noticed Aizawa grouped him with the boys rather than the girls, people were using his correct pronouns, and people called him a pretty boy.
Even when, after a late night of crying in Katsuki's dorm, then spontaneously cutting all his hair off, no one said a word.
And that was it until it wasn't.
Shouto was so happy in his bubble he had curated at UA, he forgot the outside world wasn't caramel scented and pillowy soft.
It was a parent-teacher conference. That was it. He would see his father, push through the awkwardness and the tension because Katsuki had promised him soba if he got through the day.
It was fine.
Then Mr. Aizawa called for them. He and his Father sat in that office, and all it took was five words for half of UA to be set ablaze. “Your son is doing phenomenal,” that was all it took. Sure, SHouto could have denied it, Aizawa could have pretended it was a slip of tongue, but Shouto didn't want to hide. He was feeling defiant; maybe some of Katsuki had rubbed off on him.
He wasn't allowed back home after that. He didn't have a father after that. Not that he wanted to endeavor but it's hard not to miss having a home.
The quiet comforts his childhood house brought him. When he walked through those empty halls, he would trample straight past the dojo into Touya's old room, and he would talk to his big brother.
He'll never have that again.
He didn't cry the day Endeavor cut him off, or the day after that, or the day after that, but when it was Touya's birthday and the clock struck midnight, he found himself knocking on Katsuki's door.
During the breaks from UA went home with Katsuki. Mitsuki and Masaru welcomed him with open arms. Mitsuki wasn't… the best at keeping her comments to herself. Every now and then, she had been a little too brash and a little too invasive about Shouto's identity, but she never meant to hurt him.
That was the difference between her and Endeavor. The whole house was warm, and the meals were delicious, and it was never questioned why Shouto was bunking in Katsuki's room rather than the guest room.
Mitsuki made it clear Shouto was always welcome there.
Even after the war, after he murdered his brother, Katsuki was there.
Shouto doesnt have many memories from that time. His mind cleared it all, but once in a while, he'll scroll on his phone and see a video of himself crying over Touya's dead body, burnt and fleeting.
Suddenly, every memory will flood back, but only for that split second between the time he drops his phone and picks it back up.
The way his family surrounded him and Touya layed limp. The burn of his throat, raw from the screaming. The way he cursed his father, wishing the earth would swallow him, remove him from that moment, as he didn't deserve to mourn the family he had broken, along with the rest of them.
He cradled Touya like a baby, holding onto their plush, or like the pacifier they refuse to part with. Shouto would've stayed there for hours, but then he had been informed by Iida that Katsuki was dying.
Shouto doesnt remember how he forced his feet to move, he doesnt think about how quickly he was willing to drop Touya to the cold dirt so he could run to Katsuki, but there is one image that is burned into his brain he cannot let go of. The way Katsuki looked lying on the ground when he had gotten there.
Seconds before Izuku showed up. Before he fought his own battle against shigarki. Ten still seconds of Katsuki's heart not beating, no air entering his lungs, his chest with a hole in it, his arm mutilated.
Shouto had never seen something so horrible.
After the war, Shouto couldn't cope. Everyone had gone through something, he knew that, but seeing his classmates.. Do anything, smile, eat, play games, how could they be so crass, as if Katsuki didn't-
Anyways
Touya's funeral was held at Endeavor's house, and Shouto was barred from attending. He was mostly silent. The only few words Shouto spoke in the following months were to Katsuki, usually him knocking on his door asking to come in.
Slowly, he got better, watching Katsuki get better made him better.
The years at UA passed slowly. Shouto had already figured out he wasn't meant to be a hero his freshman year, seeing Katsuki's lifeless, he knew he couldn't handle what this life entailed.
He was scared to say this. He knew everyone would be disappointed. Shouto put in the work and the hours; he was on track to dethrone his father, but he just… he didn't want to.
It was a month before graduation when Shouto told Katsuki, but he acted like he already knew.
“I don't feel like a hero,” Shouto whispered into the quiet of the night.
“Okay,” Katsuki replied simply, softly.
They were both quiet for a moment, waiting for the other to speak.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“Yeah,” Katsuki picks up his phone and starts to scroll as if this is a nonchalant conversation in the world.
“Well, can you say something else?” Shouto starts to pout; he was hoping Katsuki would talk him out of this.
“You're a fucking hero to me, and you'll always be that.” Katsuki is still scrolling on his phone, but when he looks up and sees that Shouto is still pouting, he throws it down.
Katsuki gets up and walks towards Shouto, towering over him from where Shouto is still seated. It makes Shouto nervous, he looks to his lap and tweedles with his hands until Katsuki picks his head up by his chin, forcing Shouto to look up at him.
“You don't have to be what he made you, princess. You're my hero, don't need to be professional.”
“I don't know what I want to do with my life. I don't know what I can do.” Tears well in Shouto's eyes, “After graduation, I have nowhere to go. I-i have nothing”
“You have me,” Katsuki says it so definitely, Shouto has no choice but to believe it..