A/N: A Christmas gift for my friend Panda. Panda, I'm starting to get what you see in these two.
They, like many good things, do not happen easily.
Shouto meets his classmates and summarily dismisses them. He's not here to make friends.
Bakugou meets his classmates and does the same. They're extras. Roadblocks on his path to the top.
They collide like oil and water. Shouto sees his father in those red, snarling eyes. Bakugou sees nothing. Todoroki is as blank and cold as polar ice, and it's fucking infuriating. Of all the shitty extras in his class, Half-and-Half bastard is the only one who can come close to matching his power – if he would just fucking use it all!
Bakugou is selfish. Volatile. And so terribly, terribly proud. That's why the bottom falls right out of Shouto's world when Dynamight throws himself in the path of All For One.
Shouto snatches the fallen hero before he can drop out of the sky. Passes him off. Swallows his shock; he can deal with it later. Lashes ice and fire, cooling, walling and defending alike. Then Dabi appears, and his world spins right off its axis.
Touya.
Touya.
Bakugou is infuriated. Blood dribbles from him in fits, staunched by helping hands. Idiots. Can't they see Deku is still fighting? Smashing himself to bits against the man-monster-Shigaraki thing that refuses to die? He needs help! Living now doesn't fucking matter if they're all going to be dusted out of existence later!
He breaks free.
The end comes anyway. Shigaraki escapes.
The Shouto that emerges from the fight is changed. They're all changed. Defeat hangs over them, a black and unshakable pall.
Rebuilding is bitter work. The broken bones of hero society gleam glassy and sharp, piercing the fragile faith that All Might worked so diligently to protect. Sometimes Shouto even questions why they bother – with Shigaraki alive, there's no point. He can return at any moment to devastate what minor progress they've made.
Later he learns: that's exactly the point. It isn't that they must remake, it's that they must never stop trying.
Shigaraki comes anyway.
In the coming years, Shouto loses himself. He's not even aware of it; exhaustion has numbed him. In the face of such overwhelming devastation, there's no room for anything but rote, reflexive action. Slow his progress. Save as many as you can. Do not die.
In the darkness, Bakugou shines brighter than ever. He snaps and snarls, flint sparking against the unforgiving blade of war.
And Shouto finally sees.
Bakugou is a perpetual motion machine, driven by the impetus of his fury. He does not feel defeat. Even when he's dragged from the battlefield, limbless and bleeding, or gurgling and sightless, he never turns his face from the fight. As soon as Eri restores him, he returns.
Shouto envies him. It's only a flicker, quickly snuffed out. He's seen what envy can do to a man, and he's too damn tired to muster up more than a ghost of a feeling anyway.
Tired. Everyone is so tired.
They can't rebuild as quickly as Shigaraki can decay. Their bases are hastily-constructed by Quirk, little more than cover from the elements and lines of ragtag futons. When there's time to sleep, you take it. Any available mat will do. If nothing is free, you jigsaw your way in between people, prop yourself up in the corner, or else take the hard floor.
Especially in these places, people gravitate towards the familiar. Friends. Comrades in arms. Small comforts.
Shouto is startled out of sleep one night by warmth at his back. He turns. Meets the bottom of one muddied boot. Bakugou is nestled head to toe against him, still clad in the blasted remains of his costume. He grunts as Shouto shifts, swatting at Shouto's leg. "Fuckin' get up if you're gonna keep moving, Half-and-Half. M' tryin' to sleep."
Shouto turns over and goes back to sleep.
The seasons turn. The fight wears on. It's no longer a game of strategy, it's a game of longevity. For every villain they neutralize, a hero is lost. There's nothing Eri can do if there aren't any pieces left identifiable as human. Blood spills across the board, a hundred scarlet drops fingerprinting its surface.
It's almost winter. The cold slows everyone, and brings with it welcome respite.
Bakugou is not content. The enemy hunkers in their dens like rabbits; now is the perfect time to strike! Turn them out into the snow, pink and squirming. But the chill wears on him too. His explosions cannot warm him. He, like everyone else, must wait.
It's cold in the camps. Fires burn, but the heat can't reach everywhere, and there aren't enough blankets to go around. He chucks his towards the most miserable-looking face and stalks around camp until he can't feel his feet, then retires.
Half-and-Half is easy enough to spot. His two-toned head sticks out like a sore thumb, and he's one of the few blanket-less curled on a mat. Left side up, Bakugou notices. Damn bastard runs hot while the rest of them freeze.
Someone's feet are edging onto their mat, right where his head would go. Bakugou wedges himself behind Half-and-Half, so close that his nose is almost buried in white and red hair. He'll be damned if he's smelling both Half-and-Half's and some rando's feet all night.
This close, Bakugou can actually see the heat baking off Half-and-Half. Steam boils off his skin in minute eddies and swirls, vanishing into the still night air. He's not normally this warm. Self-regulation or an automatic defense? Doesn't really matter. Bakugou doesn't feel guilty in the slightest when he sticks his frozen nose against Shouto's neck, making him jump.
"This is how fuckin' cold the rest of us are," he mumbles. Relief sings through his thawing skin. Eventually he drapes an arm across Shouto's waist because the damn thing keeps sliding off his hip.
Shouto doesn't budge, but Bakugou can feel the way that tension trickles out each wire-taut muscle.
They sleep.
Soon, Shouto doesn't even start when he feels warmth at his back. He reaches for a wiry arm and slides frozen fingers between his own.
They do not talk about it. Everyone does what they have to to survive.
The second spring brings with it fresh warfare, and, unbeknown to any of them, the beginning of the end.
All their forces are rewound, physically at their prime. Deku, who has manifested three new powers like a goddamn sorcerer, leads the charge.
Each clash is the same. Brutal. Bloody. Bakugou fights like a man possessed, teeth flashing in a manic grin. It's like he's been born to do this. Maybe that's why his reaction to their victory is not thank God, but what the fuck?
And just like that, it's over.
It's over, but it's really only begun. Because while their methods had been twisted, the Paranormal Liberation Front had been right about one thing: hero society is broken.
Shit like that isn't Bakugou's prerogative. He volunteers to join the guerilla squads responsible for hunting the remaining Villains down. Is denied.
"We need you to help with search and rescue" is the excuse he gets, so he pulverizes concrete and shifts rubble until he can't lift his arms anymore. Goes home. Returns to do it again the next day.
'Home' right now is the old UA dorms. Most students have returned to the comfort of their families, but not Bakugou. He doesn't want the old lady hovering over him. He, Half-and-Half and Tokoyami have the dorms to themselves, and Tokoyami works nights so really it's just the two of them. Even then, they're busy. Rotating work details, clearing different zones. Most days he doesn't even catch a glimpse of two-toned hair.
For the first time in two weeks their schedules align. Bakugou shuffles to the kitchen for a glass of milk before bed and spies Half-and-Half in his pajamas, sitting at the table. A fragrant cup of what might be hot chocolate sits steaming by his elbow.
He looks terrible.
"You look like shit," Bakugou says. The only person he's ever seen with circles that dark is All Might, and he's halfway to being a fucking skeleton.
Bizarrely, Half-and-Half smiles at him. "So do you."
Trying to deflect the issue, of course. Bakugou's always had trouble sleeping, but ever since the war ended it's like he can't get his goddamned brain to shut off.
"I got fuckin' insomnia, what's your excuse?"
Half-and-Half's smile wilts at the corners. "...I guess I do too."
"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" Bakugou jams the milk carton back into the fridge. "You either do or you don't."
He shoves his mug into the microwave and punches the START button. The platform spins, humming.
"I just can't seem to stay asleep," is all Half-and-Half says after a long silence.
Bakugou's mug is steaming when he removes it. He adds a splash of vanilla syrup, stirs his concoction with a finger, then sucks it down in great mouthfuls. Half-and-Half hasn't so much as sipped from his glass by the time Bakugou's finished.
He puts his mug in the sink. "C'mon."
Half-and-Half blinks at him like a puzzled cow. Bakugou grabs him beneath one arm, urges him to his feet and then tugs him down the hall, into the elevator and into his own bedroom.
He points to his bed. "Get in."
Surprisingly, Half-and-Half goes without a fight. Bakugou brushes his teeth and then climbs in next to him.
His bed is roomier than the mats had been, but Half-and-Half has situated himself squarely in the middle, and Bakugou winds up pressed against the length of him.
"You can move over, you know."
Neither of them do.
He nestles his chin in the crook of Half-and-Half's shoulder, throws an arm over him, and thinks he hears a sigh. It sounds relieved. He stays awake just long enough to feel the impending sleep-twitches of his companion, then falls asleep himself.
He finds Half-and-Half in his bed every night after.
Ten days into their arrangement, he wakes to find the bed empty. He feels around the space where Half-and-Half should be, finds nothing but a boy-shaped imprint and fading warmth, and throws himself out of bed with a growl.
He could be taking a leak. Bakugou knows he's not. The door yawns wide and dark, and when he peers inside he sees a black shape slumped on the closed toilet. Half-and-Half, sitting in the dark like a fucking spook.
"What the hell are you doing?"
His voice, sleep-muzzed and rusty, does not come out like he wants it to. Hardly any anger at all. Maybe that's why Half-and-Half only looks up at him slowly, stilted as a broken animatronic. It takes another, louder demand for an explanation before he speaks.
"Sometimes it doesn't feel like I'm really here." Shouto's mismatched eyes stare straight through him. "Like this is all a dream."
There's a void behind those eyes, a blank limbo no light can touch. His body is a borrowed skin.
Shouto turns his gaze down into his lap. "Am I real? Or did I die out there and just never reali-"
Bakugou closes the space between them in two pounding steps and silences him with a kiss.
The sudden rigidity beneath his fingers – wound into Shouto's t-shirt – is a welcome thing. He stares, millimeters from Shouto's eyes, and sees shocked confusion there, a lively maelstrom. They part.
"You're real, Half-and-Half. You made it. Now come back to fuckin' bed, I'm beat."
Shouto returns.
These are the things Shouto hadn't appreciated about Bakugou:
He listens. As much as he blusters and barks, his words are carefully chosen, if irreverent.
He's observant. This much had been obvious before – any hero worth their salt is – but he hadn't realized just how nuanced those observations are. When Shouto wants to be left alone, he finds himself so. When he begins to slide outside of himself, Bakugou is there with a nudge or poke or snarl, dragging him back.
They don't kiss again.
At least, not right away.
Nights are always the hardest. Toiling under the bright light of day, he stays firmly in his skin, feeling the chill of his ice and the scrape of concrete against his palms. At night, situated in the soft warmth of Bakugou's bed it's easier to untether. He floats. Drifts in the twilight place between dreaming and waking, turned out of his flesh like a flayed animal.
He finds himself fathoms deep, staring at the moonlit ceiling when Bakugou stirs. A black shape slides over him.
"You gone again?"
Underwater, he can't answer.
An aborted snort. Eyes, wine-colored in the shadows, drift closer.
Warmth on his mouth. Light at first, then firmer. A hot blast of breath. He can smell the faint sweetness of Bakugou's shampoo, feel the weight of Bakugou's leg thrown over his. Sharp teeth nip at his lower lip.
Shouto falls back into himself, and gasps humid breath straight from Bakugou's mouth. The pressure vanishes.
"You back?"
He nods, still not quite able to speak.
"Fuckin' finally."
Warm lips cover his again. Bakugou licks his mouth and suddenly Shouto's too large for his skin; every nerve bloated with the sensations flowing from one tiny patch of flesh. He freezes. Bakugou gentles, coaxing laxity back into him with rough swipes of his thumb across Shouto's cheek.
This time when Bakugou's tongue quests out, Shouto welcomes it. He slides into a kiss so hot and wet that goosebumps erupt down both arms. Heat coils in his belly. When Bakugou shifts, he feels rigid warmth pressing against his hip.
Then Bakugou's mouth is gone.
"The next time you feel yourself going, wake me up goddammit," Bakugou grumbles.
He rolls Shouto onto his side and takes up their normal position, the erection poking Shouto's ass the only sign that the whole thing hadn't been a particularly fantastic daydream. He reels, confused by the whiplash.
"Gotta early shift in a couple hours, Half-and-Half. Stop freaking out."
Oh.
Bakugou's hand worms its way into his.
Half-and-Half thinks too much. It's the exact same shit Deku always pulled, minus the annoying mumbling.
"What are we?" he asks one day. All they're doing is watching a movie, enjoying what he thought was a nice, mindless bit of entertainment – of course Half-and-Half has to complicate it.
He looks down at the mop of two-toned hair pillowed on his chest. "Does it matter?"
With great effort he'd managed to keep the swear behind his teeth. Half-and-Half wouldn't have brought it up unless he was genuinely bothered by it, and Bakugou's not that much of an asshole.
Half-and-Half's nose wrinkles. "Kind of."
Bakugou pauses the movie. "What do you want us to be?" He's never cared to label his relationships before, but he knows shit like that is important to some people. They need to sort and categorize to feel secure.
A shrug. "I don't really know."
Bakugou laughs. He can't help it. Leave it to Half-and-Half to ask a question without an inkling of what he wants as an answer. "Fuck, Half-and-Half. You wanna be my girlfriend?"
That gets a response. Even with the lights turned down he can see the dusky blush rise in Half-and-Half's cheeks. "No- that's not what I- and I wouldn't be your girlfriend anyway-"
Oh, it's a real treat to see the normally-unflappable Shouto Todoroki sputtering. Bakugou quiets him with a toothful kiss, still snickering. "Alright then, princess. You're mine. Happy?"
He takes the deepening flush as a yes.
Shouto is not Bakugou's girlfriend.
Despite the brief and unsatisfying conversation a month ago, he still hasn't found a proper label for what, exactly, they are. The relationship hangs between them, a ripe and strange fruit.
They're friends who hardly speak. Bedmates who occasionally kiss, but never have sex. They understand each other in a way Shouto can't explain, but values immensely. When he begins to float off into Nowhere, Katsuki stops him, tethers him, draws him back in.
Something has obviously changed on Bakugou's end too. Though he still rants and rages when someone's particularly incompetent or a job especially tough, true explosions are rare. One day Kirishima even claps Shouto on the shoulder before they head home, jerking a thumb toward Bakugou.
"Bro, I don't know what you're doing, but keep it up. Haven't seen him so mellow… well, ever."
Jirou, listening in: "He's probably drugging him."
Shouto only shrugs. He's just happy that everything's moving smoothly.
Until it isn't.
One nasty by-product of society's reconstruction is this: now that survival isn't an actual issue, people's attention wanders. They dig for scandal, and they don't have to look far to find it.
Endeavor.
Dabi- no, Touya's little Japan-wide announcement had been undercut by the vast devastation caused by Shigaraki's awakening, and by the subsequent war, but not forgotten. People talk. They talk a lot.
Endeavor, who was never going to be revered in the way All Might was, is instead reviled.
Child abuser.
Wife-beater.
That man calls himself a hero?
He, who should've been the hero of the war, falls from grace. It seems like people finally realize that one doesn't have to be a good person to do good things.
There's a resurgence of Stain supporters. Fanatics who declare only the pure-hearted are worthy to become heroes. Shouto thinks it's a load of crap. He can count the number of people who fit that ideal on one hand, himself not included. Unfortunately, his worries extend far beyond what people think of his father.
Whispers about him. Speculations. Thoughts seem split into two camps: he's either Endeavor's weapon or poor Shouto. He can't decide which he hates more. Even bolstered by his friends, even walling off his heart, it begins to get to him.
"Fuck 'em," Bakugou says one afternoon, when a particularly loud series of catcalls reaches them at their work site. "Fuckers don't know shit." He raises two middle fingers to the onlookers.
Again, that flicker of envy. Shouto can't imagine anything getting to Bakugou.
After weeks of vitriol, Shouto breaks.
He wakes in the middle of the night not to vacuity, but to crushing despair. It paralyzes him where he lays, quickening his breath until the room spins before his eyes.
Hands squeeze his upper arms. "Half-and-Half. Hey, Half-and-Half!" Bakugou's voice, rough with sleep and concern.
He can't get enough air to answer.
"Shouto." The hands squeeze tighter. Instead of a kiss, this time he's met with spiky hair grazing his forehead. Bakugou, hovering over him again.
He finds air enough to gasp the question.
"Why?"
It's too dark to see Bakugou frown, but Shouto can hear it in his voice. "'Why' what? Listen, you've gotta slow your damn breathing down or you're gonna pass out."
Shouto tries. He matches the breath he feels whispering across his face, though his heart thunders in his chest. More than once he loses the rhythm. Starts anew. As soon as he's made it a full minute without gasping, Bakugou releases him.
"Okay, now 'why' what?"
Shouto gulps. His mouth is sandpaper-dry. Now that he has air, he can't seem to get anything out; a thousand questions crowd behind his teeth.
Why is this happening?
Why can't I be stronger?
Why do you care?
Finally, one breaks free.
"Why are you with me?"
His voice cracks on the last syllable, ragged and thin. The room blurs again. He's ashamed to feel heat pricking his eyes. "You shouldn't waste your time. They're right. I'm just going to end up like my father."
The gleam in Bakugou's eyes is murderous. He leans, nose-to-nose with Shouto and growls.
"Shut. Up."
Shouto's teeth are mashed against his lips in a bruising kiss. He tastes blood.
"Don't fuckin' talk about yourself like that." Another kiss. He can feel every line of Bakugou's teeth. "I'm with you because I fuckin' want to be, so stop having a goddamn pity party."
A tongue swipes across his lips. Shouto's mouth cracks open, and Bakugou pours inside.
Hot. Wet. He feels like Icarus flying too close to the sun, melting and rippling in the heat. Now he's breathless for an entirely different reason; Shouto sips air between kisses, dizzy with want.
Familiar heat nudges the inside of his thigh. He grinds up to meet that hardness, and Bakugou rips their mouths apart. Sharp teeth drag along his neck, locate a strap of muscle and the throbbing artery beneath. Bakugou bites him like a wild thing, and he bursts with sensation.
"Ah!"
Hot tears spill from his overfull eyes, pool in his ears. Bakugou crawls down him. His shirt is shoved up to his armpits. Both nipples are savaged. Incisors scrape along the heaving valley of his abdomen, a wicked tongue lapping at the crease of each hip.
It's too much. He writhes against the sheets, helpless in the face of that want.
And then quickly remembers his modesty when Bakugou divests him of both pants and underwear in one fell swoop.
"Um-" Shouto hands fly down to cover himself. The prospect of being seen is suddenly, shockingly real.
Bakugou pins him with a look. "Got a problem?"
Shouto shakes his head. Bakugou's eyes narrow. "No… I- I've just never… not in front of another person-"
Bakugou snatches his hands away. "You think I care?" He pins Shouto's wrists above his head with one hand. Hungry red eyes rove across him, and Shouto tries not to shiver. He has never been splayed so terribly open.
"Stop thinking." He releases Shouto's hands, slinking slowly back down the length of Shouto's body like a tiger. "And stop fucking doubting yourself, got it?"
Soft kisses are pressed to the insides of both thighs. The crests of his pelvis. His belly. Shouto is transfixed.
Hot breath blows across his erection. "I said, got it?"
"Yes," Shouto breathes. Not good enough.
"Yes what?" Bakugou nuzzles the junction of his left thigh. Shouto's cock rubs against his cheek, leaving a dewy smear.
"I- I won't doubt myself."
Hands pin his hips. Ruby eyes hold his fast. "Never doubt yourself. Not when you're with me."
"Never," he agrees, nearly whimpering. "Never when I'm with you. Please–"
Bakugou sucks in the head of his cock, and Shouto disintegrates.
Some time later, sweaty, sated, coming down from a high that could be dangerously addicting, he wraps his hand around Bakugou's cock. Is guided through a quick and furious handjob, slicked by his own cum. Bakugou grunts into his ear as he spills himself over Shouto's fist, then uses Shouto's pants to mop them both up.
The pants are chucked. Shouto shimmies back into his underwear. Warmed by the activity, they curl together like puppies under one thin sheet and fall asleep.
The next day Bakugou holds his hand in public for the first time. Kirishima whoops. Deku beams. Even Best Jeanest nods approvingly.
Of course the whole damn world has to stick its nose into his business.
The second his hand meets Shouto's outside the sanctity of their dorms, it's like a nuclear fucking explosion. Waves of looks, finger-pointing, whispers and catcalls radiate through the community, with them at the epicenter.
Friendly or condemning, he shuts out the noise. Fuckin' extras, all of 'em. Not worth his or Shouto's time.
Blessedly, it seems his boyfriend – they had finally settled on labeling it that, at Shouto's request – has remembered the lesson Bakugou tried to impart. Don't doubt yourself. He stands tall in the face of it all, looking pleased, if a little flushed.
Bakugou rewards him each night. Shouto learns how to reward Bakugou too.
The first time he kisses Shouto in public – another bomb.
The time some nosy paparazzi snap pics of him buying bread, peanut butter, and condoms – holy fucking shit. You'd think it was the second coming of Shigaraki. The number of people invested in their sex life is insane; he could probably reboot the fucking economy with one thirty-second paid clip of what he and Shouto do behind closed doors.
It isn't until Deku gets engaged to Round Cheeks that the public finally has something more titillating to gawp over.
They're still talked about, of course, even years later. Hundreds of fuckin' armchair psychologists with nothing better to do than dissect every perceived aspect of their relationship. Sometimes these get to Shouto – small fractures that Bakugou must repair each night.
History repeating itself.
Weak-willed.
The occasional whisper of "daddy issues". Like Bakugou would ever treat Shouto as shittily as Endeavor had. They just don't fucking get it. Will never get it.
It's about balance. The balance they bring to each other.
"What are you thinking about?"
Bakugou turns away from the window to see Shouto shuffling out of the bedroom, sleep rumpled and yawning. It's both of their days off, but Bakugou has always been an early riser. And their new apartment has a decent view of the mountains; a much better sight than the boring UA campus.
"Nothin' much."
He gets up, goes to pour Shouto a cup of recently-brewed coffee. Some peppermint shit that Momo had given them as a Christmas present. Shouto loves it; Bakugou won't touch the stuff.
Shouto tugs him over to the couch and situated him like a human pillow, snuggling between the vee of Bakugou's legs.
"Are you all ready for later today?"
Bakugou snorts. "As I'll ever be."
Deku's having some kind of holiday party, and everyone's been invited. He'll go, but only because Sato's baking and because Shouto wants him to. Their gifts sit neatly wrapped on top of the kotatsu.
Shouto takes a loud slurp from his coffee cup and then leans against Bakugou's chest. "We don't have to go."
He's going to be stuffed into a tacky red-and-black sweater, be pinched and prodded by Mina, and subjected to the increasingly-rowdy companionship of both Kirishima and Kaminari. Tenya will complain about the noise level. Deku and Uraraka will be insufferably cheery, rubbing their wedded bliss in everyone's faces.
But when he begins to feel overwhelmed Shouto will appear, take him by the hand and lead him away.
He laces their fingers together. "Nah. We'll go."
In all things, balance.