Implied sexual references (nothing explicit is stated).

Izuku Todoroki

Four days had passed since Izuku descried his husband muttering to himself at the kitchen counter. Shoto was like a paper lightswitch in the wind—he was a torpid doll, but at the scant shove to the wind's trajectory, he combusted into an enraged, feral animal—but Izuku could only cogitate just how fragile that paper was. Sleeping with Shoto had become quite uncanny and uncomfortable, but even then, Izuku was unable to refrain from occasionally attempting to cuddle with his husband.

I crave his touch, Izuku thought as Shoto crawled into bed with him. I want to be affectionate with him, but it usually pisses him off. Even though it was never very often, I just…felt so loved and happy whenever he hugged me. I'll always love him, but it's so awkward to try and express it now.

"Shoto?" Izuku whispered after a few minutes of a rustling silence had settled.

The darkness spoke with silence until a husky voice answered, "Hm?"

"Could we…um, cuddle for a little bit?" Consternation perforated his being like envenomed spears.

Like a rusted screw, Shoto's body gradually spun to face Izuku. "I guess. I hurt you earlier today, didn't I? I don't remember. Maybe I'm mixing my memories." His fingers interlaced with Izuku's inky hand from the lake of shadow drenching the room, and with that, the gap between the two was drawn out.

Izuku swallowed up the space between his lips and his husband's while tenderly caressing Shoto's side. Shoto's lips tasted like residual alcohol and salt, but Izuku simply began to traverse beyond the silky folds that his lips enveloped. Perfervid brio and avid curiosity welded into a scalding flurry of glacial grandeur. Their digits danced over ridges and valleys, and with silent synergy slicing through dull and playful touches, they'd torn off the fabric that sheathed them both.

Shoto and Izuku had only advanced their time in bed together to a level above innocence once before, and that had been on the night after they were wedded. Yet, as Izuku gnawed at the neck, shoulders, and chest of his husband in the blinding darkness of the shuffling sheets, the next step only felt natural. Initially dubious due to Shoto never being fond of the idea, Izuku figured that he would explicitly inquire as to whether or not Shoto was okay with the decision; Shoto shrugged and replied that he had nothing to lose.

Seeds of passion were planted, but they yielded such pulchritudinous petals of pity.

After all was said and done, Izuku felt a torrent of clashing feelings. He was satisfied but not surfeited, happy but not certain, lost but not deterred… Those feelings pushed his insides around, stomped down on them, and stretched them asunder.

Shoto had been predominantly silent throughout their session of fervent love, despite having participated in some of the minor facets of the event. He seemed as though he desired what Izuku did, but the reality that Izuku saw did not align with such an assumption; to Izuku, Shoto's actions were perhaps derived from festering culpability.

Still in the process of regaining his breath, Izuku queried, "How was that?" He deftly massaged Shoto's back; his fingers compressed and rubbed into velvet regions of slick silicone.

"I don't know," Shoto sighed. "Why?"

The motions of Izuku's hands across Shoto's shoulders slowed from dejection. "I mean… Did it feel good whatsoever? I just thought that it might, well, not exactly make you happy, but…just bring a different, nice feeling to you." He rubbed a heart onto the back of Shoto's shoulder from his thumbs.

A heavy sigh of frost was ejected from Shoto's lips. "Give it up," he muttered. "This is the life I live, and I don't care how terrible it is for me. I'm not stopping, Izuku. This is my consequence for surviving that goddamn war." He almost seemed to be aspersing the fact that he had survived the war at all. "I sometimes wish… Never mind."

"Please tell me."

Shoto's breaths had seemingly been halted with his thoughts for a moment. "I can't." His voice had deflated into a hollow mist.

Izuku stared at about where the division between Shoto's red and white halves of hair was located. "I know you don't want to talk about it, but I thought we—"

"I'm not ready to say anything." The shift in his lilt dripped with lachrymal abasement. "You know I'm not. Why do you keep persisting?" Honestly, Izuku was astonished that Shoto hadn't snapped again.

"Because the words you force yourself to swallow instead of spit out are poisons. Even if the symptoms aren't severe enough to be glaring, they're going to suffocate you, Shoto. Spitting them out won't cure the poison, but it's less poison that you're ingesting. But there are constituents. The alcohol is just as much of a poison as those unspoken words, and I'm willing to bet that one of the reasons why you're drinking is to forget the memories tied to those unspoken words."

Shoto almost sounded as though he'd forced a laugh. "Was that a reference to something you put in one of your novels?" His breath rushed out like a river. "If I spit them out for you, it would burn your skin. I might as well be feeding you the poison I spat out. I'm not doing that. My insides are rotten from all the poison, but as much as a part of me that I slammed the door on wants to vomit out that poison, it would only cause more damage. Even if the alcohol augments the pain for the future, it makes it bearable. How was that?"

Izuku hadn't the faintest clue as to how he would reply to Shoto. "You don't care that it kills us to watch as you slowly succumb to the weight of it all? L-Listen, Shoto…if you can't show me that you're willing to change for the better, we need to get you professional help. I'm just not going to accept this. You can't do this to yourself! Shoto, every time I think about how much pain you went through, how much pain you look like you're in, and how much pain you're truly in… I-It hurts. I feel useless—like I did everything wrong without realizing it." He traced the palm of his hand over Shoto's spine, and eventually, he could feel a scar striking through Shoto's flesh; he'd first seen it when Shoto had been changing.

Whether by deliberate retaliation or from incertitude, Shoto remained silent. Izuku was unable to discern if his husband was blatantly ignoring him, but he decided against the thought encroaching on his mind. Even so, the night fell into a hefty stillness that made even the slightest shift in the bed uncomfortable.

The next afternoon, while the golden claws of the sun were unsheathed like the claws of a cat while the animal stretched, Izuku groaned as he deleted the recent scene he'd written for the fourth time. More often than not, his writing simply materialized on his documents seemingly before they even entered his head. Yet, whenever he encountered the debilitating nightmare known as writer's block, he would find himself aimlessly typing out his ideas to erase it all hours later.

"Ugh," he huffed while closing up his laptop and stretching. "I'm in the mood to write, but the minute I open the document, my motivation flies out the window… Maybe some inspiration will come from a walk outside. I say that, but I always find distraction upon distraction that keeps me from my work. Oh well." Folding up his reading glasses and setting them aside, he exited his room to hear muffled voices frothing up from the base floor.

As Izuku ventured towards the noise, he could hear Yuujin's voice. "...have married it. You do nothing but drink. You probably have a stash hidden somewhere. More secrets! How many things are you going to hide from us?" His invective was of no surprise to Izuku.

"We're not discussing this right now," Shoto hissed.

"And what do you think waiting's gonna do for any of us?" Kirusuke chimed in with vitriol shrouding his words. "Yuu's right. Why do you keep hiding things from us? We're…family, kind of. Not really."

Stepping into the picture, Izuku could visibly discern that Shoto was staying his tongue. "Yuujin, Kirusuke," he called out while wedging himself into the quagmire.

With scalding, quivering fists, Shoto wheeled his head around to face Izuku, but Shoto's apoplectic glare was a serrated knife. "This doesn't concern you," he barked. "Why do you feel like butting into all of my conversations?" His words were daubed with malice.

"This is our conversation," Yuujin asserted with a scowl. "You'll only defend every single word he says. That's one of the few things I don't like about you—you always side with that. Always!"

Like a mechanical beast receiving a command, Shoto wound back his springs as his feet clomped on the floor, and as he prepared to strike, Izuku flailed his arms as he dashed in front of his son. "I don't care who it is, but no one hurts my children," Izuku snapped, but his efforts were rewarded with a pair of hands coiling around his neck and nearly cutting his ability to breathe. "Nn! Nn!"

Thud!

Shoto slammed his own husband's head down onto the floor, and the moment that Izuku's head collided with the solid ground, Izuku's world was besmeared with hazy grains of salt. An upheaval of turmoil erupted from around Izuku, but all he could feel was the pulsating throbs of his neck, the rapidly spinning pressure stampeding through his skull, and the growing tightness in his chest from the lack of oxygen. Shoto's flour-coated figure hovered above him, and the tendrils that were his arms stretched down to Izuku's neck.

I imagine that this is what it feels like for you every single day, Izuku thought as the cries of his children rang through his ears. To feel like you're succumbing to asphyxia, but…no matter how agonizing it is, your body keeps you alive. Like the world wants you to die, but your body refuses. It hurts. It's uncomfortable. It's insanity-inducing, almost. It's a kind of pain that makes you think that choosing to end it all early would be preferable to attempting to endure the pain any longer. Keep going, keep living, just get through the maze to get to the end…is what your body wants to convince you of. But isn't it so much easier just to finally rest and end the constant day-to-day struggle that's only getting worse? It's overflowing. It's consuming you, Shoto.

Then, with a rejuvenating gale of life, Izuku gasped for another breath of air. His neck had been freed, and his burning lungs demanded that oxygen be flooded into them again and again. Never before had the feeling of breathing tasted so sweet.

"Monster!"

"Apologize to Papa!"

While Kirusuke threw punches at Shoto, Shoto simply offered Izuku his hand. "I'm sorry," fell from his lips, but any emotion in his words had been numbed.

Once again, Izuku thought, this keeps repeating. You're hurt, and something keeps triggering you to try and hurt me. Like this is your way of telling me that it hurts too much just to try and be okay. Like…maybe I'll hurt you in return? You say you're sorry, and it happens again. But it's getting worse each time it happens. It's like you're more desperate each time for me to be what finally lets you rest from always being so close to giving in to asphyxia but never being able to reach it—being perpetually stuck with so much pain when freedom is right in front of you, but it's always just out of reach.

Izuku grasped Shoto's hand and was pulled up to his feet as he steadied his breaths. "Guys, I-I'm fine... Kiru, stop." As Kirusuke parted his lips to make his retort, Izuku shook his head. "Just because…Dad hit me…doesn't mean it's right to hit him back. Shoto, I…need to talk to you about this. It's getting out of hand. Yuujin, Kirusuke… Never speak to your dad like that again. Am I clear?"

"Tch," Yuujin growled while walking off.

"Clear…" Kirusuke murmured while following suit after Yuujin.

Once Shoto and Izuku heard the clicks of two doors closing, Shoto pressed the palm of his hand to his forehead. "I am a monster, aren't I, Izuku?" His eyelids folded down over his eyes.

"Please don't compare yourself to one," Izuku sighed. "If you were a monster, you wouldn't have hesitated to take our lives. But I can tell that somewhere, deep inside…you know you can't. I know it's numb for you, but you're still human. You care about us and don't want to hurt us. Your actions say a lot… But, anyway, we're going to get you some help, Shoto. I know you don't want it, but you did just…"

Much to Izuku's stupefaction, Shoto nodded. "I guess I can't know if it'll be helpful unless I try. Before my mind twists itself into a knot again, or before I forget, remind me that I told you I agreed. It's inexcusable. I hurt you again, Izuku. You're my own husband, yet I treat you like an animal. Like I don't know who you are. Maybe you should've picked a different person to be your h—"

"Never," Izuku interjected with effervescent conviction. "I promised my loyalty to you on that day. I am devout to this marriage, Shoto. Until you're okay, I won't stop worrying about you. Please, Shoto…get something off of your chest. I know you're ready to collapse. Before that happens, please…"

As if staring into two bullets of ice, Izuku shivered at Shoto's eyes as his husband replied, "It feels like I can still see their bodies. All around…strewn across the ground. In perfect detail, I can see their wounds. They beckon to me. It feels like the ones with arms and hands still intact and attached to their bodies…they grab my ankles. They keep weighing me down. All the people I've killed… But I don't feel guilty. I don't feel remorse. I don't feel anything but the weight of them clinging on to me. 'My wife is sobbing because of you.' 'My family is being torn apart.' 'I promised my kids I'd come back with a smile to go around.' 'Don't you feel anything over the grief you're burying countless families under?!' They all fought for what they thought was right, for their own justice, for their own justified causes…and I slaughtered them without batting an eye.

"Why am I alive? I'm the one they want the head of, but I keep taking heads. I know this. So they pile up on top of me, not saying anything, yet I can still hear them. But what's another body thrown onto the mountain? What's another bottle of alcohol when I'm so close to forgetting? But why should I forget? Why should I forget about all the wrongs I'm guilty of? I can't breathe. Their hands are around my neck. The more I forget, the stronger their grip is, but the less it hurts. Why should I be able to suppress the pain just to live when I…" He paused for a long, frigid few seconds. "Izuku, I need to get out of this house for a while."

Although Izuku suspected that Shoto planned on visiting a bar, he nonetheless nodded. "I understand. Thank you, Shoto. Genuinely, thank you…" He wished to continue speaking in hopes that Shoto would linger at home a bit longer, but he figured that that was a selfish desire when Shoto had explicitly stated that he needed to get out.

Shoto flashed an empty, skeptical smile. "If only I were as compassionate as you." That lonely smile swiftly vanished as though being swallowed up by quicksand. "I can't help but think that you loathe my being for the worthless person I've become, yet I know that you don't. Sorry." With that, he shook his head to a minute degree and headed out.

That night, Izuku struggled to fall asleep. His mind was saturated with thoughts regarding his husband, who had yet to return home. His eyes were heavy, but his mind was writhing in the jittering, frantic emotions savaging his head. He was groggy but completely awake.

While turning over onto his side, Izuku heard the subtle clatter of the door being opened, and immediately, his movements ceased. Cracking his eyes to thin slits like a door left slightly ajar, Izuku observed a figure resembling Shoto's slipping into the room. The figure weaving through the dark blundered around the bed, and soon enough, it cautiously pulled itself onto the bed.

The odor of alcohol began to permeate the room, and it emanated from the figure lying on the opposite side of the bed to Izuku. Indubitably, Izuku knew that his husband had certainly gone to a bar and returned home. Even so, Izuku found himself alarmingly awake before an intense wave of drowsiness rolled up to his shins, then his knees, and soon, he was encircled by sleep.

Once Izuku awakened, however, Shoto was no longer in the bed.